Clarke Wainikka TESL

Professional Learning Network: How did it change? What did I learn? One of the first things I noticed was my expansion of resources. Throughout this course, with the collaboration of my peers and the course content I was able to greatly expand my knowledge of online resources. Sites like quizmaker and screen-o-matic are quite new to me and I'm looking forward to implementing them into my classroom in the future.  Some other things I have learned about my PLN is the great community of online collaborative professionals in the ESL industry. I added this to my PLN under the 'people' section as a larger circle as I believe it is something that all instructors should take advantage of. It is clear that the instructors that actively post and share their resources online are passionate about language learning and acquisition and I hope to become a part of this community so that I can improve my skills and knowledge as an instructor. This community is quite active on ...

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...