Teaching culture in the L2 classroom

Teaching culture is a good way for students to learn about the language they are studying.  It allows them to make connections and comparisons with their own language and culture.  I think teaching culture is a very important part of teaching L2, but I think that it is difficult in lower level classes.  I think it is easy to teach some parts of culture to beginning L2 learners, such as food, holidays, and sports (with popular teams being a natural continuation).  However, I think teaching culture also means including dialect differences, register changes, current events, and history, all of which could be difficult for beginner L2 learners.  This means that in the lower level L2 classroom, culture should be something that is not very concrete yet, but rather something fluid that is always changing.  A good example is something I have experienced in the classroom.  When our textbook covered Colombia, it limited the culture portion of the chapter to the various geographical regions, cultural diversity within the population, and some key, legal, exports.  This means that the students learned a few general facts about Colombia, but did not learn about the dangerous politics, violent current events, or bloody history of that country.  This is a good example of my point because these things could be a lot to handle for a new L2 learner who would need not only to process these things, but to understand the language behind them to truly grasp the culture they were being taught. 
As stated in the book, teaching "facts" about a culture's current events, politics, and even history is difficult because these things can change dramatically depending on the situation in that particular country.  Current events, which are an important part of learning about a new culture, are also difficult to teach because to be current, they need to be happening as they are being taught.  This becomes difficult for beginner L2 learners especially because they may need to learn a lot of new vocab just to keep up with the stories, making it harder for them to entirely understand the events and the cultures they are tied to. 
Another problem stated in the book is that it is difficult to dispel stereotypes when teaching culture because, unless the curriculum calls for it, there may not be enough time to go in depth about everything that is taught, leading to the creation of stereotypes, which can be very detrimental to L2 learners.  The book says that this "information-only" approach "provides no means of accounting for cultural variation," which is essential for culture learning in L2 students. 
Another problem with teaching culture in the classroom is that some students may become too focused on the culture they have studied, and become ignorant to other parts of culture or other cultures entirely.  A student who has learned a lot about Mexican culture and little about Argentinian culture could find themselves at a huge disadvantage if they ever found themselves in Argentina.  Those two countries, although often lumped together as "Latin American" in some contexts, are very different in culture as well as in language itself. 
So, i think that although it is important to learn about the cultures of the new language, I think that it is also important to know that the difficulties that come along with teaching culture are substantial.  Teaching culture to beginner L2 learners should be very different than teaching culture to advanced L2 learners. 

Teaching/Learning L2 Culture

To me, culture is the distinct and collective ideas, values, and characteristics of a particular group in society. This can be broken down into many categories that are typical of that particular culture, such as food, religion, art, music, habits, etc. I believe that all cultures are also followed by many assumptions or stereotypes that may or may not accurately reflect the lifestyles and beliefs of the group. This is one of the more important reasons that I think we should teach L2 culture; to get a better understanding of the culture that is followed by a particular language which often times can have its own given reputation before we have the chance to learn about it from a legitimate source. Another reason why I believe we should teach L2 culture is to better understand the language in general. More often than not, there are words that cannot be translated from one language to another because they specifically reflect a part of that culture that cannot be shared or properly defined with another language. I think it’s important for children to learn that the language that follows a culture is very important because it allows us and others to express thoughts and ideas in ways that are unique to that group of society. Therefore, the language and culture go hand-in-hand and both should be taught equally in the classroom.

            I think it’s possible to teach L2 culture in the classroom setting – to a certain extent. There is a great deal of knowledge about a culture that can be shared within a classroom environment that comes from different sources such as textbooks, media portrayals, news reports, etc. However, I feel that there is only so much that can be said about a culture and it would be much more beneficial to learn in that culture. Personally, being immersed in the Spanish culture during my study abroad experience really allowed me to see first-hand what true Spanish culture is and from that real perspective I was able to form my own opinions about it. This same reflection can be done after reading, for example a textbook article on a culture, but it probably will not have the same effect on that person if they are not experiencing the culture in real life. Cultural immersion seems to be a long-lasting learning experience even after the individual has gone back home. Will I forget what I learned about cultural aspects of Spain from a class lecture? Yes, probably. But will I forget what I experienced while living in Granada? Absolutely not. Not only is the experience unforgettable for most people, it is much more interesting than watching a documentary on cultural lifestyles. So, to answer this question, yes I believe that it is possible to teach L2 culture in a classroom but personally I believe the real learning happens on those cultures’ grounds. The classroom itself is really the only limitation. Relating this back to the five C’s of language learning, it is important to integrate Culture with Community, meaning that the learner needs to get out of the classroom and into the real world to learn from experiences and evaluate the different perspectives they may come across.

