2009年1月29日木曜日

RW/WW Atwell Chapter 2: Learning how to teach reading

This is Chapter 2 of In the Middle by Nancy Atwell, a book I'm reading together with a group of high school and college English teachers in Japan to discuss how English instruction can be improved. The idea is that Japanese learners of English, as beginners in reading and writing in English, can benefit from many of the methods that Language Arts teachers in English speaking countries use to help young or adolescent learners. The exchanges in the group are a wonderful opportunity for me to re-examine how I teach reading and writing, and I hope to introduce many of the good ideas I am picking up in my classes at ICU.

So...here's my summary and reaction.

Summary: Like with her writing instruction, Nancy Atwell's reading instruction originally consisted of assigning pieces of "great" teacher-selected literature to a passive, usually bored class, who then would read the required pages, do required comprehension tests, and listen at length to teacher lectures about how to interpret the literature. (Sounds like my high school literature classes) However, Atwell realizes that she is not inspiring her students to be geniune readers who love to read and talk about reading. She then switches to a "Reading Workshop" method which respects the rights of readers to select what they will read, to abandon books that don't work for them, and provides classroom time for readers to read and share their thoughts about reading with her and each other through conversations and dialogue journals. The chapter is full of student journal entries emphasizing how much they love reading now that they can select their own literature (usually adolescent novels, but often moving on to 'serious' literature.) and talk about it as they like.

①参考になった点/学んだ点/よかった点/おもしろかった点

p.28 "We select texts and assign them....We give tests to make sure they did the homework...We orchestrate discussions based on the questions in the manual...We talk a lot...But we rarely make time in class for students to read or allow them any say in what they read. And students almost never see their English teachers reading." →We demonstrate that:
"Reading is serious painful business...Students aren't smart or trustworthy enough to choose their own texts...Reading is followed by a test...Reading is a waste of English class time...."

Atwellも思い出話から入っているので、私もそうします。

私の高校(東京のCAJというインターですが)の授業は正に上記のような感じでした。与えられた小説や劇や詩を読み、質問に答え、先生主導の授業でthemesをDiscussionし、テストは主に理解力のチェック。大学の時は中国文学の授業を受けましたが、いつも訳読と教授の理論の話を聞くばかりで「読み」が好きにはなりませんでした。

Atwellと同じように、自分が「読者」になったのは自由に本を選んだ時だけだったと思います。
  • 英語に関して言えばたくさんの本を親が家に置き、TVは禁止。その時に読者としての自分が成長しました。Atwellと同じく「読むしかやる事がない」時間が貴重だったと思います。
  • 日本語に関しては。。。やはり夏休み中などに自分で図書館などで選んだ本が最も印象に残ってます。高校の夏に読んだ遠藤周作の「沈黙」なんかが印象強いです(宣教師の息子ですし)。
  • 中国語:私の唯一の外国語である中国語の「読み」が好きになったのは山東省の大学に勤めていて、やっと勇気を振り絞って初めて本屋にいって自分で本を選んだ時でした。どんな本がいいのか人に聞く勇気もなく、表紙で選んだ警察物のフィクションからハマッていきました。時々ハズレもありました。自分で選ぶのはとても難しかった記憶が鮮明です。
p.30 "A new set of priorities for the secondary English curriculum emerges. Pleasure. Fluency. Involvement. Insight. Appreciation. Initiative"
p.36 "If we want our students to grow to appreciate literature, we need to give them a say in decisions about the literature they will read."

さて、自分の授業の学生たちの「読み」はどうでしょう。Pleasure/Fluency/Involvement/Insight/Appreciation/Initiativeはあるでしょうか?

先学期からComprehension Questionsを出さなくなっただけ、学生のInitiativeとInvolvementは良くなったと思っています。今は"Read, summarize, and write your critical reactions notes to prepare for discussion."と自由な反応にしたので、学生の独自な視点が授業でたくさん出てきます。

でもまだまだ問題はたくさんです。先ず、基本的にICUのELPの学生は自分で読む記事や本を選ぶことができない。もちろん、Essayの資料としてSkimするものは自分でリサーチしますが、本当に熟読するために「これを読む!」という選択は夏の自由リーディング以外ないですね。

p.44 "Clearly there were more audiences for dining room table talk than the teacher." (The importance of student interaction on dialogue journals and in sharing conversations.)

