Week 3 Assignments

Extended Response Week 3:  

Katie Visker: Forever Learner 

The course is coming to a close. The third week has come and gone. I am sitting at my computer with a heart full of gratitude for this incredible opportunity. Above all else, I am thankful for who I have been able to meet along this journey – the instructors, the people who support us and make this place run smoothly (read as: The Kitchen Angle’s), and, perhaps closest to my heart, the educators who are walking this same road and completing the SIT TESOL course – the participants, my new friends. I have grown so much through this experience and this week’s extended reflection focuses on this growth. More specifically, I will write about my growth in all I have learned of the English language, teaching, and teaching English. The following paragraphs are my attempt to collect and celebrate all I have learned this month.  

My knowledge and understanding of English as a whole has grown and changed. I am honored to have opportunity to be learning alongside these incredible colleagues. Most of my peers are here, completing the same work I am all while working and processing in a language that is likely their second or third. Celina is one of my practice teaching teammates. I refer to her as “Mrs. Grammar” because she is so knowledgeable in English grammar. She is a great support to me. Why do I bring this up? There are two reasons. The first is that one very vivid thing I have learned is the realization of how much I do not know about my language and how much I need to learn and practice in order to be an effective teacher. The second is that I have learned so, so much from my colleagues. I have learned teaching techniques and ways to better understand English and ultimately how to teach it. To provide a specific example of something I learned that is new, useful, and interesting – to me – I will draw from a pronunciation lesson taught by Roger. Here, I learned that my mimicking, copying, parroting was a 1 out of a 10 scale in the effectiveness of teaching English pronunciation. I took a number of pictures and notes in order to go back and utilize these more effective pronunciation practices. It was here, in this first of three pronunciation workshops, that I was first introduced to the “Pronunciation House.” I now have a better grasp on all levels of the house – rhythm, intonation, sentence stress, word stress, and sounds. There are a number of other examples that I could share but due to the need to share more in other paragraphs I will move on.  

The reason this is particularly interesting to me is that, as a native speaker, I have not had to utilize multiple strategies for correctly pronouncing words. English is my first language. The majority of learning that I have done in this language, regarding pronunciation, is solely from hearing words spoken and repeating back what I hear. This “ah ha” moment of clarity is so interesting for me because I need to strengthen the teaching skills, I have in order to be able to provide my students with the most efficient learning opportunities.  

Reflecting on this week as it regards to all I have learn regarding teaching, I smile from my heart. I have learned so much that answering this first question is difficult. In no particular order, here are some of the takeaways I have that are fresh in my heart and mind. I feel more confident and comfortable creating lesson plans that follow both ECRIF and PDP. These frameworks have been modeled this month. I reflect back to the variety I have seen in the classes. I have seen so much great teaching modeled by the trainers; they make it look so easy. This week I focused my teaching on using PDP to teach reading and listening. I grew a great deal from both experiences. I was able to connect with my team and colleagues in order to provide a more successfully opportunity in the second lesson this week (listening). Based on a reading from this course, I have seen trainers put into practice the learner-centered classroom/lesson/activity. Teacher talk time is diminished. I am confident in my ability to explain and practice TPS and TBT. These practices are essential to my future success back home. 

Learning-Centered language teaching has been the heart and soul of this course. I have grown in my awareness of what that looks and sounds like and have gained ideas on how to create learning-centered learning opportunities for my language students. Everything that I have seen modeled by trainers has pointed back to this heart and soul of learning-centered language teaching. Materials are prepared in such a way that the learner is able to successfully interact with the materials. These materials do not need to be intricate, high-tech, or complicated. In fact, from what I have seen, the opposite is true. Keep the materials simple. Focus energy on the learners and the objectives of the activities. Sequencing of classes should be smooth; it should make sense. I want to provide opportunities for students to cooperate and achieve versus having a sense of competition with peers. The last item I’ll focus on is teacher language. I speak very quickly. I have seen great teaching modeled that uses appropriate language that is either L+1 or L-1. The language used by teachers supports student learning at just the correct place, where students can be met and can have success.  

This next section asks me to focus on my experience from the past two weeks. I feel very sentimental. I know that this is to be focused on teaching English so I will write about that in a moment. Something that must be shared though is the transformation I feel as a whole person. I am honored to be here, learning in this community with everyone. I have learned that I am capable of learning as I go. I can Now, back to my experience teaching English as it relates to key elements.  

Meaning-Form-Use – Meaning literately means the meaning of words, form refers to grammar, and use refers to how people use it culturally.  

ECRIF – Encounter, Clarify, Remember, Internalize, Fluently Use – ECRIF is a framework and is also utilized to write lesson plans and one can ECRIF nearly everything in life. When writing ECRIF lesson plans, I remember that ECRIF is cyclical, also any given lesson can mean something different from student to student and for each teacher.  

PDP – A lesson plan that stands for Pre-During-Post and is utilized when teaching reading, listening, and our culture lesson. Support language is used in this plan and the focused teaching happens in the during stage through 3-4 activities.  

RAP – This refers to pronunciation and stands for Recognition, Articulation, Practice/Production. Learners need to be able to distinguish the sound, then articulate themselves, to use their mouths to articulate it, then I need to provide learners the opportunity to produce it.  

What have I learned about myself as a teacher? I have learned that I have so much yet to learn. As an educator, I am choosing a life as a forever learner. I learned that I am resilient. I can overcome my shortcomings and my challenges. I can learn from my mistakes. I can lean on my team and friends for support. I can try again. I can do hard things. I learned about some routines and habits that I had in my classroom that were ineffective. Rather than list out those less than positive practices, I will focus on five of the new practices or habits that I will bring into my classroom when I return home and teach on February 7th. When I teach listening and reading lessons, I will arrange my lessons using a PDP lesson plan. In the during phase, I will remember TBT (task before text) and remember to teach students the task they are asked to complete after the text, be it a listening or reading lesson. I will utilize TPS (think-pair-share) in each of my lessons. I will be fully present in my classes. When students share answers, I will listen intently and summarize what I hear. I will ask simple questions to encourage more contributions to group conversations that are as simples as, “What else?”. 

What have I learned from my practice teaching team? I have learned a great deal from my peers these past two weeks. From Sidar & Ayron, I have learned the need to be captivating and engaging; meet students where they are and have fun. From Celina, I have learned a great deal about English rules, specifically Grammar. Celina is committed to her students and their educational journey. She is always looking for opportunities to encourage her students to think critically. Lastly, Ana. I chose to write about her last because I feel I have learned the most from her. She has such a positive command over her classroom. She owns that room and she is completely present with her students. She supports their language learning in a clear and positive way. She focuses on modeling, CCQs, TPS, scaffolding, and making sure her materials are ready so that students can have a successful learning experience. I am honored to work with my peers and have learned so much. Participants who are not in my team have also taught me so much. I have grown in perspective. I have gained nearly 20 community builder activities; all of which I plan to use when I get back to my class.  

Based on my teaching these past two weeks, I have increased clarity on my strengths and challenges (what I refer to as “areas of growth”) as I perceive them. I am aware of the strengths I have that I bring into my classroom and have been adapting those skills to best fit the unique needs of my international ESL classes. I excel in creating a safe, educational, healthy classroom learning environment where students are loved and respected and supported. In this classroom, students know they can ask questions and that mistakes are where the new learning goes. Things I continue to work on that have been challenges for me that I am growing in here at CEM consist of managing my time in preparation for classes and also the pacing and flow of the classes while teaching. Prior to my time here at CEM, I had SO much to learn about how to effectively teach English Language Learners. Now, I confidently know some essential practices that often appear in well-known acronyms, that I can demonstrate, practice, and explain to others. I feel as though I am leaving CEM feeling like an English teacher. I am much more prepared – always learning though – and able to grow and practice what I am learning back home. As I reflect on the workshops, lesson planning, teaching, and feedback sessions here at CEM the word that comes to mind is – intentional. Everything has been done intentionally, in a certain sequence, and very much on purpose. Each workshop is meaningful and designed in a way to best teach the concepts and practices we utilize in our classrooms and while practice teaching.  

  

DAPA 1:  

