Featured videos: language, literacy, writing

Reading Together

Perusall logoWe’ll use Perusall to annotate and read together. Link here to Perusall. Instructions for joining on the Assignments page.

Calendar: link here

Author: kdarlington

MA-TIL, TESOL Colby College fluent in Italian tutored English in Italy (1 year) taught English in Korea (3 years)
(Kory) Between Two Ferns: campy, low-budget goodness

(Kory) Between Two Ferns: campy, low-budget goodness

For the final project, I’m currently toying with the idea of doing something similar to Between Two Ferns with Zach Galifianakis. If you’re not familiar with these YouTube videos, they’re comedic interviews between Zach and famous people such as President Obama, Justin Beiber, Brad Pitt, and Bradley Cooper. Zach asks ridiculous questions and makes passive aggressive remarks throughout the videos, undermining his guests and causing a feeling not unlike the one you get watching a car crash in slow motion.

I think it could be funny to do something similar with an entity like “The 5-Paragraph Essay” or “Traditional Grammar-Teaching” as the guest (and possibly “generic ENGL 431 student” as the host), pointing out flaws in both while they try to argue as to why they still matter/are relevant. I like the idea of creating a satirical video about these since they are so accepted in the traditional education system. As teachers, we’re aware of how laughable they really are and the flaws they have. I’d like to use comedy as a tool to demean their importance in teaching writing.

Oftentimes, changes to the system are a hard pill to swallow. I think that creating a campy video allows access to a discussion that might otherwise be dismissed as confrontational/useless/hippie-ish/etc. The initial distrust isn’t there because it’s entertainment rather than a debate or podium-preaching.

I really enjoyed The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report for the same reasons. They presented the news in a way that was informative, but also entertaining as they unabashedly satirized everyone and everything. Somehow they still managed to have more integrity than other “real” news stations.

From my end, it’s intentionally low-tech which would make production super easy. I could record the video on my phone or digital camera. Any shakiness, bad lighting, crappy sound quality, etc. wouldn’t detract from the overall feel of the video. However, without cool music or flashy images, I would really need to make sure that the repartee is fierce. I think that this makes the actual dialogue a lot more important… and possibly difficult to write. Also, the delivery must be dead-pan. No stifled giggling allowed.

This is all I’ve got so far.

“Twitter is for idiots. Instagram is Twitter for people who can’t read.” -2 Broke Girls

“Twitter is for idiots. Instagram is Twitter for people who can’t read.” -2 Broke Girls

(I thought this was hilarious when I heard it. For the record, I have an Instagram account.)

 

Instead of discussing the articles, I just want to go back to the discussion we had in class about Twitter. It’s vaguely related to Baron’s article in that literacy technology is changing and social media like Twitter and Instagram are part of it. Last Monday, someone made the comment that people are using it “wrong”.

I’m about to be a contrary asshole on purpose. I think the HUGE amount of hashtags used can be both obnoxious, tedious, and ineffectual. That being said, it’s really part of a bigger issue surrounding American politics, self-expression, and our inalienable right to freedom of expression.

I think it’s a dangerous path to go down when we start saying that someone is using a media platform the “wrong way”. It doesn’t mean I necessarily want to hear/read it all, but looking at Baron’s discussion on the history of the pencil, it’s clear that the intended use of something and it’s actual use aren’t always the same. Who are we to say no?

There’s the proverb, “the pen is mightier than the sword.” Well, in this day and age, “the 160 characters are mightier than the newspaper on your doorstep.” I understand that a hashtag like #bringbackourgirls is powerful and we are loathe to put it in the same category as #pumpkinspice. But I also understand that not every book is worth reading and some published articles are horseshit. We need to accept that this is the world we live in.

I think a lot of people are freaking out, either promoting or condemning Twitter and/or Instagram. Some people are addicted. Some utilize it for business gain/personal growth/misplaced self-esteem. Other people scoff at the idea of President Obama having a Twitter account or Pope Francis using Instagram. They see it as cheap and undignified. I think it’s important to acknowledge that technology has the ability to both launch us forward and hold us back. It’s our choice as to how we use it. It’s stupid to condone something for the bad it can do without at least admitting its potential for good as well. Nuclear energy happened. Genetic engineering happened. Twitter happened. More things will follow.

