Developing Listening Skills…

Talking about the mother-tongue language, most people believe that they are good listeners. They do not consider the important differences between hearing and listening. The ability to hear is typically natural, but the ability to listen well is a skill that must be developed and practiced even in the first language. We probably spend more time using our listening skills than any other kind of skill. Therefore, it is one of the most important skills that should be taught and developed in ESL learners.

Real listening is an active process that has three basic steps: hearing, understanding, and judging (whether it makes sense or if one believes in what he/she hears). Assisting ESL learners in the development of listening comprehension is not an easy task. It requires both the teacher's and the learner's attention. For ESL adult learners, listening plays a crucial role not only in communication, but also in the acquisition of language as well as in gaining other knowledge. Therefore, besides the real life listening situations, teachers should give enough time and attention for listening activities during lessons. It is also important to teach ESL learners to listen for different purposes, e.g. for details or just for whole sense of the text.  Organizing listening lessons consisting of three stages, such as pre-listening, the listening task, and post-listening, can facilitate the development of listening abilities. Pre- and post-listening activities would help the learners concentrate on what to listen for, to assess how accurately they succeeded, and to transfer the listening skill to the world beyond the classroom.

Understanding the listening process and factors that affect listening (learners background and interests, appropriate level of language, quality of recording, speed of speech, or number of speakers) helps teachers to select and create listening materials and activities that would meet the needs of their adult ESL learners. Teachers should also incorporate these listening activities into the curriculum and bring them closer to real-world situations in combination with speaking, reading, and writing. 

On Harmer's Statement...

                 Jeremy Harmer in the book “How to Teach Writing” states: “Language is constantly evolving, and so we must begin to accept - and even teach – the shortened forms of communication that are used with technology. This language may contain abbreviations, symbols (emoticons) and even untraditional grammar and punctuation, which would be considered “errors” in many classrooms. We accept different forms of oral communication without penalty … we should do the same with written communication.”

I do not have an exact opinion on this statement. Although it could have made many things simpler for writers, I cannot say: “Yes, let’s do the things easier and be more tolerant to writing errors.” In the process of writing we cannot use gestures and intonations or repeat words, or simply point out on the object – the actions that are so helpful in conversation. So, there is a chance for the reader to misunderstand the idea of written work, if there are too many errors. Also, it is not always true that we accept different forms of oral communication without penalty. I believe for each type of writing, as for speaking, there is its own place and time. The language and the vocabulary that we use in everyday life, when talking to our friends or writing them letters, or chatting and messaging via internet, is not acceptable during university class discussions or political debates, or when writing an academic piece of work. In the first case, the mistakes might be acceptable, whereas, in the second, they can be inexcusable. Taking into consideration ESL students, we should be tolerant to their written errors as much as possible. Excessive error corrections can frighten students from the writing process and from building written communication fluency.

Considering mentioned above, I think, we should learn and teach others to the various ways of language use, and sometimes and in some cases be tolerant to the written mistakes. 

The Role of Needs Assessment

Needs assessment is a critical component of any course. Depending on when it is done, (e. g., up-front, at the beginning, during the course or at the end of the program) the goals of needs assessment change. I believe, the most important types of assessment for the teacher are the formative and summative types. The former one, that I am going to write about, provides the information needed to adjust the teaching and learning process, whereas the latter helps determine what students know and do not at a certain stage of the learning process, and if they need additional help and time to acquire necessary knowledge.

Taking into account our specific roles as future ESL instructors, the needs assessment at the beginning of the course provides us and the learners as well, with the valuable information about the learners’ level of English knowledge and their needs, expectations, and wants. Especially, this type of assessment is important when considering adult learners. Adults come to the classroom with rich life and education experiences. In addition, they usually know what they want and need to know. Therefore, the instructors should value and take into consideration the adults’ opinions, needs, and expectations when planning the course. This will help ensure some success in future learning and establish a student-teacher relationship.

The needs assessment at the beginning of the course provides the teacher with useful information for creating flexible rather than a fixed (with the same content for any group of students) curriculum. Knowing learners’ cultural and educational background, their English skill levels, and their interests, the teacher can choose topics and activities that would best serve for reaching students’ goals. Data on students’ learning styles and strategies helps the teacher determine preferable activities and ways of material delivery.

As a final point, when adult students see that their opinions, experiences and expectations are taken into consideration, these will highly motivate them and they will succeed throughout the course.

Summarizing “Thinking about Theory...”

Wow! The whole course in one paragraph! Let’s try.

From the beginning I enjoyed this course, although, it was not easy for me. Teaching a language is a new field for me. New knowledge and experiences that I have gained through learning materials from “Thinking about Theory...” have become an invaluable asset to the knowledge I already possess.

