It was Thursday when I conducted the CITE test to my students. They were even surprised that it was I who provided them papers to answer. I simply told them the directions on how to go through the test and answer as honestly as possible, I sincerely told them that the test is required for my masters assignment but I did not tell them about learning styles and strategies. After almost 30 minutes, I gave them the responsibility to determine which is their major,minor or negligible learning style.
After, I discussed about learning styles and elaborated each of them. As I go through the discussion all I could hear are: “lagi noh?”, “mao jud”, “sakto”, one even blurted “absolutely!”. I was glad that the CITE results were approved by my students (anyway, who would know their learning styles except them).
As I went through the results of their MAJOR learning style, I found out that out if 41, 30 are visual learners, 15 are auditory, 16 are auditory – visual kinesthetic, 24 are social- individual, 5 are social – group, 3 are expressive in both written and oral forms.
Prior to the given test, among my Oral Communication classes, that class is the most silent. When I talk in front, it seems that they are there physically but not mentally or perhaps they are just their for the sake of not being absent. There are even few times that I am intimidated by their silence. Nevertheless, during exams almost all of them get high grades. It was then after the test did I realize that they are visual learners. Good thing, I always make use of the blackboard whenever discussing something.
However, I am saddened to find out the results of their expressiveness both in oral and written forms. I agree with the results that CITE came up with. Whenever I give essays exams, it is really hard for them to express themselves especially using the English language, they same goes for oral activities. My students are from rural areas where academic facilities are not well-supported so they lack exposure to activities which boost their use of the English language. In fact, they also lack confidence to express them selves.
From the results and from the academic backgrounds that they have, it is safe to say that they lack risk-taking attitudes to learn the language. As a teacher it is really hard and calls for much effort but when you see an improvement, even a little, one is inspired to strive harder in coming up with communicative activities that will let them get out from their shells.
Generally, conducting the test really helps. I then decided to give it every semester.
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Explain how input, central processing and output work to process information in L2 acquisition/learning.
Input, central processing and output are three components of a cognitive model of second/foreign language learning. The cognitive model has been raised by the “cognitivists” (researchers who use cognitive models to study second/foreign language learning) believing that psycholinguistic perspectives have been underrepresented due to the influence of structured linguistics and chomskian theories.
I’d like to discuss how this model works to process information in L2 acquisition one by one.
“Input provides essential positive evidence, the language data that allows acquisition to occur.” In a simpler sense, input is what the educators feed the students. They are the grammar or language lessons taught by the teacher within the four walls. The effectivity of an input depends on the approach the teacher uses and how she handles such approaches to meet the needs of her students. To quote Grass (1997), second language is shaped by input one receives. Thus, a teacher’s role in facilitating learning matters very much. In the input stage, it is important that students are able to “notice” structures because they do not process all of the input they constantly receive but only select.
Moreover, Information Processing refers to the many complex mental transformation which occurs after input. There are two basic psychological concepts used to understand language input : bottom-up which is the process of decoding specific bits and top-down which refers to the use of world knowledge and past experiences. It is quite obvious that top-down processing is the concept suited for language learning wherein students are able to understand the totality of whatever communicative input is given to them “with out needing to understand all of the grammar forms or vocabulary” which is the reason why they fail without having someone to discuss on form. Hence, going back to input, students need to notice and be aware of what they are learning; for that matter teacher need to regularly backslide to previous lessons as they connect them to other lessons.
If someone gives an input there’s always an output awaiting. Output serves critical functions in the language process. This is where assessment comes in, in the form of games, drills and/or tests. From these assessment procedures, we can determine which part the student did not understand well. Because the students might understand the general meaning of what is being fed to them using the top-down process but they might not fully understand the grammar or vocabulary. In this output follows corrective feed back from the teacher as well as peers explaining the correct form used ,such error correction provide negative evidence thereby facilitating learners’ noticing of the correct form which encourage the child to correct his/ her errors and build their own correct communicative constructs.
I’d like to discuss how this model works to process information in L2 acquisition one by one.
“Input provides essential positive evidence, the language data that allows acquisition to occur.” In a simpler sense, input is what the educators feed the students. They are the grammar or language lessons taught by the teacher within the four walls. The effectivity of an input depends on the approach the teacher uses and how she handles such approaches to meet the needs of her students. To quote Grass (1997), second language is shaped by input one receives. Thus, a teacher’s role in facilitating learning matters very much. In the input stage, it is important that students are able to “notice” structures because they do not process all of the input they constantly receive but only select.
Moreover, Information Processing refers to the many complex mental transformation which occurs after input. There are two basic psychological concepts used to understand language input : bottom-up which is the process of decoding specific bits and top-down which refers to the use of world knowledge and past experiences. It is quite obvious that top-down processing is the concept suited for language learning wherein students are able to understand the totality of whatever communicative input is given to them “with out needing to understand all of the grammar forms or vocabulary” which is the reason why they fail without having someone to discuss on form. Hence, going back to input, students need to notice and be aware of what they are learning; for that matter teacher need to regularly backslide to previous lessons as they connect them to other lessons.
If someone gives an input there’s always an output awaiting. Output serves critical functions in the language process. This is where assessment comes in, in the form of games, drills and/or tests. From these assessment procedures, we can determine which part the student did not understand well. Because the students might understand the general meaning of what is being fed to them using the top-down process but they might not fully understand the grammar or vocabulary. In this output follows corrective feed back from the teacher as well as peers explaining the correct form used ,such error correction provide negative evidence thereby facilitating learners’ noticing of the correct form which encourage the child to correct his/ her errors and build their own correct communicative constructs.
