Tag Archives: working paper

Lab Report 3: SIOP Paper Progress

Posted on by 
Mr. Danoff's Teaching Laboratory
Lab Report
№: Three
Topic: SIOP Paper Progress
Date: 16 April 2011
Below is a slightly revised draft of a paper I wrote for a class at Indiana last summer, analyzing these 4 videos.
I am building off this work in a new paper I am writing for my current class. It will be interpreting those same videos with a SIOP (Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocol) lens, based mostly off this PDF (from Macomb Intermediate School District).
After this paper I’ll include an outline of my next paper. Please share your thoughts on either in the comments, e-mail, identi.ca, twitter, facebook or LinkedIn.

Analyzing a Japanese TEFL Web Celebrity’s

Phonics Classes

Charles Jeffrey Danoff

This paper will analyze two classes on phonics done by a famous web personality within the Japanese TEFL community to learn what he does well and how he can improve, so that I and other teachers can learn from him.

Researcher’s Linguistic Identity

I have two year’s experience Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) in Asian countries. First in Japan as an Assistant Language Teacher (ALT), helping a Japanese Teacher of English (JTE) with lesson-planning, activities, pronunciation and more. The ALT program is typical in Japanese public schools and is the situation of the teacher I will be researching for this paper. My second year I taught oral and aural English in China.

I have recently come to researching and writing seriously within the TEFL community. It came, because I have started taking classes on the subject as student at Indiana University. I have published one paper related to TEFL in Japan on a critical incident (Flanagan, 1954) I had with a JTE and different ways we could have worked together to solve the problem as part of a wikibook for one of my classes (Danoff, 2010a).

Classroom, School and Community Context

The two lessons I will analyze took place in a Junior High School in the greater Fujiyoshida city area of Yamanashi, Japan (P. Bickford, personal communication, September 1, 2010). The school has 242 students and they can be defined as “the average Japanese JHS class. Meaning, they have no previous knowledge of English.” according to the instructor, noting “However, the students are better behaved than most schools” (personal communication, September 1, 2010).

The two lessons were videotaped and published online to YouTube by the ALT. There are roughly thirty students in the classroom, and it has both an ALT and JTE. His name is Pat Bickford, and he is famous with the Japanese ALT community for creating the website Englipedia1, which has hundreds of resources for ALTs to use in their classrooms.

The instructor describes his teaching style as,

one where I have the students teach me the point of the lesson. For example, if I was teaching a phonics lesson on the “Magic E”, I would start the lesson by showing the students a ‘Magic E’ word and then ask them why they think the phonics lesson’s name is called ‘Magic E’. (personal communication, September 1, 2010)

The two lessons are on phonics start and finish sounds , 2009b, 2009c, & 2009d). I will make references to the point in the video time, with Start Sounds Part 1 (Bickford, 2009a) being SS1, Part 2 SS2 (2009b), Finish Sounds Part 1 FS1 (2009c) and Part 2 FS2 (2009d), as well as web documents (2009e & 2009f) he published explaining what is going on in the videos.

I will analyze Pat and the students in the context of Sinclair and Coulthard’s (1975) Initiation-Response-Feedback pattern, where they “propose that it is the quintessential teaching exchange: (teacher’s) initiation, (student’s) response and (teacher’s) feedback” (as cited in Hillman, 1997, Recitation section, para. 4). This exchange method is essentially what the instructor has stated as his style2:

I frequently go back and review what I’m teaching, for example:

Teach Point A.

Teach Point B.

Review Point A&B.

Teach Point C.

Review Point A,B,C.

Etc. (personal communication, September 1, 2010)

The students have a high affective filter (Krashen, 2004) as they afraid to make mistakes in front of their teachers and peers. That said, once one student demonstrates they can complete the task, many other students are willing to try.

Start Sounds Lesson

The first lesson on the start sound letters of “B, C, D, J, K, P, T, V, Z” breaks down into a series of micro IRF cycles surrounding the phonetic pronunciation of each letter within a macro IRF pattern on the pronunciation of all the letters and distinguishing which are voiceless. The first micro initiation comes as the teacher introduces the concept of phonetics “To start off the lesson, I write a simple English word on the chalkboard and have the students read it. Then, I launch into a “looks like/sounds like” dialog” (Bickford, 2009e).

He uses the word “bad” as the example and then to further explain the concept, he writes a Japanese character on the board which looks different than it sounds, the same as “b” looks different than it sounds (SS1, 1:00). The students give their response by non-verbally acknowledging their understanding and he feeds-back that they are correct by moving on to the next topic. I think this is an example of a high quality interaction, because the phonetic pronunciation of a word is a difficult topic to explain, and he does a wonderful job ensuring they understand with his Japanese language example.

