Author: Emily YeuPing Lee

The opportunity to write for pleasure is often decreased significantly after a certain age and become limited to writing solely for school assignments. At the same time, it can be difficult for secondary students to try out and experiment with new vocabularies in assignments when they count towards their marks. In example, I remember a friend back in secondary school who always had marks taken off of his assignment for using words from the thesaurus in a context that does not make sense. This in turn results with discouragement in his exploration of new words in writing activities that are forms of assessment. I believe that although they should be corrected, students should not be penalized for these attempts, as it is through these trial and errors that they learn the usage of different vocabularies.

The informal writing activities discussed in chapter eight represented activities that are low in stress where students will not be penalized for trying out new words. I also like these activities in that they can be incorporated in different subject areas. For a Home Economics class, there may be little chance for students to practice writing if the class followed a repeated cycle of demonstration – lab – demonstration – lab format. However, activities like “try these terms” can easily be implemented during the end of a lesson. I especially like the “perspective papers” activity as well as I can ask students to write in the perspective of various types of nutrients and allow them to practice narrative writing as well. Food culture and history of different cuisines can also be incorporated with this activity by having students write in the perspective of the historical person, or specific dish in relation to cultural significance.

Coming from the subject area of home economics, I definitely do not see how certain types of assessment such as utilizing standardized testing would fit into my subject area. However, thinking about other subjects I feel that it is difficult to completely turn away from standardized testing. Subjects such as Math, Chemistry, Biology, etc. that are subject to provincial examination really puts teacher under pressure of following the same format of assessment during the school year. A teacher that uses other types of assessment, which may be beneficial for certain number of students, can create discrepancy between class marks and provincial exam marks. A student that performs well in oral assessments may not perform well under pressure when answering multiple-choice questions.

A discrepancy that is greater than 40 percent requires that the provincial mark be used entirely to represent the student’s final mark, whereas in regular cases a 40% provincial and 60% class mark is used.  Therefore, if a student really does not respond well to standardized tests however participates and performs well during classes, the classroom mark is still ignored and the standardized test is recognized. Furthermore, standardized testing also makes it difficult for teachers to adopt different teaching styles when they are concerned with covering all materials for students to be able to write the provincial exam. As much as the push for less standardized testing be used in the classroom and more emphasis on depth rather than amount of topics covered in class, the education system seem to still favour the traditional teaching styles and make it difficult for teachers to adopt otherwise.

I really believe questions are quite important in classrooms. Asking questions is a way for teachers to gain understanding in where students are at with their learning. Questions also engage students and help them to regulate their own thinking. Granted, I do believe that it is important not to overuse questions. Questions asked to students need to be thought out beforehand, and crafted carefully. The questions should have a purpose for students’ learning. In other words, teachers need to ask “essential questions”, questions that challenge students’ understandings and make them go above and beyond textbook facts. These questions should require students to really think about what they already know, what they do not know yet, and where does the new information fit into that framework for them.

Asking essential questions develop critical thinking skills in both learners and teachers.  It is pivotal in the process of inquiry because it requires the teachers to be self-reflective in their own practices based on students’ responses as well. Before implementing this it is important that teachers are aware of the classroom dynamic and are active in providing a supportive environment where students feel safe to explore and engage their imagination. I believe that it is this challenge and process of synthesizing new information through students’ own inquiry that produces lasting learning outcome.

– Emily

Having been an English Language Learner myself, I have experienced first hand how intimidating it can be sitting in a class and not having a clue what the teacher is talking about or what your peers are laughing at. When it comes to being in an activity where you are expected to participate and have input this becomes even more challenging. I really enjoyed the games that Graham introduced us to on Wednesday as they eliminated that fear factor. The games included one called “stomp”, which had everyone standing in a circle and involved the passing of rhythm from one to another around the room. Another game was similar but involved the hand clapping. A third game called “May I” that involved people switching positions in a circle through eye contact and the asking of “may I” to each other. These games have a commonality in that they all depend little if at all of verbal language communication. I thought it was interesting when a student from the class who had missed the introduction of the activity and came in midway through the game was still able to participate fully throughout the game. Communications involved were primarily eye contact and hand/body gestures. An ELL student can easily understand the situation and not feel left out. This was especially apparent during the feet stomping activity when without communicating to the class Graham facilitated a change in direction of the feet stomping. Everyone in the class was able to catch up on that despite no verbal communication was involved. I thoroughly enjoyed the activities and will definitely use them in the future with my own classes.

– Emily

This chapter on brick and mortar words definitely overlapped with my own experiences. As an English learner myself back when I was in secondary school, my most feared subject was social studies where much of the content was heavily based on the full understanding of both brick and mortar words. I remember having to go home and look up on my dictionary on almost every word I didn’t understand everyday. Even after so it was very difficult piecing the meanings of the brick words and mortar words together. Courses where other forms of communication were provided, such as diagrams, drawings, body positioning/acting made it easier for me to grasp concepts. As Zwiers suggests, it is important to supplement your oral descriptions with other connections. Subtle addition of hand gestures, using metaphors, or using prosody for emphasis in sentences will help learners receive hints of what the mortar words mean, and subsequently ease the learning of brick words. These added factors are not only to provide support for the English learners, but can also strengthen native English speakers’ ability to internalize the meanings of new brick words as well.

Other techniques mentioned in chapter 3 such as think-aloud have always been a part of my classroom learning experiences. I have never thought twice about the intention of teachers thinking aloud while explaining and modelling after how students are thinking. These actions serve a purpose to help students navigate their own reasoning at the same time. This just opens my eyes to the numerous ways of conveying concepts, messages, and reasonings.