Journal 3

• Journal III (4/28 or 5/19): Highlight anything that you have learned through this course and discuss why this is meaningful for your learning and instruction.




   This semester is already running to its very end. Only about three weeks are left before we close this semester. Feeling getting maturer, I reflect upon the days I have spent with this course. At the beginning, plenty of energy inside me drove me passionate. As the days kept going, I felt difficult to keep up with all courses I took. Yet I did not fully recharge the  energy I had lost, it is obvious that this time is a good time for reflection.
   At the very first of this course, I learned how novice readers begin to read. In order for them to start enjoying reading, they should recognize letter shapes first. Sounds, phonemic awarenesses, writing conventions and others come after. In addition, there were several activities help students understand them better.
   Reflecting upon the teaching experience I had with my pre-literate students in the states, I could not help but highlight this part. I think I merely repeated spellings and corresponding sounds over thousand times, rather than using strategic approaches. My supervisor teacher taught me an easy physical movement and phonemic deletion test to make them understand the fact phonemes are pronounced together as a syllable; however, it was too limited. I was not able to find other activities would make learning phonics and letter shapes easier at that time.
   This part might not be important for readers starting to read in L1 or Korean context, but for those who are not even literate in L1 happened to read in L2, the teacher should be fully aware of the techniques and processes in this book. Due to the fact that the novice readers are highly dependent on teacher at the period of time, the teacher is supposed to be attentive at every time. In this regard, this part is fundamentally meaningful. 
   Moreover, strategies and metacognitive skills which help reading faster and more efficient were seemed revolutionary to implement in real classrooms. I have evidenced number of students struggling with the dramatic level difference between middle school exams and high school exams. From high schoolers, they are supposed to read relatively long and many texts in exam, especially for Korean SAT. When they were in middle school, their reading strategies would be sufficient if they can memorize and understand some short texts, certain grammatical points and new vocabularies. However, things are drastically different in high school. All of a sudden, they face tons of texts they are supposed to read in a short time. They need new strategies to assist them otherwise they will be frustrated like some students who are called "영포자". 
  I believe there are strong demands to train strategies explicitly. Taking this fact into account, the section in this course was undoubtedly meaningful. Students especially in higher grades are in need of this kind of training. Teachers can support them with providing various strategies, such as skimming for details, getting main ideas only, checking comprehension throughout a text and jotting down their thinking. Without those strategies, students would feel chaotic first.
   Last but not the least, I was able to realize extensive reading is in part adaptable in English classes. Reading for fun in target language, at first, looked strange because I have never experienced such a thing. However, the school I went practicum have created a comfortable and accessible environment for extensive reading. There were several shelves full of intriguing stories in the English-only classroom. Whenever students visit there and read more than a story, they receive a sticker to win a prize. After I have taken the class about extensive reading, I thought of this kind of attractive environment for pleasure reading would promote students' reading skills.
   In sum, the three parts mentioned above were particularly meaningful to me. I presume that this course was rather practical than theoretical. The contents explained in detail were readily applicable to real teaching situation. Thanks to this fact, I have got lots of useful information about reading.
   The left time for this semester would also fly away very soon. Hoping to wrap this semester up without any regrets, I close this essay.