Why does Larsen-Freeman stress the use of meaningful activities in the teaching of grammar?
Many of us, if not all of us experienced being taught in a de-contextualized manner. Personally, for six years in elementary my teachers focused on form and not on meaning. In fact, even the books we used were form focused. So what happened to me was that I became a dictionary of rules but when time comes that I have to use in context whatever rule I’ve learned, I ran out of communicative strategies because I was not exposed on where to use the or at least introduced when to use them in context .
In connection to Larsen-Freeman’s article, I believe that the primary reason why she stressed the use of meaningful activities in teaching grammar is in order for educators, to formulate meaningful lessons; that is lessons which are familiar and authentic and within those authenticity, students are involved; they are part of what they learn. Thus, they are able to connect the grammar lesson that they have learned and by following – up, they eventually become competent in using the language accurately, meaningfully, and appropriately. Students are able express themselves effectively using the target language and the knowledge of rules becomes secondary.
Therefore another challenge for teachers is to produce and formulate contextualized activities which actually calls for much imagination and creativity in order to provide students the help that they need in learning language; to quote Larsen-Freeman “..as important as it is to develop our understanding of the grammatical facts of the language we are teaching, it is not these facts that we wish our students to learn... If they knew all the rules..but were unable to apply them, we would not be doing our jobs as teachers.”.
In connection to Larsen-Freeman’s article, I believe that the primary reason why she stressed the use of meaningful activities in teaching grammar is in order for educators, to formulate meaningful lessons; that is lessons which are familiar and authentic and within those authenticity, students are involved; they are part of what they learn. Thus, they are able to connect the grammar lesson that they have learned and by following – up, they eventually become competent in using the language accurately, meaningfully, and appropriately. Students are able express themselves effectively using the target language and the knowledge of rules becomes secondary.
Therefore another challenge for teachers is to produce and formulate contextualized activities which actually calls for much imagination and creativity in order to provide students the help that they need in learning language; to quote Larsen-Freeman “..as important as it is to develop our understanding of the grammatical facts of the language we are teaching, it is not these facts that we wish our students to learn... If they knew all the rules..but were unable to apply them, we would not be doing our jobs as teachers.”.
How does Schmidt’s Noticing Hypothesis explain the connection between two knowledge systems (procedural and declarative)?
We are introduced to two forms of knowledge which are the Declarative (or explicit) knowledge which is the knowledge about something and underlies learning and storage of facts; and the procedural (or implicit) knowledge which is knowing how to do something hence relating to motor and cognitive skills that involve sequencing information and is usually conscious. Though both knowledge forms are part of the long term memory yet they are a different. Consequently a dilemma rose on how to connect these two knowledge forms in order for language learners to achieve automaticity in language acquisition/learning.
Smith then introduced what he call as Noticing Hypothesis - that is a language student, must be aware first of a certain grammar point/language feature and then through involvement, repeated noticing and continued awareness, the grammar point will eventually become a part of his/her procedural knowledge.
Let me take for example a student who already has an initial knowledge on how and when to use simple present tenses. It is only through follow-ups by the teachers (or other intermediaries )through their communicative activities like letting her write some past events or experiences, watching a movie and retell what had happened, read some narrative events or retell a story, that the student’s knowledge about simple present tenses will retain in her cognition and will eventually become a part of her procedural memory because the student already has the initial knowledge and her regular noticing of such tenses in the said activities help her to achieve automaticity. If the student’s exposure to that knowledge stops as the bell rang, what she learned will be like a junk food – masticated, digested and deposited without leaving any nutrient. Synonymous to language learning, the student’s knowledge will remain in the declarative memory and since it is a limited storage, the initial knowledge will be gradually deleted as new input comes in.
Another implication for Smiths hypothesis is for educators to provide an lesson procedures and assessment that do not only focus to one language lesson; that is, integrated-item procedures, for it is found out in parallel processing - a special model of cognition, that many processes occur simultaneously and are interconnected, forming neural networks of various levels of activation depending on what is being processed.
Smith then introduced what he call as Noticing Hypothesis - that is a language student, must be aware first of a certain grammar point/language feature and then through involvement, repeated noticing and continued awareness, the grammar point will eventually become a part of his/her procedural knowledge.
Let me take for example a student who already has an initial knowledge on how and when to use simple present tenses. It is only through follow-ups by the teachers (or other intermediaries )through their communicative activities like letting her write some past events or experiences, watching a movie and retell what had happened, read some narrative events or retell a story, that the student’s knowledge about simple present tenses will retain in her cognition and will eventually become a part of her procedural memory because the student already has the initial knowledge and her regular noticing of such tenses in the said activities help her to achieve automaticity. If the student’s exposure to that knowledge stops as the bell rang, what she learned will be like a junk food – masticated, digested and deposited without leaving any nutrient. Synonymous to language learning, the student’s knowledge will remain in the declarative memory and since it is a limited storage, the initial knowledge will be gradually deleted as new input comes in.
Another implication for Smiths hypothesis is for educators to provide an lesson procedures and assessment that do not only focus to one language lesson; that is, integrated-item procedures, for it is found out in parallel processing - a special model of cognition, that many processes occur simultaneously and are interconnected, forming neural networks of various levels of activation depending on what is being processed.
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