Difference Between SER and ESTAR

Transcription

1 Hagerup 1 Kristina Hagerup Learning and Teaching 451R Self-Reflection #2 Grammar March 24, 2009 Difference Between SER and ESTAR For this lesson on grammar, I decided to teach the difference between the two to be verbs, SER and ESTAR. Throughout this lesson, I wanted to keep in mind the concept of letting my students discover the rule on their own rather than me just telling them. I set up a series of pair activities (including information gap, and hypothesizing rules) surrounded around a particular context (in this case facts about Frida Kahlo) to allow my students to negotiate meaning with each other, discover significance on their own, and learn information in a interesting context. At the end of all the pair activities, I wanted to confirm or clarify the rules they devised on their own by explicitly demonstrate the rule through formal explanation. In order to simplify the rule, as well as help with chunking and mental organization, I came up with an acronymic word for each verb to explain the occasion when it is important to use each verb. All that is what I hypothetically wanted to do for this lesson, and on paper it seemed like a air tight lesson. Well, from what my peers said, it was a good lesson, hypothetically. Delivery wise? Not as much. First, all my peers commented on my visuals and the creativity of the structure of the lesson, something that I was really happy about. I take a lot of time to make sure my visuals are comprehensive, just in case my oral delivery is not as much. I like to see them as almost a safety net to the lesson. If for whatever reason my students had no idea what I was talking about, at very least they could follow the lesson visually if not aurally. As for the creativity of the lesson itself, that also made me feel successful because I worked hard to make sure that this lesson was unique as well as something that would maintain my students attention. Along with the creativity of the subject matter of the lesson, my peers also like the structure of the lesson. I wanted to use Krashen s concept of i+1, making each activity slightly more difficult

2 Hagerup 2 and constantly building toward the ultimate goal of learning explicitly the rules for using SER and ESTAR. I wanted to start with something that, even if my students had no Spanish background, would be able to accomplish because it was merely reading text on paper. From there, I increased the difficultly by asking them to find the verb in the sentence. Then I asked my students to comprehend the text they were given to find patterns when each verb was used (the most difficult of the three tasks I gave them.) Finally, they would have to rely on their auditory and visual skills to listen to the explicit demonstration of the formal rule. Within the structure, my peers also said that they also liked the pair activities, especially the information gap activity. I m not sure if they noticed the strategy I used when coming up with the pair activities, but I did have one. I made sure that I did at least two pair activities, both times my peers didn t have the same partner. Hypothetically, I wanted all my students to be able to work with someone of differing skill levels to help them with whatever level they are at, or just give them a chance to work with someone who speaks differently or sees the situation differently. Finally, my peers commented on the use of L1. This was one thing I was a bit apprehensive about doing, but was actually met with positivity by my peers. I know that it is usually stressed to not use any L1 in the classroom, but I thought with new material, something that my students may be confused by, a bit of English would help with clarification as well as lowering the filter level. From the positive, there were also some negatives that my peers observed. First, the beginning and the end of the lesson. One of my peers wanted more of an introduction and another wanted more of guided practice. Honestly, I thought the initial warm up activity was enough. I didn t want to do something that took too long and seemed to unrelated to the ultimate objective of the lesson. So I just showed the class a picture of Frida Kahlo, introduced her, and told the class that they had the same picture as well, however with their picture there were also facts about her and some facts had missing information. From there I moved into the first activity. I thought that was enough. I think maybe it was lesson than successful because perhaps I didn t explain it as well as I

3 Hagerup 3 would have like to. Either way, I stand by that if I had delivered the warm up more clearly, it would have been sufficient. As for the end of the lesson, many of my peers wanted some kind of guided practice or evaluation of the new material. This is something I rather frustrated with because I had a guided practice all ready to go, but I didn t think 1) I would have enough time and 2) it would be too difficult. I was going to ask my students to come up with a sentence for each instance to use each verb they would use to describe themselves, (for example, for ESTAR, come up with a sentence that incorporates HEALTH.) I thought this would take way too long, as well as my students won t know enough Spanish to do this in the time allowed. Realistically in a class of my own, I would know that my students would know more Spanish vocabulary than the one peer in my class that knew no Spanish and I would have done this activity. But for this particular lesson, I think I should have either revised the lesson so that I could have assessed my students comprehension in some way, or done another partner activity so that if they didn t know any Spanish they could still participate in the comprehension process. Also, in the matter of time, I think if I had gone through the presentation more I would have had a better sense of how much time everything would take and would know better if another activity was in the realm of possibility. Another thing my peers mentioned was wanting more forced output. I thought the output I had with pair interaction was good for output, because with pair interactions (especially with the information gap activity) both students would have to talk. So I stand by the fact that that was a good choice. However, I agree that I should have had more forced out put during MY explanation of the rules, when all the students were one as a class rather than divided into pairs. This would have checked for comprehension as well as get the students involved with what I was saying rather than just having them sit there and hoping that they were absorbing what I was saying. The last thing my peers mentioned goes tri-fold my grammar, my speaking speed/clarity, and tension/nerves that all contributed to my oral delivery (something I am personally rather

