This blog was designed to share your reflections related to the course you are taking this semester. Hope you enjoy sharing with your classmates and me..... Cheers!!!!
LUIS PABLO CERVANTES SANABRIA BO1618 What a Good Teacher Should Know The reading caused many impacts and reaction on me as I was reading. I consider it was a really extended reading so I will discuss some of the topics that most caught my attention one by one. The roles of a teacher There are several roles that a teacher can take when being in a class full of students. We must take into account several factors before deciding the role we want. It is not like professors will stick forever with only one; although it may happen that some professionals can feel so secure about a role that they will simply never change it, which is not beneficial at all. It is necessary to be switching from one role to the other since several situations are presented in the class. In addition, it is part of a good teacher to always try to find new methodologies and strategies to teach and make our students understand better. If we change the structure of the class we should as well be changing the role. As for my experience as a student, I felt moved by these types of roles: Controller I remember to have professors who would only let us do what they want and not what we would suggest. This type of role is sometimes helpful since students might be lazy and by controlling them we can regulate such behaviors. However, if this role is seriously taken, the class can turn boring and students might be unwilling to attend. Participant You can easily identify this when professors like to participate in most of the activities as if they were students. Nonetheless, for this role the division student-professor has to be always clear, if not, a chaos may occur when the professional losses all of his/her “power”. Teacher-student Recognizing students in our class is the first step towards a successful teaching. It is clear that we should know our students’ abilities so that we can take advantage of them in regards to learning. One of the ways of knowing the learners is by observing and listening to them. This way we get to find those skills and start a plan that encourages such. Not only should we know our students but also respect them. We have to understand that not every student is equally capable for the same things. Being even-handed is the key for our surely multi-skilled children because then we can get to balance and respect the level of ability of each student. Teachers have to be patient and try to always be tolerant if some students are struggling with the English language. Factors such as the class size influence the process of learning. For example, I was not taught the same in a group of 30 students that other person who was taught on one to one sessions. For all I know, what is really the key as teachers is to be well prepared for every situation and to be flexible so that managing our students becomes a joy instead of a hell. When we think of a teacher we should consider it as a teaching aid for education. The teacher is the most successful tool for a meaningful learning. To achieve this, the professionals have to be prepared and to know how to express themselves using either mime or gesture. By doing this, the message is more effectively transmitted from one to another.
I like when you said that ¨We must take into account several factors before deciding the role we want. It is not like professors will stick forever with only one.¨ I considered that we hace to analize the classroom atmosphere to decide when to act with a different role.
In the classroom This lecture was very important for me because it helped me to expand my knowledge in English teaching and also to understand some aspects that I did not understand before. I learned that the personal presentation is very important for creating an environment of confidence and have a good relationship between student and teacher. Besides, the roles that teachers have are really useful a necessary for developing a class. It is interesting for me because most of the time we, as students, do not realize that teachers interpret different roles during the class. We as teachers must be aware of it and try not to be a teacher that interprets one or two roles only. I think that a teacher as resource is the most difficult role because sometimes students ask questions that are difficult to answer and if teachers do not do it, students can think that they do not know anything about English. That situation can be bad for students because they will not trust the teacher and for the teacher because he or she could feel demotivated and sad. As teachers we should work hard for improving our skills in the different roles so that we can develop an interesting class and give a sense of confidence to our students. On the other hand it is good to let our student know that we are not computers that know everything about the language. Another important aspect is the way teachers organize the class, for me that information is important because many times we do not organize it and we think that it does not affect the learning process but it does. For that reason teachers must plan their classes and follow the plan in order to not to make a mess during the class. Talking about personality, teachers should adopt many of them and try to teach and motivate students through it. I consider this part very important due to teachers sometimes must behave in a different way as they do it outside classes so that it can help the students to learn and feel motivated. In addition to that, teachers must have a good relationship with their students. In my opinion, as teachers, we should respect our students and treat them not only as our students but also as friends so we should listen to them, and help them if they have a problem. At the same time we have to show them that we are still their teachers and that they must respect us too. Besides, we need to look for good activities so the students do not get bored or tired during the lesson. The class must be active and students have to enjoy it for being motivated the next time. It is difficult to accomplish but in my case I can look for good and interesting activities by using internet because there are many things teachers can implement in their classes. In relation to the size of the class, I prefer to work with a medium size group that to a large group or one student. I think it is much difficult to work with a large group because it could be difficult to control a class like that but since teachers do not choose their groups I think it is better to practice and improve my skills so that I can face those kinds of groups. On the contrary, it would be interesting to work with one person because you can have more time for her or him. Even if we do not know how to manage the different types of classes, we can get the suggestions given in the lecture and apply them in our classes. As a conclusion, this lecture gave me a lot of useful information that I will use in my classes. Also it made me understand the different behaviors that we should adopt for being a good English teacher and how to have a good relationship with the students so that I and the students can have a nice learning process without problems.
That’s true before the reading I haven’t realized that teachers have to assume different roles in the classroom and also I think outside the classroom. Besides, is true that some roles are more difficult than others and that being a resource could be a difficult part of teaching especially when we don’t have experience. I agree that teacher’s personality can affect classroom environment.
I completely igree with you when you says that ¨I think it is much difficult to work with a large group because it could be difficult to control a class like tha.¨ however this the reality and there are huge grous of students in our public educational system.
Motivation is so important in the educational development of students that's why is necessary to make some changes to give classes in order students catch better the subject.
According to the reading, I agree with the idea that it is essential to be congruent in our behavior because we have to be honest with the students and ourselves; we cannot acting in one way in the classroom and acting in other way out of the classroom. This means for me to have an appropriate behavior being respectful, humble and friendly. I remember that I had a teacher in high school that always was angry and he never showed us any smile, but when we saw him out of the class with other people he was smiling and looked happy and enjoying what he was doing. My ex-classmates and I thought that this teacher hated us. I believe that as teachers we have to adopt different roles, it depends of the class and the activity we are teaching.
I like the roles of tutor and prompter, because I believe that as teachers we are facilitator as some experts says. We are not human dictionaries; some people think that if we know English we know everything, every single word that exists in English language. So, I like the idea of encourage students to think in a creative way and look for the meanings by themselves. However, there are times when is necessary to act as controller; for example, at the beginning of the class when teacher is checking attendance or when students are resolving an important exercise and a silent period is necessary. Moreover, it is very important to keep in mind the different approaches when teaching, because we can combine them with the different roles. For instance, when teachers act as participant or as resource the TPR is very useful because teacher may use mimes and gestures to explain concepts such as large, short, walk or eat. Finally, the role of tutor is one of the best according to my opinion. I like the idea of having a nice classroom atmosphere especially in high school; where adolescents believed that friendship is the most important thing in their world. The author mentioned that “In order to work well with the different roles and if we wish to develop a good learning environment in the classroom we need to establish an appropriate relationship with our students.” This good relationship between student and teacher is called rapport. I consider essential to establish a good relationship with students based on mutual respect, support and confidence. It does not means that we (teacher and student) are the best friends forever, but it means that if they need to trust in us when they want to be listened. Although is common that some teachers do not recognized their students, he or she does not remember even their students name. It makes students to feel frustration because they may feel that they are not important for that teacher. This is very dangerous because adolescents are looking their identity and a lot of times they have self-esteem problems. I understand that every teacher has to teach a huge amount of classes with hundreds of students, but it is necessary to do the effort if the teachers want to create a warm climate and a good atmosphere in their classroom. This is part of rapport and motivation for the students. To conclude, we ought to do our best every day in every class, it is what our students deserve. We have to remember that we are their models to fallow, so we have to watch our vocabulary and gestures. Also, when speaking we have to take care of our speech speed, intonation and rhythm, because this is the pattern that our students are going to repeat.
that’s true teacher’s attitude may create a hostile atmosphere between students and the teacher. And it is verity that approaches are somehow related to teacher’s role.
In my personal opinion, teachers have many responsibilities. It is not only giving a topic to a class. In fact, we have to deal with many situations. In the text, we could see the different roles that we have to take depending on the circumstances of the class. As the text recommends, we need to detect which role is more convenient in a certain time. I think that we have to show our authority to our class; however, it does not mean that the teacher is the main actor of the learning process. Of course, students are the main actors and we have to give them all the necessary tools to get a significant learning. They have to know that we are a resource of their learning. Besides, in the text, rapport is mentioned. For me, to have a good relationship between students and teachers is fundamental. We have to provide an appropriate environment in our classes. The reading contains some characteristics for a successful interaction. For instance, it includes listening to our students. Using this strategy, we can demonstrate our students that we are interested in them as human beings. Personally, I consider that we have to be respectful and objective in most of the cases. It is to say that if, for any reason, we do not like any of our students, we do not have to express it with our actions. We must not have “favorite” students. Other important aspect that teacher should consider is the ability to explain the topics using different strategies that do not intimidate the students. We can use mime and gestures in our classes. In my opinion, it is very important in order to not to bore our students only speaking. We have to remember that each student has his/her own way to learn; students are different. We have to pay attention to their personal interests and necessities. Feedback plays an important role in the process of teaching. As I mentioned before, we will have to face different situations. For that reason, we have to be flexible and intelligent to find the better way to deal with them. For instance, the class size is a determiner of how we are going to develop the class. If we have a big group, we are going to use a different strategy that if we have a smaller group. The text describes “private classes” and a guideline to have a good relationship between students and teachers. I totally agree with those strategies. For example, we have to give a good impression, not only in our appearance but also in our behavior. Also we have to show them that we are well prepared to teach them. Moreover, we have to be aware and to detect if there is any problem. With large classes we have to use different activities to catch our students’ attention. I agree with this idea mentioned by the author “in large classes, there are always enough students to get interaction going and there is a variety of human resources.” That is why we must be creative in our classes, to use different resources and to promote students’ participation. Furthermore, we will have students with different abilities. Some of them learn faster that others. That is why, observation is really important. I concur with this recommendation because if we are aware, we can detect which students learn with certain styles. As a result, we can develop techniques to help our students. It is important to motivate them with our actions. Also, we have to be inclusive, that is to say that we have the role of promoting the participation of all the students. It includes not only those who usually respond in the class but also those who are always quiet. To sum up, I can say that teaching is not an easy task. We have to look for many strategies in order to provide our students with a high level of knowledge and learning. Creativity and passion are two characteristics that, in my personal opinion, are fundamental in the process of teaching.
I belief that favoritism is the worst attitude that a teacher can have. It isn’t ethical and it’s also immature to have preferences with certain students. As teachers, we must be equal, avoiding some preferences that can affect other students.
Yeah!!!! Imagine a very timid student who needs aditional help and the his/her teaher does not pay attention to this student because this child is not as the rest of the group. Here, the motivation is one of the most important aspects in the teahing- learning process!and of course no preferences, that is not ethics :(
Fabi I really enjoyd reading your reaction, and there are some aspects that you mentioned which called my atention: "Feedback plays an important role in the process of teaching." You're right when you says that because both are necessaries the positive and the negative feedback. And also I agree with you about "...to have a good relationship between students and teachers is fundamental."
The Teacher´s role in Class How should be the behavior of teachers during the class? As experts say the first impression is very important for students, who are paying closely attention of what his or her teacher does. Students can notice if teachers prepare the class and also if they have enough knowledge. For me being a teacher is a difficult job, because of the different roles that we have to adopt in the classroom. According to the lecture, a teacher must be a facilitator and I agree with that because teachers are not the center of the education process. Teachers must bring the correct tools to their students to make the process effectively. The different teacher´s roles described in the lecture such as controller, prompter, participant, resource, teacher and tutor are different. When I read about all of them I noticed how teachers have to change their role depending on the circumstance. Personally I like the tutor role, because as it is described teachers have to help and support their students having a good atmosphere. In my opinion, the organization before and after the activities in the class is extremely important. If the teacher is a disorganized person, he or she does not have to expect an organization by the students. As we read in the lecture, teachers must give clear directions when students have to do an activity. In this way students know the time and the steps that they have to follow. If the teacher notices that students have finished the activity they can continue with the class. I think that it is difficult to keep the attention of the students, but that is why it is necessary to answer questions and to be observing the class all the time. “One of the things that are uniquely able to do on the spot is to use mime, gesture and expression to convey meaning and atmosphere”. (p 116). Another important aspect in the lecture is about the mime and gesture that teachers might do. I could not imagine an 80 minutes class with a teacher that does not express gestures. The atmosphere in the classroom depends in the emotions that teachers perform in the class. In English gestures are essential, because if students do not understand what the teacher is saying, they can get the meaning by the gestures. Teachers can capture the student´s attention through different techniques, reading a poem and drawing for example. The creativity has an important role for teachers, who have to be a model in the learning process. Moreover, the lecture talked about the inputs that teachers give to their students. That is why I consider teachers have to talk in English during the class, even though students do not understand every word, they can get knowledge. And it is important to bring a space in class in which students can practice the new language.
organization is the base of the learning process, students as you mentioned notice when class aren’t well prepared. Also I considered very important your point about instructions because sometimes an activity can be nice and with good content but if students don’t understand what they have to do the activity will fail.
You are right Liss ¨the organization before and after the activities in the class is extremely important.¨ The classroom management is very important and many times the success of the activities depend of it.
Marjorie Herra Hernández B03069 Reaction paper We as teachers have been called not only to teach a Language, but also we have a mission with the society. Teachers have a big responsibility to deal with, because they are working with humans. Students could be children, teenagers, adults, or seniors it does not matter what is the age. The most important thing here is the students are humans no machines. Therefore, there are some considerations the teachers and professors must take in to account. First of all, in the classroom there are rules that not only students have to achieve. For instance, the teacher must behave as a professional in all the aspects. The way teachers dress and behave are relevant inside the classroom. Teachers must dress appropriately and be respectful with their students because most of the time teachers are models that many students fallow, so they copy their behavior and their way to think. Second, teachers have different roles in the processes of transmitting knowledge to the students. However, the most important is to facilitate the learning process in a democratic way; for instance, giving students the opportunity to participate, to create, to search, among many others, In order to build their own knowledge. On the contrary, controller teachers deny students to share and create their own experimental learning. Sometimes is extremely necessary that teaches act as controller because students needs explanations and answer to their doubts; however, it must be share by both teacher and student. Furthermore, there are other options to guide their students, for instance, teachers may act as participants when they form part in a debate; a resource when students need help with old words or sounds, or even as tutors when they have to guide long projects, investigations, among others. On the other hand, the relationship between the student and the teacher must be clear and flexible. Students not only need to know about content, but also they need to be heard. Sometimes students are shy or embarrass about a class, a teacher, or a presentation, so teachers should manage certain aspects such us: recognizing students, listening to students and so important respecting students. When a student is called by his or her name it means he or she is important and also what he or she is saying is important too. In the same way teachers must listen to their students, all of them have a different opinion about something, so we must hear it and try to construct a general idea but including all the students’ opinions. Finally, the teacher must be creative, and this word involves not only teaching well but also taking advantage of all the sources available that exit. For instance, in many schools and high schools there is no way to have access to the technology or didactic material; however a creative teacher could use their own body language, gestures and mime to express and communicated with others. So ,there are many and different ways to transmitted the language to students.
I agree with your point about students who are shy because sometimes students don’t show their potential because of that issue; so it is teacher responsibility to handle the situation.
I agree with you Marge. I like the aidea that you mentioned ¨the relationship between the student and the teacher must be clear and flexible.¨ Especially because we are going to work with adolecents.
Marge, I like when you said "Teachers have a big responsibility to deal with, because they are working with humans." We have to be very careful with our actions because it is going to influence in our students' lives.
The Good Teacher The roles of a teacher Teachers need to have an idea about who they are as people, and who they are as teachers because is delicate to work with people, that is to say that students can feel that a teacher is very friendly but it does not mean that their teacher is friend of the a specific student or group of them. Why the variety of personalities? Because teachers have their private lives and students do not need to know because sometimes it brings serious problems for both sides, even legal problems.
Organizing students and activities A very important task that teachers have in common is to organize the activities. That is to say to get students involved, engaged and ready for something, at this point teachers must to consider the time for the activity, and the feedback for each one because an activity does not have validity without a feedback because students will not understand the stand of the activity.
The teacher as performer As it mentioned above the performance that teachers have depends on the activity because if it is an activity such a team game, students need an energetic, encourager, fear, and so on. Instead of being a rigid and strict teacher because this kind of behavior does not scope with the activity.
Rapport Teachers need to take into account the good relation that he/she has with their students. Also, it depends how well they interact with students. For this reason the good interaction depends of four keys. 1- Recognizing students: It is frustrating for a student that at the end of a period the teacher does not know his/her name even his/her likes and dislikes; on the contrary, if teachers can recognize these aspects, students may feel that they are very important for the teacher as students and people. 2- Listening students: If teachers first listen, the necessities of students, it is going to be easier to manage the control of the class because students will see the teacher as reliable person. 3- Respecting students: If teachers offer them their space to comment an idea or an example, teachers are motivating them to participate in class because students will feel that they can express their thoughts feelings about something. 4- Being even-handed: Teachers sometimes just assist whit people who participate in class, and they apart students who are not involved at all, being even-handed means being equal for everybody because sometimes students are nor reluctant to participate because they can feel sad, worried, bored, and so on. The teacher as teaching aid In classroom teachers are the ones that students have to clarify their doubts, that is to say, teachers are an aid. Mime and gesture By expressing the ideas by using mime and gesture at the time of explaining a topic, it will to students to understand better and helps to have a classroom climate less monotone. The teacher as language model It means that students expect to hear teachers speak in English because teachers are the first model that students have to understand English, to react towards certain expressions. That is why very important that students see in a teacher a good language model of English.
The reading joins important aspects that a teacher must have. For example, something that we see simple such as cloth is a fundamental part of teacher’s professional profile. However, this does not mean that the teacher have to seem severe; on the contrary, a teacher must be a person who students, parents and colleagues can trust because teachers have to adopt a variety of important roles. The controller role requires teachers to be in charge of the group. In the sense that the teacher is the one who presents the activities and the subject matter, for instance. Besides, educators share their knowledge to students in a way that they can be motivated to learn. Nevertheless, teachers should not abuse of this role because an overuse of it deprives students to learn by different forms. Moreover, when students are acquiring a new language; it is teacher’s obligation to involve students in the process and this is another important role of educators: the prompter. This means, teachers have to help students in the process of learning by assistance them with vocabulary, phrases and activities that force students to use the new language in classes. Nonetheless, educators can also support students by their participation in the activities taking the role of participant. Of course, when teachers assume this role they must not forget to give feedback, to check students’ performance and correct mistakes. Also resource is another important role. Students need always somebody to clarify doubts, someone who can give more examples; and this person is the teacher. When it comes to teach, educators must have organized their classes form the very beginning to the end. When there is something new, teachers must get ready students for the new information. In addition, it is important to students that teachers explain the purpose of the activities and gives examples of the activities; for they to know what exactly to do. When the class is finishing it is fundamental to close with a summary of the lesson, to give feedback or to assign homework to students. An organized class gives teachers the advantage that students can trust in their job; however, sometimes teachers must help students to understand instructions in the target language. For instance, the use of gestures, mimes, pictures and expressions to help students to comprehend simple and useful vocabulary or phrases. Speaking or reading aloud is a good strategy in order to provide input to students and also to engage students in the new language. Nevertheless, teachers must not be the only ones who talk or read. Organization and the use of strategies to assist learners are valuable; those actions can create a good relation between students and teachers. When there is a good relationship between teachers and students the process of learning will be more confortable. Educators have a big responsibility because the success of this process sometimes depends of teacher’s behavior. For example, knowing students’ names it is important because this shows that each one is important. Respect students’ thoughts is very important because they will feel that their opinions are valid and this gives students motivation. Also it is important to avoid preferences between. Following strategies, being organized and respectful are strategies that teachers have to consider when teaching children, adolescents or adults. Teaching is a difficult labor that requires many elements inside and outside the class, as well as innate characteristics.
