#5

Reading the first chapter of "Dialogic Approaches to TESOL" really made me realize the discrepancies of education in not only the United States but in the Philippines as well. Reevaluating my academic experiences while in the Philippines, I can see how wide the gap existed between people with different economic backgrounds. Being in a private school, I didn't share the hardships that my cousin did--in his school, there was no ventilation, no computer technology, no books that weren't even second-hand, no library and aside from the various private stores ran by the villagers, there was no dining hall that the students could go to. I, on the other hand, had those luxuries and more. I received an education that's comparable to education here in the United States. However, there was one thing that my cousin received that I didn't and that was the opportunity to use my first language, Ilocano, in school. From kindergarten to grade school, the teachers had expected the students to know and speak Tagalog. In that school setting, Ilocano didn't share the same prestige that Tagalog did even though at least half of the students were speaking Ilocano outside of school. I never received any academic/formal education in Ilocano. Sure, English was taught alongside Tagalog but private schools never had any Ilocano-based curriculum. I guess that's one of the things that I related with in reading the chapter. It makes me feel as if Ilocano is somehow lesser than Tagalog. Aside from this, I also learned (or relearned) a few of the educational approaches that targeted students' needs more than the it did for the teachers or any general aspects.

The Grammar Translation Approach focused more learning the linguistic structures of the target language such as the syntax. The problem with this approach was the fact that it only forced the students to translate classic texts, learn grammar rules instead of actually learning the language. I know that just using this approach isn't really beneficial to the student but using this approach alongside another method would be. I think learning the grammar of a language is still helpful when you have no background of the target language. The Grammar Translation Approach could give students one of the necessary tools in order to be successful at learning the language. In any game, as well as in language, half the battle is knowing the rules: knowing where the subject goes, knowing the punctuation marks, knowing you can't just have random words without a verb etc. If the GTA was used alongside another approach like the Communicative Approach, the student will be better at acquiring the language.

#4

One of the topics that caught my eye was the Accommodation Theory which states that speakers "change their pronuciation and even the grammatical complexity of sentences they use to sound more like whomever they are talking to" (103). In my experience of learning Japanese, I could see how my professor seems to fit the description of a speaker who avoids complex grammar--for which I am so deeply grateful for--when she's talking about Japanese grammar in our class. One example of how she simplifies her grammar is through the use of "arimasu" and "imasu" when talking about existence verbs and the usage of "desu" as a topic marker. In almost all the anime (which I assume reflects the general pattern of speech among native speakers) I see, I've rarely heard any of the voice actor use the word "arimasu" or "imasu" in their script. However to help us understand, our professor uses "arimasu" so that the students would know that she's asking whether something exists/possible.

I'm grateful for the professor's simplification of her grammar because I know myself well enough to admit that I still have a working knowledge of Japanese. I still need all the crutches that she's willing to give (whether she uses simple sentences, uses more obvious adjectives, slow rate of speech) so that I may better understand what she's trying to say. Yet, I also know that if I were to go to Japan with the knowledge of Japanese that's comparable to a native speaker and still be talked to as if I was a non-native speaker, I'd be very well offended. The only way any sort of accommodation or foreigner talk is helpful is when it truly reflects the knowledge of the listener. It becomes less so when the accommodation makes the listener believe that s/he is being looked down upon or treated with condescendion.