Critical Language Teaching

Pennycook (1999) desribes a critical appraoch to TESOL as always 'in flux', 'questioning', 'problematizing'. This means we as ESOL teachers need to constantly problematize and deal with social, cultural and educational issues surrounding students. The global position of English makes the role of English teachers a crucial one. Students learn English not just for the mere reason that they want to learn the language, but mainly because they want to enter universities or get a good job. As in Lin's (1999) article, she mentions the example of Hong Kong where employers preffered employees with a good command of English rather than Chinese, although Chinese is the mother tongue of the majority of the people. The role of English teachers then is to review and relflect how best to deal with the issues learners have and develop a method of teaching that benefits learners.

Lin (1999) discusses four different classrooms in her article. Learners from different social backgrounds had different attitudes to learning English which affected their learning. Reflecting on my own teaching context, I realise that my students too had similar issues/problems as those in Classrooms B and C. The pressure on them to always use English within the classroom often led them to withdraw from class discussions using English. What was interesting to see was that group activities generated more discussion because students used their mother-tongue together with English to express their ideas. Things that they were not able to express using English language was done through their native language.

I believe that we need to critically look at our own classroom situations and devise the best method(s) to use. Each classroom has their own mixture of students of different socio-cultural and educational backgrounds. One method of teaching does not fit all. A more critical approach is needed.

references:

Lin, A. M. Y. (1999). Doing-English-lessons in the reproduction or transformation of social worlds?. TESOL Quarterly, 33 (3), 393-412.

Pennycook, A. (1999). Introduction: Criticial Approaches to TESOL. TESOL Quarterly, 33 (3), 329-348.

EAP & Academic Literacies

The readings on EAP and Academic Literacies have drawn my attention to my own experience when I first entered university as a student. It took a while to understand what academic writing was all about. I had to learn skills of writing academic essays, reports, journals, presentations. Different tutors/lecturers had different expectations, which made things difficult. This makes students confused and a lot of time is spent on learning the guidelines on the academic writing skills and applying them within their own contexts.

The point is that there needs to be assistance provided for the students so that academic writing is made easier. Of course there are academic writing courses being run by universities which are meant to help sutdents. but these writing courses are not always subject specific. This means that the "study skills are divorced from subject content and knowledge" (Wingate, 2006). I have done EAP course which was to a large extent helpful. However, a few things taught were not quite related to my context.

What needs to be done is that the academic skills should be taught within the degree course rather than as a separate course. Wingate (2006) suggests that " a far more effective model is the embedded model, in which skills are developed as an integral part of the study program".


reference:
Wingate, U. (2006). Doing away with 'study skills'. Teaching in Higher Education, 11 (4), 457-469.

The post-method condition and the process-oriented method

The term ‘method’ means a set of prescriptions for the teachers and learners in their classroom (Richards, 2001). Methods present a static view of teaching such as teacher roles, learner roles, and teaching/learning activities (Richards, 2001). However, studies in the classroom such as interactional process between the teacher and the learners, and the instructional activities have demonstrated that teaching is a dynamic (Richards, 2001). Methods only provide the basis for the decision making in the processes of teaching which are not fixed (Richards, 2001).

Kumaravadivelu (1994) takes the position that the critical approach to TESOL, which we learnt last week, is “a steady stream of evaluative thoughts on the nature and scope of method” (p.27) and his ’10 macro-strategies’ is one of “alternative ideas that implicitly redefine our understanding of method” (p.27) in the post-method condition. The three features of the post-method condition, which are provided by Kumaravadivelu (1994), are as follows;

・ Confront with the complexity of language, language learning, etc,
・ Promote teachers’ autonomy for enabling them to theorize from their practice
・ Empower teachers with the knowledge, skill, and attitude for devising their own effective way of teaching.

According to Kumaravadivelu (1994), the three features of the post-method condition provide the 10 macro-strategies as a framework. Teachers can use the framework to develop investigative capabilities for observation, analysis and reflection studies in their classroom. Teachers can also design their own micro-strategies for desired learning outcome.

‘Investigate’ seems to be a key word in English language teaching at the present time. The process-oriented method mentioned by Richards (2001) starts with the investigation of effective teaching and learning strategies. This method redefines the role of the teacher through empowering teachers with investigative capabilities (Richards, 2001). Through their observation, analysis and reflection with their investigative capabilities, teachers can obtain valuable feedback for their effective teaching (Richards, 2001). Then, teachers can also design their own micro-strategies with Kumaravadivelu’s framework for desired learning outcome.