The history and overview of language teaching approaches gave me an idea about the development of language learning theory. I could also retrace the changing relationship between the learner, teacher and language corresponding to the historical period and specific method or approach. Modules about teaching and learning styles helped me better understand my own preferences as well as gave me insight on how teachers can accommodate to learners’ styles. The “Thinking about Theory...” introduced me to Communicative Approach which is widely used nowadays for teaching English as a second language and for classroom management and learning activities that the Communicative Approach requires.

Now, I am looking forward to practical knowledge that next courses provide.

The pros and cons of assessing for learning skills

               It is well known that people have different learning styles that work best for them. Many of us who use trial and error were able to find out the way they learn best. For example, when preparing to exams or trying to remember some material, I always write it down, pronounce it aloud and draw some schemes or charts. That is very helpful for me. But I have never been assessed for the learning styles up until now. The tests from the module “Learning Styles” help me understand why I use the above mentioned strategies for the process of memorization: I have multimodal style of learning (V.A.R.K. model) (http://www.vark-learn.com/english/index.asp).  I cannot guarantee that it would be helpful if I knew these strategies during my school years or in university. It would be helpful if the teachers were aware of mine and other students’ learning preferences and organize their lessons accordingly, so their teachings would not be so monotonous and boring.

I also like the Gregorc Style Delineator (http://web.cortland.edu/andersmd/ learning/gregorc.htm). It helps understand students’ approach to learning. Knowing students’ “perceptual qualities” and “ordering abilities” teachers can build their lessons and choose activities for groups and individual students to make sure various students’ learning styles are addressed.  

In the readings for this module it could be noticed some criticism of this or that method and scepticism towards the necessity of assessing for learning styles. One of the opinions is that students are subjective when answering tests questions about them, therefore the results of such tests are not reliable and valid. Another cons view claims that the tests questions “ignore the socio-economic, cultural and even geographic context of the learner”. Some opponents of assessing for learning skills declare that we already know that people learn differently and teachers should use a variety of teaching methods and techniques to address this diversity, so there is no need to spend a lot of money on such research (https://crm.lsnlearning.org.uk/user/order.aspx?code=041540).

All the mentioned above opinions may have a place and at some point they are true. However, in my opinion, knowing our preferable ways of learning gives us an understanding what we should start our learning from. For example, those who have a visual style may find some diagrams or pictures, students with write/read preferences may begin with written instructions and etc. Also, understanding our learning styles may help us find the learning strategies which would work best in different situations. 

The role of the teachers is to be aware of variety of students’ learning styles and to address them with their teaching plans. 

The Least Appealing Methods of Language Teaching

This week we were learning about different methods and approaches to language teaching. Summing up our class discussions, it can be clearly seen that the least appealing method for most of us appears to be Grammar-Translation Method.

Most of my classmates have a negative attitude to the Grammar-Translation Method because of their personal experience and there are various other reasons why this method is disliked. In my opinion, most of them are the failure to transfer the knowledge outside the classroom. Students, after the learning language by such method are unable to communicate in real life settings. Another reason pertains to considerable memorisation and drilling that is not only boring but also not stimulating to learning language. Additionally, when using Grammar-Translation Method an interaction in the classroom goes only between the student and the teacher and the teacher controls every step. I completely agree with all given reasons. The only reason for not neglecting this method at all is because at certain stages of language learning, it would be a good and necessary supplement to the main method, since many of the methods do not pay enough attention to grammar learning.

Suggestopedia also was called among the least appealing methods and personally, I agree with that. Because of my personality and my learning style, the music greatly distracts me during my learning. I would never turn on the music when I am trying to memorize or concentrate on something important. Moreover, as was noticed by some of my classmates, there are people with diverse cultural backgrounds and a variety of taste in music, therefore, it is very difficult to select the type of music that would be suitable for all students.  Suggestopedia is a much more specific method than others, which requires special accommodations and is not flexible in its implementation. All of the above mentioned drawbacks of Suggestopedia ring true for me.

The Audio-Lingual Method was pointed out too as a not commonly used method. The reason is similar to the one given for the Grammar-Translation Method, its inability to apply the knowledge gained by imitation and repetition to new or unprompted situations.

I completely agree with all the rationales of my classmates. However, as I mentioned above and in our class discussions, I would incorporate these methods in my teaching as part of my lessons to ensure the comprehensiveness of the learning process.

Defining “competence”

In my understanding, “competent” is what we can say about the person who has deep knowledge and a high level of proficiency in a certain field. If someone is competent in a language, I would say, this person feels free in using both spoken and written languages, understands little nuances of the language and idiomatic expressions, and also, thinks in this language.

The Online Merriam-Webster Dictionary gives us a definition of “competent” as “proper or rightly” or “having requisite or adequate ability or qualities”. For English-language learners it explains “competent” as “having the necessary ability or skills: able to do something well or well enough to meet a standard”.

Based on the assigned readings, I can say that the term “language competence” is inseparably connected to the “language proficiency”.  Language competence it is the ability and appropriate skills that are necessary for communication and acting in real life settings.