Discussion #4: Heritage Language Learners in Traditional L2 Foreign Language Classrooms
For our assignment on professional readings a couple of weeks ago, I chose to reflect on a Foreign Language Annals article (http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com.libproxy.unh.edu/doi/10.1111/flan.12145/full) about high school Spanish teachers’ attitudes towards “heritage language learning” (HLL) students and ways in which those HLL students can be supported in traditional L2 language classrooms. As I shared in class on Tuesday, I also observed a high school Spanish I class with two heritage language learners: one student is from Puerto Rico and the other student is from the Dominican Republic.
Since we’re all interested in foreign language teaching and it’s likely that we’ll be working with HLL students in some form, I’m curious to know what everybody thinks about practices for educating HLL students. Should HLL students be taught in programs that are designed to address their language learning needs? Is there a place for HLL students in traditional L2 classrooms? Is it feasible to expect schools with fewer HLL students to have both HLL programs and traditional L2 programs? How can schools without HLL-specific programs best serve those students in traditional L2 programs?
To respond to my own questions, I’ll start by agreeing with the article I read and say that, ideally, schools should have language learning programs for HLL students. However, I admit that it’s unreasonable for every school, especially the schools with fewer HLL students including Portsmouth High School where I observed the Spanish I class, to have adequate resources like funding and sufficiently-prepared teachers to implement those programs. It’s important to note that, generally, the language learning needs of HLL students differ from the needs of traditional L2 students in the sense that, as the article discussed, HLL students require more instruction on orthography and syntax.
For schools that do not have HLL-specific programs, I believe that there is a place for HLL students in traditional L2 classrooms and, in fact, HLL students can complement traditional L2 classrooms. For example, in the Spanish I class I observed, the teacher placed the HLL students in different groups and encouraged them to model pronunciation and basic sentence structure for their peers. The traditional L2 students might not have been exposed to valuable comprehensible input from heritage speakers if they did not have HLL classmates. Alternately, the traditional L2 language learning students may be able to model orthography and syntax skills for HLL students. The well-known cognitive development theorist Lev Vygotsky claimed that modeling is one of the most effective methods for facilitating learning.
Finally, in schools with traditional L2 programs and HLL-specific programs, I think that an exchange between the programs would benefit all foreign language students. Even though HLL-specific programs provide critical learning opportunities for HLL students, it is my opinion that traditional L2 learners and HLL students would have rewarding academic experiences through collaboration and interaction between the two programs.
Candace, I am a HLL having grown up speaking Portuguese at home. The community I grew up in in Massachusetts was mainly Portuguese, and so even a trip to the grocery store often meant speaking Portuguese. I found this to be a great way to learn a language. The school system offered Portuguese along with French and Spanish in Middle School, and Portuguese, Spanish and Mandarin in High School. To answer your question about HLL learners being taught in tradition classrooms, I think there is a place for them but it has to be at the right level. I found that it was hard to pay attention in Portuguese class. The teacher was teaching things I had been doing since I learned to speak. Given that this was in middle school there was really no Portuguese class room that could keep the interest of myself and fellow HLL. In a community that had this large of a HLL population I feel that there should have been a program to specific for the learning needs of HLL students. Schools would need to provide us with more written and reading assignments and less cultural and verbal ones as these were what we got at home. The teacher would also have to understand that sometimes the student may have been taught differently at home depending on what part of the country of the language they are from ( my Portuguese was mainland and so I speak with a mainland accent and not one from the Azores Islands, this was a huge problem in my experience). Although it may not be possible for schools with less funding to have HLL specific programs they can incorporate them more effectively into pre existing language classes. I think there is a lot L2 learners can learn from HLL and vice versa, so they could be used to model certain things for each other.
Thanks for sharing about your personal experience as a HLL student. It was particularly interesting for me to read about how you were bored in your Portuguese class due to the fact that the class wasn’t addressing your language learning needs. Like you said, you were able to get the cultural information and verbal practice from home and, therefore, it would have been more beneficial for you if the program at your school had targeted your reading and writing skills.
You also brought up a cultural point by saying that teachers need to have the understanding that the country or part of the country a family is from might affect how HLL students are exposed to language at home. It sounds like, in your case, the teacher was not familiar with the differences between mainland Portuguese and the Portuguese spoken on the Azores islands.
Finally, I would agree with what you mentioned about how there’s a lot that traditional L2 students can learn from HLL students and vice versa. I’m curious to know, did your Portuguese teachers encourage HLL students like yourself to model for the rest of the class? If so, how did they go about doing this?
Candace, My teachers often asked my self and other HLL students to read larger passages then the other students or would pair us with students whose pronunciation was not where it should be. They also would call on us if the class couldn't figure something out.
Discussion #4: Use of Target Language in a Foreign Language Classroom
After doing my class observation last week, it provided me with a good opportunity to see another instructor teach a foreign language class, and forced me to think about the use of the target language in a classroom. When I first started teaching at the beginning of last year, I must say that I did not fully understand the importance of using the target language in a foreign language class. It took me a while in my teaching to be comfortable with my students, comfortable with speaking Spanish in class, and also for my students to be comfortable with heavy use of Spanish in class. I can remember that when I first started teaching Spanish 401, I thought that I had to use more English than Spanish due to my students being novice learners. Although, the more 401 progressed, and especially by the beginning of 402, I was able to see that my incremental use of Spanish with my students had paid off well, and my students, even though they were in a basic level, could understand more than I anticipated.
One thing that disrupted the flow of target language use in the classroom were cultural or vocabulary lessons. This was a hang up that I ran into last year, that took away from target language use in the classroom. In our teaching, we were encouraged to do lessons on cultural topics that could create a discussion based on a particular theme pertaining to hispanic culture. While these cultural lessons were important because it taught students about specific aspects regarding hispanic culture and society, it sometimes required an entire class session being done in English. Since taking this class and having done my lesson plan a couple of weeks ago, I feel confident that if I was given an opportunity to teach another cultural lesson, I would do it better and differently than last year. I would find a piece of authentic material to help start the lesson, but to also expose the students to something in the target language. Have any of you had to deal with these types of lessons in your teaching, and how do you take focus off the use English in cultural lessons?
I think this is a very real topic. Great choice Rob, okay so now I would echo what you have already said. I think it is very difficult to not explain cultural or vocabulary parts of the language in English, however the way through which it could be possible to achieve this topic would be to follow the PACE model. I would also suggest that there are other ways to achieve learning vocabulary which does not require a projector (which has been a challenge I have faced thus far in my own experience). Now what I have found is that certain lesson which remain within my drawing capabilities such as family, age and greeting vocabulary. I have been able to take advantage of comprehensible input so that my students have an outlet from the heavy load of target language input. Such vocabulary does not need much more explanation than a picture of a family and each persons role, however this does not work for all lessons but it has worked well for me at the lower levels.
