Collier states...
- Teachers must be creative and flexible, serve as a catalyst for discovery as students learn to operate effectively in their multiple worlds, be able to mediate and resolve intercultural conflicts, keep students on task, and serve as a support base
- Instead of eradication, the most popular view among linguists and bilingual educators requires the teacher's conscious recognition of"bi-dialectism."
- Code-switching, the most creative and dynamic process of the three, is highly structured. It is governed by the grammars ofboth the first and second languages. It is not a linguistic weakness.
- The reasons to use this whole range of activities in the classroom is to eliminate boredom, raise awareness, and make language teaching as well as learning as culturally relevant as possible for students. In this manner, it is hoped that the learning process will not only enrich the life of the student, but also that of his or her teacher.
There are three things I would like to mention here:
ReplyDelete1)There were no students in my classes that spoke any other languages then English in the classroom in my presence, and this in itself is worth mentioning. Either students are too afraid to speak to me because of our language gap, they prefer hide it when in school, or they know that not all the teachers know other languages so they stopped trying.
2) Whenever I wanted the students to pay attention to me, I did not raise my voice or try to shout over them, but I didn’t use English either. I would use French, which I am comfortable in and I am pretty secure that most of them know none of. It is the perfect way to grab their attention and get them to focus. I can use simple phrases such as “sit down”, “stop touching each other, go back to your seat and sit”, “be quiet please”, and “hold on, the teacher will be in in a minute”. The longer the phrase I use the more they focus, look bewildered and return to their seats. When I help them I always use English, but when I am reprimanding I tend to switch to French and let my body language and tone speak for itself. They listen a lot better to that, and it works, even if they only listen because they’re confused .
3) One day, one boy decided that he wasn’t going to speak for the rest of the class period. His group (they were working on a project at the time) had to learn how to communicate with him without him speaking, and found very creative ways to do so. He would mouth things out, write them down, and use a lot of body language and act things out. His group members, who tend to have a hard time focusing and staying on topic, were very creative in communicating and were very productive that class. I still don’t know why he chose not to talk, but him and his group seemed to really benefit from the experience.
The Met stressed the importance of culture, so bilingualism was actually encouraged. some teachers actually spoke the same language as some of the students so they would engage in dialect switches quite often. I cannot stress the importance that the school pushes for cultural learning and acceptance. Students have not been discouraged to stop speaking their heritage language. For those students who have a hard time with English patience is always practiced to help get the students the help they need, but discouraging their native tongue is not attempted at all.
ReplyDeleteGood examples. :)
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