ESL Mini-Conference

上上個星期意外得知洛杉磯學區在西邊要辦一個成人教育和ESL的mini-conference。告訴我這個消息的成人學校校長還推薦了幾個她覺得不錯的講者和主題。既然有這種免錢的活動，當然要參加囉。
研討會在星期五下午舉行，只有三個小時。總共十幾個主題可以選擇，但是一個時段只能挑一個去聽。內容其實比較像是教案的分享切磋。在我短暫的教學經驗裡，有一點是讓我感受頗深的。一個教師要進步，真的很需要有跟其他教師交流的機會。並不是聚在一起聊天八卦，而是能夠分享教材或是彼此觀摩。當然這種狀態是很難求的。不管教中文或教ESL，通常得跑不同的地方兼課，下課了學生離開了，老師也得匆匆回家或是趕往下一個學校。就算有一群老師會在學校裡面碰頭，不見得每個人都願意花時間分享教學的內容或心得。這樣的風氣是要所有人一起用心營造出來的，而且有很多複雜的因素影響著。(語教這個行業裡的人來去流動太快，加上被當作是一種過渡性的職業，也許是主因)。

我覺得我在這裡所体會到的教師生活，跟我以前所認識的教師很不一樣。我跟我的同學常在哀嘆為何我們總是花那麼多時間在備課(引用家玉的說法，我們都是「備課漢」)。我家加上我已算是三代教師家庭，可是我從來沒看過我娘在家備課。(有啦，當她被學校抓去教音樂和鄉土藝術的時候，她可是發奮在家吹笛子彈鋼琴。但我不知這是否是讓她提早退休的原因之一)。語言教育在美國很難照本宣科。真難想像大學以前在台灣怎麼能坐在位子上不動聽課聽一整天。成人ESL的老師的難題之一就是，怎麼樣讓上了一天苦工的學生留下來不打瞌睡不早退，而且明天還願意再來。東西不夠有趣或學生覺得不實用，第二天就不來了，而課堂人數不夠，老師就會被炒魫魚。

第一個講題是有關字彙教學。這位老師分享他教高級班字彙的點子和方法，非常精采。大家一坐下來，老師便叫大家把面前的紙對摺四次，形成十六格，再將每一格編號。接下來老師開始出聽寫，共十六題，每一題學生都要抄下來寫在格子裡。聽寫的題目像這樣:"When I have a headache, I want to..."每個句子都是未完成，全部的句子聽寫抄完了以後，學生得彼此捉對問問題，看對方會如何完成這個句子，把對方的答案和名字抄在該方格裡。如此一來，學生得在教室裡找不同的學生練習口語，依人數和程度不同，這個遊戲可進行至少一個半小時。接下來是查驗的時間，學生一個一個念出他們的句子，有時如果題目夠有趣，還可叫不同學生念出各自的答案。第二個運用字彙的遊戲是猜字。我也曾使用過類似的活動。學生幾人一組翻出字卡，在最短時間內得描述該字但不得提到那個字。這位老師用在食物名稱上，非常的有趣。正好在美國特別是加州有太多數不清的文化和特殊的食物，學生學習這些單字不但實用(方便點菜)，也因著食物是許多文化下受喜愛的話題，容易引起學生興趣。有些字還可以促進文化學習。比如說，我的同伴Gunhye就分到「calamari」這個字。其實它就是花枝，這裡常見的作法是炸花枝，像夜市鹹酥雞一樣的作法。Gunhye形容這個東西是開胃菜，用炸的，一圈圈的，我猜到是炸花枝，可是另一個好像是中東裔的老師看了答案恍然 大悟之後才說，我們通常都不是拿它來炸的，怪不得我猜不到。我拿到的字卡裡面有一個sloppy joe，我從來沒吃過，回家問Nick才知道是一種漢堡，直接夾肉醬，整個漢堡汁水淋漓，用手拿不得，怪不得叫sloppy joe。