Though I haven’t had as much experience in the classroom yet, the idea that using the target language to teach cultural or vocabulary lessons can be difficult reminds me of a lesson I did a while ago for seventh grade Spanish students studying Día de los Muertos (this lesson was completely different from the lesson I’ve posted on our wiki but the goal was still to introduce culture and vocabulary). Although there was some English used and I would have, like Robert said, done the lesson differently with the knowledge I have now, I was surprised at how much students were able to understand about vocabulary with the help of pictures and videos (authentic materials) and, in turn, what they were able to comprehend about the cultural insights implied by the Day of the Dead holiday.
As both of you have said, incorporating authentic reading or listening comprehension materials and following the PACE model for example are both ways in which lower-level language students (and students of all levels with some adjustments) can grasp culture or vocabulary concepts while the teacher takes focus off of English in cultural lessons. In terms of teaching vocabulary, I believe that it’s worthwhile to get students thinking about new words by defining them with words that they may already be familiar with.
Building off of Candace's comment, Dia de Los muertos also provides a hands on approach to the cultural lesson, where one can use target language with visuals, actions, and so forth, like Candace said. I remember working with my high school Spanish 1 Students as a Senior, and actually doing the project when I was in that class freshman year, where we had to build our own Ofrendas, research, explain everything in Spanish, and create something real, culturally rich, and personal. At the same time, we learned from the teacher without use of non-target language and we focused on Spanish as our main voice of the project. We were shown visuals, videos, and actually given supplies to make our Ofrendas authentic in their own right, and so there was no need for English input in most cases.
However I am somewhat against Candace's view on using non-target language to make new words more familiar, especially in this sense, because I see something like Day of the Dead falling prey to the age old dilemma of "That's Mexican Halloween right?" Skeleton, spirits, skulls, candy, dressing up, going house to house, all seem like ideas an concepts that are easy understand, but even more easily misconstrued and put out of context. Associating something like una Calavera with images and visuals of the bright, festive, and ornate decorations, as well as the wonderful sugar skulls traditional to Dia de los muertos, is better than just associating skulls in general, or in English, because it won't necessarily trigger thoughts about Halloween in the United States. We know they're distinctly different, yet by bringing familiarity to the language itself with English, could bring cultural misunderstandings and overlap as well.
Free Blog Post: After studying all of the methodologies and approaches to teaching L2 acquisition so far, I am becoming almost uneasy about the fact that I have yet to see much in terms of applying practicality and usage of language skills outside the classroom setting and in the future. So many of our teaching ideals and techniques mandate the use of authentic language and becoming proficient and comfortable with a target language over years of verbal, written, and mental practice. Yet, what makes me worry is that there has not been a major emphasis on USES of target languages, and not much to say about the benefits (as there are many) of WHY we are learning these things. So many schools require at least two years or a couple of semesters in some target language of that students choice, but why? I personally have yet to see much in terms of actual discussion of this topic in the classroom setting. Sure there have been lots of instances of, "oh because it's important," and "it looks good on college applications." but there is no real meat or time spent sitting down with students and engaging them on the subject of why language is important. In that sense, do we have proof that language is important to learn? Or are we just forcing another subject on our students. (Obviously that is not what I think personally but it brings to mind the perspective of those students less than interested in being in class and learning a foreign language.) There's all this talk of authentic language and making bridges between the prescriptive language-bubble of the classroom to the real world of situational, dialectal, subjectivity that is any foreign language. Great. We make everyone understand it exists, and that is somewhere. But it's kind of along the same lines as our discussion of "Esos/Eso" and "Aquellos/Aquel" the other day in class. Do we want just an abstract understanding that those things we are talking about somewhere in sometime exist or existed? Or do we want true concrete examples of where, when, how, and why language use is important and abundant in our world community? Either way, the question that I need to reflect on remains: is simply making something authentic giving it meaning and purpose for the students? On a personal note, during my junior year of High School, a student from Mexico D.F. was moved into my school of 600 white-European, English speakers, with no English background whatsoever. As a Spanish student in my third year of learning (and at that point what I thought was my last) I found myself trying to help her as much as possible, and I began working with her to get her to where she could at least pass. But then it hit me hard. I realized that I barely was capable of communicating to her the extensive details of Pre-Calculus with the limited Spanish I had at the time. I managed to get through to her what I needed and I was able to help her more and more. So, up to that point, I had just done my work for the grade. I did my Spanish work to get it done, because I needed the class to graduate, and I needed to do well to keep my GPA high for school. But after this experience, I had real drive. I went from taking 1 Spanish class a year, to 3 in my final year. I knew that I wanted to teach at that point, but I realized that I would never be able to get through to my students if they didn't know why we are learning this in the first place, just like I didn’t realize that it was so important to have the skills developed in the classroom to use in the real world. So, the question is, do you agree with this assertion? Is there room for the Why in the classroom? and have you seen it so far in your experiences?? OR am I just crazy? (That is also a plausible answer ; ] )
Above is an article written by Annie de Saussure PhD candidate at Yale which discusses the influence of studying abroad on achieving fluency. As I was reading this article it was interesting to me that Saussure would argue that study abroad does not in fact improve fluency more than one would improved during an intense language training in the states. A few interesting points that she makes are the fact that there has been this movement that creates the ideology that study abroad is the golden ticket to fluency in another language when in fact the statistics don't exactly prove that to be true. I would argue that this is due to the fact that an intense study domestically can be controlled and monitored more closely than would students studying abroad would be. Saussure includes some of the Do's and Don'ts of studying abroad that would inhibit or enhance one's ability to achieve fluency. While reading further about her study, her argument definitely began to make more and more sense. Although study abroad for me was an incredible experience and I would argue that it is critical to language acquisition I understand the argument that studying abroad would not necessarily be the key to fluency specific to language and grammar acquisition. Please read this article and answer the questions I have proposed below. Thank you and I hope you all enjoy the weekend.
Discussion questions: First of all do you agree or disagree with the argument that studying abroad doe not achieve fluency, why or why not? Second of all since you or almost all of you have studied abroad, how has your fluency improved after the study abroad experience? What was the most significant part of your study abroad helping you to grow the most in your target language? Third, how do you think UNH has proposed study abroad programs,(teachers, advisors, etc)? Do you believe that some have suggested that study abroad is the golden ticket to fluency? Or not, Please explain.
