Possible Thesis

A common theme in all my classes that I am taking (aside from TESOL) is that I need a thesis.  While I am not married to any of my ideas, they all seem to be general/broad ideas.  My current frontrunner is studying Bi-Lingual Koreans and examining how this affects their lives- professionally, socially, etc.  This could be done by way of an ethnography, phenomenological study or even a case study. 

I feel it is an interesting since being proficient in both languages is a goal of most Koreans, but what happens once that goal is achieved?  What does it lead to? Is there a significant change?  If so, what is it?

It's a broad topic and will need to be refined and focused to get a clearer goal.  But a least I have a starting point.

An Uncomfortable CIP

An Uncomfortable CIP

What Happened?

Students were delivering their final exam (a 2-3 minute individual speech), when one student gave hers.  It was a story of how we (her and I) would spend our honeymoon and it was overtly and explicitly sexual towards me.  Her body language confirmed that this was not only in jest.  I was speechless for a moment, gave her a score and proceeded to move on as quickly as possible.

Why Did it Happen?

I wish I could blame it on my irresistible looks, however that is not the case.

The class I was teaching was a mandatory language class at my university.  Meaning the students who are in the class are students who have not studied English much more than the classes they are exposed to throughout elementary, middle and high school.  They had a very limited set of English skills.  I often looked at my job as "edu-tainment" since they weren't going to have significant improvement in their English from this class (once a week for 3 hours for about 12 weeks).  I spent a great deal of class joking around with the students.
A simple answer could be since almost all of them were 18 or 19 year old first year students, some of this playful teaching could get misinterpreted.  But, almost all of my class examples revolved around me as the butt of jokes.  It was not uncommon to hear "Austen smells like trash, because he lives in the subway." and other such sentences.  The result of this, I fear, was the blurring of the line between teacher/authority figure and another friend in class.

As for my reaction (or rather non-reaction), I was so shocked at that moment, I could not think of what was the proper thing to do.  I could have given her an F.  I could have gone into a private area and explained how that was inappropriate.  I could have asked if she was serious.  However, I did none of these.  I quickly convinced myself it was inconsequential of what the subject of her speech was, marked it- based on the content and the vocabulary covered, and moved on, like any other student.

What Might it Mean?

It's very likely that my entertainment level of class has come at the price of some respect.  The separation between student and teacher was not clearly illustrated to the students.

As for my response to the 'incident', I am not great in uncomfortable situations.  I try to avoid them all the time.  Perhaps I should be more focused on dealing with them, than avoiding them. 

What Are the Implications for My Practice?


I am thinking about how to keep my entertainment level of class without losing the respect that an instructor should have to teach effectively.  I may not be a great enough teacher to do that perfectly, so I may have to sacrifice being the "fun teacher" a little bit and try to be a little more of "professional teacher".

Aside from that, teaching is also a job that requires one to think on their feet quickly, and my 'freeze up' means that I was not fully prepared for that situation.  I have to respond more directly to situations that come up (awkward or not).

Thesis Topics...

Thesis Topics...

  Sadly, I still have not picked out a thesis.  I have tried to give myself a deadline of this weekend to have an epiphany and start down a path, since all the classes I am enrolled in seem to need a thesis.  Plus, the early bird gets the worm.  I have found a useful resource that my other students might want to look at:

http://www.birmingham.ac.uk/schools/edacs/departments/cels/research/resources/essays/tefltesl.aspx

It is a page full of examples of TESOL dissertations.  It has helped me get an idea of what the final product looks like.  Check it out!

Response #2

     The Swales readings contained one of the things I have been dying to see in the numerous readings of my other classes- specific examples!  Unfortunately, many of the characteristics discussed, I am already familiar with.  Just my luck.
    At one of my jobs, I teach basic essay writing skills (nowhere near this academic level), but it's nice to see that some of the skills and principles I teach my students are still applicable at this level.  The patterns of organization and variety transitions are just a few.
    The biggest takeaway for me would be the ability to use "I" or "We" in a formal setting and the focus given to the audience.  I realize it is a dangerous crutch to have to use "I" in a academic paper, but it is a nice bonus to have in my 'essay toolbox'.  Although I have taught about essays to my students before, I rarely give much though to the audience (since it's always me!).  The difference between writing to someone who is more knowledgeable vs. writing in an instructional manner seems like a key consideration that I should be making in the future.

Thoughts On Plagiarism

Thoughts on Plagiarism

    Interesting ideas to go over.  The Yamada article was very scientific and academic, which certainly gives it a lot of credibility.  It was very specific with the problems universities' guidelines, definitions and examples of plagiarism and consequently led us to the conclusion that more inferential thought processes need to be taught in an ESL/EFL setting.
   I agree with this wholeheartedly.  At one of my jobs, I teach students ranging from a low level of English to a fluent speaker level.  All of them are taught, in some form or another, paraphrasing.  The low level children are taught just to substitute words that have the same meaning ex. quick- fast.  As the level increases, the students are expected to start using what the Yamada article mentioned as "move beyond summarization to translation".  This is often a problem since it is hard to break that habit of substituting, which in turn, leads to plagiarism.
   A far more interesting article, the Gladwell piece, used a few anecdotes to illustrate his ideas very convincingly.  The underlying issue, according to Gladwell, is what inhibits creativity, not necessarily what the letter of the law states.  Particularly, "New words in service of old ideas".  This article struck as me as especially interesting since both Gladwell and Lewis were the victims, yet the took very different approaches to the incident.  Gladwell seemed less offended and even somewhat honored, whereas Lewis incensed nearly to the point of legal recourse.  They were however victims in largely different ways, Gladwell in his words and Lewis in her character.
   There is no doubt in my mind that Lavery is an offender in this case, I do however side with Gladwell.  We are all vacuums that suck up all the information around us throughout the course of our lives.  It is a rather behavioral approach, but I believe it to be true.  We are influenced so much by all the things we have 'sucked up', it is impossible to be 100% creative anymore.  We have all been exposed to too much.  It's now a matter of tweaking, adding and subtracting.  That being said, to borrow directly from another person knowingly and not at least credit them certainly seems to be an injustice.  This is why I feel no sympathy for Laverly.