"...teachers have to help students in the process of learning by assist them with vocabulary, phrases and activities that force students to use the new language in classes."this is the correct way Pau, not to teach in isolation we have to teach communicative language.
It is important for educators to know the difference between concepts such as approach, method, procedure, and technique because they have to plan their classes based on that methodology. Teachers have to work with one or more approaches and choose which method, procedure and technique to use for having the capacity to teach successfully and doing it in an organize way. Regarding to those concepts, there are several kinds of methods that have been used for by teachers and that have some good and bad characteristics. It is really important that teachers have knowledge in all the methods being that they can learn a lot of them and use the goods things of them to make a good combination of the methods and apply them in their classes. After I read the methods I understand that all of them were created for improving English teaching and that some of them work better than others, the problem is that we cannot follow one method only because students have different learning styles and maybe what works with some of them do not do it for other students. For this reason, I think, we should take into account the possibility of combining these methods and try to create a new one even better because we can choose the best of them and apply it to our classes so that we can teach our students even if they learn different. For example, I can use the TPR method in order to teach vocabulary to my students by relating the meaning of a word with an action so that they can remember not only the meaning but also the action and make easier for them to remember words. At the same time, I could use the suggestopaedia method and avoid traumatic topics while I create in my class an environment where my students feel comfortable and relaxed. This is just an example but we can do more than that by using other methods and our imagination. Talking about the Lexical approach, it is good because students can learn not only words and sentences but also words and sentences that they can use daily when speaking English. The most relevant aspect of it is that they can use what they learn for expressing ideas in the real life and not only for using their knowledge in the classroom. In relation to dialogues, I consider that they are good because through them we can have a better relationship with our students, know more about them and at the same time they can improve their fluency, vocabulary and oral skills. On the other hand I agree with those words “When I teach, I certainly do more than talk, and that is why teachers around the world still have students attending their classes” (Clemente 2001: 401). I agree with that because I would not like to teach a class that anybody who speaks English can teach due to being an English teacher is more than speak English only. Another important aspect to talk about is how culture can affect the way we teach. It is important to know that because we have to be careful and know about culture before we teach so that our methodology can work successfully and it does not affect us and students. Besides, the bargains are so important for teachers and students because many problems can be solved through them. Teacher must know how to have a good agreement with their classmates but they must be careful and try not to let the students to take advantage of the situation, the agreement must be good for teachers and for students not only for one part. As a conclusion, I believe that teachers must know a lot about the different methods and also know how to apply them in their classes in a way that they can create an environment in which students feel comfortable and learn English without any problem. In addition, they have to learn that culture can influence their way of teaching; for that reason they have to know how to solve this kind of situation by having an agreement with students.
Something that calls my attention is the fact that approaches and methods are changing thorough time, and that's perfect because as teachers we have to be able to adapt ourselves to new thinks such as technology.
your right Byron, especially when you remarked ¨Another important aspect to talk about is how culture can affect the way we teach. It is important to know that because we have to be careful and know about culture before we teach so that our methodology can work successfully and it does not affect us and students.¨ As teachers we have to take this aspect in account because our country is full of foreign peolpe and as consequence we have foreign students in the classrooms who come from different cultures.
I think that this reading was very productive for me in order to clarify essential concepts that have to be handling by a teacher. Often those concepts such as approach, method, technique and activity tend to be confused easily because they are much related. Moreover, reviewing the main aspects of the approaches I remembered my experience in high school which was not the best talking about English learning process. It was only read comprehension but we never ever utter any word; although, language must be based on utterances. I belief that is very interesting the alternative approach PPP because it can be used for several functions, the most attractive for me was the trilogy of teaching elements: ESA. Furthermore, the different combination of procedures that we can have in the classroom gives more variety while teaching. Talking about the methods, we can combine some of them when teaching in order to facilitate the learning process to our students. For example, we can use TPR to explain some concepts in order to avoid translation. Also, we have to take advantage of the different approaches to enrich le learning process through variation of activities; like to involved students in real communication and role plays in CLT, and asking students to add intensifiers to semi-fixed expressions in The Lexical approach. Besides, it’s very important to establish a good relationship with the students to dialogue together. There is a final remark, an idea that really called my attention and I want to share it with you: “Our attitudes to the language, and to the way it is taught, reflect cultural biases and beliefs about we should communicate and how we should educate each other.”
Nahero,I agree with you in the aspect that it is important to combine some of the methods in our classroom. Maybe if we focus only in one approach we are not going to get a significant learning... I think the we have to consider our students' capacities and backgrounds to select the most appropiate approches =)
I agree with you in the last quotation because I think that culture is really important for teaching a new language, we must teach not only words but also culture and we have to be aware that we should base our methodology on the students and their culture because not all the activities work good for the same people.
As Fabiola mentioned before, we must taken into account the backgrounds, because we are gonna be teachers of people that probably don`t have any idea about what does English mean... So we should to assume a methodology according to the necessities of the learner...
Reaction chapter 4 As teachers we must choose strategies in order to teach English. Approaches, methods, procedures, and techniques are important steps; nevertheless, those terms are sometimes confused between each other. An approach is referred as theories about language learning and the acquisition of the new language, in addition, the activities performed in class. A method is the realization of the approach and it contains procedures which are the sequence of techniques; and techniques are the activities made in class. Having clear those terms which are quite important in order to teach and learn a language like English establish the success of this labor. Otherwise, teachers around the world are looking for the best way to teach English, and this is a reason why many professionals in education are engage in this search and are always proposing new ways to improve language teaching. Years ago, teaching used different ways to teach. For instance, the Grammar Translation Method, The Direct Method, and The Audiolingual Method were old and somehow unsuccessful methods. After that, the Presentation, Practice and Production came which is a procedure that emphasizes the importance of activities and their organization. Finally, approaches such as Suggestopedia, Total Physical Response, and Silence Way were methods used to increase students’ engagement with the target language. In addition, with the improvement of learning a new language appeared the Communicative Language Teaching, the Task-based learning, and the Lexical approach. The first one, the CLT is based on communication rather than grammar structures. The TBL establishes meaningful tasks as the main process of learning. The lexical approach is based on the assertion that language is often a word combination like lexical phrases, and lexical chucks. As is proved different approaches and methods have been proposed by experts in order to improve the process of learning a new language. However, others beliefs that learning is a process that involve more aspects, such the relationship between students and teachers because learning emerge when teachers and students create dialogs between them, culture that gets influence in the learning process because the context is always different, and that teacher should identify learning puzzles and evaluate how to solve them by the combination of different methods instead of one. For example, engage students with the activities and the learning process, the input that students receive, the output that students generate, teaching grammar and lexis, and having clear the achievements that the teachers wants to get are important components of various methods.
Pau, I used to confuse those terms: Approach, method, procedure and technique.. But I think that it is very important to distiguish them because we are going to be teachers!!! It is hard to think in all the aspects the we have to know but imagine if one student asks something and we do not how to aswer =/ Therefore, it is important to study hard!!! =D
Sure, I used to confuse the terms too, that's why I considered important to write them in order to understant tham better. And yeah Fabi I don't want to be in a situation like that. :S
well sometimes students don't want to participate and it's so hard because it can affect the rest of the group as nahero said it is a challenge any way.
Reaction Paper Fabiola Obando Meneses A94500 Professor: Alfredo Ortega Specific Didactics II Chapter 4: Popular Methodology As future teachers, it is important to distinguish some terms related to our major. For example, it is common to confuse the following terms: approach, method, procedure and technique. I consider that we have to be able to define and use them correctly. Thus, we have to remember that an approach refers to theories about language learning. On the other hand, a method is the practical realization of an approach. A procedure is an ordered sequence of techniques. And finally, a technique is a single activity. Besides, through the time, it has been developing different methodologies to teach English. In my opinion, teachers of certain age considered those specific methodologies as the best way to teach their students. For instance, we have the Grammar Translation method where students, as its name states, learned grammar and translated sentences from the target language to the first language or vice versa. Then the direct method came where accuracy was very important; however, in the classroom only the target language was used. After that, the Audiolingual method appeared and was based on repetition. It is clear that those methods were very used in a specific time; nevertheless, nowadays they are not used very often. In the 1970s and 1980s, four methods were developed: the Community Language, Suggestopedia, the Total Physical Response and the Silent Way. Then the Communicative Language Teaching appeared. It is based on real communication and students have a very important role. Also we have the Task-Based Approach that focuses on meaningful tasks where students have to perform tasks or solve problems. In the process of learning, our students are the most important actors. Therefore, we have to analyze each approach and decide what method is the best one to use in our classrooms. Actually, I think that it is a good idea to use a combination of them. We have to consider our student’s characteristics and necessities. Furthermore, we have to remember that they have different backgrounds; for that reason, we cannot apply the same methods in different groups. As the chapter mentions, students and teachers should have a good dialogic relationship. We have to work together and be creative to find the best way to learn. Besides, it is important to promote negotiation and the leaner autonomy in our classes.
I agree with you Fabi,it's important use those tools in the classroom with our students but knowing what is the easier for them to acquire the nowledge, if we don`t know how they learn easily it is going to be confusing for them. :)
¨...we have to analyze each approach and decide what method is the best one to use in our classrooms. Actually, I think that it is a good idea to use a combination of them.¨ This is an excellent idea that I agree with you Fabiola. This will give variety to our classes.
I agree with you we have to concerned about the differences of this terms...beacuse each other corelated, but they are not the same. Besides, based on that teachers are trying to teach in a better way for ELT studens.
Fabi I'm agree with your point that teachers of certain age don't like to change old methods; however, as future and new teachers we must be different. =)
Popular Methodology of English Teaching As future teachers, we have to notice first of all that there are different ways to teach this language by means of approaches, methods, procedures and techniques. To understand the different methodology of these means, the beginners in this area [future teachers] should recognize the differences in the concepts of these means, for example an approach refers to the way that people in this case students of English acquire the language; furthermore, the concept of method is the practical realization of an approach; besides, a procedure is an ordered sequence of techniques; finally, a technique is and strategy of teaching. Now, by knowing these concepts which are the cornerstones of the popular methodology of English teaching, beginners can be exposed to the history of the mainstream methodology of English teaching proposed by some different experts according to their perception of how people acquire better the language. Some different examples are exposed in the next chart: Methodology Characteristics Grammar-translation Students acquire the language by explanations of individual points of grammar. Direct Method Students and teacher should speak together. Audiolingualism It consists of using stimulus-response reinforcement model. Presentation, Practice and Production (PPP) A variation of Audiolingualism. Presentation: Teacher models the language. Practice: Teacher encourages to students to utter sentences by using the language modeled before. Production: To use the language of sentences of their own. Four Methods: • Suggestopaedia • Total Physical Response (TPR) • Silent Way • It refers to physical environment which the learning takes place. • It refers to learn by hearing and modeling commands given by the teacher. • It refers to the silent of teacher as much as possible in order to encourage the creation of the language by students. Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) It refers to how language is used in context. Task-based learning (TBL) The performance of meaningful tasks central to the learning process. The Lexical Approach Language is acquired by multi-word prefabricated chunks.
As it was mentioned before, there are many methodologies to teach English, as future educators we do not to rely just in one method, because probably if we focus more in than other, our students perhaps will not have the chance to acquire clearly the language. Besides, we must taken into account that there plurality of learners, so, we must to react according to their necessities of learning; for this reason, teachers, and beginners must meditate about what is the better methodology for them or if a combination of them helps to teach in an excellent manner.
I like the way you summarize the different methods because it can give us a better idea of each one so that makes easier for teachers to understand them.
Poco, personally, I do not like the silent way. I think it is useless nowadays!!! Suggestopedia is interesting but I think that many students do not like it... On the other hand, I like total physical response because it is more active =D
jiji silent way! :( but it could be useful for some topics that need the attention of the group.:) I consider that every single approach has to be applied, but depending on the topic :)
¨... teachers and beginners must meditate about what is the better methodology for them or if a combination of them...¨ That a nice idea take consider both the teachers´ necessities and the sudents´ necessities. I LIKE IT!!
yes Rafa but it depends on many things because to use some approaches require time to do it and at the same time a lot money, which in our Costa Rican's classroom it's imposible the use of some approaches. .
Describing teachers Analyzing the importance of the teachers in this process, it could be included the different roles they perform. Some of them act out like the controllers, which has its advantages because it allows teachers to lead the class from the front and giving the impression of authority; but at the same time it brings disadvantages because many students feel intimidated for seeing the teacher controlling them making questions all the time. It could be used when checking the list, asking questions about a particular topic or when it is desired the participation of the group answering what they want to listen. On the other hand, we have the prompter teachers; they are very useful due to the facility they have to achieve students to talk, they look for the best way to implement the participation of students into the classes. It is not easy as well, but teachers have to think carefully in order not to embarrass the student, it has to be made with discretion and encouragement. A very good situation to use this is when there are many students in a group working on a task and the end everyone has to comment what they did, but almost always only one person talks, here it is necessary the intervention of the teacher applying this role. Also, the role of the participant teacher is important; they give feedback and correct mistakes, which is very essential in the teaching- learning process. Imagine a group of students who participate a lot but the teacher never correct them, so undoubtedly they are not going to learn the correct pronunciation, spelling, tone, among others. Maybe when students make a speech, teacher could be paying heed about what they say and writing down the mistakes in a paper, when finished she/ he could share them and giving the correct pronunciation about all the words that students did not say very well. Teachers as a resource are seen necessary because students usually need their help or suggestions. Here, it is important to allow them materials such as dictionaries, internet or even books in order for them to look for answers and not asking all the doubts to the teachers. It is known that students are accustomed to ask for every single word and translation for everything, teachers are not machines and students have to learn to be independent, critical and intelligent. Looking for other resources is necessary and useful. The tutors are important, too. They play the role of guidance for the students, it could be on projects, group work or even individually. But it is essential to take into account that teachers can be useful as tutors, not allowing students to depend on them in everything. The facilitator must be careful and having a balance between being tutor and being the person who always helps them to make the tasks that they should do alone. Being critical, it is considered the implementation of each kind of role into the classrooms. Teachers should not act out only as a controller or as a tutor; they have to complement the lesson using each type of function according to the activity. For example, if students are working on organizing a role play, probably teachers can execute the roles of resource or tutor but difficulty of controller. It means that the attitudes depend on the methodology; sometimes student’s mood, time and space into the classrooms get influence in the role teacher must perform.
Carmen you mentioned "...the participation of students" Sometimes is impossible to engage students in the activities and this is why we have to provide variation of activities to make the classs more attractive. Very good exlanation of the different comment.
An Approach: a necessity or a duty? It is necessary to understand that approaches are very important when giving classes. They allow teachers and students to create an environment of an effective learning. They depend on the way facilitators practice those methods. It also depends on the group, the context and characteristics of each teacher. For example, it could have a classroom where students are very dynamic, so here it is necessary to implement some approaches such as the communicative or even the natural, which consist on let them to talk and participate a lot with the rest of the class. I consider that it is very essential that every single teacher knows about the different approaches because on this way they could choose some of them to practice with the students; it is important to clarify that not all the approaches are going to work in all the classes; teachers should be very careful at the time of implementing them because they have to take into account the time, the topic and all the factors presented in the different groups. I think that when I am going to give classes, first, I could observe the groups and analyzing what methods could function (work) with every single section in my charge. For me, it is what all the teachers must make before using the corresponding methods or strategy because on this way they are going to be sure about the weaknesses, strengths, likes and dislikes of the students. Of course, it is a very hard duty for teachers but it is possible when they want to be excellent professionals, giving their best effort and making everything with quality and pleasure.
I'm totaly agree with your first point because the use of an especific approach is according to teacher's preferences, morover, it is true that the approach must be choose according to students' context, needs, and preferences;however, not all teacher takes into account students' necessities but we should try to avoid this kind of attitude.
Popular Methodology To start it is important to define what approaches, methods, procedures and techniques stand for. All those terms are somehow a little bit difficult to differentiate. An approach refers to theories about the nature of language, it describe how people acquire their knowledge of the language. The method is the practical realization of an approach. That means that we put into practice the approach by the method. Moreover, the procedure is an ordered sequence of the technique, or the steps that we should follow in class. And the technique is the strategy that the teacher uses in class to teach certain topics. I consider that a good teacher should know how to use all of them to have an effective learning process. Teachers have many methods to base their teaching. The grammar translation method is based on the “translation” of sentences from the target language to the native language. After the grammar translation method, we had the direct method. In this case the sentence was still the main object and the target language was used during the class. The audio-lingual method consists in the use of drills. He students had the possibility to commit mistakes by the use of the drills. Personally, I consider that teachers should avoid the translation in class, because we can teach without repeating word by word in out native language what we were saying. On the other hand the direct method let us practice the target language in class. The audio-lingual method can help students in the listening skill and to have a good pronunciation. The suggestopedia method consists in having a relaxed atmosphere in which students can be comfortable during the learning process. An element such as music playing background is used to relax the students. In my opinion the idea of make a relaxed class can help to overcome that some students can feel while they are learning. Moreover, the total physical response method involved the students, and it makes a dynamic class. On the other hand, in the silent way the most important element is the teacher. I think that an efficient English class requires the conversation between the teacher and the students, and it is something that does not occur in the silent way. I consider that the communicative language teaching method is one of the most efficient because it involves the students into real situations. The vocabulary is not taught in isolation, but in normal situation in which students can easily apply them. Another method is the task-based learning in which instead of a language structure or function to be learnt, students are presented with a task they have to perform or a problem they have to solve. The lexical approach mentions that language is formed in “lexical phrases”, that are combination of words. As we can see, all the methods that exist are important in one way or in another, I consider that a good teacher should use all of them, or take advantages of the positive aspects of each method.
I think, as you mentioned, that we should use a combination of approaches taking the positive aspects of each one and avoiding the negative ones. In my opinion, the CLT method and task-based learning are better when we want our students to interact between them and to use the target language as much as possible in the class.
English teaching go beyond the class. An English teacher must take in to account a lot of process before to teach. Also they have to know not only the theory part of this process but also how to put this theory in practice. According to the reading there are four steps that we have to know. First, an approach refers to the theories about the language; it mentions how language is used and how people acquire it. Second, a method is the practical side of an approach; however, to achieve a method a teacher need to follow different procedures and techniques. Procedure consists in to have an ordered sequence of the activities and the techniques that we are going to use. And finally a technique is the material that we use to support the subject for instance play a video and discus about the topic or play charades. It is important to know that exist many methods to use in the process of teaching. For instance, the grammar translation is the oldest method that was applied in English teaching. This method focus on translated sentences form the target language to their first language and vice versa. After that, the direct method came, and it focuses on studying objects and pictures. This method was against grammar translation and considered that in the classroom should be use only the target language. In the same way, another method came to replace others; therefore the English teaching was increasing.
