Author: cyap

This class with the inclusion of this book has really helped me develop an awareness of the struggles that English language learners face.  It also points out the significant challenges regular, “non-ELL” students face when it comes to learning and learning effectively.  This chapter dealt with how to create successful lesson plans that are engaging and educational.  It is very easy to overlook the vocabulary that is essential to fully understanding certain academic subjects.

My discipline is art so it is easy to forget to incorporate appropriate vocabulary when teaching.  My experience with high school art is very different from how we are learning to teach in the modern art classroom.  We emphasize the need for self assessment, particularly critiques of artwork.  This can be done individually during various check-in points (formative) as well as at the very end of a project with a group (summative).  Although as a student, I despised going through the critique process and could not wait until my critique was over, I found the experience to invaluable because it allowed me to really reflect on my process and technique.  I was also better able to interpret and critique art produced by others.  The crit process can be very intimidating because it is easy to take things to heart but even with the constructive feedback I received, I was better able to develop my ideas and alter a few things here and there to make it more effective.  Being successful in a crit requires you to be able to talk about others’ work in addition to your own.  This means that mastery of the academic language in relation to the art practice is crucial.  It was not until university that I was actually able to develop my understanding of academic art language and the significance of being able to explain art work.

There are plenty of strong ideas in this chapter including how to successfully prepare for an oral presentation.  Much like standing up there to defend your work in a critique, presentations require attentiveness to the information.  The audience must be engaged and they must LEARN something new.  Contrary to what a lot of the presentations that I have done in and out of this program, I would often present on information that the class already knew.  My job was to reiterate this information in a more visual and dynamic way.  Whether or not I actually achieved this is uncertain.  What the chapter did point out was that it is important to make the information you present “new”.  This could mean expanding on the current readings (if it is a shared class reading) and adding visuals, performances, and activities that would force them to understand the information in a different and perhaps more holistic way.  This is a great tip and I think that having my students do more presentations would be a fantastic way to not only engage the audience (as they see their classmate up there) but also to create mini “experts” out of them.  Teaching is the best way to learn after all.

Writing for Academic Language

This chapter is great in that it addresses the dire need for many students to practice writing academic language.  It is true that as you move on up in school, there is less of an emphasis placed on narrative writing and/or journaling and more of a focus on academic writing, particularly persuasive writing.  I can recall my first time learning to write an argumentative essay.  It was in Grade 6 and I had no idea what a “thesis” was or a “body”.  On top of that, we had to include paragraphs called introductions and conclusions.  We were given a standard template to follow: intro, body (three supporting points in the order of second strongest point, weakest point, and finishing off with the strongest point) and a conclusion.  I remember going from reading things off of a reading card to suddenly have to produce a piece of writing.  It is a daunting task to convey ideas formally into your own words; energy is expended when it comes to churning out grammatically correct sentences that are cohesive.  I liken this challenge to someone who can understand a spoken language but who is unable to engage in dialogue simply because their production of words and sentences is not developed.  This suggests that practice is the KEY to mastering anything, including academic writing.

The example about having seat-belts on the bus (p. 197) conveys the message across clearly but it is written in a colloquial language.  The best solution here would be to repeatedly expose children to the specific genre of writing they are about to engage in.  Over time, they will develop the specific lingo, idioms, and catch onto the nuances of speech commonly used in academic language.  Reading and speaking aloud (much like a song) can indirectly ingrain into children’s minds, the way they should structure their sentences.  I also liked the examples of using graphic organizers.  In my undergrad degree, I ventured out of the regular note taking world into one of cloud formations and funny scribbles.  I attempted this for some time but found that for complex note taking, I needed to write more than I could possibly convey in a diagram.  This is not to say that Venn-diagrams and mind maps are ineffective.  Rather, they should be used in conjunction with proper note taking skills to see the physical connections between the ideas presented in class.  I also enjoyed the teeter-totter method for preparing students to write a persuasive essay.

This chapter provides a good variety of effective examples to teachers on how they can introduce academic language in the classroom.  Some of these ideas include ways of verbally conveying what was taught, the use of color coding, and hand gestures.  Throughout this chapter and the rest of the book, I noticed a huge emphasis on both verbal communication and group discussion.  I believe that both are underused in classrooms, especially in my field, the art classroom.

