Monday, November 12, 2012
Sunday, November 4, 2012
Week 12: Raising Cultural Awareness
Learning a second language is always a bit challenging. Learning English, can be intimidating. Learning English as a second language ALONG with the culture while keeping your own... even more so. This is what this week's readings focused on. We read that language learning comes with social, political, cultural, etc... contexts.
As educators, it is our job to make sure that while our students are learning English and the cultures that come along with the language, that our students continue to learn about their own and keep it. Incorporating the different cultures that will be found in the ESL classroom in the instruction will help raise awareness of the diversity and importance of the students' cultures. It is also important to make students feel welcome to the new culture and praise their first one. Culture is a very important aspect in our lives, and it's important that traditions, values, and ideas are held close to both the hearts of the students and the teachers. Ultimately, how students learn and adapt to the new balance between cultures will effect how they learn the language. This plays a role on their affective factors.
Along with embracing the cultures, it's also important to embrace and welcome all varieties of English. It almost seems as though English as become a political entity. The idea of the standardized Engish being looked at as the "correct" English, when in reality the standard isn't supposed to be superior or inferior to another variety. How do we stray away from the common stereotype of 'standard' English?
As educators, it is our job to make sure that while our students are learning English and the cultures that come along with the language, that our students continue to learn about their own and keep it. Incorporating the different cultures that will be found in the ESL classroom in the instruction will help raise awareness of the diversity and importance of the students' cultures. It is also important to make students feel welcome to the new culture and praise their first one. Culture is a very important aspect in our lives, and it's important that traditions, values, and ideas are held close to both the hearts of the students and the teachers. Ultimately, how students learn and adapt to the new balance between cultures will effect how they learn the language. This plays a role on their affective factors.
Along with embracing the cultures, it's also important to embrace and welcome all varieties of English. It almost seems as though English as become a political entity. The idea of the standardized Engish being looked at as the "correct" English, when in reality the standard isn't supposed to be superior or inferior to another variety. How do we stray away from the common stereotype of 'standard' English?
Research Progress
While thinking about what to do my final paper on, I knew I wanted to do something with the teacher's role in the classroom. Originally, I picked teacher role. But this main topic was just too broad so I expanded it to what teacher's role is in the classroom and what part it plays in the pedagogy of the different language skills one must work on while learning a second language. How does the teacher role vary between the pedagogy of listening, speaking, reading, and writing? Along with these questions, I was planning to go on to relate it to critical pedagogy and the importance of such. However, at the end, I realized that this wasn't something that I really wanted to do extended research on...
While my progress on the above topic was short-lived, I was enlightened by the topic that we had for our week 12 readings. I thought a lot about my ENG343 class which focused on the cross-cultural issues in TESOL. This had made me rethink on the topic I would like to research for my final paper. I want to look into the role that culture plays in learning English as a L2. How do the cultures of our students play role in their learning? How does the cultures related to English play role in their learning? What can we has teachers do to make sure we don't let the dominant culture take toll on the learning process? How do we incorporate those cultures of our students in our pedagogical practices? How does culture awareness and education effect the process of acquiring the four main language skills? These questions focus mainly on the social and cultural aspects of L2 learning and how they effect the process of learning the second language. I have found this to be of more importance and interest because I have personal experience with this when it comes to learning my second language, Spanish.
While I do not have research collected just quite yet, I do have an idea of important names I will look into...
- Kumaravadivelu
- Brown
- Holliday
- Giroux
While my progress on the above topic was short-lived, I was enlightened by the topic that we had for our week 12 readings. I thought a lot about my ENG343 class which focused on the cross-cultural issues in TESOL. This had made me rethink on the topic I would like to research for my final paper. I want to look into the role that culture plays in learning English as a L2. How do the cultures of our students play role in their learning? How does the cultures related to English play role in their learning? What can we has teachers do to make sure we don't let the dominant culture take toll on the learning process? How do we incorporate those cultures of our students in our pedagogical practices? How does culture awareness and education effect the process of acquiring the four main language skills? These questions focus mainly on the social and cultural aspects of L2 learning and how they effect the process of learning the second language. I have found this to be of more importance and interest because I have personal experience with this when it comes to learning my second language, Spanish.
While I do not have research collected just quite yet, I do have an idea of important names I will look into...
- Kumaravadivelu
- Brown
- Holliday
- Giroux
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