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After reading the articles presented this week, I feel bad for the children of Spain and the amount of homework that is expected of them. It is sad to hear that it is greatly impacting time with their families and any other extracurricular activities they may want to pursue. As a full-time college student, I don’t feel I even study as much as the children in Spain. I also feel bad that ESL programs throughout Spain are not being as effective as they could be. I know that learning a second language can be hard and learning from a native speaker can be confusing. While learning German we had the pleasure to have an exchange student (from Germany) present in class to help with language questions and pronunciation, he did not teach the class, but his presence was valuable none the less. When looking at other ESL resources I found a fun way to make comics to help. Make Belief Comix offers a more creative way to engage students, including creative writing prompts, story ideas, and free printable comic strips. Topics include contemporary student issues like bullying, peer pressure, and identity formation.

https://www.makebeliefscomix.com/

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Having had a very difficult learning a second language myself, i found the articles incredibly interesting. I spend a lot of time thinking about the ways in which school and studying can undermine the ability to learn if it is not approached in the correct way, for a school system and for an individual. Language especially is such a changing and present thing that the way it is learned must be just as fluid it seems. It seems interesting in the El Pais article about native teachers vs non native teachers, this is something I have discussedd with classmates as well. Learning from someone who has english as a second language can create certain roadblocks that learning from someone who has the same first language as you does not. But I find that there are postives to both as well. Especially in our world of social media and memes, I could not imagine trying to figure out what english means (and alternatively when I see french, the language I am learning, memes a lot of words are not covered in a french-english dictionary)

https://busyteacher.org/5973-how-to-use-art-to-teach-esl-concepts.html

I found this interesting because I think visually inclined learners can be aided a lot in visual learning (who would have thought), and it is something that I rarely see utilized in classrooms.

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As a non-native English speaker, I can strongly emphasize with how English can be a difficult language to learn for Spaniard students. It also took me many years to finally be able to convey what I want to say to native English speakers. The main theme of the articles is that the traditional approach of teaching English isn’t working and isn’t effective. This idea also applies to Korea. Most schools from elementary through even universities in Korea still heavily dependent on memorizing grammars and words, and students rarely invest on conversations in English. In fact, most students have a tendency to avoid speaking in English with English speakers, for example, tourists who ask directions in English because they think they aren’t fluent in English. Another factor that I can add to the articles’ suggestions for ESL students is that confidence also matters. That is, the more you try to confidently speak in whichever language you wish to be fluent, the better and faster you will learn the language. I’m graduating next term, but I believe I still have much to learn about English. As the articles said, culture and language are intertwined, and just looking into English textbooks for hours and for years won't bring you to a high level. You need to TALK with people who have English culture in their root.

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Reading the assigned articles this week made me realize how fortunate it is to be an native English speaker. I understand learning any language is hard. Looking at this from an alternative perspective, English is an incredibly hard language to learn. There are so many nuances, colloquialisms, and idioms…oh my! That are only understood if your native language is English and you grew up in a culture where it was prominent. Having teachers that are fully proficient in a language will ultimately teach more fluent students because of the accuracy of their knowledge. I feel like in the case of learning English, taking official exams by Cambridge English of the University of Cambridge would an excellent way to learn the mechanics of the language. As some of the articles allude to, homework doesn’t help. I think it is necessary in order to be proficient in a subject. Though, there are some you won’t necessarily understand from homework and studying English solely. In order to really understand a language, I believe you must be immersed in a culture to fully understand. Intercultural communication is something that can help aid in this. To understand a language, we must understand how culture has an effect on communication.
https://www.languagemagazine.com/2019/07/18/skills-for-a-multilingual-global-learning-community-2/

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When I think about my "why" for teaching project-based learning I think of a particular student I had last year in fourth grade. I'm an ESL teacher for the Newcomer Program at Webster Elementary School in the Manchester School District, New Hampshire. The majority of our students are refugees and immigrants. I use project-based learning in my classroom because of the impact it has for EL students like this particular fourth-grade student. When he joined my class, like many of my students, he knew very little English. Fast forward a year, and his transformation was so incredible that he was selected to do a live video interview with a panel of about 100 administrators describing how PBL has helped him. You never would have guessed he'd barely spoken English a year before! He also described the impact of PBL perfectly. When talking about a project that required research, he said, "It helped me learn to ask questions." Another project teamed him up with a partner "so that helped with communicating," he said. For another project he wrote letters "and that helped me [learn to] write information," he said.

