Discussion Topic 1: Learning About Your Students and Staff Drawing on your insights gained from Modules 1 and 2 and the Learning Resources for this module, respond to the following questions: • Considering your own attitudes and beliefs, as well as insights you have gained in this course, what do you feel are the most important principles to bear in mind when developing literacy learning experiences for students learning English? • How much do you know about the cultural, linguistic, religious, educational and socioeconomic backgrounds of your students and colleagues with whom you work? Where does this knowledge come from? Is it biased? (If you are not a current professional educator or teacher, think about a local school in the community where you currently live.) • What can you do to learn more about the culture(s) of students and colleagues you teach and work with? How can you use this knowledge to improve your literacy teaching? I know about the cultural backgrounds of my students in a religious context, as my school is a religious school. I have come to this knowledge through discussions with my staff, the Sheikh and the students themselves. I have a fairly good relationship with the other staff at my school as leadership is aware that they are bringing very different people together to teach and so they have spent considerable amount of time focusing on building positive relationships between the staff. I know that if I have any questions about the religion at the school, I can ask any of the staff and they would be happy to discuss it with me. When it come to teaching literacy, I think that it is important to remember that for EALD students they may need to have a particular focus on vocabulary, have more scaffolding and the opportunity to systematically link oral and written language together. I am sorry for the late post but I had thought I posted then had a thought tonight as I was going to sleep and remembered that I had not. Discussion Topic 2: Who Are EAL/D Students? Drawing on the Learning Resources for this module, respond to the following questions: • What is the diversity of the EAL/D students you are already working with, or will most likely work with in the future? • How might you use the EAL/D teacher resource to support your practice as a current or future professional educator alongside the Australian curriculum or your state curriculum? • What state resources (or localised resources if not living in Australia) are available to support you in improving your capabilities in working with EAL/D students? I have to apologise for the late post this module. After completing the readings, I got very enthusiastic about implementing some of the ideas into my own planning for next term and discussing them with my principal and deputy principal and how it would relate to our whole school literacy plan. I had honestly thought that I had replied and then I remembered as I was about to go to sleep that I hadn’t, so here are my responses. My class consists completely of EALD students and as the school is fairly new our staff (including myself) has little experience working in this area. For the foreseeable future I see myself continuing to work at this school, which means that I will be working with EALD students consistently. Our staff has found it difficult to find professional development aimed at teaching students with an EALD background, and have found little provided by the state to help us. If anyone knows of any good resources for SA I would love to hear them. Using the resources from this module I have started to re assess my teaching and examining how I could improve it. I have focused on adding considerably more vocabulary into my teaching. After the readings I was teaching and I used a fairly common work when speak to one of my students, I can’t remember what it is at the moment but what stuck me was a student asked me what it meant. This had a great impact on me at the time as it really brought home what the readings implied and I started to rethink my lesson layout. I have also added more time for my students to talk to each other about the lessons and much more demonstration and scaffolding. My school’s policy is that only English is spoken at school apart from Arabic lessons. I had a discussion with my deputy and she agreed to allow me to encourage my students to speak in their mother tongue in my classroom. I started this at the end of the term and while my students seem a little shy at the beginning, by the end of the week they loved telling me about their language and trying to get me to speak it as well. I also apologise for not referencing the readings in my post but it has been a while since I have read them, and as I stated at the beginning of this post it’s a little last minute because I had thought that I had already done it. Discussion Topic 3: Providing Greater Access to English for EAL/D Students Drawing on the Learning Resources for this module, respond to the following questions: • What areas of the curriculum do you think different groups of EAL/D students may find challenging? o Describe those areas Aboriginal or Torres Islander Strait students might struggle with and explain why. o Describe those areas Asian students might struggle with and explain why. • Describe two teaching strategies for each group, Aboriginal, Torres Islander Strait and Asian students that you could plan and carry out regularly that would provide them with greater access to English. I have to apologise again for the lateness of my post. I have been quite brief but I hope that you find this post useful. Asian students: In my experience my students have trouble hearing the minute differences between some phonics sounds, change sounds as the segment or stretch out a word and have trouble shaping their mouths correctly when saying the sounds. They also need support with their vocabulary. Two strategies that could be used in teaching them English could be: Using mirrors when teaching phonics so that the students can see the shape of their mouth and lips as they are speaking. Use smooth and broken blending and segmenting. For example if I showed a picture of a cat I would ask them what it is. Once they identify the word we stretch it out using one breath cccccccccccaaaaaaaaaaattttttttttt. Then we break it up c-a-t. The children hold up a finger for each sound. The we say c-a-t repeatedly speeding up as we go until we are almost saying the word. Finally, we say the word one last time. Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander students: I think that Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander students may have trouble connecting with the content of the curriculum. I think that educators will need to help these students make specific links to their everyday lives; to help them see the practicalities in the curriculum. Two strategies that could be used in teaching them English could be: Using texts that they can relate to in conjunction with a similar, more traditional text. By doing comparison activities you can help students directly draw connections between the familiar and the new. In indigenous cultures oral story telling is very important. I would start with a oral story that is well known to them and have them make books. These books would go into the classroom library. This allows the students to share their stories, allow the students to have access to familiar texts and encourages them to read. Discussion Topic 1: A Closer Look at Critical Pedagogy The reading for this module challenges current or future education professionals to think about the theories behind what they do as teachers and how their practice (discourse) impacts students. Martin’s article references Peter McLaren’s contribution to critical pedagogy theory. McLaren himself refers to this as the dialectical nature of critical theory that enables practitioners to explore the binary discourses of indoctrination, socialization and instruction and equality/empowerment/transformation. McLaren’s article, McLaren, P. (2003). ‘Critical pedagogy: A look at the major concepts’ is located in the Lecture Hall. For McLaren, current or future teachers must teach in ways that are inclusive and participatory to provide a better or more just education for all students. Being critical, in regards to teaching, is more than thinking about what academic subjects on which to focus. It also requires thinking about what aspects of class and culture to embed and embrace in teaching or when selecting particular texts within the curriculum. Drawing from the Learning Resources in this module, respond to the following • Critique the chapter by Peter McLaren (2009) ’Critical Pedagogy: A Look at the Major Concepts (located in the Required Resources).’ How might you describe the way in which current or future education professionals might go about not engaging in educational practices that mirror ‘social reproduction’? • How can critical pedagogy and the educational practices it demands help current or future education professionals achieve a voice to challenge those discourses that continue to be exclusive, hegemonic, heterosexist and support the status quo? I have to admit that part of the reason that I am so late in responding to this post, apart from work and course work from other uni subjects, is the fact that I found this chapter difficult to read and digest. I would have to say that I got much more out of all the other readings because that information was written in such a way that I could reflect on the readings with out being distracted. While reading McLaren’s (2009) chapter I found it difficult to keep my attention on what I was reading and often found myself 3 or 4 paragraphs down and had not absorbed a single fact. I actually read the chapter multiple times and still absorbed very little. It is because of this I cant really participate in this discussion. I believe that critical literacy has a place in education, however with younger children I would be aiming to build empathy and understanding towards others. I believe that literature is an excellent medium to spark discussions. Discussion Topic 2: Critical Literacy Drawing on this module's Learning Resources, respond to the following questions: • What is your understanding of critical literacy and do you feel it is an essential component of effective literacy teaching in the 21st century? For this Discussion, create a 3- to 4-minute pod/audio cast that thoughtfully represents what critical literacy means to you. • Share an example of how you have seen/heard/read about a classroom literacy practice or a practice in another educational setting that reflects a valid understanding of critical literacy and its use to interrogate a text. If you can't share an example, put forth a suggestion for a text that you would like to interrogate with children and explain why. I had to think and reflect very carefully before creating this recording as critical literacy is something that I have mixed feelings about, on one hand I can see the benefits of it and on the other I am very resistant to it. It is this resistance in part that has led to such a late post. I believe that I have pinpointed why I have such mixed feelings on this topic, growing up I had a father and a brother who loved to debate and argue. For many that might seem like a little thing, for me it was beyond frustrating. For example At one point my brother had an argument with me about my favourite colour. He kept citing reasons why my favourite colour was blue and would not accept that it was green. This was on my birthday, while I was surrounded by my family. It caused the feel of day to change. My memory is littered with similar instances. Critical literacy reminds me of these times and feelings. I also have a deep-seated dislike towards people who try to force their beliefs on others and politics. When discussing critical literacy many bring up politics and the status quo and repression. I instantly feel negatively towards any topic that involves politics and people telling me what I must do as an educator. All the readings were full of quotes such as ‘as educators we must’. I also find that by examining things critically it often takes the joy and wonder out of things, as Norris, Lucas, & Prudhoe discussed when explaining the reaction of preservice teachers after a critically examining the giving tree by Shel Silverstein. All this being said I can see a place for critical literacy in the classroom. Working in an EALD school I have found that while our students may be able to read their comprehension is often difficult for them. They also face discrimination from society at large so being able to critically examine images, tv, ad, movies and literacy will help them in the future. For me critical literacy is being able to examine something from different view points and understand that the person or people who produced this work also had a certain view. It is up to the individual to decide how they will respond once they examine the product critically. I am going to work with the middle school English teacher on creating a curriculum for our middle school students that is strong in critical literacy. I would love our year 10 students to critically examine ads, and packaging from an environmentalist point of view. I believe that discussing ‘Where the wild things are’ by Maurice Sendak could be a great text to critically analyse. When examing the book to challenge gender roles, the discussion could revolve around boys and their associated bad behaviour. When looking at the book and examining parental guidance, we could discuss the consequence of going to bed with out supper and the fact that Max receives supper at the end of the book. What message is this sending children about their parents and the consequences of poor behaviour. If we wanted to look at it further we could examine the ‘monsters’. This discussion could revolve around what makes a monster and why are these monsters bad. Discussion 3: Critical Literacy Approaches in the Classroom Drawing from the Learning Resources in this module and revisiting Nieto's model presented in the Module 1 Learning Resources, respond to the following questions: (Make sure your responses go beyond an acceptance of tolerance.) • Is using a critical literacy approach in the classroom an appropriate and effective vehicle for instigating social change and fostering diversity and empathy in students? Or is it just hype? Explain. • What might be the repercussions of not incorporating a critical literacy approach into a comprehensive literacy program? I dislike the view of critical literacy as the instigator for social change and I dislike that it is expected that teachers and educators should be using critical literacy to instigate social change. A strong personal belief of mine is that everyone has the right to their own beliefs and views, as they are developed through the lives that they live and the experiences that they have, however I do not believe that people have the right to try to push their beliefs on others. This is what critical literacy feels like to me in this sense. I also feel that it puts teachers into an unfair position and adds an extra pressure that teachers do not need. Teachers and educators have an important role in their students lives and I believe that they are aware of this. Should teachers be sensitive to the diverse needs of their students? absolutely. Should teachers consider themselves as a driving force for social change? I don’t believe so. I do believe that critical literacy can be an excellent tool for developing empathy and understanding. I believe that this is personal to each student and that it is up to each individual student to decide what to do about their thoughts and feelings once they have examined the text critically.
