| Teaching Experiences Spanish MCL 2006-2007 EDCI 560 and EDRD 620- Spring 2008 EDCI 684- Summer 2008 EDRD-Spring 2009 |
GMU Assistantships |
|---|
Department of Modern and Classical Languages
George Mason University
Fall 2006 to Spring 2007Prior to taking this teaching position, I had taught Spanish at GMU for two years as a teaching assistant. During that time I had the privilege of working with a several seasoned instructors who had incorporated the communicative method of language teaching into their lessons. At the same time, I was working toward finishing my M. Ed. With each course that I took, I attempted to incorporate new ideas and methods in my own teaching. For example, I created rubrics for writing and speaking assessments while taking an assessment course. I conducted a teacher action research project based on Howard Gardner's Theory of Multiple Intelligences while taking a methods course. And, while taking a course in curriculum and instruction, I began to question the current syllabus and curriculum of the Basic Spanish Program because it is based on a textbook instead of having a foundation in national standards and/or specific learner objectives.
After earning my M.Ed in the summer of 2006 and beginning my PhD coursework the following fall semester, I have a new perspective of what post-secondary language courses should offer in terms of addressing the needs of diverse learners. I have begun to work with the director, assistant directors and a few colleagues in Basic Spanish Program in order to implement change. Once such change is to include more technology that promotes language learning based on standards and objectives. In our discussions, many agree that these changes may require a shift from the current textbook based curriculum to a curriculum that is based on specific learner objectives. Although there is still a level of uncertainty as to what these changes will entail, I am hopeful that I will have the opportunity to work with the professors and document any interventions--in what could become the early studies for my eventual dissertation.
Graduate School of Education
George Mason University
Spring 2008My previous teaching experiences had been primarily with adult language learners, first at Fairfax County Adult Education and later with Modern and Classical Languages (MCL) at GMU. The major challenge with both of these experiences was to motivate students to engage in learning, especially after they realized the difficulty of learning a language in a classroom setting. As I studied methodology and second language theory while earning my M.Ed, I learned that motivating students requires more than a system of punishment and reward--i.e. grades. It requires the teacher to understand the diverse needs of students, After three years of teaching beginning level Spanish courses with MCL, I found that the most effective way to motivate students was to get to know them. It seemed that once I developed relationships with my students, the more engaged in learning the language they became. Even then, most of my students were in my classes to meet a graduation requirement. Few if any would continue with the language as a major or minor field of study.
Student motivation in graduate level courses is completely different. All of the students enrolled in these two courses were highly motivated to learn new theories and methodologies that they could implement in their present/future classrooms. However, this is not to say that my transition from undergraduate to graduate level teaching was without its challenges. How would I be effective in meeting the needs of the 14 international students from China? Would I be able to model student-centered instruction in such a way as to provide my students with personal experiences that they could then use in their own teaching? And, how would I facilitate the growth of 27 individuals as they develop their ability to use research-based teaching practices that are founded in a sociocultural theory and constructivism? Each week as I prepared my lesson-plans for these classes, I kept these questions in mind. As each week passed, I reflected upon my instruction. I found that the more I made connections to individual students by referring to their background knowledge or personal experiences, the more engaged the students became in the classroom discussions. I started taking notes during discussions and teaching demonstrations in order to make specific references to individual students in future class meetings. By the end of the semester, I had not only learned about my students, I had also learned from them.
Teaching graduate level courses in the Certification in Foreign Language (CIFL) licensure program has allowed me to grow as both a teacher and a budding researcher/scholar. I have noted on several areas of this portfolio that my experiences in the doctoral program, and particularly in this semester, have led me in a new direction for my dissertation research. The joy that I had so often experienced when teaching Spanish is the same joy coupled with a new found passion that I have for working with a teacher education program.