"When [a teacher] tells you and just gives you worksheets to write everything down, I think that's boring for most kids and they just want to finish it," he said. "But when we do projects, it's better because you actually get to do something and get some motivation."

As a teacher, seeing his interview was an amazing moment because it was proof that what we are doing is working. This is the kind of confidence, courage and growth that I see in my students every day and it shows the impact of quality PBL on students -- particularly EL students.
Project-based learning to support equity
The Manchester School District receives training and support from the nonprofit PBLWorks through a grant-funded project to help support educational equity. Manchester is a refugee resettlement community and my school serves a diverse student population that includes students from 19 countries who speak 14 different languages. We also serve non-English speaking students from throughout Manchester in magnet classrooms. For some of my students, it is their first time in a classroom setting.

My students start at very different levels of proficiency. Some can read and write English beautifully, but either can't or don't have the confidence to speak it. Others can hold perfect conversations in English, but don't have reading and writing skills, while others have difficulty with all areas of proficiency. Every student has a completely individualized level. We wanted to find a way to meet each student where they were. PBL is the perfect solution because of its ability to engage students at all levels in authentic learning through authentic, hands-on projects.

PBL requires students to work on projects that examine a real-world problem or answer a complex question. They demonstrate their knowledge by developing a product or presenting for an audience. PBL helps students engage more deeply in content and language acquisition while also developing skills such as critical thinking and communication.

Want to give it a shot in your classroom? Here are some things to consider:

Meet students at their proficiency level. The rigor, engagement and methodology of PBL provide a fast track to confidence and language acquisition for newcomer students, but it is important to meet each student at their specific level of proficiency. I do this by being intentional and strategic about scaffolding PBL readiness skills such as higher-order thinking and problem-solving. The majority of my students come to me without basic educational skills, so they require much more coaching than traditional EL students. I need to heavily modify PBL to make it accessible to them. I use linguist Stephen Krashen's "i +1" theory of second language acquisition, in which the "i" symbolizes the learner's current area of proficiency -- wherever that may be -- and the "1" is the next immediate step to improve their level of competence. Here is just one example. If a student needs an accommodation, I help them brainstorm what could help them. This metacognition is something that I am scaffolding. Once the student can independently come up with the rationale for the resources or tools they need, I know that I have made a huge leap in their autonomy and problem-solving. The exercise intertwines problem-solving, confidence, advocacy and language ability and vocabulary. This might seem small, but it is just another example of something that my students have never done before and will be expected to do within one year.

Make sure projects are culturally responsive. Allowing students to bring their own culture and experiences to a project makes it more engaging. For example, one of our projects focused on what makes up a community. Students researched the components of a community -- for example, what types of restaurants, businesses and government buildings are in the community. Students brought their own perspectives and shared what their communities were like where they came from which helped them connect with the project and created more opportunities for dialogue to build vocabulary and communication skills.

Include field trips. Experiences help students gain a greater understanding of a topic and can add another layer of excitement. If the project involves the water system, take a trip to the local water treatment plant. If it involves animals or the ocean. Go to the zoo or the aquarium. For our community project, we toured our neighborhood and took photos of what we saw in the community. They ultimately used the photos to create photo books that they presented to the mayor for their final project.

Encourage authenticity. A quality PBL project helps students understand how what they are learning applies to the real world. For example, one of our projects focused on environmental awareness. As students were doing research they realized that our three ESL classes dispose of 400,000 plastic forks every year. Students were fascinated by this, so the project snowballed into a campaign to use real silverware in the cafeteria. As we researched this idea, we learned that having real silverware would require our school to purchase a dishwasher. So, the project has morphed into a letter-writing campaign asking our PTO to support funding for a dishwasher. This evolution showed the students how environmental awareness can have a local impact. It's also been incredibly rewarding to see students so passionate, which helps them engage in the content.