Jennifer Aguero Reaction Paper Nowadays, English teaching has taken a lot of importance in our society where the most important part of learning is considered as the teacher because he or she is the person incharge of sharing information in the best way as possible. To be a teacher, you must abide by the rules that the school has. But the most important part of being a teacher is to create a sense of friendship between students and you as a teacher maintaining always the boundaries it has. Since teachers can affect how students perceive the course materials, it has been found that teachers who showed enthusiasm towards the course materials and students can affect a positive learning experience towards the course materials. On teacher/course evaluations, it was found that teachers who have a positive disposition towards the course content tend to transfer their passion to receptive students. These teachers do not teach by rote but attempt to find new information for the course materials on a daily basis. One of the difficulties is that teachers may have repeatedly covered a curriculum until they begin to feel bored with the subject which in turn bores the students as well. Students who had enthusiastic teachers tend to rate them higher than teachers who didn’t show much enthusiasm for the course materials. Teachers that exhibit enthusiasm can lead to students who are more likely to be engaged, interested, energetic, and curious about learning the subject matter. Recent research has found a correlation between teacher enthusiasm and students’ intrinsic motivation to learn and vitality in the classroom. Controlled, experimental studies exploring intrinsic motivation of college students has shown that nonverbal expressions of enthusiasm, such as demonstrative gesturing, dramatic movements which are varied, and emotional facial expressions, result in college students reporting higher levels of intrinsic motivation to learn. Students who experienced a very enthusiastic teacher were more likely to read lecture material outside of the classroom. There are various mechanisms by which teacher enthusiasm may facilitate higher levels of intrinsic motivation. Teacher enthusiasm may contribute to a classroom atmosphere full of energy and enthusiasm which feed student interest and excitement in learning the subject matter. Enthusiastic teachers may also lead to students becoming more self-determined in their own learning process. The concept of mere exposure indicates that the teacher’s enthusiasm may contribute to the student’s expectations about intrinsic motivation in the context of learning. Moreover of the motivation teachers must be searches of information to be able to teach according students needs, technology is a powerful tool in which teachers can use it every day to teach whatever subject, using that creates emotion in students’ life because every lesson they are going to expect something new.I think it is necessary to give them a guide to make more attractive their lessons, because it allows them to develop not only language skills, but also meta- cognitive abilities that allow to teachers apply new learning strategies, as the capability to analyze and interpret making more critical each student. Teachers must know the importance and benefits that it offers at the point of trying make more dynamic, motivating and significant classes.
Jenny I also believed that the motivation that a teacher can transmit to their students is essential in the learning process even when the students are unmotivated. Teachers are the guides of this process and it is their responsibilities make interesting activities that increase the student’s motivation.
Chapter 4 Jennifer Aguero Parras It's important to highlight the great benefit offered by those terms( apprach, method,procedure and thecnique)which help teachers to give better classes,with different dynamics where the biggest winners are the kids. on the other hand is very important to use this because not all students learn the same way which impart the same lessons all the time would be meaningless and would capture students these approaches using a methodology in its own way.
Jenny is very interesting the fact that you mentioned about the reseach which found a correlation between teacher enthusiasm and students’ intrinsic motivation to learn.
Well, according to the reading, it is essential to take into account the students’ age when planning activities or lessons. Moreover, we must plan activities applying an appropriate method to teach, not only according their age but also according their needs. This will help us to engage students to be eager with their own learning process. In fact, when students work on tasks that are suitable for their cognitive level, they feel more identified with their interests and more comfortable. As consequence, the students start to believe in their selves, which is a fundamental aspect in their learning. The author mentioned some differences between learners that have a direct effect in their development such as: aptitude (motivation) and intelligence, good learner’s characteristics (aspirations), learner style and strategies, and individual variations. Regarding to aptitude and intelligence, we have to take in account that not all students have the ability to learn languages. Some of them are better that others learning languages because they have more ability to do it. However, is necessary for all to keep a positive attitude towards learning English; in fact, the enthusiasm, aspirations, and been focus in success are essentials characteristic to achieve goals in school. Besides, is very important to support the students who are not at the same level of others, because there is a high risk of feeling frustration if they do not have the level of the advanced students. Finally, teacher’s support plus student’s motivation are the perfect combination to fulfill targets. In the case of adolescent students is also fundamental the rapport role by their teacher.
I agree with you in this point "...is very important to support the students who are not at the same level of others..." Of course for some students it is easy to learn another language, however, for others it is a very hard task. We have to show them that English is nice =D And yes, motivation is fundamental to make them feel confortable =)
This topic is fundamental because as teachers we must be able to teach people from different ages. Something that calls my attention was about children who start learning at early stages have more facility with pronunciation when they grow up. Nevertheless, I believe that teenagers are more able to learn a new language as EFL students because they have more abstracts thinking, and this is an advantage for teachers because students can understand better the different patterns of language. Besides, I consider that children have the advantage when they are ESL students because they acquire the new language as they are being raised an advantage that teens and adults do not have. Another important point is that teachers must recognize that in a class she/he can have students with different levels of knowledge. By knowing students’ background information teachers can identify or understand whether certain students are having troubles with the acquisition of the new language or another significant problem that is affecting the academic performance. On the other hand, by noticing some aspects of students’ information, the teacher can choose strategies to help them; for example, a student is not performing well certain activities, it could be because the student has a different way of learning and understand. That is why knowledge of multiple intelligences is quite important and its application will increase extrinsic and intrinsic motivation.
It is interesting what you mentioned about pronunciation in children. The reading also states that children imitate very well what they hear or see. So it is important that we pronounce correctly while we are teaching them because they are going to imitate us. A big responsibility! =O
Describing leaners There are some aspects that influence in the process of leaning of our students. Chapter 5 describes four of them: age, learner differences, language levels and motivation. In relation to age, it is known that we cannot use the same methods and techniques to teach children, adolescent or adults. They have different characteristics, interests and necessities. If we are going to teach children, we have to be very creative and use a lot of activities and games to involve our students. In the case of teenagers, they are looking for their identity; therefore, we have to consider that when we are teaching. Adults have special necessities that we have to take into account. In addition, we have leaner differences. There are some tests that try to measure intellectual ability. However, I consider that everyone has different abilities and are better in some activities than others. Thus, we have to be very careful and do not discriminate them. Also we have to remember that our students have different ways to learn, so it is important to identify them. Besides we have language level. Depending on how students manage the language, they are classified in beginner, intermediate and advanced. Definitely, we cannot use the same activities for a beginner that we use for an advanced student. If they are not ready, we cannot force them. It can be negative for them. Finally, we have motivation. It is a very important aspect that we have to consider. Several factors are going to define our students’ motivation: people around them, goals, curiosity, achievement, etc. We have to find ways to motivate them, but it is important to remember that intrinsic motivation is better than extrinsic motivation. It is a difficult work; however we have to do whatever we can to involve our students.
Fabi, it is interesting that you have mentioned that we are better in some activities rather than others. Moreover, the reading mentioned that we have different intelligences and that we develop some intelligencens more than others and I believed in that fact.
According to the Reading teachers could teach all type and all age of students. However, it is important to know that there are different methods and approaches to teach children, teenagers, adults, and seniors. First, teaching English must be dynamic and enjoyable for all ages. It does not matter if we are teaching children or seniors, we always must use different methods and techniques to achieve a successful learning process. For instance, children learn faster than adults because they learn in an active way such as playing or singing. On the other hand, seniors could learn English through activities less demanding such as, acting, describing, and even singing. Another aspect that teachers should know is the different ways in which students will learn and behave. A Teacher could have thousands of students; however, each student has different attitudes and believes. Teachers must use a variety of activities that involve the entire group for instance, listen, oral, visual and kinesthetic activities. Moreover, teachers not only have to worry about the pedagogic aspects, but also they must learn to listen the necessities of their students.
Marge, you mentioned that "...teaching English must be dynamic and enjoyable for all ages." Yeah that's true =D Therefore, we have to be very creative and identify our students' preferences and interests ;-)
You mentioned in your comment to implement a "variety of activities that involve the entire group." Sometimes for teachers it is difficult not repeat activities very often. However, we can take advantage of co workers and share activities with them in order to have a huge number of options.
This reading was important for me because it showed me how student`s age must be related with the methodology we have to implement. It is necessary for us to take that information into account and plan our classes according to our group and the age of the students in there. As good teachers, we should know which activities work better with young children, adolescents and adults so that we can have a good learning process for students. Also it is important to know that even if we know the age of our students, it does not mean that all of them learn in the same way. It happens because they learn different and not all of them are good at learning languages as other students, for that reason, it is important that teachers motivate students and make them feel comfortable with the class and their abilities for leaning a new language. Another important aspect is to recognize the learner styles or kind of learners that are presented in our class because it can help us to develop a class that involves every student and do not make them feel as if they could not learn because if we include only the majority part of our students in the activities, the other part of them can feel demotivated and will not learn as good as the others. So I consider important to know the different characteristics of student`s ages, kind of learner, learning style and how to motivate our students in order to have a successful learning process.
By, I like this "...even if we know the age of our students, it does not mean that all of them learn in the same way." We must identify those differences and plan a big variety of activities to involve all the students. We have to remember that they have diffentes styles and strategies of learning =)
That's true not all the students have the same abilities to learn a new langauge, and that's part of our job to motivate students about the importance of learning English. :D
Byron you mentioned that "As good teachers, we should know which activities work better with young children, adolescents and adults..." So I agree with your point of view because this is essential in order to make interesting activities according the students level.
Nowadays, in every area, people have different ways to learn, but especially in English there are great deals of students that have many different styles. That is to say that it does not matter if the learner is a child, or a teenager, or an adult. For instance, teachers should take in to account that the motivation or the way that they teach this new language for them because depending on the background of the learner, sometimes students do not have an acceptable competence to develop the for skills of English; on the other hand, there are many students that have a good competence of English so, teachers should consider to mange a variety of activities in order to teach this language in a way that every learner can understand
as you said "there are many students that have a good competence of English." We should take advantage of it and encourage them to continue learning English.
According to the reading,the meethodology that we use in class should be related with the age of the students, the activities is class are different according to the age of our students. It is not the same to teach children and teach adults. We must take into account the activities that can help to achieve an effective process in the class. Moreover, the reading talked about the different learning styles, I consider that a goog teacher should know very well their students to implement the activities in class according to the best way that his or her students acquire information. Not all the students learn at the same speed,and teachers must be carefull with that, some students finish their assigments in a short period of time and that is something that teachers must deal with. I think that being a teacher is one of the most difficult careers, but it is something that can inspire us to learn more about the methodologies and activities that can help us to have a successful class.
Liss I agree with you when you says that "Not all the students learn at the same speed." So, we have to take this aspect in account in order to balance the class
5 Describing learners The reading talks about the characteristics of the students such as the age. Depending on who we are going to teach to, we must know how that population will, most likely, behave. Personally, I am not interested on teaching adolescents, although I believe I can pull it off If I knew their characteristics. For example, they are very good language learners; it is funny because it is the first time I think about that, normally I think they are problematic (just as stated on the reading) and that it would be hard to teach them English, but it is not that bad. If high school teachers learn how to treat teenagers, avoid or better the different attitudes, and if they can get to these amazing skills students have to learn, the teaching would be very productive since they are in this phase of good learning language skills. In regards to the adults, we can find different kinds. We have young adults, who learn as well fast and are somehow mature, and the older adults who are normally more responsible and committed but sometimes it is harder for them to learn. The thing is that, no matter if we teach children, teenagers or adults we must know them because they are different even if they have the same age. What matters the most is to be able to manage the group the best we can according to their individualities.
I enjoyed your last phrase "...individualities" because I think that just few teachers take into account this fact which is very important because students have different personalities and of course this affects how they acquire knowledge.
I think all ages have advantages and disadvantages; however, there is a balance that make every age "teachable" xD P.S: Not sure if that word exists :P
THIS IS THE REACTION PAPER FOR THE LAST CLASS As future professors, we should be able to apply different approaches, methodologies, procedures and techniques. This reading has helped us to be aware of their differences. Not only do we need to know the difference but also to use them. Talking about approaches, it is important to know that we can count with a large set that can be used in different situations. For example, The grammar-translation and direct method work for students with a very poor level of English; this way, students can get to learn more vocabulary. Then we have the audiolinguism which can be used to improve students´listening and speaking skills since they hear and repeat what the professor or other person says. The audiolinguism also helps to have a better pronounciation. Afterwards, the PPP approach is a variation of audiolinguism where students must follow a set of procedures that help to an organized learning. On the other hand, we can find the Four methods (CLL, TPR, Silent Way). These methods were created between the 1970 and 1980; however, they are very different one from another. The ones that best caught my attention was TPR and Silent way, the former is very interesting because we need to take into account all of our body when learning English. Usually, we focus on the vocal aparatus but here we use the limbs and movements to help the brain work better. In regards to Silent way, the way some people can learn is amazing, for me it is very necessary to hear the professor speak to learn, but for the people who invented this method, it was more productive to learn by ourselves with a silent guidence. Then we can find the other approaches such as task-based learning, the lexical approach and the techer and students in dialogue together. The latter one improves Enlish skills as well as social skills.
Jennifer Aguero Describing learning This chapter is so interesting because expands our thinking about what to do in different kind of classes, I mean with adults, children and adolescents. We think that children learn easier than adults but with this written we can affirm that methodology and procedures are so significant to choose the activities to use with them. As it says the age of our students is so important to know what are their needs and what they have to know, we know that some students are better at learning languages than others that’s why age is not a excuse to learn a language, we as teachers must implement motivation with them in order for them to acquire easier the language.
Describing learners How could age, cognitive aspects or even environment influence the learning of the students? Each learner has his/ her own way to learn! It is not the same to teach young children that teaching to adolescents or adults, the strategies that we can use with a child have no comparison with those students who are in the process of adopting an identity (adolescence) or those who have a lot of maturity. Because of that, it is essential to be ingenious and being informed about the importance of the age because it is factor that determines how and what to teach. I consider that one of the most important issues is to know the students’ need and abilities. If we learn to identify the learning styles of our students, there is no doubt that we will get good results when teaching. Do you consider that age is a factor that influence in the teachers when making decisions about planning their clases? Why?
Each student has its own way of learning some of them learn in a visual, auditory, or in an oral way; therefore teachers must include different activities to engage all students
Learning Styles: Implications for ESL/EFL Instruction According to the reading, "all learners have individual attributes relating to their learning processes. Some people may rely heavily on visual presentation; others may prefer spoken language; still others may respond better to hands-on activities." I consider that it is very important to take into account the different learning styles because we are all different, we have different abilities and capacities and we all learn in a different way. Teachers must know how to teach in class according to the different learning styles: visual, auditory or kinesthetic.
learning styles I think that teachers and students should know about learning styles because our way of learning and teaching is based on them. We as teachers have to take that information into account and try to know our students learning style so that we can teach what we want succesfully.
We have to remember that our students have different characteristics. Therefore, we have to plan a big variety of activities taking into account our students’ abilities. Also, it is fundamental to motivate them.
Learning styles According to the Reading of Learning styles I like the suggestion that ¨ Teachers should plan lessons to match students’ learning styles while at the same time encouraging students to diversify their learning style preferences.¨ We have to take this suggestion into account when planning our classes.
Learning Styles: Implications for ESL/EFL Instruction
If we go back in time, as students we can remember that probably we received a monotonous English class. Because of this I agree with paragraph fourth becasue our learning is multidimensional that is to say that we learn in different ways so the product of our learning will be productive and creative.
Learning styles Using different styles in a class help students to acquire the subject in a way they like,teachers must know what is the learning style of their students to facilitate the english teaching.
Class size The amount of students that we have in a classroom will affect the teacher as well as the students. Teacher’s plan and of course the activities will change according to the number of students. In my opinion, teaching a person is difficult because teaching and learning a language is an interactive process that requires people around in order to practice, give feedback to each other and to perform activities. Of course, having a huge group of students can become a trouble when the teacher wants to perform a competence or activities that require good management. It does not matter the amount of students, the educator must consider that making a good impression is fundamental, being organized, and taking advantage of the students are options that teachers must consider when they teach. In this last point, it is essential to use the different levels of proficiency of the students as a benefit with large groups. In this manner, students with high linguistic levels can help their classmates to perform the activities, for instance. It is accurate to say that with large or small groups teachers must be genius and to use creativity in order to develop the activities, to cover the syllabus and to involve the students in the learning process.
Paula I also believed that "it is essential to use the different levels of proficiency of the students as a benefit with large groups." We can take advantage of those students in order to help their classmates who are not at their same level.
Pau, I also share this point of view "teaching a person is difficult because teaching and learning a language is an interactive process that requires people around in order to practice..." We can practice with our student; however, it is better that students have the possibility to interact with more people and listen different accents.
Describing learning context The role of the teacher as well is so very important but there are some factores intervening in the process, for example the context. Imagine a very good student who has a lot of problems at home, he arrives at the high school and his environment is worse than what he lives in his house :( How could the context influence him? Could he give the best results if his environment were different?
I gree with you Carmen because sometimes a student is very competent but when he or she wants to perform something, he or she will be affected by the environment!!
Learning styles To teach others is necessary to know ourselves. How do I learn? What strategies do I use to learn? Thus, we could know better our students, their preferences, weaknesses, likes/dislikes, and developing some methods, activities to achieve that they really learn for life. Do not you think so?
Depending on our own learning style, we will teach in that way, that is why we should be careful and try to cover the different intelligences of our students.
Describing Learning Contexts English, as it is explained in the reading, has been studied for many people and for many reasons. The business environment requires people who manage this language, because of the globalization. There are many places and means of instruction that help to teach English. For instance, schools and language schools include primary and secondary classrooms and the private language schools tend to be better than governmental schools. In-school and in-company which includes universities, offer language classes either. Nowadays we have real and virtual learning environments that we can access through internet and include online learning, and students have the opportunity to learn from their homes. I consider that all those institutions can be beneficial for the society, and as we can see, English has become a tool for success. Moreover, English classes vary greatly in size. We can have teaching one-to-one which consist in an independent teaching. Students have the opportunity to have all the attention from the professor, but they do not have the opportunity to interact with other classmates. This kind of teaching requires some aspects, especially for the teacher who needs to be more prepared, be flexible, and adapt to the students. Personally, I like this type of teaching but I would prefer having more students to make some activities. In large classes, teachers must be organized, establish routines use different activities, among others. Large classes let the students to interact with other classmates, we can have more activities of speaking and we can also promote team working. I prefer having large classes, even though it is difficult to be in contact with all the students, we can make the class more interactive. To managing mixed abilities in the class, it is necessary to give the students different tasks, roles, reward early finishers, identify student’s strengths, among others. I think that one of the most difficult tasks that teachers have to be on charge of, is to realize that all the students have different capacities and abilities that is why it is important to know our students.
It does not matter the amount of students, teaching is a difficult labor. In addition, teachers must have different skills and values that can show students not only a subject matter but also how to succeed in life.
Liss, I consider that virtual learning can be beneficial for many people; they can learn English from their houses. However, nowadays not everybody has access to internet. But I think that in a future there will be more virtual leaning environment than real learning environment. Therefore, we have to know technological tools to apply with our students.
Describing Learning Contexts Nowadays, English language is essential in all the different careers and there is not any excuse to learn it, because there are many options to study English such as real and virtual learning environments. Talking about class size, I would prefer small groups like 15 students. I know that in our system the groups are bigger than 15 students. However, I prefer this than teaching one to one so, I realized that the advantages of private classes are huge but I would like to create a good the interaction between students. Sometimes students are not open at all only with a teacher because they need to feel more comfortable with other students like them. Moreover, I believed that is easier to plan activities for large classes because when there is only the teacher and the student can be boring and less interesting than work in activities with other classmates specially teenagers. For adolescents friendship and the interaction with their classmates is very important. On the other hand, when classes are to large like more that 25 students is more difficult to manage them. Moreover, not only is difficult to manage the class but also is difficult to deal with the huge variety of learning styles that are in a large class. It means that we have to planning carefully in order to respond the student needs, their learning styles, their language level, and their language background.
I'm agree with the interraction between students. Personally, like you I like small groups because activities with few people as well with many people cannot be very successful.
Yes, I agree with both of you. If we have a group with around 15 students, we can create a variety of activities and it would be easier to manage a class of 15 students than a class of 40 students, for example.
Describing Leaner Context There are different contexts in which people learn English. For instance, some students have their education in public schools and other ones in private schools. Also we have real versus virtual learning environment. These situations will affect the students’ process of learning.
Moreover, the class size will affect how we are going to develop the class. For example, if we have a big group, we are going to use a different strategy that if we have a smaller group. The author mentioned that in large classes, there are always enough students to get interaction going and there is a variety of human resources. That is why we must be creative in our classes, to use different resources and to promote students’ participation.
Furthermore, we will have students with different abilities. Some of them learn faster that others. Therefore, observation is really important. I coincide with this recommendation because if we are aware, we can detect which students learn with certain styles. As a result, we can develop techniques to help our students. In addition, it is important to motivate them with our actions. Also, we have to be inclusive, that is to say that we have the role of promoting the participation of all the students.
To conclude, we can say that each class has its particular characteristics and different students with different abilities. The important thing is that we have to be aware and to identify those characteristics. Additionally, we must find creative ways to teach our students.
I also agree with the author when he says that “… in large classes, there are always enough students to get interaction going and there is a variety of human resources.” So, I consider essential the interaction between students.
Describing Learning Contexts The reading is very important for us as teachers and professors because we are always thinking about the methodology used at MEP and so; however, we have to know that we could end up teaching English for several purposes and contexts. We already know that it is not the same to teach ESL than EFL21, but English Teaching is more than that. We can find groups of students who need English for only academic purposes but we could also find students who need English for science, tourism, technology or for specific company purposes. For example, a taxi driver needs to know directions and how to charge, but a tour guide needs more technical vocabulary and communicative skills. Another aspect on the reading is about the size of the class. Last time we had a debate about what was better: a large class or a small class or even a one-to-one class. Some of the aspects we discussed were the socialization, the class management and the challenges that all of those classes have. At the end we determined that it does not matter the size of the class, what matters the most is the way we teach and the way we cope with our students.
I like when you say that we always think about MEP´s methodology, but we have to think in different contexts. Maybe, we are going to teach in a private school; therefore, we need to know the different environments of the learning process!!!! =D
Describing learning contexts It is good for teachers and students to know how important the context of leaning and teaching is so that they can choose the one in which they feel more comfortable when learning or teaching. Also we should know the reason why students we teach are in our class, for example, we should know if they are there because they really want to learn English or because they have to take the course even if they do not like English. In addition to that, we should take into account some contexts such as schools and languages schools in which some of the students are not interested in English and the class is usually a large one; in-school and in-company in which the class is smaller than the last one and also the majority of students go because they are interested; and real virtual learning environments in which students learn from any place where they can use internet. As teachers, we have to know that every learning context has its advantages and disadvantages but anyway we cannot choose ours so we must learn how to face all of them.
Descibing learning contexts Jennifer Agüero P. It was nice to read because this explain us how to teach in a large classes, first of all teaching one to one it’s a good strategy of people who are low students it help them to be interactive in a develop without time, but according to the reading we have to take into consideration some aspects like make a good impression, be well prepared and be flexible, adapt to the student, listen and watch, give explanations and guidelines and the last one don’t be afraid to say no this is very important because sometimes we decide to be the better teachers that’s why we prefer to say always yes instead of not in order to students have a good impression of us. We know that there are some problems in order to make good classes but teachers must know that English classes are interactive were the students are the priorities.
Describing Learners Contexts Nowadays, an important aspect of English Teaching is based on not only in the way that teachers perform the class but also, the way that students receive their knowledge that is to say the context that students are exposed. For example there is a clear difference between private and public schools because private schools are better equipped to teach in terms of well pay teachers, technology, and environment and so on; but on the contrary, most of the public schools have no more than a simple black board and desks with a lot of kids and one teacher for them. Besides, there is a clear difference that future teachers should consider, the class size because it depends on the quantity of students, teachers should concern about the style of teaching that is to say that they must adapt the activities, methods, procedures, approaches and so on to them. Both sides (teaching one-to-one and large classes), have their goods and bad but the real thing is that teachers must do the best that they can, whenever is possible, it does not matter if is a large class with their methods of teaching or if it is teaching one-to-one because the main objective is to teach to our students the best we can. To conclude, by mediating our knowledge as future teachers to our future pupils, we have to think about which is the best way to create a positive impact on them that they will never forget about our teaching style; also, by forgetting how many students we will have.
Teaching in a public or private high school is a challenge because may be we have the resources, but problems are always part of this labor; however, we must try to face the problems and take positive aspects of them.
It is true that technology has the disadvantage such as the lack of communication between peers, however, it is a good tool for students when they have to study alone.
Teaching Speaking Paula, Rafael, Naherobi As all we know Speaking is one of the fourth macro skills in English language. It is one of the most challenging skills to teach in our context because the public system limits teachers to go beyond. Many issues such as lack of time, the large classes and extracurricular activities that teachers have to attend make their labor and competence harder. When teaching, it is essential to expose and to encourage students with the target language; this can be done by the use of proper activities in which teacher interacts with learners and the students with other students. There are many activities in which the educators can teach the target language, most of them can be apply in our context but others cannot be apply as easily; however, it depends of the teacher initiative and compromise. Asking questions is an activity that helps students to produce language by their own. Those questions can be done in a Socratic way in which consist to produce answer by their own with the help of a tutor. Eg. T- No. Just give the one word from column B, just one word. U- Easy. T- Easy. Is he correct? Ch- Yes. T- Is he correct? Ch- No. T- No, you are not sure. Is he correct? He says easy sum …easy sum. Is that correct? Ch- No. T- Now, what is the correct answer? With this technique, the teacher creates the illusion that the students and the teachers are constantly interacting between them. There are some different types of questions. For example: Display questions: questions in which the teacher knows the answer in advance. Referential or real questions: questions that genuinely seek new information. Moreover, there is a risk that if teacher generally use questions to test students’ knowledge, instead of encourage them to use the language. The real communication between students happens when the teacher moves away from the roles of controller and organizer. Real communication can be develop through working in small groups in which each student has the opportunity to speak and practice, at the same time, students overcome the psychological impact of public performance. In addition, working in groups creates a positive atmosphere at two levels: cognitive and affective. However, this type of activity creates a dilemma to the teacher, that is who will work with whom because for the teacher the most important purpose is co-operative learning. At this point, each student has to contribute with the task by exchanging information. The positive and the negative feedback is necessary between teacher - learner, and between student - student. Also, the feedback can be at the cognitive and at the affective level. Feedback between students increases the opportunities for a real communication.
It is really important to ask questions to our students to have a better interaction. To encourage students' participation in our class can improve our students' speaking abilities.
A communicative approach to pronunciation teaching In the past years pronunciation was teaching as in many others areas of English language in isolated form. Fortunately, nowadays this approach has developed new ways to teach pronunciation in a communicative way. ESL students need to be engaged in a real context to produce English as much as possible. Teachers must develop communicative competence in their students by providing them with creative opportunities for meaningful exchange of language. We as a teachers cannot teach pronunciation in isolated sounds or stress and intonation forgetting the context in which these sounds are involve.
The reading talks about strategies to learn listening better. By knowing these strategies, both teachers and students are benefited. One of the topics there is about problem solving strategies that refer to students who identify the problems they have when it comes to listening tasks. The reading argues about psycholinguistic and behavioral strategies. The former refers t to actions that happen in our psyches and that cannot be seen; the latter talks about the actions related to the material world and the environment. Moreover, teachers can find different ways of listening tasks. The paused listening is the one in which professors would play a track and the pause it so that the students can discuss about the fragment of audio they just heard. This is useful because when students are exposed to a long listening they tend to get unfocused and forget information. With this strategy, learners can interact more often during the listening. Furthermore, there are different types of listening which are very useful in different contexts and situations. The participant listening is used when the one who listens and the one who speak have both the same rights to speak or listen. The addressee is when one has limited rights to speak. Then the auditor who is not supposed to speak, just hear. Also, there is the overhearer who is only a spectator, and finally the judge who is also a spectator but is supposed to critic the conversation. Moreover, the reading mentions another approach for listening which is “grading the learners’ experience of the spoken language, from more straight-forward to more complex.” It is through grading the text or grading the task. Text is divided into input (e.g. preparing a script that restricts the number of unfamiliar words or editing out faster or more complex passages) and support (additional help such as a list of vocabulary). On the other hand, task is divided into process (the listening purpose) and output (e.g. asking learners for a nonverbal response or answering questions in their first language). Depending on how we develop these options of grading we can increase or decrease the difficulty of the listening activity. The important thing is that we can provide our students with extra material to get a better understanding of the listening activity. Another important aspect of teaching listening is interaction-based grading. Second hand negotiation involves two people performing an information-gap, one of whom is a non-native speaker. Here the speaker can modify difficult parts of the message if the listener needs a better understanding. In the indirect negotiation, it changes the learners’ role from overhearers to participants. It also allows them to interrupt a recorded message and decide what to change. To make listening activity easy for our students we should give them freedom to interact and participate during the activity. Also we have to be sure that they understand completely the activity to get a positive result.
That's true, when we are exposed to long listening activities we tend to get distracted, so it's great to give students the opportunity to talk or do something different and then continue listening again.
The reading is about the different strategies that teachers could implemment in classes, the attitude of the students who look like foolish but it does not matter for him/ her. I consider that this last point is very important because there are timid students who do not learn to comunicate their ideas, that is why they do not want to talk incorrectly :( Teachers have to motivate more them. Also, I consider that cooperative learning is essential to learn, there are some activities that help students to get a meaningful learning. Talking about multiple intelligences! Teachers must know the abilities that every student has or at least the strenghts of the majority of the group. Do you think that teachers are able to know the weaknesses and capabilities of their students?
marjorie and lisseth A communicative approach to pronunciation teaching In the past years pronunciation was teaching as in many others areas of English language in isolated form. Fortunately, nowadays this approach has developed new ways to teach pronunciation in a communicative way. ESL students need to be engaged in a real context to produce English as much as possible. Teachers must develop communicative competence in their students by providing them with creative opportunities for meaningful exchange of language. We as a teachers cannot teach pronunciation in isolated sounds or stress and intonation forgetting the context in which these sounds are involve.
Lesson planning and use of resources for language teaching When we are going to teach a subject we must handing a lesson plan in order to guide our work. Teachers have to select aims to achieve their linguistic objectives on the student’s performance. Moreover not only students aims are important, but also personal goals let teachers improve their way to teach or how organize better the time in his or her lessons. The lesson plan has to follow an order; we can begin with a warm up that introduces that topic or the unit, then we have to explain the topic or do activities if the topic is already clarified. Teachers are in charge of preparing creative and contextualized activities for students. We cannot forget that the syllabus is a general guide and we have to contextualize those objectives.
Jennifer Aguero Parras A90075 Lesson planning and use of resources for language teaching This chapter focus us how to plan a lesson and the things we have to take in to account to make it, it’s important to achieve a balance and the things we do because many times we have to considerate that many activities for a lesson are too much because of timetable and the capacity students have to understand what teachers want they do. On the other hand is significant to reach the aims proposed for the class in order for them to be able to catch the subject, we must consider this questions in order to plan a good lesson: will the topic be interesting and motivating for my learners? Have I thought about exactly how to star and how to end the lesson? Does each step in the lesson help to achieve the aim? those questions guide us to be better given classes.
Timing is a very important aspect that teacher must consider, but it does mean that we need to do the same things all the time, talking about activites.
The use of authentic material in the classroom as part of our daily activities is very important in order to tech culture and to involve students in the target language. Authentic materials are designed for native speakers; this means that they are not design for language learners. Newspapers, videos, magazines, and music are examples of authentic materials that can be used by teachers of EFL students. In addition, those materials may be used to engage students in the target language because students they can relate what they are learning with real life; hence, teachers can somehow contextualize the authentic materials to facilitate the students the learning process. On the other hand, teacher must be cautious with the use of authentic materials because they must consider students level because the material can have vocabulary or structures that students do not handle. Besides, authentic material can be used to teach culture. As one of the readings mentions language goes beyond, so it is important to involve students in the target language culture. Culture can be taught by different types of activities such as easy quizzes, action logs, reformulation, noticing, prediction and research all those activities should be planned according to students level and teachers have to remember to use variety of activities to increase students motivation.
Lesson planning and use of resources for language teaching
It is really important to identify aims before giving a lesson. We cannot teach our students if we do not establish what we want our students to achieve. There are main, subsidiary and personal aims. These depend on the level, age, students’ interests and necessities. Also a lesson plan is fundamental in the process of teaching. We have to prepare appropriate procedures to achieve the aims that we selected. The book makes a comparison between a lesson plan and a road map. Both show “where we are going and how we are going too get there.” Moreover, timing allows teachers to follow the sequence of the lesson. Our lessons need to have a logical sequence. Furthermore, to consider what students already know about a topic is important when we are planning. Also we can leave homework to our students in order to practice. Finally, it is important to know that in a lesson, things can occur that we have not considered in our lesson plan. Therefore, we have to be creative and find ways to deal with.
Lesson planning and use of resources for language teaching
First of all, is essential to identify main aims to plan the lessons. Also, we have to take into account the secondary aims and contextualize them according the students needs. When we talk about students needs we have to remember that we have different learning styles and curricular accommodations in our classrooms. Moreover, through the activities that we plan we can develop the appropriate linguistic competences that will allow our students to develop excellent performances. Also, we have to avoid the mistakes committed by our teachers in the past; for example, a large amount of them do not follow the three steps PPP, most of the time they only center in presentation and sometimes in practice, but never in production. So, they do not closure the process because it was teacher center and they were the actors of the process instead of the students. As teachers is essential to develop our communicative skills in order to benefit our students.
Practical Techniques for Teaching Culture in the EFL Classroom Teaching culture is necessary for EFL learners because students are going to be able to understand and compare both languages, their own and the foreign language. However, many teachers argue that there is not time to teach culture by the lack of time, acknowledge about what aspects of culture teach, among many others. Therefore, this reading shows us different types of sources that we can use during the lessons and some practical techniques to teach culture. Taking on consideration that all students learn in different ways, teachers must present their students with a variety of sources including readings, newspapers, realia, songs, etc. We can use many activities such as action logs, reformulation, prediction, etc. Nevertheless, in my opinion one of the most useful is research activity because students can look for information that they really like, instead of doing it as an obligation.
Authentic Materials and Cultural Content in EFL Classroom: The use of authentic materials in the lessons represents a useful technique to teach culture. However, teachers must take in to account that this material is not designed for teaching students; therefore, its vocabulary could be difficult to understand. we can apply this technique, but knowing first what is the student`s level, and contextualizing the information to achieve the student`s aims.
Practical Techniques for Teaching Culture in the EFL Classroom And Authentic Materials and Cultural Content in EFL Classrooms
Nowadays, another important aspect that can be applied and taught by EFL teachers in their daily routines is culture. It is important to understand that students need to learn a second language that probably the do not understand a little bit, depending on their students backgrounds and knowledge which becomes in plurality of people with the same target, to learn a second language in this case English. That is why is important that if they want to learn English, teacher have to create an interest in the students on the culture of the target language because they will see why it is important to learn this language and how they will use it in a real context and not in isolation. Teachers must teach culture unconsciously through activities and expose them to authentic materials that engage them in an interest of the target language. Indeed, teachers that teach culture in this way make sure that students answer questions like these ones: Why do I need to learn this language? Or, why do I need to understand a culture that probably I never will know? Regards to these questions, it is important that teachers adapt the vocabulary and understand student’s needs in order to help students in their process of acquiring a new language.
Lesson Planning and Use of Resources for Language Teaching As future teachers we always take into account a plan for our lessons and the usage of many resources as much as we can in order to provide to our future students with a great deal of different activities to acquire the language. As it was mention before a plan for our lesson is the important because it functions as a guide trough all classes during the period, furthermore, it functions as core in which teachers stars recording information about the process of learning of his/her students. For this reason it important to take in to account the usage of aims in the production of every single topic because with them, teachers will focus more appropriately the target that they want to cover, in other words, it is call main aim, then teachers focus on the functions in the language which are the paths to reach the target or goals; this process is called subsidiary aims. Last but not least, the personal aims that are more related with teacher, those are the personal reflection that teachers achieve during classes. That is why, when teachers star a class it is important that follow an order based on their planning, because it will help teachers to reach the targets that students need. Nonetheless, teachers need take to account the background of their students, student’s needs and the curricular accommodations that are part of their great job as teachers.
Cool! I'm glad I was able to access it!
ReplyDeleteNow, I must learn how to use it, cool!! :P
ReplyDeleteThat`s great, now we can share everything....
ReplyDeletenot everything dude! lol
Deleteme too!!!:)
ReplyDeletethat`s perfect our own blog!!
ReplyDeleteWe are learning a new technique that we can apply with our future students =)
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ReplyDeleteLUIS PABLO CERVANTES SANABRIA
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What a Good Teacher Should Know
The reading caused many impacts and reaction on me as I was reading. I consider it was a really extended reading so I will discuss some of the topics that most caught my attention one by one.
The roles of a teacher
There are several roles that a teacher can take when being in a class full of students. We must take into account several factors before deciding the role we want. It is not like professors will stick forever with only one; although it may happen that some professionals can feel so secure about a role that they will simply never change it, which is not beneficial at all. It is necessary to be switching from one role to the other since several situations are presented in the class. In addition, it is part of a good teacher to always try to find new methodologies and strategies to teach and make our students understand better. If we change the structure of the class we should as well be changing the role.
As for my experience as a student, I felt moved by these types of roles:
Controller
I remember to have professors who would only let us do what they want and not what we would suggest. This type of role is sometimes helpful since students might be lazy and by controlling them we can regulate such behaviors. However, if this role is seriously taken, the class can turn boring and students might be unwilling to attend.
Participant
You can easily identify this when professors like to participate in most of the activities as if they were students. Nonetheless, for this role the division student-professor has to be always clear, if not, a chaos may occur when the professional losses all of his/her “power”.
Teacher-student
Recognizing students in our class is the first step towards a successful teaching. It is clear that we should know our students’ abilities so that we can take advantage of them in regards to learning. One of the ways of knowing the learners is by observing and listening to them. This way we get to find those skills and start a plan that encourages such.
Not only should we know our students but also respect them. We have to understand that not every student is equally capable for the same things. Being even-handed is the key for our surely multi-skilled children because then we can get to balance and respect the level of ability of each student. Teachers have to be patient and try to always be tolerant if some students are struggling with the English language. Factors such as the class size influence the process of learning. For example, I was not taught the same in a group of 30 students that other person who was taught on one to one sessions. For all I know, what is really the key as teachers is to be well prepared for every situation and to be flexible so that managing our students becomes a joy instead of a hell.
When we think of a teacher we should consider it as a teaching aid for education. The teacher is the most successful tool for a meaningful learning. To achieve this, the professionals have to be prepared and to know how to express themselves using either mime or gesture. By doing this, the message is more effectively transmitted from one to another.
I like when you said that ¨We must take into account several factors before deciding the role we want. It is not like professors will stick forever with only one.¨ I considered that we hace to analize the classroom atmosphere to decide when to act with a different role.
DeleteThe role we assume is depending on the group and the activities we plan. :D
DeleteTime and experience are the unique tools to get the best way to teach.
DeleteIn the classroom
ReplyDeleteThis lecture was very important for me because it helped me to expand my knowledge in English teaching and also to understand some aspects that I did not understand before. I learned that the personal presentation is very important for creating an environment of confidence and have a good relationship between student and teacher. Besides, the roles that teachers have are really useful a necessary for developing a class. It is interesting for me because most of the time we, as students, do not realize that teachers interpret different roles during the class. We as teachers must be aware of it and try not to be a teacher that interprets one or two roles only. I think that a teacher as resource is the most difficult role because sometimes students ask questions that are difficult to answer and if teachers do not do it, students can think that they do not know anything about English. That situation can be bad for students because they will not trust the teacher and for the teacher because he or she could feel demotivated and sad. As teachers we should work hard for improving our skills in the different roles so that we can develop an interesting class and give a sense of confidence to our students. On the other hand it is good to let our student know that we are not computers that know everything about the language.
Another important aspect is the way teachers organize the class, for me that information is important because many times we do not organize it and we think that it does not affect the learning process but it does. For that reason teachers must plan their classes and follow the plan in order to not to make a mess during the class. Talking about personality, teachers should adopt many of them and try to teach and motivate students through it. I consider this part very important due to teachers sometimes must behave in a different way as they do it outside classes so that it can help the students to learn and feel motivated.
