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sábado, 26 de noviembre de 2011
miércoles, 16 de noviembre de 2011
Unit 10: Accents & Immigration
Activity 1 Topic 1
The recordings of various dialects are interesting to browse through. In the first website, with the maps and flags, there were some predictable accents (like those in North Carolina and Arkansas). However, there were also some surprising accents, like the one in New Orleans. The recording from the native-born New Orleans resident didn’t sound like the accent that is typically associated with that region, which may indicate that her upbringing was influenced by people who were not natives of southern Louisiana. The ku.edu website was more thorough, and had various accents from each state. This is interesting to see how even within states there are pronunciation differences. The one downside is that the differences between accents was not as easily identifiable as in the website that had transcribed the excerpts into IPA; with that resource, one could follow along and see exactly where divergent occurred (for example, where one dialect had a ‘shwa’ where another did not). The language trainers game was challenging, but mostly for non-US accents. I got all of the American accents, and most of the British ones, but none of the non-Anglo accents. This is interesting, as it indicates a bias towards the NS accents, at least for me.
Activity 1 Topic 2
I think the interaction between immigration attitudes and their effect on the classroom is highly dependent on the learning environment. In the US, I taught in the Bronx, which is the most ethnically diverse county in the country. It was common knowledge that we had undocumented students, but it never an issue, probably because anyone who teaches there knows what the environment is before they accept the job. It’s almost like the ‘we,’ as seen being discussed by the psychologist in the ABC videos, is redefined from the get-go. In fact, the white teachers are the ‘others’ in that borough. We were advocating for all of our learners’ needs, regardless of perceived immigration status. And we did accept a ‘standard English’ when teaching and modeling for our students (Topic A) who typically spoke urban English (O’Grady, p.499) or Spanglish (p.501). But I imagine the situation is more precarious in places where immigrants are a small minority. In certain environments, the ‘we’ may be more rigid and students who are perceived to be immigrants may not be accepted immediately into this construct. I imagine that ELL teachers in these contexts would be a greater focal point for frustrations that other teachers may not have anticipated (in the same way that Special Ed teachers are sometimes resented by mainstream teachers as the special needs of their students increase). Overall, though, I think that the vast majority of teachers in all parts of the country are interested in teaching their students and simply want the tools necessary to do so. Now, I have to add something that was not in the original question. How would my own feelings impact my classroom, vis-à-vis immigration? Minimally, since I don’t feel like I am an INS officer. I teach whoever the school says is in my classroom. If a student asks me my opinion, I would defer to non-class times just as I do about any personal issues (abortion, politics, etc.)
Activity 2
One of the strongest ways sites like the PBS website can benefit educators is to help illustrate the effects of language beyond sheer communication. We all live with accents and dialects every day, but seldom stop to think about the role that language plays when intertwined with ethnicity, gender, education, etc. Discussing these elements of language in class will not only enlighten learners as to the origins of certain dialects (like the working theories behind the development of AAE) but will also raise awareness as to how these dialects affect status and opportunity today (like with the experiment of using different speaking patterns over the phone). And this research is also a great jumping-off point for discussing pragmatic contexts (such as the ‘Have you had a bowel movement today?’ example, being appropriate in a doctor’s office, but few other places).
The recordings of various dialects are interesting to browse through. In the first website, with the maps and flags, there were some predictable accents (like those in North Carolina and Arkansas). However, there were also some surprising accents, like the one in New Orleans. The recording from the native-born New Orleans resident didn’t sound like the accent that is typically associated with that region, which may indicate that her upbringing was influenced by people who were not natives of southern Louisiana. The ku.edu website was more thorough, and had various accents from each state. This is interesting to see how even within states there are pronunciation differences. The one downside is that the differences between accents was not as easily identifiable as in the website that had transcribed the excerpts into IPA; with that resource, one could follow along and see exactly where divergent occurred (for example, where one dialect had a ‘shwa’ where another did not). The language trainers game was challenging, but mostly for non-US accents. I got all of the American accents, and most of the British ones, but none of the non-Anglo accents. This is interesting, as it indicates a bias towards the NS accents, at least for me.
Activity 1 Topic 2
I think the interaction between immigration attitudes and their effect on the classroom is highly dependent on the learning environment. In the US, I taught in the Bronx, which is the most ethnically diverse county in the country. It was common knowledge that we had undocumented students, but it never an issue, probably because anyone who teaches there knows what the environment is before they accept the job. It’s almost like the ‘we,’ as seen being discussed by the psychologist in the ABC videos, is redefined from the get-go. In fact, the white teachers are the ‘others’ in that borough. We were advocating for all of our learners’ needs, regardless of perceived immigration status. And we did accept a ‘standard English’ when teaching and modeling for our students (Topic A) who typically spoke urban English (O’Grady, p.499) or Spanglish (p.501). But I imagine the situation is more precarious in places where immigrants are a small minority. In certain environments, the ‘we’ may be more rigid and students who are perceived to be immigrants may not be accepted immediately into this construct. I imagine that ELL teachers in these contexts would be a greater focal point for frustrations that other teachers may not have anticipated (in the same way that Special Ed teachers are sometimes resented by mainstream teachers as the special needs of their students increase). Overall, though, I think that the vast majority of teachers in all parts of the country are interested in teaching their students and simply want the tools necessary to do so. Now, I have to add something that was not in the original question. How would my own feelings impact my classroom, vis-à-vis immigration? Minimally, since I don’t feel like I am an INS officer. I teach whoever the school says is in my classroom. If a student asks me my opinion, I would defer to non-class times just as I do about any personal issues (abortion, politics, etc.)
