Reflecting on my module 1 assignment I've been conscious of how I make free style conversations with students. Now, I've always been sensitive to student understanding when explaining things to a class. (Usually because I have cater to the lowest common denominator to get things organized.) But I've started to rethink how I talk to students who are of a higher level. In particular, I want to reassess my habit of talking to them too quickly. (Just like a native conversation.) Not because I think they can't handle the input (in terms of basic understanding) but because of something I've read in SLA recently. Drawing from Blooms taxonomy (the revised version from 2001), cognitive processes such as recalling words and meaning are much more difficult in a second language. With that difficulty, the processing of information is slower and hence much more time is necessary for students to comprehend and reorganize information for more complex higher level processing. If I want my students to produce higher level out put I think I need to restrain the urge to talk like I naturally do.
Reflecting on my lesson this week I've made an effort to be extra clear but I haven't consciously come up with a set procedure to ensure that my students have time to process the input I give them. Neither have I come up with a plan to help guild students to higher order thinking. My interaction with students, was as always, underwhelming. Students usually answer questions with the minimum they can get away with. There is no elaboration, comparison, evaluation or creation. Not spontaneously in any case. I think that is problematic. Students, rarely use anything other than the bottom 2 levels of Bloom's model. Perhaps, I should reassess my questioning style with the model in mind. Better yet perhaps I could teach those kinds of questions to the students to use in pair and group discussions. Next week is the mid term test so now is the best time to recalibrate.
I completely understand where you're coming from. I recently subbed for a class this past week and I can't help but feel conscious of what I'm doing! Especially since the demo class, I didn't realize I spend so much time explaining things so now I've been trying to keep it to a minimum. As for the speed of your speech, I was thinking about that too. I know I can't speak normally like I always do because it'll be hard for them to understand, but I also don't want to speak too slowly either. What if they get used to it? Isn't it better to speak naturally and then eventually they'll start to pick it up? I've always wondered about this. For example, when I came to Korea, I was overwhelmed by the way Koreans speak. It was super fast. Now, I feel like since I've been exposed to it so frequently, I am now used to it and even sometimes finding myself keeping up with their native speaking pace.
ReplyDeleteI think we do have to adjust our rate and our enunciation for quite some time -- maybe not drastically, but think of it as casting a net in the water -- the holes in the net can't be so large that what you're trying to collect and bring with you keep slipping through the holes. Gradually, as the fish grow in the net, the holes can get bigger and they won't slip through.
ReplyDeleteIt's a fine balancing act for sure. I think a possible compromise would be to be aware of what students "need" to understand and what we would "like" students to acquire. So for instructions and classroom management we would focus on MIC. Where as for content stuff which is i+1 some of the ambiguity of natural speech may help students to reach for meaning.
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