Encourage voice and choice. Project-based learning is all about helping students take ownership of their learning. One of my favorite success stories was when some of my students came to me without prompting and said, "we have an idea for a project." It's so rewarding to see students empowered -- especially students who may have been marginalized in the past because of their backgrounds or because they weren't fluent in English. The students wanted to create a "diversity day" for the 100th day of school. I coached them through the project, which they presented to the principal. For the project they put decorations and items such as artwork throughout the school that would showcase the diversity at our school. The students leading the project then had non-ELL students collect the items and use them to create a "diversity tree" display for the 100th day of school that celebrated our diverse student body. This project was completely led by students and I was blown away by how they took charge and ownership of it from start to finish.

So, whenever I'm asked why I use project-based learning, I share stories like those above. I describe how powerful PBL has been in helping individualize instruction to address my students' ability levels and help them acquire English more quickly. I describe how they get so engaged that they want to collaborate with their peers, which is a huge step for an EL student to get over that hurdle. Their excitement helps them stretch outside of their comfort zone. I had some students' parents tell me that their children never wanted to take English class before but are now excited to come to school. I attribute this to project-based learning, and that's an amazing "why" for teaching with PBL.
Elizabeth Leone is an ESL teacher at Webster Elementary School in the Manchester School District in New Hampshire. The district uses PBLWorks.
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When I think about my "why" for teaching project-based learning I think of a particular student I had last year in fourth grade. I'm an ESL teacher for the Newcomer Program at Webster Elementary School in the Manchester School District, New Hampshire. The majority of our students are refugees and immigrants.

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Jaafar JamaThis week’s reading was about the challenges of education in Spain. The first challenge is related to families and children—trying to balance family time and homework. Children in Spain are assigned heavy homework and parents have long working hours. Some parents are opting for less homework and more time for family. Sympathetic teachers are supporting the idea and assigning less homework. There is a drive to balance work, family, school, and home work. The method of teaching English in Spain does not always follow the best educational practices. Spanish teachers put a lot of emphasis on grammar and memorization.  This approach does not help students to become good communicators nor to understand cultural differences expressed through language.  Not all English teachers are working together for common goals. It is recommended that teachers from Spain study abroad to learn the language. Another relevant argument is that being a native speaker of English does not automatically qualify someone to be an English teacher.  People need training and good academic backgrounds in order to be effective teachers.  Spaniards who want to study English usually prefer native speakers. It is reported that the Cambridge English Exam Qualification is also an impediment to teachers’ creativity and freedom.   What is needed is to have someone assess students’ needs, produce relevant language materials, and develop creative teaching tools. The last challenge is that Spaniards put a lot of emphasis on grammar. Language is not a precise and perfect thing—and grammar is not consistent in any language, especially English.  Excessive emphasis on grammar can be misleading and counterproductive.My best advice is to avoid any single or exclusive approach to learning English. The best approach is total immersion in the culture and language. That means to be culturally and linguistically removed from one’s own culture and way of life when setting out to learn a new language, and totally immersed in a setting where English is the native language. Learners also need time to absorb information. It is over a period of time that an individual accumulates language skills from both the class room and society.The following is a link to Interactive Websites of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Libraries. The library also has instructional videos, including workout videos. Please visit: 

