(pleasant music)
- Hi, I'm Karen Duncan.
And I'd like to talk to you about the different approaches,
methods and techniques that you studied in your text.
Now in your text,
it stated that many people believe we're
in a post-methods era.
So that's why in this video,
I'd like to use a few of my ESL and EFL experiences
to connect to the idea of a post-methods era
to help you better understand what that means.
The first experience I'd like to share
with you is my experience teaching
in a first grade sheltered ESL classroom
in an elementary school in Kansas.
There, I was teaching in a sheltered ESL classroom.
So that means that all of my students
were English Language Learners,
but I had to teach the regular curriculum
of the other classrooms.
So in this classroom,
I used a lot of content-based instruction.
I had to teach the curriculum.
So I taught subjects like math, science, social studies,
but I supported their English language needs.
Another example is task-based learning.
One example of this is when I was teaching science,
I did a seed sorting activity where the students had a bunch
of different seeds.
They sorted them into different categories,
and then they matched those seeds
with the names of the plants.
So they had to finish a task by the end of the activity.
I also used a lot of multisensory learning
in this classroom.
One specific example was when I asked students
to create something out of clay,
they could be really creative and think something,
think of something interesting to create.
Then I asked them to list different activities
to describe what they had created.
And then finally they wrote a story,
including a lot of that description,
all of those English words that they had learned.
I also used TPR in this classroom.
Every day, we worked on the alphabet
and different sounds
and we would have the students
act out the different letters through TPR activities.
The next experience I'd like to talk to you about
is my experience teaching in junior high schools
and some elementary schools in Japan.
Now, when I was there,
I was an assistant language teacher.
So there was a Japanese teacher
who was the main language teacher,
and I was there to help out,
mostly with listening and speaking.
So in the classroom,
I tried to use a lot of the communicative approach.
The Japanese teachers used a lot of grammar translation
and the audio lingual method.
But when I was solely in charge of an activity,
I used only English and tried to interact
with the students in English only.
I also tried to get them to interact
with English outside of the classroom.
So I created an interactive English-only bulletin board
for them to see in the hallway.
I also used the direct method a lot in junior high school,
but a lot in the elementary schools when I was there,
I used a lot of pictures
and taught vocabulary directly through those pictures.
Also, TPR is great for the elementary classrooms
that I was in.
I used that a lot to teach classroom vocabulary
and action verbs, especially.
Another example is when I used project-based learning a lot
in the junior high school.
One specific example was when I was in charge
of an English club.
And one of our activities was to make Christmas cookies
because they wanted to learn more about American culture.
I created a simple recipe in English
and we followed it together
and completed the project
of making Christmas cookies together.
The last teaching experience I'd like
to talk to you about is when I was teaching
in an intensive English program
at a university in Colorado.
So in this program,
we had students who are hoping to gain entrance
to the university,
but their proficiency standards
weren't quite high enough yet.
So in our program,
we used the communicative language teaching approach
because we wanted our students to learn listening,
speaking, reading, writing,
and grammar through context and only using English.
I also used task-based learning when I could.
One specific example
of this was when I had a basic English class.
So these were beginning level students
and we decided to take them on a tour
of the university's gym.
It's a very nice gym.
And so before we went on this tour,
we had these low level proficiency level students
write down questions,
so they could be interactive during this tour.
And that was their basic task to complete.
I also used a lot of project-based learning
when I was teaching through context.
So when I was teaching an advanced reading
and writing class, I had the project
of having students research nonviolent resistance.
So this was an advanced class
and it was an advanced topic for them.
We talked a lot about this topic.
We watched videos, we read articles,
they learned a lot about it.
And ultimately they had to choose one,
something that was happening in the world today
that you could classify as nonviolent resistance.
And they had to write about that in an essay
that was the project that they had to complete.
I also used multisensory learning
when I could in my classrooms.
The students learned through a lot of musical activities.
I used pictures and brought in regalia when I could,
I also use cooperative learning in the classrooms.
And this was because all of these students wanted
to go to university.
And at most universities in the U.S.,
professors ask you to work in groups a lot of times.
So one example was in an listening and speaking class.
I had the students grouped together based on hobbies
that they had in common.
So one group, maybe they liked skiing
or another group really liked reading.
And they had to give a group presentation
about those hobbies.
So they had to cooperate and work together.
By hearing my examples of my different experiences
in various classrooms,
I hope that you can see how I differentiated
between different approaches,
methods and techniques in order to teach,
according to the philosophy of my employers,
while incorporating my own ideas
of best practices in the field.
I hope you consider this post-methods era
in your future classrooms.
(pleasant music)