In terms of the interview questions, all the Pedal teachers in the community of Pedal

decided to create a google document so that everyone can come up with questions they
would like to ask to know the needs of the community. The question I have is about the
placement task. The reason why I wanted to ask about the placement task is that the level
of the student should be based on four skills: listening, speaking, writing, and reading.
However, the Pedal placement task only focuses on speaking. Therefore, I was concerned
about whether we could receive enough information to decide the level of the student as a
very basic foundation of their learning experience. So, my question was “speaking is the
only skill that we will test in the placement task, and it is only one component of the
students’ competencies. However, in our future classes, we might teach the four English
language skills: Reading, Writing, Speaking, and Listening. Therefore, is it better to test
all the four skills in placement tasks so that the students’ proficiency level can fit with the
future teaching content by the largest possibility?” I hoped to ask this question to see if
there is any need to make improvements to the placement task to make a comprehensive
decision about the students’ English proficiency level.

The answer to this question is that the placement task not only tests listening but also
speaking, grammar, vocabulary, interactional skills, and discourse competence. Pedal
class should be based on what the students can do and focus on speaking and listening. In
terms of reading and writing, it should be more daily life based like reading a website,
writing a text to a friend, typing a complaint/making a request, or reading the description
on a medicine. Therefore, the current placement task might be enough for this community
to decide the correct level of students. Also, the four skills in this community should be
more related to common life events as opposed to academic learning.

The second question that the other Pedal teacher came up with was “what was Pedal’s
goal?” It was a wonderful question for us as Pedal teachers to know the aim and purpose
of Pedal. In this way, we could make a choice to which pedagogical theory we could use
based on the community’s understanding of second language learning, purpose of
learning a second language, and what could be the potential needs of our students.

The response to the second question is that Pedal aims to help family members of Upenn
find community and practice English in Philly from 2011 to 2012. There was a pivot after
the pandemic. Students from all over the world start to join to create a more welcoming
community with digital literacy and smartphones. So, the students in this community
come from all over the world and their goal in general is to learn how to use English in
daily lives. At the same time, they can use this chance to make friends with each other
and learn about the culture of Philadelphia, the United States in general, and other
countries. To know more about the detailed topics that the students want to learn, the
teachers can use exit-tickets to hear the opinion of students and get insights from them.

The third question was “to what extent can L1 be used in the class?” The answer to this
question was important because it represents the role of L1 in the students’ learning for a
second language. It is not only related to how the students’ translanguaging and the
combination of L1 and L2 can be used in the classroom, but also how we as teachers can
use the students’ L1 as a teaching tool or resources to teach.
The answer to the question is yes. It depends on the Pedal teacher. However, when L1 is
used, the Pedal shouldn’t focus too much on translation of grammar rules or explanation
of vocabulary. As a result, in the community of Pedal, L1 can be used as a tool to
facilitate the teaching and learning of L2. However, L1 shouldn’t be the role of
translation. L1 should become a tool to facilitate comprehension by comparing the
similarities and differences between L1 and L2 to foster comprehension.

The fourth question is “are there any difficulties that the program managers encountered
in working or planning for the site?” Because the Pedal community includes instructors,
teachers, and students. This question aimed to know the instructors’ perspective towards
the needs of this community. The answer to this question can help us to know the needs
of this community from their perspective and brainstorm some potential projects that we
can do for it.

The response to the fourth question is that the first difficulty the instructors encountered
is the attendance for a free ESL class. It is less consistent, and it impacts teachers by
having difficulty in grouping students and implementing lesson plans. The second
difficulty for Pedal teachers is that they don’t know what to teach or how to come up with
the topics on different kinds of things. Because the two difficulties are continuous and
serious problems in class participation and teaching implementation, the potential project
could be a resolution to solve or mitigate these problems individually or in combination.

Potential Project:

The potential project that the instructors came up with is a functional curriculum to
increase the consistency of Pedal class and the attendance. The class should be more
sequenced with corresponding topic, vocabulary, grammar, pragmatics, technology. It
can be based on what previous Pedal teachers already had last spring or summer, or new
lesson plans that Pedal teachers are going to design. In my opinion, in some way, I was
kind of confused about why we need to create a curriculum for Pedal since all the Pedal
teachers who take 8215 might have different understanding of second language learning,
ways to deliver the lesson, and different students with diverse needs. Having a curriculum
might confine their creativity, freedom, and directions. Also, the second difficulty
mentioned by the instructor is that the Pedal teachers might have difficulties coming up
with topics for class. If we have a curriculum with pre-designed topics, the new Pedal
teachers might lose the opportunity to train their abilities to figure out what are some
feasible activities and investigate the needs of their students. They could directly use
what we planned to teach as opposed to having chances to use their ability to customize
for their students. However, in other ways, I can see the importance of having a
curriculum for Pedal. If there is a curriculum in Pedal, the students will be able to have an
idea about what they could learn in this class. So far as I know, the Pedal teachers are
responsible for sending the topic of the next class through emails. Participation rate might
increase if the students have the “menu” of the courses because the difference between a
topic email and curriculum is that curriculum might include more information like
grammar, vocabulary, and pragmatic skills. Also, Pedal teachers don’t need to design
courses on the same topic repetitively. Instead, they could spend time to upgrade the
existing lesson designs and create new ones in new topics.

Although the drawbacks and benefits of creating a curriculum co-exist in my mind, I still
can’t determine whether creating a curriculum can fulfill the needs of the community. In
some ways, I think an organized google drive by classifying levels and topics can work as
the same as the curriculum that the instructor desired. In other ways, I think the
curriculum might be different. Overall, I think I need more time to experience teaching in
Pedal and working with my students to see what some better ways are to improve
attendance.

After teaching the first class this Friday, I did feel that there could be a more detailed
classification of students’ levels. For example, I had a student who couldn’t speak a
complete sentence. She could only speak the beginning part of the sentence in English
and the latter part in Spanish. So, I had to move her to level 1. However, after I
communicated with level 1 teachers, they said that their students are beginners like level
0 and they need to start teaching English from ABCD and numbers in English. So, if I
move that student to their class, she could feel these are things I have already learned
before because she could already write alphabets correctly in some sight words with little
grammar. Another example is that I had three students who are within the high range of
level 2 with better grammar, vocabulary, and speaking skills than other students in my
class. They told me that they want to move to level 3 because level 2 class is too life
based. They hope to have a more abstract and opinion sharing conversation. However, the
Pedal teacher in level 3 told me that her students are so fluent that they can talk about
politics and debate about some political decisions. So, I am afraid whether those three
students can catch up with level 3 class or not. Overall, I do think there should be a finer
division or more levels like level 2- and level 2 + to make sure that all the students in the
same level are within similar English abilities. This could also be a potential project to
refine the placement task to make sure that the proficiency level of students in a class is
basically the same and increase participation rate because all the students can learn based
on what they all already know.