Week 2-Brown chapters

Brown Ch. 1 and 2

The classroom observation was very interesting to me. While I thought there were very good points in the lesson, I think Ms. Lee could have done a better job with getting the students to communicate more efficiently with each other. While I did like how the class had a chance to practicing with small talk Ms. Lee could have incorporated more communication and vocabulary into the lesson. The tape recording part of the lesson could have been seen as confusing to a lot of the students because the teacher did not set them up enough, they just dove right into it. Overall, I think the teacher did a good job but the lesson could have been better. I liked that this book gives us a glimpse into a classroom that is not perfect, it seemed real.

“Method is an umbrella term for the specification and interrelationship of theory and practice.” For me a method is a good place to begin but it is not the be all end all of teaching techniques. In the three layer design of a method, the approach, design and procedure, I believe that the procedure is the most important. A teacher can sit at his/her desk for days planning out the “perfect” method but it is all about how the students react to it. If the design does not work well with the individual students it is useless. It is the teacher’s job to be able to change with the students. It is not fair to the students if a teacher “swears” by a method, the teacher should be ever changing and ever learning, just like students.

The classical method of language (Grammar Translation Method) focuses on grammar rules, memorization of vocabulary, translations of texts and written exercises. This method is extremely interesting because there is little use of the target language and communication is not important at all. This method seems dry and useless in our society today because there is such a focus on communication, yet, it is still a popular method. Because it is easy to grade grammar and the tests are objectively scored it is easy to assume that the student is successful or not successful with the language depending on the grade. This will not work well in the long run for the student because when all is said and done they did not master a language because communication is such an important part. I never knew how many different methods that have been and are still used. The ones that caught my attention were the audiolingual method, suggestopedia and silent way. It is crazy that these methods work it must depend on the student.