What do the Chinese Parents Think? Continuing my research into facilitating parental involvement, I wanted to think more about my role as a teacher from a cultural perspective. For my current SLA project, I am thinking of ways for parents to get more involved in their children’s learning. However, upon deeper reflection, it may be,…
A British Teacher in China As an individual, my view of teaching is based upon my own personal background, upbringing and culture. However, Starr (2012) highlights the dangers of this: “Western, predominantly Anglo-Saxon teachers (take) with them the assumption that the communicative approach (is) the ‘right’ way to teach a foreign language…” So as a…
Theories of Parental Involvement: Cultural Capital Theory and predicting Parental Involvement in Northwest Indiana Schools Cultural Capital Theory This paper by Ringenberg, McElwee and Isreal (2009) unveils yet another powerful theory that helps us understand how parental interactions may help or hinder student academic success: Cultural Capital Theory. According to Bourdieu’s theory of cultural reproduction, children…
Theories of Parental Involvement: The Concept of Parent Involvement. Some theoretical and empirical considerations Defining PI “Continuing research for my SLA project, I turn to a paper which gives a thorough review of the term Parental Involvement (PI) and the research undertaken to better understand and quantify it. The authors analyse twelve selected studies which…
Theories of Parental Involvement: Parental Influences on Achievement Motivation and Student Engagement “There exists a shared understanding that healthy and academic and psychosocial development cannot occur if key constituents of the child’s upbringing – parents, teachers, and community members – operate in a vacuum or, worse, are in conflict.” (p323). If greater parental involvement leads…
My SLA Project Further to my previous post on the research I am doing to better understand the role of parents and family in their children’s (language) learning journey, I am considering how psycholinguistic approaches may help further address my igniting question. The question in it’s current form is To what extent does parental involvement…
Psycholinguistics Psycholinguistics is but one area in the vast field that is SLA, or Second Language Acquisition. It is divided into three parts: – Neurolinguistics (What happens in the brain, how we learn and how we use a language) – Cognitive Psychology (How language processes occur) – Psychological Factors (Learner Differences) Psychological Factors In terms…
SLA Project Step 1: Identify a Problem For my SLA module I am working through problems in my teaching practice and looking toward SLA theory to provide some solutions. (I am also working through problems in my learning practice, but what with limited time, will have to come back to that at a later stage…
One of my classmates gave quite a specific response to how psychology affects her teaching. So I wanted to summarise here the important points I picked up on: – We should try to put ourselves in the learners shoes. By understanding their view, and them, better, we can provide the best ‘service’ that matches their…
I would say that psychology plays a large part in my practice as a language teacher. The main actions I take that are directly related to psychology are that of building trust and confidence, which leads to increased motivation in language learning. Building Trust I think it’s very important to have a good relationship with…