Running head: PRACTICUM SUMMARY PAPER 1

Practicum Summary Paper: Engaging Students in Authentic Communication

Molly E. Young

University of Southern Mississippi

Author Note

Masters in the Art of Teaching Languages (MATL), University of Southern Mississippi.

This assignment was completed for the course Practicum in SI/FI (WL 694), instructed

by Dr. Laura Guglani.

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Practicum Summary Paper: Engaging Students in Authentic Communication

Approaching this paper was initially difficult for me because in my now six years of

teaching and two years of graduate school, I have learned and grown more than I could possibly

put into one cohesive essay. The more I learn, the more I am sure that there is no one right way

to teach a language just as there is no one single element that can make someone an effective

language teacher. It takes a multitude of theories, techniques, and approaches to reach all

learners and to create a thoroughly meaningful language classroom. While my studies and

experience have left me overwhelmed by just how much more I have to learn, one theme has

become my focus for continuous growth - engaging students in authentic communication. In my

opinion, this goal is at the heart of language teaching and encompasses many of the integral parts

of the craft.

Breaking down this goal into elements, I will begin by analyzing what I have learned

about student engagement. I hate to admit that when I first began teaching, straight out of

college and with no teaching degree, I believed student engagement meant worksheets. Students

had worksheets to complete almost every day - even my preschool students had coloring sheets

to go along with the letter we were learning. Through the years I have learned that engagement

does not always look like a physical product, these can be done with little thought or learning,

rather engagement happens in the students’ minds.

My self-analysis throughout this semester has really been eye-opening for me. While I

had already accepted the importance of student thought, I had not looked at my own practices

critically to see if that was holding true with my students. What I found during my classroom

analysis activities and my action research was that many of the activities I planned allowed
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plenty of space for students to simply not think. While it has been difficult, this has led me to be

more intentional in my lesson design so that students have to take the content and add their own

perspectives or experiences, challenging them to reframe the information and to think

strategically. Additionally, the readings in Courtney B. Cazden’s (2001) work, Classroom

Discourse: The Language of Teaching and Learning, has opened my eyes to how I can better

hold students accountable for thinking. Her section on “Accountable Talk” (pp. 170-172), plus

our reflection on error feedback during “Classroom Analysis D,” made me reflect on whether my

dialogue with students was relieving them of the burden of thinking or challenging them to

shoulder it themselves.

Another falsehood I had to remove from my teaching ideology about engagement was

that students would be more likely to be engaged if the work was easy enough for all of them to

complete independently. In my experience, this has not been the case and all of my studies have

supported that this is false as well. Stephen D. Krashen (1987) addressed the concept of “i + 1”

in his paper, “Principles and Practice in Second Language Acquisition,” to represent the ideal

level of content - in which the “i” represents a learner’s current level of proficiency and the “1”

is what makes it slightly more challenging, pushing the student into the yet unknown. Krashen

(1987) writes, “ The answer to this apparent paradox is that we use more than our linguistic

competence to help us understand. We also use context, our knowledge of the world, our

extra-linguistic information to help us understand language directed at us” (p. 21). In other

words, this extra challenge forces the learner to rely on a multitude of mental processes, further

cementing their learning and propelling them forward in proficiency. This aspect of his input

theory is similar to Lev Vygotsky’s idea of the “Zone of Proximal Development.” In analyzing
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my classroom this semester, I recognize that while I have improved the rigor of my classes, I

have not perfected the gradual release needed to keep students in the ideal zone for learning,

instead using many low level activities and then moving on to a much higher level activity. I

need to find a balance to create a constant tension of struggle for my students so they will always

be learning and will not become bored or careless with their work.

Another aspect of engaging students in authentic communication, is the descriptor

“authentic.” While I have never had trouble being myself and sharing my personality with my

students, one important area where I have grown is encouraging my students to be authentic and

giving them opportunities to share who they are with others. This involves intentional lesson

planning that incorporates student opinions and sharing, as well as, intentional design of a

classroom environment that is inclusive and safe for everyone. Though I know these aspects are

crucial to students’ social-emotional development and behavior, they are also crucial for their

learning. Krashen (1987) explores the “Affective Filter” as one crucial aspect of language

acquisition, citing the early works of Dulay and Burt (1977). He argues that student

“motivation,” “self-confidence,” and “anxiety” are all potential obstacles for the acquisition of

language (1987, p. 31). Designing a classroom where students can communicate authentically

and be accepted for who they are is integral to lowering the affective filter of anxiety and

boosting student motivation and self-confidence.

This school year I believe I have really done well to create an environment low in stress

and encouraging to all of my students, but reflections this year and and the results of my action

research show that I have failed to boost student motivation. Without this motivation, students

do not have the urge to share authentically, oftentimes leaving the authenticity of the classroom
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one-sided. Though as an adult I can continue to be myself, I am sure the lacking participation of

several classmates makes sharing uncomfortable for those who would otherwise be open and

motivated. How can you trust someone with your authentic self if they do not reciprocate your

openness? Not to avoid the obvious, lacking motivation also results in less willingness to take

risks and apply themselves to the work.

On another level, I have grown personally in my understanding of different cultures,

especially communication styles. My work with the Arkansas Teacher Corps has been crucial to

my growth in multicultural understanding, as well as our class on sociocultural and

sociolinguistic studies. Since my first four years in a nearly all-white private school to my

current work in public schools, I have had to reflect on my own biases and blindspots in regards

to other cultures. Growing up surrounded by whiteness, white culture became a norm for me.

