I’m a month in and a third of the way through my 12 week intensive course with NILE. I’m feeling really happy with what I’ve achieved so far. Despite the slightly negative blog post today, I am pleased I am making gradual progress. I keep having to remind myself; Rome wasn’t built in a day.
How was my feedback from Week 3?
Not so positive as it was for Week 2. Generally the main comments were that I have to try to be more succinct and not use so many words (you’d think that it wouldn’t be hard, wouldn’t you?). What was said was that I need to try and think more broadly (i.e. for learner problems, think about pronunciation alongside my normal considerations of grammatical issues and when we’re describing the meaning and use of vocabulary/grammatical forms, to consider the tone and register as well).
The exam task I submitted for marking was actually quite good, apparently, which is really the reason I’m doing this course, so that’s a positive.
What did this week cover?
Here’s a brief summary and not everything is included here as it was a hectic week!
Discourse: Adjacency pairs (1), preferred/’dispreferred’ response, transactional vs interactional language (2), the co-operative principle
Writing: Sentence-level vs. Whole Text Tasks (3), Accuracy vs. Fluency, Sub-skills, Tone/Appropriacy
Listening: Perception vs. Comprehension (4), Prediction, Retro-active correction (5)
Phonology: Citation form (6), Primary/Secondary Stress (6), Schwa (7), Unstressed Syllables
- The idea that communication appears in predictable patterns and certain functions almost co-exist (offer-acceptance etc.) with a preferred response being what it socially expected (acceptance) and the ‘dispreferred’ response being what is not expected (refusal)
- The difference between language to get things done (transactional) and language to maintain relationships and have social interactions (interactional)
- Some tasks in the classroom focus on the sentence, and reproducing accurate grammar whilst others focus on whole texts type (article, report etc.) which focus on style, fluency of expression etc.
- Students can perceive sounds (notice when words begin and end, identify them etc) but may not comprehend them (know what they mean/assign those sounds meanings)
- A technique linked to prediction. Give a students a listening task, get them to predict the answers, and then get to them to check if they were right.
- The way that a word is written phonetically in the dictionary (the form which is unaffected by connected speech)
- Some words can have two stressed syllables (,popu’lar’ity), the strongest (lar) is the strongest with the secondary stress (ity) being less strong.
- A very common sound in English /ə/ (kind of sounds like uh) which is common, especially in the vowels of unstressed syllables (the part of the word that doesn’t receive the emphasis)
What did I read?
- Discourse. Cook (1997) Chapters 1, 3, 4, 5 & 6 (67 pages)
- A Course in English Language Teaching. Ur (1996) Module 8. (15 pages)
- Sound Foundations, Level 2 (and part of 3) Underhill, A. (2005), Macmillan. (20 pages)
- The Lexical Approach. Lewis. Chapter 5 (16 pages)
- Chapter 4: Ur, P. (2005) Teaching Listening Comprehension, CUP (14 pages)
Total: 132 pages
I was actually a bit unhappy with the amount of reading I had done this week, if I’m honest. I really wanted to get more in but the course itself didn’t actually ask us to read that much and I certainly didn’t find the motivation to read if I wasn’t being obliged to do so by the course.
In fact, a lot of the essential reading was the same as previous weeks. I presume it was giving us more time to catch up in case we had fallen behind. Next week is “Reading Week” so no doubt next week’s page count will be a lot higher.
What were the main takeaways?
I found it really interesting to think of language as very predictable when studying discourse. When talking about adjacency pairs, I thought it was fascinating to think of us like linguistic robots that respond how we have to. It showed the almost mechanic nature of language as a social tool. Adding to that, it really made me think about language as a tool rather as opposed to an art. As a person with a degree in philology, I’ve always seen language as a magical art form, not as something purely transactional.
Also, it was really valuable to have a refresher of student problems when it comes to listening and become even more aware of the ‘perception v comprehension’ problem. Sometimes I’m guilty of getting frustrated with my students when doing a listening, without realising they might not even be able to perceive the sounds let alone comprehend them. Sometimes we have to go back and cover the the basics, you have to learn to walk before you can run.
In addition, I’ve furthered my understanding of the importance of extensive writing and also looking at writing as a more developed process in class. It really could be anything and the majority of tasks are so easy to integrate.
In terms of extensive writing, it could be a 10 minute reflective task at the end of every class writing up a summary of what they’ve learnt that day, encouraging them to write letters to me every couple of weeks or even to journal at home in English.
In terms of writing as a process, I’m going to focus more on dedicating a lot more time in class to writing. I had always considered it a bit of a pedagogical cop out (a lazy teaching approach) but I can now appreciate its value if approached in the right way (planning, drafting, checking/commenting, rewriting etc.)
How did you feel compared to last week?
I was really struggling with motivation this week. I hadn’t been at work for 2 weeks and with COVID restriction still in place here on the island, I found myself moping around my flat and not really being motivated to do anything. It was impossible to perk myself up and get things done unlike other weeks where I’ve be raring to go. I’m hoping that next week, when I’m back at work, I’ll be able to pump myself up a little bit more so I can get more reading done.
That said, I had a break through with phonology. It’s starting to make a lot more sense and the content is starting to click considerably a lot quicker. I’m slowly realising the value that it could have in my classes once my students learn phonetic script.
How much time did I spend studying?
Monday: 5 hours
Tuesday: 2 hours
Wednesday: 4 hours
Thursday: 2 hours
Friday: 2.5 hours
Saturday: 2 hours
Sunday: 1.5 hour
Total: 19 hours
This has technically been my least productive week (in terms of study hours yet). I’m hoping next week I can get some extra hours in to compensate for this week. Can you sense my guilt?
Jord's English Things 