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.

Journal 2: reading skills

Discuss readings skills that you have learned in this class, but have rarely used in your reading. Do you think they are really necessary ones for better reading? Why or why not? .

   Skills rarely implemented to constitute meaning are just as important as other skills that are frequently used. As the rarely used skills are standing by, they are generating infinite potentials within. In this short essay, I will prove how this statement can be true through three major supporting points.

   Before that, first I have to set a background for this discussion. In my case, I think I generally use recognition, reorganization and inferential comprehension skills according to the table 4.3. When I skim through a text, I tend to first firmly recognize the details and important ideas, then fill in comprehension gaps by inferring skills. After I glanced one time, I try to reconstruct what I have read. In other words, I first build firm buildings by recognizing, and then build bridges among them by inferring, and at last I reorganize the buildings and bridges in my mind. As a natural consequence, the skills related to evaluation or appreciation are rarely implemented. This is my reflection on reading skills used in my mindset.

  Let us set a discussion on this background. I believe the skills unused are also to be given importance because skills required for better reading vary according to text, purpose, genre, and so forth. Although I love to read in the way I described, I have to leave room for other skills to take a part of reading comprehension. Otherwise I would end up with reading interesting novels interpreting details, main ideas and sequences, rather than appreciating the literature itself. In addition, it is evident that readers use different skills in different purposes. If I am to decode important details in a scientific journal, lower-level skills would play a significant role unless I have plenty of knowledge in the subject matter. In opposition, I would just enjoy if I am to read a short romance novel. In this case, I will use different skills than the skills in former situation. Skills seem to be unused have enough reason not to be ignored.

   Second, trying different reading skills in a context facilitates reading comprehension. Referring to my case, I would have to try evaluative skills and appreciation skills in order to compensate for my lack of comprehensive comprehension. Perhaps because the main purpose of my reading is to detect details and memorize whole, I was not given ample opportunities to train those skills, whereas basic academic skills such as predicting difficult words and overall comprehension were foregrounded. However in near future I will face such problems due to deficiencies of those skills. If I am to enjoy reading, the skills I had rarely use should be given importance.
   Third, the skills other than a person usually implement are not static. In other words, skills are subject to change and subject to merge with other skills as well. For instance, you will need a variety of subskills if you are to perform a higher level skill. The range of those subskills are too broad to be exclusive; that means, you will have to use almost every skill you can employ. In this regard, there is no skill can be ignored. You will eventually need all the skills if you are to read.
   In sum, reading skills we are not familiar with are as important as the skills we frequently use. We will need every set of skills otherwise cannot perform a reading task flexibly whenever we face different situations. All the skills should be given importance, for the ease and enjoyment of our reading.

Journal 1: how can I help my brother enjoy reading?

   First, I will identify the problem precisely. Is his hesitation attributable to cramming methods and physical punishments the hakwon adapted? If not, is that because of his unwillingness to study? Several problems are possible. And perhaps it is also plausible to say that two or more problems occurred at once. Clear identification of the cause should be preceded than any solutions.
   However, I will avoid asking it directly. If I do, he will feel uneasy. Instead, I would put it in indirect ways: why do you hate the hakwon?, do you feel the books are difficult?, have you ever punished physically in the hakwon?, etc. By eliciting the cause, I think I will be able to find the reason why he hates studying English. 
   After that, I will come up with solutions which are specific to the problems. In this journal, I will suppose a very general situation that he had lost interests on English.In this case, watching Disney animations or English cartoons together would motivate him again, I think. All of young learners of English love cartoons and animations whether they are in English or other languages. We will watch English version for sure, but caption is necessary. I am not going to say anything related to English rules or words until the very end of the animation. In the same regards, I am not willing to force him to understand the movie without caption. We will enjoy, laugh at, put ourselves into, the animation. Soon after we the animation ended, I will ask him how to write the title of the movie in English. For example, he will write "Aladin" if we watched Aladin. If he has any problem, it is totally okay to glance over a video cover or poster. Then I will cover what he had written with a paper, and sound out each phonemes of "A-L-A-D-I-N" as I uncover the letters I am pronouncing. And I will let him do the same thing with me. If he seems to copy my sounds, I will bring few names more from the movie and repeat the same process, but not too much. only two or three names are enough. We have tons of time to watch other movies and practice in the same way. The more important thing is that not to distress him.
    But this method can be too mechanical and boring, just like the crucial weaknesses of phonics activities. So I will try other methods as well. One thing I thought is that I can buy some books in English, something like pop-up books, toy books, or books related with his interests, such as car, dinosaurs, etc. For example, the book named "The very hungry caterpillar", which is redesigned as pop-up book, was fascinating when I saw that. To be honest, I lost all the words at the moment I opened the book because of its attractiveness. At the very first glance of the book, he would probably just look at all the attractive pop-ups rather than its contents. However, he would be interested in the contents as well in a short time. Human is a curious being. At that point, I will read it aloud first, and do it again with him, and then translate the sentence into Korean. For other example, I will buy him a book in dinosaurs if he is a big fan of dinosaurs as other boys are. He will find familiar pictures of dinosaurs and see the names or simple sentences written in English. It might be written as follows: tyrannosaurus, pterosaurs, stogosaurus, etc. Then he will be able to link the spoken forms of names of dinosaurs to the English names. Further, he might be wondering what the sentences mean. I can do the same thing as I mentioned above, anytime. In those ways, I can certainly motivate him to read.
    In sum, I believe that young readers have to be motivated first. Without any interest in English, it is simply impossible to learn it in their lives. To achieve this, we have to take a detour. In other words, motivation should come first although it would take time. The methods I mentioned are certainly time-consuming, however, I suppose they are highly likely to succeed. 




-- pictures of books mentioned--