In addition to that, teachers must have a good relationship with their students. In my opinion, as teachers, we should respect our students and treat them not only as our students but also as friends so we should listen to them, and help them if they have a problem. At the same time we have to show them that we are still their teachers and that they must respect us too. Besides, we need to look for good activities so the students do not get bored or tired during the lesson. The class must be active and students have to enjoy it for being motivated the next time. It is difficult to accomplish but in my case I can look for good and interesting activities by using internet because there are many things teachers can implement in their classes.
In relation to the size of the class, I prefer to work with a medium size group that to a large group or one student. I think it is much difficult to work with a large group because it could be difficult to control a class like that but since teachers do not choose their groups I think it is better to practice and improve my skills so that I can face those kinds of groups. On the contrary, it would be interesting to work with one person because you can have more time for her or him. Even if we do not know how to manage the different types of classes, we can get the suggestions given in the lecture and apply them in our classes.
As a conclusion, this lecture gave me a lot of useful information that I will use in my classes. Also it made me understand the different behaviors that we should adopt for being a good English teacher and how to have a good relationship with the students so that I and the students can have a nice learning process without problems.
That’s true before the reading I haven’t realized that teachers have to assume different roles in the classroom and also I think outside the classroom. Besides, is true that some roles are more difficult than others and that being a resource could be a difficult part of teaching especially when we don’t have experience. I agree that teacher’s personality can affect classroom environment.
DeleteI completely igree with you when you says that ¨I think it is much difficult to work with a large group because it could be difficult to control a class like tha.¨ however this the reality and there are huge grous of students in our public educational system.
DeleteMotivation is so important in the educational development of students that's why is necessary to make some changes to give classes in order students catch better the subject.
Deleteyes, motivation should be the most important tool to teach students. It is necessary to make them feel part of the process, essential and useful
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ReplyDeleteAccording to the reading, I agree with the idea that it is essential to be congruent in our behavior because we have to be honest with the students and ourselves; we cannot acting in one way in the classroom and acting in other way out of the classroom. This means for me to have an appropriate behavior being respectful, humble and friendly. I remember that I had a teacher in high school that always was angry and he never showed us any smile, but when we saw him out of the class with other people he was smiling and looked happy and enjoying what he was doing. My ex-classmates and I thought that this teacher hated us. I believe that as teachers we have to adopt different roles, it depends of the class and the activity we are teaching.
ReplyDeleteI like the roles of tutor and prompter, because I believe that as teachers we are facilitator as some experts says. We are not human dictionaries; some people think that if we know English we know everything, every single word that exists in English language. So, I like the idea of encourage students to think in a creative way and look for the meanings by themselves. However, there are times when is necessary to act as controller; for example, at the beginning of the class when teacher is checking attendance or when students are resolving an important exercise and a silent period is necessary. Moreover, it is very important to keep in mind the different approaches when teaching, because we can combine them with the different roles. For instance, when teachers act as participant or as resource the TPR is very useful because teacher may use mimes and gestures to explain concepts such as large, short, walk or eat. Finally, the role of tutor is one of the best according to my opinion. I like the idea of having a nice classroom atmosphere especially in high school; where adolescents believed that friendship is the most important thing in their world.
The author mentioned that “In order to work well with the different roles and if we wish to develop a good learning environment in the classroom we need to establish an appropriate relationship with our students.” This good relationship between student and teacher is called rapport. I consider essential to establish a good relationship with students based on mutual respect, support and confidence. It does not means that we (teacher and student) are the best friends forever, but it means that if they need to trust in us when they want to be listened. Although is common that some teachers do not recognized their students, he or she does not remember even their students name. It makes students to feel frustration because they may feel that they are not important for that teacher. This is very dangerous because adolescents are looking their identity and a lot of times they have self-esteem problems. I understand that every teacher has to teach a huge amount of classes with hundreds of students, but it is necessary to do the effort if the teachers want to create a warm climate and a good atmosphere in their classroom. This is part of rapport and motivation for the students.
To conclude, we ought to do our best every day in every class, it is what our students deserve. We have to remember that we are their models to fallow, so we have to watch our vocabulary and gestures. Also, when speaking we have to take care of our speech speed, intonation and rhythm, because this is the pattern that our students are going to repeat.
that’s true teacher’s attitude may create a hostile atmosphere between students and the teacher. And it is verity that approaches are somehow related to teacher’s role.
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ReplyDeleteIn my personal opinion, teachers have many responsibilities. It is not only giving a topic to a class. In fact, we have to deal with many situations. In the text, we could see the different roles that we have to take depending on the circumstances of the class. As the text recommends, we need to detect which role is more convenient in a certain time. I think that we have to show our authority to our class; however, it does not mean that the teacher is the main actor of the learning process. Of course, students are the main actors and we have to give them all the necessary tools to get a significant learning. They have to know that we are a resource of their learning.
Besides, in the text, rapport is mentioned. For me, to have a good relationship between students and teachers is fundamental. We have to provide an appropriate environment in our classes. The reading contains some characteristics for a successful interaction. For instance, it includes listening to our students. Using this strategy, we can demonstrate our students that we are interested in them as human beings. Personally, I consider that we have to be respectful and objective in most of the cases. It is to say that if, for any reason, we do not like any of our students, we do not have to express it with our actions. We must not have “favorite” students.
Other important aspect that teacher should consider is the ability to explain the topics using different strategies that do not intimidate the students. We can use mime and gestures in our classes. In my opinion, it is very important in order to not to bore our students only speaking. We have to remember that each student has his/her own way to learn; students are different. We have to pay attention to their personal interests and necessities. Feedback plays an important role in the process of teaching.
As I mentioned before, we will have to face different situations. For that reason, we have to be flexible and intelligent to find the better way to deal with them. For instance, the class size is a determiner of how we are going to develop the class. If we have a big group, we are going to use a different strategy that if we have a smaller group. The text describes “private classes” and a guideline to have a good relationship between students and teachers. I totally agree with those strategies. For example, we have to give a good impression, not only in our appearance but also in our behavior. Also we have to show them that we are well prepared to teach them. Moreover, we have to be aware and to detect if there is any problem.
With large classes we have to use different activities to catch our students’ attention. I agree with this idea mentioned by the author “in large classes, there are always enough students to get interaction going and there is a variety of human resources.” That is why we must be creative in our classes, to use different resources and to promote students’ participation.
Furthermore, we will have students with different abilities. Some of them learn faster that others. That is why, observation is really important. I concur with this recommendation because if we are aware, we can detect which students learn with certain styles. As a result, we can develop techniques to help our students. It is important to motivate them with our actions. Also, we have to be inclusive, that is to say that we have the role of promoting the participation of all the students. It includes not only those who usually respond in the class but also those who are always quiet.
To sum up, I can say that teaching is not an easy task. We have to look for many strategies in order to provide our students with a high level of knowledge and learning. Creativity and passion are two characteristics that, in my personal opinion, are fundamental in the process of teaching.
I belief that favoritism is the worst attitude that a teacher can have. It isn’t ethical and it’s also immature to have preferences with certain students. As teachers, we must be equal, avoiding some preferences that can affect other students.
DeleteYeah!!!! Imagine a very timid student who needs aditional help and the his/her teaher does not pay attention to this student because this child is not as the rest of the group. Here, the motivation is one of the most important aspects in the teahing- learning process!and of course no preferences, that is not ethics :(
DeleteFabi I really enjoyd reading your reaction, and there are some aspects that you mentioned which called my atention: "Feedback plays an important role in the process of teaching." You're right when you says that because both are necessaries the positive and the negative feedback. And also I agree with you about "...to have a good relationship between students and teachers is fundamental."
DeleteThe Teacher´s role in Class
ReplyDeleteHow should be the behavior of teachers during the class? As experts say the first impression is very important for students, who are paying closely attention of what his or her teacher does. Students can notice if teachers prepare the class and also if they have enough knowledge. For me being a teacher is a difficult job, because of the different roles that we have to adopt in the classroom. According to the lecture, a teacher must be a facilitator and I agree with that because teachers are not the center of the education process. Teachers must bring the correct tools to their students to make the process effectively.
The different teacher´s roles described in the lecture such as controller, prompter, participant, resource, teacher and tutor are different. When I read about all of them I noticed how teachers have to change their role depending on the circumstance. Personally I like the tutor role, because as it is described teachers have to help and support their students having a good atmosphere.
In my opinion, the organization before and after the activities in the class is extremely important. If the teacher is a disorganized person, he or she does not have to expect an organization by the students. As we read in the lecture, teachers must give clear directions when students have to do an activity. In this way students know the time and the steps that they have to follow. If the teacher notices that students have finished the activity they can continue with the class. I think that it is difficult to keep the attention of the students, but that is why it is necessary to answer questions and to be observing the class all the time.
“One of the things that are uniquely able to do on the spot is to use mime, gesture and expression to convey meaning and atmosphere”. (p 116). Another important aspect in the lecture is about the mime and gesture that teachers might do. I could not imagine an 80 minutes class with a teacher that does not express gestures. The atmosphere in the classroom depends in the emotions that teachers perform in the class. In English gestures are essential, because if students do not understand what the teacher is saying, they can get the meaning by the gestures.
Teachers can capture the student´s attention through different techniques, reading a poem and drawing for example. The creativity has an important role for teachers, who have to be a model in the learning process. Moreover, the lecture talked about the inputs that teachers give to their students. That is why I consider teachers have to talk in English during the class, even though students do not understand every word, they can get knowledge. And it is important to bring a space in class in which students can practice the new language.
organization is the base of the learning process, students as you mentioned notice when class aren’t well prepared. Also I considered very important your point about instructions because sometimes an activity can be nice and with good content but if students don’t understand what they have to do the activity will fail.
DeleteYou are right Liss ¨the organization before and after the activities in the class is extremely important.¨ The classroom management is very important and many times the success of the activities depend of it.
Deletecreating new things for giving classes is an exellent option in order students pay attention to their and learn in a different way.
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ReplyDeletecool, Im starting to understand!
ReplyDeleteMarjorie Herra Hernández
ReplyDeleteB03069
Reaction paper
We as teachers have been called not only to teach a Language, but also we have a mission with the society. Teachers have a big responsibility to deal with, because they are working with humans. Students could be children, teenagers, adults, or seniors it does not matter what is the age. The most important thing here is the students are humans no machines. Therefore, there are some considerations the teachers and professors must take in to account.
First of all, in the classroom there are rules that not only students have to achieve. For instance, the teacher must behave as a professional in all the aspects. The way teachers dress and behave are relevant inside the classroom. Teachers must dress appropriately and be respectful with their students because most of the time teachers are models that many students fallow, so they copy their behavior and their way to think.
Second, teachers have different roles in the processes of transmitting knowledge to the students. However, the most important is to facilitate the learning process in a democratic way; for instance, giving students the opportunity to participate, to create, to search, among many others, In order to build their own knowledge. On the contrary, controller teachers deny students to share and create their own experimental learning. Sometimes is extremely necessary that teaches act as controller because students needs explanations and answer to their doubts; however, it must be share by both teacher and student.
Furthermore, there are other options to guide their students, for instance, teachers may act as participants when they form part in a debate; a resource when students need help with old words or sounds, or even as tutors when they have to guide long projects, investigations, among others.
On the other hand, the relationship between the student and the teacher must be clear and flexible. Students not only need to know about content, but also they need to be heard. Sometimes students are shy or embarrass about a class, a teacher, or a presentation, so teachers should manage certain aspects such us: recognizing students, listening to students and so important respecting students. When a student is called by his or her name it means he or she is important and also what he or she is saying is important too. In the same way teachers must listen to their students, all of them have a different opinion about something, so we must hear it and try to construct a general idea but including all the students’ opinions.
Finally, the teacher must be creative, and this word involves not only teaching well but also taking advantage of all the sources available that exit. For instance, in many schools and high schools there is no way to have access to the technology or didactic material; however a creative teacher could use their own body language, gestures and mime to express and communicated with others. So ,there are many and different ways to transmitted the language to students.
I agree with your point about students who are shy because sometimes students don’t show their potential because of that issue; so it is teacher responsibility to handle the situation.
DeleteI agree with you Marge. I like the aidea that you mentioned ¨the relationship between the student and the teacher must be clear and flexible.¨ Especially because we are going to work with adolecents.
DeleteMarge, I like when you said "Teachers have a big responsibility to deal with, because they are working with humans." We have to be very careful with our actions because it is going to influence in our students' lives.
Deletemy picture
ReplyDeletemy picture!! cool!
ReplyDeleteRafael
ReplyDeleteThe Good Teacher
The Good Teacher
The roles of a teacher
Teachers need to have an idea about who they are as people, and who they are as teachers because is delicate to work with people, that is to say that students can feel that a teacher is very friendly but it does not mean that their teacher is friend of the a specific student or group of them. Why the variety of personalities? Because teachers have their private lives and students do not need to know because sometimes it brings serious problems for both sides, even legal problems.
Organizing students and activities
A very important task that teachers have in common is to organize the activities. That is to say to get students involved, engaged and ready for something, at this point teachers must to consider the time for the activity, and the feedback for each one because an activity does not have validity without a feedback because students will not understand the stand of the activity.
The teacher as performer
As it mentioned above the performance that teachers have depends on the activity because if it is an activity such a team game, students need an energetic, encourager, fear, and so on. Instead of being a rigid and strict teacher because this kind of behavior does not scope with the activity.
Rapport
Teachers need to take into account the good relation that he/she has with their students. Also, it depends how well they interact with students. For this reason the good interaction depends of four keys. 1- Recognizing students: It is frustrating for a student that at the end of a period the teacher does not know his/her name even his/her likes and dislikes; on the contrary, if teachers can recognize these aspects, students may feel that they are very important for the teacher as students and people. 2- Listening students: If teachers first listen, the necessities of students, it is going to be easier to manage the control of the class because students will see the teacher as reliable person. 3- Respecting students: If teachers offer them their space to comment an idea or an example, teachers are motivating them to participate in class because students will feel that they can express their thoughts feelings about something. 4- Being even-handed: Teachers sometimes just assist whit people who participate in class, and they apart students who are not involved at all, being even-handed means being equal for everybody because sometimes students are nor reluctant to participate because they can feel sad, worried, bored, and so on.
The teacher as teaching aid
In classroom teachers are the ones that students have to clarify their doubts, that is to say, teachers are an aid.
Mime and gesture
By expressing the ideas by using mime and gesture at the time of explaining a topic, it will to students to understand better and helps to have a classroom climate less monotone.
The teacher as language model
It means that students expect to hear teachers speak in English because teachers are the first model that students have to understand English, to react towards certain expressions. That is why very important that students see in a teacher a good language model of English.
Feedback is fundamental, without it students are not able no know the areas of improvement.
Delete"...students expect to hear teachers speak in English because teachers are... a good language model of English." You're completely right.
DeleteThe reading joins important aspects that a teacher must have. For example, something that we see simple such as cloth is a fundamental part of teacher’s professional profile. However, this does not mean that the teacher have to seem severe; on the contrary, a teacher must be a person who students, parents and colleagues can trust because teachers have to adopt a variety of important roles.
ReplyDeleteThe controller role requires teachers to be in charge of the group. In the sense that the teacher is the one who presents the activities and the subject matter, for instance. Besides, educators share their knowledge to students in a way that they can be motivated to learn. Nevertheless, teachers should not abuse of this role because an overuse of it deprives students to learn by different forms. Moreover, when students are acquiring a new language; it is teacher’s obligation to involve students in the process and this is another important role of educators: the prompter. This means, teachers have to help students in the process of learning by assistance them with vocabulary, phrases and activities that force students to use the new language in classes. Nonetheless, educators can also support students by their participation in the activities taking the role of participant. Of course, when teachers assume this role they must not forget to give feedback, to check students’ performance and correct mistakes. Also resource is another important role. Students need always somebody to clarify doubts, someone who can give more examples; and this person is the teacher.
When it comes to teach, educators must have organized their classes form the very beginning to the end. When there is something new, teachers must get ready students for the new information. In addition, it is important to students that teachers explain the purpose of the activities and gives examples of the activities; for they to know what exactly to do. When the class is finishing it is fundamental to close with a summary of the lesson, to give feedback or to assign homework to students. An organized class gives teachers the advantage that students can trust in their job; however, sometimes teachers must help students to understand instructions in the target language. For instance, the use of gestures, mimes, pictures and expressions to help students to comprehend simple and useful vocabulary or phrases. Speaking or reading aloud is a good strategy in order to provide input to students and also to engage students in the new language. Nevertheless, teachers must not be the only ones who talk or read. Organization and the use of strategies to assist learners are valuable; those actions can create a good relation between students and teachers.
When there is a good relationship between teachers and students the process of learning will be more confortable. Educators have a big responsibility because the success of this process sometimes depends of teacher’s behavior. For example, knowing students’ names it is important because this shows that each one is important. Respect students’ thoughts is very important because they will feel that their opinions are valid and this gives students motivation. Also it is important to avoid preferences between.
Following strategies, being organized and respectful are strategies that teachers have to consider when teaching children, adolescents or adults. Teaching is a difficult labor that requires many elements inside and outside the class, as well as innate characteristics.
Great reaction Pau, I have noticed that you are gonna be a great English Teacher...
DeleteTeachers roles have to be develop all the time...
Delete"...teachers have to help students in the process of learning by assist them with vocabulary, phrases and activities that force students to use the new language in classes."this is the correct way Pau, not to teach in isolation we have to teach communicative language.
DeleteIt is important for educators to know the difference between concepts such as approach, method, procedure, and technique because they have to plan their classes based on that methodology. Teachers have to work with one or more approaches and choose which method, procedure and technique to use for having the capacity to teach successfully and doing it in an organize way. Regarding to those concepts, there are several kinds of methods that have been used for by teachers and that have some good and bad characteristics. It is really important that teachers have knowledge in all the methods being that they can learn a lot of them and use the goods things of them to make a good combination of the methods and apply them in their classes. After I read the methods I understand that all of them were created for improving English teaching and that some of them work better than others, the problem is that we cannot follow one method only because students have different learning styles and maybe what works with some of them do not do it for other students. For this reason, I think, we should take into account the possibility of combining these methods and try to create a new one even better because we can choose the best of them and apply it to our classes so that we can teach our students even if they learn different. For example, I can use the TPR method in order to teach vocabulary to my students by relating the meaning of a word with an action so that they can remember not only the meaning but also the action and make easier for them to remember words. At the same time, I could use the suggestopaedia method and avoid traumatic topics while I create in my class an environment where my students feel comfortable and relaxed. This is just an example but we can do more than that by using other methods and our imagination. Talking about the Lexical approach, it is good because students can learn not only words and sentences but also words and sentences that they can use daily when speaking English. The most relevant aspect of it is that they can use what they learn for expressing ideas in the real life and not only for using their knowledge in the classroom. In relation to dialogues, I consider that they are good because through them we can have a better relationship with our students, know more about them and at the same time they can improve their fluency, vocabulary and oral skills. On the other hand I agree with those words “When I teach, I certainly do more than talk, and that is why teachers around the world still have students attending their classes” (Clemente 2001: 401). I agree with that because I would not like to teach a class that anybody who speaks English can teach due to being an English teacher is more than speak English only.
ReplyDeleteAnother important aspect to talk about is how culture can affect the way we teach. It is important to know that because we have to be careful and know about culture before we teach so that our methodology can work successfully and it does not affect us and students. Besides, the bargains are so important for teachers and students because many problems can be solved through them. Teacher must know how to have a good agreement with their classmates but they must be careful and try not to let the students to take advantage of the situation, the agreement must be good for teachers and for students not only for one part.
As a conclusion, I believe that teachers must know a lot about the different methods and also know how to apply them in their classes in a way that they can create an environment in which students feel comfortable and learn English without any problem. In addition, they have to learn that culture can influence their way of teaching; for that reason they have to know how to solve this kind of situation by having an agreement with students.