Good questions. So I agree with what you said in that, study abroad is definitely critical to language acquisition, at least for the majority of people and situations. When I went abroad I lived with a host family and had no other choice but to the speak the language, at least while I was at home, so I think living with a host family will definitely increase your success on the road to fluency. With that being said I believe that many students go abroad not to necessarily focus on the language. This aspect would of course contribute to the argument made by Saussure. I really like your second question because I feel it is important to talk about. Since being back in the United States after studying abroad I have kind of obsessed over how importance it is to self establish the great difference between speaking Spanish in a Spanish speaking country and just speaking classroom Spanish. However for me, before I studied abroad I would get really nervous and worked up to speak out loud in front of the whole class in Spanish but since going abroad, that anxiety has almost completely disappeared. Even though if I was to go to Spain right now I know I would still have some confusion while speaking with natives one way or another, I feel much more comfortable with my Spanish speech in class. I think that UNH has proposed study abroad programs correctly in that they inform you that the experience will be whatever you make of it, and I think that is the most important point.
Even after reading Annie de Saussure’s article, I agree with what you mentioned about how studying abroad where the target language is spoken is critical to foreign language learning. However, I will agree with the argument from the article by saying that studying abroad does not always allow students to achieve fluency in a foreign language. I think that the five tips outlined in the article support this notion well. For example, if a study abroad student is not engaging with the target language in a quality over quantity manner and if they’re not fully embracing the target culture, then it is likely that they won’t develop their language skills. Furthermore, I know that it’s difficult for some students to avoid using English with their study abroad peers. If the students studying abroad are always reverting to English, then the study abroad experience is not as effective at facilitating the development of language skills.
During my study abroad trips, I created two blogs. I would use the blogs to reflect on daily occurrences and deeper, more meaningful cultural aspects and differences using the target language (in my case, the target language was Spanish). I also found that spending time with my host family and running daily errands with them (getting keys made, going grocery shopping, and eating meals with extended family for example) helped me to improve my language skills. As Annie de Saussure highlights in her article, these are two great ways in which study abroad students can optimize their study abroad experience(s).
Lastly, I don’t think that UNH professors or advisors frame studying abroad as a “golden ticket to fluency.” When I was in Costa Rica, for example, us students were encouraged to spend time with our host families and to get involved in the local community (I ended up visiting a school that taught English a few times). Overall, it’s important for students to be aware that they must actively shape their study abroad trips to be able to get the most out of them.
I definitely have thought on the fact that the emphasis on study abroad, though extremely helpful, might not necessarily be imperative. Going into my own experience in the next 3 months, I am sure that the time spent immersed in the culture, context, and pure language community, will benefit me greatly. HOWEVER, I disagree that spending a few months or a semester abroad necessarily makes the difference between achieving fluency and maintaining a solid but not yet native-level of speaking. From experience talking to many people who have already been abroad, I am not convinced that the experience made their speaking, listening, or comprehension that much better, while some definitely exemplify how a rich study abroad experience can truly make a speaker.
I do agree with Candace as well in that it's completely up to individual's drive to apply language and adapt to the native setting, but I do think that UNH pushes study abroad as an x=y "you will be fluent if you do this" kind of relationship, when in reality, there are so many variables in this equation that not even our best physics and math professors could solve the problem.
Last spring semester I had the opportunity to observe an ESL classroom at a local High School. Here a few things shocked me. Unlike with Spanish or other foreign languages at this school there was only one ESL teacher who sometimes has a teacher to help. The classroom was very different then a foreign language classroom like we are used to. It was a tiny room with no windows and two tables surrounded by chairs. There was a small white board and a teachers desk in the corner. This was not an environment the I feel promotes learning. It was also very small for the amount of students they had in and out of their everyday. The other teacher that helped out had a small room in the library that was sometimes used but this two was tiny and cramped. The teacher of the ESL class did not have any background in languages, in fact she only spoke english. Foreign language teachers in most if not all high schools have to have a good grasp on the target language as well as english. This teacher had students from all over the world whose languages were just as varied. Although I feel it would be unfair to ask the teacher to be fluent in all the languages of the students I feel that the lack of foreign language experience did not benefit the students. Imagine learning Spanish or French any language from a teacher who spoke no English, things would get a little confusing I am sure. It is the goal to teach the majority of lessons in the target language but sometimes the native language of students is used to clarify things. All of the ESL students were currently in mixed classes with native english speakers and spoke very good english but if this had not been the case there may have been issues. The students sometimes used their native languages to help out one another if there was a bit of confusion and the teacher did not take well to this. It is common although discouraged to hear students in a foreign language class using english when working in groups to clarify things. The funding for the ESL programs and the teacher training seems to be very different then that of other foreign languages. My questions: To the students in ESL English is a foreign language so if they are already being pulled out of mixed classes for help with english would it make sense to have teachers teach english like it is not a native language? Should ESL teachers have a background in languages, right now all they are given is a small packet with a few sheets on some culture points? Why or why not? Have any of you observed a ESL class, and what were your thoughts?
(also this is the third time I have typed this discussion due to the internet timing out so I apologize if it is not as organized as it should be)
Okay so where did the pamphlet come from? Do you know if this is a school, district or state wide standard? That could pose a huge influence or problem as to how the language is or is not being taught, what is or is not being included and how it all is handled. That room sounds like a terrible environment for students to go to, let alone try to learn in. Thank goodness these students had a decent foundation in the language otherwise the fact that they were being taught as if English was a native language is absurd. That is simply unacceptable and I do not believe it is too much to ask that a teacher have some sort of background in teaching foreign languages, international cultural awareness or something.
I’ll start by agreeing with Tim’s opinion that the ESL classroom you described does not sound like an environment that’s conducive to learning. I’m surprised, especially since I’m familiar with the ESL certification requirements at UNH Manchester, that the ESL teacher at the local school you’ve mentioned doesn’t sound adequately prepared to address the language learning needs of the students.
That being said, the fact that there was only one ESL teacher, unfortunately, doesn’t surprise me. Like you said, it would be unfair to require ESL teachers to be fluent in all of the languages represented by their ELL students (especially because there’s no way that somebody could account beforehand for the languages that might be represented in the ESL classroom). In fact, I’ve interviewed an ESL teacher with a background in Spanish that had twenty-six students and, between those twenty-six, 7 languages were represented.
As far as funding goes, I think that both ESL programs and foreign language programs are, for the most part, relatively equally underfunded. I’m sure we’re all aware that ESL or foreign language programs are some of the first to be cut and, unlike English or mathematics for example, they’re not always considered to be as important as we all know they are.
In conclusion, I think that ESL teachers should be certified through reputable programs. I also think that it’s ideal for these ESL teacher candidates to have some kind of culture-related or language background because they are able to better connect with students who do not speak English as a native language. However, like you’ve touched on in your original post, I don’t believe that the funding or resources will ever be great enough to warrant the hiring of ESL teachers for every language represented in a given school’s ELL population.
