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Interviewing Ivie was very insightful and validated my the opinions that i had on how I would run my classroom in the future as an ELL educator. I found the point Ivie made about referencing pop culture in the classroom to make learning English more relevant very interesting. I have hear many stories about children immigrating to America knowing very little English, and then learning English through watching American cartoons and shows. Ivie had mentioned that students learning English are around English only peers who are constantly discussing current pop music, movies, games, and cartoons. That is what will be interesting to ELL learners because what's relevant in their world, and in turn, possibly increasing interest in learning English in the classroom. I think the comments Ivie made regarding relevancy speaks to communicative competency, more specifically, "sociolinguistic competence." Utilizing pop culture in the classroom is a great way to have students practice understanding "the social context in which language is used, including the roles of the participants (Wright 36)". When students can relate what they are learning to a cartoon or game they already love, they may be better able to understand the context of what is going on and apply it to English language learning.
Another great point Ivie made was when she pointed out the need for balance in the classroom. She mentioned that English language learning should not primarily consist of just relevant references and basing lesson solely off what the students like. She agreed that there is a place for using the traditional "grammatical competence" in the classroom because recognizing the "lexical, morphological, syntactic, and features of a language" and being able to use those features correctly is crucial to English development (Wright 36)." Overall, I found this interview to be intriguing and give more insight as to how I can run my own classroom.
Reference
Wright, W. E. (2015). Foundations for Teaching English Language Learners (2nd ed.). Philadelphia, PA: Caslon.
Hi Lola! Thank you for your video. Ivie said she wished teachers had taught through pop culture because it is relevant and something students would care about rather than random situations students will forget. Dörnyei found students who were motivated and enjoyed learning the language "resulted in more L2 output being produced" (Ortega, 2013, p. 185). My grandmother began to learn English by watching soap operas, some movies, and other things on TV. It wasn't until many years later she took actual classes but she felt television prepared her for the course.
ReplyDeleteOrtega, L. (2013). Understanding second language acquisition. Routledge.
I think that media acts as a tool for ELL learners because they see and hear the language being used in practical, everyday situations (even if the media may dramatize the situation). Learning English in this way is almost similar to role playing, because the viewer can visualize themselves as the actor, and they can see the rules of English played out in real time. It makes sense that your grandma viewed television shows such as soap operas almost as a primer to her English instruction program. I think adding in a pop culture media component would align with communicative language teaching which focuses on "meaningful communication" instead of having students who just memorize dialogue" (Wright 2015).
DeleteWright, Wayne. Foundations for Teaching English Language Learners: Research, Theory, Policy, and Practice. Philadelphia, PA: Caslon, 2015. Print. Second Edition.