I have to admit I spent the last week being confused as to what exactly "ELA" means. I basically knew that the literal translation was "English language arts" but other than that I was feeling lost as to how to explain it. Over the last week I have been thinking a lot about what english language arts means to me, how it has played a role in my life through the years, and how it can be "taught" in the classroom.
Personally, I was lucky to have had a father that read to my sister and I every night before we went to bed until we were about 10-years-old. I took part in speech competitions until I was 16. I enrolled in Advance Placement English courses from grades 10-12. I entered poetry contests and attended workshops. I grew up in classrooms with "word walls", where the walls of our grade-school classrooms were lined with "important" words that we, as a young generation, would need to know. Having these words staring at us every day helped cement them into our every day vocabulary whether we liked it or not. There's no doubt that our spelling benefitted, as well as our conversational skills. I understand the importance of a primary language in someone's life.
I just feel like there's much more to the term "ELA" than people think.
For the middle years' ELA development I envision a lifestyle where EVERYTHING is ELA-related. Yes, there will be books assigned for readings. There will be reflection essays assigned for these books. There will be speeches written and delivered in front of the entire class. There will be projects handed out where students need to learn about an author or a public figure, create a powerpoint presentation, and present this to the class. I envision self-assessment. Where the students will tell me what they deserve on an assignment based on their english language skills. I will make the ultimate assessment, however. Self-assessment will help the students be critical of their strengths and weaknesses, highlighting what aspects of ELA they need to improve.
But ELA is a culture. It's everywhere. It's being practiced when the students are chatting on their way to school in the morning. It's there when they are reading the motivational posters along the hallways, or reading directions to the cafeteria. It's in the music they listen to, and then sing at the top of their lungs in the shower. It's in the mindless advertisements they are subjected to during their increasingly lazy lifestyles of MTV and TMZ.
I want to take the idea of ELA and modernize it in the classroom. Middle years' students are becoming increasingly indifferent to sitting in a classroom and suffering through the "chalk and talk" method. We need new ways of teaching to keep these kids interested.
Why not integrate the MTV lifestyle into the classroom? Have them go home and critique a television show. Have them write a critical essay on the social benefits and downfalls of 'Jersey Shore'? Answer questions such as, "Why is this show so popular? How does this reflect on society as a whole'?
Making some of the subject matter about their interests will automatically revive them.
When I was teaching ESL to a high school class in Wuhan, China, I found multiple ways of keeping the kids (somewhat) interested in the lesson. I would bring my guitar in and play them three songs every Friday. I would print out the songs and give each student a copy of all three so that they could follow along. This began to act like a reward. I would tell the kids that if they worked hard during the week they would get to jam out on the Friday.
Other ideas are making interactive computer-lab-based research assignments where the kids have to research a topic (we did famous canadian figures) and write a report and present it on bulletin board to be hung in the hallway.
The list can go on and on. Bringing music into the classroom and getting kids to critique the lyrics, while thinking about the social message behind them, is a great way to get your students thinking about the english language and the way it's used in song.
I believe the world of teaching is changing. Now, more than ever, we need to relate our students to our material, and living and teaching in their world is the way to do it.