After also working with Kelly in that class last year, I agree with her analysis and her questions are beyond justified. It disturbed me that there was no true assistance for the students other than a sort of unstructured tutoring time and then native-style learning of English. I also spent time working at the Dover adult Learning Center last year with adult ESOL's and I was also surprised at the shear lack of language ability at the beginning and basic levels. The teacher I worked with was great there and she worked hard to use some basic native language for them to understand (they were all Hispanic speakers in this case) the toughest concepts, but she was limited to simple words and phrases in Spanish. I felt compelled to work with their Spanish knowledge, and so when I taught lessons as a sub some days, I found that the students responded better to understanding complicated distinctions and concepts in English, such as ordinal numbers vs. cardinal numbers and their uses in context. Obviously English is the focus, but by using Spanish I helped the students immensely in their understanding of that idea just in one class, to the point where they were using them more regularly in class. ESOL Teachers need to have some background in languages other than the target language, I feel, to effectively teach a target language to the widest variety of students.
Pronunciation is what I am most interested in terms of teaching and learning a language. Although I do not have much experience with other languages I am going to talk about learning Spanish specifically. Basically I think that second language learns of Spanish do not learn enough, if anything at all about Spanish pronunciation explicitly. Of course, on the days that they learn vocabulary or even grammar, depending on the professor, they might review a little bit about pronunciation but it is in no way a major focus or priority. For me, every single Spanish class I took in junior high and high school made grammar the main focus. Not to say that grammar is not important because I understand it is the base of language and it is very important to be able to conjugate to the intended person and tense you are attempting to speak in. However I believe that to be successful in learning a language you have to be able to pronounce words correctly, not only to be understood but to also understand what others are saying. Again, I can only speak for the Spanish language as a second language Spanish speaker but a major part of Spanish pronunciation that I think many people (L2L’s) do not understand is the languages ability to combine vowel sounds from the end of words to the beginning of the next word in the sentence. For example: La democracia ha hablado- Spanish is filled with words that end in vowels and of course there are many words that start with vowels also. This makes for combinations of sounds. In this example a native speaker, certainly would not say La democracia. ha. Hablado. They would say it more like la democraciablado. As L2L’s if we do not understand this simple aspect of Spanish sounds, words, pronunciation we will most definitely think that democraciablado is one word that we have never heard before. Another example I can think of is one that I heard while I was taking John Chaston’s Spanish Phonetics class last year: Nunca ha habido otro= Nuncabidotro. We do this in English to but the circumstances are different and also rarer. For example for: I am going to call you, it is possible that people will shorten that to: Ima call you. This is the most extreme example I can think of but of course there are many.
On another front I think that if you have a better understanding of pronunciation and the necessary change of shape that your mouth needs to make, you will begin to sound more eloquent and fluent. Once we are turned on to sounding more like a Spanish speaker, we will not be as intimidated to talk to one and or listen to one. I believe this can become a positive domino effect because if we are not intimidated to listen or speak to a native speaker we will better our own Spanish by catching on to more and more things that they do and at the same time that we are becoming better at comprehension we are implementing native aspects into our own speech.
I am wondering if other people can identify with this or are bothered by this or if I am just crazy and should stick to the conventional grammar and vocabulary style of teaching Spanish.
While I agree that pronunciation of the Spanish language (and, I would assume, of any other foreign language as well) is important for students to know, I can understand why there isn’t always a particular focus on Spanish pronunciation skills in secondary school foreign language programs. As you’ve said, students are often preoccupied learning Spanish grammar points and I think that those points build the foundation for further and more in-depth language study.
That is not to say, however, that I don’t think that pronunciation should be somewhat of a focus in secondary schools. It would seem to me that, ideally, when teachers incorporate authentic materials in their lesson plans (whether they be lessons that follow the PACE model or that target listening and reading comprehension skills), students will be exposed to the comprehensible input from native speakers and will, therefore, begin to consider pronunciation habits that mirror native speakers. What’s more, even though teachers may not be native speakers of the languages they’re teaching, they’ve (hopefully) had experience with advanced phonetics and pronunciation courses so that they also serve as comprehensible input for students and model typical Spanish pronunciation.
Finally, I’ll add that knowledge of pronunciation could, in a way, help students to feel confident with their oral and listening comprehension skills like you mentioned. The teacher, although not necessarily explicitly, should be offering constructive feedback to students (either individually or anonymously) so that they are able to start forming the pronunciation abilities that they might use later on in their language studies when they’ve had enough comprehensible input to better control their language use.
Max, I wholeheartedly agree with you on the matter. Pronunciation and sound has always been at the center of my focus because of how many different ideas it connects and relates to. Pronunciation is geography and sociology, spelling rules and grammar, and culture and identity among many examples. It is so important to encourage strong phonetic abilities in young students to me because it 1.) gives the students a look into another person's view, and 2.) gives your level of language proficiency a boost in considering what it ties into. Think about non-native speakers learning an L2 in a classroom setting. If they never have been exposed to native speakers, their ability to filter dialectal features and distinguish cultural norms within the language, it is harder for them to make a true connection there. Even more important is the fact that it gives insight into the struggles of human language as a whole, so that views on language learners, be them adult or youth, and no matter the language, show how challenging adopting native sounds in a second or third language can be. There will be more understanding of how and why speakers of certain languages have issues with certain letters and sounds in our language, just as we have issues producing some sounds in theirs. At the same time, because pronunciation builds into your confidence, your presentation, your cultural identity and so forth, I can see how it would push students above the level they may have stayed at had there not been this push from the phonetic end of things.
That and speaking and sounds is fun! It's one way to incorporate fun and silliness to keep students active. Tongue twisters, funny words, making weird noises to practice, and all of that material can get students laughing, interested and correlate the language with something enjoyable but challenging still.
As for Candace's comment on input, I agree that it is a definitely true that competent teachers should be able to produce output that reflects native style pronunciation, as too many students now a day's getting away with the most ultimately gringo accents ever uttered in the world. No one corrects it, but it's truly awful.
Max, this is a great post. I can identify with what you are advocating, and agree with you 100%. Over the years I have been lucky to have Spanish teachers with good pronunciation, however, others I've known have not been that fortunate. I have noticed with some of my friends that had Spanish teachers with poor or improper pronunciation, that their Spanish has been negatively impacted, and their are similarities present between the manner in which they pronounce with that of their teachers'. I think it is extremely important for teachers to have good pronunciation in order for students to. I think this is even more important at lower levels and younger ages when students are starting to learn conversation skills and how to speak.