My mentor on a certificate in language teaching to adults last semester advised me in the feedback that an effective way to improve my way of teaching might be to look at my own teaching in a video, although he had never done it for fear of looking at himself using his own teaching method…


List of references

Kumaravadivelu, B. (1994). The post-method condition: (E)merging strategies for second/foreign language teaching. TESOL Quarterly, 28(1), 27-48.

Richards, J. C. (2001). Beyond methods. In C. Candlin & N. Mercer (Eds.) English language teaching in its social context. (pp.167-179). Routledge: London.

Systemic functional Grammar/SHG

please excuse me but the explanation of systemic functional Grammar wasn't on the blog as I had first statement.
So, here goes with a new explanation. I hope that you get some kind of understanding from it. Read away.
Systemic functional Grammar: exclamation.
Systemic functional Grammar was first theorised by Halliday during the early 1960s. Systemic relates to the network of choices a speaker has to formulate sentences which are ultimately spoken it is sometimes referred to as systemic functional linguistics. It is part of a broader social semiotics approach to language. In this context, systemic refers to an integrated network of systems that allow form meaning. Functional refers to the contextualised, practical uses of grammar in a social context.
generative grammar, on the other hand, already has an explanation in this blog. if you are unsure about the meaning of cognitive grammar or generative grammar, take a look at the posting in this blog.

Cheers, peace out.

Week 6: Critical language teaching

According to Pennycook (2001), rather than consider classroom in ESOL as a neutral site, a critical approach to ESOL views the classroom as a part of the world that "both affected by what happens outside its walls and affecting what happens there." (p.129) It seems that the curriculum and educator's cultural preferences determine the environment of a classroom. Therefore, we TESOL practitioners need to take a more problematic stance, always questioning the inequality power between language learner and educator.

We need to question the methods that prescribed by our teacher deuction and develop our own methodologies according to different classroom situations and different students; we need to problematise the course materials that may carry cultural and ideological meanings; we need to problematise assessment to avoid the fact that the test takers who share the worldview with the test makers will be benifit, and to enable the test takers to present their talents and abilities unobstrctedly.(Lin, 1999;Penneycook, 2001;)

We TESOL practitioners also need to be aware of the limits of our knowledge, and raise the awarenesses of choising pedagogies based on objective, scientific, rational grounds rather than on political of ideological, as well as make students be concious of the power relationships which lead to liguistic or ideological oppressions. (Pennycook, 2001;Benesch, 1993)

Besides, Lin's(1999) observation reveals how differents ways of teaching, such as the use of L1 Cantonese and L2 English, the ways of asking questions lead to different results on students' response and attitudes of learning target language. The implication should be: we TESOL practitioners need to consider learners' needs, evoke learners' motivation, encourge learners to give their voice in the classroom rather than follow the policy of English only in TESOL classroom and the prescribed time limit.

In a whole, as a TESOL practitioner, we need to set up a critical attitude and a critical way of thingking and teaching in our classrooms.

Reference:

Benesch, S. (1993). ESL, ideology, and the politics of pragmatism. Tesol Quarterly, 27, 705-715.
Lin,A., (1999). Doing-English-lessons in the reproduction or transformation of social worlds. TESOL Quarterly, 33.393-412.
Pennycook, A., (2001). Critical applied linguistics. London:Lawrence Erlbaum.

generates a grammar

excuse me, I hope that people who read this don't think I am be utterancesing a little pretentious, however,

generative grammar

is, along with systemic functional Grammar to terms that I have trouble with. If I have trouble with them that means that may be someone else also has trouble (probably not Mike).
Generative grammar is a term theorised by Chomsky around circa 1960. Generative grammar is, in the eyes of Chomsky, starting to move away from formal grammar. In formal grammar, Chomsky theorises that language concerts of strings of words that are constructed by applying rules to sequence of of utterances. These occurrences appear on the right as symbols for example V,P,N etc.
A sequence of the rule is called

derivation

. In generative grammar, Chomsky theorises language appearing in concentric circles starting words regular and then contexts free, context sensitive and lastly recursively innumerable. All language that can be recognised is generated here. The language is also recognised as the recurring innumerable language. Everything you hear about the language is context free.

References:
# Chomsky, Noam (1959). "On certain formal properties of grammars". Information and Control 2 (2):. doi:10.1016/S0019-9958(59)90362-6.

