Phew!

I got my gum swollen again. This is what happens when I overworked without breathing for a while. Even though I am suffering from the intense pain(Going to a dentist is a waste of time for this.) I am happy that I've written the first academic writing. 4250 words with quite long appendix. The total number should be around 5000 words. Of course, quantity doesn't count as much as the quality but  the time I have spent and effort I have made are worth praising :-) Sometimes, you need that in order to go forward instead of beating yourself up for being a pathetic writer.

Despite the low quality of my writing, I have got one of the best supporting team for the paper. The team includes an experienced editor, proofreaders, researchers and a teacher-trainer for teachers for young learners. I know how lucky I am and I truly appreciated their support. Without this team, I won't be able to submit the paper on time. Although I am not so certain that my paper will pass the standard of the Master's program, I've learned a lot. Here are some notes for the next one:

1. "no one is born good at academic writing. " 

1. One focus for a research paper

1. Plan more in advance: who (participants), what(focus) and how (methodology).

1. Describe in detail.

1. Read relevant research papers more. 

1. Find a team of friends who would give you constructive feedback.

1. Find a good balance between working and chilling.

In the mean time, I sing "Pain, Pain, Go away!" fingers crossed :-)

My first step into academic writing was bumpier and much more nerve-wrecking than I have imagined.  Now I have realized what the helluva world I have stepped into. After taking this gigantic mountain climbing (if I am allowed to continue), I would surely be armed with much thicker skin and some more essential skills for a M.A. Mama. 

A personal reflection at the end of the first month of the year.

It has been a month since the new year started perhaps a good time to reflect what went through my mind so far. I've got a few projects in hand, the Action Research on L1 usage, potential HV presentation and TED Tokyo speaker's workshop on this Sunday. I applied to the presentation a few weeks ago and got e-mail from one of organizers of TED Tokyo yesterday. In the application form, I wrote my thoughts regarding English education in Japan particularly on L1 use as a bilingual language teacher. My presentation would uncover what has been going on in the language teaching industry and classroom at school via my personal observation. I assumed nobody would take what I think and try to bring a bit of change seriously because I am just a person in a crowd. Although I personally think everyone has something extraordinary to tell, I never believed people would be interested in my own story for I haven't done anything extraordinary. But I suspect the catchy title - Would you like some BLT Sandwich in a language learning? might have attracted their interest. In fact, what I have contributed to the world is a small private language school for young learners with a little idea.

After my own daughter's birth, I set up Sunnyfield English to facilitate a learning space for local children via learning English. I never wanted to expand the business or numbers of students. In fact, I wanted to keep it as small as 2 to 3 classes a day for 5 days a week with 30 to 40 young learners in order to maintain the homy atmosphere and close relationship with them. However, from last year, the numbers of students started to drop and now become the half of the number used to be. The reason is crystal clear that children grew up and left our house and I haven't found the new ones to look after.  When my daughter was much younger, teaching at Sunnyfield English was the only job I had and I used to take a pleasure in organizing some events and did a bit of advertisement via posting flyers from time to time. Since some of friends of my students kept on joining, the number of students stayed almost the same for about 10 years. I was able to support myself graduating from 4 year university while my daughter was in elementary school while making a nothing fancy but comfortable living by the tuitions I charged. I certainly appreciate all the children and their parents for their support and understanding of my practice. After completing my BA in English literature, I went on learning further and got myself on a Master's program last year. In spite of my passion in this field, my interest and attention has been paid to more personal and professional development as a facilitator but not as an owner of the school.  Nevertheless, the biggest motivation and inspirations to keep this place is those children's laughters and the twinkling eyes when they discover something. I feel so blessed and spirited when I am with children in last 5 or 6 years. I suspect I see the little tiny chubby baby I held 13 years ago in every one of children I meet. In other words, I became one of the mums who blindly and helplessly love her children. It can't be complete unconditional because of little expectations I hold towards them but "humanly" unconditional and compassionate love. There are not much I can do for those beautiful creatures by sharing only an hour a week but one thing I believe I might have a chance to do is to plant the love of reading into the heart of them.  Unfortunately I can't go and read a story a night by their beds like I used to do for Momo but fortunately all of my children have their own mums who can possibly enjoy the stories children bring back to their homes as they leave my classroom. I might be naive to think that a language instructor can bring a bit of change at home but this goal would remain as my life time goal. And if this can be realized more pleasurably with a help of L1, I say why not! In order to keep this wishy-washy dream, this year I promised myself to tell the society where I am and what I do more actively, meaning making flyers and posting them.
After all, If TED Tokyo are willing to listen to what I think, my little idea which is planting the love of reading in the heart of little ones while utilizing children's L1 via BLT Sandwich, might be worth spreading.

Something to think of during the break.

The young musicians, aged from 13 to 15 have dared to play a challenging tune on a big stage for a competition which 160  ensembles of junior high schools in Tokyo entered. It was held at one of the largest concert  hall in west Tokyo. In front of them, there were heaps of audience and some intimidating looking judges. Their pressure might have been enormous due to the expectation from peers from the school and the club. In spite of the daunting situation, they stood high in the center of the stage and played their music in harmony. Their outstanding efforts and devotion brought them the Gold prize and admirations from their peers, instructors and parents. Nobody forced them to do. It was merely their free will to enter the ensemble and the competition.

