關於英語陪讀一二事

          10月12日幫博愛國小英語陪讀組的志工媽媽們辦一場陪讀研習，滂沱大雨中來了小貓兩三隻，很感謝這些愛心媽媽們特地冒雨前來，我們都是為了提升孩子們的學習而這麼努力，所以我也期許自己可以完全分享教學經驗，讓出席的愛媽們有收穫，不虛此行。會後回想愛心媽媽們以媽媽的角度提出的問題，有別於我們在教學領域開會討論教學策略，而這些問題更貼近實際狀況，更值得好好對待，也更加強我推動親子共學的動力。
         " 媽媽"(或主要照顧者，後面都以"媽媽"代稱孩子的主要照顧者)因為和孩子相處時間較多，對孩子的特質最清楚，當孩子在學習上有些狀況，也許還沒大到引起老師注意時，"媽媽"是最適合在身邊幫忙推一下、扶一下的，只是技巧很重要，要不就不會有"易子而教"這句話存在了。所以，我想表達的是，在"易子而教"(的確有其必要性)的情況下，"媽媽"絕對是孩子學習路上的最佳指導員或陪伴者，請不要輕易放棄自己已經具備此條件的絕佳利基點，請不要誤認為自己英文不好就不能和孩子共學，請不要以為找了一家聽說很好的補習班，交給專業就對了，因為，"聽說很好"不表示真的很好，就算真的很好，也不表示適合您的孩子。所有狀況都要"對症下藥"，最有效的感冒藥也治不好香港腳，孩子如果學習不順利，"媽媽"會比任何人更容易找出卡住的點在哪裡，也許和孩子討論，也許和老師討論，才能讓專業發揮在最有效的地方。
          無論是身為英語陪讀志工或"媽媽"，在陪伴孩子學習英語方面需要著墨的點都一樣。如果可以，先找出學習成效不彰的可能原因，尋求專業(老師)的建議，專業的建議也需要自己斟酌實際狀況做調整，因為老師對個別孩子的特質不會比您清楚；如果這樣做有困難，就從"自然發音法(phonics)"著手，在我的教學經驗中，如果能幫孩子建立字母與聲音的連結，就能提升孩子的學習成效與興趣，但請記得，這種進步是與孩子自己本來情況做比較，而不只是看分數，例如：本來考生字時，3寫成tee，練習以自然發音(phonics)拼讀單字後，再考3，寫成thee，雖然這題還是沒得分，但這就是值得肯定的進步，因為當初寫成 tee 時，可能是靠視覺記憶，勉強記得字型的大概樣貌，現在孩子對於three的音已經能辨識出開頭的 th 音，而 r 因為夾在中間，比較不容易辨識，只要多練習幾次字的拆解再組合，就能強化聲音和字母的概念，達到我們的終極目標~會說就會寫，看到字(無論認不認識)就會唸。
          在加強使用自然發音法(phonics)拼讀單字的同時，有一群很重要的字也不容忽略，它們出現在任何讀物的頻率都很高，而且不太符合發音規則，有人稱他們sight words或high frequency words，想進一步了解，請點選此處-->高頻率字彙。雖然它們不太符合phonics法則，但是有自然發音做基礎還是有助於認讀這些字。無論是練習自然發音的拼音法則，或是加強高頻率字彙的認讀能力，大量閱讀都是不二法門；在使用字母拼音卡練習一段時間後，從字少少的繪本閱讀開始，和孩子一起拼音讀出，通常孩子都會驚訝於自己的閱讀能力，而對英語學習產生多一點信心和興趣。透過閱讀可以反覆接觸高頻率字彙，可以持續練習拼音規則，強化字母和聲音的連結性，還可以在不知不覺中建立基本句型概念，在故事情節的架構中學習簡單用語；對於缺乏英語環境的我們來說，閱讀是最廉價也最容易創造英語環境的方法。
          有位愛媽提問，小孩會說、會拼出背過的單字，也有學自然發音，知道每個字母的音，可是卻沒意願拼讀出沒學過的字，或是運用自然發音法拼出會說但沒背過的單字，這問題出在哪？問題應該是學了自然發音(phonics)後，並沒有確實拿來運用，做各種字母組合練習，所以自然發音法則(phonics)與字母組合拼讀之間的橋樑沒建立好，於是背生字還是用死記法去記得其字母拼寫，閱讀也只讀老師教過的，有CD可聽的，這樣好應付考試，好交差。很遺憾的，這是發生在兒童英語學習領域中非常普遍的現象，記性好的孩子撐得過去，記性不好的就辛苦了。那麼，這座"橋梁"如此重要，為何學校或補習班都不加強此聯結呢？因為這需要花時間反覆練習、多樣化的組合練習，無法在短時間裡給家長一個成績單，所以我鼓勵大家用空白名片做字母卡，和孩子一起玩拼音遊戲，建立字與音的連結橋梁，將來小孩需要背的單字量越來越大時，他/她會很感謝您！
          另外，有位愛媽提出，自己小孩發音的準確度不佳，以中文來看，也是語言能力比數學能力弱....因為我沒接觸過這個孩子，所以不能下準確的判斷，但是我們基本上可以有如此的認知：無論他的中文能力如何，英文能力也會是一樣的，因為這就是他本身具備的語言能力，無關乎是中文、英文、或日文；語言學上有個理論叫Universal Grammar，有興趣者請點選此處-->Universal Grammar，大意是說人類天生腦內就內建有一種普遍性的語法結構，與感官經驗無關，使我們出生就有能力學習任何語言，於是一個在台灣長大的美國小孩能說著道地中文，在美國長大的台灣小孩可以說一口純正的美語，學習哪一種語言和本身的人種無關，這種語言能力是與生俱來的。所以我主張，您的中文有多好，英文也可以那麼好，只是我們接觸英文的量不夠，不表示我們英文學不來，真的，沒有學不來這回事。至於發音準確度，的確和音感有關，如果孩子喜歡音樂，不妨讓他多聽音樂，多唱歌，這是在擴充他的音素(phoneme)資料庫的方法之一，有助於提高模仿聲音的準確度。何謂"音素"？請看此文的最後一段-->幾歲開始學英文好？   再說，關於發音標不標準的問題，我想請大家放寬標準，世界上沒有所謂的標準英語或美語，各地口音不同，就像我們的中文和中國大陸的中文，哪個標準呢？能溝通就好。基本上，不能發錯音，但音準差一些，只要不讓人誤解，就能溝通無礙，這也是語言存在的主要意義。
          這次研習很開心有這些愛心媽媽提問討論，讓我很想寫下來做個紀錄備忘，也期望藉由這篇文章和更多"媽媽"們分享、交流。

