Diary 1

Session 1,


 Preparation:


I’d rather start with my feelings about the assigned materials & tasks.The strange feelings I’ve been experiencing since the first session(introduction to the syllabus)was a mixture of depression, confusion accompanied by a bit of fear.It is a hard work of course but my main concern is about the time & a good management of it. Creating a good balance between my studies & my other responsibilities.

To be honest I was not much successful in doning so for the first week,which again left me with a feeling of guilt and depression. Anyway for the part I could covers honestly it didn’t trigger my mind much.However the humanistic approach with its deep care for humans & their inner world and it’s emphasis on individual’s thoughts and feelings and emotions at the top of all human development seemed of great importance to me.It is so coz in my opinion this is the human who must finally benefit from the whole process of learning and teaching and it’s the most natural thing to pick up an approach which will ultimately consider this dimension.

Also the interesting attempts of Erikson to draw Freud’s views on human psychology development into education psychology.He makes very important implications such as that learning lifelong and therefore not restricted. That real life learning involves challenges that need other people help and that learning involves the whole person ,his emotions, thoughts & feelings not just transmitting knowledge.

So students must be encouraged to make their own sense of the world and they should make their own decisions and choices. In this way humanism also has links to constructivism coz they both put emphasis on the individual’s search for personal meaning.

When it comes to social interactionism we can see that the ideas of humanism and constructivism are still present plus the undeniable factor that learning takes place as we interact with others in a social environment and they believe it’s through these interactions that we may make our own sense of the world.

I think that we can not completely separate these approaches since they developed ties into each other.There always will be a search for more complete ones but not of course from a zero point and again my idea is that the great departure was made once we recognized that learners must make their own sense of the world around.

Assistance:

The first interesting topic in the class was the idea of negotiated curricula. I first had a kind of resistance toward this subject since I thought that some or even most of the sts do not have a clear idea of what can really benefit them more considering the text book or the tasks, activities… .The instructor made it clear that the teacher can provide sts with some range of selections among the materials that she thinks are according to the sts needs and then sts decide which ones they like better. Maybe sts and teachers can not both be completely satisfied but at least they can negotiate on their ideas and be aware that differences exist and then try to create a situation that everyone gets sth. The key fact here is just to consider the sts needs from the beginning to end and give sts a chance to make decisions themselves.

I’m trying to accommodate this new idea in my mind but I’m still a bit skeptical if sts can decide better or the teachers. If once I’ll be in such a class I’d rather ask my teacher ”What’s your idea?”

The other subject we discussed in the class was intelligence. The dear instructor insisted that a teacher must come to her sts dominant intelligences and then base her tasks in a way to touch these intelligences. Theoretically speaking this is a perfect idea but I feel it’s to demanding on the part on the teacher since a teacher must be so creative in doing so, moreover the teacher must spend much greater time for writing the plan of each lesson for each class each session. Maybe the element of experience can be helpful. The other point is the short time the teacher has in each semester to know her sts and the defined number of sessions and the defined syllabus to get finished in that time make the situation more complex.One other question which just came to my mind now is that can the teacher go beyond the objectives of a lesson.I’m not sure but I think that the teacher can usually have these creativities in warm-ups and activations but not in the process of study which should be according to the procedures in the book.

The last interesting material emphasized by the instructor was the element of authenticity which was somehow attacked by Widdowson.I think it was a delicate point he paid attention to-the fact that interpretation authenticity and social context one are quite always missing if not not the text and the task one.So we see that the outcome will not be like the one we could achieve in the real authentic context.

I used to think that ok up to now the CLT is the best teaching method and just 2 shortcomings that it’s good for UI levels or upper and not good for EFL classes. However the instructor by this example showed how we must see and analyze ideas from a different angle and not simply accept every new idea which may just look novel and perfect

We are in the beginning of the way and now my concern is that can I really train my my mind in order to be a more critical one which can be sharp enough in order to see all the aspects of ideas, put them together, compare and contrast them and come a crystallizes view of them in my mind.

Application:

The ideas of negotiated curricula and also the one of having intelligence teats in my classes attracted me the most. I’m looking for an opportunity to use them at least once to see the outcome myself. Although I know that just by one experiment I can’t come to a fair judgment but I’m just very curios to try them coz I never had such an experience in my own classes(neither as a teacher nor as a student).

The Widdowson’s skeptical point of view on the concept of authenticity also made me more curious to work on the CLT ,how can we improve it to meet it’s complete potentials.