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Jaafar JamaThis week’s reading was about the challenges of education in Spain. The first challenge is related to families and children—trying to balance family time and homework. Children in Spain are assigned heavy homework and parents have long working hours. Some parents are opting for less homework and more time for family. Sympathetic teachers are supporting the idea and assigning less homework. There is a drive to balance work, family, school, and home work. The method of teaching English in Spain does not always follow the best educational practices. Spanish teachers put a lot of emphasis on grammar and memorization.  This approach does not help students to become good communicators nor to understand cultural differences expressed through language.  Not all English teachers are working together for common goals. It is recommended that teachers from Spain study abroad to learn the language. Another relevant argument is that being a native speaker of English does not automatically qualify someone to be an English teacher.  People need training and good academic backgrounds in order to be effective teachers.  Spaniards who want to study English usually prefer native speakers. It is reported that the Cambridge English Exam Qualification is also an impediment to teachers’ creativity and freedom.   What is needed is to have someone assess students’ needs, produce relevant language materials, and develop creative teaching tools. The last challenge is that Spaniards put a lot of emphasis on grammar. Language is not a precise and perfect thing—and grammar is not consistent in any language, especially English.  Excessive emphasis on grammar can be misleading and counterproductive.My best advice is to avoid any single or exclusive approach to learning English. The best approach is total immersion in the culture and language. That means to be culturally and linguistically removed from one’s own culture and way of life when setting out to learn a new language, and totally immersed in a setting where English is the native language. Learners also need time to absorb information. It is over a period of time that an individual accumulates language skills from both the class room and society.The following is a link to Interactive Websites of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Libraries. The library also has instructional videos, including workout videos. Please visit: 

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Research Guides: ESL/ELL Education: Interactive Websites for Learning

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Research Guides: ESL/ELL Education: Interactive Websites for Learning

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I found the articles this week to be very informative and thought provoking.  Some the concepts that I really enjoyed revolved around this idea of languages not being taught in an isolated environment. The El Pais articles talked about the importance of Spanish teachers traveling abroad to gain a better understanding of the teaching methods. This idea of native speakers using the most up-to-date language is useful, but there need to be an importance placed on the ability to analyz4e the language as well. It was also interesting to read why understanding a culture is important before teaching a language because it allows you to understand why some tenses are used rather than others. The home language survey was interesting in the aspect that it encourages teachers to ask open ended questions and to simplify the language rather than the concept. The Cambridge Exam article was probably the most interesting. It was interesting to read the critics view of the exam as being a just another “money spinner’. There was also the need to tailor certain sections of it more towards an individual rather than a large group. This notion also aligns with the idea of designing curriculums for depth rather than breadth especially in the social studies and sciences curriculum.

I found the part about language teacher's ability to make more money by providing one on one tutoring to be interesting.

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Four years ago today I was walking, half-dead, through Shanghai's Pudong International airport, searching for a woman named "Apple," who was supposed to be holding a sign with my name on it. My name, and that of a certain private English education conglomerate: I'd arrived in China to teach English abroad.

My legal immigration status notwithstanding, I was unprepared for what life in my strange new home would bring, woefully yet by design -- you can't make love to a metronome.

With this being said, there are a few things I wish I could've told my much younger self as he stepped out onto his swanky hotel balcony to greet China's city above the sea. If you're thinking of pursuing a job teaching English abroad, I suggest you read them as well.

1. Teaching English is not going to make you rich

The classic narrative of teaching English overseas, in Asia especially, is that you'll make a Western salary, with a significantly lower cost of living and, potentially, paid-for accommodation. All of these things are true to a certain degree, but the fact is that if you simply teach your required hours and collect your paycheck each week, there will be enough to save or enough to live it up -- but not both.

2. But working on the side might

A couple weeks after I started my job, a sales associate at my school pulled me aside and asked me if I'd be interested in doing some one-on-one tutoring for a friend of hers, who was trying to get into an MBA program. I said "yes," and it ended up being the second-best decision I ever made (the first being, of course, the one to teach abroad in the first place!).

Taking private ESL clients, who have the money to actually pay you what you're worth, can double or even triple your ordinary salary in a fraction of the extra time. Is it legal? Of course not. But if you keep things on the DL and do a good job, you'll evade detection and make a ton of extra money. Everyone does it, at least everyone who knows what's good for himself.

3. Most expats are not worth your time

When you first arrive in your new country, the company of your English-native colleagues might seem comforting, but I urge you to (mostly) abandon them as soon as possible.