Graduate School of Education
George Mason University
Summer 2008After the spring 2008 semester ended, I reflected once again on my experiences as the instructor of EDCI 560 and EDRD 620. I read the feedback from the course evaluations and realized that the reading assignments were a challenge for the students in the international Chinese cohort and the graded assignments needed more scaffolding. It became apparent that I had been guilty of using a "one size fits all" mentality when I had organized the syllabus for EDRD 620. I now know that my previous lessons will not work with the diverse students that occupy the seats in our foreign/world language licensure courses. But what exactly are their needs?
I had to think back to my own experiences studying abroad in order to gain a better understanding of my teaching from the perspective of my students. For example, teacher expectations during my undergraduate summer study in Madrid, Spain were not always clear. In addition, some of the information I was required to learn was given to me completely out of context. I distinctly remember struggling with one particular class because the professor gave us over 50 idiomatic expressions that were not connected in any way. He then tested the class by giving us a situation (in Spanish) and requiring us to use the correct expression in our response. I did not do well on the exam because I simply could not memorize all of them out of context. I wondered why he hadn't taught us the expressions using situations similar to those used on the exam.
I gained a better understanding of my struggle with those idiomatic expressions during EDUC 797: Special Topics--Brain-based Teaching and Learning. The course readings, that included work of David Souza, Marilee Springer, and Gayle Gregory, provided both theory on how the brain learns as well as the application of differentiated instructional practices. Learning how we take in information through our senses and how our processes of short-term and long-term memory operate gave me a new perspective and appreciation for the neuroplasticity of the brain and the importance of tapping into the background knowledge of our students. Students are clearly not tabula rasa, or blank slates waiting for us to write, or as Paolo Freire would say, deposit information that we deem valuable. These course readings alone changed my thinking and allowed me to make several connections. However, it was the 2007 article by Robert Sternberg titled "Who are the bright children?" that significantly directed my focus to that of culture. To Sternberg, knowledge that is valued and acts that are considered "intelligent" depend upon the social context and the shared values of the people who share that social context. Until I read this article, I had not questioned the kinds of background knowledge that is valued in my classroom. I had not thought about what constitutes intelligent acts and my biases in favor of Western views of intelligence. Although I had been implementing Howard Gardner's Multiple Intelligence Theory in my lessons as a Spanish teacher and as the instructor in EDRD 620 and EDCI 560 last spring, I had not considered how the prior learning experiences of my international students differed drastically from my own.Ten years after my summer in Madrid, I found myself wondering if I was guilty of committing the same offenses with my international students in the CIFL program. Had I made my expectations clear? Did I provide enough context for them? They had only been in the U.S. for a few days before classes began. So, when I talked about "standards-based instruction that is age, grade, and language level appropriate for the learner" I might as well have been talking gibberish. I had forgotten to take into account that their prior knowledge and experiences with educational settings were not the same as those that I had experienced in U.S. schools. They did not have the same experiences with student diversity or the standards-based curriculum that I took for granted. To complicate things even more, I was completely unaware of Chinese cultures and how my international students would react to the demands placed on them in learner-centered classrooms. I decided that I would do things differently with the summer session of EDCI 684.
I began my planning for this course by attending Dr. Fox's 684 class in the spring 2008. I decided to borrow several of her ideas for scaffolding the readings and the course projects. I also re-worked the syllabus to make the reading load more manageable for a condensed summer course. I created new in-class activities using WGBH videos, "Teaching Foreign Languages K-12: A library of Classroom Practices", that highlight the course themes--such standards-based instruction, performance-based assessments, and a wide variety of teaching methods. To make sure that the students understood the videos, and could make connections to their own teaching, I modeled pre-viewing, during viewing, and post viewing strategies that included both individual and small group activities. Several times throughout the course, students were asked to reflect upon their own learning by making connections between the course readings, our class activities and discussions, and their future instructional practices. These activities were also intended to serve as scaffolding for the course reflections.
