Author: Michael Yang

A good friend of mine, who was an ELL, had a difficult time in our writing-heavy courses (such as History and English) because of the large essay and research assignments we had. Therefore when I think about writing expository genres, I think of his experiences and how I want to be very conscience of how I approach my writing assignments (as a Socials Studies teacher) and how it will affect differentiated learners. I realize that at times, academic writing can have seemingly arbitrary rules, appear disconnected from life, and flat-out boring. And this is coming from somebody who enjoyed and continues to enjoy writing academic and research papers. Therefore I hope to find the right balance of choosing good expository essays that are highly informative, academically sound, well-organized, rich in content and detail––but also creative in language, in including a more narrative element, etc. I also think about the chapter’s emphasis on always teaching things in context––such as grammar rules––and to not utilize isolated and abstract writing exercises. Therefore the chapter highlights the importance of immersion and how ELLs and students in general just need to encounter good writing, again and again and again. I think that literature or popular fiction can be engaging and informative tools to help with academic writing.

I think therefore I would want to incorporate more examples of popular culture such as screenplays, comic books, TV shows, movies, and other rich narrative elements and sources in my lessons. Through the dissection and analysis of what makes these examples good writing and good stories, my students will learn more about organization, about clarity, about perspective, about setting up a problem or tension––all of which is involved in academic writing. Students therefore need good teachers who are not only passionate about writing, but who can use the right tools, examples, and methods to cultivate the passion and skills in the students for academic writing yes, but also writing in general.

Michael Yang

This chapter was enriched with practical advice and tips on the difficult but essential task of fostering classroom discussion. I recently heard from one of the instructors in this program that BC’s Ministry of Education is beginning to refer to teachers as “facilitators of learning”––an apt title I think for the topic of this chapter. There is no surprise that current teacher education is moving away from what Pablo Freire refers to as the “banking concept of education” where we simply store a wealth of information into the minds of our students, hoping with all out hearts that they can retain it. I like how one of the ways the reading challenges this is through the questioning of our the questions we use as teachers. Thinking of my experiences, I realize I need to definitely give people more time to think about my questions before quickly jumping in to rephrase it or add another layer onto it. I also found the various “activities to improve discussion” section highly informative. My personal favorite is that “simulation” activity––I think that is a wonderful way, if done correctly, for students to tangibly and critically step into the content, and to begin to engage with the ideas on a more close level. Overall I found this chapter exploding with relevance and usefulness for us teachers, it is definitely worth revisiting when I start planing my lessons for my practicum.

As a Social Studies teacher focusing on History, I believe firmly that History at its most rich and vibrant, is about meaning-making. There is a constructive and creative element involved. It is a discipline that aims to infer, interpret, and understand what happened in the past. Therefore to make meaning of what happened and to build an interpretation of the past, requires an adept mastery of language. History, at its most banal is about “one damn fact after another.” For students who are ELL, if history is taught in this boring way and simply as a transmission of facts, then they truly miss out on the richness of history and the power and art of words to help plunder that richness. However, the reality is that the discipline deals at times with abstract concepts, long textual passages, and a difficulty of demonstration. Therefore it is crucial to make history tangible and coherent for ELL and all learners.

Schleppegrell, Achugar, & Oteiza offer some practical but challenging avenues to do this. They emphasize encouraging students to make connections through different types of meaning. Experiential meaning is to identify the events and the themes involved. The interpersonal meaning will help clarify who and to whom action is happening to or coming from. The textual meaning is to take all this information and put it together in an organized manner. As a teacher, I can model and co-construct with the class the building of, the organization of, and the presentation of history. Instead of doing this in an essay format or by breaking down long passages, perhaps I could do a storyboard format ––allowing the students to more visually and graphically express and organize their thoughts. I think there is potential in using language through a more concrete and creative element of story rather than disconnected facts. History has the potential to be a discipline in which effective language learning can happen, and where fruitful content can be explored through the beautiful usage of words.

Michael Yang

Worth checking out:
Mysteries of vernacular: Bewilder – Jessica Oreck and Rachael Teel

I thoroughly enjoyed this reading. I think it reinforces the importance for us teachers to be cognitive of the words we use and more importantly, how they are received. The article made me more aware of how we should not assume that our students, that we ourselves too, have a full grasp of the language we use in the classroom. From my experiences, some teachers gave a list of words with their definitions and expected students to memorize that list. I remember countless vocabulary quizzes throughout high school. Looking back, those tests were not always the most effective way to introduce new terms or help me remember those terms. Through this article, I gleamed some new, practical, and integrated methods for approaching vocabulary.