第二個講題的老師分享一個比較communicative based的小組活動，讓學生可以複習餐館單字和對話。老師先讓學生 自己在黑板上擬一分international menu，有主菜、開胃菜、小點、飲料、沙拉/湯、甜點等等項目。學生把天馬行 空的菜名填好以後，寫上價錢。對於這些成人學校的學生，有很多人白天也許是餐廳跑堂的、掌廚的，所以一些菜名食物搞不好他們比我還熟。接下來學生分成小組決定點餐，並且要註用特殊需求，比如加冰、全熟、七分熟等等說法。最後不同組的學生要彼此交流，當服務生抄別組的菜單，並且將自已組的菜單告訴別的組。最後全班一起驗收看是否溝通有誤。我們這些人雖然是老師，但是還是會有「不對不對，我們這組說飲料要跟甜點上，加糖不加奶，你們抄錯啦。」之類的抗議聲，被抱怨的那組則反抱怨遇到拗客。可見如果實際讓學生做，大概會熱鬧非凡。

第三個講題的主題看起來頗有趣，教室裡擠滿了跟我一樣被講題吸引而來的老師們，沒想到開始以後，才發現上了賊船。我本以為會有一些活潑新奇的互動教學點子，結果沒想到主講的老師不過是把一個很平凡的小活動拿來當一個小時 的講題在用。十五分鐘以後，那位主講人沒話了，就開始塞一些場面話，比如說，「學生來就是要讓他們覺得學習很有趣」、「如果一直讓他們坐著的話他們會覺得很無聊」之類光說不練用腳想也知道的道理，我坐在第一排往後望，可以看見很多老師已經有點不耐煩的在四處張望找東西盯著看打發時間，但是大家都是成年人了，也許也有點老師間的同理心吧，沒有人發作或是起身離開。我趁機觀察教室裡形形色色的老師們。說實話，幹這行的人絕非是光鮮亮麗型的，絕大多數的人都是中年發福的婦女，穿著七零年代配色和款式的衣服。少數的男性教師也多是年過半百，不是頭禿肚突，就是又瘦又白。當然我完全是以貌取人，只是我一個人坐在當中，也會不由自主的想像自己投身這行的可能性。過去實 習接觸到的老師，都是對學生非常有耐心的老師。可能也要有點執著吧，不然日復一日長時間的跟學生互動，大概很快就磨掉熱忱，變成一個只是拿來糊口的工作。這也可以解釋為何中年女性教師在這一行占大多數。如果有另一半支撐家計的話，這工作還算彈性可兼雇家庭和興趣。

這一天的結尾是舊書大放送。一箱箱的二手英語教學課本、錄音帶錄影帶放在長桌的箱子裡等著被識貨的人挖掘。所有的老師擠到禮堂前等著門開進去搶免費的教學用書。每人限拿一袋。只見門一開，大家拼命的在書箱裡翻啊找地，一邊往袋裡塞。雖說大家都還算文明，但那種搶勁還是讓人得小心將頭探進一群正擠在同一桌翻看的群眾裡以免被擠倒。

我對圖畫式的字典(picture dictionary)有著某種特殊的偏好，因此一看到馬上二話不說連翻都沒翻就把一本牛津圖像字典和配套的學生work book與教師手冊塞進袋子裡。像野獸一般搜刮了一陣子以後，我自覺拿了好多書有點太貪心了，就收拾好東西回家了。

一清點之下，我還真是拿了一堆有的沒有的東西呢。有職場英文、閱讀測驗、文法課本，回家後還發現兩本因為見獵心喜，沒看清楚就塞進袋子的書-只不過是學生手冊，真正的好東西是課本反而沒發現!

生活的現實

昨天去參加了這裡的成人教育的說明會。基本上，這裡的成人教育包含了職業訓練，像是水電工、清潔、幼保之類，還有識字班、高中補校，成人英語等等。會場裡大概充滿了一百多人。我看了一下，大部分都是中年以上，我似乎是全場最年輕的。真不知道這些人本來在做些什麼。說明會解釋了洛杉磯地區成人教育的施行，內容，薪資，工作安全等等。
根據我所聽說的，以及說明會上地區主任的說法推斷，這條路還真是興趣事業啊。
全職的工作必須被雇滿四十小時一星期。連教了二十幾年的ESL老師都跟我說這是件很難的事。因為全職有含保險，學校通常都不想花那麼多錢雇全職的老師。他們寧可雇一堆兼職的老師，約一星期十八小時，就不用給員工福利與全部的保險。但是菜鳥如果一開始有個十小時就要偷笑了(地區主任的說法)。但是這種工作基本上是合約制，這學期就算有，下個學期沒有足夠的班，就失業了。
我動手算了算…嗯嗯…就算做滿十八小時一星期，我還是只能賺約折合台幣每個月兩萬六左右的工資, 沒保險福利(保險是這裡最重要的東西)。而且還不算改作業、備課等等的時間。心酸啊…

