Summer Reading
/If you're like me, you start a vacation with the best of intentions, plans to work on your professional development goals. But suddenly, rather than curling up in an office, you're on the couch binge-watching a season of something you had no time to watch during the busy school year. (House of Cards, anyone?)
In addition to your plans being thwarted because of Netflix, you might be lacking motivation to get reading because you don't even know what you're teaching next semester. I hear you. So, with that in mind, I've thought of three topics that I could learn more about regardless of my upcoming teaching schedule.
Professional development on a Saturday during the semester.
1. Student motivation
I remember reading a chapter of this book with some colleagues at the AEI two years ago. In fact, it led us to collaborate on making a really comprehensive grammar game for all of the students in Level 5 Reading, Writing, Grammar. It also helped me to redesign listening activities to enhance student motivation. I'd like to revisit this book on Motivational Strategies in the Language Classroom and learn more on how I can better reach and motivate my students.
2. Vocabulary teaching
Teaching vocabulary is something that absolutely surfaces in any class that I teach. Am I doing enough? Do I select the right words to teach? Do I teach my students useful strategies so that they can acquire vocabulary independently? Nation's (2008) Teaching Vocabulary - Strategies and Techniques has come highly recommended, so it's on my list.
3. Corrective Feedback
Corrective Feedback is always something I'm not as confident in doing. It's hard to know when to do it on the spot. Should I use recast? Should I give explicit information? While these ideas made sense in my graduate class on Second Language Acquisition, putting them into practice is another story. I'd like to review the literature on giving corrective feedback, especially on speaking. This article on Oral Corrective Feedback in the Second Language Classroom by Lyster, R., Salto, K., & Sato, M. (2013) looks helpful.
Do you have any other suggestions for summer reading? What's on your list?