Discussion 7: Classroom testing

          I think that there is too much of an emphasis on testing and that classroom testing doesn’t always reflect a student’s abilities.  Some tests are not broad enough and ask very specific questions on small details instead of questions based on the overall topics.  I think most classroom-based tests that I took in my high school language class concentrated too much on reading, writing and grammar skills, and a little on listening skills.  I think having an oral component to every test is essential.  I think being able to speak and understand a foreign language is the most important aspects and ways to show that a student is learning the language.  I really like the idea of students making a portfolio of their progress through out a semester and having them write a reflection to explain why they included each artifact in their portfolio, these artifacts would include tape recordings, essays, projects, and maybe past test.  I think a portfolio like this would be a much better final exam, then a written final exam.

            The classroom-based tests that I took in high school didn’t show much and any student that just memorized a few new vocabulary words and grammar structures could have easily aced the test.  I think test need to show that the student can use the language in new and meaningful ways, not just with simple fill-in the blanks and matching type questions.  I do think that there are students who just don’t test well.  Traditional testing methods focus too much on small details such as grammar and unrealistic language use.  I really like the writing and mixed-skills formats.  The cloze adaptation is a better fill-in the blank method than just having a sentence and the verb right after because students do not even need to show that they understand the sentence to get the answer correct.  The partial conversations are also very good for testing reading and writing skills at the same time.  I think even novice students can have some open-ended questions and maybe have a word bank provided to give them cues on what vocabulary they should be using. Testing listening comprehension using a table that students have to fill-in and they have to listen for certain semantic cues.

            All language tests should be designed as hybrid tests, which purposefully blend grammar, context, structure and situation.  I think there should be open-ended (convergent) and one-right answer specific questions (divergent).  Chapter 9 points out that achievement tests which are the standard classroom-based test can be made to reflect proficiency goals as well.  It may be harder to grade an exam like this, but it will more accurately reflect the students’ abilities.  The focus needs to be on providing students with sequential, naturalistic discourse on tests and not a random sequence of single sentences or phrases.  People use language in so many different ways and this is what makes learning a second language so challenging, but also fun at the same time.  Students need to be exposed to as much authentic material as possible and do in class communicative activities that reflect meaningful language use.  The testing formats used should be ones that the student has encountered before in classroom or homework assignments and these assignments need to encourage students to use their new language skills.  Testing is a part of life, but tests in general should not focus solely on achievement because a student who doesn’t perform well on standard tests should not be considered incompetent.  Testing formats need to be adaptive and diverse enough that students aren’t just memorizing and filling-in answers without even thinking about real language use. 

Discussion 7

I think that classroom based tests will show more than a standardized test, however I do not think that tests are the best way to show a student's ability. What most tests do is show that student's know that vocabulary and are able to produce it in a format demanded by the test. Also, generally, most testing does not include a oral portion to the exam. I personally would be more interested to see what students can do in a project rather than a test. 

As a test taker, I am normally fairly good. I generally do no do well on the essay section unless it is for English, but I find that often when I take a test everything I have studied will be leached from my mind. It is of course after the test that I can remember anything. This obviously stems from nervousness, and I always hate it because I know I could have done better. As a side note, I watched a NOVA episode explaining that one way to combat that nervousness that can interfere with testing is to write own your feelings about the test in a journal entry about 10-15 minutes before the test. The studied showed that the average for the control group ( those who sat there and did nothing for 10-15 min) got an average of a B-. Those who did write down their anxieties over the test, got on average a B+. 

(If you're interested in the video, it's on this NOVA page, it should be the last 10 minutes of the episode.

I think that there are plenty of people who simply don't test well, and changing the environment of the test won't help much. However, for testing it is impotent to put a variety of test questions such as open ended, multiple choice and the ilk.  

Blog 7 - Testing

I believe that classroom tests are good and show the student's strengths and weaknesses. Classroom tests are a good way to see how the class is grasping the concept. As a test taker I like it when a teacher gives a test at the end of each chapter because I dont like to feel overwhelmed when a test is comprised of 3 or 4 chapters. I also feel that tests should be a combination of different styles. For example, multiple choice, matching, short answer and an essay are components that should be in 1 test. I know for a fact that some students do not test well because I am one of them. When it comes time for a test a psych myself out which, lowers my test score. This is very true in classes that I don't care for. When we want to measure language skills I feel that oral tests are best because it allows student and teacher interaction. It also allows the teacher to gage the student's ability using the ACTFL guidelines. In high school all of my Spanish teachers would at least have 1 or 2 speaking test or quizzes every month or so. I feel that this was a good way to not only use the vocab and the grammar but also to improve my pronunciation. The feedback from the teacher during these oral tests are very helpful because it is a 1 on 1 situation.