Discussion #4: Heritage Language Learners in Traditional L2 Foreign Language Classrooms
ReplyDeleteFor our assignment on professional readings a couple of weeks ago, I chose to reflect on a Foreign Language Annals article (http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com.libproxy.unh.edu/doi/10.1111/flan.12145/full) about high school Spanish teachers’ attitudes towards “heritage language learning” (HLL) students and ways in which those HLL students can be supported in traditional L2 language classrooms. As I shared in class on Tuesday, I also observed a high school Spanish I class with two heritage language learners: one student is from Puerto Rico and the other student is from the Dominican Republic.
Since we’re all interested in foreign language teaching and it’s likely that we’ll be working with HLL students in some form, I’m curious to know what everybody thinks about practices for educating HLL students. Should HLL students be taught in programs that are designed to address their language learning needs? Is there a place for HLL students in traditional L2 classrooms? Is it feasible to expect schools with fewer HLL students to have both HLL programs and traditional L2 programs? How can schools without HLL-specific programs best serve those students in traditional L2 programs?
To respond to my own questions, I’ll start by agreeing with the article I read and say that, ideally, schools should have language learning programs for HLL students. However, I admit that it’s unreasonable for every school, especially the schools with fewer HLL students including Portsmouth High School where I observed the Spanish I class, to have adequate resources like funding and sufficiently-prepared teachers to implement those programs. It’s important to note that, generally, the language learning needs of HLL students differ from the needs of traditional L2 students in the sense that, as the article discussed, HLL students require more instruction on orthography and syntax.
For schools that do not have HLL-specific programs, I believe that there is a place for HLL students in traditional L2 classrooms and, in fact, HLL students can complement traditional L2 classrooms. For example, in the Spanish I class I observed, the teacher placed the HLL students in different groups and encouraged them to model pronunciation and basic sentence structure for their peers. The traditional L2 students might not have been exposed to valuable comprehensible input from heritage speakers if they did not have HLL classmates. Alternately, the traditional L2 language learning students may be able to model orthography and syntax skills for HLL students. The well-known cognitive development theorist Lev Vygotsky claimed that modeling is one of the most effective methods for facilitating learning.
Finally, in schools with traditional L2 programs and HLL-specific programs, I think that an exchange between the programs would benefit all foreign language students. Even though HLL-specific programs provide critical learning opportunities for HLL students, it is my opinion that traditional L2 learners and HLL students would have rewarding academic experiences through collaboration and interaction between the two programs.
Candace,
DeleteI am a HLL having grown up speaking Portuguese at home. The community I grew up in in Massachusetts was mainly Portuguese, and so even a trip to the grocery store often meant speaking Portuguese. I found this to be a great way to learn a language. The school system offered Portuguese along with French and Spanish in Middle School, and Portuguese, Spanish and Mandarin in High School. To answer your question about HLL learners being taught in tradition classrooms, I think there is a place for them but it has to be at the right level. I found that it was hard to pay attention in Portuguese class. The teacher was teaching things I had been doing since I learned to speak. Given that this was in middle school there was really no Portuguese class room that could keep the interest of myself and fellow HLL. In a community that had this large of a HLL population I feel that there should have been a program to specific for the learning needs of HLL students. Schools would need to provide us with more written and reading assignments and less cultural and verbal ones as these were what we got at home. The teacher would also have to understand that sometimes the student may have been taught differently at home depending on what part of the country of the language they are from ( my Portuguese was mainland and so I speak with a mainland accent and not one from the Azores Islands, this was a huge problem in my experience).
Although it may not be possible for schools with less funding to have HLL specific programs they can incorporate them more effectively into pre existing language classes. I think there is a lot L2 learners can learn from HLL and vice versa, so they could be used to model certain things for each other.
Kelly,
DeleteThanks for sharing about your personal experience as a HLL student. It was particularly interesting for me to read about how you were bored in your Portuguese class due to the fact that the class wasn’t addressing your language learning needs. Like you said, you were able to get the cultural information and verbal practice from home and, therefore, it would have been more beneficial for you if the program at your school had targeted your reading and writing skills.
You also brought up a cultural point by saying that teachers need to have the understanding that the country or part of the country a family is from might affect how HLL students are exposed to language at home. It sounds like, in your case, the teacher was not familiar with the differences between mainland Portuguese and the Portuguese spoken on the Azores islands.
Finally, I would agree with what you mentioned about how there’s a lot that traditional L2 students can learn from HLL students and vice versa. I’m curious to know, did your Portuguese teachers encourage HLL students like yourself to model for the rest of the class? If so, how did they go about doing this?
Candace,
DeleteMy teachers often asked my self and other HLL students to read larger passages then the other students or would pair us with students whose pronunciation was not where it should be. They also would call on us if the class couldn't figure something out.
Discussion #4: Use of Target Language in a Foreign Language Classroom
ReplyDeleteAfter doing my class observation last week, it provided me with a good opportunity to see another instructor teach a foreign language class, and forced me to think about the use of the target language in a classroom. When I first started teaching at the beginning of last year, I must say that I did not fully understand the importance of using the target language in a foreign language class. It took me a while in my teaching to be comfortable with my students, comfortable with speaking Spanish in class, and also for my students to be comfortable with heavy use of Spanish in class. I can remember that when I first started teaching Spanish 401, I thought that I had to use more English than Spanish due to my students being novice learners. Although, the more 401 progressed, and especially by the beginning of 402, I was able to see that my incremental use of Spanish with my students had paid off well, and my students, even though they were in a basic level, could understand more than I anticipated.
One thing that disrupted the flow of target language use in the classroom were cultural or vocabulary lessons. This was a hang up that I ran into last year, that took away from target language use in the classroom. In our teaching, we were encouraged to do lessons on cultural topics that could create a discussion based on a particular theme pertaining to hispanic culture. While these cultural lessons were important because it taught students about specific aspects regarding hispanic culture and society, it sometimes required an entire class session being done in English. Since taking this class and having done my lesson plan a couple of weeks ago, I feel confident that if I was given an opportunity to teach another cultural lesson, I would do it better and differently than last year. I would find a piece of authentic material to help start the lesson, but to also expose the students to something in the target language. Have any of you had to deal with these types of lessons in your teaching, and how do you take focus off the use English in cultural lessons?
I think this is a very real topic. Great choice Rob, okay so now I would echo what you have already said. I think it is very difficult to not explain cultural or vocabulary parts of the language in English, however the way through which it could be possible to achieve this topic would be to follow the PACE model.
DeleteI would also suggest that there are other ways to achieve learning vocabulary which does not require a projector (which has been a challenge I have faced thus far in my own experience). Now what I have found is that certain lesson which remain within my drawing capabilities such as family, age and greeting vocabulary. I have been able to take advantage of comprehensible input so that my students have an outlet from the heavy load of target language input. Such vocabulary does not need much more explanation than a picture of a family and each persons role, however this does not work for all lessons but it has worked well for me at the lower levels.