Had witnessed what kids can do when they put their heart into it, what Kohn asserts in this video make sense more. Part of his assertion can be a bit too extreme and too generalizing for I also know that some kids can find their places even in a traditional education system, memorizing facts and figures and flourish in their own way. And perhaps the real world is not that ideal place to live on with heaps of controversial issues and contradictions as we all know. Perhaps the patience and steadfast will can be emerged from rather bitter experiences in school days. One of the auto biological books of a legendary teacher from one of the elite school, Nada, says hard work and lots of devotion from an educator make differences at school. His way was rather unconventional in terms of contents to teach.  Yet in terms of amount of work and devotion required from students and teacher-centered style, his way is conventional. I am sure there are many other cases that traditional education work well and some of them might have found their places at school and become teachers. With passion and devotion, children might be able to absorb something from the class. But I think traditional teacher-centered way doesn't work to everyone, either.  So, it is only fair if schools come up with unique and alternative ways, depending on the learning style, social and cultural circumstance, mindset and other variables each student might have or may deal with. Because it is not impossible if all the educators and stakeholders put their heart into the reformation. Progressive education Kohn asserts might not make the ideal and perfect education but at least the ownership of learning would be given to the learners and there are more chances that they might feel more engaged and enjoyable in learning. What educators and stakeholders can do is to facilitate the comfortable and welcoming spaces for learners to flourish and also provide supports when needed. Then learners might be able to apply their own style to learn how to solve puzzles that they wonder in the real world. Finding some convincing answers for your puzzles can be time-consuming and requires hard work as well but at least you are actively involved in the quest and perhaps that is what excites us.

In much smaller scale, what I can do is to provide such a place for young learners of English. Just imagining the faces in flow get me excited!

Momo's Learning Journey: Where does she go?

As I have mentioned more than a few times, my daughter has been getting terrible scores on English tests at school due to spelling errors and other careless errors in writing. She must have thought that she could be a super cool A+ student in her English classes, considering the time she spent with me, reading and playing in English until the age of 12 when she started studying for the entrance exam. In spite of the fact, she ended up taking extra-class-for- dummies at school. The outcome? She started saying "I HATE English."

Those classes are designed for slow learners and they supposed to help students to improve their learning skills and she should be glad to have such opportunities. But considering the humiliation the slow learners might feel to be in the class when the whole school kids know the reason why they take the classes, I felt uncertain about the effect of the effort of teachers. In spite of my concern, those extra-class-for-dummies have become her favorite.  What teachers do is to give them some tasks/ handouts to work on individually while they look after other things in the teacher's room. At the beginning, the kids did as they were told to do but eventually came up with better strategies on their own while teachers are away from the classroom. They started helping each other. Momo says learning together work better in fun and quicker way. I am not sure if it was really the teacher's intention but it happened and she said teachers were happy as long as all the tasks were correctly done within a certain time.

From this semester, she is no longer the "regular" of the class for her spelling skills got better and ironically she misses the class. Her enthusiasm in the "special" class asserts that the effect of peer learning for the age group. With more scaffolding from teachers, their learning might be accelerated, I wonder. But the peer learning experience has very positive effect on her motivation and also on her English proficiency test score. She took one of them at her school last month. This one is regular national proficiency test that the school requires students to take. In spite of her much lower than average score on her school English tests, she got 10th highest score in her school. It was a sudden leap from 40 something to 80 marks.

Daily exposure to authentic interaction between my partner and myself at breakfast table in English must be one of the reasons for the phenomenal change. For my own sake, I would like to think that the memories associated with a sense of pleasure via reading picture books and playing learning activities with her classmates at Sunnyfield English (my own school) started paying off as well. I have no idea how to prove it but she often says, "I know this phrase from Dr. Seuss.","Ah, Mr. Putter says this." and uses some expressions from those picture books she read or songs she enjoyed. It seems like after a few months of English lessons at school, those memories have returned to her mind.

Perhaps I am just speculating for my own benefit but she does started remembering bits of phrases, vocabularies, stories and songs from past and uses the experiences and knowledge for her learning. If she would be able to use her memories to hypothesize the meanings of unknown words and phrases in her learning, my score as a mum might get higher, at least on my self-evaluation sheet. Process is more important than the outcome for sure. But the positive outcome do motivate us to keep on learning to learn.

Ooops. Going back to the starting point.

After watching the video-recording of my class through the eyes, equipped with a bit more theories of teaching children, my discovery was nothing to do with my focus, teacher's feedback. I found that giving a certain task to children as a pair or a group work increases the active participation, motivation, sense of ownership and learner to learner talk without the teacher's intervention. Lots of laughters and interactions between learners have identified and the post- task presentations seemed to make a clear goal for them. In order to achieve the task more successfully, the stronger or the faster learners help the slower ones without any instructions from the teacher. Learners discussed and came up with better strategies to achieve the task on their own. They looked more involved and interested when they work in pairs or groups rather than in a teacher-innitiated activities. In other words, more student-centered and self-regulated class was evident in a group or pair works, at least in this particular class with 3 of 6 graders, 2 of 4th graders and 2 of 2nd graders. The level gap among them due to the age differences has become one of clear decisive measures in grouping or pairing children. The age differences between students also give unique dynamics in the class rather than obstacles. Elder students are more forgiving and supportive with younger ones who are not their siblings and this interesting tendency among elder students make the group or pair work more harmonious and effective for enhancing learning. Moreover, by stepping back and observe their work, I could see what kind of supports they need in order to achieve their tasks in a short term and improve their English proficiency in long term. These findings would help me to plan or revise the next tasks and lessons.