DESCRIPTION
It was January 23rd at around 7:00 in the evening. I was the second person to teach that night. I was teaching beginner learners in the Rancho classroom. We had the smallest group of students from the entire month. There are usually between 14-16 students; on that night, there were 12 (11 while I was teaching). I was teaching a listening lesson that involved two friends making plans to go to the hot springs, in Fortuna, next weekend. I was about halfway through my lesson. Students listened to the audio once in the first during activity. Learners successfully identified the main idea of the audio (Two friends are planning to go to the hot springs, in Fortuna.). Things were going well. Students were engaged, demonstrating learning, and seemed happy to be participating.    My moment, focused on my role as a teacher, started around 7:30, when I assigned the second during activity, the outline or skeleton. I had explained the activity – students were going to listen to the audio again. I successfully put the task before the text and explained the goal of the activity. Students were instructed to listen to the audio for a second time and number the pictures from 1 to 5 in the order that the pictures are mentioned in the audio. Following the second listening students completed the activity. Then learners compared with classmates and realized that not all answers were the same. I then had students listen to the audio a third time in order to best complete the audio. Students had different opinions or interpretations of the connection to the story and the pictures. The pool picture was intended to refer to the pool at the end of the audio. Some students interpreted that the image was referring to the hot springs as a whole which happens at the beginning of the audio. At that moment, it became apparent that students were unclear of the order of the pictures.   This is a great description!! I see you have left any interpretation or personal opinion out and that you have written it in the correct tense. Your comments are very descriptive and clear, you have provided evidence of the facts and things that happened and that you saw. The only point of improvement I see is that the meaningful moment is longer than 2 minutes, and the danger with this would be missing some information (hinder or help).
ANALYSIS
INTERPRETATION	GENERALIZATION	ACTION PLAN
Something that helped student learning in the face of this	Sometimes students are confused because activities and worksheets	In the future, I will remember to be flexible and take responsibility

confusion is that I was quick to explain that I was responsible for the mistake. I took responsibility for preparing the material in an ambiguous way. I decided to celebrate what they answered and I shared the order I intended.     How did this experience change your view of the activity as a teacher, how did this help you?	may unintentionally and inaccurately lend themselves to having multiple “correct” answers.       What generalizations can you come up with based on what you learnt?	when things don’t go as planned.   I can model and share my views that:  Nobody is perfect.  Practice makes better.  Mistakes are where the new learning goes   I love the idea of accountability!! I would like to invite you to make this chance a learning lesson and come up with an action plan that allows you to learn from this and improve it for the future. What is something you learned from this situation that will help you avoid it in the future?
Something that definitely helped student learning is the use of the Think-Pair-Share. Students were able to check with a classmate to see if their answers were the same. For some, this provided an opportunity to self-correct.	Students benefit from opportunities to TPS in order to reflect and self-correct.	In the future, I will continue to utilize TPS opportunities so that students can more independently compare answers among peers.     To make this action plan move achievable, I would suggest that you set specific times you want to do it, when during the class you want to use TPS?
Something that definitely hindered the student learning was the ambiguity of one of the pictures – the pool.   I noticed that you are explaining what hindered, I would like to invite you to say why you think it hindered your learning.	Students complete and participate in activities in individual ways based on life-experience, understanding of content, and personal interpretations.	In the future I will share my activities/lesson plans with a friend, family member or colleague in order to best set students up so that they can be successful.
Something that may have hindered student learning is the overall listening activity involving the five pictures.	Students may need extra support in order to successfully participate in learning activities.	In the future I will remember that students are learning on an individual journey and may need more time and support in order to be successful. I will ask myself: “Are my learners able to successfully participate in this activity?”

DAPA 2: (Completed verbally, in class, with Leandro) 

Summary 

In close, this week has been a tremendous week of growth and overall, I have learned so much and grown so much during my time at CEM. I have remained flexible and teachable. I have learned from the trainers and my peers, my fellow participants. I learned that I am capable of more than I thought. I can do hard things. I can do new things. I will be a forever learner. I feel more like an ELL teacher. In my teaching self some fear and self-doubt has disappeared. I am forever changed. My world is bigger. My heart is fuller because of this experience. I am excited to get back to my students and join them in this journey this month. When I look in the mirror and look at my heart, I feel different, in a positive way. I feel more grounded and self-aware. I will remember the need to be fully present and translate this to my professional and everyday life. Thanks for reading!  

Dear Katie,  

Reading your reflection I was able to have so many flash back about my own experience and I was also able to see the direct effect of the work we do at CEM. It gives me so much joy and pride to be part of an experience like this and know that the work we do here is really meaningful. From your title I gathered that for you learning is a ever lasting experience and that learning happens everyday everywhere, and only when you have this very clear in your mind you will be able to be the best teacher that you can be. 

I was very much identified with the comment you made about “Focus energy on the learners and the objectives of the activities” since this is one of the main concepts that the course revolves around. The students are the main focus of the work we do and as such they should be our most defining point of reference.  

From your DAPA in general - the structure and the way is written is amazing - I was able to see that you have a very profound understanding of the components of a DAPA. The information that you provide on your description is based on a specific moment and it’s written in past tense, I am able to see you have left out any interpretation. Your reflections are connected to each other and are all in the correct tenses, the ideas are relevant to your description. 

It was a pleasure for the me be part of this process and to get the chance to see your reflections and learn a bit more about your experience and lesson learnt. Thank you for being so open and so candid.  

Regards,  

May