I just read Bill Ferriter’s post titled

Can Texting Help Teens with Writing and Spelling?

On the blog Box Of Chocolates, which I really enjoy following, there’s an interesting guest post discussing whether or not the experience of learning a foreign language can help you understand your students better, called

Taking a Walk in the Learners’ Shoes

I had an interesting experience related to this. About 7 years ago when I was on a partial sabbatical, I took a beginner’s course in Spanish. My motivation was part historical (classic Eastern Jewish story, my maternal grandmother’s family scattered from Poland to Israel, USA and Argentina) and part practical (Spanish is supposed to  be an easy language to learn).

I wasn’t thinking of sharing my students’  experiences when I registered – after all, I’m not deaf and had not been expecting the course to enrich my experience as a teacher. Just hoped to learn some Spanish!

Well, I was wrong from the word “go”. I barely knew 3 or 4 words in Spanish when I started. My clasmates were shocked that I hadn’t known the Spanish word for heart! Hearing children in second grade know all sorts of words in English beore they start formal education. The deaf pupils literally start with nothing (some kids know the word LOVE but only in capital letters).

I had no exposure to Spanish outside the classroom. The only Spanish speaking friend I had at the time had recently moved away and I don’t watch the Spanish speaking Soap Operas.  Many (not all, never all) of my students are not exposed to English outside of the classroom, even though we live in a country where English is influential. They watch TV and movies with subtitles, use Facebook in Hebrew and don’t hear songs in English.

Just like my students I found it increasingly harder to remember the vocabulary. Each week required more effort on my part to review the words on my own. As I was also teaching, it was difficult sometimes to keep up when I had report cards and national exams to deal with.  Just like a sizeable number of my high-school students, who are often distracted by things going on at home.

I put in extra special effort and finished the course pretty well. But not easily at all. Seven years ago, after  not using Spanish at all, I remember very little… But I do remember how I felt when I studied.

I think learning a foreign language is a very important experience for any language teacher!

I didn’t take notes but here is the link to the powerpoint presentation at the Reform Symposium which I related to in my previous post.

I really like the title:

Burnout

I saw a large number of excited tweets about the Reform Symposium 2011 .  A whole convention online!

The lecture dealing with teacher burnout caught my eye and I decided to attend this one lecture. Now there’s a paradox right there! The lecture, my time , was on SATURDAY, my only day off. If I’m feeling so stressed and overburdened that I’m attracted to a lecture on “burnout”,  (we’re just before report cards and mid-year matricualtion exams and I work 6 days a week!), then WHY ATTEND A LECTURE ON SATURDAY?!!

But the speaker, John Spencer was good. He didn’t just say – go to gym class and you’ll be fine! I didn’t take notes but I went to his blog after the lecture and found my PARADOX right there!  Here’s an excerpt of what he wrote about himself, on his contact page:

“I believe that true impact occurs in a paradox. The more I try to “make an impact,” the less I impact a student.”

I have 4 months of real teaching yet to go this year. In addition, as a counselor I have two more matricualtion exams to deal with.  Maybe I  need to stop trying so hard. Easier said than done…

I’m glad I attended the lecture!

For years I basically subscribed to Alfie Kohn’s approach to homework, which he hammers home briefly and succinctly in the video clip: “Making Students work a Second Shift”

It seemed particularly unfair for my deaf and hard of hearing high-school students to have to work “a second shift” doing homework when they live so far away from school. Some of my pupils leave the house well before 7 a.m. and return home after 5 p.m.  Not only is dealing with texts in English (as a foreign language!) such a struggle for many of them, many of the kids were notorious for not doing homework before I got them! Therefore, I did not give homework on a regular basis.

But I wasn’t happy with the situation. Some of the students were not taking the learning PROCESS seriously enough and only cared about tests. In fact, I had to admit, that not only weren’t they working “a second shift” – some weren’t working much during their “first shift”!

A few months before this school year began, I read about Robyn Jackson’s approach to homework in “Never Work Harder Than Your Students”. She discussed two elements which I felt were “written for me” :

1)      Focus on quality rather than quantity

2)      That small amount of homework IS IMPORTANT (otherwise I wouldn’t have given it – no busywork) so it’s not going to go away, it has to be done.

I agonized all summer about how to make sure the students did the homework.  WE are not in America – suggestions I found in the book such as utilizing Lunch Period (which we don’t have) or having children stay after school (they are all tied to transportation schedules, NO flexibility there!) were inapplicable.

Since I always “learn by doing” I decided to start without having solved the problem. I created a class website. Every Monday (homework only once a week) I post new homework, but the previous assignments are still visible (I use the format of a table).  I told the pupils that homework is presented online and they can email it me or hand it in, as they prefer. I explained that we’re using online homework to enable me to use color and media. In addition it is good for the environment. The assignments are short and focus on point I want them to pay attention to (such as six sentences on the difference between “how long” and no longer”).

Most of the new tenth graders were onboard right away (though two do not do homework to this very day!) Some even told me they felt that this was a serious class! At first, the others hoped that if they ignored it, I would drop the issue. I kept reminding them that important info is waiting for them. When I congratulated them on getting a good grade I reminded them that their teacher evaluation would still be low because by not doing homework they didn’t complete the learning program. After the first round of tests, the pupils who did fairly well to very well asked how they could prevent the teacher’s evaluation looking bad on their report cards and sat down and made up all the assignments! I even heard another teacher say that the pupils told her that they consider English to be one of the serious subjects because there is regular homework! I didn’t expect that!

The current situation is that about 80 percent of the 65 pupils do homework. I know that a weekly point I want to emphasize is getting across and feel very good about it. Unfortunately, not all of the pupils do the homework on time. I’m not sure how to get around that because by now the pupils know that my focus is on the learning aspect and don’t feel pressured to hand in the work on time. For the second semester, which is about to start, I plan to make a rule that homework can only be made up in the month it was given.

One thing is for sure –  my husband feels that since I read the book  “Never Work Harder Than Your Students” I’m working harder than before!

As I’m fairly new to the “blogoshphere”,  I’m not quite sure how to use “TRACKBACKS”, but I would like to point out once again that I’m following a fascinating discussion on the blog THE LINE

Not only has Dina brought up the topic of persistence which so relevant to issues I’m battling with at school, she has now posted a link to a fascinating talk.  The talk itself isn’t about schools but in context of the discussion is so very relevant to the vulnerable situation one puts oneself in when trying to get others to cooperate in trying new things.

Actually, forget about school – it’s a great talk!

THE TALK