大事です。学生同士の意見交換・コメント交換は私もやったことがあるのですが、とても良いExchangeがたくさん見られました。

p.50 "One of the best things about teaching reading in a workshop, where I immerse myself and my kids in literature we love, is that teaching is lonesome no more." (because all of the workshop members are equally "readers".)

素晴らしいと思います。無理やり教師の勝手な方針で引っ張る教育から主体性を学生に移し、自主的な読者として成長させる。本当に大きな発想の転換ですけど、可能なら根本的に優れた考え方だと思いました。

②疑問・質問/さらなる説明・解説が必要な点

やはり、最大の疑問は学習者が自分で「いい本」を選べるようになるにはどのような能力・サポートが必要なのでしょうか?という点です。いい本も必要ですし、評価方法も必要ですし。。。Atwellを引き続き読みたいと思います。

③やってみたいと思ったこと/応用できそうなこと

せめて数回ぐらいの授業では新聞や雑誌の記事などを学生に自由に持ってきてもらい、紹介して欲しいです。しかし、ICUはカバーしなければいけない難しいRequired Readingが多いのでその余裕なないと思ってしまっている自分がいます。

④その他、何でも読み会のメンバーと共有したいこと


メーリング・リストのみなさんのコメント・アイデアが楽しみです!

2009年1月23日金曜日

10 Wonderful Years


To Megumi,

10 years ago right about now, we were on a plane to Bali, just married--a flight into the unknown, a bungee jump of faith.

10 years later, I am the happiest guy on Earth, supported by the kindest, most giving and most beautiful person I know.

Thank you for 10 wonderful years.
I'm looking forward to another 90 years with you.

Eternal love,

Mark

2009年1月20日火曜日

RW/WW Atwell Chapter 1: Learning how to teach writing

第一章
Learning How to Teach Writing:
Summary: Nancy Atwell tells her story of how she transformed her middle school writing classroom from one centered on making students "do excercises" for a perfect structured curriculum designed by her, the teacher behind the big table, to a workshop where all students and the teacher were authors on an equal basis, choosing topics, working on pieces, and talking about their writing. In this second edition of her book, she mentions how she has changed from the first edition, main in terms of realizing that certain orthodoxies of "freedom" such as "do not write on a student's paper" which she stipulated in her first edition actually can be flexibly changed to help students learn certain models or structures until they are ready to be independent authors. In other words, even in the writing workshop classroom, it is necessary at times to be a teacher with a capital "T."

①Interesting points:
参考になった点/学んだ点/よかった点/おもしろかった点


p.9 quoting Graves "It is entirely possible to read about children, review research and textbooks about writing, 'teach' them and yet still be completely unaware of their processes of learning and writing. "
日本人の学習者が英語で書くことに対してどんな思いを持っているのか本当に自分が分かっているのか考えさせられる。特にネーティブとして、もっと日本人の学習者が率直に感じていることを知りたいと思う。できた文を評価するだけでなく、「書く過程はどうだった?」と聞き、語り合い、その難しさを分かち合うことが大事かと思う。

p.12 "According to Susan, children in the NIE study learned to write by exercising the options available to real-world authors, including daily time for writing, conferences with teachers and peers during drafting, pacing set by the writer, and opportunities to publish what they had written. Most significantly, students decided what they would write."
ICUでは「Deciding what they would write」は「この条件の論文で、この範囲のトピックなら自由」ということになっている。基本的にargumentative essay with sourcesが条件で、長さや期限なども決められてしまう。アメリカの大学では典型的。でも、本当にそのシステムが「英語で書く力」を伸ばすことに最適なのか、学生によっては無意味に「やらされているだけ」でどうでも良くなってしまうことがあるように思う。では、どこまで自由にすべきなのか?評価の基準はどうなるのか?

