I'm in the middle of (or should currently be) conducting a literature review for my last (official!) grad course. I decided to add on to my current lit review on SLA in the secondary classroom. Initially I examined the research on best practices in promoting SLA. Guess what I found? TPRS/CI is the way to go. Duh! :)
But this time I wanted to see how student motivation played a factor in the classroom. I believe that students who do not succeed in others' classrooms, sometimes succeed in mine (and vice versa) due to motivation-related factors.
Why did I write this blog post? Well I wanted to share two things that I am finding:
1) Anxiety and motivation are very closely related. As anxiety increases in students, motivation decreases along with achievement.
2) Much of the research on the topic of motivation (and subsequently anxiety) in the SLA process is coming from Asia because of reforms in language teaching mandated by the government. Specifically, Japan has initiated several major reforms at the high school level which aims to replace the grammar-translation approach to teaching. Go Japan!
Japan's progress makes me salivate; and the correlation between anxiety, motivation and achievement seems so obvious, but if it were so obvious to others (eh hum, administrators?) then the research wouldn't be needed.
Showing posts with label Research. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Research. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
Universal Design for Learning
Hi all! This still isn't the update I want to post (I do appreciate the words of encouragement and support everyone has been giving me this year!), but this provides some insight as to how I have been spending my semester outside my classroom... as a graduate student. The good news is I'll be done in July.
Anyway, here is a link to a website I created supporting TPRS/CI with the universal design for learning concept. If you're not familiar with UDL, that's what the site is supposed to familiarize you with.
I thought it might interest some of you, so here you go!
https://sites.google.com/site/udlbasics/
Anyway, here is a link to a website I created supporting TPRS/CI with the universal design for learning concept. If you're not familiar with UDL, that's what the site is supposed to familiarize you with.
I thought it might interest some of you, so here you go!
https://sites.google.com/site/udlbasics/
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Long term acquisition
That is my goal. In my opinion to teaching, that's my job. It's my job to teach kids Spanish for the long haul. As I've been evaluating my TPRS approach this year, I have read much research on how language acquisition occurs in L1 and L2 learners. All of the research has supported a CI/TPRS approach. Many articles even condemn the traditional grammar approach. So my question is "Why do many teachers still use the traditional grammar approach?"
Realistically, there are many reasons; It was the way we teachers of WL were taught most likely, so it is the way they teach. It is too difficult, time consuming, exhausting to teach with, let alone learn, a CI approach. Many teachers have spent 1000's of man hours developing their worksheets and lessons, so that they do not want to "throw it all away" and start new. They are skeptical of a new method. It's difficult to develop and grade tests based around CI techniques. They don't know there is another option. The district/school curriculum is textbook driven, therefore they have to use the text. They haven't read research on the topic to understand what methods are proven.
There are thousands of other reasons. They are all understandable.
The most alarming reason, in my opinion, is that teachers largely haven't checked out the method that they use. They do not question the way they teach, but simply accept it as the way to do things.
I'm glad that I've had my eyes opened to the world of CI. I'm determined to educate myself so that I may educate my students. I wish I knew of a way to promote the reading of *credible* research throughout my colleagues. I would hope that through reading, their eyes could be opened too. But then again, maybe they need to see it to believe it. Hopefully my students will be that light.
Realistically, there are many reasons; It was the way we teachers of WL were taught most likely, so it is the way they teach. It is too difficult, time consuming, exhausting to teach with, let alone learn, a CI approach. Many teachers have spent 1000's of man hours developing their worksheets and lessons, so that they do not want to "throw it all away" and start new. They are skeptical of a new method. It's difficult to develop and grade tests based around CI techniques. They don't know there is another option. The district/school curriculum is textbook driven, therefore they have to use the text. They haven't read research on the topic to understand what methods are proven.
There are thousands of other reasons. They are all understandable.
The most alarming reason, in my opinion, is that teachers largely haven't checked out the method that they use. They do not question the way they teach, but simply accept it as the way to do things.
I'm glad that I've had my eyes opened to the world of CI. I'm determined to educate myself so that I may educate my students. I wish I knew of a way to promote the reading of *credible* research throughout my colleagues. I would hope that through reading, their eyes could be opened too. But then again, maybe they need to see it to believe it. Hopefully my students will be that light.
Saturday, November 27, 2010
NTPRS 2011
Yahoo! I just bit the bullet and registered for the 2011 National TPRS conference in ST. Louis, MO. Sure, it's expensive (especially when I'm getting married, going on a honeymoon, a full time grad student, and a poor starting teacher), but I'm super excited to go.
Gus and I talked about it today at lunch. We decided the sooner I start investing in myself, the bigger the return will be later. I might go for a couple of years successively, but I might eventually be able to go and be a presenter instead of an attendee. Who knows.
Another big reason that I'm so excited to go, is to better my craft of TPRS/CI. I've been reading a lot of studies for my literature review for my graduate class this quarter and TPRS/CI seems to be the only logical, supported, efficient way to teach students to acquire a second language. Research (credible research) supports the comprehensible input hypothesis over all other SLA hypotheses. Thus, I feel that the best move I can make as a highly qualified professional is to push myself to push my students' acquisition of Spanish through TPRS.
Let the countdown begin!
Gus and I talked about it today at lunch. We decided the sooner I start investing in myself, the bigger the return will be later. I might go for a couple of years successively, but I might eventually be able to go and be a presenter instead of an attendee. Who knows.
Another big reason that I'm so excited to go, is to better my craft of TPRS/CI. I've been reading a lot of studies for my literature review for my graduate class this quarter and TPRS/CI seems to be the only logical, supported, efficient way to teach students to acquire a second language. Research (credible research) supports the comprehensible input hypothesis over all other SLA hypotheses. Thus, I feel that the best move I can make as a highly qualified professional is to push myself to push my students' acquisition of Spanish through TPRS.
Let the countdown begin!
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