I believe these changes were effective (and the students indicated this on their course evaluations). But, I noticed that the international students struggled with their reflections and their teaching demonstrations still emphasized teacher-centered instruction. It was then that I realized that while I made improvements in my instructional practices, I had yet to change my thinking about their background knowledge, and about their prior learning experiences. From the very beginning of the course, I should have asked them to write about and share their prior language learning experiences. How could I expect the pre-service teachers in my classroom to reflect upon the cultural, linguistic and cognitive diversity of their future students, when I had had not modeled this by valuing theirs? Things will once again be done differently next spring when I teach EDRD 620.
Graduate School of Education
George Mason University
Spring 2009Prior to teaching EDRD 620 the second time, I knew I wanted to make several changes to the syllabus and the course reader. I referred back to my reflection from teaching EDRD 620 last year that served as my Advanced Internship (EDUC 994). I decided to begin with the course reader. I had wanted to add more articles written by practicing FL/WL teachers, such as "Breathing Life into Foreign Language Reading" by Susan Ferguson and "A Touch of Class: Internet Technology and Second/Foreign Language Education: Activities for the Classroom Teacher" by Kim MacDonald. On the subject of language learning and technology, I included several "Emerging Technology" articles by Robert Godwin-Jones that have been published in Language Learning and Technology. To facilitate our classroom discussions on the diverse needs of today's language learners, I included the article by Harriet Barnett and Kay Jarvis-Sladky titled "Topics for discussion: Learning disabilities: Teaching and reaching all learners"; Jin Sook Lee's 2005 article "Through the learners’ eyes: Reconceptualizing the Heritage and Non-heritage Learner of the Less Commonly Taught Languages"; and Thomas Armstrong's "Making the Words Roar" that applies Gardner's Theory of Multiple Intelligences to the development of literacy skills. Finally, I decided to include the recent article by Joseph Allen, "Why Learning to Write Chinese is a Waste of Time: A Modest Proposal." My thought was that this controversial title would stimulate a lively discussion on why we tend to follow the same curriculum without questioning if it best serves the diverse needs of today's language learners.
Building on the successes of the changes I made to the syllabus and class structure for EDCI 684 last summer, I decided I would once again scaffold the readings and the course projects by providing weekly agendas that listed the reading/discussion questions for class ahead of time, so that the students could read each article with a purpose and prepare for our class discussions. The agenda for each class also included time for us to review upcoming projects and assignments as well as the rubrics. And, to provide more scaffolding for the midterm and final projects, I eliminated the Web Quest project from last year and replaced it with two short reflective statements (1-3 pages) were worth 5 points each (10% of the final grade) that students could re-submit after receiving my feedback. The first reflective statement asked students to reflect on their own experiences learning to read and write in a second (or third) language and to make a connection to at least 2 course readings. To scaffold the first reflective statement, I had students share some of the activities they remembered doing when learning to read and write in a second language. We then categorized them as "student-centered" or learner-centered." For homework, the class read the Ferguson article (mentioned above) that discusses how typical reading comprehension questions do little to check for comprehension and do even less to motivate students to want to read. Ferguson, a practicing German teacher, then offers suggestions and examples of what she has done "to make reading come alive" in her classroom.
The result of these reflective statements was that many of the students were able to express themselves deeply and passionately about their prior learning experiences and make meaningful connections to the course readings. I did similar activities prior to the second reflective statement assignment that asked students to reflect on how their thinking about teaching reading and writing has changed over the semester and how they planned to apply these changes to their final projects. I also included a second option for this assignment where they could respond to a posting on the FL TEACH listserv by a teacher who requested information regarding the connection between reading and writing. I thought either of these options for the second reflective statement would give the students a chance to synthesize what they had been learning all semester prior to beginning work on their final projects.
