Final week (semester 2)

Finally Learning reflection 

     Today is the last week that I learnt for Seminar in English Language Teaching course. The teacher taught me about Sociocultural theory and then, we have final examination.

       For today, I write my weblog to tell all about what I get from this course from the first day until today. I learnt and read many researches about English language teaching and I got many ideas of the researchers and I could get more knowledge that I don't know before. Moreover, I also enhanced my knowledge with my friends in the class and this made me learn the new things and many knowledge from them. In this course I learnt many topic as following;

1. Goals of language teaching 
2. Global English 
3. Contexts of English Language Teaching 
4. Contexts of English Language Teaching 
5. Factors affecting English Language Teaching and Learning 
6. Factors affecting English Language Teaching and Learning
7. Problems of English Language Teaching 
8. Problems of English Language Teaching 
9. ICT and English Language Teaching and Learning
10. Trends in ELT  

       In addition, I had Seminar presentation in final class for group and individual so, these presentation taught me to think about what my implication is and apply these for my job in the future.

       My problem in this course is I cannot manage my time to read the researches so,  some researches I cannot read in all chapter or topics. 

       Finally, I would like to say thank you teacher Usa about all of this course that taught me to realize about English language teaching. Moreover, I like to learn about foreign culture from teacher Usa that is a good knowledge for me. I will bring all of these to use and apply for my job in the future.

Week 15 (semester 2)

Learning Reflections

Seminar in English Language Teaching

    Today, the teacher taught me about communicative approaches that following;

1. Communicative approaches were influenced by functional linguistics.

Goal: To enable learners to develop communicative competence in order to use the target language in communication.

Classroom activities:

- Tasks that require students to share information and negotiate meaning

- Include problem-solving tasks, role-plays, simulates and games, and usually exclude use of L1

- Students are expected to play active roles through “negotiating for meaning” thus, they are expected to interact primarily with each other rather than with the teacher.

- Students have opportunities to experiment with new language.

-  Pair work and group work.

- Integrated skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing

- Use of authentic tasks and ”realia”/ authentic material to promote students’ communication

Teacher’s role

Been and Candlin(2001) specifics a variety of role:

- Facilitator

- Interdepentdent participant

- Organizer of resources, a resource, and a guide

- Researcher

Richard and Rodger(2001)

- Analyst

- Counselor

- Group process manages

Learner-centeredness

Learner-centeredness has four central characteristics:

1. Learner participant in the whole process of the course               content and selecting learning procedures

2. Learner participant in the design of language activities

3. Learner are encouraged to take responsibility to a great            degree of their learning

4. Enhancing learner autonomy

Constraints of CLT

-          Focus on fluency over accuracy

-          Learner and teacher roles

-          Cultural appropriacy: ESL and EFL

-          Student’s lack of target language exposure

-          Traditional teaching and learning culture

-          Teacher expertise and student English proficiency level

-          Lack of learning resource/ support

-          Class size

       Before we finished the class, the teacher assigned us to read about "Sociocultural Theory as an Approach to Aid EFL Learners" and The relevance and implications of Vygotsky's sociocultural theory in the second language classroom and summarize to present next class.  

       My problem for today is my friends and I were not clear about this research so, we use long time to summarize and discuss it.

Week #14 (semester 2)

Learning Reflections

Seminar in English Language Teaching

       Today, The teacher assigned me to read the ELT journal about “The end of CLT: a context approach to language teaching of Stephen Bax” and then, I discussed with my friends in group to present in front of class.

       The teacher assigned us to discuss in the topic of materials of CLT, the problems in CLT, advantages and disadvantage of CLT. We summarized that;

Materials

- Authentic materials such as newspaper, radio and television broadcast, weather forecast, timetables.

Problems in CLT

- The approach is not always appropriate with the socio cultural context in which it is used. Culture is often considered as a barrier in creating a communicative form of English learning in EFL contexts. 

Advantages

- Students will be more motivated by learning to communicate.

- Students will learn to communicate effectively.

Disadvantage

- No grammar rules are presented.