p.13 "Together, we made an amazing discover: they did have ideas for writing."
今学期から初めて"reading comprehension questions”を出さず、生徒に「自由にリアクション」する読書課題を出した自分の発見に似ている。教師の狭い課題に学生を押し込むことはできるだけ避け、何が出るか分からないことを恐れずに課題をつくりたい。

p.17 "let myself fall in love with everyone one of my students"
すばらしいと思うし、自分のlanguage classesでこれを目指して接しているつもりでいる。でも現実的に今の大学のシステム内でできるのか?個人の自由な意思を尊重し、創造力を発揮できるWritingクラスづくりをしないと絶対にこれは言えないだろうな、と思った。

p.20 "It's a handover...not hands-off...not a handout." "In my classroom I could serve my students as a mentor of writing, a mediator of writing strategies, and a model of a writer at work."
自主的な英語作家を育てるプロセスにおける先生の役割って何だろうと思わされる。「こうやるといいよ」とか「こんな便利は方法があるよ」とか「自分が書く時はこんなふうにやってるよ。」っていう会話を学生とするためには彼らが「こんな文章書きたいんだけど、なんかアイデアありますか?」って聞いてくれないとできないと思う。それを聞いてきてくれるのって、大学院のDissertationとAdviserの会話しか思いつかない。そのような会話を聞くためにはやはり自分なりの目標に向かって自主的な作家活動をさせないといけないし、作家としての自覚とやりがい感がなければいけない。どうやってそれを育むのか?大学で可能なのか?可能な気はするけど、やるには勇気がいると思う。

②わかりにくい点/疑問・質問/さらなる説明・解説が必要な点
みんな自分で題材を選び違うことをやる場合、どうやって学生の成績をつけるか?

③やってみたいこと/応用できそうなこと
学生が自分自身で「やりたい!」と思っている課題に対して、英語を書く先輩として「こうやるといいよ」とか「こんな便利は方法があるよ」とか「自分が書く時はこんなふうにやってるよ。」っていう会話をもっと学生としたい。

④その他、何でも読み会のメンバーと共有したいこと
みなさんのChapter1の内容に別途反応しま~す。

Thanks for reading!

Mark

2009年1月19日月曜日

What's a typical weekend with the kids like recently?

I didn't have too much going on this weekend, so that destined me to hang out and entertain my 5 year old and 1 year old, trying to give Meg a break from the kids as long as possible.

With my 5 year old...
  • Soccer in the park. We got da gear, foldable 6' goals, Michael's present for Christmas.
  • Biking to the jidoukan (kids center) and letting both loose there. Thank God for kids centers. They have very nice ones in most cities in Japan, safe and well-equipped. Michael got to bike on real roads for the first time ever on Saturday. Mostly stable. Only crashed into me once.
  • Making "Pythagora" devices, which are sort of like obstacle courses for marbles. Good test of patience, like dominos arrays, for both son and father "If that @#$% fails one more time, I'm gonna...Oh sorry Michael. Don't talk like that. If you're curious, see the masters do it. We build stuff, but nothing like the experts on the NHK TV show.
  • The board game of LIFE. Loves the money. Never buys insurance.
  • Battleship. The old navy guessing game. Cheats consistently.
  • Transformers card game. One of the best games for a 5 year old I've ever seen. Great for learning math because we can do "two card attack" where we each play two cards and add them up to see who has more.
  • Building Pokemon castles with Legos house set, a gift we got from a friend who works for Lego Japan. The standard array is boring. Michael does wonders with rearranging his multiple sets of legos and then putting his Pokemon collection figures all over them to create stories.
  • Sumo on the futons. Soccer on the futons. Rolling people into sushi with the futons.
  • Reading Curious George and other books for bed time. He gets a sticker for each book he reads successfully to me. 10 stickers gets him a Pokemon plastic figure.
With my 1 year 8 month old...
  • Sit in a sandbox and watch her put sand on her head and usually mine too.
  • Swings, slides, other playground staples
  • Crying because her dad and brother are playing soccer and ignoring her
  • Dancing to music or DVDs. The kids center has a great dancing time for pre-school kids and she absolutely loves it.
  • Attacking her brother's legos creations (well, she thinks she's helping)
  • Playing tea party with Dad (she doesn't really get into this yet)
  • Watching Shimajiro videos
  • Crying again because her dad and brother are playing soccer and ignoring her
Something like that, all weekend long.

Making essay peer reviews work: one win, one loss?

Last Friday and today Monday, I had two in-class "peer review" classes, one for my freshmen and one for my sophomores. Both classes were reviewing drafts of about 800 words. The in-class peer review is one part of the draft review process, including in addition an online written review that students have to do for each other and a conference with me to discuss my reactions to their draft.

So, below is how I set the in-class peer review exchange up (copied from my handout). My personal impression is that this works quite well as long as I avoid some pitfalls. In my Friday freshmen class, I had some groups where the exchange of ideas did not really seem to be working, and I guessed it was due to two problems. After anticipating those, my Monday class went very smoothly.

