The teacher understands and uses a variety of instructional strategies to encourage learners to develop deep understanding of content areas and their connections, and to build skills to apply knowledge in meaningful ways.

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ARTIFACT 1

Name of Artifact: Leçon sur le Restaurant

Course: FRE 537: Topics in French Culture: La Gastronomie Française

Date: Summer, 2021

World-Readiness Standards Addressed: Interpersonal Communication, Interpretive Communication

 

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RATIONALE

The artifact I have chosen to demonstrate my understanding of how to develop and use multiple instructional strategies is a series of lessons that I designed on French food and dining contextualized within a trip to Paris. The lessons were an assignment in the course FRE 537: Topics in French Culture: la Gastronomie Française, a course that looked at French history and culture through the lens of food and haute cuisine. Based on a backward design approach, the lesson's objectives were to provide learners with the linguistic, cultural and conversational competencies and skills to place an order and dine in a French restaurant. A wide range of activities were used that aimed to teach new vocabulary, understand French menus, speak about food and engage in a conversation to order dinner with the wait staff.

 

I chose this artifact for this standard because it demonstrates my understanding of instructional strategies in French language and culture and also my ability to use multiple instructional strategies to support a wide range of learner needs. The activities were designed to integrate all four key language competencies (reading, writing, listening and speaking) and required learners to use the interpersonal and interpretive modes of communication. Some of the activities required learners to work alone while others, like problem solving or the creation of a dialogue, required them to work in pairs and in larger groups. Building lessons around interpersonal activity and collaboration is an essential part of instruction design since they lead to more effective language learning (Vygotsky, 1978; as cited in Gass et al., 2020). Another important element to the overall instructional approach was to integrate a variety of activities from listening and writing to games, conversation and role playing. Not only does novelty lead to more engaged learners, but designing instruction around a wide range of activities also helps ensure that the needs of all learners are met. Instruction was designed around the use of authentic materials and students used those materials to engage in authentic tasks based on real-life situations. Task-based activities improve the retention of new vocabulary and have a significant effect on overall L2 development (Shrum & Glisan, 2016). My instructional approach also took into account that the comprehensible input being used was directed toward concrete communicative goals so that learners understood the link between their tasks and the final objectives (NSFLEP, 2015). Finally, part of my overall instructional strategy was the use of a scaffolded approach in which learners were first introduced to the vocabulary they would need, and then this was layered with activities to develop linguistic and cultural knowledge to prepare them for the final dialogue.

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As this was one of my first courses in the MATL, I feel that now at the end of the MATL program I would modify various aspects of this lesson. The introduction of new vocabulary through the use of a game was quite effective, but the introduction of the three verbs would have been a more meaningful and engaging experience if I had used the PACE Model. Second, the final dialogue provides learners with a good foundation and fun learning experience, but I question how much they would retain in the long term. I feel that by integrating a small amount of communicative pressure through an approach based on comprehensible output would be more effective to their second language acquisition.

 

References

Gass, S. M., Behney, J., & Plonsky, L. (2020). Second language acquisition: An introductory Course (5th ed.). Routledge.

Shrum, J. L., & Glisan, E.W. (2016). Teacher’s handbook: Contextualized language instruction. (5th ed.). Cengage Learning.

The National Standards in Foreign Language Education Project, (2015). World-Readiness  Standards for Learning

      Languages (4th ed.).  Alexandria, VA.

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ARTIFACT 2

Name of Artifact: Review of Task-Based Learning

Course: WL 561: Teaching Second Languages: Theory into Practice

Date: Fall, 2021

World-Readiness Standards Addressed: Interpersonal Communication, Interpretive Communication, Making Connections, School and Global Communities

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RATIONALE

The second artifact that I selected to demonstrate my understanding of instructional strategies is a critical review of the book While we’re on the topic: BVP on language, acquisition, and classroom practice (Vanpatten, 2017), which I conducted as an assignment in the course WL 561: Teaching second languages: Theory into practice. This artifact caused me to reflect on my use of Communicative Language Teaching (CLT), to question my overall approach and to modify my instructional strategies.

 

The first issue VanPatten (2017) raised that caused me to reflect on my teaching practice was his argument that most language teachers are not using CLT correctly. CLT is an approach that emphasizes the use of communicative interactions that reflect real-world situations and it must be conducted with a purpose, requiring interpretation and negotiation. Prior to my work in the MATL, students in my classes were actively engaged in speaking activities, but Vanpatten (2017) points out that this is a common mistake. Students are speaking and we think they are progressing but all we’ve done is overlayed the textbook with speaking drills that engage students in practicing language, not communication. For effective interpersonal communication to occur, two or more students need to engage in an exchange of information in a spontaneous or non-scripted way so that their communication has genuine meaning and seeks to achieve a real objective (Shrum and Glisan, 2016).  

 

VanPatten (2017) explains that communication objectives can be placed into one of two broad categories, that is, there are two main reasons driving our need to communicate: psychosocial or cognitive-informational. Psychosocial refers to the need to form or manage relationships; cognitive-informational refers to the need to discover or identify information. When communication occurs for one of these two reasons, then the communication is focused on a genuine purpose with meaning which results in triggering the brain’s language acquisition mechanisms. If students’ communication is based on reciting verb drills or rehearsed dialogues, then neither of the two main communication objectives are present, there is no quest for meaning in the communication, and acquisition does not occur. The most effective way to integrate psychosocial or cognitive-informational goals into classroom communication is by using an instructional strategy of task-based learning.

 

I chose this artifact because it highlights my understanding of how to use a variety of instructional strategies that engage learners in activities specifically designed to develop second language acquisition and interpersonal communicative competence. This artifact helped me see that many of my classroom activities involving communication lacked a purpose. I had developed lessons that required students to use their L2, but in a non-communicative way. Because tasks are designed with a specific real-world objective, they require learners to communicate in a way that expresses or interprets true meaning, a process which triggers the language acquisition mechanisms in the brain (VanPatten, 2017). Tasks are one of the most effective instructional strategies for developing a learner’s L2 as they “provide a framework for contextualizing communication and enable learners to make the necessary exemplars and connections to develop increasingly complex language" (Sheppard, 2020, p. 329).

 

This artifact also demonstrates my understanding of how critical it is to develop instructional strategies around learner needs. Task-based learning places students at the center of the instructional approach and can be designed so as to accommodate multiple learner needs and individual learning styles. Furthermore, tasks emphasize cooperation and collaboration, an approach to learning that not only results in high overall achievement and retention, but also develops learner ability to effectively ask questions and negotiate meaning (Shrum & Glisan, 2016).

 

A shortcoming in my prior teaching approach was how to effectively integrate comprehensible output into my instructional strategies and activities in order that learners develop genuine communicative competence. This artifact has helped me grow as a language teacher by helping me understand how to combine comprehensible output with interpersonal communication and task-based learning so that students are provided with an effective learning experience and learn how to apply their knowledge in real-life meaningful ways.

 

References

Sheppard, C. (2020). Using task-based language teaching in the second language classroom: Developing global communication

     competencies. In E. Manalo (Ed.), Deeper learning, Dialogic learning, and critical thinking: Research-based strategies for the classroom

     (1st ed., pp. 321-328). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429323058-19

Shrum, J. L., & Glisan, E.W. (2016). Teacher’s handbook: Contextualized language instruction. (5th ed.). Cengage Learning.

VanPatten, B. (2017). While we’re on the topic: BVP on Language, Acquisition and Classroom Practice.   

     The American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages.