It identifies the problems and successes experienced by the four student teachers in implementing CLT. Student teacher (ST) traits that failed to facilitate this practical student communication would be problematic features of the student teacher experience. A paper I presented on the first practicum lessons of six Chinese student teachers (including Jun and Chaoxing, two participants in this dissertation study) found several CLT problems (Fagan, 2015).
Problems and Successes in Practicing CLT
It then presents the finding that little student communication occurred when student teachers implemented practices common in China. I also use communicative teaching intent instead of CLT intent because student teachers did not fully understand the principles and techniques of this approach. In their first lessons, the four student teachers performed practices common in China's classrooms.
Descriptions of Dilin's first lesson and Chaoxing's third lesson provide examples that show how student teachers applied practices common in China's classrooms that interfere with student communication. Chaoxing's third lesson is another example of how student teachers have introduced practices common in China that interfere with student communication. In all but Jun's first lesson, the student teachers showed communicative teaching intention by trying to implement typical CLT activities such as role play, information gaps, pair.
The other key finding of this study is that the student teachers drew on their Their lessons were good examples of this study's finding that the student teachers experienced many successes in implementing CLT.
Post-lesson Dialogue to Solve CLT Problems
In six of the seven lessons, students were largely silenced by long periods of explanation. So it sounds to me like you're still not really sure what the most important part of the lesson was. He wanted to become more of a "facilitator", like Feng, instead of the "boss of the class", as I reported in Part 1.
I didn't really think that students could learn from each other, which was evident in my actual delivery of the class. In retrospect, she said, "It's kind of the classroom atmosphere that I like when I was a student." But Chaoxing also said that she was happy and satisfied because the students spent parts of it talking to each other. Well, you know it takes a lot of time." Um, for what you've done, do you think that kind of the more teacher-centered way that you've done it is best.
He decided to become more of a facilitator rather than "the boss of the class" (Dilin, Reflection 1). To bridge these differences and identify problems, I found that our dialogue progressed through stages: We built up knowledge of the lesson through assessments, to finally focus on a.
Opening Assessments on the Lesson
I didn't have a very good introduction, even though I present them with this menu that they can refer to, they have no idea what the word means. Because I'm choosing, I'm choosing the menu that is a Mediterranean restaurant, which many of them haven't had. I can see that when I give them the menu, they all dive into the menu.
And there was kind of, you know, asking each other, or trying to check it online, check it on the Internet to find out what that word means. D:…You know, it's become a bit of a distraction from what I really want them to know because I just want to use the menu as realia, you know, as we read it from the textbook. Just they can approach to use that thing to help facilitate my, sort of call to help my activity.
In his opening assessment, Dilin focused on the obvious problem that the students did not know the many foreign words on the Mediterranean restaurant's menu. However, they identified either minor problems which had little effect on the lesson, or obvious and general problems which were evident.
Building Assessments
And another problem I think is that some of them might think they're used to [the] words. For example, Jun used “bored” around 11:30 during our reflection to more clearly put the students into two camps: “some got bored and some got confused.” At 33:20, Jun used “bored” students to worry about the problem that the different language levels of students yielded for him.
I'm not sure who gets it and who doesn't, who got bored and who got confused. Maybe because she follows it strictly, maybe she refers to the script, to the answers I prepared for them. And instead of saying the language, she just said, "No, I'll do it." And it wasn't really focused on… the classmate's question.
One of the things that came up when you were doing the lesson planning was that you had a language SWBAT, but you didn't have one. And it seems to me that your focus in thinking about this lesson is so oriented towards grammar.
Focusing on a Problematic Part
This construct played a small role in identifying a broader problem with instruction: a focus on language, not functions. Despite these references, it is difficult for student teachers to focus on the problematic parts of the lesson. Our dialogue returned to this minor problem and then another digression before we could focus on the roleplay.