My experience with high school and in particular art classrooms, the presence of discussion is non-existent.  I recall the preference for a quiet classroom by all of my teachers.  In my opinion, the quiet classroom can be both beneficial and debilitating.  For certain activities such as reading or writing, it is important to have quiet time so that students won’t be distracted with extraneous noises.  However, for classes such as art class, PE, home economics, tech class, and even the other academic subjects (math, English, socials, science), it is very important that time be carved out for public chatter.  I believe that talking to your classmates is an integral part of the student experience but this must be mitigated with time spent listening to the teacher and to other students.  Dealing specifically with the art classroom, I think it would be beneficial to spend time talking about WHY we make the art we do.  I have a personal interest in social justice and creating projects around that would help facilitate critical thinking and discussion.  One very common way of integrating this into the classroom would be to do art critiques.  My high school never held any critiques but I think that having a group critique about the overall process of the work would be beneficial.

I like the other ideas mentioned including the use of role playing and lyric summaries.  This makes the topics engaging and fun.  The students can learn about the topic without having to rely on rote memorization of facts.  When students can apply aspects of their learned knowledge in other classes or displayed in other ways, it shows that learning has sunk in.  The chapter also emphasized the need to speak aloud.  The idea of reading aloud in post-secondary or even in senior high school may seem a bit silly but it proves to be effective.  A couple of weeks ago I read aloud and the person beside me was like “oh you just have to read it in your head”.  I thought, “Oh right.  Who does that anymore?”  Surely enough it can work when trying to comprehend new material.  I like how art gives the flexibility of learning through different senses.  You can learn about different smells of materials, the tactility of clay, the textures of paint, and the sight of colours.  This is why I truly believe that art should be taught in schools.

I found this chapter to be quite relatable to my personal experience of learning the different subject areas.  I remember taking a class in Grade 5 called “Language Arts” not knowing when the subjects actually transitioned to “Language Arts”.  I didn’t know what “Language Arts” meant but for some reason, I always did well in that subject.  I remember a keen emphasis from the teacher in regards to the grammar, punctuation, and spelling that we were learning.  I absorbed this information with ease but realized that as I advanced on to the higher grades, success in the lower grades (in Language arts, math, and sciences) did not necessarily translate into success in the higher grades.  The big shock came when I entered into Grade 8 math class.  I was enrolled in an enriched math class, unbeknownst to me, by my Grade 7 teacher.  The very first day we had to take an assessment test that I was not prepared for.  After receiving a dismal mark, my self-esteem plummeted.  We were told that if we passed with a 50%, we were able to skip Grade 8 math and move onto Grade 9.  Luckily (or not so luckily), I passed the assessment test and I was thrown into Grade 9 math.  Starting off that year with a poor mark signaled to me that I was not ready for Grade 8 math let alone Grade 9.  I struggled greatly because of the unfamiliar terminology that was used.  The teacher’s style of teaching was very fast and weeded out the not-so-smart ones like myself.  There was no effort made to teach any of the abstract concepts or borrowed “mathematical” terms to us.  It was assumed that either you knew it or you didn’t.  Needless to say I dropped out of that class to be in a “normal” math class but my confidence was already shattered.  Being behind and now having to “catch” up in a regular math class took adjustment and an effort on my part to retrain myself to think in the language of mathematics.  I found that with independent study, I could finally understand how diagrams with abstract concepts worked together.  My grades began to improve and suddenly, I could be “OK” at math again.  I just needed a bit of tutelage and a new way of framing math problems to succeed.

I also struggled with chemistry but I was very good at biology.  Chemistry required some more complex manipulations and not just rote memorization.  I had been trained my whole life to regurgitate facts so when it came time to apply what I had learned, I would fail.  High school was a difficult time in many ways but it was also a time when I understood that success in different disciplines required looking and approaching them in their own way.  The ability to grasp technical terms was crucial in aiding my understanding of big concepts.  In this chapter, Zwiers really demonstrates the need for all teachers to be language teachers first, then discipline specific application second.