My Pedagogical Creed

Section 1: My beliefs about Learning and Teaching

I believe that there are no incapable students but there are teachers that need to learn more.  Everyone is born with an extent of various abilities. Some might be stronger than others in a certain area. Some might be lucky to be born with higher intelligences than others. Everyone has unexplored potential and the ability to work better than his/her current status. This is why the education exists and worth the time and energy of a lot of educators to study and research. However, it has been taken for granted that kids go to school, study, and learn. Not many people take it for granted that teachers have the same necessities. As a result, students are easily sorted by their academic learning ability, while teachers are rarely to be challenged as disabled. It seems that being a teacher deserves a higher position than a student. When there’s a difficulty in a student’s learning, the first to be examined is the student, but not the teacher. Being a teacher, I believe if you understand the student, you will find a way to help him/her improve or you are possibly inexperienced or incapable. So, I won’t judge my students before I examine myself.

I believe that the teaching can reach the best results when there’s a good interaction between the home, the school, and the society. There’s nothing that works better than contextual influence. Education exists everywhere. When all the adults at home, at school, and in the society share the responsibilities and demonstrate good deeds, the students are educated subtly and unconsciously. However, this is too idealistic. What I can do, as a teacher, is to care about my interaction with the students, their homes, and our society, and being a role model. In addition, incorporating students’ lives into my teaching makes learning meaningful to them. When they feel what their learning is meaningful, they have motivation to learn. And motivation is the key to continue with learning. Usually the greater motivation one has, the better result he/she can achieve.

I believe that teaching is sharing and learning. I always remember this “The students are not necessary to be inferior than the teacher and vice versa. They differ just in learning earlier or later and they differ in specializing in different fields.” by Han Yu of the Tang Dynasty. As a teacher, I just share what I learned with the students and they guide me to explore what I haven’t learned. I wasn’t a well prepared or a well trained teacher when I started to teach. Every time  the students have a problem in learning, that is a chance for me to learn to teach and to learn to be a more capable teacher. I am thankful to my students and my child. They have been directing me to be a better me.