4 Hagerup 4 disappointed with.) First, the speaking slower. Honestly, I thought I was speaking slower (after last time I wanted to make a conscious effort to do so). From speaking slower, I was finding my Spanish was getting rather slopping because I was thinking too much about speaking slowly and clearly and not enough about what I was ACTUALLY speaking. From there, I realized that what I was saying was making no sense (I didn t even really know what I was saying) so I assumed my class had no idea what I was saying so then I got frustrated and frazzled by trying to clarify my instructions, which made my completely lose almost all my Spanish vocabulary and it just kept snowballing. I got too nervous, which my delivery confusing and shaky, which in a classroom setting would have resulted in 25 students eating me alive. Last time, I felt confident because I was in a good grove, if you will. I had practiced, I knew what I was going to say, and when I started talking my Spanish was clear and correct. This time, I got up there, so focused on speaking slower and conveying information slowly, that I completely lost my composure and botched up what I was trying to say. This can be resolved with more practice and more confidence, one obviously more easily achieved than the other. After going through what my peers said about my lesson, and after seeing the tape myself, I have some things I noticed as well. First, let me just touch on why I taught the material I did. As you can tell, I only taught the difference between the two verbs, I didn t go over really what they meant, or how to conjugate them. I didn t do this because realistically I would assume if I were teaching this lesson for real in a classroom, my students would already know how to conjugate them and know what they mean. Also, and I will go into this more a bit later, I didn t think I would have time to go over conjugation and meaning within the fifteen minutes. Alright, on to critiques. First, agree 100% with some of the negative things my peers said (most of which I already commented on.) Physically, I seemed very tense, and nervous. If I were a student and saw me teaching, I wouldn t respect or listen for that matter to what the teacher was saying. No confidence equates not knowing what they are talking about which means less respect. And given my height, I need all the respect I can get. Slightly less important is the fact that I rarely

5 Hagerup 5 smiled. I know that doesn t really have much to do with the lesson itself, but if I m not smiling I feel like that relays a message of not wanting to be there, and if my students see that I m not having fun, why should they have fun? I think that lack of smiling had to do heavily with the fact that I was nervous and I could mentally feel like I was crashing and burning (during which time it s harder to smile). Once again, this will improve with more practice and becoming more comfortable with both my Spanish and the idea that I m what s standing between comprehension of a new concept and complete failure of my students. Along with confidence, comes the issue of talking speed. I m having a hard time finding a nice medium while maintaining clarity with my Spanish. But, that said, I think this is just another thing that will come with time and experience. One of the biggest issues for me (aside from the actually speaking which was rather big too) was the issue of time. I went over time last time so I was trying to cut down on explanation and activities so that I could make time easier. But because I did that, I was under time this time. I wouldn t have been under time, however, if I had done the guided practice that I wanted to do. I think this is just a case of hindsight frustration, but I should have been more confident about time and at least tried to do another activity. (I suppose this issue came back to confidence.) In theory, I stand by using some English to explain these new concepts. However, again with my delivery, I don t think I used English very well. After watching the tape, it didn t seem like there was any logic to when I used English to explain the concepts and when I would attempt Spanish again. In a classroom setting, that would have been terribly confusing and highly inefficient. The words on the poster were written in English but I would say some of them in Spanish, and that is confusing, even for me. Ideally, what I wanted to do was read them in English, then pick one of the students in the class to demonstrate the rule in Spanish (I kind of did that with Caitlin, but not nearly to the degree I wanted to). I think by that point I was so frazzled that I completely abandoned the lesson I came up with.

6 Hagerup 6 Though the confidence, oral delivery and time issues are all rather big problems, I feel like I did do some positive things. I really do like the structure of the lesson. All the activities are supported by theories (Krashen s i+1, Swain s forced output, Vygotsky s cooperative learning as well as scaffolding with the pair work.) If asked, I could give solid reason as to why I wanted to do everything that I wanted to do and support those reason with facts that prove what I wanted to do would be successful (if I did them well). I also am prove of my creativity. I worked very hard when constructing the worksheets, the posters, and the acronym to learn the rules. Creativity, I feel, gets the students out of the norms of a typical classroom and sparks their interest because it is something different. The acronym was especially helpful I think because, at least for me when I was learning Spanish (especially when something had either a lot of rules or rules that seemed really unrelated to each other), poems, songs, acronym, pictures, all helped me with both understanding the new rule as well as retaining it for future recollection and usage. Overall, I feel like on paper, this lesson was very good (sorry if that was a bit cocky), it was the delivery that needs work. Everything I wanted to do was well thought out, was supported by facts, utilized theories and methods that are proven to get results, and it was a very creative approach. However, while that is all well and good, a sheet of music notes is useless to the listener if you can t play any instruments (metaphor!). It didn t matter how good my lesson was on paper, my students won t care that I have all this theory and facts and rubbish. If they don t learn anything from what I say to them, a flawless lesson is completely useless to me. What it ultimately comes down to is that I didn t orally perform up to par (at least for me personally), and I don t feel like I delivered the material in a comprehensive way. I need to build my confidence, practice speaking better, and develop a better sense of time. Also, it wouldn t hurt to smile more.