Not only will having a cocoon of people just like you insulate you from all the amazing local culture that's right at your fingertips, but living la vida expatriada -- i.e. drinking frequently, dining out frequently and generally being irresponsible -- will bankrupt you, and prevent you from achieving any sort of financial goals, which for me anyway were at the forefront of why I moved abroad in the first place.

4. The earlier you build an exit strategy, the better

To be sure, I knew from the moment I arrived in China that I wanted to use teaching English abroad as springboard into what I'm doing now, which is why I not only accepted teaching jobs on the side, but began moonlighting in journalism as soon as I possibly could.

The sooner you know what you want to do when you finish teaching - for me, this was traveling extensively and building a popular Web publication -- the more deliberately you can you use your time abroad to make money and hone your skills, a sort of practice run for the new, better life you'll be leading when you finish.

5. Your contract is not life or death

The vast majority of English jobs abroad come with the stipulation that you must sign a contract of at least six months, and usually a year. What most ESL job hunters fail to realize -- and almost no recruiter is going to mention -- is that you can easily cancel your contract, typically by giving a month notice.

Canceling your ELS contract might involve forfeiting certain benefits, such as reimbursement of your flights or other expenses you incurred, but it is almost always possible, which is important to know when times get tough.

6. Replacement ESL jobs are a dime a dozen

And they probably will. Even if you work for a Western company, like I did, chances are it's going to be run as if it were a local company. In my case, this was Chinese-style, which resulted in me working longer-than-contracted hours and being subject to extremely questionable management and supervisory techniques.

The great news is that once you're in the country and have the legal authorization to work, finding a different job is easy, especially if you're in North Asia like I was.

7. Your time abroad is going to fly right past you

Many aspects of my life in China were not what I imagined, from work conditions, to health issues that resulted from pollution and questionable nutrition, to general feelings of loneliness and isolation. Often times, the only thing that kept me going was being able to see my greater goal -- which I did, of course, end up achieving -- in my mind's eye!

Looking back, however, I wish I could've slowed down and enjoyed even one percent more of my experience living in China. Teaching and living abroad is a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and although you can of course return to your host country after you've finished teaching, I urge you to savor it as much as you can while you're in the thick of it.

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7 Things I Wish I'd Known Before Teaching ESL

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Four years ago today I was walking, half-dead, through Shanghai's Pudong International airport, searching for a woman named "Apple," who was supposed to be holding a sign with my name on it. My name, and that of a certain private English education conglomerate: I'd arrived in China to teach English abroad.

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The readings this week gave me a little time to reflect on how lucky I am so be an native English speaker. I have always felt interested in learning another language, such as French. But, because English is spoken so frequently and often fluidly in other countries I have traveled to, I don’t feel pressure to need to learn another language. Because we are becoming increasingly connected around the Globe in business, finance, entertainment, trade, etc… being proficient and well-verse in the English language is pivotal in the success of many individuals careers and offers opportunity for personal and professional growth. The readings reflected the amount of time and dedication students and teachers spend on teaching English so that students can become more valuable players in their chosen careers. Then comes the more difficult part, actually acquiring the optimal level of proficiency. From the readings, only 19% of Spaniards feel that their English is very good (Menarguez, El Pais). It seems that Spain is going through a revolution of sorts, when it comes to education. How can learning be done to inspire an increased passing of exams while limiting the amount of homework, and giving both students and teachers more freedom to teach English in a way that becomes enjoyable and hopefully then more attainable for more of Spain. I know from my schooling in the US that passing exams doesn’t necessarily mean comprehension of the information, instead the information I’m being tested on and the grade I receive is a result of intense memorization, usually for the short term. "...some language experts argue that focusing solely on passing exams limits teachers' creativity and freedom, reducing learning to something purely mechanical (Menarguez, El Pais)."