Most of these changes were effective. For the most part, I found that the in-class activities and discussions were more productive that the last time I taught the course. But I still struggled to draw in the voices of the international students who were clearly not comfortable expressing themselves in English. I had suggested that they expose themselves to as much English as possible when out of the classroom and to practice speaking English with one another more frequently. I also encouraged them to write down a few notes as they prepared the reading/discussion questions because I found this was a helpful technique when I was taking advanced literature courses as an intermediate language learner. Another thing that became apparent was that the lack of available field placements for this Chinese cohort meant that they were getting less exposure to the realities of U.S. schools than the previous two cohorts. To address this issue, I called upon the six practicing teachers in the class to share their experiences throughout the semester. This seemed to work well, but I think our international cohort students would benefit greatly if we had a "Transition to U.S. Schools" course that allowed them more time to become acquainted with our educational system prior to taking the methods courses.
As the semester comes to a close, I have begun to reflect on these experiences through the lens of an instructor and through the lens of a researcher. Through my students and through my reflections, I have been able to identify areas for self-improvement, both in my thinking and in my instructional practices. I have learned that being an instructor at the graduate level is challenging. Yet, I know I must face each of these challenges with the best interest of my students in mind as well as the best interest of the hundreds and thousands of language learners that they will eventually teach. In addition to my personal and professional growth from these teaching experiences as a teacher, I have been been able to grow as a researcher. My interest in examining how FL/WL teachers teach culture has led me to look at how my students in EDCI 560, 684 and EDRD 620 think about culture. What target language cultures do they value? Will a young girl from Nepal find that her culture is valued in a Chinese class taught by a teacher from Beijing? How will a Spanish teacher from Mexico address the comments made by a mother who says that that her child is not really learning Spanish because he is not learning to use the forms of "vosotros" like she did when she learned the language 20 years ago? As I think about these questions, I reflect on the pre-service teachers and in-service teachers who have filled the seats in my methods classes. What have I done as a teacher educator to prepare them for these realities? And more importantly, how can my dissertation research contribute to the current scholarship in this area?
Graduate School of Education
George Mason University
Fall 2006 to Spring 2007During the 2006-2007 academic year, I had the opportunity to work as a graduate research assistant for Dr. Marjorie Haley. This position was a perfect fit as Dr. Haley and I share similar research interests. It also presented me with many challenging tasks including re-designing the Multiple Intelligences Research Study (MIRS) web site, co-editing a new student-teaching/internship manual specifically for world language teacher candidates, conducting research to support numerous speeches and articles, editing documents for the new Chinese Language Licensure Program, preparing and delivering a presentation at a regional conference (NECTFL), preparing a presentation for a national conference (ACTFL), editing lesson plans for a book in publication, and co-authoring an article for publication in a peer reviewed journal (still pending).
Although challenging, these tasks have allowed me to use many of the new skills and knowledge that I have acquired in the first several courses in the PhD program. From using the research skills I developed in EDUC 810--Methods in Education Research to the macromedia web design skills that I developed in the Portfolio Design course, I have been able to make immediate practical use of my coursework. Yet perhaps the most beneficial outcome of this research assistantship is how is has allowed me the time to reflect upon what areas of research I would like to explore during my own doctoral journey.
In studying Dr. Haley's work for the differentiation of instruction to meet the cognitive, linguistic, and cultural needs of diverse learners, I have started to question how post-secondary language programs currently meet these needs. While much of the research in the world language field has focused on the cognitive needs of language learners, there are gaps in the research regarding the diverse linguistic and cultural needs. I know from my own experiences in teaching beginning Spanish courses at the post-secondary level that more often than not, these needs are overlooked. There are many possible reasons for this that I would like to explore by conducting mini-research projects during the next year. It is my hope that by using various technologies (such as blogging and linguifolios) language instructors might become more effective in addressing the diverse cognitive, linguistic and cultural needs of their students.