Teaching the L2 Culture

Culture is defined as the culmination of various aspects in a community, including their personal habits, community habits, their behaviors of living day to day life and during interactions, their literature and fine arts, their values, and their language(s). These can be shaped by factors such as geographical location, population size, and religion.

It is very important to teach L2 culture while learning the L2 because it helps students to better contextualize the language. Students are able to visualize and refute Higg’s Lexical Analog Hypothesis, the hypothesis that the foreign language is the same as the native language, except that it uses different words. Students can better comprehend that grammatical order and rules of the language, based on historical and cultural themes.

Although harder than learning culture in the actual target language country, it is possible to teach L2 culture in the classroom setting. Teachers need to command a great use of time sensitive, authentic materials in order to best pass along the real culture of the L2. These can include recently published magazines similar to those in the United States, news broadcasts, and popular music. Culture needs to be shown, not told. Teachers should not be standing in front of the classroom and telling students that this, this, and this happen during Semana Santa in Spain, but rather let students investigate it, learn for themselves, and construct their own assumptions. Some limitations that may exist, as Seelye points out is the negativity that can come out of ineffective “fact only” approach to teaching culture: establish stereotypes rather than diminishing them, not preparing students for all situations, and teaching out dated lifestyles. Teachers should be sure to give students a well-rounded view of the culture, especially when culture exists in multiple provinces or countries.

Exposing Students to Culture

 I would define culture as the actions, expressions and beliefs of a group of people. This goes further, however because I will need to define all of these words in relation to culture. The actions of people include the way that they celebrate their traditions and perform their every day tasks. The expressions of these people are ways that the people demonstrate what they believe or what they have been taught by their ancestors. The beliefs aspect corresponds to the expressions, but have to do with their religion or cultural ideals. I think that all these ideas make up the definition of culture, along with the influence of the language in a culture. 

            I think that it is important to teach the target culture simply because it is an integral part of the target language.  There is no culture without language, nor language without culture.  They are internally connected and cannot really be separated.  For instance, when a student learns a word, phrase or expression that is unusual to them, they are referencing it from their own target culture, but that student looked at it from a target cultural standpoint, they could understand the significance in the context of the target language.  Clearly, there is no way to truly separate language and culture.  This means that when we want our students to learn a foreign language, it is highly important and necessary to teach the target culture as well. 

            I think that everyone would agree with me if I said that the best way to teach the target language is in the place where it is spoken, but this is not possible when thinking about teaching High School students.  The financial limitations are essentially the biggest problem that a foreign language teacher has to face when trying to teach culture.  A teacher cannot simply bring the students to the target culture, so they need to try their best to bring the culture to the classroom.  If students can walk into a foreign language classroom and feel that they are truly in another culture, then a foreign language teacher has moved the culture to the students.  Students need to hear the sounds of the culture (the language) through people communicating and music.  If they can become aware of practices and beliefs and address these concerns in the target language, they are truly in the target culture.

            Culture cannot be learned or taught directly, but students can become aware of culture through occurrences in the classroom.  A teacher cannot simply sit the students down and say, “This is Spanish culture”.  Culture is more of an experiential learning than anything else.  I think that allowing students to understand the target culture is key to infusing culture in the curriculum. 

Teaching L2 Culture

In my view, culture is a way of life.  It includes food, holidays, family customs, slang, sports, activities, movies, music, politics, literature, and much more.  Culture is the heartbeat of a nation or a community.  It includes a nation’s history and heritage as well as climate and geography.  Anything that can effect or influence a particular community is part of their culture.  Culture is an identity. 

I believe that it is of the utmost importance to teach L2 culture.  Teaching L2 culture brings the language to life.  Students will not see the relevance of the language if they do not know anything about where it is spoken.  They will not see the importance of being able to communicate with native speakers if they aren’t exposed to thinks that they could talk about or take interest in.  If students are taught culture, they may be more likely to want to visit other countries, interact with other people, and truly learn the language.  For example, in the Spanish I class that I am teaching right now we almost always have “Culture Fridays”.  For an hour we look at pop culture in Spanish speaking countries.  We listen to music, watch movie trailers, talk about politics, and look at the latest trends.  Although not all students care, many become more and more interested in other nations each day.  They compare the other cultures to their own and begin to understand how life can vary across the world.  Not only that, but they have picked favorite songs and topics and will ask about them or request to listen to certain songs.  I think this is great because they are actually asking for more exposure to the target language and are having fun while learning. 