In spite of all the positive outcome of the pair work and group work, excessive usage of L1 has been apparent and troubling me ever since. Almost 100% of student's interactions during the task were conducted in L1 except some moments when I gave them some clues to use phrases that they have already acquired. My dilemma: How can a teacher maximize students L2 usage in group or pair practice in monolingual language class without depriving of their spontaneous interactions and learning opportunities through the work?

I would ask teachers in various settings how they deal with L1 usage in their classes via Survey Monkey and find more research papers on the subject.

I feel like running in a circle chasing my own tale. But my partner who is an experienced researcher says, "It is a part of research and that's how you find your own path."

With this inspiring and encouraging words in mind, I shall start seeking my path again :-)

Why do I say that!?

After recording my class, I listed to some to find what was going on. Perhaps most of you who have recorded your class to reflect your practice feel the same: SHOCK! Even though this is not the first time for me to record my own class and listened to it but this time my focus was teacher's feedback so that I focused on what I said. It is not really friendly and comfy to see the reality.

Some findings are listed below:

-Not enough wait-time for students to contribute answers or opinions.
- More display questions than referential ones
- Excessive use of teacher echos and IRF
- More form-fosused feedback than content feedback
- No enough student-initiated talk
-Filling in the gaps
-Some ineffective praises such as "Good!" due to habitual tendency

Positive ones are:

-Sufficient use of speech modification and rephrasing for comprehensible input
- Some negotiation for meaning ( teacher- students)
- Some content feedback
-Some referential questions such as "What would you like to eat for Thanksgiving dinner?"
- Prompting

Some use of L1 is not the focus but also something to consider. In the particular lesson, I feel I used L1 appropriately in order to use time effectively and support students' understanding for the tasks they need to do. I started using L1, considering some students' personalities as well. Some students can't move on unless they understand their task perfectly.

According to the data, some serious consideration and reformation are needed. The first big step of such  reformation is to be aware of my tendencies and errors, some features of my practice which are considered as obstruction for more learning opportunities for students in EFL settings (Walsh 2002)

I am going to consider the criteria of supportive teacher talk within the classroom as a unique institutional discourse setting.

"Oh...that's a kid stuff..."

Many of my friends who teach English at schools might share the idea that generally Japanese students are passive in their learning. They might not complain whatever you do in class and just passively accept and get involved in activities reluctantly. This general notion captures the tendency of my students, aged 11 and above, however, as long as the young ones are concerned, they don't hesitate to tell me either explicitly or implicitly. Especially younger than 8, speak their mind so explicitly that the comments can sound even brutal. But the straightforwardness is what I really love about them and truly appreciate their feedback in spite of an instant rage or quite sharp heartache arise inside of myself as I receive such sharp criticism from children.

Of course there are some cases reflect just absolute selfish nature of some children and need to be informed that there are some occasions they might have to do things they don't really take pleasure so much. For example, not sharing color pencils with other kids that belong to the school, being an absolute sore loser in learning activities or being excessively violent/ wild physically or verbally to others in class. In fact, any abusive behavior with others shouldn't be allowed for any reasons. At the face of abusive behavior,  a teacher as a safe learning environment facilitator, must immediately act to stop such nonsense and counterproductive behavior. A follow-up individual interview also need to be done sometime after class to investigate the causes in order to prevent such unpleasant situations.

However, when children express their displeasure or deficiency in the contents of my classes in a relatively civilized manner, such as a comment, "Oh...that's a kid stuff..." or a big sigh. The voice / sign should be taken seriously and appreciated for their sincere feedback. Yes, it is tough to face your failures especially when you tried to do your best. And also it is human nature that we upset by a negative evaluation and language teachers are humans who are extra sensitive to words. I bet I frown or show a disappointment as I take their criticism but hopefully children would forgive my immaturity and give me credit for the effort to facilitate better learning contents and environment.  In fact, most of children I know are very forgiving and give me so many chances to modify things that don't work in class.

From this week, I will record the entire interaction with my students and see what the datas reveal. Whatever it would be, it would be a learning opportunity if I take it so, would it?

How about taking a breath or two?

On friday late afternoon, I have 5 first graders in my class at TKC (my new work). They are full of energy and from time to time some boys need to scream their extra energy out of their systems, turning the classroom into a zoo. They can be noisier than some of monkeys which really amazes me since I don't really have that energy anymore. It can be a bit overwhelming but I don't mind as long as they don't scream without any particular reasons. In fact, getting excited and being a bit extra cheeky would be fine with me as long as they are engaged in some learning activities. We cheer and tend to speak in larger volume when we are excited? Isn't it a positive sign?

However, for younger kids like 1st graders, it might be difficult to know when to get wild and playful. So, we, teachers obviously let them know when they got so dangerously wild that the noise might offend neighbors. That is when I found deep breathing counting down intervention work quite well. It comes from Yoga practice.
I go, "Hey, everyone! Let's sit down for a while and take a deep breath." And I  take a deep breath and count down from 5 as we take a deep breath. By the time we take 5 deep breath, everyone gets mellower. I found this simple breathing exercise effective as a friendly transitional cue from a dynamic learning activity to mellow one.

