engage
Developing instructional materials
and assessing students' needs
and assessing students' needs
Teaching English as a Second Language: APLNG 493
In this course I engaged in the process of creating a course development project titled "Negotiate to win, present to make a deal." While completing this project, I drew from the work of Kathleen Graves "Teachers as Course Developers." I learned that in order to develop a course for adult learners I need to specify the overall goals and specific objectives, assess students' needs, and identify ways of evaluating students' progress and the course. I realized that knowing who my students are, learning in what situations they will use English, and knowing what motivates them to learn the language are one of the key aspects that can lead towards developing an effective course. Therefore, I created a set of needs assessment tools such as a detailed questionnaire for course participants as well as a questionnaire for the organization in which students work. For instance, I asked the following questions: 1. What type of negotiations do you participate in at work? Consider these aspects: the role that you play in those negotiations; who your interlocutors (your boss, other employees, customers, etc. are); what the negotiations are about. Negotiations in Polish: Negotiations in English: 2. What do you find challenging about participating in negotiations? Negotiations in Polish: Negotiations in English: This process of developing needs assessment tools helped me realize that in my previous teaching experience I did not devote enough time and effort to learn about my students' needs before the course started. As a result, the first classes which I taught to a new group of students were often chaotic and lacked focus. Now when I begin to teach a new group of students, I always prepare a set of needs assessment questions. They serve as a guide that allows me to understand in what contexts my students need to use English and what their goals are; this knowledge, in turn, allows us to develop a course which best responds to their needs. |
Understanding the social, political, and cultural factors
influencing teaching and learning
influencing teaching and learning
APLNG 804: Focus on the Learner: Identity, Community, and Language Learning
I frequently wondered how the concepts of culture and diversity apply to the context of monocultural and monolingual classrooms in which I taught. I assumed that these concepts are more relevant to instructional contexts in which there are learners from various cultural backgrounds. The reading of Kumaravadivelu's book entitled "Cultural Globalization and Language Education" showed me that teaching in a monolingual class does not mean that I teach a culturally homogenous group of people. Since every student has his/her own set of experiences and "repertoires of practice," every one of them has his/her own unique culture. This newly gained understanding changed the way I perceive my student and my teaching. I attempt not to have assumptions about their experiences or knowledge. I devote more time to learn about their points of view, needs, and interests, which helps me make my teaching more personal and more diversified. What helped me understand that my Polish students have different cultures was the completion of the project entitled "Cultural Autoethnography – Know Thyself.” The questions which guided my reflection drew my attention to events and experiences from my childhood and teenage years which to a certain extent had impact on who I am today. I also understood how my own independent decisions taken in my adult life helped me develop the attitude of openness to others. |
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Collaborating
APLNG 597A: Gesture in Second Language Learning and Teaching
One of the greatest learning experiences was collaborating on the research paper for the gesture class with one of my classmates. Working with my classmate pushed me out of my comfort zone and required that I take risks and trust the other person. When we were deciding on the topic I was more willing to focus on a subject that we both were more familiar with, but which, most likely, would not bring any new insights into the field of gesture in teaching. My project partner suggested that we choose a topic for our analysis which has not been researched to a great extent. Even though at first we did not have a lot of data to analyze I took the risk and agreed to work on this topic. The risk which we both took paid off, because we managed to find data that showed the relationship between a teacher's and a student's gestures, bringing new insights into the field. Cooperation with my project partner provided me with the opportunity to practice giving and receiving feedback. I learned to be open to comments which are both positive and negative. Also, while completing this project my partner and I shared work and responsibilities, which allowed us to learn how to be accountable to one another. Our collaboration was very successful. We wrote a paper entitled "Learning In-Progress: Tracing a student’s conceptual development through appropriation of the teacher’s gestural catchment in grammar-focused L2 instruction." What serves as an additional proof confirming our fruitful collaboration is that the paper has been accepted for presentation at AAAL/ACLA conference in Toronto in 2015. |