Language Leaning - Balancing the Conscious and Unconscious

ESL research indicates adults can best learn a second language in the same way children acquire native language skills. There are two separate and distinct approaches to learning a second language; The first, and more common, is 'Language Learning', such as that which you would see in a JIMS Language Centre classroom. It is an organised process of systematic internalisation to gain particles of language.

On the other hand, and perhaps the more effective of the two, is Language Acquisition. This is for the most part unconscious, children learn language they aren't aware of. Grammar rules arn't explained, syntax isn't identified. The child listens and learns, their attention is focused on trying to understand what is being said. They may not understand every word, but their skills increase as they strive to understand the general messages. They acquire grammar skills by being exposed to language in real communication situations. At JIMS we expose ESL learners to these situations at any opportunity to expose them to both approaches.

Although, this can be a daunting experience for any parent who puts their child into a  billingual setting. You may be worried that your child is not learning because they do not speak. Rest assured that this is a natural process, language acquisition demonstrates routine, universal stages and is named 'The Natural Approach to Language Learning'. Educational researchers suggest that the process should contain the following elements:

1. There is a silent period (which can last days, weeks or even months) before speaking.
2. Children choose when they will speak and they should receive ample praise for any attempt to communicate.
3. Parents and language teachers should focus only on communication, not on form (grammar rules).
4. Errors are a natural part of language acquisition.
5. As children are exposed to more language they figure out the rules by themselves and produce increasingly complex and correct speech.

Practitioners recommend surrounding students with natural English in a meaningful context, focusing on communication rather than grammar rules. If the general meaning is clear, pupils will internalise the language, discover the rules for themselves, and produce the new language with increasing degrees of complexity and correctness.

What's your opinion?

What Type of Reflection do I do?

Key Words:

critical - Careful, exact evaluation and judgment

dialogic - Characterized by dialogue

descriptive - Concerned with classification or description

Technical – Special and usually practical knowledge

Reactive - Response to a situation or the actions of others

Whilst defining these words it is not difficult to see what type of reflection I use. I reflect on and in action using a mixture of technical and reactive reflection. When problems arise I draw upon experience to  implicit knowledge dealing with on the spot professional problems. When possible I consult  research and theory relating the information to my personal worries, previous experience and employer expectations. I reflect upon my essential teaching knowledge and pedagogical skills in the classroom and relate them to the results I desire. The technical aspect is intrapersonal which focuses on myself as a contributor to social action, examining my own behaviour in the context of personal values and emotions.

Trustworthiness

When doing educational research we have to consider the following terminology:

Validity

Validity refers to the degree to which a study accurately reflects or assesses the specific concept that the researcher is attempting to measure. It is the best available approximation to the truth of a given proposition, inference, or conclusion.

Triangulation

a powerful technique that facilitates validation of data through cross verification from more than two sources. It is the application and combination of several research methodologies in the same study. It is used to increase the credibility and validity of the results

Reliability 

Reliability is the extent to which an experiment, test, or any measuring procedure yields the same result on repeated trials. It is the "consistency" or "repeatability" of your measures which creates quality in measurement.

Generalisability

This describes the extent to which research findings can be applied to settings other than that in which they were originally tested. A study may be valid in one setting but not in another and in this case the research results would not be generalisable.

Practice-based and system-based Issues

If you find your wonderings beginning to focus on controlling or changing behaviour, try reframing them in ways that can help you understand that behaviour and allow you to discover what you can do with those new understandings.
(Dana, 2009:67)

Practice-based concern are concerns you might be looking at in your own classroom, or your teaching of something, possibly at the level of an individual.

System-based concern are concerns which focus on things like, how a department organises some of its work, an initiative or how the whole school structures some features.

These are my practice based concerns:

- How can I get students to utilize their study periods effectively?

- What will encourage students to participate evenly when doing group work?

- How can I get students to come to class on time?

- How can I maximize pupil concentration in 2 hour lessons?

- What will encourage pupils to participate in extra-curricular activities?

- How can I maximise student productivity through marking feedback?

- How can I get my pupils to become organised?

- How can I empower students to become self disciplined?

- How can I get students to stop wasting time during coursework lessons?

- Why do pupils drop out of subjects?

These are my System-based concerns:

How can we form more trusting and loyal relationships between teachers?

How can we maximise staff retention?

How can we lower malaise in teachers work ethic?

How can the school facilitate the change in curriculum?

How can teachers peer observation improve practice?

How can the school enable teachers to become more communicative and supportive?

How can we effectively implement a student code of conduct?

How can the school implement an effective student council?

Action Research–Practitioner Inquiry

Action research undertaken by practitioners is important, particularly in my professional context because it enables teachers to be more reflective about their methods and improve their teaching practice. It is beneficial for teachers, leaders and students leading to the improvement of schools.

A research issue relevant to my work stems from the issue of teachers professional development. Perhaps because of the culture of our school some teachers are reluctant to take responsibility for their own learning and share knowledge with other staff members. Action research would provide an appropriate approach to solving this problem.

Corey (1953) built on the Deweyan idea of enquiry and advocated action
research specifically for the study of education. It is in through Practitioner Inquiry that teachers, supervisors and administrators can make better decisions and engage in more effective practices if they are able and willing to conduct research as a basis of these decisions.This will lead to school improvement.

This method assumes that practitioners have current knowledge and understanding of their practice. The problem might be discussed with collegues and from this collaborative approached shared understandings will be created. From this collaborative knowledge further enquiry is done to provide evidence and collect data as a form of measurement.

This form of action research will lead to school capacity building and the introduction of new learning programmes. New resources may be produced to share with other practitioners. It is important to note that the key issues in Practitioner Inquiry for  bringing about improvements in teaching practice is collaboration and continued collection of data.

Knowledge, Inquiry and Concern

Teachers need to be reflective if they want to develop. They can do this in the following ways:

• Professional Knowledge (reading)

Teachers need to be current in their professional knowledge and recognize its relationship to practice. There is a lot of content available for teachers to read and when they encounter new situations or experiences they should research further for more insight or reasoning.

• practice inquiry

Practice-based learning and improvement should be guided by the following principles:

- It is interdisciplinary

- It is concerned with complex problems with not just one or two variables but problems which are multivariate

- The procedures and instruments used must be capable of examining many variables, but not necessarily through complicated statistics

- It is not necessarily generalizable

- It is not located in any one paradigm - research of this nature tends to be eclectic

- The researcher must be as unbiased as possible (this may well be an issue in interpretive research), must not have a vested interest in the outcome - commitment and interest should not interfere with objectivity

• Identifying teachers' concerns

Teachers need to take the time to talk to their colleagues and find out their concerns, these concerns could be common amongst the teachers and therefore form the basis of practitioner inquiry.

Raising Issues and Questions

As a start to raising issues and questions in my educational practice I took a few moments to think about my own professional context.

Concerns about what goes on…

• No mentoring/training for new or inexperienced teachers
• Students seem, at times, unmotivated
• Lack of professional development
• little communication between upper management and teachers

Things I am unhappy with…

• Management decisions lack planning and analysis
• Heavy work loads for teachers
• lack of teacher support
• lack of student discipline

Practices I am unsure of…

• Beginning lessons with a short statement of goals.
• Whether technology is more beneficial in student understanding.
• creating self disciplined students

Things which challenge me…

• Differentiation of different levels of ability within one class
• Teaching English content to ESL students
• Enabling students to take responsibility for their growth in learning
• Providing systematic feedback and corrections