Identifying a Research Topic/Question

Language learning is closely related to the cultural background of the language. When I first started teaching Chinese in the United States, I was already thinking about how to connect language and culture to achieve better language learning. English is my second foreign language. I don't want my students to have the same experience as I did to learn a second language in a non-culture environment. Therefore, my research question is: how to connect the learning of language to the culture behind it and promote students' enthusiasm for learning Chinese.

Here is how I addressed the topic/question in my research proposal:

Why it’s important to relate the learning of language to the culture behind it.

if I don’t explain this “why” question, I don’t think people have the patience to listen to my question later on. I have to convince people with even two reasons to support my points of view. If they think my points of views are reasonable, they will encourage me to apply my strategies.

What environments are students staying?

Different Strategies will be used in different school district. I am teaching in a diverse community. Many of my students are immigrants from Mexico or other Southern American countries. I will try to find the similarity of cultures or customs and share with my students to arise echo in their heart.

What cultures that students will be interested?

Interest is the best teacher. Before making plans, I will do a survey and find out what cultures are my students interested.

What strategies can I learn?

Are there any successful examples that I can learn? And how did people make it? Do I copy it or modify to fix my class?

How to assess the effect?

I will create goals and objectives with assessment system to check the effect. Student differentiation in different classes makes it hard to apply the same strategy to the same group of people. So I will design proper assessments for my students.

Reflection of Module 9

English writing has always been my weakness. To improve my teaching skills, I chose to continue studying this program. I was pleased that I completed the previous eight modules. I was excited when I first learned about module 9. Because it was about literacy, and I happened to have to worry about how to improve the literacy of students every day. The school does train us and teach us some skills and strategies, but this is not enough. There are still many things to rely on teachers themselves to slowly explore. The learning of this module is too timely. So when this module is going to finish, I found myself learning a lot. When I applied what I have learned to the classroom, I saw the progress of the students. My joy is beyond description.

The new insights into literacy learning I have:

1. Improving students’ literacy is not as difficult as we thought. There are a lot of strategies we can use. If we create a literate community in our classroom, we are moving our first step.

2. Whole in Whole Language is a new concept for me. It’s especially useful for teachers like me who teach the second language.

3. I can’t agree more about the importance of teacher quality. And the role professional development plays in training high-quality teachers.

4. I learn the many strategies that teachers can use in this module to improve literacy. I also like the specific strategies that I can use to differentiate instruction to help my students overcome problems.

5. The before, during and after reading strategies allow me to use more strategies in teaching reading.

6. It’s critical in improving students’ literacy if we can effectively build a classroom library.

7. Choosing the right book for students is also very skillful. And there is a lot to consider.

8. When planning a lesson, think about differentiation.

9. Using rubric is a good choice to assess students.

10. Writing is critical. And there are many strategies we can use to improve students’ writing, like small group writing, brainstorming, and positive feedback.

Ways I will change my teaching methods and curriculum as a result of this course:

Whole in Whole Language learning.

I will allow students more time to read by themselves with interrupting. Students work in small groups to understand their writing and get responses from their peers. I will support student-centered learning rather than teacher-centered learning by creating a literate environment, stimulating interest by helping them connect new experience with previous experience, and facilitating the learners' achievement of their intentions

Theme Based Learning

As a magnet school, my school encourages teachers to use them based learning. Theme-based learning is more close to real life. So, students will have more fun to input in education. I will choose themes that meet the curriculum requirement and connect to cultures, if possible.

Using rubric in assessments

Assessment is an important part to improve students’ literacy. I used many estimates in class, like giving feedback, classmates comments, questionnaires...., but after using the rubric, students have a more clear idea about what they are going to do.

Writing revision

By revising the draft, students can better every aspect of their works that might need help. I will group students to make comments on others works. I think getting an outsider’s opinion can be just as crucial as taking on one’s draft.

The connection between reading and writing

Reading affects writing and writing affects interpretation. Research has found that when children read extensively, they become better writers. I will sometimes let my students choose what they want to read and write. I think it will be useful that I ask students to read a book or article and retell the story with their language and write it down.