Jun and I moved in fits and starts to focus on how his lesson was lacking. I referred to the Record to focus our attention on the first 23 minutes of her vocabulary lesson. And, uh, and I think it's really necessary to provide images, uh, for them, because they can really imagine, like, a swimming pool.
She also realized that my purpose in focusing on this part was possibly to consider something problematic, her "explanation". Next, she showed communicative teaching intention by saying, "I don't like to talk too much..." After that, Liying expressed an opinion or position that could be judged, questioned, challenged, confirmed or denied (Bereiter, 1994 ; Wells, 2000). We then moved to the Phase 4 work to try to agree whether her explanation was necessary.
Agreeing on the Problem
Do you think the students really understood what they had to do, or do you think you could have given clearer instructions? In this excerpt, Chaoxing minimized the magnitude of a problem with instructions by suggesting that the students begin the role-play after she restored her instructions. 18 Initially, Jun and Liying agreed with my opinion that the students were “polite.” Liying agreed with my opinion that her students “follow the teacher's rules.” In contrast, Hong Kong students in Gan's (2013) study did not follow their student teachers, causing them classroom management problems.
In doing so, she noticed that the Japanese student who came late did not know what to do. Chaoxing now reconstructed her role play dialogically to realize that the Japanese student did not role play with her partner. I could agree with this assessment and then add with understanding my observation that for most of the students it was like this: "The students spent a lot of time looking at their cards and not talking to each other." Chaoxing agreed with this by adding,.
Through our "joint activity" of reconstruction (John-Steiner & Meehan, 2000, p.37), we now became clear that the students did not know what to do. However, from his perspective, they likely have more interaction than the students in his technical college classes in China.
Searching for a Solution, or a Redo-Fix
- If you were doing it again, how would
- What would you try to do differently to get them to play roles?
- But the students were just staying in their seats. Is there anything different you might
- Would you do that the same way next time, or would you try anything a little
- So they shouldn’t know the other partner’s card
- What do you mean by ‘setting it up?’
- So what would it be like if you used a student-oriented way to explain vocabulary?
- Or to, or to, teach vocabulary…
- Now another thing is that when we do a role play, how do we get the students more
How could it have been done so that the students actually paid attention to those demonstrating how they did it. These questions served to create an activity not found in the lesson, to avoid further disagreement, or to quickly get to the point of problem solving, as Chaoxing's proactive attitude allowed. The last column in Table 11 shows whether we found a recognized solution to the problem and how the problem was solved.
They favored using solutions that closely matched the phenomena from their early lessons (Wells 2000). For example, if we go back to the very beginning of your lesson, how did you introduce that? Okay, how could you have gotten the students to talk to each other in small groups from then on and still talk about household problems?
And yes, if I paired them up and asked them to share with the students...it would help them start talking. He admitted that this arrangement would "help them start talking". It would have taken away his frustration at how the students were so quiet and how he made up for it by lecturing.
Supervisor Coaching of the Redo-Fix
It also found that the student teachers often follow me to give these specific solutions. In the remaining first reflection cases, the student teachers and I were able to jointly achieve the objectives of the phases to find solutions. RQ1: What practice problems hindered student communication in practicum lessons and how did student teachers successfully implement GLT.
Early lessons included lengthy explanations of vocabulary, while the student teachers then attempted to implement CLT activity. The fifth finding was that when we were able to achieve the objectives of the phases with mutual understanding to find solutions, student teachers appropriated these solutions for implementation in future lessons. And my sixth finding was that dialogue moved student teachers to apply many ideas for more professional, communicative TESOL practices (Rogoff, 1995).
The fifth finding was that when we could achieve the objectives of the phases of mutual understanding to find solutions to CLT problems, student teachers appropriated these solutions for implementation in future lessons. This study shows that Chinese student teachers in Western practicums also reproduce these CHC practices. This study also explains important and principled traits and qualities that student teachers can use for.
Further and larger studies of Chinese student teachers in Western TESOL practices should be conducted.
