Week 10: Brown 22 and Kumar 7 & 8

      I found all the chapters very useful and made me think about topics that I would have not considered while teaching in an ESL classroom. I liked the quote in Kumar's book about language: "We use it, misuse it, and abuse it. And yet, we seldom think about it" (156). This is an eye-opening phrase, and as future teachers it is necessary to start fostering language awareness, so our students can understand the role of language in their lives. Teaching general language awareness is not enough by itself, we need to consider the sociopolitical aspects that surround language itself.  General and critical language awareness are both essential and need to be taught together. Besides teaching the content, such as literacy skills and grammar, I have to get students to be aware of their own language development and issues surrounding that language. Power and control surrounds language, and students need to be aware and understand the effects of it within society. Another useful topic this week is the importance of activating intuitive heuristics. I was not familiar with the word heuristics before reading this chapter. I liked this chapter because it focuses on guiding learners in a way that they can learn by themselves and from their own experiences instead of following directions. I like the idea of teaching the students to be independent learners. If I construct the right strategies to do this, they will be able to discover the rules of the linguistic system by themselves and become aware of their own language development. Episodes 8.1 and 8.2 caught my attention because these examples show me what not to do as well as the correct way of teaching them to be independent learners. The teacher in episode 8.1 focuses too much on teaching grammar, uses a textbook and does not create sufficient intuitive heuristics. Just by looking at the dialog, we can see that the teacher is not creating affective communication in the classroom and missing the opportunity to allow a positive learning environment. In contrast, the teacher in episode 8.2 uses a variety of questions and phrases that guides them in creating a meaningful conversational interaction, uses a fun text, and then at the end introduces the main topic. The learners are allowed to think outside the box and become independent learners. In brown's chapter, the section on the issues surrounding how to teach grammar provides some guidelines and conditions that are helpful to future teachers, like myself. Brown states not to explain something that is unknown, instead let the student know that the information will be researched and the answer will be brought the following day, we do not want to create confusion and give false information. It is ok to correct grammatical errors as long as there is a communicative flow between the students and the teacher to improve learner's language. All of these chapters focus on language and to create a positive learning environment where students can learn by themselves and understand the issues surrounding language within society. These chapters were helpful and interesting, but I am still wondering should I introduce sociopolitical issues surrounding language (the critical language awareness) when my students are at a beginner level? Wouldnt it be complicated for them, language wise?