The Ginkgo Tree

Chapter 1 (Wong)

A whirlwind of thoughts came to mind during the first few pages. First, I was reflecting on my mother’s experience in being one of the only females in her field of study (law, eventually becoming a judge years down the road). She talks to this day about how hard it was to first be accepted into the university itself, not to mention the power relations represented between teacher-female and male-female. Also, I was REALLY surprised by the statistics in regards to the number of Chicana students with high school and university education. Since this interests me so much, maybe I could do my paper on Chicana identity within American culture in relation with educational goals? I’ll have to chew on that one. Lastly, the following statement really left me immensely saddened: “In the United States there are more African American young men in prison than in college” (3). I just want to reach out to these marginalized students in our society. They have so much potential; they just need someone to help them find it.

“Someone who tells you they don’t like the way you speak is quite likely telling you that they don’t like you” (10). ¡Qué fuerte! For me, I am that annoying student who is mesmerized by foreign accents in English, and I ask all the questions about the person’s cultural heritage. In my linguistics class last semester, we talked about how English pronunciation is extremely important in the meaning of words (ship vs. sheep), whereas in other languages pronunciation is not as important as syntax and morphology (like Spanish).

I have heard of most of these approaches except the “reading approach.” Although I would not solely base pedagogy on this, it is an interesting perspective to consider. Under the “Communicative Competence” section, I appreciate all those seven different functions of language that emerged in Halliday’s case study – especially the imaginative function and heuristic function. In one context or another, we all have used language to fulfill these seven functions.

I feel as if our foreign language methodology here at ISU adopts in part the dialogic pedagogy. For example, my supervisor adores the gap-information activities and all lessons must be contextualized with natural discourse among LLs. As we progress in chapters, I will be able to analyze this approach in more detail.

I really benefited from the visual diagram that defined the differences between approach, method, and technique. I very often utilize them incorrectly.