Discussion #7: Foreign Language Assessment

How accurately do you feel that classroom-based tests reflect student abilities? What are your experiences as a test-taker? Do you think there are students that do not test well? What method of testing do you think is most effective to measure students' language skills? Use examples to justify your point of view. 

Discussion 6: Teaching Culture

          Culture in my view is everything that makes up a group of people.  Culture really is what defines a group of people.  When people asks about where a person is from, where they grew up or where there family is from, what they are really asking is about their cultural background.  They want to know where that person came from because it helps them to better understand that person in a very important way.  This is why I believe it is so important to teach L2 culture.  Teaching C2 is just as important as teaching the language.  What is language without culture?  A foreign language should be taught within a context and that context is culture!  It is easy for language instructors to forget the most important aspect of teaching language, because they become overwhelmed in the details of the language and overemphasis how important grammar and vocabulary are.  

            I don’t think that it is impossible to teach L2 culture in a classroom setting, but being restricted to a classroom does make it more difficult.  I think it is too easy for a language instructor to want to teach only “Olympian culture,” or “culture MLA,” and only show his/her students the best of that culture.  However, students are better served if they are also taught “Hearthstone culture,” or “culture BBV,” (beliefs, behavior, values) because students need to get an idea of everything that makes up a culture.  The limitations to teaching both aspects of culture is that teaching the “best” of culture is a lot easier than trying to teach culture as “everything” in human life.  The limitation is that there is so much that could be taught, so trying to focus on what should be taught is hard. The Spanish culture for example encompasses the culture of Mexico, Central American countries, South American countries, Caribbean islands, and of course Spanish culture from Spain, but people try to put all these different aspects of Spanish-speaking culture into one category.  Chapter 8 mentioned how students may get the idea that all Spanish-speaking people eat tacos, go to bullfights and take abundant naps, when this is not the case.  I have even had someone ask me in the past if I was Mexican and I do not look Mexican at all.  It would be wrong for students to believe that all Spanish people are like Mexicans especially the Americanized version of Mexican people, who eat spicy food, wear sombreros, ponchos, cowboy boots, eat tortillas and want to cross the border to get to the US. 

I think that teachers can easily teach “Big C” which focuses on product, such as the food, music, art and literature from that country (aka “Olympian culture”).  In high school I learned about “product” and was the only time I remember being tested on an aspect of culture was when I had a test that I had to match the date with an important Spanish holiday.  It takes a lot more effort for a teacher to teach perspective and practice, so students learn about “small c” which is daily life, which includes the beliefs, behavior and values of a people (aka “culture BBV”).  It is the nitty-gritty, what truly defines what a culture is and sadly it is the aspect of culture that is most often stereotyped.  Testing students on aspects of culture is crucial because that shows students that culture is just as important as language.  A teacher can list facts for students like Mexicans listen to mariachi music and Dominicans like bachata, but it is the attitudes and the reason “why” they listen to this type of music that is harder to teach.  I like how the book suggested using native informants and having students make semantic maps and do word associations.  Allowing students to explore their own word connotations and realizing that these are tied to their own cultural bias, can help students understand how the way others see their world is based on their own cultural beliefs.  I also like the idea of teaching students proverbs or idioms (un “dicho”) because these can say a lot about a culture and the belief system that the culture has.  It also shows that not all the ideas of one culture can be “translated” to another culture.

 Another important aspect of culture that is usually ignored is humor.  I wish that my Spanish classes in high school had done more on humor.  I think a teacher could easily have a “joke of the day” posted on the board each class and it would be a good way to either begin or end the class.  It would be a fun way to introduce new vocabulary or a new concept.  I realized when I went to Mexico last year how much “Mexican Spanish” I did not know.  I would be watching a cartoon show like “El Chavo” which is a very popular cartoon show in Mexico and I could not understand everything that was being said, but at least this show was meant for younger audiences so the jokes were a little easier to understand and they were acted out well.  It was even worse when I watched “El Platanito show,” a comedy show meant for adults and I couldn’t understand any of the jokes made.  It was frustrating because I could understand the individual words, but not the words as a whole.  An example in English would be the kid’s joke, Q: “How do you know when it’s raining cats and dogs?”  A: “When you step in a poodle.”  A native speaker of English would have no trouble finding this joke funny, since they understand the expression, “raining cats and dogs” and also understand that a “poodle” is a type of dog and that “poodle” sounds a lot like the word “puddle,” but a person learning English might not understand the joke/pun being made. 

