After reading the articles of this week, I have the same feelings as what Dr. Oliver indicated in Lecture 3—all the AT approach should and will be implemented on the Internet because it is way too efficient than the traditional Independent Study Session (No need to find a big place for learning carrels, to spend huge amount of money to print all the handouts, and to find people to stay at the learning center.). Besides, I really love the idea of Small Assembly Session (SAS). I agree with that, “one really learns a subject when one prepares to teach it,” it is really a good way to know if students have learned something as well as a great opportunity for them to learn from each other. I also like the idea of General Assembly Session (GAS). I am shocked that students did not like it at all. I cannot help but think that the activities in this session was not arranged appropriately because guest speakers and films that related to the course content should be very interesting and motivating. I even doubted that because the attendance is not compulsory, did the students who evaluated the GAS as useless actually attend to any one of the sessions? I believe the multi-sensory approach is appropriate for meeting students’ different learning needs and styles, so I would like to adopt SAS and GAS into my future courses for review or assessment purposes.
However, for foreign language teaching, I am concerned about some points of the AT approach. First of all, students have to be self-directed in the learning process. I have heard too many people told me that they tried thousand times to start learning a language in my life, but I seldom heard successful stories. Learning a skill that is not imperative to somebody’s life or that without a strong motivation plus no one to push you is very difficult. In addition, in my opinion, I always believe that language should be learned in an environment that you could actually use it. With no professionals to correct students’ pronunciation and no one to practice conversation with, the progression for them is limited. Again, I totally agree with the multiple approaches of the AT method, but I think these approaches should not replace the class meeting in school; they should be regarded as great supplemental resources.
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You and I should connect - because I'm working with some folks who are going to be using some supplemental language materials to help them practice their budding language skills.
ReplyDeleteI found the fact that the authors cite research in the conclusion of their piece that PSI is actually proven to be much more effective (in terms of achievement) than AT fascinating. I would have thought that the opposite would have been true...
From Jennifer Knott: I agree that language is best learned in a group setting, with a leader, where the students can immediately practice with each other. However, language learning on tape, CD, and now podcasts is very popular. In that sense, it seems that individual learning in the AT approach is a perfect way to engage during the small assembly sessions. In SAS students bring to the table what they know and can offer correction to those in the group who need it.
ReplyDeleteHey Matthew,
ReplyDeleteThat sounds good! What are you teaching right now? I would love to know more about what you're working on!
-Miya
As Jennifer noted, I wonder if the assembly sessions might be just what is needed in online foreign language instruction. In our evaluation work with the state virtual school, we found the foreign language courses were frequently among the lowest-rated by students. I don't think students liked the self-paced nature of language learning and really longed for the type of interaction and oral practice an assembly session could provide, even using an online tool of some sort.
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