TESL
0100: Unit 3
English
Language in a Diverse Intensity
Reviewing
my English language knowledge using the Common areas of difficulty of Bolitho
Tomlinson made me realize that speaking the language and knowing how to teach
is just a step from what should go further to what must be offered to language
learners. From identifying the
difficulty of producing the correct sound through the proper tongue and mouth
positions, dissecting the word formation, context and meaning then
understanding language varieties really was a mind blowing fact to be familiar
with. This realization makes me go back
to my language foundation to review and relearn the basics to complex need of
language facts. Knowing is definitely far from explaining and making learners to
be skilled in speaking and writing in proper context makes it challenging. Analysing
which ones they need and who needs what is also part of the challenge as per
handling a class is concern.
I
would imagine myself discussing that the verb in a sentence should agree with
its subject up to amalgamated sentences into a multi-clause. Then to blow my
mind, the thought of explaining the “context” of a word in a conversation to
its “language function” is totally a different level that would definitely
explain a “discourse” understanding it. “I’m actually being silly here, just to
make things light.” Seriously, this can be simplified using the “one form, many
meaning” and “one meaning, many forms” to start with. I’m actually excited to
dissect and simplify a step by step learning and find out how creative I could
be in preparing lesson plans in different levels. It does help to know profiles
of ability across learners’ stages using the CLB especially in writing when it
comes to teaching grammar. Presenting basic parts of speech to complex structures
would depend on the learners’ abilities as lessons should also be adequately simplified.
It
was enlightening to know that collocations, lexical chunks to phrases and
idiomatic expressions are part of what is needed in language training. I remember
a student explaining how she didn’t understand the idiomatic expression “Get out of here!” when it was expressed to her.
She was surprised she said and asked, “Excuse me, what do you mean?” Not
knowing that it means, “Are you kidding me?” or “You’re making that up!” as an expression
of surprise or disbelief made her react as how she understood it as literally
getting out or leaving the place. Knowing this kind of problem made me realize
how important idiomatic expressions are as part of lesson planning. It will not hurt to add one or two idioms per
day with all kinds of idiom students might encounter in daily conversation.
Recognizing
that there is an absolute relation between language and culture makes it easier
to understand learners’ origin. How perfect it would be if each culture would
have their own teacher to make it easier for learners to absorb the lesson. As
stated in one study that an L2 teacher is sometimes more effective than native
speakers as they can connect and understand where learners are coming from.
Understanding socio-linguistics studies will definitely make it easier for me
to understand my students. But the reality is, we must look at language not
only from within its linguistic components but also from without, we should be aiming
to present language from points of view of both approaches.
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