One of Yoga gurus said once, "When your mind gets noisy and distractive, breathe."
Here is something to consider.
http://www.yogaatschool.org.uk/information/20/0/Breath_activities.htm

I haven't figure out how to integrate yoga practice and its philosophy into my classes yet but I started introducing yogic wisdom. And doing the sun dance with kids might be better than screaming back and exhausting myself when the class got a bit of out of control.

Happy Sunny Saturday to you all!

What is a teacher's feedback for?

After having a Skype meeting with my tutor and a participant of the course for methodology module, I felt lost. The reason was that my tutor didn't get impressed at all while I was keen on talking about self -theory that explained two types of mindsets. Just before I was going to explain the connection between mindsets and an effective kind of praise, my tutor stopped me and asked me to reconsider the starting point I got for teacher's praises might not be a reason that students feel helplessness at the face of challenging tasks. That comment sounded a brutal rejection of my proposal. 

On the other hand, the other participant in the meeting got very positive feedback from the tutor such as 

"It sounds worth investigating."

"Oh, that sounds intriguing."

where the ones I got were:

"I don't understand what you mean."

"I am not sure if that (praising, my focus) is worth investigating."

"Oh, that is only psychological matter."

The tone of her voice told me that I wasn't even close to meet her expectation. The whole session was unexpectedly upsetting. Ironically, the session proved that teacher's feedback matter to a student a lot. Especially it was the first meeting and I had such an inspiring and motivating tutor in the last module, I was devastated due to the time I might have wasted and the work I need to do ahead. I felt like I was quite close to the goal in a race and one of the judges of the race disqualified me for running off track.

I went to bed feeling absolutely miserable in spite of kind and generous support from my partner. He tried everything he could to cheer me up again. But, as you may know, nothing works when the message receiver is experiencing the helplessness.

This morning, as I saw the sun rising, I got more hopeful mood and started reflecting what exactly happened last night and what I should do from there with a big support from my partner. He listened to every single messy whinging-like mumble just before beginning his very busy day at the breakfast table. I am afraid he couldn't digest all the food at all. As I mumbled away, I felt much better and realized I was in absolutely fixed mindset. Last night I was absolutely in shock at the face of challenges and lost all my motivation because I didn't see the session as a learning process but a painful criticize on my work. Then I realize how arrogant I have been to expect a positive feedback from my tutor and how silly to compare myself to the other participant. As I felt more open to  my partner's advice, I realized that the session was a great learning opportunity for me in many ways:

I can now related to how exactly my students feel when I gave them a negative feedback while giving others positive ones.

I identified my own tendency to fall in the fixed mindset easily as a student.

I can develop my knowledge on praising via reading more literature in order to find better starting point.

I feel more determined to record my class and examine more carefully.

I got better understanding of qualitative research.

I got better idea how I narrow down a general topic to a research topic.

I got better idea where the answer would be in Action Research.

All my puzzles haven't been solved yet but I know where I can go now. It is the kids, the classroom, my home. This whole session turned my enthusiastic pleasant evening into a nightmarish one. But at the same time, it got me back home where I seek the answers for my puzzles. Young learners in various stages in their lives I have met at Sunnyfield English, my home, showed me the way how to talk, learn and grow together in the last decade.  So, I am quite sure they will show me the way on this challenging path as well.

What makes the world wonderful?

Are you singin'? Dancin' to this beautiful tune? Can you related to this sentiment? How often do you think to yourself, "What a wonderful world!"

As I teach young learners for quite long time, I have come across with some who are chronically depressed about their lives, finding no meanings, no motivation, no pleasures at all. Their common phrases would be, "I can't do it. " "I don't know." "I am tired." "I am sleepy." "Sorry." They don't destruct other students by being noisy, nasty or naughty. They just sit on the corner of the classroom with emotionless faces. I can't feel any energy from them. They don't react any cheekiness from their teacher, either. They come and go without participating. Is this person familiar to you?

It has been tough to understand what in the world is going on in their minds because I have never been a child like them. I was physically weak but very very cheeky inside. I often imagined something really naughty to do or say in class and entertained other kids by telling the ideas during breaks. My classmates usually love my ideas and we all laughed together. Being funny was my way to connect with others. Otherwise I would be a loser and the best target for bullies for my chubby looks and sluggish way of speaking. Being funny and cheeky was my best protection in my childhood. So, sitting spiritlessly like a zombi in the classroom was never occurred to me. The bullies would have killed me spiritually if I did so.

Those zombified kids for some reasons are not slow learners or chubby like I was. In fact most of them are bright and good-looking to me. And perhaps they might be considered as "good" kids for they are quiet and most of the time do what I ask to do. I just can't feel the vigorous spirits that most kids possess which bother me so much and need to know the causes. In spite of my strong interest or concern towards those zombified ones, they won't usually open their mouths unless I managed to build a rapport with them somehow. It has been fifty-fifty whether I can build rapport or not. If parents allow me to let me be with them for a while, I have more chances to get to know them but if I have only a few months,
 I am useless.

