Re: tests/papers

I'd like to offer some advice, make some comments and generally resond to some things I've seen in formal written work. I try not to mindlessley recreate the biases of my professors past, but being in a position where I must read and respond to student work, I can see their points (or have I just been assimilated...) To cut to the chase

Avoid cliches like the plague! Yes I've just used two in a row, but 1) I may be trying to make a point. They can come across lame and don't add meaning 2) this is a blog and not a formal paper for grade. At best they take up space and don't add value to your ideas, and at worst they are interpreted differently than you might intend and give the wrong impression.

Reduce filler (sometimes called bloat). Intensifiers like "very," "really" and such add no meaning and either water down your prose or make you come across less seriously (as in people take you less seriously). At worst you come across like a student padding their work to make a teachers word count/ page length (that strategy has never worked for anyone at any age - but even in college people try it). Likewise, severly limit the times you say "I think," " I believe," "in my humble opinion," etc. At best it comes across like filler, at worst it indicates a lack of conviction or confidence, or maybe a qualification indicating self-deprication. Writing is work. It is more intentional than speaking. If you are taking the time and effort to make a declarative statement in writing, why wouldn't the reader assume you mean or think what you say? This is'nt to say you should never use any of these constructions, but consider your context and your audience and eliminate uneccesary words. Reading is work.

Be careful how you use terms like "proof" "fact" and "reality." In academic contexts these words are used with incredible rarity. Research can generally offer indications or suggestions, and there are few things you can get a room full of the general public to agree on. Fill a room full of academics and I guarantee someone will debate the nature of up and down. When we are dealing with theory, to use words like proof or fact implies resolution to a question that has not been resolved. The position you take has profound political and pedagogical implications.

Likewise saying "some people say" or even "many" or "most" is at best spurious. It's a red flag for a misleading or false proposition. Reliance on authorities to support a position is the weakest form of argument, and to not even name an alleged authority or general person on the street ... what's the point in that - other than to distance one's self from the thing you are saying. Is this a lack of confidence or do you not believe what you are saying?

And finally, avoid putting quotes around a word to indicate you are using it ironically or otherwise in some way other than how it is generally interpreted to mean. If you do that, you got to explain in detail what exactly you mean.

In general - always explain what you mean in greater detail. The most common comment on papers is always "elaborate," "explain," and "go into detail."

3-26-8 lesson plan.

Refer to Video on Pinker
view Video on creoles and pidgins.
PPoint from Wolfson text.
Small group – slips o paper,
Teaching intercultural competence
p. 202 inset and table 7.1 p. 203
ID countries by collectivist/ individualism
BS implications
Questions to ponder
Group plan of attach for presentations.
___________________________________________
Questions to ponder:
Are creoles languages, dialects, or what?
How is a creole not a dialect?
What’s the difference between a language and a dialect?
What is AAVE? BEV

1. According to Wolfson, what is the difference between a pidgin and a creole? Are all speakers of a pidgin, technically speaking, bilinguals? Are children of pidgin speakers monolinguals?
2. Briefly describe the differences between foreigner-talk, parallel development, nautical jargon, and monogenesis as rival explanations for the origin of pidgins. Which alternative do you favor?
3. What do Bickerton's bioprogram and Chomsky's UG share in common? Where do they differ? Briefly address the post-creole continuum.
4. How might pidginization be an explanation for arrested development in a second language? Briefly describe social distance and psychological distance.

Results from the classroom assesment.

I've posted a a pretty comprehensive summary of the comments to the classroom assesment on the wiki. Say what you want about them, with a wiki you can post things and make them accessible.

We might discuss the comments in class - though that needs to be considered. One person asked for more time on procedureal issues and 2 people asked to spend less time on it. One of my strengths is my flexibility - but that might not always be optimal. We don't want to use procedural discussions as a way to avoid talking about the reading. We might not be able to get 100% agreement on anything.

As a class, you aren't afraid of writing more formal papers or do presentations. A majority feel at least vaguely positive about blogs, but I'm going to work out an option for those who flatly don't like them. We will drop the requirement to comment on each others' posts. Someone cited research that said people write more (and better) when posting comments is optional. Where is that! I need to read that. Tell me in the comment to this post. Regardless, enough people provided enough responses to convince me the comment requirement was bogus.