Something that calls my attention is the fact that approaches and methods are changing thorough time, and that's perfect because as teachers we have to be able to adapt ourselves to new thinks such as technology.
Deleteyour right Byron, especially when you remarked ¨Another important aspect to talk about is how culture can affect the way we teach. It is important to know that because we have to be careful and know about culture before we teach so that our methodology can work successfully and it does not affect us and students.¨ As teachers we have to take this aspect in account because our country is full of foreign peolpe and as consequence we have foreign students in the classrooms who come from different cultures.
DeleteYeah, Paula as future teachers, we do not have to based our teaching just in one method because they are constantly changing... !!!
DeleteI think that this reading was very productive for me in order to clarify essential concepts that have to be handling by a teacher. Often those concepts such as approach, method, technique and activity tend to be confused easily because they are much related. Moreover, reviewing the main aspects of the approaches I remembered my experience in high school which was not the best talking about English learning process. It was only read comprehension but we never ever utter any word; although, language must be based on utterances.
ReplyDeleteI belief that is very interesting the alternative approach PPP because it can be used for several functions, the most attractive for me was the trilogy of teaching elements: ESA. Furthermore, the different combination of procedures that we can have in the classroom gives more variety while teaching.
Talking about the methods, we can combine some of them when teaching in order to facilitate the learning process to our students. For example, we can use TPR to explain some concepts in order to avoid translation. Also, we have to take advantage of the different approaches to enrich le learning process through variation of activities; like to involved students in real communication and role plays in CLT, and asking students to add intensifiers to semi-fixed expressions in The Lexical approach.
Besides, it’s very important to establish a good relationship with the students to dialogue together.
There is a final remark, an idea that really called my attention and I want to share it with you: “Our attitudes to the language, and to the way it is taught, reflect cultural biases and beliefs about we should communicate and how we should educate each other.”
Nahero,I agree with you in the aspect that it is important to combine some of the methods in our classroom. Maybe if we focus only in one approach we are not going to get a significant learning...
DeleteI think the we have to consider our students' capacities and backgrounds to select the most appropiate approches =)
That's true give variety to our lesson is fundamental in order to create intresting classes and to involve students in the new language.
DeleteI agree with you in the last quotation because I think that culture is really important for teaching a new language, we must teach not only words but also culture and we have to be aware that we should base our methodology on the students and their culture because not all the activities work good for the same people.
DeleteAs Fabiola mentioned before, we must taken into account the backgrounds, because we are gonna be teachers of people that probably don`t have any idea about what does English mean... So we should to assume a methodology according to the necessities of the learner...
DeleteWe need to be aware of all these concepts. If we know them we can apply them correctly :D
DeleteReaction chapter 4
ReplyDeleteAs teachers we must choose strategies in order to teach English. Approaches, methods, procedures, and techniques are important steps; nevertheless, those terms are sometimes confused between each other. An approach is referred as theories about language learning and the acquisition of the new language, in addition, the activities performed in class. A method is the realization of the approach and it contains procedures which are the sequence of techniques; and techniques are the activities made in class. Having clear those terms which are quite important in order to teach and learn a language like English establish the success of this labor.
Otherwise, teachers around the world are looking for the best way to teach English, and this is a reason why many professionals in education are engage in this search and are always proposing new ways to improve language teaching. Years ago, teaching used different ways to teach. For instance, the Grammar Translation Method, The Direct Method, and The Audiolingual Method were old and somehow unsuccessful methods. After that, the Presentation, Practice and Production came which is a procedure that emphasizes the importance of activities and their organization. Finally, approaches such as Suggestopedia, Total Physical Response, and Silence Way were methods used to increase students’ engagement with the target language. In addition, with the improvement of learning a new language appeared the Communicative Language Teaching, the Task-based learning, and the Lexical approach. The first one, the CLT is based on communication rather than grammar structures. The TBL establishes meaningful tasks as the main process of learning. The lexical approach is based on the assertion that language is often a word combination like lexical phrases, and lexical chucks. As is proved different approaches and methods have been proposed by experts in order to improve the process of learning a new language. However, others beliefs that learning is a process that involve more aspects, such the relationship between students and teachers because learning emerge when teachers and students create dialogs between them, culture that gets influence in the learning process because the context is always different, and that teacher should identify learning puzzles and evaluate how to solve them by the combination of different methods instead of one. For example, engage students with the activities and the learning process, the input that students receive, the output that students generate, teaching grammar and lexis, and having clear the achievements that the teachers wants to get are important components of various methods.
Pau, I used to confuse those terms: Approach, method, procedure and technique.. But I think that it is very important to distiguish them because we are going to be teachers!!!
DeleteIt is hard to think in all the aspects the we have to know but imagine if one student asks something and we do not how to aswer =/
Therefore, it is important to study hard!!! =D
Sure, I used to confuse the terms too, that's why I considered important to write them in order to understant tham better. And yeah Fabi I don't want to be in a situation like that. :S
DeletePau this is very hard: ¨engage students with the activities and the learning process.¨ So, it is a challenge that we are going to faced.
Deletewell sometimes students don't want to participate and it's so hard because it can affect the rest of the group as nahero said it is a challenge any way.
DeleteI agree with you because I consider important that teachers know the concept of those words in order to use them and have an organized class.
DeleteReaction Paper
ReplyDeleteFabiola Obando Meneses A94500
Professor: Alfredo Ortega
Specific Didactics II
Chapter 4: Popular Methodology
As future teachers, it is important to distinguish some terms related to our major. For example, it is common to confuse the following terms: approach, method, procedure and technique. I consider that we have to be able to define and use them correctly. Thus, we have to remember that an approach refers to theories about language learning. On the other hand, a method is the practical realization of an approach. A procedure is an ordered sequence of techniques. And finally, a technique is a single activity.
Besides, through the time, it has been developing different methodologies to teach English. In my opinion, teachers of certain age considered those specific methodologies as the best way to teach their students. For instance, we have the Grammar Translation method where students, as its name states, learned grammar and translated sentences from the target language to the first language or vice versa. Then the direct method came where accuracy was very important; however, in the classroom only the target language was used. After that, the Audiolingual method appeared and was based on repetition. It is clear that those methods were very used in a specific time; nevertheless, nowadays they are not used very often.
In the 1970s and 1980s, four methods were developed: the Community Language, Suggestopedia, the Total Physical Response and the Silent Way. Then the Communicative Language Teaching appeared. It is based on real communication and students have a very important role. Also we have the Task-Based Approach that focuses on meaningful tasks where students have to perform tasks or solve problems.
In the process of learning, our students are the most important actors. Therefore, we have to analyze each approach and decide what method is the best one to use in our classrooms. Actually, I think that it is a good idea to use a combination of them. We have to consider our student’s characteristics and necessities. Furthermore, we have to remember that they have different backgrounds; for that reason, we cannot apply the same methods in different groups. As the chapter mentions, students and teachers should have a good dialogic relationship. We have to work together and be creative to find the best way to learn. Besides, it is important to promote negotiation and the leaner autonomy in our classes.
I agree with you Fabi,it's important use those tools in the classroom with our students but knowing what is the easier for them to acquire the nowledge, if we don`t know how they learn easily it is going to be confusing for them. :)
Delete¨...we have to analyze each approach and decide what method is the best one to use in our classrooms. Actually, I think that it is a good idea to use a combination of them.¨ This is an excellent idea that I agree with you Fabiola. This will give variety to our classes.
DeleteI agree with you we have to concerned about the differences of this terms...beacuse each other corelated, but they are not the same. Besides, based on that teachers are trying to teach in a better way for ELT studens.
DeleteFabi I'm agree with your point that teachers of certain age don't like to change old methods; however, as future and new teachers we must be different. =)
DeletePopular Methodology of English Teaching
ReplyDeleteAs future teachers, we have to notice first of all that there are different ways to teach this language by means of approaches, methods, procedures and techniques. To understand the different methodology of these means, the beginners in this area [future teachers] should recognize the differences in the concepts of these means, for example an approach refers to the way that people in this case students of English acquire the language; furthermore, the concept of method is the practical realization of an approach; besides, a procedure is an ordered sequence of techniques; finally, a technique is and strategy of teaching.
Now, by knowing these concepts which are the cornerstones of the popular methodology of English teaching, beginners can be exposed to the history of the mainstream methodology of English teaching proposed by some different experts according to their perception of how people acquire better the language. Some different examples are exposed in the next chart:
Methodology Characteristics
Grammar-translation Students acquire the language by explanations of individual points of grammar.
Direct Method Students and teacher should speak together.
Audiolingualism It consists of using stimulus-response reinforcement model.
Presentation, Practice and Production
(PPP) A variation of Audiolingualism.
Presentation: Teacher models the language.
Practice: Teacher encourages to students to utter sentences by using the language modeled before.
Production: To use the language of sentences of their own.
Four Methods:
• Suggestopaedia
• Total Physical Response (TPR)
• Silent Way • It refers to physical environment which the learning takes place.
• It refers to learn by hearing and modeling commands given by the teacher.
• It refers to the silent of teacher as much as possible in order to encourage the creation of the language by students.
Communicative Language Teaching
(CLT) It refers to how language is used in context.
Task-based learning
(TBL) The performance of meaningful tasks central to the learning process.
The Lexical Approach Language is acquired by multi-word prefabricated chunks.
As it was mentioned before, there are many methodologies to teach English, as future educators we do not to rely just in one method, because probably if we focus more in than other, our students perhaps will not have the chance to acquire clearly the language. Besides, we must taken into account that there plurality of learners, so, we must to react according to their necessities of learning; for this reason, teachers, and beginners must meditate about what is the better methodology for them or if a combination of them helps to teach in an excellent manner.
I like the way you summarize the different methods because it can give us a better idea of each one so that makes easier for teachers to understand them.
DeletePoco, personally, I do not like the silent way. I think it is useless nowadays!!! Suggestopedia is interesting but I think that many students do not like it... On the other hand, I like total physical response because it is more active =D
Deletejiji silent way! :( but it could be useful for some topics that need the attention of the group.:)
DeleteI consider that every single approach has to be applied, but depending on the topic :)
Approaches are important, and I think we must use them in combination of course taking into consideration our students' needs. :D
ReplyDelete¨... teachers and beginners must meditate about what is the better methodology for them or if a combination of them...¨ That a nice idea take consider both the teachers´ necessities and the sudents´ necessities. I LIKE IT!!
ReplyDeleteyes Rafa but it depends on many things because to use some approaches require time to do it and at the same time a lot money, which in our Costa Rican's classroom it's imposible the use of some approaches. .
ReplyDeleteDescribing teachers
ReplyDeleteAnalyzing the importance of the teachers in this process, it could be included the different roles they perform. Some of them act out like the controllers, which has its advantages because it allows teachers to lead the class from the front and giving the impression of authority; but at the same time it brings disadvantages because many students feel intimidated for seeing the teacher controlling them making questions all the time. It could be used when checking the list, asking questions about a particular topic or when it is desired the participation of the group answering what they want to listen.
On the other hand, we have the prompter teachers; they are very useful due to the facility they have to achieve students to talk, they look for the best way to implement the participation of students into the classes. It is not easy as well, but teachers have to think carefully in order not to embarrass the student, it has to be made with discretion and encouragement. A very good situation to use this is when there are many students in a group working on a task and the end everyone has to comment what they did, but almost always only one person talks, here it is necessary the intervention of the teacher applying this role.
Also, the role of the participant teacher is important; they give feedback and correct mistakes, which is very essential in the teaching- learning process. Imagine a group of students who participate a lot but the teacher never correct them, so undoubtedly they are not going to learn the correct pronunciation, spelling, tone, among others. Maybe when students make a speech, teacher could be paying heed about what they say and writing down the mistakes in a paper, when finished she/ he could share them and giving the correct pronunciation about all the words that students did not say very well.
Teachers as a resource are seen necessary because students usually need their help or suggestions. Here, it is important to allow them materials such as dictionaries, internet or even books in order for them to look for answers and not asking all the doubts to the teachers. It is known that students are accustomed to ask for every single word and translation for everything, teachers are not machines and students have to learn to be independent, critical and intelligent. Looking for other resources is necessary and useful.
The tutors are important, too. They play the role of guidance for the students, it could be on projects, group work or even individually. But it is essential to take into account that teachers can be useful as tutors, not allowing students to depend on them in everything. The facilitator must be careful and having a balance between being tutor and being the person who always helps them to make the tasks that they should do alone.
Being critical, it is considered the implementation of each kind of role into the classrooms. Teachers should not act out only as a controller or as a tutor; they have to complement the lesson using each type of function according to the activity. For example, if students are working on organizing a role play, probably teachers can execute the roles of resource or tutor but difficulty of controller. It means that the attitudes depend on the methodology; sometimes student’s mood, time and space into the classrooms get influence in the role teacher must perform.
Carmen you mentioned "...the participation of students" Sometimes is impossible to engage students in the activities and this is why we have to provide variation of activities to make the classs more attractive. Very good exlanation of the different comment.
DeleteThe different roles that a teacher assumes is depending of the activities and the approach that the teacher is using.
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ReplyDeleteAn Approach: a necessity or a duty?
ReplyDeleteIt is necessary to understand that approaches are very important when giving classes. They allow teachers and students to create an environment of an effective learning. They depend on the way facilitators practice those methods. It also depends on the group, the context and characteristics of each teacher.
For example, it could have a classroom where students are very dynamic, so here it is necessary to implement some approaches such as the communicative or even the natural, which consist on let them to talk and participate a lot with the rest of the class.
I consider that it is very essential that every single teacher knows about the different approaches because on this way they could choose some of them to practice with the students; it is important to clarify that not all the approaches are going to work in all the classes; teachers should be very careful at the time of implementing them because they have to take into account the time, the topic and all the factors presented in the different groups.
I think that when I am going to give classes, first, I could observe the groups and analyzing what methods could function (work) with every single section in my charge. For me, it is what all the teachers must make before using the corresponding methods or strategy because on this way they are going to be sure about the weaknesses, strengths, likes and dislikes of the students. Of course, it is a very hard duty for teachers but it is possible when they want to be excellent professionals, giving their best effort and making everything with quality and pleasure.
I'm totaly agree with your first point because the use of an especific approach is according to teacher's preferences, morover, it is true that the approach must be choose according to students' context, needs, and preferences;however, not all teacher takes into account students' necessities but we should try to avoid this kind of attitude.
DeletePopular Methodology
ReplyDeleteTo start it is important to define what approaches, methods, procedures and techniques stand for. All those terms are somehow a little bit difficult to differentiate. An approach refers to theories about the nature of language, it describe how people acquire their knowledge of the language. The method is the practical realization of an approach. That means that we put into practice the approach by the method. Moreover, the procedure is an ordered sequence of the technique, or the steps that we should follow in class. And the technique is the strategy that the teacher uses in class to teach certain topics. I consider that a good teacher should know how to use all of them to have an effective learning process.
Teachers have many methods to base their teaching. The grammar translation method is based on the “translation” of sentences from the target language to the native language. After the grammar translation method, we had the direct method. In this case the sentence was still the main object and the target language was used during the class. The audio-lingual method consists in the use of drills. He students had the possibility to commit mistakes by the use of the drills. Personally, I consider that teachers should avoid the translation in class, because we can teach without repeating word by word in out native language what we were saying. On the other hand the direct method let us practice the target language in class. The audio-lingual method can help students in the listening skill and to have a good pronunciation.
The suggestopedia method consists in having a relaxed atmosphere in which students can be comfortable during the learning process. An element such as music playing background is used to relax the students. In my opinion the idea of make a relaxed class can help to overcome that some students can feel while they are learning. Moreover, the total physical response method involved the students, and it makes a dynamic class. On the other hand, in the silent way the most important element is the teacher. I think that an efficient English class requires the conversation between the teacher and the students, and it is something that does not occur in the silent way.
I consider that the communicative language teaching method is one of the most efficient because it involves the students into real situations. The vocabulary is not taught in isolation, but in normal situation in which students can easily apply them. Another method is the task-based learning in which instead of a language structure or function to be learnt, students are presented with a task they have to perform or a problem they have to solve. The lexical approach mentions that language is formed in “lexical phrases”, that are combination of words. As we can see, all the methods that exist are important in one way or in another, I consider that a good teacher should use all of them, or take advantages of the positive aspects of each method.
Liss I also believe that this is the best way: to enrich the students learning by involving them into real situations.
DeleteI think, as you mentioned, that we should use a combination of approaches taking the positive aspects of each one and avoiding the negative ones. In my opinion, the CLT method and task-based learning are better when we want our students to interact between them and to use the target language as much as possible in the class.
DeletePopular methodology
ReplyDeleteEnglish teaching go beyond the class. An English teacher must take in to account a lot of process before to teach. Also they have to know not only the theory part of this process but also how to put this theory in practice. According to the reading there are four steps that we have to know. First, an approach refers to the theories about the language; it mentions how language is used and how people acquire it. Second, a method is the practical side of an approach; however, to achieve a method a teacher need to follow different procedures and techniques. Procedure consists in to have an ordered sequence of the activities and the techniques that we are going to use. And finally a technique is the material that we use to support the subject for instance play a video and discus about the topic or play charades.
It is important to know that exist many methods to use in the process of teaching. For instance, the grammar translation is the oldest method that was applied in English teaching. This method focus on translated sentences form the target language to their first language and vice versa. After that, the direct method came, and it focuses on studying objects and pictures. This method was against grammar translation and considered that in the classroom should be use only the target language. In the same way, another method came to replace others; therefore the English teaching was increasing.
Wow Marge that's the most difficult part of teaching to put into practice the theory. :O
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ReplyDeleteJennifer Aguero
ReplyDeleteReaction Paper
Nowadays, English teaching has taken a lot of importance in our society where the most important part of learning is considered as the teacher because he or she is the person incharge of sharing information in the best way as possible. To be a teacher, you must abide by the rules that the school has. But the most important part of being a teacher is to create a sense of friendship between students and you as a teacher maintaining always the boundaries it has.
Since teachers can affect how students perceive the course materials, it has been found that teachers who showed enthusiasm towards the course materials and students can affect a positive learning experience towards the course materials. On teacher/course evaluations, it was found that teachers who have a positive disposition towards the course content tend to transfer their passion to receptive students. These teachers do not teach by rote but attempt to find new information for the course materials on a daily basis.
One of the difficulties is that teachers may have repeatedly covered a curriculum until they begin to feel bored with the subject which in turn bores the students as well. Students who had enthusiastic teachers tend to rate them higher than teachers who didn’t show much enthusiasm for the course materials.
Teachers that exhibit enthusiasm can lead to students who are more likely to be engaged, interested, energetic, and curious about learning the subject matter. Recent research has found a correlation between teacher enthusiasm and students’ intrinsic motivation to learn and vitality in the classroom. Controlled, experimental studies exploring intrinsic motivation of college students has shown that nonverbal expressions of enthusiasm, such as demonstrative gesturing, dramatic movements which are varied, and emotional facial expressions, result in college students reporting higher levels of intrinsic motivation to learn. Students who experienced a very enthusiastic teacher were more likely to read lecture material outside of the classroom.
There are various mechanisms by which teacher enthusiasm may facilitate higher levels of intrinsic motivation. Teacher enthusiasm may contribute to a classroom atmosphere full of energy and enthusiasm which feed student interest and excitement in learning the subject matter. Enthusiastic teachers may also lead to students becoming more self-determined in their own learning process. The concept of mere exposure indicates that the teacher’s enthusiasm may contribute to the student’s expectations about intrinsic motivation in the context of learning.