The first problem you always run into to is people with no drafts finished. On Friday, I asked them to join a group anyway and read and give comments, but I have come to the conclusion that it is better to let them go out of the classroom or do their own work. The pair exchange between two persons with drafts works with a good balance of time and having a third person just does not seem to work logistically. On Monday, that was what I did and all pairs hummed along very smoothly.

Another problem is what to do with an odd number. On Friday, I made a group of three, but the three struggled because they had to read two papers to have a coherent discussion and ended up running out of time in our 70 minute period. On Monday, I decided to fill in the gap and be a partner to ensure all students were in pairs. If you have ideas for making a group of three work, please let me now.

Other problems....students who come in late, students who match up with different levels (usually by asking students to say how long their drafts are and matching up same lengths of drafts, the level gets matched too, but not always.).

Overall, students seem to enjoy their exchanges very much. I allow use of their first language if they feel it is needed, and a few took advantage of that while most groups stayed in English.

2. Peer Review of 1st drafts

The goal is to help you receive some specific ideas for improving your draft as well as give you a chance to practice reading critically and giving constructive feedback.

1) Find a partner who has a draft of about the same length. Sit close in pairs.

If you have no draft, you can read/write quietly or go to the library.

2) Ask Can I write comments on your draft? -> Exchange papers and read.

If the writer allows comments, feel free to annotate with ? or other comments.

3) After both have basically finished reading, discuss one essay first, then the next.

Use 3 steps: 1. Confirm Main Point, 2. Give Positive Feedback, then 3. Give Suggestions

Writer: So...Did you understand my main point?

Reader: Well, I think your main point is... (summarize your understanding briefly)

Writer: Right. What do you think about the draft so far?

Reader: I really like the point about.... (start by giving much positive feedback!)

Writer: Do you have any suggestions?
Reader: First, what's your feeling about your draft? How do you plan to improve it?
Writer: Well...I think the biggest need for change is... (do self-critique first)
Reader: I think those ideas are good. In addition...you could consider adding/changing...
Note: Try to give suggestions about main ideas and evidence, not technical things.

In the Valley of Elah (2007) - Disturbing, but engaging

In the Valley of Elah just came out on DVD in Japan. (Japanese title 告発のとき)
http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1809805319/info


I thought it was worth watching on two accounts:

1. As a father, this narrative based on a true story made me contemplate the horror of sending my son to war and learning how he is transformed into something else upon return from the battlefield.

2. As a citizen, I was alerted to the possibility that large numbers of troops returning from "liberating Iraq" may need psychological support to readjust. Assuming the story that this movie is based on is true in the way it is implied in the film, the importance of giving not only respect to veterans but also an environment in which they can adequately deal with the psychological issues they may face cannot be underestimated.

I write this knowing nothing of war. I hope I will never have to, but I still have much respect for those who sign up and make sacrifices to defend what they believe in.

A Friday night in Koenji

Out on the town in Koenji with a good friend the other night, we stumbled upon a cozy kushi-age place called Kushiya Bar 串屋バー (info) with a shitamachi feeling and cheap but delicious fried food on skewers. (photos from someone's blog)

On the drinks menu, I found a few things I had never had before. One is the Denki Bran in the picture above, 30% alchohol a mix of brandy, gin, and herbs? served straight in shot glass and famous for its "electrifying" sensation as it goes down. Another was called キンミヤ梅割り a shochu mixed with a plum extract. Both tasted like industrial alchohol and must be an acquired taste.

2009年1月12日月曜日

University of London Institute of Education - a good place for a PhD?

Two of my colleagues are currently doing part-time doctorates in education with the IoE and they invited me to an event where IoE students in Tokyo presented their current research. Professor Paul Dowling was there to answer questions too. I got a chance to ask several people, including Paul, about the process of application and the "tortuous" challenge of getting the disseration done, especially on a part-time basis while teaching full-time.

Most of the advice I had heard before, but it was good to hear it again:
-Make sure you know what your research passion is
-Design a small, realistic project for researching that passion
-Try to find a good supervisor for the research
-Make a solid financing plan
-Be ready to dump your social life and neglect your family (My interpretation)

So, Mark, what's the plan? Decisions, decisions.
-I have many research interests, but what's my research passion? How in the world do you decide that?
-Which school is best for that research area/approach?
-Do I go full time (and break the bank) or go part time (and try to balance job and degree)?
-Do I go to a US program with course requirements (which I kind of feel I need), or a British program which is mainly just the disseration?
-Do I wait until...