In my long career, I met a few kids of this kind who courageously opened their hearts to me and talked about their issues. Those were very very emotional moments and I salute them for their courage to open up and share their vulnerability with someone like me who share only an hour a week with them. From what I heard from them, I got a hypothesis that they have enormously high expectation for their lives and so their parents are and they are extremely goal-oriented. They have tendency to ignore all the pleasure of learning which lies in the learning process. No matter what outcome is if the process is worth participating, you will try again even at the face of big failure or setback. The kind of perseverance or "faith" in your potential is needed for them. They are perfectionist and feel constantly disappointed with their skills and talent because of the sky high expectations. When this persons meet  other perfectionist in their family, things intensified and every learning opportunity become a test or a judgement of his/ her talent. Eventually they stop trying and go for safe way, which is not bad at all. I don't mean to criticize anyone's life style but if this perfectionism leads some kids chronically depressed or kills their natural curiosity, I can't sit around and let it go. I would like to do something with them because they are part of the wonderful world we live in. They can take part in as who they are in this strange world with full of unique creatures including humans. And the truth is I've never met anyone perfect so far. There might be some but I've never net them yet and according to my wise grandma, there is none.

This kind of zombified people due to the perfectionism is defined as "fixed mindset" and the other who have more faith in their potentiality is "growth mindset", according to Dweck. She asserts that such mindsets come from what authorities (parents and teachers) say to them in their childhood when they are still so vulnerable to their words.

This is my topic for my Methodology assignment. I would like to examine myself as a teacher/ mum so that I won't at least hurt any children. I am aware of my limitation. I am aware that there is little tiny bit of time I can share with my kids. But within the precious time, I hope I can help them to see their amazing potential and amazingly bright and positive future not in the mere opportunistic way or idealistic way. I would like them to see their potential in the more realistic way via eliciting their psychological strength, toughness and perseverance at the face of setbacks. I need to research more how I can possibly help them find all the quality they posses inside but I know I will if I don't give up.

It is quite funny that my grandpa gave me this beautiful name, Chiyuki. In chinese character, it means "Never give-up" I think my grandpa's only expectation for me was to be growth mindset and live this precious life in my own unique way. With his unconditional love and unjudgmental wish for my well-being, I become who I am in spite of more than few times of severe fights with fatal sicknesses.

Seligman asserts that there are 4 features to fulfill to flourish your life :
positive emotion
engagement at work
positive relationship
accomplishment / meaningful life

My hypothesis is that parents and teachers play key figures to cultivate the essential mindset for kids to realize well-being on their own in their adulthood.

Do you see the beauties and wonderful features of the world? Then we are on the same page :-)

Life In Technicolor

Since I started facilitating a space for learning, playing, discovering and sharing the world around us with children via  English about 17 years ago, I've been asking myself, "Why?"
In other words: The purpose/ philosophy of myself for my profession.

At the beginning, as a single girl, who enjoyed her life as a backpacker so much, there was no philosophy behind. I just enjoyed the presence of children in my life and  this job would certainly get some of them in my life constantly. And sharing some incredible experiences I had while traveling with kids seemed like a good idea. I also thought it would be awesome if some kids pack up and go to see the world on their own eyes. Back then, English was a mere useful tool for me to share with kids. I didn't think I would make "teaching" my career for I was busy for discovering the world.

Things turned upside down since my daughter came along. As I heard her first cry and held her in my arms, instantly she became the world to explore. I wanted to build a comfortable nest for her instead of drifting around. As this huge mind shift occurred, teaching English  for children became more than temporary job, something fun to do while traveling. It became a career to pursue. I have made so many mistakes and errors in my youth but this particular decision was right. This career provided the best environment I could possibly provide for my baby girl who is no longer so little now. She has grown up among other children and adults who learn for various purposes and ways. I really appreciate for their presence in our lives. Otherwise, single parent household could be daunting for both of us. Of course there were ups and downs like any other families have but our lives have been blessed with lots of laughters, exciting challenges and helping hands. We learn what compassion is all about and see goodness, kindness and generosity in people. Compassion doesn't know pity, prejudice or other ignorant judgements. I truly thank for everyone in our lives for I have never seen crying face of my daughter because of her circumstance.

Our circumstance has been radically changed since we moved into a new nest with a new member of our household, my partner. He is the one who has been supporting me in the closest position to pursue my career as a mum, post-graduate students and a teacher for young learners. I hope I would be able to make this most challenging career, M.A. Mama as my life-long research project because the world of TEFL for young learners is the most adventurous, dynamic and exciting place to explore through eyes of not only a teacher but a parent. Every challenge I get provokes my rebelliousness and stimulates my curiosity. Every smile I see in my classroom motivates me to be better personally and professionally. Every progress I feel in my children adds more meaning to my precious yet tiny life.

In sum, this career has become my life-long journey now and the purpose of my journey is to learn and share what I learn with next generation in the hope of generating more life-long learners.

Parents and teachers! Here is something to consider

What would we, parents and teachers want for our children, fixed or growth mindset?
Which one can be more beneficial for their happier and fuller lives?
How would children feel at the face of setbacks?
How can we help them to acquire the mindset?

Here is another one!

Notes from last night

I have just returned from a Halloween party with kids aged 0 to 5. It was just priceless. I am still in the dazzling of happiness. Why do I feel this? Because all the kids showed me the happy faces. Happiness is contagious and multiply the effect when it is shared. Last night, my daughter reminded me of this fact.

