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Blog Entry 4

Upon enrolling in this class, I thought I would have had a lot of background knowledge on this subject because I was once and English language learner and English was my second language. But after actually doing the quizzes, blogs, and research, I came to find out that I actually knew very little about what it takes to actually teach, assess, and understand English language learners. I learned about a lot of different methods and strategies to instruct them, such as the grammar-translation method, series and direct methods, audiolingual method, community language learning, suggestopedia, silent way, and total physical response and the natural approach. I know how I was taught French physically, but I did not know that there was actually research behind it and a name for it. The grammar-translation method is a classroom where the teacher is the controller, and the main goals for learning are vocabulary memorization, grammar rules, translation of passages, and reading proficiency (Brown...
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Blog Entry 3

For this entry, I decided to interview my mentor teacher, Mrs. Martinez, who works at Pilgrim Academy. I have known her for approximately 2 months, and we have become quite close. I find myself texting her like I would my very close friends. In the short time span that I have known her, I have learned a great deal from her and I look forward to the rest of my time with her this school year! Reflection: Although my interview with my teacher was not as long as was required, I feel like I got a lot of valid, and resourceful information from it. Her answers supported a lot of what I have learned and read about in class. She told me previously (not mentioned in the interview recording) that she had taken Spanish as a foreign language since she was in the 5 th grade. She is now currently fluent in Spanish and can hold up conversations and understand native speakers. This being said, she still struggles with some terminology and reading and writing it. ...
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Blog Entry 2

            Research and teaching practices are both intertwined and I think that research has a positive impact on teaching practices today. I think that the world is always changing and we must change our ways of teaching in order to keep up-to-date. It is mentioned in our textbook that there have been plenty of different interpretations of the “best way” to teach additional languages and it is basically a “cyclical pattern in which a new method emerged about every quarter of a century” (Brown & Lee, 2015, pg. 17). Research in the field of language learning or language teaching helps teachers learn from past mistakes or methods, and alter them to make them better and more effective.             In high school, I took a French class for my foreign language credits and although I did learn while I was in the class, I did not learn as much as I had hoped, nor did I retain ...
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