It got a little better as time went on and I had been in Mexico longer.  I did “joke” with my friends that I would know when I knew Spanish well when I could understand everything on “El Platanito show.”  Mexicans jokes are pretty vulgar, so learning the use of some of the vulgar words did help, but I still have a ways to go.   Another comedy show, more family-friendly, was “La familia peluche,” which was about a “furry” family and one of the episodes I watched was about the boys in the family wanting to go watch football at a friend’s house but the mother/wife wants them to go over her in-laws house for dinner.  This is an idea that is pretty easy to understand from the point of view of American culture, so it shows that Spanish culture may not be all that different.  Learning about similarities is just as important as learning about cultural differences, though family-life is very important in the Spanish culture.  The use of authentic material such as jokes, interviews, TV shows, etc is a great way to teach about culture at the same time that you are teaching language.    

Teaching Culture

I am a member of a Multicultural sorority, so my idea of culture might be slightly different. I think culture is more than a description of traditions done in a certain society. Culture includes traditions, food, as well as ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, values, and morals. I think it is extremely to teach the students who are learning a second language about culture. Learning about a language isn't simply just learning the language, it also includes learning the cultures that accompanies those cultures. If the learners ever plan on visiting a region in which the language is spoken, it is important to have a basic understanding of what to expect in that region.

There are many different ways to teach culture in a classroom setting. Teachers can have students read and answer questions about a passage in their textbooks. These passages typically include a lot about culture in a way that also pertains to the vocabulary and grammar of the current lesson. Culture can be taught through songs, readings, media, movies, etc. I think culture is best taught when the context of the lesson. For example, when teaching food vocab, you can use a song or a paragraph of text that people of that culture eat during holidays or special occasions.

In my opinion, culture is everything about a people or a country that makes them unique and similar to another people: food, clothing, religious beliefs, money, music, stories, history, art, values, ethics, laws, behavior, and more things that can't be seen or really defined well. In my FREN 790 class, we've been talking about foreign culture with the metaphor of an iceberg. Everything above the surface (10%) is the visible aspects of a culture, like how they dress or the music they listen to. Everything below the surface (90%) is the non-visible part of the culture, like values, beliefs, ethics and morals. One example that is that when visiting someone in their home in France, you will not be given a tour of their home. In fact, you may only see the entry way and the dining or living room. For Americans, that is really weird and rather stand-offish, but the unseen part of the French culture is the importance they place on private and personal space.

It is incredibly important to teach culture alongside the language. Without the knowledge of even the aspects of culture from the tip of the iceberg, let along a glimpse of the bottom parts, a student would be learning words and concepts with no meaning behind them. In addition, if a student went to a country where the L2 was spoken without knowing even a small information about the culture, they would invariably become lost and confused and in all likelihood would offend someone or multiple someones.

The difficulty is how to teach a culture in the classroom setting. In my own L2 experiences, culture topics are usually best introduced through an authentic film or reading that incorporates the aspect of culture. For example, in my high school French classes, we watched Jean de Florette and Manon des Sources, a set of films about small town provincial France and the farming communities there. In the films, we got to see what the country side looked like and how they dressed and lived there. In addition, we learned something about the French culture that can be very hard for Americans to come to terms with: they eat bunny rabbits. In fact, the raise and breed them much like we do chickens. It isn't a deep non-visible aspect of culture, but nonetheless it is an important one. Having been to France with this knowledge, I was not surprised, disgusted or taken aback when I saw "lapin" on a menu in a restaurant.

It is much easier to teach the "little culture" aspects than it is to teach the deep invisible underlying "why" culture aspects. I believe that when students are shown and taught the smaller more visible aspects, and when they have more knowledge and experience with the language and its history, they will inevitably ask "why" something is the way it is, which can lead to a good discussion about the deeper aspects of the culture. That isn't to say that the culture should be taught in a cheap, touristy way, with outlandish parties and weird food, but by exposing students to different parts of daily life in that culture, including food, holidays, school, transportation, etc.