So go ahead and change the world… or change your outfit. #OOTD. It’s your perogative. Just know that with great power comes great responsibility.

Kory will resist the temptation to make a testicles joke… barely.

Kory will resist the temptation to make a testicles joke… barely.

BALLS!!!

But really. I’m not trying to pull a cop out by basing my blog around the clearest part of the Russell article. I legitimately found his ball-playing analogy great. I mean, of course when you put it that way, the idea that there is no such thing as “writing [as] an autonomous skill” becomes so much clearer! Well done, Russell!

“Learning to write means learning to write in the ways (genres) those in an activity system write…”

So, for better or worse, this was made even more evident to me during my last tutoring session at the ESL center. Multiple students came in asking for help with a business assignment in which they were asked to write a business memo to their supervisor explaining why X, Y, and Z were the best choices for a business endeavor.

Ball-handling skill #1) As students, they had questions about using MLA format and how/when/where to cite articles required to support their suggestions. It’s a general academic skill that many students are just asked to “figure out”. Maybe they’re given a link to the Purdue Owl website.

Mediational Mean: Ok, but this also depends on the teacher. How strict are they? What exactly are the expectations? One professor asked for the articles attached as word docs as well as the citations. In my TIL program, we’re supposed to write using APA format, but most of my professors wanted our papers single-spaced. None of them minded if the papers were double-sided. Only a few cared about a cover page. Rules are made to have exceptions, I suppose.

Ball-handling skill #2) Now here is the one that gave me an “Ah-Ha!”/”Oh no…” moment. One of the students showed me a copy of his teacher’s rubric. It had lovely sentences about how the memo/paper should sound professional, be clear and concise, flow naturally, and have enough supporting evidence.

Mediational Mean: Now… a student with previous knowledge of how to write a memo and who has had English as their first language might find these guidelines sufficient. ESL students… not so much.

Cultural differences are a huge factor is what “professional” even is. Here’s a fascinating link (at least I think so) to a series of charts of how negotiations “should” be run around the world. Take a quick look at the American and the Korean. My students happened to be Korean. See the problem?

http://www.businessinsider.com/communication-charts-around-the-world-2014-3

Now, let’s say they understand how to organize their thoughts in an “American business” way. There’s still the language gap. I sympathized with them SO MUCH while I explained how “a lot” is better than “lots”, but not as good as “several”. I struggled to explain why “we will try” is a phrase to avoid in a business memo… even if that’s exactly what will happen. “Try” is no bueno. Better to sound assured and confident; “we will” (even if we won’t).

As for clear, concise, and flowy… who decides something like that? News flash: as an ESL student, none of this is probably completely clear, concise, or flowy to them, so they are trying their best to bullshit it!

The same goes for evidence. Based on background knowledge, enough “supporting evidence” differs. If I wrote a paper for this class referencing the need for teachers right now, I might not need to cite any specific article because it’s pretty much general knowledge for us. If I mentioned that to an electrical engineer, they might ask how I know that it’s true. I found it difficult to give sufficient help because they were writing business information and I wasn’t sure what the general pool of knowledge was for them. I’m not part of the Business Activity System.

Ball-handling skill #3) My student was very concerned with making sure his memo sounded “good”. He even had me read an example of a past memo by one of the other students in the class (who was obviously a native English speaker). He proceeded to tell me that he wanted his paper to sound like this one… but obviously not like this one since the subject matter was different and we kinda frown on plagiarism.

Mediational Mean: Even the title of his memo was difficult because when your language skills are limited, it’s hard to make the same thing sound different. For example, tell me other ways to say, “The box is red.” As native speakers, we might come up with “The cube is scarlet.” “The package is crimson.” “The container is vermilion.” You get the idea. BUT FOREIGN STUDENTS DON’T KNOW HOW TO DO THAT! AND EVEN IF THEY HAVE SOME IDEA, THEY’RE AFRAID OF GETTING IT WRONG! God forbid, they try to say the “The parcel is wine” instead of wine-colored because it changes the meaning completely!