My aging mum has been having difficult time to adjust her own changes physically and psychologically.  This confusion has been going on for a while and we are learning what we can do for her when she gets panicked. When she does, she can't think and act as the way she normally is. She needs someone to walk along outside for a while. Knowing this tendency, my daughter volunteered in spite of her fatigue from nasty cold and vigorous brass band practice. Fortunately, just before they left my parent's place for the night walk, I caught them after work and asked my dad if he could join my mum because it wasn't safe for them to go for a walk at night alone. Besides, my daughter was still recovering from the nasty cold and looked absolutely exhausted from the day at school. She has already skipped a day from school last week and couldn't afford to miss another day in the midst of serious preparation for the first school festival and the brass band concert. Above all, she has been quite ill and really needed to get some more sleep to be fully recovered.

On the way back home, in my car, she started talking about some funny episodes she got from school. We tried to laugh away our worries about my mum's condition which can't be cured instantly. After having the good laugh, she said, "Seeing happiness on other's faces is the happiest moment. Do you think, Mum?"

"Yup." is the only word I could manage to utter because I was in tears.

I knew she wanted to go for a walk for my mum. I knew she didn't care how tired and sick she was. I knew she cared about her grandma a lot. I knew it was a chance for her to give some love back to her grandma. I might have ruined it but I also knew my mum wouldn't be happy when her granddaughter got fever again. So, I had to act a cold-hearted and nasty daughter, dealing with my guilt.

In spite of all her laziness and rebelliousness, in the midst of the inner conflict I had, her words washed the guilt, anxiety and sadness away and retrieved the big smile to my face again. She reminded me of something essential and something genuinely good in us. I truly respect and appreciate her presence in my life for all the lessons she has given me.

Because of what she said last night, those smily and happy faces of children at the Halloween party looked absolutely fantastic.

I tend to be caught up in tiny matters of life and forget something really good, the essence of well-being. I hope I would keep the words of wisdom from the rebellious yet tender spirited girl via sharing them with others.

Is no praise a good praise?

I have been reading some literature and thinking about praising yesterday. As a teacher for young learners, I realize I tend to praise them unnecessarily and frequently without considering so much about the pitfall of praising.

Some researches show that children can detect insincerity in teacher or parent's praise and that leads to hopelessness in them. In other words, insincere praise damages children's self-efficacy. These findings scared hell out of me because that is not what I intend to do at all. But it is true some of grown-ups tend to use a praise as a motivator without fully aware of the danger. Such a false praise may also damage the relationship you have build with the kid. On top of that, it can make your kid addictive to easy-rewards. Once your kids become a praise junky, he/she won't do anything without it and this tendency might take away autonomy in learning and discovering his/ her own live. False praises also create helplessness in children at the face of setback. Those children who have been getting too much meaningless praises tend to give up challenges easily. One of the research paper says, at the face of setback, neutral and nonjudgemental feedback is the best to give. 

What I have discovered so far is that no praise on their efforts is not an answer to avoid making your child or student a praise junky but being aware of the pitfall of praising and use it appropriately and wisely might be able to facilitate more motivating environment for children's personal development. We as parents or educators ultimately want our kids/ students to be independent life-time learners with full of curiosity, don't we? At least, facilitating assuring environment for children to develop steadfast self-efficacy and perseverance in order to flourish in their own ways is my way to feel flourished as a person. 

Don't get me wrong I am not one of those selfless saints on earth. I just want to see my kids flourishing with their own strength in their own unique ways for very very self-centered and selfish reason. I feel happiest when I see the proud smiles of children and hear the genuine laughters of them because that is the only time when I see something glorious in spite of all absurdity in humanity including myself. 

Does it make me a junky of their smiles? Then, so be it! 

Angels on earth: Saturday class.

Some days things don't work at all and I feel hopeless and useless and start asking myself, "What are you doing here?" Hiding at home and taking care of my family instead of being in class, learning via trials and errors looks more appealing and sensible. I had one of those day last friday. I was totally exhausted physically and psychologically on Saturday morning and was not be able to take any tough time from children. In other words, I wasn't ready to share and learn with them.

In spite of the apathetic attitude of students in the second class, I managed to go through three classes with slightly more positive attitude but before going into the classroom, I was seriously praying that the children would be ready for learning something. They were absolutely ready smiling and sitting on the chairs with notebooks and textbook ready on the table. I was so impressed and thankful to their enthusiasm that I couldn't help telling them how fantastic they were. Then, one of students sympathetically said, "You are overpraising us. This is just a normal behavior in class." Then I explained how I felt on the day and how motivating their enthusiasm towards learning was. They were so sympathetic and did all the work I planned earnestly and when it came to Story time (I read a story for them at the end of the class), they became a wonderful audience, going "Oh!" "wow"and "phew" as I read through the story. Then, one of the students said, "Please read one more story for us!" Nothing can beat that kind of comment. They were my saviors. I am not exaggerating. I felt that low somehow on the day.

It is easy to blame a bad day on other things but I believe / know that it is me who to be responsible for the negative response from children. But usually there are so many things going around me and can't help feeling exhausted.  Without sufficient positive energy, you can't carry some of the luggage children carry and lighten up a little.

