Open Mic Poetry Night

AWESOME! I loved it and first want to comment on how hilarious the main speaker was, he kept me laughing. But on a more serious note, I really did enjoy this. They talked about some serious issues about identity and finding the who in who you are or want to become or be seen. It was really moving because since I am a Caucasian woman it was interesting to understand what others my age go through just because of the race they are. It ties into bell hooks chapters because she talked heavily about diversity and race and uses her own stories to portray how it was for her growing up in a prejudice neighborhood. These students are many years past hers and were in school after they desegregated the schools and still it almost seemed like some of there stories were like bell hooks. It is interesting because though we want to believe that racism is coming closer to an end, the truth is that it really is not. There is just as much racism and segregation now as there was before. I personally think that there is still a lot of segregation but instead of it being implemented through the government it is now implemented in the idea of feeling safe and accepted. Chicago is a major example of segregation because theres pilsen where its mostly hispanic, theres china town, an area where all the polish people reside, and parts that are heavily african american among other races who reside in other parts of the city. Segregation now a days is implemented through the people by means of where they choose to live. People most often will choose a neighborhood where their race is highly representative so though no one is telling them that it where they have to live they are segregating themselves by means of fitting in and trying to feel accepted among others. Though I feel this issue is not leaving us anytime soon I think there are ways we can work at it to make the situation better by becoming more accepting of others and differences we have. By promoting these differences and teaching students to accept others how they are earlier in life we can start to try to prevent early racisms or prejudices that people have.

A Revolution of Values: Chapter 2 in Teaching to Trangress

Wow. So, 1:I loved the story that this author brought to the table about her white male friend and what she had to go through when she was only 16, I thought it was so moving. 2:There was a quote on page 28 that just stuck out to me that totally gave me goosebumps... "those of us who experience any form of assault are more likely to be victimized by those who are like us rather than by some mysterious strange outsiders" which rings so true. 3:I totally agree with the author when she says people who think that there are no prejudices and or racisms in the world are lying or are in denial because racisms and prejudices do exist, and probably sadly always will. 4: Lastly, the sad truth that this author brings up is even though every is entitled to the same education, it doesn't mean everyone is given the same opportunities and still to this day not everyone recieves the same education and its due to racial discriminations and prejudices. This article was a really good one to read that I can totally agree with and understand where this woman is coming from because we learn in our classes how the educational system is skewed and twisted and this woman makes valid points to back up what we have been learning a lot about in our bilingual classes, but in a way where we are trying to learn how to fix this problem and promote a change in the educational system so that everyone can recieve the same opportunities.

Building Language Awareness: Module 2 Video

I chose to watch this video because I thought it was very important to language awareness because if you don't build upon it, the children won't understand what your trying to teach them. For this to be successful the video tells us that the language input must be in context, the context should reflect the language that the learners use, and language practice in context should be accompanied by a conscious effort and a learner reflection on that action. The video shows the students putting on an all class skit about the pilgrims and their journey to the new land,then an all class guided discussion relating the topic of traveling to a new land to their own experiences about coming to this country, and then they worked in groups to make their own travel plans of where they were going, what they would have to bring and how far away it was. This I thought was very important because the children should build upon something dealing with language, and by giving them these opportunities they are making better connections between what they are learning and whats going on in their lives to make a more meaningful lesson where they grasp the information better.

Chapter 6 Kuma Book

Chapter 6 of the Kuma book really spoke to me. It was covering promoting learner autonomy which to me is one of the most important things a child should learn. Through promoting learner autonomy, the student is discovering themselves academically which can aid them in many other things throughout their lives. Autonomy is simply said as learning how to learn. Once you know how you learn and and what is the best way for you to grasp information, the better of a student you become along with being more self-aware and knowing yourself better. In this book they explain that the context of autonomy includes "self-instruction, self-direction, self-access learning, and individualized instruction." I completely agree with this but who better to lead instruction and help understanding then yourself. When a student has the opportunity to participate in class or lead instruction for a particular topic they learn the information better because they know what they have to do to understand what it is they are learning more proficiently. Promoting self autonomy is important and us being teachers should try to grasp that in our teaching and show students different methods to help self-instruct the lessons so that everyone can learn at their maximum potential.

Curriculum Design and Materials Development Article

I enjoyed reading this article. I like how the article defined curriculum and syllabus for us though I felt that most of the items in this article were either common sense or touching on a subject I was already familiar with. I like that they kept curriculum and syllabus seperate from one another because it is true that they are two seperate things but curriculum and syllabus for me run hand in hand because without a curriculum you can't have a syllabus. Curriculum is the materials you are supposed to teach throughout the year and the syllabus is a list of when your going to address these items in the curriculum and how you will be assessing them. I liked also how this article talked about stakeholders. I always knew that there were stakeholders for certain tests and such but I never knew what they were called until this semester. In another TESOL class we have been talking about stakeholders in depth and really looking at what it means to be a stakeholder and what to take into consideration. I liked this article but there was nothing really in it that I haven't learned about before.