As I continue obsessing about where my middle ground is and my beliefs in education. I am wondering about the common knowledge of all students and letting the students get to this knowledge when they are ready.
Here is my question: When all of the students are learning the same vocabulary and/or reading the same book, isn't this common knowledge what then allows the students to have discussions (like Socratic Seminars) and speaking activities in a foreign language? (Even blogging together in a class on a specific topic?) If half or more of the students weren't there yet, or didn't do the reading, then wouldn't they be unable to participate in their learning? I am struggling with the logistics of some of this.
If I allow my students learn/use vocabulary that intrests them and not at least some (70%)common vocabulary (even if they are applying the rules of the language correctly in all of this). Wouldn't it be impossible to have my students do any speaking or communication activities with each other? They wouldn't have the vocabulary base to understand each other it would seem.
I feel like discussions, labs, and group work create a great deal of constructivist learning; however, how can these quality activities happen if students don't have a lot of the same base knowledge?
Am I the most annoying blogger EVER?????? (Don't answer that)
posted by bkitch @ 2:28 PM
1 Comments:
I think that as a class you work together to address this. I agree that if you have 30 or more students all pursuing completely separate interests it could make for a difficult class (although if they all learned would it matter?) I think there is a lot of latitude, however, to give students more control while still maintaining a cohesive class. They can help set the direction, and they can help define how you get there, but you still make sure they get somewhere. It's certainly not easy, but anything worthwhile rarely is.
But, again, the question I would pose is: "Is what we're doing now working?" Some people would answer that in the affirmative, some would not. I think one of the barriers that always has to be overcome when trying something "new" or "different" is the assumption that what we're currently doing is "fine." I would suggest that if World Languages teachers are complaining that students go through 3 or 4 years of classes and then can't communicate at even a basic level in the language, then we have a problem we need to address. If we truly believe that knowing a second language (and knowing about the culture) is important, then our current situation is unacceptable.
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