Venice Adult ESL-Low Beginning class

Yesterday I went obsering another class at Venice High Adult school. The past couple times I have been observing the literacy class. It was a great experience. The teacher was very helpful in terms of explaining her rationale and methodology to me. I had never thought that being able to read and write can be such a privilege. The students there were not only learning to speak, read, and write English, but also learning to read and write for the first time in their lives. (Well, some of them might have couple years of schooling, but that was it). Not being able to form familiarity of a sound-symble matching does put a person in disadvantage in learning a new language. In their cases, every step of learning has to be pre-processed into micro steps. The worst thing is that, I totally couldn't communicate with them in English, because they were so limited in their English abilities. (That explained why they were there :P)

For example, last time when I was there, students were learning to recognize numbers from 1 to 100. One woman from Egypt was practicing writing numbers. The teacher already warned me to check on her writing because she tends to bring her Arabic writing habit (right to left) into English writing. I didn't think she had much schooling in Egytian Arabic either, judging from the way she held a pen and that she couldn't keep letters in a line. When I walked by, she was copying the two digit numbers ok, except from right to left. For example, she wrote number 35 with "5" first, and then "3". I tried to tell her that she should write "3" and then "5", but she couldn't understand me. She erased "35", and then wrote "33", right to the left. So I wrote on the board to show her. Man, for the first time in my life, I was stranded there with my student, without knowing what to do. After couple miscarried attempt to communicate, she suddenly yelled a cry, and then said "left, right". "Yes, left, and right!" I used my hands to show the directions, and then write the number for her. She got it. And there was much rejoicing.


Anyways, that was what happened last week. After couple times of observation, I felt the lethargy of going there again. I couldn't tell why. This weeked I decided to talk to the principle that I would like to see other levels. She grabbed a teacher who just steped into the office, and then I followed her to the class.

We got there waiting for students to arrive. The first student arriving was a well-dressed Turkish woman. She glided through the classroom and found herself a seat with a complaint, "it's sooo hot today." Diana (the teacher) greeted her with a quick hug, and then they started chatting. At the same time another student from Mexico arrived. Diana introduced me to her students, and then she threw the question at me, "where are you from, Wen-Hsin?" I told them I was from Taiwan. Then she asked them if they knew where Taiwan was. The Turkish woman thought it's Thailand. So Diana gathered all of us to the world map, we all exploited our geographical knowledge for a while. Then more and more students came, the class began. Some students were friends with one another. I spotted two students making faces at each other, having side talks when Diana was talking, like teenage girls, except that they were probably in their 30s or 40s. I also noticed that there were couple students who were more out-spoken than others, which made the class more lively.

That night they were learning pronoun subject (he/she/they/I) and pronoun objects (him/her/them/me). This is my blog, not my teaching journal, so I'm not gonna report how they did it in class. But I really like this class and the teacher's teaching style. As I looked back on my teaching in the past couple months, I realized that I was kinda tense. Maybe that's because I was a rookie, and I felt like one too. This quarter I felt a bit relaxed, so I started making more jokes. I don't know if that's the right way of teaching, but at least I don't want to intimidate my students.

ESL vs. Chinese

星期四的晚上，我以前的老師兼房東Christine帶我去她家對面的高中去拜碼頭。

上個星期我一個人坐在學校餐廳裡吃飯，遇到Christine。她問我，妳畢業後要做什麼啊??
我說，"就…教書吧??…我想教成人ESL，可是我還不知從何開始。" 她偏著頭，想了一下，說"我會建議妳下個星期找個晚上來我家一趟。我認識一些學校裡的人，我可以帶妳去看看。"

所以我昨天晚上就去了。這裡的成人ESL多半是移民在上的。他們幾乎都是從南美來的。有些人來連一句英文都不會，也不識字。這些學校就是為這些想學英文的人設的。我們去看了一個識字班。他們看我們進來，紛紛抬起頭來。教室裡坐滿了學生。不知是我太興奮還是怎麼的，我覺得這些學生好像眼睛都散發著求知的光芒啊。一整間三十個學生，每個人手上高高拿著紙做的小時鐘。原來他們在學數字和時間呢。