I believe that learning should be a lifelong work. I think it’s very terrible if someone stops learning.  Only by keeping on learning/accepting new knowledge can make one’s life colorful. To me, this is an important notion to convey to the students. I don’t just teach my subject, English. Being a teacher, I think the most important task is to cultivate in students the correct attitudes towards their lives. Attitudes determine perspectives, and perspectives determine one’s destiny. I hope my students love learning, no matter in what field, no matter being in or out of the academic setting. Lifelong learning empowers one to be more confident and to be clearer about oneself. Lifelong learning could be in any form: studying, reading, actively interacting with people, contributing one’s abilities in the public services....

Section 2: My beliefs about Schooling and its importance

I believe that schooling is the standardized way to prepare our children to become a participant in our society. Schooling is formed based on the expectations from all the aspects: the country, the society, the educators, the parents. Therefore, students are learning under a structure with a common core wherever they are in the country. Students learn the traditional and cultural beliefs as well as updated knowledge in schools. It’s important because by education the quality of citizens can be changed: Education influences the group of people. The group of people creates the country’s future.

I believe that schooling should provide the fundamental knowledge for our children to survive in their lives and/or to acquire more advanced or specialized knowledge. It’s important that school cultivate children with fundamental knowledge in spite of their different backgrounds. Schooling equality is important to promote or improve the whole Country’s competency. In 1968, Taiwan extended compulsory education from 6 to 9 years. From next year, it will be extended from 9 to 12 years. The education reform of 1968 did foster a group of elite in the following decades and helped to create the economic prosperity of the 1980’s and early 1990’s. But the recent years, there are a lot of problems in our society: the economic decline, low competence in new generation, the political fighting...etc. I believe the education reform is needed, and I hope it will really function well.
I believe that schooling trains our thinking skills and living skills. Schooling has a broad view of knowledge. Studying different subject matters activates the different areas in our brains. It’s not only related to the subject skills but is also related to interactive skills with others. However, I feel it’s important that the evaluation system should be more open. The test oriented schooling system that we have, seems to always overlook the talents that students have that do not fit in to the standardized test system. Everyone has his/her valuable capacities. Everyone is entitled to receive critical thinking skills to confront their future. I think it is a terrible error to invalidate someone who can’t score high on the academic subjects. That will be a great loss of our society.
I believe schooling is the same as gardening. Throughout the adequate education, several seeds of capacities are nurtured and growing.  if there’s any limiting in schooling, only a few seeds can survive and grow by themselves. To take good care of our “seeds” (learners), we should identify them correctly such as by understanding their types, the necessarily nurturing conditions for the differing types...etc. Then, we give the appropriate water, nutrients, and sunlight to raise, support, and help our seedlings grow.  Sometimes we need to weed or/and trim them for better results. The gardening work is daily without rest. So is schooling, and learning.

Section 3: My beliefs about curriculum, its development, its delivery and its accountability

I believe that curriculum is the map in education. It guides teachers and students to go along the designated route to reach the destination. I don’t think the path will be a problem if the road markers and destination are correctly identified.  So, setting up the goal is a crucial work. Once the goal is confirmed, the curriculum starts to be developed accordingly. However, very often, the ones who set up the goal don’t take the concerns about the essential needs of our students and our society very seriously. Very often they are influenced by current or short term political issues. Thus, as classroom teachers, we are facing many challenges in the implementation of a curriculum. Eventually, the victims are students, teachers....and then the whole society.

Let’s say this, to develop a curriculum, we have to have a goal first. Second, we set up the objectives for different stages. To design as many various strategies as possible for each stage, we have to take the following into consideration: the students’ development, differences in inherent ability and knowledge, learning styles, support from family/community, and so forth. Formal and informal evaluation systems are also necessary. So we can fine tune our strategies to help students to achieve more, and fulfill the objectives.

I think the curriculum delivery involves the interaction between the teacher and the students. The teacher creates learning atmosphere and learning opportunities according to the curriculum. Reviewing students’ feedback, he/she knows what methodologies should be adopted and then help keep learning on the correct track.

I believe that all the educators involved in curriculum development and the policy makers are stakeholders in its accountability. Teachers are the ones who put the curriculum into practice. Teachers’ responsibilities include trying their best to make it work well on students’ learning and collect all the feedback from students and their own evaluation. The report of the results and the suggestions should go to the principal, and then become part of the curriculum developers review process. If there are any conflicts between the curriculum and the practice, the principle should check if the purpose of the curriculum is well understood by teachers. When teachers agree with it, they will work better on guiding students toward the goal. When the curriculum is dynamic under the circular system, it is more likely to be well developed and responsive to societal and classroom and student needs.