Systemic functional Grammar

I have had, not unlike all of my other classmates except for Mike maybe, have had a problem with what systemic functional Grammar is really about.
So, I have been doing a lot of reading (listen in my case) on what systemic functional Grammar is. Systemic functional Grammar is concerned with the choices that are made available in grammar for the speaker. It is concerned with the contextual practical uses to which grammar is put. This makes it very different from formal grammar which focuses on Word class verbs, nouns, adjectives etc the choices that are available to speakers and writers make the grammars concrete and steadfast, in other words, they are unbelievable. The meta-functional systems of this kind of grammar and include phrenology, the syntax, and Lexus. It attempts to encompass all areas of language. For example, it considers many aspects of the persona, such as the use of language used in

nicknames

which would denote how close the speaker is to the listener showing the interpersonal meta-functions of the social arena. It takes into account the relative social status and social standing and social distance all relative to only spoken texts.

Bibliography are asleep
Halliday, M.A.K. Introduction to functional grammar, 2nd ed. (1994) London: Edward Arnold.
O’Halloran, K.A. (ed.) English grammar in context, Book 2: Getting inside English (2006), The Open University,

Critical approaches to TESOL

Although the power relationship of student-tutor and student-institution in an academy has come into question through the examinations of the critical EAP and the academic literacies approach (Lea and Street, 1998), the critical approach to TESOL has problematised lots of the other issues of TESOL such as class, race, gender and ideologies (Pennycook, 1999).

Although Pennycook (1999), who is a proponent of the critical approach to TESOL, problematized lots of issues through questioning to engage with these issues, I cannot finish this posting if I concern myself with all of these issues. Therefore, I focus on what most impressed me in the reading material this week against the background of the dominant position of English in the world.

Lin (1999) demonstrates the important roles of the teacher through showing the example that the individual teacher, who explores the alternative creative, discursive practices through understanding existing classroom practices and their socio-cultural and institutional situation, can transform one’s social world (Lin, 1999). It is very persuasive if a learner who belongs to one of the disadvantaged groups can acquire English for legitimate and appropriate discourse in official settings, they have stronger possibilities to transform their social world (Lin, 1999). Therefore, the responsibility of language teachers (not only English, but also the other languages) is really serious.


List of references

Lea, M. R., & Street, B. V. (1988). Student writing in higher education: An academic literacies model. Studies in Higher Education, 23(2), 157-172.

Lin, A. M. Y. (1999). Doing-English-lessons in the reproduction or transformation of social worlds? TESOL Quarterly, 33(3), 393-412.

Pennycook, A. (1999). Introduction: Critical approaches to TESOL. TESOL Quarterly, 33(3), 329-348.

Week 5

My apologies to everyone. I had some real trouble with my Gmail account and hence have not been able to login to the blog. But thanks to Darryl for getting me back online.
As with most of us the lecture yesterday was extremely interesting and beneficial to myself (thanks to Mike also for his input) and to the rest of us.
After the lecture, I started to wonder as I have a very good friend who is a priest who had change from the Catholic Church the Lutheran church. No mention was given to the religious reforms that were carried out (not sure about the time frame) where Luther broke away from the Catholic Church. Surely, this may have had something to do with movements of the way people thought and acted. Luther was the first priest to make a move and break away from the Catholic Church, forming his own church with his own followers. Possibly, the way language was used around that time may have been influenced by their act of anti-disestablishment.

During my readings (listening) out all the readers we have had recently, namely Pennycook and Benesch who I have quoted were quite understandable in their approaches. Although, I found Pennycook and the way he wrote to be quite angry as if for he had had a very bad experience at some time during his years teaching. Maybe it is because Benesch and he are locked into a battle over research. I guess I will never know.
Let me add to the timeline to Darryl wrote on the board for us and let me add my two cents.
Of course, I cannot prove this, but I believe that there used to be life on Mars (I can hear your laughter). But no,NASA have sent a probe to Mars and found nothing. Yes of course, think about it, how long can you hold your breath in space? About 30 seconds. And think about why astronauts wear suits with heavily shaded visors?! It's only because of the power of the sun. Of course it can destroy anything. Getting back to language teaching, there is a strong movement away from the classroom and into the home of the student. The two universities that I know of (one of my work collea and gues graduated from one) are the University of Southern Queensland USQ and Phoenix University situated in Arizona (is that right Mike?) And is something that I had been working on at the University I was tenured at. We had set out the classrooms so that every room hand a camera that could be connected to the Internet. So, as this was a woman's University there were times when they were not able to attend lectures. They could however, with an Internet connection connect to the classroom via the Internet and take the class. This was all done using Skype.

EAP

What you have written Darryl was, as always, enlightening reading. It was sometimes hard to draw myself back to the fact that you used to be an ESL teacher. (No disrespect meant).
As a teacher it's very hard sometimes not to focus on the areas of the student and not the good things that they do. Until now, through discussion with others, I see (myself included) that everybody is focusing on the micro or the sentence level. I haven't heard many people talking about the macro and focusing on the' total text'. Shouldn't we be looking at text a student produces and commenting on its whole structure. This was discussed in our lecture yesterday and made me realise the shortcomings of myself and the other teacher trainers in the class possibly focus on sentence structure of a text and not the whole unit.