Robert and Tim,
DeleteThough I haven’t had as much experience in the classroom yet, the idea that using the target language to teach cultural or vocabulary lessons can be difficult reminds me of a lesson I did a while ago for seventh grade Spanish students studying Día de los Muertos (this lesson was completely different from the lesson I’ve posted on our wiki but the goal was still to introduce culture and vocabulary). Although there was some English used and I would have, like Robert said, done the lesson differently with the knowledge I have now, I was surprised at how much students were able to understand about vocabulary with the help of pictures and videos (authentic materials) and, in turn, what they were able to comprehend about the cultural insights implied by the Day of the Dead holiday.
As both of you have said, incorporating authentic reading or listening comprehension materials and following the PACE model for example are both ways in which lower-level language students (and students of all levels with some adjustments) can grasp culture or vocabulary concepts while the teacher takes focus off of English in cultural lessons. In terms of teaching vocabulary, I believe that it’s worthwhile to get students thinking about new words by defining them with words that they may already be familiar with.
Candace, Robert, and Tim,
DeleteBuilding off of Candace's comment, Dia de Los muertos also provides a hands on approach to the cultural lesson, where one can use target language with visuals, actions, and so forth, like Candace said. I remember working with my high school Spanish 1 Students as a Senior, and actually doing the project when I was in that class freshman year, where we had to build our own Ofrendas, research, explain everything in Spanish, and create something real, culturally rich, and personal. At the same time, we learned from the teacher without use of non-target language and we focused on Spanish as our main voice of the project. We were shown visuals, videos, and actually given supplies to make our Ofrendas authentic in their own right, and so there was no need for English input in most cases.
However I am somewhat against Candace's view on using non-target language to make new words more familiar, especially in this sense, because I see something like Day of the Dead falling prey to the age old dilemma of "That's Mexican Halloween right?" Skeleton, spirits, skulls, candy, dressing up, going house to house, all seem like ideas an concepts that are easy understand, but even more easily misconstrued and put out of context. Associating something like una Calavera with images and visuals of the bright, festive, and ornate decorations, as well as the wonderful sugar skulls traditional to Dia de los muertos, is better than just associating skulls in general, or in English, because it won't necessarily trigger thoughts about Halloween in the United States. We know they're distinctly different, yet by bringing familiarity to the language itself with English, could bring cultural misunderstandings and overlap as well.
Free Blog Post:
ReplyDeleteAfter studying all of the methodologies and approaches to teaching L2 acquisition so far, I am becoming almost uneasy about the fact that I have yet to see much in terms of applying practicality and usage of language skills outside the classroom setting and in the future. So many of our teaching ideals and techniques mandate the use of authentic language and becoming proficient and comfortable with a target language over years of verbal, written, and mental practice. Yet, what makes me worry is that there has not been a major emphasis on USES of target languages, and not much to say about the benefits (as there are many) of WHY we are learning these things. So many schools require at least two years or a couple of semesters in some target language of that students choice, but why? I personally have yet to see much in terms of actual discussion of this topic in the classroom setting. Sure there have been lots of instances of, "oh because it's important," and "it looks good on college applications." but there is no real meat or time spent sitting down with students and engaging them on the subject of why language is important. In that sense, do we have proof that language is important to learn? Or are we just forcing another subject on our students. (Obviously that is not what I think personally but it brings to mind the perspective of those students less than interested in being in class and learning a foreign language.)
There's all this talk of authentic language and making bridges between the prescriptive language-bubble of the classroom to the real world of situational, dialectal, subjectivity that is any foreign language. Great. We make everyone understand it exists, and that is somewhere. But it's kind of along the same lines as our discussion of "Esos/Eso" and "Aquellos/Aquel" the other day in class. Do we want just an abstract understanding that those things we are talking about somewhere in sometime exist or existed? Or do we want true concrete examples of where, when, how, and why language use is important and abundant in our world community? Either way, the question that I need to reflect on remains: is simply making something authentic giving it meaning and purpose for the students?
On a personal note, during my junior year of High School, a student from Mexico D.F. was moved into my school of 600 white-European, English speakers, with no English background whatsoever. As a Spanish student in my third year of learning (and at that point what I thought was my last) I found myself trying to help her as much as possible, and I began working with her to get her to where she could at least pass. But then it hit me hard. I realized that I barely was capable of communicating to her the extensive details of Pre-Calculus with the limited Spanish I had at the time. I managed to get through to her what I needed and I was able to help her more and more. So, up to that point, I had just done my work for the grade. I did my Spanish work to get it done, because I needed the class to graduate, and I needed to do well to keep my GPA high for school. But after this experience, I had real drive. I went from taking 1 Spanish class a year, to 3 in my final year. I knew that I wanted to teach at that point, but I realized that I would never be able to get through to my students if they didn't know why we are learning this in the first place, just like I didn’t realize that it was so important to have the skills developed in the classroom to use in the real world.
So, the question is, do you agree with this assertion? Is there room for the Why in the classroom? and have you seen it so far in your experiences?? OR am I just crazy? (That is also a plausible answer ; ] )
https://www.brainscape.com/blog/2014/11/think-study-abroad-will-make-you-fluent/
ReplyDeleteAbove is an article written by Annie de Saussure PhD candidate at Yale which discusses the influence of studying abroad on achieving fluency. As I was reading this article it was interesting to me that Saussure would argue that study abroad does not in fact improve fluency more than one would improved during an intense language training in the states. A few interesting points that she makes are the fact that there has been this movement that creates the ideology that study abroad is the golden ticket to fluency in another language when in fact the statistics don't exactly prove that to be true. I would argue that this is due to the fact that an intense study domestically can be controlled and monitored more closely than would students studying abroad would be. Saussure includes some of the Do's and Don'ts of studying abroad that would inhibit or enhance one's ability to achieve fluency. While reading further about her study, her argument definitely began to make more and more sense. Although study abroad for me was an incredible experience and I would argue that it is critical to language acquisition I understand the argument that studying abroad would not necessarily be the key to fluency specific to language and grammar acquisition. Please read this article and answer the questions I have proposed below. Thank you and I hope you all enjoy the weekend.
Discussion questions:
First of all do you agree or disagree with the argument that studying abroad doe not achieve fluency, why or why not?
Second of all since you or almost all of you have studied abroad, how has your fluency improved after the study abroad experience? What was the most significant part of your study abroad helping you to grow the most in your target language?
Third, how do you think UNH has proposed study abroad programs,(teachers, advisors, etc)? Do you believe that some have suggested that study abroad is the golden ticket to fluency? Or not, Please explain.