Small group writing

A small group allows efficiency in our teaching while pairing the qualities of our writers with objectives to nudge them forward. As students discuss what they are going to write, they are planning the writing. They have to think critically about how to verbalize groupmates opinion and how to turn that into writing.

Creating a Writing Environment

Kids learn to write when they are in kindergarten. Even though they just start to learn sight words and most of them are misspelled. My teachers didn’t tell me the importance of writing well. They just taught me the skills of writing. I once won first place in a writing competition. And I was always one of the favorite pupils of my Mandarin Chinese teacher. So I want to say, with my own experience, why writing well is so important.

First, The era we are in is the information age. Most people will not choose to sit down and write letters to others carefully and conscientiously. Instead, they use social media such as twitter, facebook, Instagram, etc. We quickly input what we have to say without thinking. At this time, the high level of writing shows an advantage. If a person can write clear and sharp comments in just two minutes, it is really impressive.

Second, you can get what you want if you are really good at writing. The benefits of high writing levels are gradually reflected in the high school application to the university. My friend's daughter won the favor of some famous universities with her excellent essay when she applied for university. According to her mother, The essay even touched her.  After graduating from college, a beautifully decorated resume will definitely give you a lot more interview opportunities than your classmates. Even when you get a job, such talents in writing are rushed by employers.

The good benefits of writing can't be said. Let's take a look at what methods to improve students' writing skills.

The strategies I am using now  include:

planning

Students make a plan of the writing before they start. These plans can be compared and discussed in groups before writing takes place.

Fast writing

The students write quickly on a topic for five to ten minutes without worrying about correct language or punctuation. Writing as quickly as possible, if they cannot think of a word they leave a space or write it in their own language. The important thing is to keep writing. Later this text is revised.

writing skills take time and practice to master. To create a writing environment, there are more aspects of the writing process I would use, of course, are not limited to the above ones. Actually, there are more strategies that not only me but used by a lot of teachers.  

Brainstorming

Getting started can be difficult, so students divided into groups quickly produce words and ideas about the writing.

Discussion and debate

The teacher helps students with topics, helping them develop ideas in a positive and encouraging way.

Changing viewpoints

A good writing activity to follow a role-play or storytelling activity. Different students choose different points of view and think about /discuss what this character would write in a diary, witness statement, etc.

Feedback

The teacher gives feedback to students. Positive comments can help build student confidence and create a good feeling for the next writing class.

I like the strategies the teachers used in the video. One was about persuasion while the other was about the feelings and description in writing poems. The teachers asked questions to guide the students to get the answer. The third episode was group composition. Students worked in pair or three to discuss and develop ideas. Small group writing in the first video is also a useful strategy that I will use in my class to improve students’ writing. I realized a teacher read quite a long time the story while all her students had a copy each. It might not work in my class because my students are not that impatient to listen to the reading.  

Reference

1.Approaches to process writing. (2003, August). Retrieved August, from https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/approaches-process-writing

2.Small Group Writing. (2018, September 13). Retrieved from https://www.teachingchannel.org/video/high-school-writing-lesson-idea

3.Session 4: Teaching the Writing Craft: Video 7: Teaching the Writing Craft. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.learner.org/workshops/writing35/session4/sec2p2.html

A Balanced Literacy Program, Strategic Instruction, and Best Practices

I am teaching  9th to 12th students Mandarin Chinese in a magnet high school.

Literacy is more than reading and writing. It involves purposeful social and cognitive processes. It helps individuals discover ideas and make meaning. It enables functions such as analysis, synthesis, organization, and evaluation. It fosters the expression of ideas and opinions and extends to understanding how texts are created and how meanings are conveyed by various media, brought together in productive ways(the National Council of Teachers of English).

According to my experience, being literate not only means that one is simply being able to read and write, but also help prepare for jobs in the future and allows him to socially integrate.  People in ancient time have had a strong desire to share their thoughts in writing. Without the ability to write and to express one’s feelings a person could feel lost in a big world. As a teacher, it is important to not only know how to teach students to write but to teach them in the most effective way.  My philosophy is that teacher should be responsible to improve students’ literacy. While the teaching of literacy needs to include a balance of reading, writing, speaking and listening activities. Recently, however, it has become clear that many middle and high school students are increasingly under-literate, lacking the complex literacy skills they will need to be successful in an information-driven economy(ACT. (2006).