       Moreover, the teacher taught me about Major trends in the Global ELT Field. She summarized that there are 8 trends;

Trends 1 : Changing perspectives on English teaching and learning

Trends 2: Changes in goals of English teaching and learning

Trends 3: Changes in approaches to teaching

Trends 4: Changes in teaching content, curriculum design, and                         assessment

Trends 5: Expanding the dimension of communicative competence

Trends 6: Changing views of an effective English educator

          

Trends 7: Rapid development and integration of information                             technology in ELT

Trends 8: Changing roles and increasing responsibilities of teachers

      Today, I found an easy things that this research use an easy language and easy to understand, so it make me clear about CLT and I found that CLT is not method but it is teaching approach for teacher to apply in suitable activities in classroom.

Week #13 (semester 2)

Learning Reflections

Seminar in English Language Teaching

Today, I learnt about Current Trends and Issues in English Language Education in Asia and the teacher assigned me to discuss in group. We summarized that;

1. The starting Grade of English Language Education

     English language education starts at first grade in 11 nations/regions, as shown below

1st grade: Hong Kong(including kindergarten, nursery                              school), Taipei in Taiwan, Malaysia, the Philippines,                  Singapore, Thailand, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan,                       Sri Lanka, the UAE 

3rd grade: Korea, China, 9 cities in Taiwan

4th grade: Israel

6th grade: Iran, Vietnam

7th grade: Japan, Indonesia 

2. English class hours
     
     In Thailand, which is an EFL context, English is taught from first grade, as seen in the previous section, and primary English class hours per week (about 3 or 4 hours) are larger than the other Asian countries in EFL context (e.g., 1 to 4 hours). 

Today, I found an easy from this topic is I realized that if we will be the teacher, we should concern about teaching methods and techniques and interaction between teacher and student to understand what happens in real classroom. 

3. National English Curriculum

    The results of the survey reveal that all the 18 Asian countries/regions have a national curriculum for primary or secondary English.

4. School textbooks

       In many Asian countries/regions, primary and secondary schools use textbooks are national or government-authorized and the teachers cannot create textbook by themselves. On the contrary, a more bottom-up approach is used in the construction and selection of university English textbooks. 

5. Teaching English Through English

    In ESL countries, English is taught in English and taught in native language in senior secondary schools.

6. The Use of Computer for English Language Education 

    ICT facilities are usually utilized for whole-class or individual work in most of the Asian nations/regions such as Korea, Taiwan, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Israel, the UAE, Vietnam (only for whole-class work), and Bangladesh (only for individual work). Only in Israel and the UAE is it used for group or pair work. This might be accounted for by technological limitations. 

    CALL, MALL, or e-learning is a common trend in Asian countries/regions. The computer is often used for whole-class work in English classrooms. However, it should not be ignored that the use of computer itself cannot enhance the quality of English language education or replace human teachers (Kawabata, 2006; Warschauer, 1996). Training of the teachers and the students must precede computer use for its effectiveness and efficiency, as noted in Choi and Kang (2002) and Wen and Hu (2007).

7. The University Entrance Examination 

    Most of the Asian countries/regions surveyed have a nationwide university entrance examination. 
     MCQs (multiple-choice questions) are the test format most prevalently used across the Asian nations/regions, as shown in the list below. Fill-in-theblanks are also another common format as well as TF (true-false) questions and SAQs (short-answer questions). These trends may be accounted for by the issue of practicality and reliability (Kwak, 2004). 

Picture: Iranian University Entrance Exam

8. English Teachers

9. Tertiary English Education

10. English-medium Subjects



      Next, the teacher taught me about 21st century skills and Major Trends in the Global ELT Field.

Major Trends in the Global ELT Field

Trend 1: Changing perspectives on English teaching and learning

Trend 2: Changes in goals of English teaching and learning

Trend 3: Changes in approaches to teaching

Trend 4: Changes in teaching content, curriculum design, and                          assessment

Trend 5: Expanding the dimension of communicative competence

Trend 6: Changing views of an effective English educator

Trend 7: Rapid development and integration of information                            technology in ELT

Trend 8: Changing roles and increasing responsibilities of teachers

       The easy thing I found today is teaching and learning in 21st century skills. I understand the information that the teacher shown me because I have learnt this topic with teacher Putsadee and teacher Usa taught me clear in the topic more.

