Session 7—Situated Cognition and Cognitive Apprenticeship

When first thinking about using “apprenticeship” in education, I can only think of the subjects that need specific skills for concrete result such as crafts and cooking. I didn’t think this approach could be used in language teaching. However, after reading the articles, I realized that this is an effective way of teaching reading and writing in language education. I found that modeling doesn’t have to be limited to actions that perform a difficult skill; it could be presented in different forms, like think aloud or simply read and write (or whatever you want them to imitate) in front of students.

I especially like Palincsar and Brown’s “reciprocal teaching of reading.” It made me clearly understand how cognitive apprenticeship can be used in language teaching setting. In this approach, students can first observe an expert’s demonstration and learn from it before actually doing it, so I think it is a great way to ease beginner’s tension to learn new things. Besides, this approach asks learners to speak out his/her own reason of doing some action, I think this is a good way to allow students to articulate their own opinions as well as reexamine their decisions. Moreover, learning reading in this kind of environment can help students become sensitive of good answers when other classmates are answering the questions in order to help them either learn from others or become the role of teacher to help others. As a result, I think it is a very good way to engage students into the classroom activity, eventually helping each other.

For me, I think the difficulty for this approach is what cues or hints to give students. It is not easy to guide people without giving answers. However, I think it is crucial to help students to figure out the answer by themselves in the learning process. And I believe that this is a teaching process that needs teachers’ experience. Because teachers can learn from students reactions to see if the hint works, after a long period of experiments, the teachers can have a series of effective hints to guide confidently in class.

I think it’s possible to use this approach online for language instruction. For example, changing the form of conversation into the written form on the individual blog to answer the questions asked by the teacher like making a summary or asking questions to clarify, etc, and ask students to respond to each others’ blog entry. Or using virtual meeting to discuss these questions online. Nonetheless, I still believe that discuss face-to-face in class is the best way to give timely assistance and is easy for teachers to observe students’ progress by seeing their facial expression.

Session 6—Problem Based Learning

I think Problem Based Learning is a very motivating and interesting way for many subject areas, especially for professional skills. In PBL, students are given an authentic problem and go through the whole solving process within a group. They will definitely get familiar with knowledge related to the problem, learn how to work cooperatively, and gain research skills. However, I don’t think it is an easy job for teachers. Although teachers shift the control to students, that doesn’t mean the teachers get fewer work, for me, that means more jobs to do. Teachers need to have a well-designed problem and prepare a list of possible sources that they may need (of course, ill-structured one). Moreover, they must explain how PBL works explicitly to alleviate students’ anxiety about learning less as well as guide students to the next process or review current solution with constructive questions but never specify the steps. I think it’s a time-consuming process for teacher to design the course. Also, it’s very challenging for me to guide students with questions.

I am thinking that I can use this strategy the same way as what I thought of for Guided Design; the difference between these two strategies for my task is that Guided Design has specific steps for students to accomplish the task, and PBL asks students to come up with solutions themselves. So I think I can use the former strategy for beginner level class and the latter for advanced one. Also, I think that may be interesting to allow students to decide the question that they want to conduct research about it. I can give them a big topic such as Chinese history or culture, then students can think about what they want to know more and start the research. At the end of the course, groups can share their findings to each other, that way, every one cannot only learn from their own subject.

I think for this strategy, discussion is the most important part (between the group members and between group and teacher)! Therefore, I think Elluminate is the best tool for students to have meeting together since they can talk, type, and share the document or link with all group members. As to the resources that the teacher needs to provide, I think trailfire is a good way to show them the information.

Session 5—Cooperative Learning

I love cooperative learning! I like its ideas of learning by doing as well as learning in a community. It is exactly the same as language learning. Language learning shouldn’t be done alone. People must practice with somebody to see how it works. By using cooperative learning approach, students can practice the target language in front of a group of people that they feel comfortable with before saying it out loud to the whole class. Also, it is always effective when students have more opportunities to talk in such small groups. More importantly, when students learned how to learn from each other and communicate with others in the class, I believe that they can keep learning outside of the classroom.

When I try to apply this to my future teaching, I think of combining what I’ve learned in ECI 513 that I can have students in small groups to make videos together. I think it would be a great idea to let students have chance to write a Chinese script and then act it in Chinese! Or, I can even ask them to record each other’s pronunciation and compare the differences to the teacher’s/instructional tape’s pronunciation. I think that will be neat for them to see themselves speaking Chinese! I can’t wait to search more strategies that could be applied to Mandarin teaching.

Although I think cooperative learning will get the greatest outcome when people talk to each other face-to-face and sit in the same classroom surrounded by its safe and comfortable atmosphere, I still believe people can do it on the web, just like what we’re doing in this course. But when it comes to language teaching, I would suggest using web cam as well as headset to facilitate the communication process. It is always difficult for people who don’t have a mutual language to understand each other without seeing their facial expressions and gestures. In addition, I think that teach only one group of students synchronously would be better. I don’t believe that a teacher can monitor two or more groups’ discussion online at the same time without being disturbed by so many people talking at the same time. (Unless there is a computer program that you can switch from one group to the other, I don’t know one, but just think that there is always a possibility.)

Session 4--Guided Design Process

Compare to PSI and AT approach, Guided Design Process includes more interactions and practices higher thinking level skills. For me, this approach is like a hands-on activity because students are learning by solving some real life problems. This concept is the same as what I think a foreign language teacher should teach her/his students. If students can apply what they have learned in class to their lives, students can retain the knowledge longer. When they face the similar situation, they will know how to respond to it. With the teachers’ guidance and the step-by-step process, I believe that students’ fear of learning new things will be eased and gain more confidence by completing the task.

When reading the articles, I came up with an idea using guided design process in foreign language instruction: Give students a scenario (maybe in a supermarket looking for specific product or traveling in China) and then ask them to discuss what kinds of conversation may happen. Which means students have to think about the possible Q&A as thoroughly as they can to deal with any situation. And ask them to actually go outside to see if their conversation works or come to the classroom for role-play. I love the part that students prepare first as a small group, compare their answers to other groups, and finally listen to what experts may do. I think after this whole process, they will learn more than the class that receives the traditional lecture. I am very excited about this idea and really want to try it out. In addition, I think this process could be easily applied to the online environment. It just needs more detailed description to give students appropriate guidance as well as timely assistance by the instructor. But as what I have indicated in previous reflections, I still believe that language teaching gets best outcome with face-to-face instruction.

I was shocked when I first see that foreign language was pointed out as one area where this approach is not effective. But after consideration, I think that might because of the inappropriate design of the activity or might because that the goal and process of language learning is rather obvious, the step-by-step process might be trivial to students and eventually lose their motivation. But these are just my guesses; I would like to read the detail of those two foreign language studies to find out what happened.