Instructional Strategies for High School is an accessible, practical, and engaging methods textbook that introduces pre-service teachers to various instructional strategies and helps them to decide how and when to use these methods in the classroom.

Many students in our school district are on low levels of reading achievement. Improving students’ literacy is the priority at our school. Below I would like to introduce instructional strategies that we used at our school and how they help students to learn.

At the very beginning of the school year, every teacher has to attend meetings three times a week to learn about the status of students’ literacy levels and the importance of improving students’ literacy. The school will also provide professional training for instructional reading and writing strategies.

As far as each student get his/her laptop(each student would be assigned one), there is online testing like iready or renaissance as assessments for all students. Teachers who havethird-periodd class will guide students to take the test. The test scores a student got would result in what next levels of reading or writing exercise they will enter. By the way, the tests include reading, writing and math. The school then collected the data and grouped the students according to the scores. And that’s the beginning of strategies used. Students who passed the test will still stay in their third-period class to do reading writing or math in the first twenty minutes of class. The names of those who failed the test will put into a google excel. They will get help from their mentors. Mentors are teachers who don’t have third-period classes or interns from nearby universities. For teachers like me who have, the third-period class has our own options to choose what strategies we like. The goal is simple, but clear “to improve students’ literacy”. And the goal is also part of teacher performance. You may think that a new teacher might have a hard time to guide the students. The fact is we not only have professional training but also get suggestions from experienced teachers. Last year when I had no idea what I could do. My colleagues suggested me to use www.newsela.com or khan acacemy. With newsela, I can assign my students with articles that are suitable for their grade levels. Students have either multiple choices or writing as an assessment. Most importantly, I can see the test data on my computer. I would sometimes choose articles with “Chinese” as keywords(literacy is necessarily interdisciplinary, isn’t it? ) or assign them to read articles about Chinese cultures in Chinahighlights and write a reflection paper, which has various requirement according to the articles they are reading. I will correct the paper and mark the scores in PowerSchool.

Literacy skills come into play in many ways. It needs both teachers and students work together to achieve its fulfillment!

Reference

Bruce E. Larson, Timothy A. Keiper Instructional Strategies for Middle and High School

Routledge, Nov 12, 2012

ACT. (2006). Reading between the lines: What the ACT reveals about college readiness in reading. http://www.act.org/path/policy/re- ports/reading.html.

The National Council of Teachers of English NCTE Principles of Adolescent Literacy Reform Apr.2016

Whole Language Learning Theory

I am teaching  9th to 12th students Mandarin Chinese in a magnet high school.

Before I read Whole Language: Integrating the Language Arts--and Much More, I didn't know the concept of "whole language". I read articles recommended by my instructor and by google research. I agreed with What’s Whole in Whole Language. “Learning language became hard by breaking whole (natural) language up into bite-size”.

I started to learn English when I was in middle school. English is a mandatory subject even today in China. But back in the 1990s, there was seldom any English supplemental materials in urban China that teachers or students could use, not to say online resources. My teachers learned English from their teachers, who all have never had any chance to communicate with a person from English speaking countries. We started with phonogram, words, phrases, sentences and then reading comprehension. Our teachers sometimes played tapes of the textbook to us. Thirty years later, my first-grade son came home with sight words assignment. I then knew what “sight words” means after googling. I still felt ashamed of my accent. I spoke less to avoid being teased. I am still nervous when people asked me to repeat what I said. I read novels, even though not too many, to expand vocabulary. I watched videos like “improve your accent”. I attended the master program to practice writing and reading. Now as a Mandarin Chinese teacher, my experience as an English learner and a second language teacher would definitely help my students avoid detour in learning a second language.

What I am implementing now in my class include:

1. a Chinese style classroom.

I decorated my classroom with lanterns, ornaments, pictures, and a sight words wall.

2. I bought books from China and labeled them from easy reader to intermedium levels.

3. I collected videos from youtube or other websites and shared the link in Edmodo, so my students could practice listening anytime, anywhere.

