The readings of this course were all inspiring to me. I chose to register in this course at the very moment I was told I would be hired to be an Instructor for Elementary Portuguese at UNH this semester. I couldn't have done anything better! In this course, I learned the theories and was exposed to the discussions on teaching strategies and learning hypothesis.
Each reading was like a new world that was opened to me. I was so happy to know all the ideas these theorists discussed and with our class dynamics that I felt really lucky. I must confess that in my first readings of each of the articles, I agreed entirely with all of them. I was a complete naive in this field. Therefore, my first impressions of each argument was very positive. I was enchanted by Krashen's theory of Comprehensive Input and his weird way of explaining his ideas. Then, I was impacted by the PACE model with whole language approach, which made me reorganize my current Portuguese classes.
However, in the last weeks, when I was exposed to the Long's Interaction Hypothesis and Swain's Output Hypothesis, I freak out. I am a conciliator by nature, so I desperately tried to keep all the theorist tips and advice and mix all the arguments in one and only way of teaching. This way of teaching is what I am currently considering to my second semester as a Portuguese instructor. This time, I will have a decent amount of time to prepare a course. It will reflect all my conciliatory efforts to use a little bit of each of the approaches I was exposed to. I guess this is called the Teaching Philosophy.
I had lots of intuitions about second language learning from my experience of student of four different foreign languages, but now I am aware of which are the most important elements I have to focus when teaching a second language. I would like to thank Professor Lee for allowing me such an important experience.
Friday, November 15, 2019
Week 9 - Top-Down and Bottom-Up Strategies
The Top-Down and the Bottom-Up presentations of content are two strategies we can use when presenting a new content in class. Fluent listening depends of the use of both processes operating simultaneously. Therefore, regarding a second language class embedded with culture, both directions are productive depending on the material that will be presented. The material I presented in my lesson plan (and actual class) was a 1 minute video in Portuguese which is a trailer for a documentary series called
“O Negro no Futebol Brasileiro”, focusing the black soccer players in the
beginning of the 20th century in Brazil. The video is spoken in Portuguese and has Portuguese subtitles.
According to Jack C. Richards, "When working with students with Comprehension, we have to make sure that we are not just working with words or sentences, but also activating background knowledge, encouraging students to make predictions, to guess what's coming, to draw on their knowledge to enable them to listen the way people do in authentic listening situations." (Video published by Cambridge University Press ELT, 2011)
Show the video for the third time and then stop in some sentences of the subtitles to analyse every word and the meaning of the complete sentences. Discuss the aspects of the history of the African-Brazilian people in the formation of Brazilian population, asking the students to compare and contrast with the US history regarding the African-American people when the slavery ended. Show the video for the forth time and give them a sheet with 7 questions about the video. The questions are written in Portuguese, therefore, take some time to scaffold their comprehension of the vocabulary in the questions. If someone needs, play the video again while they work in writing the answers. In this Lesson Plan, the first attempt is to show students an important aspect of the society formation in Brazil from the point of view of the historians’ approach to race issues in the beginning of the history of soccer as a sport in Brazil.
According to Jack C. Richards, "When working with students with Comprehension, we have to make sure that we are not just working with words or sentences, but also activating background knowledge, encouraging students to make predictions, to guess what's coming, to draw on their knowledge to enable them to listen the way people do in authentic listening situations." (Video published by Cambridge University Press ELT, 2011)
My procedures were: show
the video once and then ask the students to guess the main topic and some contents
mentioned by the narrator and the three interviewed persons. Write in the board
each word or sentence that the students say. Show
the video for the second time, and then ask the students to comment about the
images, connecting them to what they already guessed about the series. Write in
the board the names of the visual elements on the video. Show
images related to the topic, to boost vocabulary and the notion that soccer is
something very present in all the country. Around 12 images of types of soccer
fields, especially the informal ones in the rural areas, in poor environments,
on the beach, and images of different kinds of shoes and barefoot feet (a
picture of an infant’s feet), as well as various types of ground. Write in the
board all this vocabulary, pointing to the images corresponding to each word.