Furthermore, I believe in cross-culture and global communication.  I believe in introducing students to multiple perspectives so that they can develop a greater understanding of the world that they live in.  It is my hope that they will not pass judgment on others just because people from other places have different family values, political thoughts, or even taste in food.  I hope that students will realize that there is not one right way to live life and that much can be learned through cultural interactions.  The world today is becoming increasingly interconnected, and I believe that students need to know the value of cross-cultural interactions as well as the importance of understanding and respecting others.  Increased contact with other cultures might promote misunderstandings if future generations do not understand how different cultures function, what they value, or how to show respect to one another.  I want to present students with these differences so that they can begin to negate this effect.

I absolutely believe that it is possible to teach L2 culture in the classroom, or at least expose students to it.  It is true that the only way to really experience a culture is to immerse yourself in it, but in high school that is not always an option.  Culture can be brought into the classroom through authentic material like magazines, movies, talk shows, pictures, and food.  I would hope that most language teachers have been abroad so that they know about the L2 culture from experience.  The teacher is a great key into other communities.  They have lived it and therefore have personal photos, memories, and experiences.  Stories and visuals can be a great way to showing students what other parts of the world are like.  Not only that, but traditional foods could be made and brought in for students to experience.  Right now we are planning a day in Spain for a future class.  We will research customs and portray them in the classroom with as much accuracy as possible.  Granted, the limitation here is that students will not be able to interact with native speakers in their own cultures, but expose will at least assist in preparing them for what they might experience if they do travel in the future.

Finally, I think that culture should be incorporated in everyday activities (like using authentic material in grammar, writing, and listening lessons), but also that is should be taught explicitly.  Culture can be used as a great break to the grammar aspect of learning a language.  I do not see any harm in taking a day to go over the cultures someone might encounter around the world.  It can only increase student interest and interest in the language.  I do realize that sometimes there is not enough time for this.  If that is the case, then the instructor must make an effort to incorporate culture into regular lessons.  Overall, I think that culture is and integral part of L2 learning and assists in the development of a well rounded individual. 

Teaching the L2 Culture

In my view, culture is the very broad concept that encompasses the things that people do and the things that people learn, along with why those people do and learn those things.  I think it’s very important to teach L2 culture because it’s extremely important for people to develop cultural understanding and for people to value and respect cultural diversity. If done properly, I definitely think it’s possible to teach L2 culture in a classroom setting. Since we cannot expect everyone to go live in/immerse themselves in the L2 culture that they are studying, we need to make sure that L2 culture is taught well in the classroom setting. The limitations to teaching L2 culture in the classroom would be that often, the teacher who is teaching the L2 culture is not a native of that culture and may not feel prepared to teach it. I think the biggest limitation, however, would be the most obvious, and that is the fact that while in a classroom setting, students are often not immersed in the target culture and therefore are not learning to see the culture from an insider’s point of view. But again, we cannot expect every student to be able to go live in the L2 culture, so classroom culture instruction needs to be of high quality in order to get students as close to an insider’s perspective as possible.