4. I designed my lesson according to topics. ex. I encouraged students to order food from a Chinese restaurant when they have learned “ordering food”. I inspired by their excitement when they used what they have learned in class to real life.

Reference

Goodman, Ken. What’s Whole in Whole Language. Berkeley CA: RDR Books, 2005. pp.3-7.

Goodman, Ken. What's Whole in Whole Language? A Parent/Teacher Guide to Children's Learning. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann Educational Books, 1986. [ED 300 777]

Teacher Evaluation

                 ---Yanhua Wang

"...teacher evaluations must be about improving teaching, not just rating teachers." —AFT president Randi Weingarten

The success of any evaluation system—no matter how solid its design—ultimately depends on how well it is implemented.

Schools, like companies, should have an evaluation system to evaluation teacher performance. As a teacher, I don’t mind to be evaluated because I believe it will motivate teachers to better do their job.School leaders should evaluate every teacher once a year.  I think that teacher evaluations are of utmost importance to the quality of education.It’s a way to provide teachers with some feedback on the success of their teaching in light of their “lesson plans.”Evaluation concerns itself with more than how well a teacher teaches. It is also about how a teacher works with the classes of students that make up a teacher’s teaching assignments. Proponents of evaluation systems that include high-quality classroom observations point to their potential value for improving instruction. An effective teacher evaluation system supports high-quality teaching and improved student learning in many ways.

In the school district I teach, teacher observations, student learning outcomes, and feedback from parents compose the teacher evaluation system. It’s a fair, accurate, and comprehensive picture of a teacher’s performance. Here is the combination of teacher evaluation:                        

Teacher Performance and Practice(40%)

Parent Feedback(10%)

Student Growth and Development(45%)                    

Whole-School Student Learning Indicator and/or Student Feedback (5%)  

The role of teacher is often formal and ongoing. Teacher performance and practice with student growth and development account for 85% of teacher evaluation, which I think is very reasonable. As a teacher, I care about what my students learn from me. I want to set up a good example for my students. The ways I can achieve these are doing the best of myself as a teacher, preparing my lessons well and making the most out of it. I also like to listen to feedback from parents and students. Because I always want to make improvement every day.

As the person being evaluated, I think it’s very important to hear my voice of the evaluation system. It’s really necessary to ask teachers’ opinions when making the system. Somehow, teachers are working on the front line of education, we deserve the right to know how we are going to evaluate.

Pre-assessment and corresponding strategies

---Yanhua Wang

When a teacher is going to prepare lesson plans, a very important thing to know is students’ levels. In this case, pre-assessment seems very necessary and useful. Pre-assessment is a test students can take before a new unit to find out what the students need more instruction on and what they may already know. Pre-assessment is a way to save teachers time within the classroom while teaching new material. Experienced teachers know that if a student lefts behind and no measure is taking by both himself/herself and the teacher, he/her will finally loses interest and confidence in the subject. And at that time it will be extremely hard to pull him/her up again.

When I begin a new unit, I usually would like to not only review the previous unit, but also ask my students to do some pre-homework about the topic they are going to learn. On one hand, they won’t forget the knowledge they have learned, on the other hand, they will have a general idea of what they are going to learn. A quiz or game levels from easy, medium to hard and analyzes automatically helps me easily know my students’ levels. For pre-assessment, I recommend quizlet or kahoot.

In the unit “fruit & color”, I make a game and a quiz in quizlet. There are combined questions, which includes: “phonetics”, “words”, “expressions” and “sentences”. Students who answer the questions fast and correctly win.

        

The game:

The test:

After the pre-assessment, students are arranged to three different groups:

• the 5 students who answered most, including the most difficult, of the pre-assessment questions correctly
• the 12 students who have some knowledge about the topic as shown in their score, but need to develop higher order thinking skills
• the 5 students who appear to have limited knowledge about the topic

According to their performance, different strategies are taken to help them in new unit learning. Innovative Differentiation Strategies

  

With pre-assessment pre-lesson and various strategies used during the lesson learning. Students not only learn in an interesting and happy environment, but also improve their academic performance dramatically.