So, I asked and received help from children more than I can imagine.

Thursday Class

This one is mixed level class and it requires creativity to manage the differences. Three kids in the class are 5th and 6th graders, becoming as critical and self-conscious as they can be. Two of them are 2nd graders, still being in a la la land, careless, easily amused, playful and chatty. Two of them are 4th graders, becoming little more self-counscious yet still showing innocent curiosity with pretty much everything. My mission is to design lessons that somewhat satisfy needs of all the students. Since they have different level of comprehension in all 4 skills, I can assign them individual activities and check their work individually while they share some of activities such as singing. I've done that and it was rather easy to handle, however, to make this unique circumstance more beneficial to all of us, I started to offer more tasks to complete as groups. I usually divide them into three groups and ask them to work on some tasks together. The elder kids automatically become leaders of each group, trying to control little ones. Their control is surely much better than mine. Little ones work more diligently to complete their missions.

Yesterday I put up a piece of paper on the white board with 20 Halloween vocabularies we have learned in last class. This class served as a review one. Then I asked them to make three groups. One of  students didn't show up yesterday so that we made three pairs. The activity goes:
1 On the piece of paper, letters, ABCD and numbers from 1 to 5 were printed on the top of the Halloween vocabulary chart and the right side of it.

2 One of the pair finds the word from the chart as I call a letter and a number, for instance, A-1.

3 Then the student tell the word such as witch to his/ her pair and he/she write it on his/her notebook.

4 The  chart contains pictures and written words underneath so that the reader can tell how to spell to the writer as he/she asks, "How do you spell that?"

5 I set timer just to add more thrill to the activity but I often stretch time as it needed.

I encourage them to use simple English phrases as they do this task such as
Student A: It is a witch.
Student B: How do you spell "witch"?
Student A: W-I-T-C-H
Student B: Can you spell that again? W and what?

However, depending on the purpose and amount,  L1 is allowed to use to a certain degree. The objectives of this task is to encourage learner to learner interaction, build rapport among learners while they work on their reading and writing skills. We did the same activity twice as students switched the role in the pair activity.

One of the best findings via this activity is that elder ones needed to be patient with the young ones and provide extra support. None of them lost their temper and tried to complete the task with little ones patiently. 6th grade girl, who has the best ability in the class in all 4 skills, lost her patience a little because her pair was the slowest learner. However, how she endured the sluggishness of her partner and started giving him a lesson on alphabet writing, using the picture dictionary I put on the table. She looked at me as if she needed my approval to use the picture dictionary to guide her partner. So, I nodded.

She has a little brother in the class but can't be that patient with him like I can't be so patient with my daughter. It is funny human tendency.

I think this kind of simple tasks with explicit goals might make meaningful lessons for they can build rapport between students, empathy and patience while young learners learn new vocabularies or phrases. While I mix with some of individual activities and group ones, I will see what other fascinating abilities of them emerge :-)

Notes from Wednesday Morning class

Oh, that was fun with about 20 kids, totally, absolutely, amazingly motivated dream students.

I go there only three times a month for an hour session. For those 3 to 5 year old kids, I may be nothing but a silly grown-up who comes from time to time to play with them. What I suspect is that those kids long for TLC more than other kids with attention from their mum all day long. Their mums are all working mums and they spend most of their early childhood days at the nursery school. Some of them have quality time with their mums I am sure. But I also know how tired those working mums would be at home after work and perhaps they would fall asleep while they read books for the little ones. Their mums can get really cranky from time to time without no rational reasons. Their mums could be hysterical and very unpleasant to be around. Been there, done that! I remember I tried to stay awake for my daughter and read more storybooks with her but couldn't help falling asleep. Guess what she did. She let me sleep when I really needed a good sleep. She learned how to shut herself up when I was in a cranky mood. She learned how to tuck herself in the bed and make herself sleep at very young age. I assume those kids have those nights and they definitely deserve absolute fun time with a bit of crazy mum like myself.

When I was asked to teach English at the school, the principal said to me to play with them, using English. She also said she didn't expect them to speak English fluently with only an hour and three time a month exposure to English. What she expected me to do is to show and share the joy of leaning the new language. She also let me decide what and how we learn English together. What a dream job! I really truly appreciate and enjoy time with kids.

Yesterday I was thinking how I feel so motivated there.
1 I got motivated students.
2 I got welcoming and supportive teachers.
3 I got freedom to do the best I can.
4 I got a spacious, clean and equipped classroom.
5 I got some events to look forward.

When I started working/ playing there, I had a bit of confusing message from a teacher with her unfriendly tone of voice and body language. I assumed she was not so excited about the change but now I realized she had no idea what to do. She has been so supportive to provide the safest and best environment for learning.

In the last class, I introduced a new song from Happy Vally CD using gestures and facial expressions to convey the meanings of emotions in the song such as happy and grumpy. They love to express grumpiness with the danceable tune. I didn't need the doughnut perspective because the class itself is a whole cake! But the question is if I was careful enough when I give them praise. Obviously I wasn't because I don't quite recall what I said much. I remember the smily and cute faces and little hands in the air to get my attention. "Marvelous!""Fantastic!"might have been what I said to them. ah...much more descriptive praise should be given but those are absolutely sincere comments.