我們只是快速的看了一下學校，所以花了十五分鐘左右吧。不知為何，我突然變得對教這樣的學生感到興奮。也許是想起去年實習的經驗吧。這一陣子美國這裡為了移民政策鬧得風風雨雨。我自己是外國人，也沒什麼好說的。可是這麼多從南美湧入的人口真的是不容忽視。這些人白天辛勤工作。他們可能是清潔工、餐廳洗碗工人、園丁之類的工人階級。一天勞累之後，還跑來上課。因為是公立的課程，所以他們不用付擔費用。現實的一面是，如果課程不是他們要的，他們早就回家休息帶小孩去了。但是如果老師教得好，那麼出現的學生肯定是想學習的。

我想到這學期同時教中文和英文的經驗。我的英文班有八個同學；他們是來自韓、日、德、西的交換學者和F2 (F1學生的配偶，很多是家裡的煮飯婆)。中文班則是大學部UCLA的學生，大一大二年紀。我的英文班也是像成人補校一樣，幾乎免費，因為連老師都是免費教書的。但是學生如果來上課，就真的是願意上課學習的學生。反觀我的中文班小朋友們，不來上課，翹課，理由還一大堆。一個學生跑來問我。"老師，我可不可以提早走?" "多早?" 我問她。"大概九點半" (我的課是九點開始，九點五十下課)。"怎麼了? 為什麼要提早走呢??" "因為我下午有個考試，我想去念書。" "$#@%…(我無言)…呃…這個…"。還好我還沒有說"不"之前，她也意識到這個要求太過分了，馬上改口說，"我還是留下來好了。"

我其實Chinese教得很挫折。每次上課學生都死氣沈沈，我都在想怎麼回事。可是又覺得無力改進。教材是固定的，我自己不是很喜歡那本課本，可是因為老師要求的關係，我又不能教課本上沒教到的東西。每次下課，我都覺得自己教得好爛，學生大概學期末會給我評分評得很低。唯一學生比較有笑容的時候是每課課尾的口語練習。我努力想辦法給一些跟課本有關，但是比較有趣一點的活動。有一次我給他們我自己假造的台大總圖借書卡(就是書背頁蓋章的那張紙)，還假造了台大校徽和蓋章的日期等等。還有一次我用很難用的WINDOWS繪圖軟体畫了一張地圖。畫的時候還要想他們學過哪些單字。可是他們單字量真的太少了，我索性不管了，還是照教一些"咖啡館"、"醫院"、"超市"等等的字。
今天我讓他們玩一個"猜猜我是誰的"遊戲。全班分兩組對抗。一組派一個人上來。我給這位同學一個名人的名字，讓下面的同學問他。那一組先猜到就得分。規則是他們只能問"是/不是" "有沒有""對不對"這種是非題。

這下問題來了。他們會問"是男人嗎? 是女人嗎? 他很老嗎?他很高嗎?" 然後還有三種職業"是老師嗎? 是學生嗎? 是醫生嗎?" 因為課本只有教到這兒。接下來就沒辦法了。
有些廣東人的學生會講多一點，所以還可以問。或是比較愛說話的同學不怕講錯，敢自己造一些句子問，因此還是能夠溝通。但比較沒有自信的同學，就問不出來了。有一組充滿這種安靜的同學，我得一直提醒另一組給他們機會問問題。可是他們還是好安靜，就靠一個程度好的女生一直問，而且也是她猜對題目。

後來進行了幾回，我給了"比爾蓋莰、麥克傑克森、德瑞莎修女之類的西方大眾人物。沒想到對他們來說太簡單了，一下子就猜到了(這些西方人物我給ESL的學生，特別是亞洲來的還猜了老半天。可是東方名人這些小毛頭又認識沒幾個，頂多成龍吧，只好還是將就)。我換成兩組各自想題目，讓對方猜，我想這樣那安靜的組就一定得問問題了。結果還是那位女生一直發言，其他人都不太說話。另一組的人非常投入，想題目的時候，一團人頭湊在一起小聲討論，好像真有那麼一回事。但是安靜的小組就分散一個一個的坐在自己的位子上，很快有人提了個題目，一下子大家都覆議了。