Graduate School of Education
George Mason University
Fall 2007 to Spring 2008This academic year, I was fortunate enough to continue working with Dr. Haley on a number of projects. The first project was to assist in the copy-editing of her new book. Although this is a rather tedious process, I learned that even individual projects require collaboration on some level. I will keep this in mind as I edge closer to writing my own dissertation. Building a network of colleagues as I progress through the program is essential as I may very well need their help with different aspects of my research and/or pilot study.
The second project was a co-presentation at the national conference by the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL). Building upon the work we did last year on the Student-Teaching Internship Manual for Foreign/World Languages (STIM), Dr. Haley and I presented our findings from a case study that we conducted with one of the CIFL teacher licensure candidates. Our goal was to provide the attendees with a model for creating a manual that facilitated the transition from coursework to the 15-week student-teaching internship and that was also based on the ACTFL/NCATE standards. This experience was quite different from my previous conference presentations. At GWATFL and NECTL, my audience had been either preservice or in-service language teachers. Because this was a national conference and because our presentation appealed to teacher educators, the attendees of our session were generally professors who teach and/or serve as directors of teacher education programs from across the country. Although I will admit that I was a bit intimidated at times, I learned so much about the diverse range of language licensure programs that span the 50 states.
The third project was an article that Dr. Haley and I co-authored and is currently in a double blind peer-review process at Foreign Language Annals. After my experiences at the ACTFL conference, I wrote a paper for EDUC 882 that sought to define the epistemological lenses, not only for the revisions made to the STIM, but also in the design of the courses that are meant to prepare preservice world language teachers for their future classrooms. Drawing on recent research in critical pedagogy, sociocultural theory, neuroscience, and instructional technology, our article calls for teacher education programs that will provide world language teachers with the tools to cultivate a generation of global citizens. This, we believe will require the teacher to create classroom ecologies where differing funds of knowledge are valued (Moll & Gonzalez, 2004); where individuals are encouraged to make use of the language and culture in hybrid spaces (Hawkins, 2005); and where the importance of the connection between language and identity is understood and nurtured (Norton, 1997).
The fourth project is related to Dr. Haley's work with the Defense Language Institute (DLI) in Monterrey, CA. During her last set of workshops at DLI, Dr. Haley found that the DLI language instructors struggled to motivate students who were reluctant to learn the language. This was particularly true for instructors of critical needs languages. To address how teachers can meet the needs of reluctant language learners at this year's training workshop, I have been conducting short video interviews with local instructors that teach critical needs languages at either the secondary or post-secondary level. Dr. Haley will share these video interviews with the DLI instructors in order to provide real-world examples of how others deal with this rather difficult, yet common challenge.
The last project that I completed was actually a teaching assistantship for the last 8 weeks of instruction for EDCI 560. Due to the unfortunate accident that Dr. Haley experienced in early March, she was unable to continue teaching the methods course. I would have preferred to have taught this course under different circumstances, but I was glad to be able to help Dr. Haley in her recovery process and to gain additional teaching experience at the graduate level. My immediate challenge was to maintain the path Dr. Haley had started while also creating my own lesson plans/activities for each course topic. To gain insight as to where the students were in the course, I asked them to reflect upon the course goals listed on the syllabus. They shared with me where they thought they were in terms of meeting those goals. I then used this information to direct my instruction to meet their needs. Although I believe I could have done a better job at connecting each week's lesson to the next, I think that I successfully provided a classroom environment where the students felt comfortable to participate in discussions as well as to try new methods/strategies in their teaching demonstrations. Overall, I believe I have greatly benefited from this teaching experience as I now have a clearer understanding for preparing lessons and evaluating student work at the graduate level.
The DLI Experience--Fall 2008
Graduate School of Education
George Mason University
My third year as Dr. Haley's GRA has provided me with practical experience as novice researcher and a new teacher educator. In the fall, I had the opportunity to accompany Dr. Haley to a week-long workshop ("Motivating the Reluctant Learner / Action Research" ) at the Defense Language Institute (DLI) in Monterrey, California. During our drive from the airport to the military installation, I learned that much of what takes place in the DLI classroom is "classified"--and that Dr. Haley had not been able to observe their teaching prior to planning her workshop. We also talked about the institute's unusual structure/culture that includes both military rank and university tenure.