When I was confronted by communication styles different from my own, I often perceived it as

disrespect, rudeness, and hatred. This prevented me from building meaningful relationships with

my students and meant I did not allow my students to be authentic to who they were.

Cazden (2001), had a powerful section, “Taking Cultural Differences into Account.” In

this section, she shares the story “Butterflies” about how a teacher misunderstands a student’s

meaningful writing because she does not understand her culture, leaving the student feeling

inadequate (pp. 153-156). This story is powerful and will stick with me for many reasons,

especially because this semester I had a similar eye-opening experience. I had one student who I

had trouble with all year. When I had him share what his favorite part of Christmas break was,

he said his grandma’s Kool-Aid pies. I asked him what that was. He immediately smacked his

lips, rolled his eyes, and muttered, “Now that’s the problem with her right there.” I initially felt
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disrespected and judged, so I quickly moved the conversation along. Reflecting on this moment,

I wonder how often he felt misunderstood by me simply because I did not understand his culture.

I should have taken more time to make his authentic self feel heard and respected, instead of just

moving on in these moments of uncomfortable emotions. I ask my students to show compassion

and empathy for the new cultures we learn about, but do I always show them the same? I know I

demonstrate how to be authentic, but am I intentionally modeling how to accept and love another

person’s authentic self?

Finally, communication is the key to all language classrooms, so vague and broad that

this entire paper could have been on the art of communication. While learning the importance of

input and modeling has been extremely crucial to my development, I believe this semester -as

evidenced by my action research paper - has been more about supporting my students’ writing

and speaking. This has involved a lot of evaluation of my lesson and curriculum planning,

specifically how I differentiate and scaffold instruction. I have learned this semester that

scaffolding does not have to be just in the order that I place lessons, rather I can provide support

to each student individually by guiding questions or meaningful challenges. I have learned how

to align the purpose and context of assignments so that students can truly be prepared for

communication. I have also learned how to imbed communicative routines as a classroom

procedure so that it becomes an essential part of our classroom. Together, these improvements

have helped me better prepare for each day and better meet the learning needs of my students.

Where I have been challenged in the area of communication is making sure that I do not

solely control the flow of communication. Cazden (2001) addresses this issue in two of her

sections - “Speaking Rights and Listening Responsibilities” (pp. 82-91) and “Traditional and
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Nontraditional Lessons” (pp. 30-56). Both the readings and my classroom analyses revealed to

me that what I have considered as including students in communication has been restricted by

my fear of letting go of the reins. For true-to-life communication, I need to work on giving

students the tools they need to lead conversations, share opinions, and explore new concepts -

which will be a refreshing change from my repeated question-answer cycles.

I should add that my focus on output has gone on a rollercoaster journey throughout my

teaching career - similar to the trends I have seen among the language-teaching community in

general. Early on I focused on student output because as I had mentioned I thought what a

student physically produced was proof of their learning. Once I was exposed to the ideas of

comprehensible input a la Stephen Krashen, I pulled away from requiring output - almost to an

extreme. Since then, I have come to find a lot of value in output as a way for students to process

and cement their learning, as well as its social benefits. Merrill Swain and Sharon Lapkin (1995)

defended the usefulness of output in their study, “Problems in Output and the Cognitive

Processes They Generate: A Step Towards Second Language Learning.” In this paper, they

discuss the processes a learner goes through as they try to formulate a response. A learner will

“notice” where they do not know what to say, they create a “hypothesis” of how to say it, and

finally they will assimilate what they learn from the experiment as knowledge gained about the

language (Swain & Lapkin, 1995). Just as intentional questioning can lead students to think and

process, challenging students to communicate can help them develop their language abilities.

Together, these elements have led to me growing as an educator and in my desire to be

more intentional in all aspects of my teaching. Overall, the aim to engage students in authentic

communication comes down to an aspect that I have often overlooked, which is the social nature
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of learning. Lev Vygotsky argued that all knowledge is socially constructed and that it is through

the negotiation of meaning that we gain understanding (Jaramillo, 1996). I believe this is the

element that my classroom has been missing most. Even with my action research project I could

see the effects of not having an authentic audience - the digital classroom is difficult to socialize

in. I am determined to make sure that in the future my students have more authentic

opportunities to negotiate meaning among one another. I intend to challenge them to engage

more while giving them more power and choice in their communication. I truly look forward to

growing and challenging myself to continue this journey to better teaching my students.
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References

Cazden, C.B. (2001). Classroom discourse: The language of teaching and learning. Heinemann.

Jaramillo, J. A. (1996). Vygotsky's sociocultural theory and contributions to the development of

constructivist curricula. Education, 117(1), 133+.

https://go.gale.com/ps/anonymous?id=GALE%7CA18960235&sid=googleScholar&v=2.

1&it=r&linkaccess=abs&issn=00131172&p=AONE&sw=w

Krashen, S. D. (1982). Principles and practice in second language acquisition. Stephen D.

Krashen. http://www.sdkrashen.com/content/books/principles_and_practice.pdf

Swain, M., & Lapkin, S. (1995). Problems in output and the cognitive processes they generate: A

step towards second language learning. Applied Linguistics, Vol. 16 (No.3), 371-391.

http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.888.9175&rep=rep1&type=pdf