Good questions. So I agree with what you said in that, study abroad is definitely critical to language acquisition, at least for the majority of people and situations. When I went abroad I lived with a host family and had no other choice but to the speak the language, at least while I was at home, so I think living with a host family will definitely increase your success on the road to fluency. With that being said I believe that many students go abroad not to necessarily focus on the language. This aspect would of course contribute to the argument made by Saussure. I really like your second question because I feel it is important to talk about. Since being back in the United States after studying abroad I have kind of obsessed over how importance it is to self establish the great difference between speaking Spanish in a Spanish speaking country and just speaking classroom Spanish. However for me, before I studied abroad I would get really nervous and worked up to speak out loud in front of the whole class in Spanish but since going abroad, that anxiety has almost completely disappeared. Even though if I was to go to Spain right now I know I would still have some confusion while speaking with natives one way or another, I feel much more comfortable with my Spanish speech in class. I think that UNH has proposed study abroad programs correctly in that they inform you that the experience will be whatever you make of it, and I think that is the most important point.
DeleteTim,
DeleteEven after reading Annie de Saussure’s article, I agree with what you mentioned about how studying abroad where the target language is spoken is critical to foreign language learning. However, I will agree with the argument from the article by saying that studying abroad does not always allow students to achieve fluency in a foreign language. I think that the five tips outlined in the article support this notion well. For example, if a study abroad student is not engaging with the target language in a quality over quantity manner and if they’re not fully embracing the target culture, then it is likely that they won’t develop their language skills. Furthermore, I know that it’s difficult for some students to avoid using English with their study abroad peers. If the students studying abroad are always reverting to English, then the study abroad experience is not as effective at facilitating the development of language skills.
During my study abroad trips, I created two blogs. I would use the blogs to reflect on daily occurrences and deeper, more meaningful cultural aspects and differences using the target language (in my case, the target language was Spanish). I also found that spending time with my host family and running daily errands with them (getting keys made, going grocery shopping, and eating meals with extended family for example) helped me to improve my language skills. As Annie de Saussure highlights in her article, these are two great ways in which study abroad students can optimize their study abroad experience(s).
Lastly, I don’t think that UNH professors or advisors frame studying abroad as a “golden ticket to fluency.” When I was in Costa Rica, for example, us students were encouraged to spend time with our host families and to get involved in the local community (I ended up visiting a school that taught English a few times). Overall, it’s important for students to be aware that they must actively shape their study abroad trips to be able to get the most out of them.
Tim,
DeleteI definitely have thought on the fact that the emphasis on study abroad, though extremely helpful, might not necessarily be imperative. Going into my own experience in the next 3 months, I am sure that the time spent immersed in the culture, context, and pure language community, will benefit me greatly. HOWEVER, I disagree that spending a few months or a semester abroad necessarily makes the difference between achieving fluency and maintaining a solid but not yet native-level of speaking. From experience talking to many people who have already been abroad, I am not convinced that the experience made their speaking, listening, or comprehension that much better, while some definitely exemplify how a rich study abroad experience can truly make a speaker.
I do agree with Candace as well in that it's completely up to individual's drive to apply language and adapt to the native setting, but I do think that UNH pushes study abroad as an x=y "you will be fluent if you do this" kind of relationship, when in reality, there are so many variables in this equation that not even our best physics and math professors could solve the problem.
Blog #4
ReplyDeleteLast spring semester I had the opportunity to observe an ESL classroom at a local High School. Here a few things shocked me. Unlike with Spanish or other foreign languages at this school there was only one ESL teacher who sometimes has a teacher to help. The classroom was very different then a foreign language classroom like we are used to. It was a tiny room with no windows and two tables surrounded by chairs. There was a small white board and a teachers desk in the corner. This was not an environment the I feel promotes learning. It was also very small for the amount of students they had in and out of their everyday. The other teacher that helped out had a small room in the library that was sometimes used but this two was tiny and cramped. The teacher of the ESL class did not have any background in languages, in fact she only spoke english. Foreign language teachers in most if not all high schools have to have a good grasp on the target language as well as english. This teacher had students from all over the world whose languages were just as varied. Although I feel it would be unfair to ask the teacher to be fluent in all the languages of the students I feel that the lack of foreign language experience did not benefit the students. Imagine learning Spanish or French any language from a teacher who spoke no English, things would get a little confusing I am sure. It is the goal to teach the majority of lessons in the target language but sometimes the native language of students is used to clarify things. All of the ESL students were currently in mixed classes with native english speakers and spoke very good english but if this had not been the case there may have been issues. The students sometimes used their native languages to help out one another if there was a bit of confusion and the teacher did not take well to this. It is common although discouraged to hear students in a foreign language class using english when working in groups to clarify things. The funding for the ESL programs and the teacher training seems to be very different then that of other foreign languages.
My questions:
To the students in ESL English is a foreign language so if they are already being pulled out of mixed classes for help with english would it make sense to have teachers teach english like it is not a native language? Should ESL teachers have a background in languages, right now all they are given is a small packet with a few sheets on some culture points? Why or why not? Have any of you observed a ESL class, and what were your thoughts?
(also this is the third time I have typed this discussion due to the internet timing out so I apologize if it is not as organized as it should be)
Okay so where did the pamphlet come from?
DeleteDo you know if this is a school, district or state wide standard?
That could pose a huge influence or problem as to how the language is or is not being taught, what is or is not being included and how it all is handled.
That room sounds like a terrible environment for students to go to, let alone try to learn in. Thank goodness these students had a decent foundation in the language otherwise the fact that they were being taught as if English was a native language is absurd.
That is simply unacceptable and I do not believe it is too much to ask that a teacher have some sort of background in teaching foreign languages, international cultural awareness or something.
Kelly,
DeleteI’ll start by agreeing with Tim’s opinion that the ESL classroom you described does not sound like an environment that’s conducive to learning. I’m surprised, especially since I’m familiar with the ESL certification requirements at UNH Manchester, that the ESL teacher at the local school you’ve mentioned doesn’t sound adequately prepared to address the language learning needs of the students.
That being said, the fact that there was only one ESL teacher, unfortunately, doesn’t surprise me. Like you said, it would be unfair to require ESL teachers to be fluent in all of the languages represented by their ELL students (especially because there’s no way that somebody could account beforehand for the languages that might be represented in the ESL classroom). In fact, I’ve interviewed an ESL teacher with a background in Spanish that had twenty-six students and, between those twenty-six, 7 languages were represented.
As far as funding goes, I think that both ESL programs and foreign language programs are, for the most part, relatively equally underfunded. I’m sure we’re all aware that ESL or foreign language programs are some of the first to be cut and, unlike English or mathematics for example, they’re not always considered to be as important as we all know they are.
In conclusion, I think that ESL teachers should be certified through reputable programs. I also think that it’s ideal for these ESL teacher candidates to have some kind of culture-related or language background because they are able to better connect with students who do not speak English as a native language. However, like you’ve touched on in your original post, I don’t believe that the funding or resources will ever be great enough to warrant the hiring of ESL teachers for every language represented in a given school’s ELL population.