            I think culture should be learned and taught in many different ways using many different methods and materials. We saw the four common approaches to teaching culture in our book, the “Frankenstein Approach,” the “4-F Approach,” the “Tour Guide Approach,” and the “By-The-Way Approach” and I think that all of these methods could be beneficial to students if used well and used together. I don’t think that a teacher should teach a semester-long class and only use one approach, let’s say the “4-F Approach,” because then all the students will have learned about would be folk dances, festivals, fairs and food! However, if the teacher combines these four approaches and uses one approach one week for a certain set of topics and another approach the next week for a different set of topics, I think students would get a lot out of this. I think teachers should use many different materials and types of lessons for teaching culture. For example, if the only thing you do to “teach culture” is make burritos and salsa one day to teach about “Hispanic food,” I don’t think that will really enhance the students’ knowledge on Hispanic culture. A teacher could show clips of TV shows and/or movies from the target culture, they could bring in native-speakers as guests, they could cook authentic, non-stereotypical food with the class, they could have students role play certain situations, and the list goes on. I also think students tend to be very interested in the “survival skills” of a culture which are represented by the Four Categories for Cultural Understanding in our book on pages 354-355. I feel like students are interested in the conventions and connotations of the L2 culture because they like to compare them with the conventions and connotations of their own culture. For example, when my brother studied in Russia, he was told upon his arrival that it is normal for people to stand very close to each other while speaking, and he was told not to back away from someone even if he felt uncomfortable because backing away would insult the other person. He was also told the phrase that was considered to be the worst swear in the culture so that he would know never to say it, even if joking. I recently heard another example of cultural conventions from my grandparents who lived in Senegal, Africa for a few years. My grandmother worked as an office secretary while there and she told me that her work day was supposed to start at 9am. She said that the first few weeks of work, she was the only person in the office for about two hours, and then around 11am all the other workers would arrive. At first she had no idea why they were all late all the time, but when she realized that they all had very different concepts of time than she did, it made a lot more sense. People would leave for work at 9am, and they would walk there. While walking to work, people would stop and have long conversations with friends, pick up a few groceries, etc. and that was completely normal for them. My grandmother said that when she learned this and got to know more people, she too would stop and talk for 30 minutes to an hour on her way to work! Maybe this is just from my experiences, but I feel like many students find the 4 Categories for Cultural Understanding to be interesting. I think it’s important for teachers to teach to the interests of their students, so if everyone seems really interested in learning about different verbal connotations, spend some time on that. If everyone seems really interested in learning about the major rivers and monuments of a country and how they affect the culture, spend some time on that. I know that just because certain aspects of different cultures don’t seem to interest all students is not a reason not to teach them, but I definitely think it’s important for teachers to gauge students’ interest levels on certain aspects so that they can try to tie those things in to other aspects. 

Teaching Culture

In my view, culture is the collection of beliefs, customs and arts of a particular society or group that contributes to the identity of that society or group. Things such as religion, perspectives, arts, literature, music, traditions and food all fall under these three categories. They are the three categories that essentially shape what a culture consists of. It is incredibly important to teach the culture of the target language so that students can best understand it and think about the other viewpoints or customs that this target culture might have. Teaching culture opens students up to new ideas and traditions and exposes them to things that they perhaps would have never had the chance to experience; since some students may not ever have the chance to study abroad and see the target culture for themselves, it is incredibly important to bring the culture to the students as much as we possibly can by incorporating it into lessons. It is definitely possible to teach culture in the classroom setting; some of the best experiences in my foreign languages classes that I can remember are the days when we would spend an entire class period on culture discussing festivals, foods, customs or the music of the target culture. Not only did it create a more relaxed atmosphere as we got to enjoy food, music and speaking the target language in a relaxed setting, but it encouraged students to ask questions about the customs or festivities that we were studying. Of course, relaxed culture courses like this cannot happen every day but I think incorporating classes such as these creates a great, relaxed atmosphere for students. The limitations of teaching culture are that students could perhaps be unwilling to accept the differences of customs and traditions of the target culture and may not take an interest in it; however, I believe that it is up to the teacher to create an interesting and interactive lesson incorporating the target culture into the foreign language classroom. Culture should be taught in a way that doesn't make it seem random to the lesson plan. I have had countless teachers who would simply throw in a song by Juanes or Shakira and mention that they were from Colombia and consider that their culture lesson, or just mention Dia de los Muertos around Halloween. In order to make the culture seem more appealing to the students, the teacher must make sure that the lesson is not random and is planned out well. One of my Spanish teachers in high school always made it a point to bring up cultural issues such as immigration or elections happening in a country that spoke the target language and asking us our viewpoints on it. That was one of the most effective ways of teaching culture and I think it is something that should definitely be incoporated into the classroom, especially at a higher level of the foreign language.

Discussion #6: Teaching Culture

In your view, what is culture? Is it important to teach L2 culture? Why? Is it possible to teach L2 culture in the classroom setting? What are the limitations? How should culture be learned or taught? Use examples to support your points of view. 

