Section 1: Class Reflections
Class Reflection 1
For my own language learning and teaching, the activity to get the learners ask for information stood out because I often notice many students having difficulty asking for help to instructors and to peers. Through doing this activity, I found my partner helpful as I did not have to ask questions by myself. Rather, we asked the instructor together which made us less stressful asking for help. Thus, I found it an effective strategy. I would categorize the activity in “direct strategy”, as it offers English expressions to ask questions. Moreover, it has twelve tasks to cover with partners, which encourage the students to interact with peers and provide time to practice the expressions in meaningful ways. As we just learnt that practice makes the learning active according to the learning pyramid, this activity can be one of the various activities we may offer at the beginning of a course. (153 words)
Class Reflection 2
In this lesson, I noticed the importance of experiencing the strategies which work for improving my autonomy. Through experiencing the activities, I felt that the key is for teachers to offer space for students to take control, such as the forms of vocabulary cards, what content to write in, and the design. Moreover, in reading strategies, experiencing the training made me want to do further. The reading activity matched t\he content of the book, which mentioned the ability of open-minded learner vs close-minded learner. According to the book, open-minded ones are willing to make mistakes and try harder challenges as their focus is on improvement. In any activity, autonomous learners grab what they want when teachers offer purpose and option for them to choose. Same can be said to listening strategies we learned yesterday. I would like to introduce the two ways to students one by one by listening together the weekly podcast we use in class. (158 words)
Class Reflection 3
The practice to sort out strong and weak reflections and finding what more to add was informative. Specifically, when I thought one reflection weak and then found out it was not that bad through discussion and Juanita’s explanation, I found I was grading some former students’ reflection in a different way. My check point was not enough to see the necessary points of the activity. In Day 3, as we learned the three main essentials of the reflection, I started checking these points, which made me understand the process of reflection itself. I also learned that having explanation to check these three points with the reasons made us improve our skill to judge thorough reflection and partial ones. Yesterday, when I was thinking of makeup exam for the absent students on final exam, I decided to get them reflect on the course. I listed what they need to cover which are: changes they made, the reasons for the change, and the next target. I am ready to grade them in an improved skill that I learned. (176 words)
Class Reflection 4
On the final day, it was beneficial for me to know that making a balanced lesson including four steps in KUIS model was efficient as I always tried to get students start general practice. General practice which are activities in real life is not highly regarded among Japanese students, so I had hard time convincing them to listen to songs, reading books, and chatting with exchange students. They think these activities are just for fun and do not connect to their language skills. To get them autonomous in doing general practice, I will introduce a diagram of the four steps so that they understand and start doing autonomously. Throughout the course, we learned how to use various strategies for the purpose of learner autonomy. Thank you for the great experience for us to explore independently from now. (138 words)
Section 2: Vocabulary Project Reflections
Word Card Reflection
First, I thought checking six words using word cards would be boring. Though, it gave me chance to think of my own goal and to think of which parts to focus on. In detail, for the first time, I tried to memorize the main parts, i.e., the target words. The second time, since doing the same way was not exciting, I focused on the word family. Some of them were new to me, so I enjoyed memorizing and felt accomplishment in catching new vocabulary. For the third time, I reviewed by checking each card as I already memorized the target words and the family of them with a help of my drawings. I noticed that I like to have visual aids to better comprehend the content. In this way, there were much room on us to decide how to use the cards, which made this activity all the more interesting. (150 words)
Auditory Vocabulary Project Reflection
This was the first time I recorded my target vocabulary. I found three benefits of doing the activity. The first point was the merit of making your original. In this way, I could make stress on my weak parts and I could eliminate the parts I already knew. This customized recording can avoid needless parts, because we do not need to study “what you don’t need”. Secondly, I found that listening instead of only reading or writing the words helped me remember them more vividly. When I checked my style of learning using the sheet at class, I did not fall into any of the categories, but I had some preference in each way among kinesthetic, auditory, and visual. Thus, trying the listening got me aware that I can use plural ways to learn one target. There was another discovery that listening was an effective way for me. Third, I felt like a professional announcer after recording and using my own video for study tool. This improved my confidence in making materials, so it can be exciting for students to create them since their stereotype to "wait for teacher’s material" may change. (191 words)
First, I thought checking six words using word cards would be boring. Though, it gave me chance to think of my own goal and to think of which parts to focus on. In detail, for the first time, I tried to memorize the main parts, i.e., the target words. The second time, since doing the same way was not exciting, I focused on the word family. Some of them were new to me, so I enjoyed memorizing and felt accomplishment in catching new vocabulary. For the third time, I reviewed by checking each card as I already memorized the target words and the family of them with a help of my drawings. I noticed that I like to have visual aids to better comprehend the content. In this way, there were much room on us to decide how to use the cards, which made this activity all the more interesting. (150 words)
Auditory Vocabulary Project Reflection
This was the first time I recorded my target vocabulary. I found three benefits of doing the activity. The first point was the merit of making your original. In this way, I could make stress on my weak parts and I could eliminate the parts I already knew. This customized recording can avoid needless parts, because we do not need to study “what you don’t need”. Secondly, I found that listening instead of only reading or writing the words helped me remember them more vividly. When I checked my style of learning using the sheet at class, I did not fall into any of the categories, but I had some preference in each way among kinesthetic, auditory, and visual. Thus, trying the listening got me aware that I can use plural ways to learn one target. There was another discovery that listening was an effective way for me. Third, I felt like a professional announcer after recording and using my own video for study tool. This improved my confidence in making materials, so it can be exciting for students to create them since their stereotype to "wait for teacher’s material" may change. (191 words)