Entry 3: Bilingual Teacher Interview
I had the pleasure of interview Ms. Martinez. Ms. Martinez is a bilingual teacher in HISD. This is Ms. Martinez third year as a teacher. Ms. Martinez has taken the challenge to have a mix class of first and kindergarten bilingual students. Ms. Martinez mentioned that her most proponent motivation is her super improver wall. She rewards her students through out the day and awards them stars and they have a chance to reach higher levels. The super improver influences her lesson plan during her check for understanding; it is in that moment where she takes advantage to ask questions and reward students. Ms. Martinez takes advantage of the moment by praising and acknowledging the students answer even if it is incorrect. She mentions that she does not like to give negative feedback because it may lead to the student being afraid to share their thoughts. Ms. Martinez does not believe that there is no correlation between aptitude and age for her young scholars. Ortega mentions that “Found and support for the claim that the aptitude only matters for adults and adolescents, but not for young learners.” Ms. Martinez speaks about amotivation and how some students shut down when she teaches in another language. Ortega Mentions how “Finally, in extreme dysfunctional cases, individuals may fail to see any internal or external value to their actions. This happens, for example, when some students in compulsory foreign language courses say they do not know why they are studying the L2 or they express resentment at what feels like a waste of their time. These learners suffer from amotivation, and their performance in formal learning settings is predicted to suffer from it too.”
Hi Damaris!
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed watching your interview with Mrs.Martinez, she was very insightful. I love how she talks about how she always encourages and praises her students no matter what. I do feel like it is slightly dangerous to praise the students when they get answers wrong, just because that might let them know that it's okay to always get the answer wrong. I also like how she talked about how kids can go home and practice the language at home with siblings or their parents. Gass and Selinker mention that, "learning another language essentially comes from developing a new set of habits, that being the new language" (1994, pg. 95). So, it is great to go home and practice, it begins to form habits and eventually comes naturally.
Hey thank you for taking the time and sharing your thoughts. I actually believe its important to praise students for their answers because if you tell them that they have the wrong answer, they might not want to participate anymore. It is important for them to share their answers and when they hear they're peers, they will see how their answer did not match with their answer. I do agree that students do learn best by practicing the L2 at home at these often become new habits.
DeleteCite: Gass&Selinker 1995, Pg95)
Hey Damaris, this interview was insightful because Mrs. Martinez gives different perspectives in regards to motivation. Her tough experience with older children showed a lack of social support and students' poor attitude towards SLA. While younger children had better attitudes and social support for SLA. These younger students also had better attitudes towards the teacher gaining motivation from praise. Compared to older students, younger students generally show more integrativeness, “a genuine interest in learning the second language in order to come closer to the other language community” (Ortega, 2009, p.170). I enjoyed this interview because Mrs. Martinez articulated several antecedents that affected students’ motivation in her real classroom experience.
ReplyDeleteOrtega, L., (2009), Understanding Second Language Acquisition. New York, NY: Routledge
Thank you so much for taking the time out to watch the interview. Yes, Ms. Martinez does show a lot of effort in motivating the students and she does mention that it is easier to motivate the younger students rather than the older students. Ms.Martinez plans according to make sure she does anything as possible to make her lesson fun and motivating. Ortega mentions how "learners suffer from amotivation, and their performance in formal learning settings is predicted to suffer from it too.”
DeleteOrtega, L., (2009), Understanding Second Language Acquisition. New York, NY: Routledge