Free Topic: iPads in the classroom

During my first classroom observation, I went to my local high school which has started integrating iPads into the curriculum.  As part of the program, incoming freshmen, along with sophomores, have received new iPad 2s.  The idea behind this new curriculum is that students need to adapt to a new world of education and business in which technology is paramount.  As of now, although the students have their iPads already, only a certain number of classes are using the new iPad/online curriculum.  The schools are rolling out in phases this new curriculum first as a relief to the taxpayers, and second to ensure that the new curriculum is tested slowly and carefully. 
In the class I observed, I witnessed one of the first Spanish classes to use the new iPad system.  The teacher I observed is the only Spanish teacher using the iPads, and one of only three foreign language teachers using the iPads.  Because of this, she told me that the new system can be overwhelming at times.  She does not have the resources she is used to because other teachers are not using the system yet.  From what I saw, I would say that the iPad system is working at about 33% efficiency right now. 
I can see the benefits of this system because it allows instant feedback and interactive learning for the students.  It allows for the teacher to provide the students with their own technological world of learning, and it allows the students to explore technology early in their education.  Not only does the system make it easier for the students, but eventually I think the teachers will become accustomed to online work making up a vast majority of the coursework. 
However, I think this system could be doomed to fail. I did see some positive aspects of the iPad system in my observation.  Students seemed to like the technology and one student even bragged to me about how his class was one of the first to use the iPads so much.  But with all of the upside, I did see some drawbacks.  One glaring problem with the iPads now is that there does not seem to be any way to regulate or eliminate time-wasting.  As I sat at the back of the class, one student was on her facebook and Twitter feeds while another played a racing game.  Another problem, at least in the class I observed, is the lack of "traditional" (used loosely) teaching methods; i.e. authentic materials, comprehensible input, students production.  As I stated in class, the teacher told me that she only uses about 20% target language right now, and only hopes to improve to 50-60% target language usage by the end of the year; and I think this is because of the technological aspect of the curriculum.
So, my thought process here goes two ways: (1) this system really is beneficial and the only problem now is that there is simply not enough data to consider it a success yet; or (2) this system is not working because it is not taking into account the attention spans and interests of the students, and the lack of "traditional" teaching is hurting the students.  What do you think of this kind of system? Do you think my observations about the shortcomings are valid?

Free topic: A well rounded learner?

Lately, I've been thinking about my own, and others, experiences as an L2 learner. It seems that I haven't really met any student who is really great at all three aspects of the language: speaking, reading, and writing. And it makes me wonder why that is. Why can some students be really great writers and readers, but be awful at speaking? Or students who have an amazing oral proficiency, but struggle to construct a logical argument in essay form? Many of the language theories that we have studied and I would say the overwhelming majority of topics that we have covered in class have been about oral proficiency. Oral proficiency is great for when students have experiences with native speakers whether it be face to face or while using technology. But I feel that we have spent very little time talking about reading or writing skills. How do you even go about these skills? In high school, there was a student a few years above me who was a Spanish native speaker, yet was taking classes in the language because she was unable to write well. Another friend is a Greek native speaker, and cannot read or write even as close to how well he can speak. So this leads me to ask, if we focus so much on learning an L2 in the same ways in which people learn their L1s, won't we have students who are great at oral proficiency, but lack in other areas. I believe that, as we have most seen in our language learning classes, it is important to provide transcripts when using authentic listening activities. It is also important to have students practice their writing skills as well as listening. I think that ways in which we can do that are having students read passages and use the vocab from said passages to write a summary. I think that, as much as we all believe that oral proficiency is important, all the other stuff is too. I think that if students are being exposed to a lot of native language authentic materials, it is very, very important to have a transcript, in order to see how things are written. A lot of the models for learning that we have talked about seem to exclude these and focus only on learning through auditory skills, including Gattegno’s Silent Way approach and Asher’s Total Physical Response method.

Another question that comes to hand it at what point do we start teaching each of these: reading, writing, listening, and speaking. I think that it is important to start off with speaking. These should be supplemented by vocabulary and grammar exercises in order to expand what you know and construct new forms of speech. I think that reading and writing can be the hardest to teach because they require a fair bit of vocabulary work and knowing how grammar works at its basic levels, but universal grammar can be used for this. I think that when each of these is introduced really depends on what the aims for the classes are. If you are trying to get your students to develop survival knowledge of the language, then oral proficiency is the key. If you want your students to be progressive in their language learning, then I think that there needs to be an even focus on all of the aspects, using many different teaching styles.

Free Choice Topic: Krashen's theories and acquistion

The topic that I really wanted to discuss for this week’s blog entry is the language learning theories that have been developed by Stephen Krashen. His hypotheses and theories have been the most intriguing concepts that we have learning about so far this semester and after watching the short video clip of him explaining his research, I thought that it seemed so relevant to real-life language learning.