The first thing one must consider when attempting to understand the culture of the DLI is that almost all of the soldiers have not voluntarily signed up to be there. The majority are selected according to their score on a language aptitude test that they took when they first joined the military. During their basic training, they are informed of their assignment to the DLI and told to select a few languages that interest them. Many soldiers select languages based on countries where they would like to be assigned, such as Spanish, Korean, or German. While some get to study a language of choice, others find themselves studying Urdu or Pashto for 8 hours (or more) a day for 3 to 12 months. Since the goal of instruction is to develop listening and speaking skills for the purpose of military operations, soldiers have little opportunity (or need) to experience the richness of these target language cultures. Their time at the DLI is to prepare them for a tour "down range" that will most certainly put them in harms way.
The second contributing factor to the unique culture at the DLI is that the language instructors/professors are almost all civilians, with no military rank over the soldiers in their classrooms. The issue of rank would not be significant, but classroom management is a problem as many of the soldiers have negative attitudes and lack motivation. Simply put, this is not what they had in mind when they signed up for the military. The power dynamic between soldier and instructor is complicated even more by the fact that decisions for promotions and tenure are weighted heavily on soldier evaluations of their instructors/professors. In addition, there is often a disconnect between instructors and their students/soldiers. Because the DLI hires only native speakers to teach the language classes, many of the instructors, including those who teach critical needs languages, have had little or no experience teaching in the U.S. The students are reluctant to learn and the instructors struggle to motivate them to do so. Learning about the culture of the DLI was interesting to me. But, the implications of this unique structure/culture remained elusive--at least for the first few days that I was there.
I felt that my experience teaching Spanish at the post-secondary level at GMU would allow me to relate to some of the challenges that the DLI instructors/professors were experiencing with their students. After all, my former students were about the same age. Like the soldiers who sat in the DLI classrooms, many of my students did not want to be in my Spanish classes and were there only to fulfill a degree requirement. As I think back to those first few days of the workshop, I realize that I truly did not have a clue about what these professors were facing in their classrooms. At some point during the second to last day, without really knowing it, I turned off my instructor lens and turned on my researcher lens.
As I sat and observed Dr. Haley conduct the workshop, I found myself listening to the professors and instructional trainers through a new set of ears as they participated in group activities. These were the ears of a researcher. I finally stopped trying to relate their stories to my personal teaching experiences. As a result, I was able to start understanding their challenges as they see them. It was then that the implications of the structure and culture of the DLI became clearer. It was then that I realized that I could not experience these realities the way the instructors/professors, and trainers had. With this realization, I spent the last day circling the room and listening to as many of their stories as possible. Using these new ears, I learned more that day than I had all week. I learned that my research is not about me, it is about my participants. I (thankfully) had found my "researcher ears."
I left the DLI with mixed emotions. I was sad for the young soldiers who did not want to be there. I was sad for the professors who had been so sincere about their desire to motivate and engage their students (soldiers). Yet I was optimistic that Dr. Haley's workshop was meaningful and would have a positive impact on their instructional practices. I was grateful for these experiences and eagerly took them back to GMU and the courses I was taking. I made particular connections during EDUC 853--World Perspectives in Teacher Education. My topic for the final paper focused on foreign language learning beyond the development of communicative competence to that of intercultural communicative competence. As I wrote this paper, I couldn't help but wonder if the soldiers and instructors at the DLI would benefit from a curriculum that extended beyond military operations. This is clearly something that may never happen at the DLI, but nevertheless, still worth pondering. By the end of the fall semester, I found myself asking: where does the field of Foreign/World language education need to be moving? ~ A question to consider as I continue to develop my dissertation topic.