English for academic purposes

Although various approaches have been implemented in academic education, the genre-based approach has become the mainstream since 1990s (Hocking, 2010). In the meanwhile, the critical EAP and the academic literacies approach emerged in the late 1990s (Hocking, 2010). They not only criticize the lack of creativity of the genre-based approach, but also examine three aspects in academic education; as students bilities, student-tutor interaction and the institution (Lea & Street, 1998).

I focus on the first two aspects of these which strongly relate to the following two approaches for learning support, and it seems to be very important for a tutor if they adopt any approaches of English teaching.

According to Wingate (2006), there are two main approaches for learning support in academic education. The one is the ‘bolt-on’ approach (Wingate, 2006). This approach focuses on students themselves and concentrates on issues of surface forms of grammar and skills for structure and argument (Lea & Street, 1998). Although it is expected that students acquire ‘appropriate’ skills for successful writing, skills are divorced from the process and content of learning, and subject knowledge (Wingate, 2006).

The other is the ‘built-in’ approach in which skills are developed in a progressive and holistic manner through student-tutor interaction (Wingate, 2006). Students are given experience and feedback on the experience that encourages reflection for developing strategies to deal with similar situations (Wingate, 2006). However, Lea and Street (1998) point out that most tutors cannot make explicit what constitutes successful writing, and then, they are likely to use familiar descriptive categories as in ‘structure’ and ‘argument’ and do little for experience and reflection.

As a result, the predominant approach is the ‘bolt-on’ approach, although an effective approach for academic education would be to adopt the ‘built-in’ approach (Wingate, 2006).

Again, the meta-language which I focused on in the previous posting about systemic functional grammar seems to be the suitable resource for providing tutors with descriptive categories for making explicit what constitute successful writing. ‘The meta-language provides a common language which teachers and students can use to talk to each other about language and how it works’ (Butt, Fahey, Feez, Spinks & Yallop, 2000, p.18), although Butt, Fahey, Feez, Spinks, and Yallop (2000) state that tutors are required to take ‘considerable professional judgement‘ (p.18) for the appropriate use of it…

Oh, I cannot forget to say this. I have noticed an answer for my one of questions in my previous posting about the genre-based approach that Figure 4 in ‘English for academic purposes and academic literacies' (Hocking, 2010) is one of real genre approach’s model texts as prototypes for learners’ individual variations. Although the table is presented in iResearch, which I am also taking in this semester, I have not considered it in this paper. I feel much better now.


List of References

Butt, D., Fahey, R., Feez, S., Spinks, S., & Yallop, C. (2000). Using functional grammar: An explorer’s guide (2nd ed.). Sydney: NCELTR.

Hocking, D. (2010). English for academic purposes and academic literacies [Lecture]. Auckland：AUT university.

Lea, M. R., & Street, B. V. (1988). Student writing in higher education: An academic literacies model. Studies in Higher Education, 23(2), 157-172.

Wingate, U. (2006). Doing away with study skills. Teaching in Higher Education, 11(4), 457-469.

Systemic functional Grammar

Kimiko Explain to us the concept of systemic functional Grammar brieflyIt explaining to us about the concept that Butt et. al described to us as havingField...the meanings about experience in the situation; the purpose of the text
・Tenor...the relationship between the participants
・Mode....the kind and nature of text that is being made.

My problem is this. If I think back to my L2 learning, I would walk from my home to school every day. A trip of about 50 minutes to 1 hour.
This whole time I was engaged in a dialogue with myself. In this case, let's presuppose that the text is all internal, what then is the : nature:: of our discourse? I understand that the tenor would be between me myself and I, but what about the Mo?

Systemic functional grammar

I am very interested in a meta-language as an answer for my one of questions in my previous posting about the genre-based approach, so this posting centers mainly on it.

Systemic functional grammar is a way of describing and interpreting meaning, lexical and grammatical choices from the wording systems. A special language describing how language is being used to realize the meaning is called a meta-language (Butt, Fahey, Feez & Yallop, 2000).

