Week 11

All throughout the semester we have emphasized the importance of context when learning and teaching a second language. The article by Hu showed us the negative effects of lack of context considerations when adopting a teaching technique. This week’s readings reiterated the importance of teaching and learning a language within a context.  As chapter 9 stated, there are many different realities that come together to make a context. We have linguistics, extralinguistics, situational, and extrasituational. While reading about extralinguistic context, I could not help but reflect on my life. My sister and I arrived here when we were quite young, but other members of my families like my aunt did not.  The few months after her arrival, she came and spent some times with my family. Although we had fun, it seemed as if every other day we ran into problems. For some unknown reasons my sister and I would always had some type of misunderstanding between the three of us. She (my aunt) always misinterpreted us when we talked especially when it came to jokes and compliments.  There was always tension and frustration between the three of us that were not a result of actions. She always had this notion that we were insulting or mocking her. (It is hard to properly put it in words but all I can remember is that the simplest things we said made her mad and that drove us crazy because we could not understand why she became so upset over unimportant things.) At the moment, I could not understand why we seemed to clash so often.  As I was reading the section on extralinguistic context, I started to wonder if this was the source of our problems.  I wonder if the conflict that existed between the three of us was a result of mismatch between French and English extralinguistics features. If indeed it was, it just demonstrates the importance of language features and how as teachers whether language teachers or not, we must attend to such matter. 

The second half of the reading touched upon the importance of integrating the four skills of language (reading, writing, speaking and listening). It is important to remember that even if we are label reading teachers or writing teachers that should not be the sole focus of our course. As the reading has revealed that the four skills are integrated together and should be taught altogether. In the bilingual program there is a push for teachers to use the SIOP Model to teach ELL both content and language objectives. As part of the goal of the language objectives, all four language domain must be incorporated within the lesson plan.  I like using this model because it obligates me to integrate all language domains even in subject such as Math. But once an individual does such lesson, you come to realize that for the most part your daily teaching incorporated two or more of the language skills.