The next micro IRF cycle begins as he initiates a focus on the pronunciation of individual letters. The students have quietly been listening attentively, but when he asks for a volunteer, he gets no one, so he calls on one whose name initially he mispronounces. The mispronunciation is funny for his students (SS1 2:14). Bickford (2009e) brings up the volunteer to:

demonstrate this part of the lesson because it keeps the class engaged and because they always get a kick out of this section of the lesson for some reason. I have the volunteer student hold both their hands in a vertical position at shoulder-length distance apart. … The area in between the student’s hands represent a horizontal timeline from start to finish of saying an alphabet letter. By using my hand and sliding it along the imaginary timeline, I show the letter B being spoken at regular speed. I do this a couple times and finally isolate the B-sound in the timeline and show the students exactly where the sound of B is located. I repeat the exact same process for the letter C.

As he goes through this initiation and modeling the students respond positively, by repeating what he is saying and he checks to make sure they are understanding by asking them in Japanese and they say they do (SS1 3:33). Again he gives his feedback by moving on to the next micro cycle about voiceless sounds and then repeating similar cycles for other letters. After getting through all of them, he begins the macro cycle response portion by asking for an individual volunteer to come up and choose one of the voiceless letters (SS2 0:15). All three students who come to the front respond to everything they have learned by making the correct choices, which he confirms by encouraging them.

To finish the other part of the macro cycle about the pronunciation with a flourish, Bickford races “through each of the sounds quickly and then slow the process down and race through the sounds together with the students. However, as fate turned out, my show-off time was a complete flop with constant mistakes.” (2009e) He did not get any feedback from them at the end at all. It was beyond them to use the skills they learned during his lesson that quickly. He does not push nor criticize them, but confirms they were wrong, and lets them leave for the day (SS2 2:29).

Finish Sounds Lesson

The finish sounds lesson is a little different from the start sounds lesson, as the video published online is of the second time he covers finish sounds. Bickford is not introducing new material, he is reviewing two old lessons and drawing connections between them. He begins with micro IRF cycles similar to the first lesson with him initiating the pronunciation, the class responding through imitation and him feeding back positively by moving on.

He then asks for volunteers in two ways that make the class a little more fun (FS1 1:24), by asking for a “Challangah!” which sounds like something that might come from a Japanese video game. He gets a few hands raised and asks the student to choose one of the voiceless letters, which he does correctly and Bickford gives him positive feedback with “Thank you.” in a sincere tone. As he looks for the next student he tosses out the chalk to them (FS1, 1:52) which is again, an excellent way again to make the lesson a little more fun.

The key part of the lesson for this analysis comes with a volunteer who makes a mistake (FS1, 6:55). Bickford feeds-back indirectly the boy is wrong, which leads to the student’s peers laughing at him. When he makes the same mistake again, he puts his head on his hands at the front of the room in embarrassment as they are all giggling.

Bickford tries (FS1 7:28) sincerely to help the student by directly placing the student’s hand on his own neck and pronouncing the letter, but this is still too much for the student who refuses to answer. Not wanting to leave him up there too long, Bickford has him sit back down without answering.

Later on in the lesson, (FS1 1:10) Bickford asks his most difficult question yet by having volunteers to match voiced or voiceless letters between start and finish sounds. The final volunteer is the boy who earlier was unable to answer the question, Bickford calls on him and allows him to redeem himself in front of his peers (FS1 2:30).

Suggestions for Improving Classroom Interaction

Overall I think Bickford does an incredible job, but I have two suggestions. First would be to use slightly less Japanese. I realize the students do have the high filter as I mentioned earlier, but things like asking “Do you understand?” or giving positive verbal feedback in Japanese may make the students feel comfortable, but they are not at all necessary. I believe the students can handle being pushed out of their comfort zone within this context far more, than he allows them to in these videos. Even if initially they resisted over time they would become more comfortable and it would help their English and their filter.

The second suggestion comes my own experience (Danoff 2010b) and Arnold and Fonseca (2007, p. 114) who suggest that learning student’s names can make them more empathetic to the teacher. In the first video the first time he asks for a volunteer he makes a mistake in the student’s name and then throughout the rest of both videos he does not once try again to say a student’s name when he finds a volunteer. Student’s names are the key to trust, they will make the lessons easier for both parties and make it less likely he will see zero hands raised when he asks for volunteers.