According to one of the research papers I read yesterday, a praise might stimulate intrisic motivation of children if it is perceived as sincere message by the recipient who has established self-efficacy with specific and doable standards and expectation. On top of that, a trusting relationship between the praiser and the recipient is essential. And of course, there might be more variables such as age, gender, culture and personality to consider. But the good news is that younger kids may not be so sensitive to words so much and perceive a praise as a motivator.

I truly hope I won't say anything or do to demotivate those beautiful kids. That is the only fear I have in the class. Gotta learn more!!!!

Praises and doughnut perspective

Praises are tricky thing : They can demotivate students. Have you ever thought about that? Actually I have when I took one of workshops for teaching YLs over 10 years ago. But it didn't grab my attention as much as it does now. The notion was way too complex for me to deal with back then.
 I was like,
 "Yeah, yeah, yeah, then what?"
But this time, I have been struggling to find my own motivation to keep on trying as a mum and a teacher for young learners. I've been think about what and how I can help them to find flow or motivation in my classroom. That's what I am paying for or responsible.

After taking the presentation, I had a little chat with the presenter, John Wiltshier. He was kind enough to share the reference of his presentation and gave me an idea for AR, praising. Then my mind started working at the full speed, figuring out how and what can demotivate my student and my daughter.

In my class yesterday, I was fully aware of what words I gave to them as praises. I try to comment on what they have achieved not on their general intelligence. I've read this idea in Mindset but again my sluggish brain didn't fully get a grip on it. Now I got much clearer idea how and what I can try to see the changes I can bring to my classes as my perspective changes.

Luckily, I have a class with 20 little kids this morning. With this new perspective, I will see what happens!

Note: AR idea

Pearson Teachers Conference was held yesterday. Due to all the daily routine work, I missed the half of the first presentation but took all 4 presentations for teaching young learners.

From the informative and inspirational presentations, I got three ideas.
1. Having pre and post activities with extensive reading program.
2. Providing some easy and doable tasks at home to encourage parental involvement for their children's  
    learning.
3. Setting proximal-sub goals
4. Researching what is good and bad praise

Instead of reading more research papers and books for my Action Research, I went to the conference having two annoying questions in mind;
1 What am I supposed to do with my completely demotivated daughter?
2 What would I do for my AR?

My instinct sometimes work really well. I got reasonable answers for the questions.
For the first one, I would read aloud my daughter's old time favorite series "Mr. Putter and Tabby." at breakfast or dinner table. She loves reading and I truly think it would be a huge loss if she gave up on reading English ones for there are so many brilliant literature to read. I also decided to see positive and good quality of her instead of pointing out her faults. Thanks to the doughnut theory. I may have been paying attention only on the hole not the yummy cake part. I think she lost motivation to do the best she can because of continuous disappointing results on mini-tests at school. She lost self-esteem without the sense of success. She is also trying to learn a challenging tune for the brass band competition in December. So, my job is to get her realize the cake part of her doughnut. She is kind and compassionate with her friends and good at drawing and crafts. She is also a good listener and knows a lot of good stories. I tend to get annoyed by forgetful and disorganized part of her because they are exactly the unfavorable characteristics of myself.

For the second question, I am not sure if it is doable or not yet but I would start recording my class again and identify what kind of praises I use. I realize the power of words and would like to use them carefully.

I've been learning a lot as a M.A. Mama. I found more faults in myself than positive qualities and get disappointed.  Perhaps from time to time, I should take a look at the cake part of myself as well and say to myself, "Chico, you are doing the best you can. No worries."

Note from Saturday class

"What a bother!"

"Boring!"

"I hate it!"

"I don't wanna do this again!"

"Do we have to do this?"

"Oh, please..."

No "F" words are allowed in the classroom but basically they screamed all sorts of style of complaining. These are real voices of several of 5th graders, who have been learning English as a mean of communication from as early as the age of 3,  about one of the typical workbooks based on school textbooks, containing heaps of translations and filling gaps tasks. 

The controversial workbook has been one of the main textbook to use at the school for nearly 5 years. One of the "senior" teacher recommended it and have been the main material to use for intermediate level of students. Most of them can read the starter level of GR without any problems but the workbooks were provided in order to have them ready for Jr. High  school. 

"Excuse me?" is my first reaction. 

Why do we bother to kill such a wonderful tendency of them to prefer reading/ stories in the target language than solving the puzzles with bunch of meaningless words printed along with L1. Some teachers asserted that grammar-translation skill is what they are required at school and thus what they need. 

"Excuse me?" is what I reacted to that comment. 

Then what in the world is the point of  learning the target language as a mean of communication for such a long long time, sacrificing their precious time to play around with their friends? Their parents pay big amount of tuition for merely getting higher level in Step test? Besides how come can they assert that the workbook provides sufficient tasks that the children need in order to be excellent at English at school? How about their motivation? How about their preference? How about their learning style? 

As soon as they whinged away and got things done, I showed a supposedly funny and short reading passage with comprehension questions, they got a little more lively but they said they prefer interesting storybooks to read. I thought they might find the short story funny and interesting but it didn't appeal to them as much as I thought. Next week, I would take some storybooks that my daughter recommended to the class. 

I've got to come up with creative ways to use the workbook because it is one of the requirements in the class at the school. This is one of the most challenging tasks I must deal with.