最後我時間還是控制得太差，拖到下課了還沒猜完。…

星期二是ESL會話課最後一次上課。有一個韓國的媽媽帶了一堆巧克力來送我。她說，"我八月就要跟家人搬回韓國了，很謝謝妳教的課。妳是很好的老師。"

我聽了好感動。上個星期也是一個德國太太帶了一盆花來給我。她也要回國了。她是很活潑的學生，上課有了她，我都不怕冷場。她每次上課必出現，讓氣氛變得很輕鬆。她給了我花，跟我說，"我覺得妳是個很好，很用心的老師，謝謝妳。"

我受了她們的鼓勵，覺得我那麼多的抱怨好像都不算什麼了。
也許菜鳥老師脆弱的心靈就是這樣吧。每次上課前都是天人交戰。備課的時候我想破頭，在網上一直找點子。備好課寫好教案了，就覺得這行嗎? 能做得出來嗎?
去上課之前通常都是睡眠不足狀態下起的床。走在路上覺得快掛了，我能撐到下課嗎? 加上一直擔心會教不好，所以上課前都會頭痛，然後就會怪自己:"搞什麼，這不過是個小CASE，在緊張什麼鬼啊?"
可是…
我那脆弱的心靈，在看了這些ESL學生對我的學期評量之後，讓原本低落的心情又開始覺得我所做的事情是有意義的，是能夠為別人帶來一點點幫助的。我自己也在教學的過程中學習，學習接受我的失敗，接受學生的差異。(講講很容易，做起來還是很難啦)

當老師的喜與憂

昨天中午在學校裡遇到兩年前我第一個學期教中文時的學生。他正好在到處拉人連署要保護加州的森林，我問了一下他在幹麼，就順道也簽名連署了。這個學生的中文很不錯，那時候是高級中文的閱讀和寫作課，他的每篇作文都寫得滿用心的，我不確定他有沒有家教幫忙潤稿過，總之寫得比其他ABC的同學還流暢。只是口語上顯得比較吃力，停頓稍微多一點。但是他去年一年在北京的北大上學，明顯進步了很多。他跟我說他也想當TA教中文，可是東亞系不肯讓大學部的學生當TA。"我同學說上學期有個白人教他們中文，他連話都說不標準!"他跟我這麼說，"如果他也可以教的話，我也可以!" (這位同學也是個白人)。

我聽了倒是為這位老師感到很可憐。我可以体會那種不是教自己的母語的老師，真的需要有兩把刷子才行。當然語言能力一定要有某種程度，可是好像不管再怎麼努力，這種"non-native"的標籤總是如影隨形。因為同時教中文和ESL的緣故，我對這個議題有很多的体會。並不是因為中文是我的母語，我就能夠教得好的。那些非中國/台灣人的中文助教其實可以教得比我們還好。因為他們很了解學習的過程，也因為不是母語，語法變得很好。像好多次我就被同學問倒了…"老師，為什麼我有的時候加'了', 有的時候不加'了'"…"為什麼我可以說，'功課我做好了' 但是不能說'坐地鐵或坐汽車我可以去UCLA'"

但是當我教英文的時候，面臨的又是另一種考驗。除了要特別注意自己講的語法正確以外，還要常常面對自信心的問題，擔心學生怎麼看一個non-native的老師，煩惱自己要帶給學生什麼東西。實習的時候我最擔心的是自己說話語法錯誤自己沒注意到。也許是因為語言學的訓練，對英文的語法特別在意。不過也不只是我這樣子，好像同學裡不少人都會滿在意的。我最常注意到的是自己講出來之後，馬上發現用錯了，又再self-correct再講一遍。不過這都是發生在電光火石之間，只是每次一講出來，就覺得很懊惱，為什麼我的嘴巴比我的腦子還要快，明明知道該怎麼說，可是一講出來卻和想的不一樣。我的老師來看過我實習，她是認為我就算講錯，也會很快馬上更正，基本上問題不大。但是我的懊惱還是在啊…