References

Arnold, J. & Fonseca, C. (2007). Affect in teacher talk. Language acquisition and development: Studies of learners of first and other languages. (pp. 107 – 121) New York: Continuum

Bickford, P. (2009). (Producer). Phonics StartSounds Lesson01 Part1of2. YouTube – Englipedia’s Channel. Retireved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UXszzZqy0c

Bickford, P. (2009). (Producer). Phonics_StartSounds_Lesson01_Part2of2. YouTube – Englipedia’s Channel. Retireved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXthnSojncg

Bickford, P. (2009). (Producer). Phonics_FinishSounds_Lesson02_Part1of2. YouTube – Englipedia’s Channel. Retireved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXthnSojncg

Bickford, P. (2009). (Producer). Phonics_FinishSounds_Lesson02_Part2of2. YouTube – Englipedia’s Channel. Retireved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcFF57sRcYg

Bickford, P. (2009, April 17). BubbleBoy phonics (2009): Start sounds (lesson 01). Retrieved from http://jhsenglipediaproject.com/JHS_NonTextbook_Phonics_

Lesson1_StartSounds.aspx

Bickford, P. (2009, May 9). BubbleBoy phonics (2009): Finish sounds (lesson 02). Retrieved from http://jhsenglipediaproject.com/JHS_NonTextbook_Phonics_

Lesson02_FinishSounds.aspx

Danoff, C.J.. (2010). Let’s not get started with the he said she said: Effective ALT and JTE collaboration. In Teaching english in global contexts: A wikibook published by the students of L530 class (section 6). Retrieved from http://l530.wikispaces.com/6.+

Critical+Incidents#Charles%20Danoff

Danoff, C. J. (2010). Finding new writers and nurturing old ones: A teacher-researching quest. Unpublished typescript.

Flanagan, 1954 http://www.apa.org/pubs/databases/psycinfo/cit-article.pdf

Krashen, D. (2004). Applying the comprehension hypothesis: Some suggestions. International Journal of Language Teaching, 1, 21-29.

Hillman, D. C. A. (1997). Improved coding and data management for discourse analysis: A case study in face-to-face and computer-mediated classroom interaction. Doctoral dissertation, University of Cambridge, Cambridge. http://www.quahog.org/thesis/role.html

Sinclair & Couthard.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

This is the outline for the paper I’m currently working on. Words in italics are from the paper above. As a SIOP reminder, this outline is  for my current class. It will be interpreting the same videos with a SIOP lens, based mostly off this PDF (from Macomb Intermediate School District).

Please share your thoughts on either work in the comments, via e-mail, identi.ca, twitter, facebook or LinkedIn.

Ideas for Organization of Paper:

  • BUllet point the SIOP stuff and explain how Pat fits in?

  • Do the SIOP stuff in paragraph form?

  • Narrate the lesson and comment on all the SIOP elements as they arise. Have it printed out next 2 me.

Outline

  1. Introduction

    1. “The two lessons I will analyze …”

  2. Body

    1. Lesson Preparation pp. 2

      1. Demonstrations: Model step-by-step completion of tasks, or model language to use with presentations. This scaffolds and enhances learning

    2. Building Background pp. 3

      1. * Contextualizing Key Vocabulary (improve?)

    3. 3. Comprehensible Input pp. 4

      1. * Appropriate Speech: Use speech that is appropriate to students’ proficiency level slow down and enunciate where applicable

      2. * scaffolding

      3. ** pawan p. 1451 Vygotsky (1978) defines ‘‘scaffolding’’ as the social interaction between experts and novices during which the former engage in supportive behaviors and create supportive environments for novices to acquire skills and knowledge at a higher competency level. Nevertheless, the concept of ‘‘scaffolding’’ has evolved from learning support and assistance at the interpersonal level to one that includes the use of a multitude of tools, guides and resources (Brush & Saye, 2001).