One reason I don't flatly contradict or "correct" you (note in 1.iii) is that an amazing variety of opinion exist - and that's why more than one article is attached to supplement the book. They shouldn't seem redundant. There is controversy. SLA theory is an active place. For me to dictate one correct "truth" in a theory class would be to institute a dangerous orthodoxy. A teacher's role in a university setting is to provide an enviroment conducive to learning and stimulate discussion and thought. I may play devil's advocate at times, so don't interpret my questions or comments as the endorsement of a particular theoretical view. None-the-less, I may have been avoiding conflict. If you accessed my personal blog the first few weeks you should understand why. I might oughtta touch on that in class.

The variety of suggestions for role play, student presentations, etc. are promising - and since you would be creating the content it would be active learning. The presentations themselves would satisfy the rest of the classes' desire for passive learning. We could also cover a lot of content fast that way. The true educational value of flashcards, powerpoint presentations and the like comes from the process of creating the activity.

Maybe also we should watch some of the videos I've posted for you. At first I worried it was an inefficient use of time, but a) some have an aversion to the wiki b) some can't access youtube from their school accounts c) some (like me) have highspeed access at school but little time or a slow access from home.

Regarding the reading:
The majority of class are vocal about it being 1) too long or too much 2) too difficult and 3) the online reading being difficult to read on line and expensive to print.

We've already cut one book - significantly reducing your costs and reading. We can't cut any more. I have some ideas - actually several of you had an idea - on how we can cover the readign in more depth by working together. I'll go into details in class.

It can be dense - but you have to bring your intellectual "A" game. This is an 800 level class.

I don't read much text on line. I print it out and read paper copies I can highlight and make margin notes in. I expected you to do the same. If you have a big enough monitor - some poeople can allegedy read effectively online. You may consider looking farther ahead than the next week reading, and sharing print outs - thereby benefiting from the notes and highlights of classmates....

When you consider the money you spend in other classes on books, the cost of printing is a lot lower in this class.

Week five materials

Open with an inductive activity re: affective filter.

http://web.ku.edu/tesl/ct822_lesson5.htm

• What's a wug test? What's it tell us?
• The acquisition vs. learning dichotomy (or is it?): Here to stay or a flash in the pan?
• What can you tell me about the Contrastive Analysis hypothesis (it has shown up on comp. exams).
• Is there a theoretical basis for addressing particular grammar structures first? Do grammar texts tend to be organized in similar order? Gregg P. 8
• Anyone familiar with Vygotsky? Any similarity to i + 1?
• What does QED , QNED and ceteris Paribus mean (pronunciation)?
• Use "counter intuitive" correctly in a sentence related to SLA.
• What about fossilization? Does Krashen's theory account for it?

Don't forget to weigh in on your preferences for testing on the comments section of the PREVIOUS blog post.

Note the new links provided to your right.

Week 3 & 4: CPH, BE and Call for Input

First we'll cover the critical period stuff

1) Continuum activity. Bottles to be filled or candles to be lit?
2) Discussion questions

i) http://web.ku.edu/tesl/ct822_lesson4.htm#2
ii) What do we value (in terms of teaching language to youth/ children/ etc)
iii) Anyone raising(ed) bilingual kids? Differences, challenges, advantages, worries.
iv) How does personality change flipping from L1 to L2 (does it?)?
v) Melting pot or salad bowl?
vi) How do the balloons work?
vii) How do politics play out/into Bilingual Education discussions
viii) If Porter is Italian, why does she speak so much about Hispanics so much?
ix) What are the terms used for classes/programs charged with teaching second language? (ie ESL, BE, etc) What do they mean/ how do they differ in philosophy or application. Share your experiences and opinions.
x)


3) Return and comment on Lit. Narratives/ CV’s
4) Everyone without a blog (including post) stays and we have lab time. Rest of class has is on own recognizance.

Additional Issue
We need to discuss assessment/ exams - and I will likely vary some of the questions the course has used in the past - though I know of no official test bank

Testing (assessment) has varied in format by individual instructors from semester to semester - not to mention between different instructors. I initially considered an essay midterm (in class - closed book) and a take-home final. I'd like to open that up for discussion. We could collaborate on the questions.

It is also to be determined when the most appropriate time for the tests are. My concern is that the class does the reading and engages the content -how we get that to happen is negotiable. I put this question to the blog and ask the class to comment. It's important, but in danger of swallowing up a lot of class time. Regardless - assessment is of key concern to students and deserves attention.