星期四的時候在路上巧遇我ESL的學生。她是德國人，先生來美國做研究，她跟著來當F2。在我班上她非常活潑，也很會說話。我每次都很感謝她打破同學尷尬的沈默，第一個開口發言。聊了一下，她突然說，"我覺得妳是個很好的老師喔!妳真的很用心。"我一聽眼淚都要掉下來了啊~~~

新老師真是種脆弱的動物啊…每個星期office hour沒學生出現問問題，跟我練中文，我已經在擔心是不是被同學討厭。其實沒人出現的話，我就可以做自己的事情，可是…"同學們，我真心的歡迎各位來辦公室跟老師聊天啊~~~" (心裡的獨白)

Second/third week of teaching

I can't believe that I made it through the second/third week of teaching. I still have a lot to improve with my teaching, but I can feel that I'm gradually settling into some pattern. This might be good and bad at the same time. For one thing I don't want to be so panic and spend hours and hours preparing a one hour lessen. For another I don't want to be content with one certain type of teaching method either.

For my ESL class, it's like an experiment every week. I feel like I have so many ideas about what I can teach, but when it comes to implementing the ideas on the typed-out lessen plan, they all look kinda disoriented and pointless. My Chinese class doesn't take that much planning, for the content and materials are set already. The most challenging part is to come up with some ways to present the content without making them feel bored. It's a 9am class, and I am a student so I understand how hard it is to get your butt moving. I wouldn't want to be there if I were not the teacher!!!!

Things I am working on:
I'm not a very assertive person. I realize that my directions sometimes don't sound assertive enough for students to do their pair work. Another thing is the anxiety of introducing all of the vocabulary to my ESL students. I still haven't quite figured out how to use a reading to teach integrated skills (speaking, reading, and listening).

Things that work/I'm so proud of myself:
Monday I alomst pissed my pants when I found that I left my teaching material on my desk before I left. I was totally panicking for 5 minutes, (I wonder if students ever found out about this). then I decided that I will just give them the scheduled test, and then a task from their workbook.

While the students are working on their workbook, I quickly write out the patterns for drills on the board. It happends that students stumbled on one structure a lot, so I spent sometime making them practice the patterns on the board. and phew...it was the whole 50-min class. I would never let things like this happen again. Double check before you leave is always a safe thing to do.

Today I made my ESL students play a game as an ice breaker. Each person got a name stuck on their back, and they have to find out who that name was by asking other classmates Y/N questions. I had names like Arnold Schwazeneggar, Mother Teresa, Jesus, and Napoleon, etc. The game turned out to be a success. The students really enjoyed it partly because it's really fun to see someone's puzzled face but you already knew the answer.

Anyways, I guess I should stop blogging and go back to my thesis writing.

Thoughts on using literature in ESL classrooms

References:
Gajdusek, L (1988). "Toward wider use of literature in ESL: How and why." TESOL Quarterly, 22, 227-258.
McKay, L. S. (2001). Literature as content for ESL/EFL. in Celce-Murcia(ed.), Teaching English as a Second of Foreign Language. United States: Dewey Publlishing Services.



I really like Gajdusek's article, which shows how using literature can actually be done in an ESL classroom. For me one of the most impressive take-home that I learned is the pre-reading vocabulary work. I think from a student's perspective, unknown or unfamiliar vocabulary is one source that might cause "anxiety" when reading in a foreign language. Unlike reading in native languages, students don't have linguistic or cultural resource to grasp onto, the tolerance for ambiguities or unresolved meaning is comparatively low. As for the teacher, he/she might get too eager about solving students' vocab problems so that they can get into the deeper discussion. As a result, both sides might lose sight that vocabulary actually has different valences in their function in an article. It's an important thing not just for teachers to distinguish the types of vocabulary (e.g. context, vital clue, and category), but also for students to see these different levels of dealing with unfamiliar words. I think it's a good strategy for students to overcome the anxiety of encountering new words, knowing that they don't have to stop every time and look them up in the dictionary in order to understand a text.

Another take-home message I got from the week is Mckay's perspective on cultural learning through literature. In her perspective, "...the ultimate goal of cultural learning is not to convey information about a culture nor to promote the acquisition of culturally influenced ways of behaving, but rather to help learners see their culture in relation to others so as to promote cross-cultural understanding."

