Week 7 Assignment #2

Dear classmates,

Here is the link to my week 7 assignment #2,

Assignment #2

I am not an in-service teacher, so please give me some feedback to help me learn more. And you will find out I tried out two new software this week, they are Animoto and anwmal.

And one of my friends who is a 2L teacher, he gave me very useful feedback maybe you are interested too.  In the second part he also answered me the question about student-centered strategy was suitable for 2L learning or not due to that was my goal to be a second language teacher. Hopefully, it can provide some idea for you. If you have any related question, you can contact him,

Liam O'Neill  liam.mail.ny@gmail.com

Yiyi:

I just put in a few additions in italics.  I think you did a really good job analyzing the lesson. You were quite thorough. 

The language demands for such a lesson are quite high. In order for the discussion to be interesting there needs to be 

1) a complex problem or subject matter to start with - in this case it was a complex short story. 

2) Then, students should be able to think deeply about the subject matter and formulate opinions that may be different from their classmates - only then will the discussion be interesting and move along. 

3) And only then will students be able to learn from each other, possibly change their original opinions, see a new perspective, etc. When this happens there is valuable learning taking place. 

I believe that this kind of learning cannot take place in a 2L (second language) class. The students simply have not acquired enough language for new learning to occur. They don't have the language to 1) read a complex enough piece of literature that, 2) formulate opinions that are so different from each other that they can discuss them for long. And so, 3) they really won't be learning new things because the level of discussion is so low. 

I do not believe that this type of learning strategy can be mimicked in a 2L classroom. 

Hope this feedback is helpful!