In this chapter I reflected in the way we used to evaluate our students, and how this process goes along nowadays.
However, feedback is not often use to correct students at the moment.
Principally, because of time and generally because in schools there are
too much studentsin each classroom and the teacher cannot personalize her or his feedback.
Assessment
is integrated within the learning process. Here the teacher gives formative
feedback for the purposes of fostering improvement in all the skills. Students
have multiple opportunities to assess themselves and their peers (E.g. self-assessment
and peer-assessment). With these two techniques students could learn from their
mistakes and then demonstrate mastery of language.
As
teacher I could say that we must have a purpose to evaluate and assess our
students. A test with clear objectives and testing what we have taught would
have good results. Being aware of the
process that evaluation involves may help all teachers to provide useful
feedback and provide students tips for improving their learning process. References:
Weimer,
M. (2013). Learner-Centered Teaching : Five Key Changes to Practice (2nd
Edition). Somerset, NJ, USA: John Wiley & Sons. Retrieved from
http://www.ebrary.com
The role of a teacher is to create
in the classroom an environment that could integrate different kinds of
learning styles. A teacher would take different roles from one activity
to another and must teach with methods
and assessment consistently. What I mean with that is that teacher must go in a
systematically order from the most simple until reach certain level of
difficulty. A teacher must be clever and use multiple teaching techniques
appropriate for students learning goals by design activities in which students
interact with the material, the teacher and each other. It also would motivate
intrinsically students to learn. There are seven principles to help the teacher
to create a pupil adjusted class.
1.
Teachers do learning tasks less.
Assign to students some of the tasks organizing
the content, giving examples, summarizing, etc.
2. Teachers do less telling; students do more
discovering.
Let students discover information in assigned
readings without presenting it first or summarizing it later.
3.
Teachers do more design work.
To motivate engagement in the course content by
doing the work of practitioners in the discipline.
4.
Faculty do more modeling.
Revealing and modeling your thinking process to
your students could follow. Show them drafts of your articles, notes, etc.
5. Faculty
do more to get students learning from and with each other.
Create tasks activities for small groups to do in
class.
6. Faculty
work to create climates for learning.
The teacher should promote interaction, autonomy,
and responsibility
7. Faculty
do more with feedback.
The teacher
should give frequent feedback.
In this chapter is explain clearly
the role of a teacher. We as teacher must take in to account that we develop
our pupil’s skills. To reach that improvement we as teachers must use supplementary
materials as well as methodology. Cooperative
learning is also useful because it said that pupils may learn by each other.
REFERENCES:
Weimer, M. (2013). Learner-Centered Teaching : Five Key Changes to Practice (2nd Edition). Somerset, NJ, USA: John Wiley & Sons. Retrieved from http://www.ebrary.com
Speaking is a
productive skill. This is the part where you apply everything you have read,
listen and write. When you speak you apply grammar, intonation, vocabulary,
functions, etc. We use all these to
convey a meaning. This skill is the most important for English learners. Because
them want to master it as soon they could.
Speaking happens
in real time when we speak we interact each other in order to convey a message.
However, applying grammar and vocabulary knowledge are not enough we also
should take into account body language (e.g. gestures, eye contact, facial expressions,
etc.)These have the power to emphasize a message we want to convey.
In order to
teach speaking I would select drills for teaching the pronunciation of
words. Later I would make my students practice through asking questions,
interviews and role plays. That activities will help my students to master
speaking skills. The practice of writing, listening and reading can improve our
speaking skill.
Nal, E. (2014). Instructors' Attitudes&Practices on
Assessing English Speaking Skill Assessing English Speaking Skill (1. Aufl.
ed.). Saarbrücken: LAP LAMBERT Academic Publishing.
Hall, D., & Foley, M. (1987). Skill of speaking.
Walton-on-Thames, Surrey, Eng.: Nelson.
In Unit number 7 we review about listening.
It is a receptive skill that involves responding to the language rather than producing
it. Personally for me this is the most difficult part of learning
English. However, for English learners in general and specially to those who have Musical intelligence it would be easier than reading, speaking or writing. We as teachers must be aware of it to take advantage and success in the learning process. According to my
professional experience I could said that the majority of the students prefer
tasks that includes listening activities (e.g.listening to music, conversations,etc.) rather than reading or writing.
To carry
out listening activities we have to take into account that listening is a
process that involves understanding while the listening track is played. Sometimes
it is quite difficult because there are linking sounds and words that are used
with reduced forms that may confuse the listener.
Being a good listener would help you to
become a good speaker. Listening is not only to understand when someone talk to
you. But also would help you to use correct intonation,stress patterns, and communicate
easily. Then you will become fluent and accurate in English language.