I found this really awesome video on making online ESL teaching more fun and enjoyable for the student, so instead of making it a task to memorize it becomes a fun way to socialize with a friend and discuss all the things they enjoy!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Idu8gRdI_GE

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The readings this week were very interesting, as I feel that they got much more into the actual practice of pedagogy than many of the previous weeks did. In particular, the teaching considerations needed when interacting with ESL or ELL students. Both of these types of english learners require different approaches to teaching, with ELL curriculum being more focused on language fundamentals, while teaching ESL students is more focused on literacy and the ability to formulate ideas with the language. My experience with learning languages has always been closer to ELL rather than ESL, as I only ever learned a modest level of Spanish from school. Though I would also say that experience fits the type of language learning that will take place from this course. Learning languages can be cumbersome before fluency, and I believe I have a good idea of what works for myself, and what doesn’t work for myself. Moreover, learning English as a second language can have a number of pitfalls, and much of the readings commented on this as well. Grammar can be extremely fickle and difficult to properly learn in English. Moreover, it seems that this hurdle is overemphasized in Spanish school systems, where vocabulary is underemphasized. This came as a surprise to me, as it felt like almost the opposite of how I have previously learned languages. The article linked below has some interesting information on teaching grammar, and how learning grammar is not always conducive with fully grasping a language, even though it may seem that way at first.
https://www.ihes.com/bcn/tt/articles/grammar.html

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Going through the readings this week really opened my eyes on how we expect non-native speakers to quickly and easily pick up on their second language without really considering the process it truly takes to become fluent in two languages. What stuck out to me was the idea that a native English speaker wasn't always the best choice for an ESL teacher, as I would have disagreed with that notion until I have it some more thought and realized the articles from El Pais did hold some valid points. Native [English] aren't necessarily the best because they can't understand the mental journey a student is going through to learn all the new rules of a language along with what is different from language to the next (for example how in Spanish nouns have gendered attributes and how that is non-existent in English, or how in English the emphasis on one word in a sentence can change its entire meaning, or [as a personal example] how there are many ways to pose a sentence in Spanish [in the case that you need it to be more formal or causual] but one single translation in English [my personal example comes from wanting to record a bilingual voicemail and I found at least 3 more ways to say "I'll call you back" in Spanish depending on how formal I wanted it]. So what I wanted to focus for my link were the challenges ESL feel like they face when teaching their students and what solutions were available.

https://www.fluentu.com/blog/educator-english/esl-problems/  [I specifically was looking over #5 and 2]

https://blog.schoolspecialty.com/understanding-struggles-ell-students-teachers/ [I also had this secondary bonus link I found for ELL learners but I think the same theme applies here]

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I was really captivated by this weeks readings, and I feel like I learned a lot of new information! Teaching english as a second language is something I am very unfamiliar with, but as someone who has always been around people who don't speak english as their first language, I am really interested in the process of learning and becoming skilled at it! When reading about the many things that make learning English difficult I realized that I have never thought about the various aspects of the english language that would take so much more than schoolwork or homework to learn. Every few years there are trends with slang terms that become entrenched in the culture of certain age groups, and they can become a big part of what is said in conversations. Things like "That's tight", "I'm shook" "lit" "low key" and so on. What I gathered is that learning english to a point where you can withhold conversations, and understand complex sentences comes from a lot of in-real-life practice, and with a lot of time. I also found it really interesting that it may be more beneficial for native language speakers to teach that given language. The little things that that speaker may know from being completely immersed in their native language from day 1 could certainly round out an ESL's experience.
https://jimmyesl.com/10-rules-for-being-a-great-esl-teacher/

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The readings this week were very interesting to me, as not only am I studying Spanish as a second language currently, but because I hope to be an ESL teacher in a Spanish-speaking country when I graduate. I related to a lot of the struggles that the articles mentioned about learning a second language. There are many cultural connotations, uses and concepts that cannot be explained by English, Google translate, or generalized explanations in textbooks. In fact, there have been MANY occasions where I have been lost trying to understand memes in Spanish, and then I realize it is because they are speaking in “slang” that I am not taught in the classroom! I think it is so important to practice second language skills in real-life scenarios. The handbook talked about how difficult it can be to improve one’s intercultural communication skills in this way (not to mention how terrifying it is to put yourself out there like that!), but it really is necessary for reaching more advanced levels of a second language. When it comes to the debate over if Native speakers are really the best teachers, I completely agree with the article’s conclusion about the importance of one’s teaching abilities. Being a good teacher and understanding how to connect with and adapt to students’ needs is something that goes beyond language fluency, and also speaks on one’s global competence! These articles left me with a lot to think about in regards to a future ESL teaching job.

