Documente Academic
Documente Profesional
Documente Cultură
By Martina Seo
July 9, 2012
Students should feel comfortable and safe to explore and experiment in their
mistakes and be motivated to try to use the second language as much as possible.
Last summer, I went to Quebec City to learn French through UBC Colle ge de Me rici
Program for three weeks. I was immersed in a new environment and my classroom
was filled with students who had minimal exposure to the language. My two
professors made the classroom a very fun and exciting place. They had two distinct
appreciated the grammar focus when it was written down on the white board or
worksheets were handed out because I am a visual learner. I could concentrate and
link the syntax and semantics to the language while scaffolding on my L1. On the
was very boisterous, encouraging, used a lot of facial expressions and animated,
while using very little written text. He got us excited with his gestures and
with us, which was highly beneficial for learners who were very limited in the
French. Both teaching methods were crucial for me in acquiring French as third
language. I would love to incorporate both teaching styles in my beginner ESL and
tutoring classes.
I have tutored ESL since 1997 until now and I have noticed a lot of interesting
and corky things about L2 learners. Most of my Korean ESL students make innate
venue for trial and error. They catch on when there is a lot of repetition. Also, I
teacher, I need to make sure the level of L2 learning is just above their knowledge, so
they are not bored or discouraged. I constantly check in with the students to find
out if it is too hard or too easy of text or conversation. Sometimes when I first meet
a student and assess their level as being very low, I use Fergusons foreigner talk
because I know they need a lot of prompting with their L2 and I want them to feel
comfortable. One of my beliefs is to make learning ESL more based on play such as
writing about stories about fantasy or dreams, talking about various scenarios such
as alternate endings for classical fairytale or acting out a play with many different
characters, for example the stone soup. To have the students physically and
language.
My masseuse is from Taiwan and she is an ESL learner in Vancouver and I only
viewed her as someone who is trying to make an honest and humble living here.
But, as I got to know her, she has a Masters in Immunology and was a lab technician
for many years in her home country. She is going to school to study Immunology in
Vancouver and told me she is too shy to talk in her ESL classes. She is highly
educated and knows her profession very well in her native tongue, but still struggles
in feeling confident in her L2. I encouraged her to practice and her classroom is safe
place to make errors. As a teacher, I would use recast because of her anxiety in
making mistakes in front of her peers (Faneslow, 1977; Mackey Gass, &
to learn a new language and be viewed as only a struggling ESL learner. That is why
it is important to ensure a safe and inviting place for students to make mistakes and
for my students. My father took ESL in Korea in high school when his group of
friends decided to do a prank on the teacher. When the angry teacher asked the
students to close their eyes and raise their hands to confess, he was the only one to
raise his hand. His teacher beat him so severely in front of the class; he had
Community College ESL classes and private tutoring, he never became proficient in
his L2. He complained many times about his traumatic memory and it inhibited him
punishing in their methods of teaching because they can have lasting positive or
What I believe many L2 learners would benefit from would be field trips to
restaurants, grocery stores, sight seeing, museums and concerts. Learning a second
language can be a very social experience (Thorne, 2000). While in Quebec City, our
French Immersion consisted of classroom time in the mornings and outings in the
afternoon where we could apply immediately what we had learned. And I have
noticed with my ESL tutoring students, when I engage in what they have a passion
for such as dinosaurs, soccer or Lego and incorporate students interest into the
lesson, they students are more engaged and motivated to learn. Scaffolding from the
activities and poetry. With a variety of tools, any teacher who is dedicated in
bringing ESL learning to a whole new level of memorable and teachable moments.
During my practicum, my sponsor teacher told me, We are not the show, the
students are the show. What she meant was, less teacher talking and more student
talking and group interactions. No more desks in rows, but in groups where
students can interact, cooperatively work together and learn from each other with
the guidance and instructions from the teacher. Learning from peers just by
listening and watching others, ESL learners can benefit from the new language
usage. I truly believe in teaching, it is all about the students and how to
accommodate and modify my lesson plans moment by moment while engaging and
reaching a level of fun, safety and group dynamics to get to the destination of
acquiring their L2, but I am definitely going to make it a fun one when I get them!
References
Fanselow, J. (1977). The Treatment of Error in Oral Work. Foreign Language Annals,
10, 583-593.
Mack, A., Gass, S., & McDonough, K. (2000). How do Learners Perceive Interactional
Feedback. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 22, 471-497.
Thorne, S. (2000). Second Language Acquisition Theory and the Truth(s) about
Relativity. In J. Lantolf (Ed.), Sociocultural Theory and Second Language
Learning (pp. 219-243). Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.