One reason why I wanted to bring this particular topic up again was because Krashen’s theories reminded me a lot of my language learning experience while I was in Granada last semester. Obviously we had to live with a Spanish host family for five months there and I would say that I was “lucky” enough to get a family that didn’t speak any English so I had no choice but to learn the language. According to Krashen’s acquisition-learning hypothesis, the acquisition of a language is a subconscious process that happens when the learner is not even aware that it is happening, nor do they know when they have acquired new knowledge. I believe that this experience happened to me while I was living in Granada when I started noticing that I was using new vocabulary and phrases that I had only heard from my host family around the house that apparently I had picked up on. I never asked them what it meant or how to use it in a sentence, I just knew it and it came out of my mouth during conversation. This phenomenon is something that normally doesn’t happen in schools and in Krashen’s research, he talks a lot about how acquisition of the target language requires meaningful interaction during which the learner is focusing on the meaning of something rather than the grammatical aspects of it. He also distinguishes language learning and language acquisition; language learning involves formal instruction, which is less effective than the process of subconscious acquisition. This theory is so interesting to me because, as I stated above, it happened to me several times while I was living in Granada, but also I’d like to know how we can make sure this kind of acquisition happens in the classroom.

I think one way that we can attempt to teach for acquisition rather than learning would be to speak in the target language 100% of the time regardless if our students are at that level of proficiency. Just from hearing the language constantly (in an hour class period), students will eventually become more comfortable hearing the language and may have an easier time reproducing the language orally and on paper. Reaching this level of competence will probably be frustrating to many students but I think that using the target language all the time is the closest way that we can be immersed in that languages’ culture without leaving the traditional classroom and the most effective way we can achieve language acquisition as opposed to learning. 

Free Topic: Engagement in the Classroom

One thing that has concerned me so far during my observations and during my internship experience is engagement in the classroom.  What is going to make students interested in learning Spanish and what is going to keep them paying attention in class?  I do not think that these questions have easy answers.  For instance, we have to take into account all of the students that do not want to take another language, but are in class simply because it satisfies some kind of requirement.  This is especially true for the lower level classes.  Through my experiences so far I have a made a few observations.

First, students are more engaged if they are  presented with activities than with lecture, but there are still many students who do not participate.  A teacher can present a class with as many activities as possible, but how do you interest the students who simply do not care?  Furthermore, some moments of explanation are completely necessary.  I do not think that a class can be all activity based simply because some rules or concepts will have to be explained.  Many teachers I have observed to very well with keeping a balance, yet in lower levels sometimes about a third of the class does not care at all.  I think this is one of those challenges that teachers will have to experiment with for years and they still might not figure it out.  To me it would seem that the most you can do it vary your instruction enough so that the majority of students do not become disengaged.  I am not sure yet what to do for the rest, but I do think differentiation is a good place to start.

Second, I have some concerns with complete instruction in the target language, and those concerns arise from the engagement factor.  Now I believe that in an ideal world all classes would be taught in the target language, but we do not live in that world.  I think that complete instruction in the target language is acceptable for level three and above because those are students that have chosen to continue learning the target language.  Speaking and understanding the language will be engagement enough for them.  Personally, as I went on to more advanced classes I began to like Spanish classes more than anything else because it challenged me to understand everything in another language.  My brain was working overtime.  I think that this is the case with the students who continue their studies.  My concern then, is for those students in level one or two; the students that do not want to learn and cannot be made interested in the subject to a certain extent.  I think that if lower levels are taught completely in the target language that we may create more of the apathetic students.  That is, if students are overwhelmed from day one with another language they might choose to check out entirely.  Those students who might have decided to continue with the language would deem it worthless because it was too difficult.  I support the use of the target language, but perhaps more use of the native language might be necessary in introductory courses.  I am not certain about any of this, but I am looking for solutions to the issue of engagement.  I think it could potentially take an entire career to figure out.

Free Topic: Using Target Language in the Classroom

A topic that is very interesting to me about teaching to the target language is solely using the target language in the classroom.  I think that this is a huge aspect of teaching a foreign language that teachers often overlook. Most of the time, teachers assume that before they can really teach their students in the target language, they need to teach them that language, but in reality it is the other way around. 

After doing a few observations in foreign language classrooms, I have had the opportunity to see many different teaching styles.  In addition to this, I, as most prospective foreign language teachers, have attended many of foreign language classrooms where I have been the student.  This is important to remember because often times, we based our preferred method of teaching not only on our own personal preferred learning style, but also on the impact that certain methods have had on us that previous teachers have used. 

