Well, I think I will just start right in on the readings for this week. Chapter 5 broke down the differences among natural language acquisition, structure based settings and communicative instruction settings in the classroom. I found it interesting that each setting has unique characteristics and each of those can benefit students.
When I was learning a second language I found that I appreciated the communicative setting. It was not the most comfortable but I reaped the benefits from the approach almost immediately. I found it quite uncomfortable because I was scared to make mistakes but making the mistakes that I did and being corrected help me learn even more. I think with that great risk comes a great reward.
Chapter 5 also broke down the two different ways in which researchers study classrooms. I think Observation Schemes do not appear to bring about the most faithful to reality results. By expecting certain results, the researchers could almost be bias and tailor the data to compliment their hypotheses.
Chapter 6 illustrates the 6 proposals to foreign language instruction.
1. Get it right from the beginning
2. Just listen...and read
3. Let's talk
4. Two for one
5. Teach what is teachable
6. Get it right in the end
I found there were some positive and negative aspects to every approach. The 'Get it right in the beginning method' appeared to target only the students that had a complete awareness and mastery to their own native language.
Proposal #2, 'Just listen and read' appears to only target those students that benefit from audio/lingual and visual learning styles. I like the TPR was integrated into this proposal as a means of combating this exact pitfall. A positive aspect to this method is that the use of authentic texts can contribute to language acquisition.
The 'Let's Talk' proposal appears to target something that I believe occurs naturally which is negotiation of meaning. From personal experiences I find that if I am trying to say something in Spanish but I do not know the appropriate Spanish word, I talk around that specific word until I am sure that I have conveyed the appropriate meaning. I am sure that I am not alone in this "strategy" with the use of a second or foreign language.
'Two for One' appears to be similar to Content Based Instruction. I like that this proposal is called 'Two for One'. It seems that students can study one subject while attaining a second language.
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"with great risk comes great reward", isn't that from Spider-Man?? I swear I've heard that somewhere before... Oh, no wait... It's "with great power comes great responsibility" or something like that. But this is typed already so...
Yes you're not alone in the "let's talk" strategy. I found myself use it a lot in my English learning process, especially in the first weeks i came here since the range of English vocabulary that i have to use here is much wider than that in my classroom context at home. In my opinion, this method is not only useful to learners but it also benefits us as future teachers as well, since explanations and paraphrasing really comes in handy when you present new vocabulary or concepts to students.
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