Clarke Wainikka TESL

What are some privacy concerns in using social media with the class? It's so true that social media can have incredibly powerful ripple effects. And I do believe it can be a very scary tool for both teachers and students. Cyber bullying is a very relevant issue especially to the current generation of high school learners. I assisted high school students last year for a short stint and the detrimental effects of social media on friendships and learner education was quite shocking. I had several students come to me with instances of 'he said she said' on instagram or twitter. These privacy concerns are still a very new issue for most teachers and it can be difficult to navigate our way around these issues when the students are more knowledgeable on the technology than we are.  With that said, I do think it's important that we as teachers take the time to explain the safety and consequences of social media. And I believe this can be done by utilizing some aspects in ...

What is the difference between testing and PBLA? Testing can be used as a formative or summative assessment while Portfolio Based Language Assessment (PBLA) is formative in nature. That’s not to say that PBLA could not be used as a summative assessment but it leans more towards an update on student’s progress rather than an end of unit assessment. PBLA is often seen as something that is cyclical while testing is much more linear. A testing classroom will learn the unit and then have a test and this will continue until the end of the program. For PBLA, it is a more detailed cycle of planning for learning, assessment and engagement followed by skill-building, transparent assessment, action-oriented feedback and future planning. I believe that PBLA has many merits, it offers a much more learner-involved process not only in planning for learning but also in the assessments and criteria. PBLA also focuses on authentic learning tasks which will, in my opinion, translate better to real-wo...

What can teachers do to 'discourage interaction'? Teachers walk a fine line when creating a classroom that fosters interaction. It only takes a few simple errors for an instructor to 'discourage interaction.' Firstly, in regards to error correction, Brown & Lee advise that their must be an optimal balance between positive and negative cognitive feedback in order to be effective. Too much negative feedback will lead to a learner shutting themselves off from communication while too much positive feedback can lead to the "fossilization" of certain errors and develop bad habits. (2015) For example, if a student continues to drop the 's' when reading out loud at the ends of words and the instructor decides it is more worthwhile to correct other pronunciation errors, this could lead to the student continuously dropping 's''s and causing later confusion in their speaking.  Another example of the fine line that teachers walk when it c...

Why do you think there have been so many language teaching methods? I believe there has been so many language teaching methods because, firstly, as Brown & Lee stated, there was a search performed from the 1880's to the 1980's for the right 'method' that would successfully apply to all foreign language speakers. (2015). There was an idea that there must be one method that would work for all teachers and all students and this led to a continuous cycling of methods as they came about. Meaning new methods would replace the old, another new method would be released, would be adapted and so on and so forth.  It is clear that, nowadays, our methods are much more comprehensive and not so strictly limited to one type of language teaching. I believe this is because of the expansion of globalization. The ESL industry, with the invention of technology, has greatly expanded its borders. Teachers are now able to connect with other professionals from all over the world and t...

After revisiting the popular ideas about language learning in Lightrown & Spada (2013, p. 202), have any of your previous opinions changed or become stronger? Reading through the popular ideas about language learning by Lightbrown & Spada, I found myself very interested in two particular points. Firstly, that highly intelligent learners or those with a high IQ make good language learners. Throughout my experience, specifically with international students, I have had several students who were very intelligent and very successful in their respective fields but struggled in the classroom. I can confirm what Lightbrown & Spada suggested, having a wide variety of language abilities leads to more success, specifically in oral communication. I have had many students that are very knowledgeable in terms of meta linguistics, grammatical rules and, even, English literature. However, these students still often would make mistakes as they were not able to apply the knowledge that the...

First Language Acquisition versus Second Language Learning Above you can find a diagram I made about the differences and similarities about first language acquisition and second language learning. In my research, I was surprised by how different the two are and how truly fortunate I am to be born with English as my first acquired language. To learn that Second Language learners will, truly, never reach the point of competence of first language acquisition is quite surprising. Even those who are bilingual will still have one language more dominant than the other. I’m curious to see if this changes in the oncoming years as second language learning and children being taught two languages at a young age becomes more and more common. In my personal experience, I think I am a clear example of the differences between FLA and SLL. As a child, I spoke only English but upon entering school I was enrolled into a French immersion program. From ages 5 to 13 all of my schooling was in Fr...