I can see that for both the teacher and the students, using solely the target language can be overwhelming in the beginning.  As a teacher, I would have concerns that students did not really understand my language or the material at all, but feel that they cannot communicate this because they cannot use the target language proficiently.  I think that in my future classroom, I will try to make sure that students have a few minutes in each class period or once a week (depending on the level) to ask questions in English to better understand ideas that they may be unsure about.  I think that asking and answering questions for up to 5 minutes in a class period allows students to feel secure about their understanding of different concepts that are taught.  Other than these few minutes, it is highly important that students heard and become used to the target language as much as possible.

An important thought is that the Direct Method is the way that we are taught our first language.   Learning vocabulary and grammar through practice is the way that our parents helped us acquire our first language.  We did not sit for 45 minutes a day memorizing random vocabulary words.  It is important to note that we used words that we actually needed to say so we learned these words to participate in conversations, in which we gained the understanding of the vocabulary through practice.  In a foreign language classroom, it is impossible to completely use the Direct Method, but teachers need to try to teach students as if they are learning their first language as much as possible.  Clearly we all became proficient at using our first language because we were exposed to the language directly.

            

Free Topic: Importance of Natural Approach in the Classroom

Even before learning about all the different methods of teaching foreign languages, the Natural Approach had been one that had seemed the most effective to me. During my Education 500 experience, I worked with an elementary school Spanish teacher for grades two through five. This teacher spoke in the target language part of the time, choosing to use repetition as one of her methods; she would say something in Spanish, repeat it in English so that the students knew what she was saying. The students learned a decent amount of Spanish, but it was nothing different than most other classes; they spoke Spanish perhaps 10% of the time. However, halfway through the semester this teacher left on maternity leave and her long term subsitute took her place. This substitute had a completely new method of teaching - the Natural Approach. From the first day that she began teaching in the class, she refused to speak a word of English except to give instructions at times, although she usually still instructed the students in Spanish. For the first few days, the students were completely overwhelmed. They had gone from a classroom where they were not required to read, write and speak in the target language all the time. Though they were intimidated at first, the students soon began to warm up to this approach. The substitute preferred a teaching style that focused on reading paragraphs of short stories and learning the vocabulary necessary to comprehend the story rather than teaching the students lists of random vocabulary words each day and having that be the extent of the lesson. Not only did this teacher require the students to read stories and answer comprehension questions about the story in Spanish, but she also required them to write a summary of the story in complete Spanish after they had read it, with an ungraded assessment given at the end of each story unit. The stories used all different tenses, which gave the students an exposure to preterite, imperfect, future, etc.

I had been skeptical of this approach when the substitute teacher had first started, but by the end of my Education 500 experience I had seen what a great approach the Natural Approach really is. The students had been nervous at first but by the end of the semester, they were able to comprehend the stories with almost no problems. They began using more and more Spanish in their speaking and writing and although they would make many errors, they knew a great deal more of the vocabulary and grammatical structures than they had before. They also began using different tenses in their writing which was something that I was amazed by; as they had been exposed to the preterite in one of the stories, in their assessments some of the students remembered that the teacher had taught them that "comio" is the third person singular preterite tense of "comer" and wrote comio instead of come, changing the tense correctly without even understanding what they were doing! This was something that was completely amazing to me as students were not even introduced to the present tense and how to conjugate verbs until the seventh or eighth grade level of Spanish at the school I was working at. This experience only reaffirmed my belief that teaching in the target language as much as possible is completely necessary to promote growth and understanding in the L2 no matter what age the students are. While I think it may be necessary to use a little more English than necessary in the introductory level of a foreign language class, I think that the teacher must begin to limit the amount of English in the classroom as soon as possible. After seeing the benefits of the Natural Approach, it completely makes sense as to why it works; as Spanish majors at UNH, we were required to study abroad. Is it not true that the largest amount of growth in our knowledge of Spanish occurred when we were abroad? For me, I definitely learned much more while studying abroad in Spain than I did in the semesters of Spanish courses I had taken at the university level. While of course younger students in elementary, middle and high school cannot study abroad, it is important to bring the "abroad" part to them - by immersing students in as much of the language as possible. Only then will they be able to grow in the language and become more proficient.