Show the video for the third time and then stop in some sentences of the subtitles to analyse every word and the meaning of the complete sentences. Discuss the aspects of the history of the African-Brazilian people in the formation of Brazilian population, asking the students to compare and contrast with the US history regarding the African-American people when the slavery ended. Show the video for the forth time and give them a sheet with 7 questions about the video. The questions are written in Portuguese, therefore, take some time to scaffold their comprehension of the vocabulary in the questions. If someone needs, play the video again while they work in writing the answers. In this Lesson Plan, the first attempt is to show students an important aspect of the society formation in Brazil from the point of view of the historians’ approach to race issues in the beginning of the history of soccer as a sport in Brazil.
To bring these elements to the class,
it is necessary to activate the students’ background knowledge. This is the Top-Down process. The linguistic goal is
to have the students exposed to the vocabulary and the sentences that are used
to advertise the HBO documentary series “O Negro no Futebol Brasileiro” in the
one-minute trailer. The use of a topic like soccer is likely to engage students
because they usually enjoy sports in this age.
I consider this video challenging, but possible to show to Portuguese Language novice students. Scaffolding their learning by analyzing each sentence and clarifying each word is a Down-Top process. My intention is to scaffold their learning by coming up with comparisons and contrasts between the Brazilian and American history regarding the African people brought to both countries as slaves and what were the consequences of this historical fact. With the detailed study of all the sentences, the goal is to improve the students’ vocabulary and present to them complex sentences to improve the understanding of the Portuguese syntax.
I consider this video challenging, but possible to show to Portuguese Language novice students. Scaffolding their learning by analyzing each sentence and clarifying each word is a Down-Top process. My intention is to scaffold their learning by coming up with comparisons and contrasts between the Brazilian and American history regarding the African people brought to both countries as slaves and what were the consequences of this historical fact. With the detailed study of all the sentences, the goal is to improve the students’ vocabulary and present to them complex sentences to improve the understanding of the Portuguese syntax.
Do you think this lesson plan is effective? Is this class dynamics interesting?
Thursday, November 14, 2019
Week 7 Teaching culture embedded in language
I tend to agree with those who say that it is impossible to teach the culture of a target country in class while studying a foreign language. They claim that only going to a field trip or study abroad program and being hosted by a local family it is possible to fully understand the other culture.
However, as a graduate student from Brazil currently living in the US, I begin to consider some thoughts about this topic since I started to teach Portuguese language at the university. I think we cannot teach and deliver to American students the full comprehension of what culture looks like in Brazil. But we can introduce the students to some differences that they may encounter when going to Brazil. It may seem funny, but these cultural differences could represent a kind of warning to them, aiming to reduce the cultural shock with common everyday attitudes in Brazil.
Regarding the three P's of Culture described in the US National Standards for Foreign Language Learning in the 12th Century, some of each cultural manifestations can be presented in a language classroom, preferably embedded in the language teaching through authentic material. The first P is Product, the easiest to present: food samples, art, dressing, architecture, and cities' urban design. The second is Practices, which comprises the forms of celebration of festive dates, the social interaction, body language and informal expressions. The third is Perspectives - which is underneath the two others - that are the beliefs, taboos, and worldview.
Certain items of Products, of Practices and, as a consequence, the Perspectives of the target culture can be shown to the students before they go to the studied country. For example, in Brazil, we don't need (or don't care about) a big private physical space around ourselves, as Americans do. So, in daily situations like shopping in a grocery store in Brazil, people can come near you, or stand in a line closer that an American would usually accept. There are some funny videos of Americans reporting these kind of situation.
In Brazil, in rush hour, the public transportation may be extremely crowded. It is not comfortable to anyone, but it is normal. So, even in these uncomfortable situations, people can talk to strangers, have fun and laugh a lot during the trip, standing literally stuck to other people in a crowded bus or subway car. In Brazil, we are really noisier that Americans. I think we share this characteristics with all Latin-American cultures and even with people from Italy, Spain and Portugal. Beyond speaking louder in daily social situations, people walking in the street may scream to a friend that is in the other side of the street and have a complete conversation in public, often using friendly curses.
Therefore, I think that some aspects of Brazilian informality and life-style should be mentioned, so the student won't freak out when someone that s/he never saw before run into her/him and in 5 minutes tell all his/her life-story in a blend of drama, privacy and comedy. Don't you think it would be really useful to know in advance that in Brazil you should not arrive in some kinds of parties in the exact hour indicated in the invitation, as well as other aspects of the cultural practices that have its roots in the traditions and perspectives related to social interaction?
Reference:
National Standards for Foreign Language Education Project. (1999). Standards for foreign language learning in the 21st century. Lawrence, KS: Allen Press, Inc.
However, as a graduate student from Brazil currently living in the US, I begin to consider some thoughts about this topic since I started to teach Portuguese language at the university. I think we cannot teach and deliver to American students the full comprehension of what culture looks like in Brazil. But we can introduce the students to some differences that they may encounter when going to Brazil. It may seem funny, but these cultural differences could represent a kind of warning to them, aiming to reduce the cultural shock with common everyday attitudes in Brazil.
Regarding the three P's of Culture described in the US National Standards for Foreign Language Learning in the 12th Century, some of each cultural manifestations can be presented in a language classroom, preferably embedded in the language teaching through authentic material. The first P is Product, the easiest to present: food samples, art, dressing, architecture, and cities' urban design. The second is Practices, which comprises the forms of celebration of festive dates, the social interaction, body language and informal expressions. The third is Perspectives - which is underneath the two others - that are the beliefs, taboos, and worldview.
Certain items of Products, of Practices and, as a consequence, the Perspectives of the target culture can be shown to the students before they go to the studied country. For example, in Brazil, we don't need (or don't care about) a big private physical space around ourselves, as Americans do. So, in daily situations like shopping in a grocery store in Brazil, people can come near you, or stand in a line closer that an American would usually accept. There are some funny videos of Americans reporting these kind of situation.
In Brazil, in rush hour, the public transportation may be extremely crowded. It is not comfortable to anyone, but it is normal. So, even in these uncomfortable situations, people can talk to strangers, have fun and laugh a lot during the trip, standing literally stuck to other people in a crowded bus or subway car. In Brazil, we are really noisier that Americans. I think we share this characteristics with all Latin-American cultures and even with people from Italy, Spain and Portugal. Beyond speaking louder in daily social situations, people walking in the street may scream to a friend that is in the other side of the street and have a complete conversation in public, often using friendly curses.
Therefore, I think that some aspects of Brazilian informality and life-style should be mentioned, so the student won't freak out when someone that s/he never saw before run into her/him and in 5 minutes tell all his/her life-story in a blend of drama, privacy and comedy. Don't you think it would be really useful to know in advance that in Brazil you should not arrive in some kinds of parties in the exact hour indicated in the invitation, as well as other aspects of the cultural practices that have its roots in the traditions and perspectives related to social interaction?
Reference:
National Standards for Foreign Language Education Project. (1999). Standards for foreign language learning in the 21st century. Lawrence, KS: Allen Press, Inc.
Week 6 - I saw a radical acculturation
Once I had the opportunity to verify by myself the real meaning of the concept of acculturation. A friend of mine that is Austrian had spent one year in Brazil, living in a southern city where some of my relatives live. We met a couple of times during her exchange study year, because she was close to my family. In the end of the program - in which there were around 15 high-school students from Austria - they all met in the airport to go back to their home country. This was the opportunity: I went to the airport to say goodbye to my friend and witnessed a surprising phenomenon.
Each of the young Austrians went to a different state of Brazil. And all of them were immersed not only in the Portuguese language, but also in the culture. I could see that they were opened to the local culture in a way that each of them reassembled the people of those different states. As I knew about the culture and accent of each of them, I was astonished by the similarities that each of them acquired, from the way of speaking to the cultural views and habits of communities in which they were immersed for one year.
Their acculturation included the taste for music, for food, the likes and dislikes about celebrations, about what to do in the free time and so on. For example, one of the girls was in a small town of the state of Minas Gerais, and she was incredibly speaking and looking like a "mineira", calm, contemplative and kind of hippie. The boy that went to a small city in the state of São Paulo, was all about rodeos and Brazilian Country music (Sertanejo). The girl that went to the northern part of Brazil, the city of Natal, had like the others her strong accent in Portuguese and was all about sports and leisure related to beaches and dunes, seafood recipes and northern songs and traditional dances.
