R-A Chpt.13 Promoting Literacy Development

This chapter expands on the ideas of teaching literacy through a natural language framework that were introduced in chapter 5. They talk about using the language experience approach which is where the students begin writing experiences from stories and other things that they dictate to the teacher who then writes it down. I think this idea would work well especially with beginners because it will make it easier for them to connect written and spoken language since they will already know the meaning of the words since it comes directly from them. I was already familiar with the techniques discussed under the Literature-Based curriculum as I learned about the before-during- after reading activities in my content area reading class. I also found the section about feed back on errors quite helpful as I never would have thought of providing feedback on content/meaning based errors first and then the grammatical/spelling errors on later drafts.

R-A Chpt. 5: Literacy Development

This chapter discussed how to encourage literacy development in the second language classroom. They describe both reading and writing as interactional processes, and not only interacting with the text, but with the teacher and peers as well. The authors also talk about the whole language movement, which is the basis for a natural language/literacy framework which emphasises the importance of learning to read and write in order to communicate and survive rather than just teaching reading/writing skills out of context. I definitely agree that students will be more motivated to learn to read and write if it has an importance to them that is outside of the classroom. This is much easier in an ESL classroom than in a foreign language classroom, because the need to be able to communicate in the target language is there every day. However I feel that if the foreign language teacher sets up pen pal programs or other activities that involve the target language community, as the author suggests, it will greatly increase students' motivation to want to be literate in the language, more so than having them practice writing compositions that aren't really relevant to real life communication.

R-A Chpt 11: Storytelling

This chapter talks about how to use storytelling, drama and role play in the language classroom. The author gives examples of different types of activities you could do with different age groups and proficiency level. I honestly don't see myself using most of the story telling activities she suggested in a high school classroom, but I did like the role play situations she explained, and how the teacher can include students of many different levels in the same role play if she takes on a leading role and adjusts the input for each student so they will be able to understand and participate on their individual level. Also, in this chapter I could really tell that this book seems to be written for ELL teachers, more so than in other chapters. However, I still found it to be helpful and I could see how the activities could be adapted to the foreign language classroom.

Moeller handout: teaching literature

This article addressed the role literature plays in the foreign language classroom, and the author argues that it is an excellent way to teach the language within the context. It also gives examples of pre reading activities, activities to help with comprehension and building vocabulary as well as expansion activities(such as creative writing or performance of the story) and a way to connect it to the target language culture. I really enjoyed reading the article as well, I found it to be very informative on how to present literature to the class. It made me laugh when at the beginning of the article the author was talking about the "traditional" way of teaching literature which is where the teacher explains the "reading of the text" to the students with no interaction from them because that is exactly how my professor of Latin American lit teaches. I guess in his defense I should let you know that he is 80 years old, and from the looks of it I dont' think he's ha any recent professional development classes to update his teaching methods....

C&D Chpt 11: Connections Standard

In this chapter, the authors explained how to successfully integrate other subject area content into the language classroom. They discussed several different forms of doing this such as immersion and content based instruction. The pros and cons to these methods were also discussed and came to the conclusion that it can only be successful if the need to master the content does not overshadow the language and culture standards. I really enjoyed reading this chapter as I was worrying about how to go about planning for our connections demo. I feel as though this chapter helped me to see more clearly how teaching content can make the need to learn language more salient and at the same time reinforce other curricular standards. I think I now have an idea for my demo!

C&D Chpt. 7: Thematic Planning

This chapter gives very detailed instruction on how to plan your instruction around a central theme. It focuses on the importance of having a balance between language use, content and culture in the units & lessons while still connecting them all to a central theme. Although it was nice that the authors were so detailed on how to plan thematically, I found this chapter to be a little dense, and probably would have been more helpful in remembering the information if it was broken down better. I have already learned how to do backward design in the 502 class, so that was a nice review. I also liked the idea of having interactive homework, as I feel that students would be more motivated to practice their language at home if they are given an oral and almost teaching task to show their family what they have learned that if I were to send them home with a worksheet.

R-A Chpt. 9: Communicative Practices

This chapter explains the Natural Approach to language learning and its four basic principles. Later the author gives various activities that can be done in the classroom according to the level of speech production the students are at, including activities for TPR, roleplaying, activities that include reading and writing such as a penpal station and many more. I especially liked the section where they layed out different thematic units and included coordinating topics and situations. That part sort of goes along with what we were doing last week on the board, when we were trying to think of broad thematic units that would allow for the creating of "bigger idea" questions to guide the unit. I was also glad that they addressed the issue of when students should focus on form and high level thinking skills within the natural approach, because I was thinking that this approach wouldn't go very far a higher level language courses as I feel the content would be limited. Now I see that the content can be expanded on, so that the student's progress in the language can move beyond basic survival skills.