My point is this:

There are very specific ball-skills needed in the real world and a lot of students are lacking in both the skills and the tools needed to succeed. I am not trying to criticize the business professors, but it worries me that they probably haven’t ever taken a class on teaching, much less teaching ESL students. It takes a lot of awareness to see how large the skills/tools gap is for many of the ESL community at Chico State and unlike children, the negative consequences are big and wear on them. These students might just give up on the idea of walking and that’s not ok.

Kory: OH EM GEE! The Industrial Revolution was SOOO two centuries ago!

Kory: OH EM GEE! The Industrial Revolution was SOOO two centuries ago!

The premise of my blog is based off of Situated Learning and the animated YouTube video “Changing Education Paradigms” inspired by a talk given by Sir Ken Robinson.

Robinson discusses how the educational system was created during the Industrial Revolution and also in the image of it. Students were separated into categories; “academic” and “non academic”. Children were (and are) educated, separated by age group with subjects taught separately. It’s based on conformity and a production line mentality.

LLP offers the idea of learning in a different way. Instead, learning is seen as “participation in the sociocultural practices of a community”. Immediately, there is an evident contrast between the mentality of exclusion and the mentality of inclusion. Rather than learning (successfully) as a skill a person either has or doesn’t have, it’s seen as a natural and imperative part of functioning in society.

It’s kind of beautiful in its simplicity and range of possibilities. Unfortunately, its application to the American school system is anything BUT simplistic.

I will say that we have come a long way in the past two centuries. It’s more evident to me in language learning than other subjects. I’d venture to say mathematics is still on the more archaic end of the spectrum. Language learning has evolved to encourage group participation, student-centered learning, and application of knowledge OUTSIDE of the “glass house”. Even just in the past ten years, there has been a huge change in how learning a language takes place. Still, it’s not as close to “natural” as Krashen would deem ideal.

The Industrial Revolution mentality also hasn’t affected all countries equally. I remember how foreign and strange it was chatting with Italians while I studied there. To an extent, they still have a Renaissance mentality. Rather than subjects being separated, Italians see them as interconnected. It’s completely natural to talk about a single subject in terms of science, art, history, AND political science. For instance, a building is a work of art, a piece of history, a mathematical and engineering feat, and a cultural icon. Seems pretty simple, but they think that way ALL THE TIME about EVERYTHING. I always thought our conversations were richer because of it.

I love the description of LPP as “a way to speak about the relations between newcomers and old-timers, and about activities, identities, artifacts, and communities of knowledge and practice”. It’s so similar to the Standards for Foreign Language Learning created by ACTFL!

Here’s part of ACTFL’s Statement of Philosophy:

“Language and communication are at the heart of the human experience. The United States must educate students who are linguistically and culturally equipped to communicate successfully in a pluralistic American society and abroad.”

THIS IS WHY I WANT TO BE/AM AN ESL TEACHER!!! I come from a long line of teachers in my family. I always swore that I would never be a teacher because the public education system has too much yellow tape and teachers aren’t appreciated or supported enough. Then, I went to Italy and tutored English privately to a 10 year old boy named Tommaso and I saw education in a different way. Tommaso and I chatted. We talked about soccer and food and life! We compared our cultures/communities and bonded over similarities and gained new perspective over differences. I didn’t feel like I was teaching a subject. I felt like I was spending time building a new community for the two of us.

So… in short, I feel like I have a fairly good grasp on the idea of LPP and how powerful it can be in terms of ESL/EFL. I’m a big fan. *waves large “#1″foam finger*

My difficulties and worries arise when I think of how it could possibly be applied to the rest of the academic world. I can see the benefits and grasp the idea on an individual basis, but changing a giant INSTITUTION is daunting to say the least. How do we make LPP part of our social construct of “education”?

Obviously, it’s not a change that can happen overnight. It also has to be addressed on multiple levels. Standardized testing is stupid. Politicians don’t know what they’re talking about. Divergent thinking is being educated OUT. But maybe if we get people to teach subjects who are TEACHERS (and ballsy); if we can offer an alternative form of learning (successfully), we can make progress. I really hope so. Otherwise, my future children will be in private school and I’ll need to find a more lucrative career to pay for it.