    4. 4. Strategies

      1. Discussing and doing make abstract concepts concrete

          1. I have the volunteer student hold both their hands in a vertical position at shoulder-length distance apart

    5. 5. Interaction

      1. * Clarify Key Concepts in L1

        • he writes a Japanese character on the board

    1. 6. Practice and Application

      1. Students have a greater chance of mastering content concepts and skills when :

        • ? given multiple opportunities to practice

          1. repeating what he is saying

        • ? practice is in relevant, meaningful ways

        • ? practice includes “hands-on “ experiences

          1. I have the volunteer student hold both their hands in a vertical position at shoulder-length distance apart.

    2. 7. Lesson Delivery

      1. Content objectives must be clearly supported by lesson delivery:

        • ? Should be stated orally

        • ? Should be written on board for all to see— preferably in a designated space every time

          1. To start off the lesson, I write a simple English word on the chalkboard

    3. 8. Review and Assessment

      1. Review key concepts during and at the end of a lesson:

          1. This exchange method is essentially what the instructor has stated as his style

working draft

Posted on by

Handed in my final draft of my educational autobiography this morning. I think it’s a big improvement from the last one. Let me know what you think, as I still want to keep working on and improving this document, consider it a working paper.

Charles Jeffrey Danoff’s Educational Autobiography
Submitted, but Remains a Work in Progress

I did not take a single education class before I began teaching English. Luckily, I had a lifetime of incredible teachers, whose methods I could imitate. I have since stared formally studying my profession, but the biggest influences for me will always be my teaching hall of fame: Tom, Professor Pinchin and Ms. D, three lifelong students who loved what they taught.

I had multiple ice hockey coaches who viewed punishment and derision as the most effective means of communication. If I or one of my teammates were not working hard the coach might insult us for not caring enough. Should an oversight allow the other team to score, he would punish us by not allowing us to play again that game.
Both of these techniques were designed to motivate players and get them to play to the best of their ability. Regardless of what I thought at the time, I know the coaches were not trying to be cruel. I honestly believe they felt those two tools: punishment and derision were the best ways to show us they cared and for us to win games.

For some players these methods were effective, across all levels of sport and time. Championships have been won, with these coaching ideas. Especially if they came from a coach with a high game IQ. Perhaps I was not ready to listen, but for me,  almost always, they worked against me.

During a game instead of focusing on playing, I would worry about not making a mistake. When I inevitably did, as mistakes are an unavoidable part of sport and life, I destroyed myself mentally, before the coach even got a chance to ask me “What are you doing, Danoff?”. This internal attack frequently resulted in another error.

On the other hand, coaches who positively reinforce their players “You’re doing great Charlie! Don’t worry about that!”, but who have no knowledge of their subject were equally as ineffective. Telling someone they are great, but not having the teaching skills to help them improve slows a student’s growth.

I met Tom my sophomore year in high school. For the first time I had a coach who trusted his players and had an encyclopedic knowledge of the game. He did not tell everyone they were special, but he played every player on his team every game.

Regardless of the players talent, Tom trusted them to make the right decisions more often than not, and, more importantly, he was coaching kids in an amateur game. It was not life or death. One game after I was on the ice for the goal that lost us the game, I apologized to Tom fighting back tears after the game. He smiled and informed me,

“Charlie the sun’s going to rise tomorrow. Don’t worry.”

Tom was also an incredible teacher of the game, probably because he was a better student, often talking about, watching, and thinking on ice hockey. Tom taught me how to play defence, and did not punish me immediately for making a mistake, which gave me the confidence to have my two best year’s of ice hockey under his tutelage. The first year we won the junior varsity championship, and the second we had the best record in the history of our school’s second varsity team.

Comparing Tom to some others is, if I go fishing with the coach and I don’t catch a fish, he criticizes me and doesn’t allow me to eat. The next time I go I worry about catching one and eating that evening. If I don’t catch a fish with Tom he says OK, and then he teaches me how to catch one.

Growing up playing ten years of ice hockey, it is likely I was raised by parents who were well-off, and mine were. Their hard work and sacrifices allowed me a world-class education from the cradle until twenty-two. At every juncture I was taught by experienced, trained and well-paid instructors who had all the latest technological tools at their disposal. Another privilege of my education was travel.

For six of my first eight years I was raised in Tokyo, Japan. By the time I was finished with my high school education my memories were long forgotten, but pleasant ghosts Japan had followed us home. My mother had taken up ikebana, and was a certified teacher. Her arrangements doting around our home did something wonderful to my subconscious. My father had picked up an interest in zen buddhist thought, which he passed on to me. Reading zen approaches to sport was almost as influential in my evolution as was, Tom.

Perhaps because of these shades of past travel or hearing my mother talk fondly of her college time studying in Italy, I needed to spend one semester in college abroad. I applied for three of my school’s programs. The first two flat rejected me on account of my average grades and reputation for sleeping during classes.

The third was headed by the head of the English department, Professor Pinchin. She brought me invited me into her office for the interview. Immediately, she said she liked my prose, but my grades and behavior were problems. If they changed, she said I could go to London, on the condition that I never sleep in her class.