As a non-native Englisn speaker, teaching the target culture is something that brings me anxiety and self-consciousness. If teaching culture means direct transmission, then I am definitely in an awkward position. Since I'm not from the culture, what can I offer to my students? What kinda role should I take in between the target culture and language and the students? As I take the stand with my students as an outsiders, am I perpetuating my perspective/stereotypes on the target culture to my students?

I haven't totally resolved these questions yet. But at least I feel a
little bit relieved after reading Mckay's perspective on developing
students' cultural awareness. It's not about transplanting a culture
into someone's head, but about showing students how their own cultures
can be connected with others by exploring cultures.

times when students couldn't understand...

Part A
This lessen was about using present and past participles such as “boring” and “bored” as adjectives to describe feeling and things. Before the teaching, both Christine and my mentor teacher, Martha had anticipated that students would have problem with the “-ing” form taking a human subject (e.g. “The guy is interesting”).
I started the lessen by showing students pictures of different activities, and then asked them to describe the activity and the feelings of people in the pictures. With this part, I only wanted them to use those –ed/-ing type of adjectives, so I posted 7 pairs of –ed/-ing adjectives (which I had already written on index cards) on the board, and told them to pick an appropriate one from the list.
Students started giving me sentence such as “The roller coaster ride is exciting”, “The woman is interested in the cosmetics”, etc. Then I asked them, “what rules can you see from these sentences?” and I built up the grammar rules from their answers. It’s clear for them to see that activities take “-ing” form, and humans take “-ed” form. But then while I was building the grammar rule on the board, I realized, “oh, crap, students don’t have this grammar knowledge at all, therefore they won’t be able to give me a sentence like ‘the kids are annoying’. How can I introduce the “-ing” form for human subjects?”
So I went back to the pictures, and introduced the sentence with human subjects in “-ing” form. The next 15 minutes I let them play a game deciding which form they should use. More questions came up, and I saw question marks floating on their heads. They got confused with the present progressive and passive voice, which also have the form of present/past participles. Time went by quickly, and I couldn’t even finish the game that I prepared.

Part B
After doing troubleshooting with Christine, I prepared the whole lessen again the next week. We figured out the confusions they had with this grammar point. I came back with beautifully typed up power point. I thought through the steps to bring them back to the grammar points, and to re-clarify the difference between the adjective and verb forms. During the exercise, some students stuck at deciding the sentence “His supervisor is an amazing/amazed boss”. I explained the question by asking them, “are we talking about his supervisor’s feeling or our opinion?” But some of them just hadn’t got the point. In the end Martha jumped in to help me explain the whole concept again. I didn’t even remember how it ended that way…I really appreciate her tho. She always let me try my best, and when I couldn’t handle it, she would come to my rescue. Because we spent too much time dealing with students’ questions, I had to modify my lessen, so that we could move on to next activity that Martha already scheduled.
After my teaching, Martha gave me feedback and told me that she thought my grammar points were extremely clear to her. “They just need more practice to get it,” she told me. I guess I was kinda disappointed after the teaching. When Martha asked me if I wanted to give them more exercise on the same lessen, I told her I wanted to try something else (anything but grammar…=p). Don’t worry, I am totally over it now. After Friday’s class sharing with people my unsuccessful experience and listening to people’s teaching stories, I feel I can start again now. It’s such a great thing to be a student teacher because we are allowed to make mistakes and to not be perfect.


(originally posted on C218 discussion board)

My first teaching experience at Culver City Adult

This Thursday I taught my first lessen at Culver City Adult School. Although it’s not my first time teaching in front of a class, I still got nervous even the night before. Since students usually are not very on time, Martha led a small information gap activity for the first 40 minutes, so that I could start my lessen when everyone’s there.