Topic of Our Choice!! Scripted Dialogues

For this free topic blog, I decided to write about the advantages and disadvantages of using scripted L2 material in an L2 classroom. When I was a senior in high school, the Spanish teacher for whom I was a TA told me about the idea of having students repeat pre-memorized, scripted phrases each day in order to become more familiar with the structures and sounds of grammatically correct sentences. For example, if I were to use this idea in a Spanish classroom, the students would come into class and I would say, “Hola clase, ¿cómo están ustedes hoy?” and they would say back to me “Hola señorita Ainaire, estamos muy bien, ¿y cómo está usted hoy?” I would say “Estoy muy bien hoy, gracias por preguntar. Clase, ¿qué quieren hacer en clase hoy?” And they would say “Señorita Ainaire, ¡queremos aprender mucho español hoy!” I would say “¡Eso es fabuloso, porque vamos a aprender mucho español hoy!” and they would say “¡Hoy va a ser un buen día!”

I know this example is pretty simple and a little cheesy, but this is just so you all can get the basic idea. Although the teacher that I was a TA for never actually used this idea in her classroom, she highly recommended it to me and I’ve thought about it many times since then. We saw from the Audiolingual Approach that memorizing dialogues can be helpful sometimes, but it does not promote much creativity. I definitely do not think that this dialogue memorization idea should be the only approach used by the L2 teacher because, as said before, this approach does not allow the students to use much creativity at all. However, I do see some benefits to this idea. By repeating a scripted set of phrases every day, the correct structures for these sentences will become engrained in students’ memories throughout time and practice. Even if the students have not learned about the verb “estar” or about “ir + a + infinitive,” they will have these forms in their memories so when it does come time to formally learn about them, students will already feel (at least a little) familiar with them. With this idea, I think it would be good to have one short set of dialogue (like the example above) for about two or three weeks. After those two or three weeks, I would teach the students a new dialogue (something about the current season, for example) and we would practice that one for two or three weeks as well. These short dialogue exchanges would only take one or two minutes from each class, and they would be done every day.

            I’ve always thought this was a pretty neat idea, and I’d like to hear what you all think about it. Again, I would not use these pre-memorized dialogues for more than one or two minutes of each class—I just thought it seemed like a good way to get students familiar with some verb forms, some vocabulary, and some grammatical structures before formally learning what they mean and how to use them. Although there is no student creativity involved, I think that, for a short little activity, this idea could be very helpful to many students.  

Technology and Foreign Language Learning

I believe that technology is a wonderful asset to have in any classroom, but especially in a foreign language classroom. Our future students will undoubtedly be more tech-savvy than this generation is as technology keeps advancing as such a rapid pace; therefore it will be even more a part of their lifestyle and teaching should be adjusted accordingly to keep up with the times. My particular article that I was assigned to read was “Promoting intercultural exchanges with blogs and podcasting: a study of Spanish-American telecollaboration” and I believe that the type of technology and media mentioned in this article would be something I, and other teachers, would definitely try to incorporate into their classroom. The use of computer-mediated communication (CMC) is only getting more popular in our everyday lives but we also see its usefulness in foreign language education. I believe that these types of tools – blogs, podcasting, social media connections, etc. --- are an asset, but shouldn’t necessarily have to replace traditional tools. For example, students may find it very helpful to listen to a native speaker talk about a concept through a podcast to get a new perspective and to get used to a different accent, but they should also be working just as hard in the classroom with face-to-face discussion where they aren’t hiding behind their screens, so to speak.

                As stated above, I personally feel that social networking tools are awesome and provide an opportunity to dig deeper into a topic that may not be fully discussed in a classroom. For me, I’m not always the one to participate in classroom discussions but I do have an opinion and it makes it easier to share it from the comfort of my own home and putting it on the internet on a blog, for example. Even over the past few years, our country has been rapidly turning to online responses, from business emails to now tweeting about popular television shows and sharing thoughts with the rest of the world. With language teaching, this helps us future educators because we can simulate real-life situations with social networking tools, share authentic materials that we discover online, and at the same time our students can learn from it all at once and have a lengthy discussion with each other. The message that I’m trying to convey here is that putting not only discussions online, but tools like articles about real people, podcasts with native speakers, thought-provoking tweets, are all things that contribute to a learning environment in which we can show our students that this language is a useful thing to know, or else we could not have access to these materials; essentially the options are limitless when you incorporate technology.

                Regarding the Second Life language learning, I think that this is a great opportunity for students to interact with real native speakers and practice their L2. This is a great tool that would surely speed up the learning process and gives an opportunity to students who cannot necessarily practice their L2 where they live --- there aren’t many opportunities to practice Spanish in rural New Hampshire! I think this idea is awesome, I’ve never seen anything like it before and I don’t really have anything negative to say about it!