Letter of Summation
The intensive 15-unit TESOL program study has been really an enriching experience for me. Now when looking back on the learning process, I felt that readings, lectures, and group discussions all helped answer my questions and even gave me more in depth thoughts. I would like to share some of the inspirations that I gained through the program.
I first knew communicative language teaching (CLT) from TESOL Components A class. Although I wasn’t that clear about CLT, I was immediately attractive by its principles of meaningful communication, authentic materials, and autonomy learners (Richards, 2006). At that time I happened to be tutoring an adult student who has high motivation to learn but has low self-efficacy. In serving of her needs, I prepared a lesson about online shopping. The student seemed to be highly motivated due to the content relevance to her life. I taught her new vocabulary words by guiding her through Amazon, a real E-shopping website. The next session, the students made her first order online by herself and actively asked me questions she encountered in online shopping. I gained more insights into CLT from Conversation Methodology class, where a method combining TBLT and PPP was introduced, which is a good solution for balancing fluency and accuracy. In the integrated approach, students will practice and learn language through pre-task, task, and post-task and PPP is inserted in the task phase to control the accuracy (Bahrami, 2015).
I also learned lesson planning, including materials selection, lesson delivery, and inductive questions techniques, from Grammar A and Listening Methodology class. Inductive approach is popular in Grammar teaching nowadays, in which teachers start with examples and then infer to the rules by asking leading questions (Thornbury, 1999). Speaking of material selection, it is favorable to choose a scenario or conversation that could activate students’’ prior knowledge and then build on what students have known.
At the beginning of the program, I was expecting to find a universal method that could be applied to everyday teaching. However, teaching is a complex and dynamic activity that we teachers should adapt ourselves to the changing circumstances. In terms of cultivating life-long learners, I feel that it coincides with the autonomy learners. Although I haven’t seen any grown autonomy ESL learners due to its natural of long time accumulation, I do believe that CLT and its meaningful communication would help students develop into autonomy or life-long learners.
In sum, I really enjoy the 15-unit TESOL program and even find more interested areas that I want to continue to explore. Maybe that is the beauty of teaching--- it is dynamic and always throws back things for teachers to reflect that keep one forging ahead.
Reference:
I first knew communicative language teaching (CLT) from TESOL Components A class. Although I wasn’t that clear about CLT, I was immediately attractive by its principles of meaningful communication, authentic materials, and autonomy learners (Richards, 2006). At that time I happened to be tutoring an adult student who has high motivation to learn but has low self-efficacy. In serving of her needs, I prepared a lesson about online shopping. The student seemed to be highly motivated due to the content relevance to her life. I taught her new vocabulary words by guiding her through Amazon, a real E-shopping website. The next session, the students made her first order online by herself and actively asked me questions she encountered in online shopping. I gained more insights into CLT from Conversation Methodology class, where a method combining TBLT and PPP was introduced, which is a good solution for balancing fluency and accuracy. In the integrated approach, students will practice and learn language through pre-task, task, and post-task and PPP is inserted in the task phase to control the accuracy (Bahrami, 2015).
I also learned lesson planning, including materials selection, lesson delivery, and inductive questions techniques, from Grammar A and Listening Methodology class. Inductive approach is popular in Grammar teaching nowadays, in which teachers start with examples and then infer to the rules by asking leading questions (Thornbury, 1999). Speaking of material selection, it is favorable to choose a scenario or conversation that could activate students’’ prior knowledge and then build on what students have known.
At the beginning of the program, I was expecting to find a universal method that could be applied to everyday teaching. However, teaching is a complex and dynamic activity that we teachers should adapt ourselves to the changing circumstances. In terms of cultivating life-long learners, I feel that it coincides with the autonomy learners. Although I haven’t seen any grown autonomy ESL learners due to its natural of long time accumulation, I do believe that CLT and its meaningful communication would help students develop into autonomy or life-long learners.
In sum, I really enjoy the 15-unit TESOL program and even find more interested areas that I want to continue to explore. Maybe that is the beauty of teaching--- it is dynamic and always throws back things for teachers to reflect that keep one forging ahead.
Reference:
- Jack C. Richards. (2006). Communicative Language Teaching Today. New York: Cambridge University Press. P118-122.
- Bahrami, Reza. (2015). The Integrated Approach/The Combination Process. 2015.
- Thornbury, Scott. (1999). How to teach grammar. Malaysia: Longman. Pearson Education Limited 1999. P47