After also working with Kelly in that class last year, I agree with her analysis and her questions are beyond justified. It disturbed me that there was no true assistance for the students other than a sort of unstructured tutoring time and then native-style learning of English. I also spent time working at the Dover adult Learning Center last year with adult ESOL's and I was also surprised at the shear lack of language ability at the beginning and basic levels. The teacher I worked with was great there and she worked hard to use some basic native language for them to understand (they were all Hispanic speakers in this case) the toughest concepts, but she was limited to simple words and phrases in Spanish. I felt compelled to work with their Spanish knowledge, and so when I taught lessons as a sub some days, I found that the students responded better to understanding complicated distinctions and concepts in English, such as ordinal numbers vs. cardinal numbers and their uses in context. Obviously English is the focus, but by using Spanish I helped the students immensely in their understanding of that idea just in one class, to the point where they were using them more regularly in class. ESOL Teachers need to have some background in languages other than the target language, I feel, to effectively teach a target language to the widest variety of students.
DeletePronunciation is what I am most interested in terms of teaching and learning a language. Although I do not have much experience with other languages I am going to talk about learning Spanish specifically. Basically I think that second language learns of Spanish do not learn enough, if anything at all about Spanish pronunciation explicitly. Of course, on the days that they learn vocabulary or even grammar, depending on the professor, they might review a little bit about pronunciation but it is in no way a major focus or priority. For me, every single Spanish class I took in junior high and high school made grammar the main focus. Not to say that grammar is not important because I understand it is the base of language and it is very important to be able to conjugate to the intended person and tense you are attempting to speak in. However I believe that to be successful in learning a language you have to be able to pronounce words correctly, not only to be understood but to also understand what others are saying. Again, I can only speak for the Spanish language as a second language Spanish speaker but a major part of Spanish pronunciation that I think many people (L2L’s) do not understand is the languages ability to combine vowel sounds from the end of words to the beginning of the next word in the sentence. For example: La democracia ha hablado- Spanish is filled with words that end in vowels and of course there are many words that start with vowels also. This makes for combinations of sounds. In this example a native speaker, certainly would not say La democracia. ha. Hablado. They would say it more like la democraciablado. As L2L’s if we do not understand this simple aspect of Spanish sounds, words, pronunciation we will most definitely think that democraciablado is one word that we have never heard before. Another example I can think of is one that I heard while I was taking John Chaston’s Spanish Phonetics class last year: Nunca ha habido otro= Nuncabidotro. We do this in English to but the circumstances are different and also rarer. For example for: I am going to call you, it is possible that people will shorten that to: Ima call you. This is the most extreme example I can think of but of course there are many.
ReplyDeleteOn another front I think that if you have a better understanding of pronunciation and the necessary change of shape that your mouth needs to make, you will begin to sound more eloquent and fluent. Once we are turned on to sounding more like a Spanish speaker, we will not be as intimidated to talk to one and or listen to one. I believe this can become a positive domino effect because if we are not intimidated to listen or speak to a native speaker we will better our own Spanish by catching on to more and more things that they do and at the same time that we are becoming better at comprehension we are implementing native aspects into our own speech.
I am wondering if other people can identify with this or are bothered by this or if I am just crazy and should stick to the conventional grammar and vocabulary style of teaching Spanish.
Max,
DeleteWhile I agree that pronunciation of the Spanish language (and, I would assume, of any other foreign language as well) is important for students to know, I can understand why there isn’t always a particular focus on Spanish pronunciation skills in secondary school foreign language programs. As you’ve said, students are often preoccupied learning Spanish grammar points and I think that those points build the foundation for further and more in-depth language study.
That is not to say, however, that I don’t think that pronunciation should be somewhat of a focus in secondary schools. It would seem to me that, ideally, when teachers incorporate authentic materials in their lesson plans (whether they be lessons that follow the PACE model or that target listening and reading comprehension skills), students will be exposed to the comprehensible input from native speakers and will, therefore, begin to consider pronunciation habits that mirror native speakers. What’s more, even though teachers may not be native speakers of the languages they’re teaching, they’ve (hopefully) had experience with advanced phonetics and pronunciation courses so that they also serve as comprehensible input for students and model typical Spanish pronunciation.
Finally, I’ll add that knowledge of pronunciation could, in a way, help students to feel confident with their oral and listening comprehension skills like you mentioned. The teacher, although not necessarily explicitly, should be offering constructive feedback to students (either individually or anonymously) so that they are able to start forming the pronunciation abilities that they might use later on in their language studies when they’ve had enough comprehensible input to better control their language use.
Max, I wholeheartedly agree with you on the matter. Pronunciation and sound has always been at the center of my focus because of how many different ideas it connects and relates to. Pronunciation is geography and sociology, spelling rules and grammar, and culture and identity among many examples. It is so important to encourage strong phonetic abilities in young students to me because it 1.) gives the students a look into another person's view, and 2.) gives your level of language proficiency a boost in considering what it ties into. Think about non-native speakers learning an L2 in a classroom setting. If they never have been exposed to native speakers, their ability to filter dialectal features and distinguish cultural norms within the language, it is harder for them to make a true connection there. Even more important is the fact that it gives insight into the struggles of human language as a whole, so that views on language learners, be them adult or youth, and no matter the language, show how challenging adopting native sounds in a second or third language can be. There will be more understanding of how and why speakers of certain languages have issues with certain letters and sounds in our language, just as we have issues producing some sounds in theirs. At the same time, because pronunciation builds into your confidence, your presentation, your cultural identity and so forth, I can see how it would push students above the level they may have stayed at had there not been this push from the phonetic end of things.
DeleteThat and speaking and sounds is fun! It's one way to incorporate fun and silliness to keep students active. Tongue twisters, funny words, making weird noises to practice, and all of that material can get students laughing, interested and correlate the language with something enjoyable but challenging still.
As for Candace's comment on input, I agree that it is a definitely true that competent teachers should be able to produce output that reflects native style pronunciation, as too many students now a day's getting away with the most ultimately gringo accents ever uttered in the world. No one corrects it, but it's truly awful.
Max, this is a great post. I can identify with what you are advocating, and agree with you 100%. Over the years I have been lucky to have Spanish teachers with good pronunciation, however, others I've known have not been that fortunate. I have noticed with some of my friends that had Spanish teachers with poor or improper pronunciation, that their Spanish has been negatively impacted, and their are similarities present between the manner in which they pronounce with that of their teachers'. I think it is extremely important for teachers to have good pronunciation in order for students to. I think this is even more important at lower levels and younger ages when students are starting to learn conversation skills and how to speak.
Delete