Learning to Teach Better

Another interesting session this week! This week was another lesson that made me question why we do the things we do: 1. Guessing words from context- This wasn't the first time I heard that guessing the meaning of words from context is ineffective. However, in textbooks and in our curriculum at our IEP, guessing words from context plays an integral role on what students should be able to do. The exercise that was presented during the class was an excellent example of how we can really incorrectly guess the meaning of the right word. It makes me realize what my students really do when we complete these exercises. In the end, I have to explain and describe what the word really means because the guesses have a tendency to be extremely off. 2. Don't grade the first draft- Before working at my current job, I never graded the first draft for the reasons outlined in the session. However, I started grading the first drafts in order to make myself appear to be "in line" and ...

Very insightful discussion this week- I'd never thought about the potential negative effects of asking students to guess words from the context. It's something I have done in the past and after this week's discussion, I will reconsider its effectiveness... It's also made me acknowledge the difficult students have when reading a text for the first time: they are thinking about pronunciation, comprehension & probably the fact that other class members are listening to them. Perhaps something to avoid in the future with lower level groups...

And I want to thank Phil from Malaysia who had shared a number of helpful websites during this session!

I love that Penny brought up about the use of L1. People here believe that using L1 in lessons is a taboo and those who are found using L1 could be simply labelled as incompetent. It is true after all that using L1 can also be a waste of time especially when it is incomprehensible. People suggest the use of simple English in second language classrooms to make input comprehensible yet often teachers are unsure of the level of simple English people are talking about. A brief explanation from Penny on the use of L1 has made me feel more confident with my teaching. Thank you Penny!

Week three provided more interesting insights about error correction and what is the most effective way to do it. Since working at my current IEP, I have really thought more critically about what I am doing in terms of error correction, especially in terms of writing, and whether what I am doing is more effective or not. In the past, I have tried various methods, including providing codes, highlighting, and letting students "figure out" how to correct it. In the end, I have found (and students have also told me) providing explicit feedback to be the most helpful and effective, and it's good to see that research shows this. I was also heartened to hear from Penny that Microsoft Word "track changes" can be considered good and helpful for students. I agree that it is beneficial for students to see the changes. What I wonder is how helpful track changes is for students to remember and take note of the changes; sometimes I wonder if students just click through the ch...

Whenever the text I’m dealing with permits, I like to use graphic organizers with my classes. From the feedback I’ve gotten from students, they tell me that they help them understand the text better and they are more successful in answering the reading comprehension questions that follow the texts. Graphic organizers can be easily found on the net. Depending on the text you’re dealing with, there graphic organizers such as cause -effect, problem -solution etc. My favourites are the K-W-L (what I know, what I want to learn and what I learned-this was mentioned on Sunday’s session) and the 3-2-1 Strategy. Ss write down 3 things they found out, 2 interesting things and 1 question that they still have. As far as writing is concerned, there are also graphic organizers which mostly help with the organization of their writing, such as persuasion maps, essay maps, story maps etc.

A couple of resources I mentioned in yesterday's session: Trello https://trello.com/ This can be used for writing projects, especially those where learners work on continuing or completing each others' stories. The teacher can see it being updated in real time. My students introduced me to it and I've used in in workshops and for collaborative tasks. draftback.com - http://draftback.com/ This enables you to 'playback' google documents - yours or anyone else's - to see the edits and revisions as they were made. It looks like a good tool if you want to see how your students develop their writing. https://trello.com/