Mark

Black Gold - A film about coffee and fair trade

http://www.blackgoldmovie.com/



I picked this up at Tsutaya and felt it was very valuable to watch. I'm not very knowledgeable of the fair trade movement (need to educate myself) and this short 78 minute film helped me get some understanding of the effects of international trade on farmers in developing countries.

But will I make sure to buy Fair Trade Coffee now? Unfortunately, the film was not as compelling as it might have been. As a beginner in the concept of "fair trade" purchases, I found myself confused as to what I was supposed to be persuaded by. It sounds nice, but how exactly does it work...and does it?

Yes, I think I believe that multinational corporations in the US and EU tie up with their government trade offices to maximize profits at the expense of developing countries, basically disregarding the need to set up a system that will help poverty stricken areas of the world gain some stability for minimum needs such as food, water and literacy. Improvements in corporate social responsibility seem needed very much. I imagine those companies see business and charity was different things and try to be as cut-throat in business as they can get away with. It is the way businesses are.

Also, the fact that farms in developed countries are subsidized to a point that developing countries suffer from low international commodity prices seems in need of reform. The WTO seems to be a political tool for powerful countries to impose their will on poorer countries.

However...how does buying a slightly more expense package that says "fair trade coffee" exactly work in terms of helping the farmers' cooperative in Ethiopia that this film portrays? It sounds like a good idea to eliminate the various middlemen that take their cuts, but how does that exactly work? Also, since "fair trade" sounds awefully good to the responsible consumer, many big coffee companies like Starbucks are jumping on the bandwagon and advertising that they serve free trade coffee. Is that working at all? By the way, Starbucks was implicated in the movie in a confusing way--was it contributing to poverty or wealth in Ethiopia?? Not clear to me. I may have missed something since my infant daughter decided to vie for my attention around that part.

Need to get an informative resource about trade and efforts to eradicate poverty in developing countries. I have no doubt that fortunate countries/people need to be doing more to help less fortunate countries/people. The question is what.

Wine and culture on Fridays

One of my colleagues in an office nearby introduced the idea of a wine party to wind down and share teaching ideas on Friday afternoons and I've enjoyed three or four to date.

The interesting thing for me is that these parties have a non-Japanese, English-speaking country crowd-US, British, Aussie mostly. Having been socialized through high school in Japan and mostly hanging out with Japanese persons in college and past jobs, I tend to find it difficult to keep up--in terms of topics of interest, vocabulary, turn-taking speeds, cultural background needed for jokes etc. I always end up feeling like I'm a bystander rather than a participant in the conversation. Very difficult to take the floor and chip in at the pace things go.

But the amount I learn is amazing--books, films, theories I've never heard of, and since I know all members well enough as colleagues and they know (mostly) I'm a native speaker of Japanese with a bicultural background, they don't seem to mind too much when I interrupt to ask dumb questions. Of course, it's not just where I grew up. All of these colleagues are just well-read, well-travelled people.

For example, the other day the conversation turned to the influence of the Jewish vote on US politics and it felt like all the Brits and Aussies at the table knew more about US politics than I did. Also, I'm learning that it is probably not a matter of how much you read/watch as much as how critically and selectively you read/watch, and having a chance to talk with people about what you read/watch.

So, here's to looking forward to more wine on Fridays.

2009年1月6日火曜日

Happy New Year! Goals for 2009--hopefully!

5 Goals for 2009

1. Keep blogging on my Learning Blog! I'm doing this mainly for my own reflection and won't worry too much about quality of content or readability. In general, develop my personal learning environment with my Google tools and Delicious bookmarks.

2. Read with my kids! I hope to keep up an almost daily pace of reading English books with my almost 6 year old son and almost 2 year old daughter. I've gotten a bit inconsistent on this.

3. Run 2 marathon races to keep fit. I'll do the Tokyo Marathon in March, but I want to do another one in the autumn.

4. Develop my research on how "confidence" develops in learning to speak a foreign language and how goal-setting, self-recording/analysis, reflection, and other active learning skills can contribute to that. Write two papers and make two presentations on that--hopefully. Explore PhD programs for this.

5. Get a babysitter so Meg and I can get away from the kids!