#can’t_sleep_after_working_on_my_research_lol
Yeah, so there’s something about working on my research that gets my brain wired. Even after I manage to fall of sleep, my mind continues to mull over ideas. I toss and turn, going over what I’ve written until … eureka! … I think of something that I must get up to write down. It’s as if my brain knows that there’s a missing piece in the logic that I’ve written and it won’t rest until it uncovers it. This time the concept was active listening. Stop. Write: ‘active listening.’
So my research will be centered around the use of the Socratic Seminar strategy as a tool to engage students in increased expressive language use, in their second language, in the classroom. In the first chapter of my study, I need to introduce the topic and explain how it presents a significant issue in literacy education. The problem is that language learners need more opportunities to practice the target language in the classroom, possibly to more closely resemble the best way to learn a language which is total language immersion where there is not only huge amounts of L2 input but also, opportunities to use the target language meaningfully and with purpose (output). I always think about family members who, like many Mexican-Americans, have not acquired native language proficiency in Spanish, even while their parents spoke to them in Spanish as they were growing up. Mexicans slanderously refer to Mexican-Americans with broken Spanish as ‘pochos.’ Stereotypically, pochos speak English and lack fluency in Spanish. The missing piece, my brain knew, is speaking more, but how can I improve my students’ expressive language use and confidence to speak in a measurable and duplicatable way?
I chose the Socratic Seminar strategy because it embodies 21st Century learning skills as well as scaffolded instruction principles for language learners. Even though I had already considered the benefits brought by listening to more capable peers, I had not considered active listening, which is a concept all on its own. I need to go back and finish listening to my summer audible book on learning and memory. I know it contains great insight into practice, repetition, and the brain retaining what it considers to be important, which is a key ingredient to active listening. I also decided I need a great quote by Socrates where he reflects on inquiry and possibly one by Vygotsky.
“I cannot teach anybody anything, I can only make them think.” -Socrates
“By giving our students practice in talking with others, we give them frames for thinking on their own.” ― Lev S. Vygotsky, Mind in Society: Development of Higher Psychological Processes
Eureka! -Archimedes
Yeah, so there’s something about working on my research that gets my brain wired. Even after I manage to fall of sleep, my mind continues to mull over ideas. I toss and turn, going over what I’ve written until … eureka! … I think of something that I must get up to write down. It’s as if my brain knows that there’s a missing piece in the logic that I’ve written and it won’t rest until it uncovers it. This time the concept was active listening. Stop. Write: ‘active listening.’
So my research will be centered around the use of the Socratic Seminar strategy as a tool to engage students in increased expressive language use, in their second language, in the classroom. In the first chapter of my study, I need to introduce the topic and explain how it presents a significant issue in literacy education. The problem is that language learners need more opportunities to practice the target language in the classroom, possibly to more closely resemble the best way to learn a language which is total language immersion where there is not only huge amounts of L2 input but also, opportunities to use the target language meaningfully and with purpose (output). I always think about family members who, like many Mexican-Americans, have not acquired native language proficiency in Spanish, even while their parents spoke to them in Spanish as they were growing up. Mexicans slanderously refer to Mexican-Americans with broken Spanish as ‘pochos.’ Stereotypically, pochos speak English and lack fluency in Spanish. The missing piece, my brain knew, is speaking more, but how can I improve my students’ expressive language use and confidence to speak in a measurable and duplicatable way?
I chose the Socratic Seminar strategy because it embodies 21st Century learning skills as well as scaffolded instruction principles for language learners. Even though I had already considered the benefits brought by listening to more capable peers, I had not considered active listening, which is a concept all on its own. I need to go back and finish listening to my summer audible book on learning and memory. I know it contains great insight into practice, repetition, and the brain retaining what it considers to be important, which is a key ingredient to active listening. I also decided I need a great quote by Socrates where he reflects on inquiry and possibly one by Vygotsky.
“I cannot teach anybody anything, I can only make them think.” -Socrates
“By giving our students practice in talking with others, we give them frames for thinking on their own.” ― Lev S. Vygotsky, Mind in Society: Development of Higher Psychological Processes
Eureka! -Archimedes