For anyone interested in teaching English in Spain, I found this to be a useful source. It says that since it is difficult for Americans to get a work visa in Spain, many potential teachers apply for student
visas instead, and take classes while working! https://www.internationalteflacademy.com/blog/what-you-need-to-know-before-moving-to-spain-to-teach-english-the-ultimate-super-cheat-sheet

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All of the articles and the video were very informative. I had no idea what the CEFR was but it makes a lot of sense to need to be created. It seems simple enough, but I’m sure that there are some ways in which it can be improved. In the other articles, they consistently mention that ESL studies in Spain are outdated and in need of improvement. This wasn’t mentioned in the articles, but I agree because we as a species have begun to understand more about ourselves and how we work which we can put to good use in how we learn, not just languages, but in general. The article on homework was an alarming one, I mean four hours each night and more on weekends? Homework in general isn’t a bad idea, but too much is exhausting for students and can leave them constantly mentally drained.

On another note, the articles about native speaking language teachers caught my eye. I wonder if instead of having one kind of teacher (non-native speaker who can teach the language) over the other (Native speaker who doesn’t know how to teach), there could be two teachers in the class, one who can speak English at a native level to show the students what it sounds like and the other who can teach in the class’ native tongue.
https://elpais.com/elpais/2014/11/24/inenglish/1416821363_959490.html

I chose this article because it talks about something I mentioned earlier, how we know more about ourselves. Specifically this refers to multiple studies done on the brains of bilingual people.

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There are 3 key elements I got from this week’s readings: a good instructor should strive for effective methods of teaching, offer versatile plan lessons and must include the cultural aspect of the language into the classroom.

The academic educational programs seem to be over preoccupied with quantity over quality .As the NPR article regarding Spanish kids rebelling against homework stated; there is an interesting contrasts between a high homework load (with an average of 18.5 h a week) and the low performance of Spaniards compared to other Europeans.

Also, when it comes to teaching a language I think a balance between descriptive and prescriptive methods is the key. We need a space to learn about language objectively without bias about its different registers and uses but all languages are formed by a pattern and it naturally implies rules. In other words languages are a system and as such we need to study what is right or not but we have to be open to accept that such concepts change through time.

I personally think being a non-native instructor also has its advantages as you question a lot of things that are abstract for a native speaker. Also having a familiar experience allows you to clearly understand the things people could struggle with. But overall for you to be a great language professor you have to be a good student yourself first and that includes knowing your weaknesses and improve them overtime as well as being  exposed to the culture of the given language as possible.

Now I found out  The New York Times has a very creative and fun section dedicated to ESL articles and resources. This resource was posted on the blog called FluentU .

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I found the articles made a lot of sense as learning and teaching a language is quite difficult. This also brings me back to the concept of global competence as the students are experiencing a somewhat sheltered form of the outside world. In the case for the traditional method and the homework articles I find that I can sympathize with the students as learning a second language can be very difficult if based solely on plenty of homework. To learn a language, I find that you must experience some of it. The students and the teachers must be aware that other languages work differently and for me as a Arab-American I find that languages don't translate word for word. That having a teacher who is experienced in this discrepancy is what is needed rather than someone who may be a professional in their native language but has little knowledge on the other. In my experience being raised by an immigrant family and learning proper English grammar I was placed in ELL classes when I was younger. I was placed there due to my reading skills which as a child, I did not really care for and left me falling behind. I found that because I lived here and experienced English in my day to day that i'm as fluent as I am. I find that it becomes harder to learn a language that you will not utilize somewhat repeatedly as you will lose it.

This article talks about homework in general for elementary, middle, and high school students. I found it interesting and related to the first article.

https://www.edutopia.org/article/whats-right-amount-homework