Moreover of the motivation teachers must be searches of information to be able to teach according students needs, technology is a powerful tool in which teachers can use it every day to teach whatever subject, using that creates emotion in students’ life because every lesson they are going to expect something new.I think it is necessary to give them a guide to make more attractive their lessons, because it allows them to develop not only language skills, but also meta- cognitive abilities that allow to teachers apply new learning strategies, as the capability to analyze and interpret making more critical each student. Teachers must know the importance and benefits that it offers at the point of trying make more dynamic, motivating and significant classes.
As you, I believe that teachers' attitude contribute in a negative or a positive way in students' performance and motivation.
DeleteJenny I also believed that the motivation that a teacher can transmit to their students is essential in the learning process even when the students are unmotivated. Teachers are the guides of this process and it is their responsibilities make interesting activities that increase the student’s motivation.
DeleteChapter 4
ReplyDeleteJennifer Aguero Parras
It's important to highlight the great benefit offered by those terms( apprach, method,procedure and thecnique)which help teachers to give better classes,with different dynamics where the biggest winners are the kids.
on the other hand is very important to use this because not all students learn the same way which impart the same lessons all the time would be meaningless and would capture students these approaches using a methodology in its own way.
Jenny is very interesting the fact that you mentioned about the reseach which found a correlation between teacher enthusiasm and students’ intrinsic motivation to learn.
ReplyDeleteThat's one of the hardest part of teaching: to teach a diverse group, however, if we try our best we can get good results. :)
DeleteWell, according to the reading, it is essential to take into account the students’ age when planning activities or lessons. Moreover, we must plan activities applying an appropriate method to teach, not only according their age but also according their needs. This will help us to engage students to be eager with their own learning process. In fact, when students work on tasks that are suitable for their cognitive level, they feel more identified with their interests and more comfortable. As consequence, the students start to believe in their selves, which is a fundamental aspect in their learning.
ReplyDeleteThe author mentioned some differences between learners that have a direct effect in their development such as: aptitude (motivation) and intelligence, good learner’s characteristics (aspirations), learner style and strategies, and individual variations. Regarding to aptitude and intelligence, we have to take in account that not all students have the ability to learn languages. Some of them are better that others learning languages because they have more ability to do it. However, is necessary for all to keep a positive attitude towards learning English; in fact, the enthusiasm, aspirations, and been focus in success are essentials characteristic to achieve goals in school.
Besides, is very important to support the students who are not at the same level of others, because there is a high risk of feeling frustration if they do not have the level of the advanced students. Finally, teacher’s support plus student’s motivation are the perfect combination to fulfill targets. In the case of adolescent students is also fundamental the rapport role by their teacher.
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DeleteStudents and teachers must be in the same tune. If one is giving his/ her best effort, the second ones must give the same or more.
DeleteI agree with you in this point "...is very important to support the students who are not at the same level of others..." Of course for some students it is easy to learn another language, however, for others it is a very hard task. We have to show them that English is nice =D And yes, motivation is fundamental to make them feel confortable =)
DeleteWell, I think the same as you Naheroby because sometimes there students that do not habve the same leves that other students..
DeleteThis topic is fundamental because as teachers we must be able to teach people from different ages. Something that calls my attention was about children who start learning at early stages have more facility with pronunciation when they grow up. Nevertheless, I believe that teenagers are more able to learn a new language as EFL students because they have more abstracts thinking, and this is an advantage for teachers because students can understand better the different patterns of language. Besides, I consider that children have the advantage when they are ESL students because they acquire the new language as they are being raised an advantage that teens and adults do not have.
ReplyDeleteAnother important point is that teachers must recognize that in a class she/he can have students with different levels of knowledge. By knowing students’ background information teachers can identify or understand whether certain students are having troubles with the acquisition of the new language or another significant problem that is affecting the academic performance. On the other hand, by noticing some aspects of students’ information, the teacher can choose strategies to help them; for example, a student is not performing well certain activities, it could be because the student has a different way of learning and understand. That is why knowledge of multiple intelligences is quite important and its application will increase extrinsic and intrinsic motivation.
It is interesting what you mentioned about pronunciation in children. The reading also states that children imitate very well what they hear or see. So it is important that we pronounce correctly while we are teaching them because they are going to imitate us. A big responsibility! =O
DeleteI agree with you; definitely, different levels of knowledge in the classroom is one of the biggest issues that teachers have to face daily
DeleteThat is why teachers have to deal with this issues by devolping new strategies according to the necessities of students...
DeletePaula, I think alike. :D
DeleteDescribing leaners
ReplyDeleteThere are some aspects that influence in the process of leaning of our students. Chapter 5 describes four of them: age, learner differences, language levels and motivation.
In relation to age, it is known that we cannot use the same methods and techniques to teach children, adolescent or adults. They have different characteristics, interests and necessities. If we are going to teach children, we have to be very creative and use a lot of activities and games to involve our students. In the case of teenagers, they are looking for their identity; therefore, we have to consider that when we are teaching. Adults have special necessities that we have to take into account.
In addition, we have leaner differences. There are some tests that try to measure intellectual ability. However, I consider that everyone has different abilities and are better in some activities than others. Thus, we have to be very careful and do not discriminate them. Also we have to remember that our students have different ways to learn, so it is important to identify them.
Besides we have language level. Depending on how students manage the language, they are classified in beginner, intermediate and advanced. Definitely, we cannot use the same activities for a beginner that we use for an advanced student. If they are not ready, we cannot force them. It can be negative for them.
Finally, we have motivation. It is a very important aspect that we have to consider. Several factors are going to define our students’ motivation: people around them, goals, curiosity, achievement, etc. We have to find ways to motivate them, but it is important to remember that intrinsic motivation is better than extrinsic motivation. It is a difficult work; however we have to do whatever we can to involve our students.
Fabi, it is interesting that you have mentioned that we are better in some activities rather than others. Moreover, the reading mentioned that we have different intelligences and that we develop some intelligencens more than others and I believed in that fact.
DeleteI like that you mentioned that everyone has different abilities and the fact that we cannot discriminate students who are not skillful at languages.
DeleteIt is interesting, because the categorizationof students helps to teachers to manage the activities according the necessties
DeleteYes Fabiola, you mentioned motivation which made me aware that we can motivate people of any age!
DeleteDescribing Learners
ReplyDeleteAccording to the Reading teachers could teach all type and all age of students. However, it is important to know that there are different methods and approaches to teach children, teenagers, adults, and seniors. First, teaching English must be dynamic and enjoyable for all ages. It does not matter if we are teaching children or seniors, we always must use different methods and techniques to achieve a successful learning process. For instance, children learn faster than adults because they learn in an active way such as playing or singing. On the other hand, seniors could learn English through activities less demanding such as, acting, describing, and even singing. Another aspect that teachers should know is the different ways in which students will learn and behave. A Teacher could have thousands of students; however, each student has different attitudes and believes. Teachers must use a variety of activities that involve the entire group for instance, listen, oral, visual and kinesthetic activities. Moreover, teachers not only have to worry about the pedagogic aspects, but also they must learn to listen the necessities of their students.
Enjoyable classes are important because if the class isn't in this way students won't be motivated to learn.
DeleteMarge, you mentioned that "...teaching English must be dynamic and enjoyable for all ages." Yeah that's true =D Therefore, we have to be very creative and identify our students' preferences and interests ;-)
DeleteYou´re right Marjorie, because deppending on the values and attitudes of students the interest for learning English will be reflected
Deleteyes,but we have to contextualized the subject and to make a negotiation with our students in order to identify what they need
DeleteYou mentioned in your comment to implement a "variety of activities that involve the entire group." Sometimes for teachers it is difficult not repeat activities very often. However, we can take advantage of co workers and share activities with them in order to have a huge number of options.
ReplyDeleteThis reading was important for me because it showed me how student`s age must be related with the methodology we have to implement. It is necessary for us to take that information into account and plan our classes according to our group and the age of the students in there. As good teachers, we should know which activities work better with young children, adolescents and adults so that we can have a good learning process for students. Also it is important to know that even if we know the age of our students, it does not mean that all of them learn in the same way. It happens because they learn different and not all of them are good at learning languages as other students, for that reason, it is important that teachers motivate students and make them feel comfortable with the class and their abilities for leaning a new language. Another important aspect is to recognize the learner styles or kind of learners that are presented in our class because it can help us to develop a class that involves every student and do not make them feel as if they could not learn because if we include only the majority part of our students in the activities, the other part of them can feel demotivated and will not learn as good as the others. So I consider important to know the different characteristics of student`s ages, kind of learner, learning style and how to motivate our students in order to have a successful learning process.
ReplyDeleteBy, I like this "...even if we know the age of our students, it does not mean that all of them learn in the same way." We must identify those differences and plan a big variety of activities to involve all the students. We have to remember that they have diffentes styles and strategies of learning =)
DeleteBy, the age as same as the categorization, will helps teachers to manage their activities...
DeleteByrron, you are right,a good teacher should know the characteristic of each student to make an effective class.
DeleteThat's true not all the students have the same abilities to learn a new langauge, and that's part of our job to motivate students about the importance of learning English. :D
DeleteAs you said age is important but the most important is how you are going to teach and the way you are gonna choose the methodology
DeleteByron you mentioned that "As good teachers, we should know which activities work better with young children, adolescents and adults..." So I agree with your point of view because this is essential in order to make interesting activities according the students level.
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ReplyDeleteNowadays, in every area, people have different ways to learn, but especially in English there are great deals of students that have many different styles. That is to say that it does not matter if the learner is a child, or a teenager, or an adult. For instance, teachers should take in to account that the motivation or the way that they teach this new language for them because depending on the background of the learner, sometimes students do not have an acceptable competence to develop the for skills of English; on the other hand, there are many students that have a good competence of English so, teachers should consider to mange a variety of activities in order to teach this language in a way that every learner can understand
ReplyDeleteRafa, as you mentioned, students have different ways to learn, that is why we should implement the different learning styles in class.
DeleteMotivation is essential in language acquisition.
DeleteTeachers must know what are his/her students needs to apply methodology
Deleteas you said "there are many students that have a good competence of English." We should take advantage of it and encourage them to continue learning English.
DeleteDescribing Learners
ReplyDeleteAccording to the reading,the meethodology that we use in class should be related with the age of the students, the activities is class are different according to the age of our students. It is not the same to teach children and teach adults. We must take into account the activities that can help to achieve an effective process in the class. Moreover, the reading talked about the different learning styles, I consider that a goog teacher should know very well their students to implement the activities in class according to the best way that his or her students acquire information. Not all the students learn at the same speed,and teachers must be carefull with that, some students finish their assigments in a short period of time and that is something that teachers must deal with. I think that being a teacher is one of the most difficult careers, but it is something that can inspire us to learn more about the methodologies and activities that can help us to have a successful class.
That's true as teachers we must know our students in order to know the activities that they will enjoy more,.
DeleteLiss I agree with you when you says that "Not all the students learn at the same speed." So, we have to take this aspect in account in order to balance the class
Delete5
ReplyDeleteDescribing learners
The reading talks about the characteristics of the students such as the age. Depending on who we are going to teach to, we must know how that population will, most likely, behave. Personally, I am not interested on teaching adolescents, although I believe I can pull it off If I knew their characteristics. For example, they are very good language learners; it is funny because it is the first time I think about that, normally I think they are problematic (just as stated on the reading) and that it would be hard to teach them English, but it is not that bad. If high school teachers learn how to treat teenagers, avoid or better the different attitudes, and if they can get to these amazing skills students have to learn, the teaching would be very productive since they are in this phase of good learning language skills. In regards to the adults, we can find different kinds. We have young adults, who learn as well fast and are somehow mature, and the older adults who are normally more responsible and committed but sometimes it is harder for them to learn. The thing is that, no matter if we teach children, teenagers or adults we must know them because they are different even if they have the same age. What matters the most is to be able to manage the group the best we can according to their individualities.
I enjoyed your last phrase "...individualities" because I think that just few teachers take into account this fact which is very important because students have different personalities and of course this affects how they acquire knowledge.
DeleteLuis Pa you mentioned sometime that is very important "individualities"
DeleteI think all ages have advantages and disadvantages; however, there is a balance that make every age "teachable" xD P.S: Not sure if that word exists :P
ReplyDeleteTHIS IS THE REACTION PAPER FOR THE LAST CLASS
ReplyDeleteAs future professors, we should be able to apply different approaches, methodologies, procedures and techniques. This reading has helped us to be aware of their differences. Not only do we need to know the difference but also to use them. Talking about approaches, it is important to know that we can count with a large set that can be used in different situations. For example, The grammar-translation and direct method work for students with a very poor level of English; this way, students can get to learn more vocabulary. Then we have the audiolinguism which can be used to improve students´listening and speaking skills since they hear and repeat what the professor or other person says. The audiolinguism also helps to have a better pronounciation. Afterwards, the PPP approach is a variation of audiolinguism where students must follow a set of procedures that help to an organized learning. On the other hand, we can find the Four methods (CLL, TPR, Silent Way). These methods were created between the 1970 and 1980; however, they are very different one from another. The ones that best caught my attention was TPR and Silent way, the former is very interesting because we need to take into account all of our body when learning English. Usually, we focus on the vocal aparatus but here we use the limbs and movements to help the brain work better. In regards to Silent way, the way some people can learn is amazing, for me it is very necessary to hear the professor speak to learn, but for the people who invented this method, it was more productive to learn by ourselves with a silent guidence. Then we can find the other approaches such as task-based learning, the lexical approach and the techer and students in dialogue together. The latter one improves Enlish skills as well as social skills.
It's correct there are many approaches but some of them are difficult to apply in our country, because there are not resources
DeleteJennifer Aguero
ReplyDeleteDescribing learning
This chapter is so interesting because expands our thinking about what to do in different kind of classes, I mean with adults, children and adolescents. We think that children learn easier than adults but with this written we can affirm that methodology and procedures are so significant to choose the activities to use with them.
As it says the age of our students is so important to know what are their needs and what they have to know, we know that some students are better at learning languages than others that’s why age is not a excuse to learn a language, we as teachers must implement motivation with them in order for them to acquire easier the language.
That's true student's age is not an excuse to give ou best when we teach.
DeleteYou’re right Jennifer “motivation” is fundamental.
DeleteDescribing learners
ReplyDeleteHow could age, cognitive aspects or even environment influence the learning of the students? Each learner has his/ her own way to learn!
It is not the same to teach young children that teaching to adolescents or adults, the strategies that we can use with a child have no comparison with those students who are in the process of adopting an identity (adolescence) or those who have a lot of maturity. Because of that, it is essential to be ingenious and being informed about the importance of the age because it is factor that determines how and what to teach.
I consider that one of the most important issues is to know the students’ need and abilities. If we learn to identify the learning styles of our students, there is no doubt that we will get good results when teaching.
Do you consider that age is a factor that influence in the teachers when making decisions about planning their clases? Why?
yes, it is a fact that we have to consider because activities for adults cannot be the same for children.
DeleteCarmen I agree with you that the age is a determiner to decide how and what to teach.
DeleteEach student has its own way of learning some of them learn in a visual, auditory, or in an oral way; therefore teachers must include different activities to engage all students
ReplyDeleteLearning Styles: Implications for ESL/EFL Instruction
ReplyDeleteAccording to the reading, "all learners have individual attributes relating to their learning processes. Some people may rely heavily on visual presentation; others may prefer spoken language; still others may respond better to hands-on activities." I consider that it is very important to take into account the different learning styles because we are all different, we have different abilities and capacities and we all learn in a different way. Teachers must know how to teach in class according to the different learning styles: visual, auditory or kinesthetic.
learning styles
ReplyDeleteI think that teachers and students should know about learning styles because our way of learning and teaching is based on them. We as teachers have to take that information into account and try to know our students learning style so that we can teach what we want succesfully.
Our brain is an amazing machine, everything is connecting and everything will be stimulated and that is what we as teachers must do with our students.
ReplyDeleteLearning styles:
ReplyDeleteWe have to remember that our students have different characteristics. Therefore, we have to plan a big variety of activities taking into account our students’ abilities. Also, it is fundamental to motivate them.
Learning styles
ReplyDeleteAccording to the Reading of Learning styles I like the suggestion that ¨ Teachers should plan lessons to match students’ learning styles while at the same time encouraging students to diversify their learning style preferences.¨ We have to take this suggestion into account when planning our classes.
Learning Styles: Implications for ESL/EFL Instruction
ReplyDeleteIf we go back in time, as students we can remember that probably we received a monotonous English class. Because of this I agree with paragraph fourth becasue our learning is multidimensional that is to say that we learn in different ways so the product of our learning will be productive and creative.
Learning styles
ReplyDeleteUsing different styles in a class help students to acquire the subject in a way they like,teachers must know what is the learning style of their students to facilitate the english teaching.
Class size
ReplyDeleteThe amount of students that we have in a classroom will affect the teacher as well as the students. Teacher’s plan and of course the activities will change according to the number of students. In my opinion, teaching a person is difficult because teaching and learning a language is an interactive process that requires people around in order to practice, give feedback to each other and to perform activities. Of course, having a huge group of students can become a trouble when the teacher wants to perform a competence or activities that require good management. It does not matter the amount of students, the educator must consider that making a good impression is fundamental, being organized, and taking advantage of the students are options that teachers must consider when they teach. In this last point, it is essential to use the different levels of proficiency of the students as a benefit with large groups. In this manner, students with high linguistic levels can help their classmates to perform the activities, for instance. It is accurate to say that with large or small groups teachers must be genius and to use creativity in order to develop the activities, to cover the syllabus and to involve the students in the learning process.
Paula I also believed that "it is essential to use the different levels of proficiency of the students as a benefit with large groups." We can take advantage of those students in order to help their classmates who are not at their same level.
DeletePau, I also share this point of view "teaching a person is difficult because teaching and learning a language is an interactive process that requires people around in order to practice..." We can practice with our student; however, it is better that students have the possibility to interact with more people and listen different accents.
DeleteDescribing learning context
ReplyDeleteThe role of the teacher as well is so very important but there are some factores intervening in the process, for example the context. Imagine a very good student who has a lot of problems at home, he arrives at the high school and his environment is worse than what he lives in his house :( How could the context influence him? Could he give the best results if his environment were different?
I gree with you Carmen because sometimes a student is very competent but when he or she wants to perform something, he or she will be affected by the environment!!
DeleteLearning styles
ReplyDeleteTo teach others is necessary to know ourselves. How do I learn? What strategies do I use to learn?
Thus, we could know better our students, their preferences, weaknesses, likes/dislikes, and developing some methods, activities to achieve that they really learn for life. Do not you think so?
Depending on our own learning style, we will teach in that way, that is why we should be careful and try to cover the different intelligences of our students.
DeleteI also believed that we cannot impose our learning style to our students. They have their own and we have to respect that.
DeleteDescribing Learning Contexts
ReplyDeleteEnglish, as it is explained in the reading, has been studied for many people and for many reasons. The business environment requires people who manage this language, because of the globalization. There are many places and means of instruction that help to teach English. For instance, schools and language schools include primary and secondary classrooms and the private language schools tend to be better than governmental schools. In-school and in-company which includes universities, offer language classes either. Nowadays we have real and virtual learning environments that we can access through internet and include online learning, and students have the opportunity to learn from their homes. I consider that all those institutions can be beneficial for the society, and as we can see, English has become a tool for success.
Moreover, English classes vary greatly in size. We can have teaching one-to-one which consist in an independent teaching. Students have the opportunity to have all the attention from the professor, but they do not have the opportunity to interact with other classmates. This kind of teaching requires some aspects, especially for the teacher who needs to be more prepared, be flexible, and adapt to the students. Personally, I like this type of teaching but I would prefer having more students to make some activities.
In large classes, teachers must be organized, establish routines use different activities, among others. Large classes let the students to interact with other classmates, we can have more activities of speaking and we can also promote team working. I prefer having large classes, even though it is difficult to be in contact with all the students, we can make the class more interactive.
To managing mixed abilities in the class, it is necessary to give the students different tasks, roles, reward early finishers, identify student’s strengths, among others. I think that one of the most difficult tasks that teachers have to be on charge of, is to realize that all the students have different capacities and abilities that is why it is important to know our students.
