Event/Behavior:
My students failed reading test badly. The test is based on reading passage that I explained and taught them during class. Half of the class got 25%. Highest scorer was 45%. The test was based on article about Maze Tour in USA. I took it from SAT English sample. When I marked their paper, most of them did not answer questions, they left the paper blank except for some common sense questions. Before they handed in their test paper, I stressed to them that their final exam questions level of difficulty will be like what I provided them today.
Feelings:
• Frustrated
• Angry
• Ashamed
Thoughts:
I had a discussion with my colleague, a Geography teacher about insufficient general knowledge among students have, including this particular class. Since I am coming to United States soon, I thought it would be a great idea having them reading on Maze Tour in United States. This would be additional information for their general knowledge. It also will help to expand their perspectives on various interesting places in the world.
Also, I thought my students would feel bad and worried because they could not answer the questions. I thought that it was really bad of me because I don’t prepare their background schemata on the subject matter (Maze Tour in USA). I thought they must be afraid and stressful to sit for their English final paper soon. They must be terrified of my class in the future because I did sudden “pop quiz” to them.
Learnings:
Step One:
I assume all materials are okay to be used in classes as long as they are in English, and academic/subject related. (Geography, History and etc)
I assume students always ready to understand any kind of materials without considering their background schemata.
I assume students would like to read and learn what I like (in this case, I chose the article because I am coming here soon)
I assume students always ready to sit for any test.
I assume my teaching and instruction is clear.
Step Two:
It is my mistake to assume that students always ready to sit for any test. I should give them time to digest everything that I taught them on that day. It is not even valid because when I reflect back, I did not really know what I want to measure from that test. Is it their understanding, main idea from the passage? Furthermore I took the materials (reading passage and test questions) from SAT booklet. It is not culturally related to them, and Maze Tour in USA must be an alien concept to them because we don’t even have that in Malaysia. Basically, they don’t have any previous knowledge about this topic. Shame on me!!
Again, I put them on my shoes. My mistake is assuming my students are ready to learn any kind of materials that I bring to the classroom. This is actually putting students’ motivation and perceptions into risks. The materials may not suit them well due to the differences in their abilities and the materials are indeed difficult to them. I was wrong by putting them on my par. In this case, I use an approach called “myself centered” not student centered because what really mind to me when choosing the article was the excitation of coming to USA. I was selfish and did not care what my students need.
It is my grave mistake to assume my instruction and teaching was really good. They were not asking any questions to me. Being quiet is not always good. As a teacher, you have to suspect something is wrong when the silent is unusual. It is a sign of lack understanding. They just kept quiet when I explained to them because this is something new to them. They need time to process this new information. I just was neglecting the silence by explaining more and more. The time bomb exploded during the test. It reveals lots of my mistakes. I supposedly interacting with them and putting them into group so that I could see their interactions among them. Through their interactions in the group, I can see how far their understandings are. Sadly, I rushed them into pop quiz. I guess having a ticket out of asking what they understand from my everyday lesson is a good way of knowing their understanding and my teaching performance.
Step Three:
The idea of studying at United States was overwhelming to me since I was a teenager. I had the opportunity of having some friends studying abroad under scholarships. I requested them to send lots of beautiful landscapes pictures. I really admire them for having the opportunity to feel the enchanting experiences of other new places. This feeling lead me to search more about those pictures that they sent me, thus give me exposure to new ideas and vocabularies from it. On the other hand, my students might not have friends who study abroad like what I have, so their interests won’t be same like me. They might have different views on travelling.
My students are unique. They have different world that much more different but I believe interesting enough to explore. I hope I can explore on their individual preferred interests/hobbies. This will open up limitless possibilities of topics such as electronic, gaming and etc. in classroom lessons and discussions that I can use.
Application:
Step One:
I read today that students play an active role in construction of meaning by teacher assisting them in creating an environment of meaningful, context based contexts.1 Based on this, I should consider preparing lesson that not just related to language and content but at the same time celebrate their culture. This includes developing their background schemata as well.
Schemata are important for understanding. They are backbones, because when students read any texts, their brain will connect the text information to related knowledge and experience that are familiar to them.2In this case, the text is unbearable and difficult for them because of many reasons. Firstly, it is a SAT comprehension reading exercise, it is not their level and most of the words inside do not belong to their schemata. Thus, it does not fit their understanding. Secondly, they have never seen maze before. It means they can’t relate to their existing knowledge. They might have seen it before in television but still, it does not really build the concept/understanding of what maze is. It might be about something else such as agronomy of corn rather really focuses on Maze Tour in USA.
According to Jeff Zwiers (2004), teacher can connect the text information to students’ schemata by focusing on visualization technique. It is to create mental images and associations so that students can adapt their understanding to the text given.3 In my case, I should introduce to them what is maze by providing pictures first. A documentary video viewing session on the topic should be helpful too. These I believe will help to create vivid mental images that can assist understanding of the text.
Step Two:
I will focus on knowing inside out of my students. Students are uncut diamonds.4A good diamond cutter will examine every angle of it to produce the best glimmering diamonds. When they keep their mouth shuts over something that they do not understand (i.e. my lessons), it means I created a gap. This gap might be due to my being excessive self centered by providing materials that matters to me and neglecting theirs. I am selfish.
I will also consider what kind of materials to be used in class. I can’t be too ambitious. Difficult test questions, SAT or GRE might have list of powerful vocabularies list but they are not necessarily good for my students.
When I was at college, I hate sudden pop quiz. Usually it is based on my memory retention ability rather than understanding. The main reason is I was not prepared. By giving them the quiz, it leads to no where. I should have told them and have my objectives fixed. Furthermore, comprehension takes time to develop. In this case, I repeat again the vicious cycle introduced by previous teacher.
In conclusion, providing meaningful learning experience is fundamental to my teaching. I must not neglect that. This can be achieved if my students understand my lessons and teaching. I believe this can be achieved by putting variance strategies into practices. I hope I won’t neglect this in the future.
References:
Herrera S.G.,Murry K.G,(2005) Mastering ESL and Bilingual Methods: Differentiated Instruction for Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CLD) Students. Pearson Education, Inc.,(pg 216-217)
Zwiers J. (2004) Building Reading Comprehension Habits in Grades 6-12: A Toolkit of Classroom Activities. International Reading Assoc. (pg 54)
Ibid,(pg.56)
Jones T.G.,Fuller M.L (2003) Teaching Hispanic Children. Pearson Education Inc. (Preface), xi. It is taken from a Hispanic mother talking about Hispanic students in Arizona, “Our children are worth a little care..they are uncut diamonds, but no one wants to bother to dig from them and polish them”
Tags: brain, colleagues, education, esl, feelings, grades, individuality, know, mind, mistake, reading, reflection, schemata, shame, signs, students, time, Travel, vocabularies