The exercise was about “past perfect and simple past”, which was adopted from their textbook. The point is to let students get a feeling of figuring out what happened first in two given past events. In order to emphasize my point, I drew a timeline on the board, telling them about a story of an Indian guy coming to America, being separated from his wife in India, to look for jobs. (I found some random picture of an Indian couple online…just to make my story more believable… =p). On the way of telling the story, I stick the strips of different events on his timeline. After that, I started pulling two random events from his time line, and asked them to make sentence using “Before/After/Because…”

I guess my intro story got their attention. They all looked up at me, waiting to see what I was gonna do next, which made me even more nervous. I was glad that I got my verb phrases all written on the flash cards, which saved a lot of time. . I could just pull them out to make combinations (e.g. moved to Houston, quit his job…etc.). My handwriting was so messy, my hand was shaking, and it felt like forever for me to finish writing a sentence. I also thought ahead all the possible combinations that I wanted to give them, since I am not a person who can talk or make up sentences on my feet. However, I still looked very busy on the stage, coz the magnet kept falling from the white board, and I had to adjust them back while I was talking…

I made a mistake showing them the past form of “quit”. I asked them the three forms of “quit”, then one student gave me “quited”. The first thought told me it’s wrong, but I got confused while I was writing “quit, quited, quit”. When I realized, I crossed down the “ed” and told them, “see, this is treaky, remember not to put ed here.”


I didn’t know using overhead as an aid takes skills until Martha reminded me. When I was using them, I totally forgot to look back and see if the slides lined up from students’ perspective. I guess most of the time they were tilting their heads to read my slides. (I hoped their necks were alright the next day). Also, I should have let the slides stay longer before I moved onto next lines. Martha suggested me that I go to the back of the classroom to check my own writing on the board (when students are doing their exercises), so that I could see from their perspective and check my own spelling mistakes on the board.

It seemed that my time pacing was alright. I got full 45 minutes and I finished all the planned activities in time. After I finished the lessen, couple of them came up to me and said, “good job!” One student told me that she could tell I was nervous at the beginning. “But you felt more comfortable in the end,” she said. I didn’t expect to have students encouraging me for my first teaching. But it felt good! Now from my retrospect, I did have a good time in my first lessen.

(Ori. posted on 218 Practicum discussion board)

每日一推

今天所要推的主題是"笑話"
不知道現在的高中生是否還是在背那本迪克生片語。這幾年下來我發現那本書除了一些phrasal verb 像pick up, take off有點用之外，其他還真是無用的東西。不過就算這樣的片語動詞如果不放在使用情境中看真正的語意是什麼，也是搞不清楚人家在講什麼。像是pick up除了撿起來之外，也可以是去接回某人，或是像pick-up line("吊馬子/帥哥"的開場語)。

有一陣子我會注意別人所用的俚語，有些時候從談話的內容可以大致猜到俚語的意思。不過後來發現，除非是私底下或是家人間的談話，在學校裡用俚語的程度並不是很高。大家對老師講話也是客客氣氣的 (不過這也要看俚語的"俚"有多俚。有的俚語可能滿俗的，而且是區域性用語，用的時候絕對要看場合)。ESL學生有的時候跟同年紀的朋友在一起學會了這些用法，但是沒學到使用的場合，就會發生那種跟教授講話fucking來fucking去的尷尬場面。

最近我發現一塊值得探討，卻很少ESL學生注意的領域--笑話。

A: Knock, knock.
B: Who's there?
A: Radio.
B: Radio who?
A: Ready or not, here I come.

有一次上第二語言習得的時候，老師用這個笑話(其實也不算笑話，比較像是文字遊戲)測試我們
老師:Knock, knock.
高中以後才來美國念書的外國學生:…(呆呆的望著老師)
Native speaker: Who's there?

因為這是小孩子必有的經驗之一，"Who's there"是標準的反應。但是即便語言溝通無礙，不在這裡長大的學生便少了這個經驗與反應。

我到現在都還記得幼稚園時後的押韻歌:
"炒蘿蔔炒蘿蔔切切切，
包餃子包餃子捏捏捏。
壞孩子壞孩子打一打，
好孩子好孩子摸一摸。"

"小姐小姐別生氣，明天帶妳去看戲。看什麼戲，看妳爸爸流鼻涕。涕，剃，剃光頭，頭，投，投大海，海，海，海龍王，王，王，王八蛋。蛋，盪，盪秋千，千，牽孩子。你是我的乖孫子，天天幫我洗襪子。"

忘記是誰提出來的，不過有人說過，孩子在邊玩邊念這些押韻歌的時候，也正在為他們的語言能力和學習做預演。語言溝通能力就是在這種狀況下越磨越光。而且孩子很容易被聲音，押韻吸引覺得有趣，他們也喜歡玩這樣的文字遊戲，學習去操弄文字和聲音。