Week fourteen diary

On Tuesday we met to assess our "multi-language seminar" after re-reading Marshall's article on a program very similar to ours and another piece that describes the NASILP program.  I was pleased to hear that for the most part students have found value in the format of the seminar, and surprised that at least a couple of them found it more work than a typical language class (which I take to be a good thing). One student had some concrete suggestions on how to improve the course in the future, specifically focusing more on helping students to become self-directed early on rather than assuming that they are already self-directed. She suggested moving some of the readings on motivation and learner strategies earlier in the course. She also mentioned that she would find it helpful to learn more about advanced-level strategies that might differ from those she learned earlier in her language study. I don't know if there is any literature on that, so now I have a small literature review project to work on! I asked her what strategies she thinks she's used that are specific to her level but she couldn't think of any at that moment. I suggested that she use the final paper as an opportunity to review her learner diaries to see if she could figure out which strategies she had used and how effective they were, and she seemed interested in that idea. I'm excited to see what she comes up with!

Week ten diary

This week I took notes during class and this will make my diary entry so much easier! I'll have to remember to do this from now on, especially on the days when students are leading the discussion and I can concentrate on listening, asking questions, giving suggestions, etc.

Our topic was "planning" and we read several articles and chapters that covered this while also linking up to topics from previous weeks including learning styles and learner strategies.

ED led our discussion and we began by talking about each learner's initial goals and how they may have changed.  N said that her goals haven’t changed but her approach to them has. She wants to borrow some ideas from the Marshall chapter on lesson planning, e.g. the transportation lesson. She the funny titles for lessons in the Marshall chapter; so did I! She said she set her initial goals by thinking about how she wants to be able to function on a day to day basis, what she already knows, and where the gaps in her abilities are. ED said he'd taken a similar approach to goal-setting.

L said she was initially focused on goals she thought would be appropriate for an intermediate level language learner, rather than her own personal ones. She became very focused on particular grammar, e.g. learning a particular tense, but has now re-focused on what she needs to be able to read particular sources, since her main overarching goal is to be able to read historical sources in her target language.

EH's goal was, and remains, overall communicative competence; she is now emphasizing that even more because of enjoying conversations with her language partner.  She said she finds herself rewarded and motivated by talking about literature (her particular interest) with her language partner.

We then talked about the utility of making detailed daily lesson plans. ED said he found the readings on making a plan really helpful, esp. daily lesson planning (but wants to adapt it to weekly planning).

L said she is already doing the daily planning, but not in such a structured or conscious way.

EH said she has moved away from the structure over time, becoming more flexible. Having a more flexible plan allows her to stay more motivated.

N said she has end-goals but that how she will achieve them is open-ended.  All the skills come in but she doesn’t plan in advance how to cover all of them.

Both L and EH had more classroom-like plans at first (relying on a book, on covering all skills, etc.) but have become more flexible and self-directed, more focused on the skills that matter to them.

Finally, ED made a chart on the board where we all shared our strategies and rated them for frequency, enjoyment, usefulness, and efficiency. This was a really fun activity. Strategies that learners mentioned using a lot and mostly enjoying included learning routines, role-playing, memorizing/using proverbs and idioms, and mnemonic devices. Nobody really uses flashcards with pictures, but L was given a Luganda workbook that had pictures for each word and she said she's noticed that she knows those words really well. Other learners seemed interested in trying out that strategy as well as of creating their own thematically-organized "dictionaries." 

Here's ED's chart: 

It felt like this week was a turning point for many of the students.

Week nine diary

We had a good discussion in class today on the topic of learning styles and strategies. I might move up the readings on these topics earlier in the course next time.

Most of the students seem to be good at style shifting already, and many of them characterized themselves (as did I) as "a little bit of both" of each set of opposed styles. This make sense since all of us are "good language learners" and people who have learned more than one language already.

We brainstormed ways to motivate a learner who is struggling with the lack of feedback: having her give reports on specific things she has done, using checklists to monitor the completion of tasks and goals, giving feedback on each other's blogs, etc. And the students planned a social time when they will each work on their learning at the same time/place and then reward themselves afterwards with a drink or something. Whatever works!

We talked about a new research study that claims that learning new words causes the same pleasure in the brain as sex or chocolate and the students are all going to try to learn a certain number of new words in the next week and report back on this.