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