I think the article effectively argued that for students to “know” or better grasp words, they must come to experience these words incrementally, multidimensionally, and integrally. I think teachers cannot forgot that this requires time, patience, a natural approach, and one that is applicable and relevant to students lives. I think this is particularly challenging with discipline-specific words. I think we must emphasize the importance that vocabulary does not emerge from a vacuum, but is situated in context and relation to other words. Therefore accessing prior knowledge is crucial as it helps students learn from channels or avenues that they already possess––thus reinforcing those connections and memory access.

To take an example: as a social studies teacher, I may teach my students about the concept and policy of “multiculturalism.” There is already so much occurring in a word like this. The word can be broken down into its various elements: “multi”; “cultural”; “ism.” Each one of those parts are interrelated to other words they may encounter. It is also a term that has rich historical and societal weight. It used all the time, particularly in describing Canadian society. Therefore a word like this has great potential to explore related concepts like culture in general, but more importantly for my students––cultures represented in our classroom. It could be their own distinct culture, it would be a debate over the characteristic of a Canadian culture (whatever that may mean), it can even be a discussion about the culture of our class itself. Therefore by making these connections, this word is integrated into a whole slew of vocubalry regarding culture, society, history, backgrounds, politics, and more.

One final comment on the article. The sections on “word consciousness” and “computer-related instruction” I found highly relevant. I recently discovered these fascinating, informative, and useful TED Ed talks called “the mysteries of vernacular.” They can be found here: http://ed.ted.com/lessons?category=literature-language. These short videos can, I hope, help develop a curiosity in the stories and mysteries behind words. Often, these words can be quite confusing or appear out of joint with a majority of other words. It is a resource worth revisiting and perhaps adaptable to the classroom in various forms.

Michael Yang

As I was reading through this article I had a flashback to my first year at UBC. In one of my Art Studies courses, the theme of the course was on global citizenship and identity. The second reading was one of the densest I have ever read. It was so convoluted and about borders and international law, a topic that we were not familiar with at the time. I remember my professor took great effort and care to make sure that my fellow students and I could decipher and navigate through the dense and thick forest of academic jargonese that we had to wander through. She taught us not only how to navigate through it, but to “handle language in new ways” as the article says, so that we could write and speak in a way that illustrated our grasp of the language. She essentially was engaging in a form of Functional Language Analysis (FLA), particularly focusing on those three dimensions of experiential, textual, and interpersonal meaning. The effort our professor put in was well worth it as it laid the groundwork for the rest of my undergraduate career, but also in all the reading and analyzing I would do in my daily life. Therefore I can see how important FLA can be for secondary classrooms too, as students begin to encounter academic language and articles.

As a Social Studies teacher candidate, I would want my students to always be aware and familiar with the ins and outs of language. I think in my experiences earlier on in high school, much if not all the textual exploration we had was focused on deciphering the experiential meaning. Over time however, I learned to grapple and grasp the textual and interpersonal meanings as well. Therefore I wish to be able to teach my students how to do this, to realize the importance of “who is doing the story telling” or “how does the author seek to influence the reader” as important and consistent questions to ask. I want to be able to do this with their own writing. I think by learning how to create language and use language in these multidimensional ways––it will better teach them how to read language. As they engage in textual deconstruction, they also learn how to masterfully engage in language construction. And I hope I can be a co-constructor with them in the beginning phases as they find their own methods and voice.

Michael Yang

As I am typing this response, I have become very self-conscious of the words and organization of this blog post. I found this chapter fascinating as I am highly interested in the “invisible” and “hidden” curriculum in the classroom––and the very language we use in school does need to be critiqued and explored. Despite being an English Language Learner from an immigrant Taiwanese family, it is difficult to recall exactly what it felt like to grasp and pick up a new language when I was in my younger years. By now English has become my dominant language. Yet it is interesting to reflect on my experiences, and the experiences of some of my friends who had more difficulty grasping “academic English.” I find it particularly troubling that some students “remain underneath our radar” because it appears at first glance that they are getting by adequately (Zwiers, 2).

I found Zwiers discussion on academic entrapment as a good warning that I wish to internalize early on in my teaching career. I do not want to demand of my students what I do not teach them––and to especially do this subconsciously and through the mode of language. I hope that I can do my best to acknowledge what my students already know and what they bring into the classroom, and then come together and agree on what is important in what we are studying. As Zwiers highlights, the shifting that occurs between students’ experiences and the subject/text is important––and I want to be able to use language effectively to do that well.

After reading the section on the types of academic capital, I hope to invest some of my time and energy to engage with the students’ families and parents. Despite the varying familial and home circumstances that students come from, to the best of my ability I want to be a teacher that can get the parents involved and excited about what their children are learning. It appears that so much learning happens outside of the classroom (such as in homes, among social networks, religious traditions, cultural spaces) and language is the avenue in which all that learning travels. So I hope to help my students become more cognizant of the way they are speaking and the words they are using.

Michael Yang