SLA Blog_2-6-8

Note that on the right side of this blog there is a “blog roll.” When I get blog addresses from students, I enter those addresses into a list of links I’ve added. This allows me to quickly surf around to the enclosed list of blogs dedicated to this class. This also allows anyone in this class to quickly and conveniently find the blogs of other students. See what your classmates are doing.

We will reserve some classtime for workshop time in posting your own blog. By the end of this class everyone who attends should have a blog. If you haven’t written a reading response – post a few words regarding your initial feelings about blogging for class: hopes, dreams, misgivings ….whatever. At the end of this class, any or all of us will have the chance to publish on the potential and challenges of this emergent educational technology. Can it live up to the hype?

I’d also like to encourage you to post comments. At this point they could relate to the ease or difficulty you find in posting a blog, or better yet the content of what you read.

Last Week’s Lesson plans

Pair work: Explain to each other
Consider and discuss how the following variables affect critical period arguments regarding SLA.
· Neurlological
· Phonological
· Cognitive
· Affective
· Linguistic

• Explain equilibrium/ disequilibrium. Provide an example from your experience (rather than the book).
• Language ego: (p. 64)– (How) is L1 personality different from L2 personality?
• explain difference between compound and coordinate bilingualism.
• Explain and give examples of code-switching (reaching buzzword status –but I doubt many outside SLA really know what it means.)
• do you have bilingual pets?
• what is Universal Grammar?
  
  Discussion questions.
  
• Questions from end of chapter: 1 from text: re: myths – what is assumed or presupposed in each statement.
• What can feral children (wolf children) tell us about language acquisition?
• Is there a critical period for technological literacy?
• Can an adult with no previous exposure to a dialect (ie someone born in the northern Midwest traveling to the deep south/ Brittan) adopt a dialect well enough to fool natives?
• What role does SES/ class affiliation play in the use /phenomena of accents among native speakers of a common langage?
• What do you know about brain science – dendrite growth – synapses – lateralization – brain tumors.
• What is the role/value of rote learning in SLA?
• How does raising a child in a bilingual environment affect their development?
• Does bilingual’s memory contain one storage system or two? (compound vs. coordinate bilingualism).
• What are the dangers of uncritically accepting the CPH?
  
  Lecture notes:
  Story of a Language Center: Standardized placement – tests – 3% - the cost of perfection and the meaning of fluency
  
• Shibboleth http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shibboleth
• P. 64~5 – Quiz – stick out your tongue. LE
• P71 Nature vs. Nurture – what we know. Why we know it.
• How does culture affect what chapter says is true re: how we learn language? (rote
• and the Chinese student).
• Colleague (arrogant grad student in urban planning) said, “the problem with these ESL students is. (find video).
  
  

class notes 1-30-8

First off - fantastic class discussion. The small groups I attended had great questions and the open class discussion really took off.

There was a very small number who participated in the whole class discussion in a limited way, which is one reason I think our blogs will be so fruitful. Some students hold back due to influences of native educational culture, affect (sorry for the jargon - but the usage isn't too uncommon, and you'll hear it in professional educational/medical/psychological discussions. I wonder if the usage might come from the trouble some people have it saying "emotion"), etc. I experienced this in a big way teaching in Asia.

Regarding The advantages of blogs over Blackboard. (Great questions - whoever asked that). Last year, when I used blackboard, it was not equipped to use blogs or wikis. I heard some talk about the next version encorporating or importing these technologies - but it would be bringing outside programs in - and questions of compatibility and the added steps necessary to make it work gave me pause.

Threaded discussions incourage short responses - and you can't see much of the content without a lot of clicking. Blogs are journals. Several of the graduate courses (at least 3) that I took required a teaching or learning journal of some kind. Posting journals online offers several advantages. I've written about this in more depth at http://gdixon.edublogs.org/what’s-in-it-for-you-purpose-and-audience/ The savings in paper and costs - not to mention trasportation and the reduction of clutter - are substantial.

Were we to do this through a Learning Management Software (such as Blackboard, Angel, Web CT or other) who would own your work? What would happen to your work at the end of the semester? How might someone else use your work? You might be surprised what's happening.

Re: security. While people can share your address (we may need a modicum of trust in our classmates) - I don't think your blog can be found unless someone knows what they are looking for. None-the-less, using a psuedonym rather than your own name, or an avatar (click for definiton) is always an option. Just tell me in class what your psuedonym is.

Do you keep your completed assignments for future reference - or do they go pretty much straight into the trash? What is better and why?