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?

course outline - weekly lesson plan

For hyperlinks to reading assignments, notes, discussion questions etc. go to
http://web.ku.edu/tesl/ct822_lessons.htm

Lesson 1: Intro, What is theory? How do we evaluate it? Balance between theory and applied knowledge on SLA. What do you want to learn in this class/ what questions would you like answered? Access class blog/ wiki and post

Lesson 2: What is Language? First Language Acquisitionhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjQM8PzCEY0&feature=user film clip (Discuss Brown: Chapter 2; Brown & Gonzo: Introduction).
From readings – what questions do we want answered? Everyone brings a question

Lesson 3: Relating first and second language processes and Critical Period Hypothesis (Brown Chap. 3; Brown & Gonzo Unit 2: Scovel, Johnson & Newport) http://web.ku.edu/tesl/ct822_lesson3.htm#2
Questions for lesson 3 what is the critical period hypothesis (CHP)and how does it compare to the adult language learner paradox (ALL paradox). Find the best ejournal article you can (refereed please), provide link and post it to your blog before 3rd class.

Lesson 4: History and Research base of Bilingual Education Film clip (?) & discussion.

Lesson 5: Learning vs. Acquisition (closed reserve: Krashen – Practical Applications; Gregg; Higgs; McLaughlin - Conscious v. Unconscious; Krashen – Reading First).

Lesson 6: Psychology and language learning - Cognitive Styles and Strategies, Affective factors; (Brown: 4, 5, 6; Brown & Gonzo 4: Gardner & MacIntyre; Closed Reserve: MacIntyre et al.; Yashima; Gregersen & Horwitz).

Lesson 7: Psychology and Language - Information Processing, Parallel Distributed Processing (Closed Reserve: O'Malley; Bereiter; Sokolik; Waring).
Midterm Examination*

Lesson 8: Linguistics and language learning, Universal Grammar, (Brown & Gonzo 9: White; Closed Reserve: Ellis; Hawkins).

Lesson 9: Sociolinguistics, Pidginization and Creoles (Brown: 7; Brown & Gonzo 5: Schumann; Closed Reserve: Wolfson; Mufwene).

Lesson 10: Contrastive Analysis, Error Analysis, and Interlanguage Study (Brown: 8; Brown & Gonzo: 6 Light-Brown & Spada; Closed Reserve: Tarone; Chan).

Lesson 11: Communicative competence (Brown: 9; Closed Reserve: Celce-Murcia et al.; Alptekin; Savignon & Sysoyev), Film clip & discussion.

Lesson 12: Connecting the Modules (Brown 10; Brown & Gonzo 9: Long; Closed Reserve: Hatch)

Lesson 13: English for Specific Purposes (ESP), (Closed Reserve: Gatehouse; Evans & Green; Short & Echevarria).

Lesson 14: Future trends, Final Exam Review (Closed Reserve: Larsen-Freeman)
Final Exam (take-home) due* - No Class

Welcome to My SLA Blog

Hello and welcome to my blog. At this point I imagine only my students will be coming here, and they have already read my definitions, history and rational for using blogs with class at http://gdixon.edublogs.org/ , so I'll go straight to some topics from our first class that deserve some more attention.

Next week we will do an icebreaker/name game. I know one person's name - and that because 1) they said their own name out loud, and 2) they gave an unrelated word that sounded like their name - so I had 2 associations to start with. After class I had a great conversation about TPR and how the more senses we involve in a learning activity the more likely we are to store that knowledge in our long term memory. Consider these ideas when read about Parallel Distributed Processing and tell me if you see the connection.

Regarding the Literacy narrative assignment: thanks to someone who asked "why"? Ah. ... the importance of theory. In addition to what I said in class, in Teaching Developmental Writing (Bernstein, 2005), half the text is devoted to ESL/ESOL/CLD/NNS issues. Several scholars tout the importance of autobiographical assignments. Yu Ren Don's research shows almost unequivocally that "students would like their American teachers to understand their struggle with learning the new language, literacy skills, and academic content at the same time. One way of building the understanding is for teachers to learn about the student's native langauge and literacy background." In written form that's popularly called a literacy narrative. I'm asking for you to write one because:

• It's practical and should be done with students - it's applied.
• I like the idea of teachers attempting what they routinely ask of students. It seems only fair.
• it builds community and trust
• it's essentially a brief and abreviated form of the journal entry questions found at the end of the chapters of our book.

We will discuss how and whether they should be shared next class.