This reading was very insightful in that it helped to break down the learning process that ELL go through to learn English.  The majority of us aren’t aware of exactly how complex learning any new language is.  It’s fascinating how many words students actually learn each week and throughout their lifetime.  The article stresses the importance of incidental learning.  A lot of this learning happens outside of the classroom so it is important that young children who are learning English receive the right kind of exposure to the language.  When I look back at how I learned English, it is exactly as how the article describes: through oral & print channels.  My parents were very keen on persevering our native tongue, but they were very helpful when I needed assistance with my English vocabulary.  I can attest to the incidental learning that happens in ELLs.  I spoke English a lot at home with my brother against my parent’s wishes and watched English television programs.  I also spent a lot of time listening to English radio stations and memorized the lyrics.  I may not have fully understood all the words I heard initially, but with repeated exposure, I was able to grasp the meaning behind those unfamiliar words.  In addition to this, I really loved to read.  I received a vocabulary book as my first English book from my parents.  The book had pictures and words.  The use of associating specific words and images really aided me in my learning of the language.  I began to frequent the library every week to borrow books for leisure reading, especially in the summer.  I also took the initiative to do my own “research” on certain topics of interest.  When I reached grade 5, my level of English was good enough to be considered “advanced”.  The article mentions the learning of root words and prefixes/suffixes.  My grade 7 teacher spent each week teaching us a root word and its uses.  To this day, I never forgot them and it has really benefited me in vocabulary comprehension.  Not to make this a life story, but I felt that my learning of the English language developed as a result of repeated exposure.  Without the continued repetition of words, I wouldn’t have grasped the language as easily as I did.  I remember watching Much Music when I was younger and I couldn’t make out any of the words.  I thought music in general was all gibberish.  It wasn’t until I got older and learned these songs that I could make sense of them.  In regards to the Tiered level of words, I agree that more focus should be paid to the Tier 2 words.  Far too often teachers want to impress their class by teaching them fancy, novel words that are rarely used.  Teaching Tier 2 words will enable the students to broaden their vocabulary and make the learning of Tier 3 words easier.

When reading through the article, I found it almost ironic that I was having a difficult time understanding some parts and phrases simply because I myself am not that well versed in the technical language that a paper about the study of the English language would employ.  I too am a learner of this particular discipline so I can understand the use and logic behind Functional Language Analysis.  Learning new facts always requires us to expand our brains to accommodate the new “bricks” and “mortar” words we come across.  The biggest challenge for me, and maybe for many others out there, is identifying and understanding the technical words that are used across a range of disciplines but mean something different in different contexts.  Some words that come to mind are “Postmodern and Baroque”.  Words that are discipline specific (photosynthesis, isosceles, vanitas), I find easier to grasp as they aren’t usually used in other contexts outside of their field.  Looking back to how I learned, I would agree with the author’s encouragement of subject area teachers to help his/her students in understanding the type of language that would be used in the classroom.  Instead of assuming that all students automatically know what certain words mean or how they relate to one another in a sentence, it is a safer for teachers to be pro-active and go through difficult terminology that may hinder a child’s comprehension of the subject.  Unfortunately, this rarely happened when I was in high school.  I would venture to say that by the time a student reaches their high school years, and especially when they enter post-secondary, his/her teacher would assume that the teaching of “language” and comprehension is no longer necessary.  Because Art is a very visual practice, I believe that many of the “bricks” would be better understood when accompanied by a visual.  For instance, I can describe what “impasto” is but without a visual, the learner may have a very difficult time perceiving what this is.  In this situation, what I know “impasto” to be is as accurate as how I can describe it to the learner because without the aid of a visual, it really is just up for interpretation.

As an English Learner myself, I never realized the kind of background learning that needed to take place in order for me to succeed.  I understand the importance of parents in the child’s ability to grasp and comprehend the “academic language”.  I always felt that there were different kinds of “Englishes” and wondered why the “academic English” was not really “taught” in school.  Watching a lot of television and reading certainly helped me to learn English. The “English” that we hear spoken in the classroom, even by the teacher, is often considered colloquial and does not teach us what  “academic English” is.  How then does a student of English, let alone new English Learners, understand or even try to begin articulating in this form?  Zwiers made a good point about cultural “common sense”.  Certain students do not find it appropriate to speak in specific situations or find that they do not understand certain words or concepts that are specific to North America only.  Teachers must be sensitive to these cultural differences but it is very easy to forget.  Learning English for me has never proved to be too difficult, but reading this chapter has really shown me that there are many people struggling silently and who are unable to help themselves because the system here favors and works for those who are already rich in linguistic, knowledge, and social capital etc.