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 the information that I had learned. My French teacher taught us by
using the grammar translation method. She taught us in English, and most of our
time was spent learning vocabulary and grammar rules (Brown & Lee, 2015, pg.
18). We did very few orals and when we did, they were scripted and the
conversations were not authentic. I basically only had to memorize what she
would say, and what my response was supposed to be. Just as the book states,
this was a huge downfall in the method because I mainly learned through
memorization and that’s now how you really learn a language. I feel like the
way she taught me was not the best way and that it did not allow me to learn
how to have real life conversations with native people of France. As stated in
our textbook, “it has no advocates. It is a method for which there is no
theory. There is no literature that offers a rationale or justification for it
or that attempts to relate it to issues in linguistics, psychology, or
educational theory (Richards and Rodgers, 2001).
In my
opinion, I think that bilingualism is good for cognition in language learning.
Bilingualism helps people across different countries and cultures communicate
and research has shown that for cognitive purposes, people who are bilingual
have better attention and task-switching capacities than the monolingual brain.
Coming from personal experience, I totally agree with researchers that
bilingualism definitely affects cognition in a positive way. Even when I am
thinking in or using one language, the other is also active at the same time. For
example, in my early years of learning, if I heard a word such as “can”, my
brain would automatically think of words such that begin with those letters
such as “candy” or “candle”, but the limitations are endless when I am also
fluent in Vietnamese because auditory input activates corresponding words
regardless of the language that they belong to. That being said, I think that
being bilingual really impacted my content learning process in a good way and
it helped me to learn more vocabulary and make connections between the world
and both languages.
Works Cited
Brown,
H. D., & Lee, H. (2015). Teaching by Principles: An Interactive
Approach to Language
Pedagogy. White Plains, NY: Pearson Education.
ReplyDeleteJenny,
I agree with your position that research is beneficial to teaching and ever-changing. In my post, I talked about how there are many different models in the education world about the best way to “learn”. Research provides us with data which states whether or not we are teaching effectively and if students are retaining the material learned. I also think that if while some prefer other methods of teaching, we should always be mindful that we have many different types of learners in a classroom. There is no one size fits all in learning. Oswald & Plonsky (2010) states that “although there have been two decades of ritual reliance on the same set of benchmarks for practical significance across most of the social sciences, and although we offered some SLA benchmarks ourselves, we want to argue that SLA research will benefit by considering the range of practically significant effect sizes within each of its sub disciplines, eventually moving away from donning small, medium, and large “t-shirt effect sizes” out of mere availability and convenience.” This goes to show how important research is in the field of SLA, especially because it is so new in regard to other fields of research. Educators are finding ways to improve their teaching of SLA based on research findings.
Brown, H. D., & Lee, H. (2015). Teaching by principles: an interactive approach to language pedagogy (4th ed.). White Plains, NY: Pearson Education.
Oswald, F., & Plonsky, L. (2010). Meta-analysis in Second Language Research: Choices and Challenges. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 30, 85-110. doi:10.1017/S0267190510000115
Jenny: Research helps us understand processes and how our brain works. I like your example about vocabulary and I find it interesting that my brain does not operate the way your does. When I see, hear or think about the word CAN, my brain thinks about (a) be able to, (2) a container, but I never think about other words that start with CAN. This only happens to me when I think about words that share Latin or Greek roots. For example, if I see a new word in English such a "peddler", my brain starts looking at the parts and I understand that it is a person who does something because of the ending ER, and then I see PED which I know means foot (feet) so my guess is that he/she walks to do something. However, if I change my thinking to Spanish, the moment I see ER, I know that it is a verb because verbs in Spanish end in ER. It would be interesting to have a researcher study the way we approximate new words depending on our L1 and the knowledge we have about that language. If you are highly educated in Spanish, you will know a lot of Latin and Greek roots and therefore you will be able to comprehend most of the lexicon used in academic English, don't you think?
ReplyDeleteI couldn't agree more with you, Jenny. Research allows for“…teacher educators, and institutions to make sound decisions about the educational activities and experiences that will best serve students” (NCTE, 2017). Research and education go hand in hand. Although it may be difficult, it is our duty as educators to keep up with the most recent research. I also had a similar experience with second language. My high school teachers taught me using the grammar translation method. However, out textbook makes this truth clear: the grammar translation method is not the best method to use according to research. As of now Brown states, “…we became acutely aware of a multiplicity of contexts for L2 teaching, which brought with it myriad adaptations, applications, and localized approaches- all within the spirit of Communicative Language Teaching (CLT)” (Brown, p. 39). Thus, The CLT is the best method to use presently according to research. Who knows what the best method will be in a year or ten years from now.
ReplyDelete“Understanding the Relationship between Research and Teaching.” NCTE Comprehensive News, www.ncte.org/cee/positions/researchandteaching. Accessed 20 Sept. 2017.
Jenny,
ReplyDeleteI appreciate that you shared your personal experience and a bit of insight into your time with learning French and with being fluent in Vietnamese. I love that you shared how being bilingual was beneficial to your way of thinking and ultimately gave you a better insight of the world around you, helped you make connections, and expand your vocabulary. I think it is important that when we are learning about a topic or even just discussing we should connect our thoughts of the present to our prior knowledge but also our prior experiences. I agree it is true that research is very important and positively impacts the teaching practices of today. I love that your post references the statement about there being more than one best way to teaching and learning a second language. I believe every students differs from one another, so they should all be taught and accommodated in their own unique way. Research highly impacts the choices I will make when deciding how to approach different situations. I feel it is important to keep in mind the practices that are appropriate for the student’s level of proficiency in the language. For example, it would be inappropriate to have beginner level students discuss the relationship between density and mass because it is not authentic to their learning. When looking to provide authenticity, at the beginner level students should be taught simple greetings and introductions because these things can be easily understood and they are authentic to the individual’s learning experience. (Brown & Lee, 2015, 141)
Jenny I agree with what you said about the Grammar Translation Method and I know from my personal experience that it didn't work for me either. The bases for it being so frequently used is that, "It requires few specialized skills on the part of teachers. Tests of grammar rules and of translations are easy to construct, can be objectively scored, and don't require fluent knowledge of the L2 by the test designer or teacher" (Brown & Lee, 2015, pg. 18). The focus can't be on what's easier for the teacher. In the textbook that it is a method that has no theory and there for no research to support it's use. (Brown & Lee, 2015, pg. 19). It is always better to use something that is proven to have good results. It seems to me that this method has no merit. I find it amazing that a method that has no theory attached to it is so frequently used. This is why research is so important. If more instructors were aware of this then the more students would benefit.
ReplyDeleteHi Jenny!
ReplyDeleteI agree with you about how research creates a positive impact on teaching practices. I believe it helps teachers see which methods are the most successful in the past and how they can make it fit their own teaching style and how to improve it to be more effective with more different types of students. I agree that research is something that can be used to look at and alter to make better. Thanks for sharing!
Hey Jenny,
ReplyDeleteI too think teaching and research are closely intertwined. Research should be used by teachers so that they can find the best practices to suit the students in their classroom. On the flip side researchers need teachers to test their theories so that they know if it is the best practice or not. Great point made in your post.
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ReplyDeleteJenny, I find it very helpful to think how the use of your knowledge of language to think thoroughly beyond a single word’s meaning within the English language. You instead allow your brain to move past the single word and look thoroughly beyond the meaning. As individuals, we have to look passed what's in front of us and seek to gain further knowledge from what already exists, this is the reason research exists. Also, this emphasized why it's so important to incorporate research in current methods of classroom practices.
ReplyDelete