Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Focal Skills and L2 Acquisition
This article discusses the efforts used at Shenandoah University to introduce early English language learners to improved language acquisition. The university believes that having a clear purpose is important for acquisition, thus, the Focal Skills approach was created. In this program, students are placed in one of four modules (listening, reading, writing, immersion). Each module focuses on communication rather than rules of language, and meaning rather than the language itself. There is no pressure on the students to produce language until they are comfortable with it. Classroom activities are aimed at encouraging student interest rather than calling attention to the rules of grammar. Every four weeks the students are tested to see how much progress they have made and whether they should move on to another module. Once students students begin to develop output and apply language and grammar rules, the program then helps students develop their skills through working in cyberspace. Instructors train their students with "focused rewrites" which involve the teacher restating sections of the students work. Students and teachers meet on a daily basis to go over the rewrites. The teachers use a computer program called Share Space which "aligns student output and teacher changes in parallel columns." Students explore the web to learn about language output and also to share their work with others. By seeing the correct models of output ,the students are able to gradually improve their own writing skills.
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14 comments:
The most important element of language acquistion is a clear purpose. Focal skills was created for this particular reason. The program focuses on four critical domains: listening, reading, writing, and immersion. Repetition through output increases one's ability to write. Output 'standards' are available via web and is accessible to all students..
I liked this article because it is important to have all aspects of input, reading, writing, listening, and immersion to learn a language. I thought it was neat that they used cyberspace to accomplish this and focused more on the 'rewrites.' I also agree with with Issac that using cyberspace does help the students because it makes more information open to them and will help with finding new ways to learn things.
I thought that the Focal Skills Approach was a great idea. I liked that the students were able to learn with out the pressure to communicate right away. It makes since though because this is the same way cchildren begin to learn language, these first two steps are used. The progression would work well because by the final module there is already an understanding of the language.
I LIKE THE ARTICLE BECAUSE IT WAS INFORMATIVE AND TOUCHED ON ALOT OF DIFFERENT TOPICS SUCH AS, INPUT,READING, WRITING AND LANGUAGE. THE FOCAL SKILLS APPROACH WAS A GOOD IDEA AND IT WAS AN OVERALL PRETTY GOOD BLOG.
The Focal Skills approach is a great idea because it allows a teacher to measure a student's progress of L2 acquisition in different areas. The use of technology to increase and measure language acquisition is interesting because I wonder if this fun approach distracts the student from the goal. Furthermore, I don't like the idea of using indirect methods of retaining skills because it takes away from the significance of the activity. The activity is remembered but not that desired material. That doesn't help, does it?
I really believe there are some great and innovative ideas attached to Focus Skills Approach. It seems as though its goals and purposes are well thought through, and things that I hold important when learning language. I am interested to learn more of the details involved. And I would like to know more opinions from the teachers and more results from the student's progrerss.
I believe that this article was filled was several useful ideas. I agree with the idea of letting students learn at their own pace. It is better to allow the students to learn language right the first time at their own pace than to learn it too fast and make mistakes. Allowing students to determine their learning process is very helpful because if they can control their learning process then hopefully they will be more focused on learning. Gaining input from both the teachers and the students is key to the learning process. It has a lot of useful information on input, reading, writing, listening, and being able to immerse themselves into the langugage. Overall this article was useful.
There are advantages and disadvantages to this whole project it seems. I think that getting students interested in the subject they are learning, but at the same time, if they pick up bad grammar habits and continue to use them because they do not feel comfortable using the new skills, it might be really hard to correct those errors because they are used to them. That is the only problem that I see with this whole idea.
I really like the idea of dividing the language learning process into parts. That makes a lot of sense to me. It also makes sense that you start at the first step and cannot move to the next until you have learned what you need to. One of the biggest problems that I see with the current system of language learning is that, because it is cumulative, if you move from step to the next too quickly, you get lost. This is not conducive to learning. I am sure that there are ways that this system can be improved, but it looks very good to me.
Bryan Norbut
I think this is a really good idea. It takes a lot of the pressure off of the students and allows them to enjoy learning more. I think that the focal skills approach is an interesting and creative idea that will benefit the students.
I like the idea of dividing language learning into managable sections. When I had to take Spanish I was completely overwhelmed with all of the information. I think I would have been able to retain information better had it been broken down into smaller sections. Also, I think it is important for students to learn at their own pace and not advance to harder material until they have grasped the easier subjects.
It is important to include all aspects of input for learning.
I think that Focal Skills is a fantastic program! There was one other blog about how input is a key component of language acquisition, and it is, but I think it is very important to be able to use all kinds of learning methods as well; incorporating them into each other.
--bonnie
I agree with Stephanie, I know that when Spanish was being forced down my throat I resented it. I think it's best for students to learn at their own pace.
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