According to Butt, Fahey, Feez and Yallop (2000), texts occur in two contexts. One is the context of culture and the other is the context of situation. Then, the main areas of the meta-language for describing the context of situation are the following (Butt, Fahey, Feez & Yallop, 2000):

・Field...meanings about experience in the situation; the purpose of the text
・Tenor...relationship between the participants
・Mode....type and nature of text that is being made

The actual meta-language for these areas is the following (Butt, Fahey, Feez & Yallop, 2000):

Field
・Experiential domain (the processed, participants and circumstances of the text)
・Short term goal/long term goal (the purpose of the production of the text)
Tenor
・Social roles of the participants (e.g. teacher-student)
・Power and status of the participants 　
・Social distance (how well the participants know each other)
Mode
・Role of language (for the whole activity or for helping some others' activity)
・Type of interaction (monologic or dialogic)
・Medium (spoken, written or signed)
・Channel (phonic, graphic or visual)
・Rhetorical thrust (the overall feeling of the text)

The meta-language seems to really be the suitable resource for providing the appropriate points of key features and patterns of language for the genre approach which stresses the role of contexts and the linguistic features.

A problem for me is the statement of Butt, Fahey, Feez and Yallop (2000) that the acquisition and the use of the meta-language are difficult…


List of references

Butt, D., Fahey, R., Feez, S., Spinks, S., & Yallop, C. (2000). Using functional grammar: An explorer’s guide (2nd ed.). Sydney: NCELTR.

W5: Approaches for teaching academic writing

Various approaches are used in the area of teaching academic writing. From early years rhetorical functions approach, the process approach to recently genre-centred approach, critical EAP approach and academic literacies approach, each approach has its own focus as well as limitations.

The rhetorical functions approach is believed as an approach which restricts students’ individual expressions and hinders students’ creativities due to its explicit modelling of linguistic form. However, from my own learning experience, (this approach is the way that I was taught in EAP course) it is likely an effective introduction to academic writing for students who are not familiar with the rhetorical patterns which appear in academic writing frequently.

The process approach is a learner-centred approach which involves self-evaluation and peer feedback and focuses on stages of writing and emphasis on language comes in final stages, according to Paltridge (2001). This approach is regarded as misleading students’ view of academic settings, yet it seems a good way to evoke students’ creativity and autonomy.

A genre-centred approach focuses on teaching particular academic genres, text and context as well as writing for particular disciplines. Following Hyland’s model for a genre-centred syllabus, students get familiar with the particular academic genres and finally they are able to complete independent writings. Though Reid (1984) and Horrowitz (1986) point out that this approach fails to consider disciplinary differences, it could be an efficient way to introduce particular academic genres writing in that it identifies both the rhetorical and linguistic features, as well as considers the socio-cultural contexts of certain genres.

Other approaches include content-based instruction which aims at post-secondary education and critical English for academic purpose which encourages students’ critical thinking. Besides, academic literacies approach is another approach involves critical learning. It emphasises on epistemology and identities and focuses on identifying expectations of different disciplines, different subject tutors. According to Wingate (2006), “writing needs to be taught explicitly within the subject context” (p.462), “through explanations, modelling and feedback by subject tutors.” (p.463) Though it is so true that this approach is a solution for developing students’ understanding of subject-specific writing requirements, it seems unrealistic in that it involves subject tutors’ teaching time consuming.

As Lea and Street (1998) point out, teacher’s beliefs about the teaching of academic writing determine the type of approach they use. Teachers, therefore, need to be aware of students’ need, consider each approach’s merits and deficits, and combine key elements from variety of approaches in their way of teaching academic writing.

Reference:
Horrowitz, D. (1986). Process not producr: less than meets the eye. TESOL Quarterly 20: 141-144.
Lea, M. and Street, B. (1998). Student writing in higher education: an academic literacies approach. Studies in higher education 23 (2): 157-172.
Paltridge, B. (2001). Linguistic research and EAP pedagogy. In J.Flowerdew & M. Peacock, eds., Research perspectives on English for academic purposes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Reid, J. 1984. The radical outliner and the radical brainstormer: a perspective on the composing process. TESOL Quarterly 18:529-533.
Wingate, U. (2006). Doing away with ‘study skills’. Teaching in higher education, 11:4, 457-469. Retrieved 1, August 2007 from http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13562510600874268

This is to follow my last posting

In my last posting, I for God to ads references for

Hayden K.(2003)" second language writing p.43" Cambridge University press, Cambridge.

Sorry, in the last posting I made, I have mentioned some things that may have ' riled' some of you. This is not my intention. Of course, I have never seen any of you teach but through the conversation from others that I hear, I can make a judgement call.
I have the only had the opportunity to listen to ' Nicki' and 'Mike' in any depth. These two people are teachers who I'd feel would employ a small part of ' humour' and their lesson. I would love the opportunity to visit their classroom while they are teaching. For developing my teaching abilities further.