Activity 2
One of the strongest ways sites like the PBS website can benefit educators is to help illustrate the effects of language beyond sheer communication. We all live with accents and dialects every day, but seldom stop to think about the role that language plays when intertwined with ethnicity, gender, education, etc. Discussing these elements of language in class will not only enlighten learners as to the origins of certain dialects (like the working theories behind the development of AAE) but will also raise awareness as to how these dialects affect status and opportunity today (like with the experiment of using different speaking patterns over the phone). And this research is also a great jumping-off point for discussing pragmatic contexts (such as the ‘Have you had a bowel movement today?’ example, being appropriate in a doctor’s office, but few other places).
martes, 8 de noviembre de 2011
Unit 9: Grammar & Grammar Instruction
1. His brother bought land last winter. Later, the economy was bad, so he sold the land. John loves fishing but wants to be a better fisherman. John’s boat’s name is ‘Troubled Waters.’ When he was sad, he painted his boat blue and cleaned it. John asked his brother what he thought of the blue, clean boat. His brother laughed and said, “You always want compliments.” John didn’t have a lot of energy, so he didn’t argue with his brother. He just made more nets. John wants to catch more fish tomorrow with the nets.
2. Vocabulary may also be challenging to the ELL student; for example, I replaced ‘crashed’ when referring to the economy, since I was not sure if this would be confusing in this context. Similarly, I wasn’t sure if the word ‘successful’ may be too cumbersome. It is hard to judge lexicon when we are dealing with a hypothetical audience whose linguistic background is unclear, underlining the importance of knowing one’s students and performing needs assessment. Other words, like compliment, I left in the story since I felt they couldn’t be translated well without changing the meaning. To address these challenges, new vocabulary will have to be introduced before the story is read. We could, for example, practice giving ‘compliments’ to each other as a class. The other glaring issue is that once the story is changed, some of the meanings change subtly, as well. For example, when one just uses the present and past, it appears as if the story is taking place in real time, which is a different timeline than the original story. This would only need to be addressed once the students were actually working with those verb tenses, though. If the purpose of the text was simply to explore the new ideas and play with the story itself, it could be accomplished with the ‘watered down’ version.
4. Although there are anomalies to any generalization, I think that grammar cannot typically be acquired through immersion alone. There were examples of this lack of acquisition provided by Ms. Azar (like the college freshman writing juvenile criminal justice). This student clearly didn’t acquire enough grammar to be successful at the college level, even though he had been ‘immersed.’ And I think another point worth remembering is that there is no standard for ‘immersion.’ We cannot control how our ELL students experience English outside of our classrooms. Do they speak it with friends, or at home? We can’t assume that immersion looks any particular way, so we have to stay focused on that which we can control in the learning environment. Mr. Swan made a good point when he stated that grammar is patterns, and our learners need help identifying those patterns. Even if a student can gain successful competency without explicit grammar instruction, would some ‘hybrid’ (Azar) be destructive? It would only succeed in explaining the language phenomenon that s/he has already noticed. And my best ‘evidence’ (Swan) for thinking that explicit instruction is required—at least in part—is the success I’ve seen with my NS students in my Social Studies classes after simply pointing out the grammar pattern to them. Once it was made explicit, they were able to recognize the correct way to write or say their idea.
2. Vocabulary may also be challenging to the ELL student; for example, I replaced ‘crashed’ when referring to the economy, since I was not sure if this would be confusing in this context. Similarly, I wasn’t sure if the word ‘successful’ may be too cumbersome. It is hard to judge lexicon when we are dealing with a hypothetical audience whose linguistic background is unclear, underlining the importance of knowing one’s students and performing needs assessment. Other words, like compliment, I left in the story since I felt they couldn’t be translated well without changing the meaning. To address these challenges, new vocabulary will have to be introduced before the story is read. We could, for example, practice giving ‘compliments’ to each other as a class. The other glaring issue is that once the story is changed, some of the meanings change subtly, as well. For example, when one just uses the present and past, it appears as if the story is taking place in real time, which is a different timeline than the original story. This would only need to be addressed once the students were actually working with those verb tenses, though. If the purpose of the text was simply to explore the new ideas and play with the story itself, it could be accomplished with the ‘watered down’ version.
4. Although there are anomalies to any generalization, I think that grammar cannot typically be acquired through immersion alone. There were examples of this lack of acquisition provided by Ms. Azar (like the college freshman writing juvenile criminal justice). This student clearly didn’t acquire enough grammar to be successful at the college level, even though he had been ‘immersed.’ And I think another point worth remembering is that there is no standard for ‘immersion.’ We cannot control how our ELL students experience English outside of our classrooms. Do they speak it with friends, or at home? We can’t assume that immersion looks any particular way, so we have to stay focused on that which we can control in the learning environment. Mr. Swan made a good point when he stated that grammar is patterns, and our learners need help identifying those patterns. Even if a student can gain successful competency without explicit grammar instruction, would some ‘hybrid’ (Azar) be destructive? It would only succeed in explaining the language phenomenon that s/he has already noticed. And my best ‘evidence’ (Swan) for thinking that explicit instruction is required—at least in part—is the success I’ve seen with my NS students in my Social Studies classes after simply pointing out the grammar pattern to them. Once it was made explicit, they were able to recognize the correct way to write or say their idea.
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