One advantage of world language instruction is that, in theory, it's fairly clear what kind of progress instructors and students hope to see - a greater proficiency in the use of a language and a better understanding of the culture of the people who use that language.
Of course, it's rarely that easy, and it's tempting at times to turn the world language classroom into 24/7 grammar/vocabulary/quiz/repeat. I know I find myself going in that direction at times, especially since as a student I typically learned well using more "traditional" methods.
I think that implementing the ideas of Dan Pink's TED talk would lead to greater individualization of coursework, and would require setting out some specific goals as well as trying to really understand what the students are looking for in this class. Some students may want to read a book in French, others want to be able to speak it well enough during their travels, others may want to immerse themselves and go to school abroad, or maybe just pronounce it well so they can sing songs in that language (this was sometimes the case when I taught at IU in particular).
By at least knowing their individual interests, they are already understanding their purpose, and perhaps even moving toward autonomy since they may have to do things individually to get to their goal.
In a more concrete way, I am wondering if it might be interesting for students to set some sort of personal goal at the beginning of the year and then chart their progress along the way. It's not very easy to do this during class time, but it would be feasible with a blog, Tumblr, or some other online platform. This would allow them to work with purpose, but also focus individually on something of interest to them, and would show them when they had mastered a topic.
Of course, it's rarely that easy, and it's tempting at times to turn the world language classroom into 24/7 grammar/vocabulary/quiz/repeat. I know I find myself going in that direction at times, especially since as a student I typically learned well using more "traditional" methods.
I think that implementing the ideas of Dan Pink's TED talk would lead to greater individualization of coursework, and would require setting out some specific goals as well as trying to really understand what the students are looking for in this class. Some students may want to read a book in French, others want to be able to speak it well enough during their travels, others may want to immerse themselves and go to school abroad, or maybe just pronounce it well so they can sing songs in that language (this was sometimes the case when I taught at IU in particular).
By at least knowing their individual interests, they are already understanding their purpose, and perhaps even moving toward autonomy since they may have to do things individually to get to their goal.
In a more concrete way, I am wondering if it might be interesting for students to set some sort of personal goal at the beginning of the year and then chart their progress along the way. It's not very easy to do this during class time, but it would be feasible with a blog, Tumblr, or some other online platform. This would allow them to work with purpose, but also focus individually on something of interest to them, and would show them when they had mastered a topic.
No comments:
Post a Comment