Week #12 (semester 2)

Learning Reflections

Seminar in English Language Teaching

       Today, the teacher taught me about "Computer Assisted Language Learning: an Introduction by Mark Warschauer" and after that, she assigned me to discuss with friends about Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL).

The teacher taught me that;

1. Three phases of CALL

     1.1 Behavioristic CALL

      - drill and practice; based on the model of computer as tutor. The rationale behind drill and practice was not totally spurious, which explains in part the fact that CALL drills are still used today. Briefly put, that rationale is as follows:

• Repeated exposure to the same material is beneficial or even essential to learning
• A computer is ideal for carrying out repeated drills, since the machine does not get bored with presenting the same material and since it can provide immediate non-judgmental feedback
• A computer can present such material on an individualized basis, allowing students to proceed at their own pace and freeing up class time for other activities

     1.2 Communicative CALL

           - based on the communicative approach to teach

           - focuses more on using forms 

           - teaches grammar implicitly rather than explicitly;                            - allows and encourages students to generate original utterances 

           - does not judge and evaluate everything the students nor reward them with congratulatory messages, lights, or bells;

           - avoids telling students they are wrong 

           - uses the target language exclusively 

           - will never try to do anything that a book can do 

      1.3 Steps toward integrative CALL: multimedia

           - based on two important technological developments of the last decade - multimedia computers and the Internet

       The problem I found today is I did not understand some vocabulary such as hypermedia, synchronous and asynchronous,  so I searched on the internet for their meaning and study about them with friends in group.

Week #10 (semester 2)

Learning Reflections

Seminar in English Language Teaching

       Today, the teacher asked me to watch the video about the effect of new technologies on English from David Crystal. In the video, David Crystal talk about the internet and history of social network. He said that when new technology comes along, it influences language. It has to technology always has influenced language. I agree with him because nowadays English language appears in everywhere whether is on the internet as I see such as Facebook, Twisters, Instagram, and etc.

     Then, the teacher gave the papers "Computer Assisted Language Learning: an Introduction by Mark Warschauer" and lecture to me. After that, I have a mid-term test when I finished the lesson.

       Today I found difficult from listening to and watching the video. I have some problem with native speaker that he speak so fast and I did not understand but I try to ask my friend with sentences that I did not understand. 

       

   

Week #9 (semester 2)

Learning Reflections

Seminar in English Language Teaching

       Today is the ninth week that two last week ago I did not learn because they are final week and University athletic event. In this class,  the teacher taught about English-Teaching Problem in Thailand and Thai teacher's Professional Development needs and assigns us to discuss in group. I got many knowledge about causes of failure of Thai learner from the teacher as following;

Causes of Failure 

     1. unqualified and poorly-trained teachers

     2. poorly-motivated students

     3. learners of mixed abilities in overly large classes

    4. rare opportunities for student exposure to English outside of class time.

     5. teachers' heavy teaching loads

     6. inadequately equipped classrooms and education technology

     7. the university entrance examination system

  8.teachers' insufficient English language skills and cultural knowledge

     9. lack of qualified teachers because of overloaded burden, their teaching styles start to fossilize into ones of rote-learning, teaching grammar and translation with Thai as the medium of instruction, teacher-centered classroom activities, spoon-feeding.

       Next, I discussed with friends about English-teaching problems in Thailand and Thai teachers as following;

1. Teacher: There are 5 problems

   

   1) teaching writing

   2) incorporative learning into English

   3) their own minimal use to English

   4) teaching listening & speaking

   5) using games & songs effectively in English class

2. Students: There are 8 problem

   

   1) Students not having practice English enough.

   2) lack of chances to use English outside classroom.

   3) Students not have enough English skill.

   4) thinking into Thai before translate into English.

   5) Having problems with listening & pronunciation

   6) lacking of patient

   7) Having about writing

   8) Lacking of confident in English

3. Curricula and textbook

    

   Teacher don't understand detail of the Curricula and textbook.

       Today, I found that teaching English in Thailand depend on many problem between the teacher and the students. So, I think this is the problem that cannot solve these problem in Thailand. As I will be the teacher in the future, I think the teacher is an important to find the way that make the students to good at English and motivate them ready to use English language to communicate with other people in asean.