Discussion 6

Culture is actually really hard to define. It can be the overarching themes we all know such as literature, art, film, and food, but it can also be smaller stuff such as taking the transit system or going out to buy food at the grocery store. It is important to teach the tart language culture, because without that it may as well be Linguistics. You are learning a language and the point of language is that it is a human creation in which you can communicate thoughts and ideas. You are also not fully learning a language if you take the L2 and place it over the information you know of the L1. The same works for culture. 

I think that it is definitely possible to teach culture in the classroom. With Latin, we would have units based around certain cultural practices such as how the markets worked or when a boy would exchange their toga praetexta for the toga libera (coming of age ceremony in Ancient Rome). We would also have projects such as cooking a roman traditional food and we would then have a feast of all the different foods. For Japanese, we would often go off on tangent about culture when we read of a scenario from the textbook. This was mainly because the book hadn't been updated from the 80's and our teacher would remind us that things had changed and would explain the cultural differences and what ha changed from the 80's. Also, in 401 we would also watch part of a documentary series called Japanland (which I highly recommend if any of your are remotely curious about Japanese culture) every thursday. In the higher classes, we would talk about more in-depth cultural ideas, and some problems that are caused by culture. Many times we would read an article and have a discussion about it. 

I think that it's important to have culture based in the curriculum, just as important as grammar, actually. Learning a language is extremely boring otherwise and often you will not understand the language without learning the context it comes from. 

Discussion 6 - Teaching Culture

In L2, teaching culture is as important as teaching the language itself. Culture is the history and way of life of the people who speak the language, and without learning the culture students are only experiencing half of the language. Often, there are parts of a language that do not make sense without having the cultural background of the people. For example, in Russian, a common expression is "without down, without feathers", which is essentially wishing the other person no comforts in life. This would seem harsh, but Russian people are used to living without many comforts and think of those who have them to be weak. Therefore, to wish this upon someone means to wish them to wish them strength and success.

It is certainly possible to teach culture in the classroom, but it is not entirely effective all of the time. A teacher can prepare students for some things, but there are parts of a culture that cannot be explained without experiencing them. The idea of "culture shock" is based on this, because it is the idea that a person travels to a foreign culture and is shocked by the differences in their way of life. But this should not stop teachers from trying, which can be done in several different ways. An easy way to teach culture is to inform students about special holidays and the histories behind the celebrations, but a very important part of culture is history. Students need to have historical knowledge about the native people in order to understand the general mindset of the region or country.

If someone who knew absolutely nothing about Russian history learned the Russian language and them went to Russia, not only would the famous landmarks mean nothing to them, they would never catch the nuances that make the language so special. For example, many Russian saying are spoken passively, meaning that things happen to you rather than you actively doing them. An ignorant foreigner would not understand why, but looking at Russia's history of oppression it is not hard to understand why the Russian people would feel like most things are beyond their control and simply happen to them. It is a teacher's job to not simply teach these phrases to their students, but also to stop and point out the cultural background behind them.

To me, culture is everything that a native person knows about how to fit in to their own society. This can be conscious knowledge, such as what type of food is normally eaten, or more subconscious, such as how to walk down the street and "blend in," or how to properly use a slang term in context. I think it is definitely possible to teach culture in a second-language classroom, and it is also important to do so. It is especially important for those students who plan on continuing their language education and might even plan to study abroad.

I'm not quite sure what the video was trying to demonstrate about culture shock, but I certainly did experience shock when I went abroad this past summer. Costa Rica was such a different place with such different people that I often found myself just wishing to be around something--anything--familiar. It was hard to be eating different food, speaking a different language, and living in someone else's house so far away from home. And you can never "turn it off." I did have some idea of what the Costa Rican culture was like before I headed down there, but it is completely different from actually experiencing it first hand. I feel like that is the largest drawback from trying to teach culture in a foreign language classroom. You can't teach the students how it is to really live the culture.

Though there is no perfect solution, I think one of the best things that can be done to teach students about culture is to have native speakers come talk to them, and maybe throw a celebration for a certain holiday while they are there to get their take on how the celebration is really supposed to proceed. If there are any movies that come close to portraying the real culture of a place, those might also be a good tool to use in the classroom setting.

Discussion #6: Teaching Culture

In your view, what is culture? Is it important to teach L2 culture? Why? Is it possible to teach L2 culture in the classroom setting? What are the limitations? How should culture be learned or taught? Use examples to support your points of view.