It does not matter the amount of students, teaching is a difficult labor. In addition, teachers must have different skills and values that can show students not only a subject matter but also how to succeed in life.
DeleteLiss, I consider that virtual learning can be beneficial for many people; they can learn English from their houses. However, nowadays not everybody has access to internet. But I think that in a future there will be more virtual leaning environment than real learning environment. Therefore, we have to know technological tools to apply with our students.
DeleteI also "prefer having more students to make some activities." However teaching one to one have several advantages.
DeleteDescribing Learning Contexts
ReplyDeleteNowadays, English language is essential in all the different careers and there is not any excuse to learn it, because there are many options to study English such as real and virtual learning environments.
Talking about class size, I would prefer small groups like 15 students. I know that in our system the groups are bigger than 15 students. However, I prefer this than teaching one to one so, I realized that the advantages of private classes are huge but I would like to create a good the interaction between students. Sometimes students are not open at all only with a teacher because they need to feel more comfortable with other students like them. Moreover, I believed that is easier to plan activities for large classes because when there is only the teacher and the student can be boring and less interesting than work in activities with other classmates specially teenagers. For adolescents friendship and the interaction with their classmates is very important. On the other hand, when classes are to large like more that 25 students is more difficult to manage them. Moreover, not only is difficult to manage the class but also is difficult to deal with the huge variety of learning styles that are in a large class. It means that we have to planning carefully in order to respond the student needs, their learning styles, their language level, and their language background.
I'm agree with the interraction between students. Personally, like you I like small groups because activities with few people as well with many people cannot be very successful.
DeleteYes, I agree with both of you. If we have a group with around 15 students, we can create a variety of activities and it would be easier to manage a class of 15 students than a class of 40 students, for example.
DeleteDescribing Leaner Context
ReplyDeleteThere are different contexts in which people learn English. For instance, some students have their education in public schools and other ones in private schools. Also we have real versus virtual learning environment. These situations will affect the students’ process of learning.
Moreover, the class size will affect how we are going to develop the class. For example, if we have a big group, we are going to use a different strategy that if we have a smaller group. The author mentioned that in large classes, there are always enough students to get interaction going and there is a variety of human resources. That is why we must be creative in our classes, to use different resources and to promote students’ participation.
Furthermore, we will have students with different abilities. Some of them learn faster that others. Therefore, observation is really important. I coincide with this recommendation because if we are aware, we can detect which students learn with certain styles. As a result, we can develop techniques to help our students. In addition, it is important to motivate them with our actions. Also, we have to be inclusive, that is to say that we have the role of promoting the participation of all the students.
To conclude, we can say that each class has its particular characteristics and different students with different abilities. The important thing is that we have to be aware and to identify those characteristics. Additionally, we must find creative ways to teach our students.
I also agree with the author when he says that “… in large classes, there are always enough students to get interaction going and there is a variety of human resources.” So, I consider essential the interaction between students.
DeleteIt is interesting that you have mentioned the observation. I think that it is an easy and effective way to notice students' behaviours.
DeleteDescribing Learning Contexts
ReplyDeleteThe reading is very important for us as teachers and professors because we are always thinking about the methodology used at MEP and so; however, we have to know that we could end up teaching English for several purposes and contexts. We already know that it is not the same to teach ESL than EFL21, but English Teaching is more than that.
We can find groups of students who need English for only academic purposes but we could also find students who need English for science, tourism, technology or for specific company purposes. For example, a taxi driver needs to know directions and how to charge, but a tour guide needs more technical vocabulary and communicative skills.
Another aspect on the reading is about the size of the class. Last time we had a debate about what was better: a large class or a small class or even a one-to-one class. Some of the aspects we discussed were the socialization, the class management and the challenges that all of those classes have. At the end we determined that it does not matter the size of the class, what matters the most is the way we teach and the way we cope with our students.
I like when you say that we always think about MEP´s methodology, but we have to think in different contexts. Maybe, we are going to teach in a private school; therefore, we need to know the different environments of the learning process!!!! =D
DeleteThat is true how we teach is the most important aspect of this job, it doesn't matter the amount of students.
DeleteDescribing learning contexts
ReplyDeleteIt is good for teachers and students to know how important the context of leaning and teaching is so that they can choose the one in which they feel more comfortable when learning or teaching. Also we should know the reason why students we teach are in our class, for example, we should know if they are there because they really want to learn English or because they have to take the course even if they do not like English. In addition to that, we should take into account some contexts such as schools and languages schools in which some of the students are not interested in English and the class is usually a large one; in-school and in-company in which the class is smaller than the last one and also the majority of students go because they are interested; and real virtual learning environments in which students learn from any place where they can use internet. As teachers, we have to know that every learning context has its advantages and disadvantages but anyway we cannot choose ours so we must learn how to face all of them.
That is true, we won't decide the environment in which we are going to teach. Besides, we must be able to adapt ourselves to different environments.
DeleteDescibing learning contexts
ReplyDeleteJennifer Agüero P.
It was nice to read because this explain us how to teach in a large classes, first of all teaching one to one it’s a good strategy of people who are low students it help them to be interactive in a develop without time, but according to the reading we have to take into consideration some aspects like make a good impression, be well prepared and be flexible, adapt to the student, listen and watch, give explanations and guidelines and the last one don’t be afraid to say no this is very important because sometimes we decide to be the better teachers that’s why we prefer to say always yes instead of not in order to students have a good impression of us.
We know that there are some problems in order to make good classes but teachers must know that English classes are interactive were the students are the priorities.
Making a good expression doesn't mean that we have to be permissive with the students and it doesn't mean that we should not be friendly teachers.
DeleteDescribing Learners Contexts
ReplyDeleteNowadays, an important aspect of English Teaching is based on not only in the way that teachers perform the class but also, the way that students receive their knowledge that is to say the context that students are exposed. For example there is a clear difference between private and public schools because private schools are better equipped to teach in terms of well pay teachers, technology, and environment and so on; but on the contrary, most of the public schools have no more than a simple black board and desks with a lot of kids and one teacher for them.
Besides, there is a clear difference that future teachers should consider, the class size because it depends on the quantity of students, teachers should concern about the style of teaching that is to say that they must adapt the activities, methods, procedures, approaches and so on to them. Both sides (teaching one-to-one and large classes), have their goods and bad but the real thing is that teachers must do the best that they can, whenever is possible, it does not matter if is a large class with their methods of teaching or if it is teaching one-to-one because the main objective is to teach to our students the best we can. To conclude, by mediating our knowledge as future teachers to our future pupils, we have to think about which is the best way to create a positive impact on them that they will never forget about our teaching style; also, by forgetting how many students we will have.
Teaching in a public or private high school is a challenge because may be we have the resources, but problems are always part of this labor; however, we must try to face the problems and take positive aspects of them.
DeleteI like your opinion Paula it's important to know that we have the ability to make this but with problems sometimes it's important
DeleteIt is true that technology has the disadvantage such as the lack of communication between peers, however, it is a good tool for students when they have to study alone.
ReplyDeleteTeaching Speaking
ReplyDeletePaula, Rafael, Naherobi
As all we know Speaking is one of the fourth macro skills in English language. It is one of the most challenging skills to teach in our context because the public system limits teachers to go beyond. Many issues such as lack of time, the large classes and extracurricular activities that teachers have to attend make their labor and competence harder.
When teaching, it is essential to expose and to encourage students with the target language; this can be done by the use of proper activities in which teacher interacts with learners and the students with other students. There are many activities in which the educators can teach the target language, most of them can be apply in our context but others cannot be apply as easily; however, it depends of the teacher initiative and compromise.
Asking questions is an activity that helps students to produce language by their own. Those questions can be done in a Socratic way in which consist to produce answer by their own with the help of a tutor. Eg.
T- No. Just give the one word from column B, just one word.
U- Easy. T- Easy. Is he correct?
Ch- Yes. T- Is he correct?
Ch- No.
T- No, you are not sure. Is he correct? He says easy sum …easy sum. Is that correct?
Ch- No.
T- Now, what is the correct answer?
With this technique, the teacher creates the illusion that the students and the teachers are constantly interacting between them.
There are some different types of questions. For example:
Display questions: questions in which the teacher knows the answer in advance.
Referential or real questions: questions that genuinely seek new information.
Moreover, there is a risk that if teacher generally use questions to test students’ knowledge, instead of encourage them to use the language. The real communication between students happens when the teacher moves away from the roles of controller and organizer.
Real communication can be develop through working in small groups in which each student has the opportunity to speak and practice, at the same time, students overcome the psychological impact of public performance. In addition, working in groups creates a positive atmosphere at two levels: cognitive and affective. However, this type of activity creates a dilemma to the teacher, that is who will work with whom because for the teacher the most important purpose is co-operative learning. At this point, each student has to contribute with the task by exchanging information.
The positive and the negative feedback is necessary between teacher - learner, and between student - student. Also, the feedback can be at the cognitive and at the affective level. Feedback between students increases the opportunities for a real communication.
It is really important to ask questions to our students to have a better interaction. To encourage students' participation in our class can improve our students' speaking abilities.
DeleteA communicative approach to pronunciation teaching
ReplyDeleteIn the past years pronunciation was teaching as in many others areas of English language in isolated form. Fortunately, nowadays this approach has developed new ways to teach pronunciation in a communicative way. ESL students need to be engaged in a real context to produce English as much as possible. Teachers must develop communicative competence in their students by providing them with creative opportunities for meaningful exchange of language. We as a teachers cannot teach pronunciation in isolated sounds or stress and intonation forgetting the context in which these sounds are involve.
Certainly, our students learn better using activities that imply real communication in our classes.
DeleteIn real context, students can learn intonation, word stress and pronunciation easily
DeleteTeaching Listening
ReplyDeleteLuis Pablo, Fabiola
The reading talks about strategies to learn listening better. By knowing these strategies, both teachers and students are benefited. One of the topics there is about problem solving strategies that refer to students who identify the problems they have when it comes to listening tasks. The reading argues about psycholinguistic and behavioral strategies. The former refers t to actions that happen in our psyches and that cannot be seen; the latter talks about the actions related to the material world and the environment.
Moreover, teachers can find different ways of listening tasks. The paused listening is the one in which professors would play a track and the pause it so that the students can discuss about the fragment of audio they just heard. This is useful because when students are exposed to a long listening they tend to get unfocused and forget information. With this strategy, learners can interact more often during the listening.
Furthermore, there are different types of listening which are very useful in different contexts and situations. The participant listening is used when the one who listens and the one who speak have both the same rights to speak or listen. The addressee is when one has limited rights to speak. Then the auditor who is not supposed to speak, just hear. Also, there is the overhearer who is only a spectator, and finally the judge who is also a spectator but is supposed to critic the conversation.
Moreover, the reading mentions another approach for listening which is “grading the learners’ experience of the spoken language, from more straight-forward to more complex.” It is through grading the text or grading the task. Text is divided into input (e.g. preparing a script that restricts the number of unfamiliar words or editing out faster or more complex passages) and support (additional help such as a list of vocabulary). On the other hand, task is divided into process (the listening purpose) and output (e.g. asking learners for a nonverbal response or answering questions in their first language). Depending on how we develop these options of grading we can increase or decrease the difficulty of the listening activity. The important thing is that we can provide our students with extra material to get a better understanding of the listening activity.
Another important aspect of teaching listening is interaction-based grading. Second hand negotiation involves two people performing an information-gap, one of whom is a non-native speaker. Here the speaker can modify difficult parts of the message if the listener needs a better understanding. In the indirect negotiation, it changes the learners’ role from overhearers to participants. It also allows them to interrupt a recorded message and decide what to change. To make listening activity easy for our students we should give them freedom to interact and participate during the activity. Also we have to be sure that they understand completely the activity to get a positive result.
That's true, when we are exposed to long listening activities we tend to get distracted, so it's great to give students the opportunity to talk or do something different and then continue listening again.
DeleteJenny, Byron, Jeny
ReplyDeleteLearning strategy training, cooperative learning and multiple intelligences
The reading is about the different strategies that teachers could implemment in classes, the attitude of the students who look like foolish but it does not matter for him/ her. I consider that this last point is very important because there are timid students who do not learn to comunicate their ideas, that is why they do not want to talk incorrectly :( Teachers have to motivate more them.
Also, I consider that cooperative learning is essential to learn, there are some activities that help students to get a meaningful learning.
Talking about multiple intelligences! Teachers must know the abilities that every student has or at least the strenghts of the majority of the group. Do you think that teachers are able to know the weaknesses and capabilities of their students?
Each student has different ways to learn and the teacher has to cope with those preferences.
Deletemarjorie and lisseth
ReplyDeleteA communicative approach to pronunciation teaching
In the past years pronunciation was teaching as in many others areas of English language in isolated form. Fortunately, nowadays this approach has developed new ways to teach pronunciation in a communicative way. ESL students need to be engaged in a real context to produce English as much as possible. Teachers must develop communicative competence in their students by providing them with creative opportunities for meaningful exchange of language. We as a teachers cannot teach pronunciation in isolated sounds or stress and intonation forgetting the context in which these sounds are involve.
Lesson planning and use of resources for language teaching
ReplyDeleteWhen we are going to teach a subject we must handing a lesson plan in order to guide our work. Teachers have to select aims to achieve their linguistic objectives on the student’s performance. Moreover not only students aims are important, but also personal goals let teachers improve their way to teach or how organize better the time in his or her lessons. The lesson plan has to follow an order; we can begin with a warm up that introduces that topic or the unit, then we have to explain the topic or do activities if the topic is already clarified. Teachers are in charge of preparing creative and contextualized activities for students. We cannot forget that the syllabus is a general guide and we have to contextualize those objectives.
having a plan is fundamental in order to have an organized class.
DeleteThe lesson planning is important because with this help, students will detect the teacher´s professionalism and responsability.
DeleteJennifer Aguero Parras A90075
ReplyDeleteLesson planning and use of resources for language teaching
This chapter focus us how to plan a lesson and the things we have to take in to account to make it, it’s important to achieve a balance and the things we do because many times we have to considerate that many activities for a lesson are too much because of timetable and the capacity students have to understand what teachers want they do. On the other hand is significant to reach the aims proposed for the class in order for them to be able to catch the subject, we must consider this questions in order to plan a good lesson: will the topic be interesting and motivating for my learners? Have I thought about exactly how to star and how to end the lesson? Does each step in the lesson help to achieve the aim? those questions guide us to be better given classes.
Timing is very important in order to have a balance between theory and practice.
DeleteTiming is a very important aspect that teacher must consider, but it does mean that we need to do the same things all the time, talking about activites.
DeleteThe use of authentic material in the classroom as part of our daily activities is very important in order to tech culture and to involve students in the target language. Authentic materials are designed for native speakers; this means that they are not design for language learners. Newspapers, videos, magazines, and music are examples of authentic materials that can be used by teachers of EFL students. In addition, those materials may be used to engage students in the target language because students they can relate what they are learning with real life; hence, teachers can somehow contextualize the authentic materials to facilitate the students the learning process. On the other hand, teacher must be cautious with the use of authentic materials because they must consider students level because the material can have vocabulary or structures that students do not handle. Besides, authentic material can be used to teach culture. As one of the readings mentions language goes beyond, so it is important to involve students in the target language culture. Culture can be taught by different types of activities such as easy quizzes, action logs, reformulation, noticing, prediction and research all those activities should be planned according to students level and teachers have to remember to use variety of activities to increase students motivation.
ReplyDeleteLesson planning and use of resources for language teaching
ReplyDeleteIt is really important to identify aims before giving a lesson. We cannot teach our students if we do not establish what we want our students to achieve. There are main, subsidiary and personal aims. These depend on the level, age, students’ interests and necessities. Also a lesson plan is fundamental in the process of teaching. We have to prepare appropriate procedures to achieve the aims that we selected. The book makes a comparison between a lesson plan and a road map. Both show “where we are going and how we are going too get there.” Moreover, timing allows teachers to follow the sequence of the lesson. Our lessons need to have a logical sequence. Furthermore, to consider what students already know about a topic is important when we are planning. Also we can leave homework to our students in order to practice. Finally, it is important to know that in a lesson, things can occur that we have not considered in our lesson plan. Therefore, we have to be creative and find ways to deal with.
Lesson planning and use of resources for language teaching
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, is essential to identify main aims to plan the lessons. Also, we have to take into account the secondary aims and contextualize them according the students needs. When we talk about students needs we have to remember that we have different learning styles and curricular accommodations in our classrooms.
Moreover, through the activities that we plan we can develop the appropriate linguistic competences that will allow our students to develop excellent performances.
Also, we have to avoid the mistakes committed by our teachers in the past; for example, a large amount of them do not follow the three steps PPP, most of the time they only center in presentation and sometimes in practice, but never in production. So, they do not closure the process because it was teacher center and they were the actors of the process instead of the students.
As teachers is essential to develop our communicative skills in order to benefit our students.
Practical Techniques for Teaching Culture in the EFL Classroom
ReplyDeleteTeaching culture is necessary for EFL learners because students are going to be able to understand and compare both languages, their own and the foreign language. However, many teachers argue that there is not time to teach culture by the lack of time, acknowledge about what aspects of culture teach, among many others. Therefore, this reading shows us different types of sources that we can use during the lessons and some practical techniques to teach culture. Taking on consideration that all students learn in different ways, teachers must present their students with a variety of sources including readings, newspapers, realia, songs, etc. We can use many activities such as action logs, reformulation, prediction, etc. Nevertheless, in my opinion one of the most useful is research activity because students can look for information that they really like, instead of doing it as an obligation.
Authentic Materials and Cultural Content in EFL Classroom:
ReplyDeleteThe use of authentic materials in the lessons represents a useful technique to teach culture. However, teachers must take in to account that this material is not designed for teaching students; therefore, its vocabulary could be difficult to understand. we can apply this technique, but knowing first what is the student`s level, and contextualizing the information to achieve the student`s aims.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeletePractical Techniques for Teaching Culture in the EFL Classroom
ReplyDeleteAnd
Authentic Materials and Cultural Content in EFL Classrooms
Nowadays, another important aspect that can be applied and taught by EFL teachers in their daily routines is culture. It is important to understand that students need to learn a second language that probably the do not understand a little bit, depending on their students backgrounds and knowledge which becomes in plurality of people with the same target, to learn a second language in this case English. That is why is important that if they want to learn English, teacher have to create an interest in the students on the culture of the target language because they will see why it is important to learn this language and how they will use it in a real context and not in isolation.
Teachers must teach culture unconsciously through activities and expose them to authentic materials that engage them in an interest of the target language. Indeed, teachers that teach culture in this way make sure that students answer questions like these ones: Why do I need to learn this language? Or, why do I need to understand a culture that probably I never will know? Regards to these questions, it is important that teachers adapt the vocabulary and understand student’s needs in order to help students in their process of acquiring a new language.
Lesson Planning and Use of Resources for Language Teaching
ReplyDeleteAs future teachers we always take into account a plan for our lessons and the usage of many resources as much as we can in order to provide to our future students with a great deal of different activities to acquire the language. As it was mention before a plan for our lesson is the important because it functions as a guide trough all classes during the period, furthermore, it functions as core in which teachers stars recording information about the process of learning of his/her students. For this reason it important to take in to account the usage of aims in the production of every single topic because with them, teachers will focus more appropriately the target that they want to cover, in other words, it is call main aim, then teachers focus on the functions in the language which are the paths to reach the target or goals; this process is called subsidiary aims. Last but not least, the personal aims that are more related with teacher, those are the personal reflection that teachers achieve during classes.
That is why, when teachers star a class it is important that follow an order based on their planning, because it will help teachers to reach the targets that students need. Nonetheless, teachers need take to account the background of their students, student’s needs and the curricular accommodations that are part of their great job as teachers.