Once again a teacher trusting me had a profound effect, and brought the best out of me. I changed my habits, studied more, and had the most intellectually awakening semester of my academic career. We studied: British history and then saw how it had evolved into modern life on the streets of London; British theatre and then watched modern plays; and British literature, then visited a writer’s home, saw paintings by her friends, visited where they lived. Professor Pinchin showed us the lives behind the words we read on the page, and about art for art’s sake.
We lived our education rather than studying it abstractly, and London opened my eyes to the many different ways of life available. After that term, I knew for certain, I needed again to travel.

So I did, moving to Japan the summer year after I graduated to work as an Assistant Language Teacher. I chose Japan first, hoping to give back something for all I had learned from the culture. I was assigned a rural, Northern town of 4,000 closer to Russia than Tokyo, which was clearly far less well-off than  my American home. I did not have pretty technological toys to play with, and that was decidedly for the best.

When called upon by the head teacher to lead class, I had to command my student’s attention with myself and the chalkboard. Obviously there were many hiccups as a result at first, especially because I had no formal training, but eventually I found a groove. The biggest pedagogical evolution over the year was moving away from Teaching English Through English (TETE].

At the beginning I used TETE exclusively out of necessity (I didn’t know any Japanese]. This worked alright at the junior high schools with a Japanese Teacher of English by my side, but at the elementary schools and kindergartens where some teachers struggled with English, it was a problem.

As my Japanese improved and I could saying the Japanese equivalents of what I was teaching I still used TETE, because I believed if my students knew I could speak Japanese, they would not try to speak with me in English. This reached a point of absurdity when I would be sitting at a table eating lunch with second grade elementary schoolers who had studied English for less than a month total in their lives and refused to expand the conversation beyond “Do you like _____?”, when I could have said a bit more things in Japanese.

Eventually I evolved my approach, and like the students in Kang’s study who responded more to a mix of TETE and the native language, than exclusively TETE, my rapport with my pupils improved immensely. If there was something difficult I needed to explain to them or their teacher I did it using a mix of the languages, and it was exponentially more effective.

The next year I moved West to China to work in a middle school. I was shocked with my student’s level on the first day. I was able to deliver lessons completely in English and the majority of them understood, or were able to figure out what to do. Seeing this, I moved back immediately to TETE. Japanese elementary schoolers were one thing, but these kids could really speak English. Surely it was better to avoid the native language.

I continued on that trend for most of the first semester, even as I started to notice some students being completely lost in class. Drawing from my experience with hockey coaches, I refused to punish my students for not getting involved in class or nut understanding me. I told them they were great and could do anything.

Unfortunately, just like my experience as a player, a teacher who tells you you are wonderful but does not actually teach you is not very helpful. As time passed I came to understand many students acting out were not doing so out of malice, but because they absolutely could not understand what I was saying.

Once I started using some Chinese in the classroom, things changed. Students who were lost started joining the class, and some – knowing mistakes would not be penalized – even began taking chances and volunteering to speak. Those were my proudest moments as an instructor.

Before I conclude, there is one more teacher I need to mention, Ms. D. She was my English teacher in my junior and senior year of high school. At the beginning, she had us read a lecture by Vladimir Nabokov titled “Good Readers and Good Writers.”

Seems simple enough, being native English speakers, reading and writing were skills that we had long since perfected. Yet a strange thing happened, when she asked us questions about the short lecture we read, we did not know the answers. As we were to discover, reading entailed far more than just feeding the words from the page into your brain, it entailed critically examining what the writer was giving you.

Like Professor Pinchin she was student continued to read modern fiction, of which, she said “If you can understand this, no one will ever be able to pull the wool over your eyes.” That quote has stuck with me seven years later and her classes have inspired me to be a critical reader and thinker hopefully forever forward.

And that, is why I want to continue to teach. Tom, Professor Pinchin and Ms. D made my life better. They gave me tools to live that I use every day. I can not think of a better way to honor them, than to follow in their footsteps. In my current role that means sharing what I study and love: my language, my culture and thinking critically about both.

References

Kang, Dae-Min “The classroom language use of a Korean elementary school EFL     teacher: Another look at TETE”System, Volume 36, Issue 2, June 2008,
Pages 214-226.

Nabokov, Vladimir. “Good Readers and Good Writers.” Lecture. Cornell University.
University of Texas. Web. 4 Feb. 2010. <http://www.en.utexas.edu/amlit/        amlitprivate/scans/goodre.html>.