But what most chocked and, at the same time, interested me was that each of them have had a so extreme experience of immersion and acculturation in different places that they were sure that their own experience reflected the true Brazil. I was lucky to have the chance to see them discussing about which was the real Brazil. At that moment, my friend was also observing, maybe because she had the chance to travel a little through the country and meet with people from other states, what made her more aware of the diversity within the country. Maybe her intellectual maturity and the interest in the country as a whole made her understand that each experience was unique and necessarily different from the others.
At the opposite extreme relies the Alberto experience, described by Schumann (1976) in the article Second Language Acquisition: The Pidginization Hypothesis. Schumann studies the way a 33 year old Costa Rican named Alberto relates to the American environment to where he moved. He relates mostly by denial: he does not show interest in learning English. He works and lives only with Spanish speakers and listen to Hispanic music. So, the few times she needs to speak in English, he uses a mix of works in English adding to them grammar rules from his mother tongue. Alberto evidenced very little linguistic development during the 10 months during the observation research upon him. This use of language with poor vocabulary and the overlapping of mother tongue grammar over foreign language is called Pidginization.
The Pidginization Hypothesis "predicts that where social and psychological distance prevail we will find pidginization persisting in the speech of second language learners" (p. 406).
Pidgins are always second languages, used mostly for communication. Pidginization produces an interlanguage that is simplified and reduced. However when this blend of languages becomes more complex, a creole language may occur, such as the Haitian Creole, mix of French and Western-African languages used by the African people brought to Haiti as slaves.
Each of the young Austrians went to a different state of Brazil. And all of them were immersed not only in the Portuguese language, but also in the culture. I could see that they were opened to the local culture in a way that each of them reassembled the people of those different states. As I knew about the culture and accent of each of them, I was astonished by the similarities that each of them acquired, from the way of speaking to the cultural views and habits of communities in which they were immersed for one year.
Their acculturation included the taste for music, for food, the likes and dislikes about celebrations, about what to do in the free time and so on. For example, one of the girls was in a small town of the state of Minas Gerais, and she was incredibly speaking and looking like a "mineira", calm, contemplative and kind of hippie. The boy that went to a small city in the state of São Paulo, was all about rodeos and Brazilian Country music (Sertanejo). The girl that went to the northern part of Brazil, the city of Natal, had like the others her strong accent in Portuguese and was all about sports and leisure related to beaches and dunes, seafood recipes and northern songs and traditional dances.
But what most chocked and, at the same time, interested me was that each of them have had a so extreme experience of immersion and acculturation in different places that they were sure that their own experience reflected the true Brazil. I was lucky to have the chance to see them discussing about which was the real Brazil. At that moment, my friend was also observing, maybe because she had the chance to travel a little through the country and meet with people from other states, what made her more aware of the diversity within the country. Maybe her intellectual maturity and the interest in the country as a whole made her understand that each experience was unique and necessarily different from the others.
At the opposite extreme relies the Alberto experience, described by Schumann (1976) in the article Second Language Acquisition: The Pidginization Hypothesis. Schumann studies the way a 33 year old Costa Rican named Alberto relates to the American environment to where he moved. He relates mostly by denial: he does not show interest in learning English. He works and lives only with Spanish speakers and listen to Hispanic music. So, the few times she needs to speak in English, he uses a mix of works in English adding to them grammar rules from his mother tongue. Alberto evidenced very little linguistic development during the 10 months during the observation research upon him. This use of language with poor vocabulary and the overlapping of mother tongue grammar over foreign language is called Pidginization.
The Pidginization Hypothesis "predicts that where social and psychological distance prevail we will find pidginization persisting in the speech of second language learners" (p. 406).
Pidgins are always second languages, used mostly for communication. Pidginization produces an interlanguage that is simplified and reduced. However when this blend of languages becomes more complex, a creole language may occur, such as the Haitian Creole, mix of French and Western-African languages used by the African people brought to Haiti as slaves.
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