This viedo will provide us some tips for improve our listening skills.
In Unit 6, writing was the topic that we review. This is
a productive skill through it we produce language also it is said that Writing
is the visual representation of a language. Writing is an integrate skill
because we have to read and write at the same time. However, to master this
skill the writer must know about grammar rules, punctuation, and sentence
structure. In addition, it is also necessary to know vocabulary and correct spelling
of English words.
There are two
mean writing subskills accuracy and communicating a message. Accuracy involves
the correct use of language. Also it includes correct spelling, writing legible
and correct punctuation. Furthermore, when we write we must take into account
the features typical of each type of writing in order to use appropriate functions
and cohesive devices. The stages of writing are drafting, editing, proofreading
and re-drafting. This stages form part of the process of writing through it we
could write correctly and improve the quality of your writing project.
To teach writing
me as a teacher could start writing simple tasks and then we could go to more
complex ones the teacher must be a guide for students through this process. In order to master this skill I could recommend
to practice a lot. This video will provide us some tips to improve our writing skill.
In Unit 5, I learned
a little bit more about Reading. This is a receptive skill through it we receive
information. For me reading is not difficult as listening. To be a good reader
we must know about reading subskills or reading strategies, and those are
Scanning, skimming and reading for detail. But what each of those terms mean?
First, I
understood that scanning is when we read for specific information while skimming
is reading for the main Idea, and reading for detail is when we look for
something in special for example dates, names, and etc.
Also, there are
two types of reading Intensive and extensive. I understood that Intensive
reading is reading for a particular interest or because we need to know the
information that the text contains. While extensive reading is done
individually for the purpose of enjoyment.
As a teacher I
could said that teaching reading would be the principal skill to work with my
students. Because through it I could teach them vocabulary, grammar structures
and develop their critical thinking. Reading
is also a tool to students to learn how a text is structured and applied it in
a writing task.
References:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSYw502dJNY For you further reading:
Grellet, F. (1983). Developing reading skills: A practical
guide to reading comprehension exercises. Cambridge [Cambridgeshire: Cambridge University Press.
Greenall, S., & Swan, M. (1986). Effective reading:
Reading skills for advanced students. Cambridge [Cambridgeshire: Cambridge University Press
In this unit
I learned that a functions are everything we write or speak.so I could said
that function is the purpose why we communicate. The language we use to express
a function is called exponents. We use a –ing forms of verbs (e.g. greeting,
inviting…) which express different levels of formality, there are two levels
first formal language which is used in more official and important situations
and informal language which often happens in relaxed situations, it occur when
people know each other well and it is called colloquial (very casual) or
neutral (neither great respect nor too much casualness). Furthermore, people
usually choose to use the level of formality that suits a situation, this is
called appropriacy that is using correct vocabulary and expressions in a
situation, when something is inappropriate (unsuitable) it is not according of
the situation and appropriate(suitable)
when we use the expected language.
As a
conclusion, I could said that functions must be teach to language learners
communicatively. Trough role-playing, debates, interviews, business dialogs,
etc. Because students will be aware which vocabulary is appropriate in each
situation making it meaningful for them.
In this unit we review about Phonlogy. I could
define Phonology as the study of sounds. However, it is not only about sounds,
it also has some features that include phonemes, word stress, sentence stress
and intonation. But, Why is important to know about phonology? As an English teacher is very important
because we must know the correct pronunciation of words while we are teaching.
How phonemes are represented in order to know
how to pronounce correctly. Complete awareness of stress patterns for words (e.
g. record as a verb is stress in the first syllable and as a noun it is stress
in the second syllable) and also for sentences because the stress may change
the meaning of what we said to convey a correcte meaning we have to follow certain rhythm. For example:
Teachers have
to teach their students to recognize stress patters, phonetic symbols in order
to reach fluency and accuracy. For my own experience I could said that phonology
is important at the moment of teaching a language not only to be understand but
also to communicate the right meaning. watch the video bellow for more information about Phonology
References: Videos https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jF9qTJD25Ig For further reading
Roach, P. (2000). English phonetics
and phonology: A practical course (3rd ed.). Cambridge, U.K.:
Cambridge University Press.
Ewen, C. (1988). Phonology.
Cambridge [Cambridgeshire: Cambridge University Press.
In Unit 2, I learned about Lexis. First of all, for me lexis are words or set
of words which have a specific meaning.
I would point out the most important kinds for me. First, denotation
meaning is the meaning that describes the thing or idea behind the vocabulary
item (e.g. Flower = vocabulary item /denotation meaning of this example is a
red rose with a green stem) while the connotation meaning is what the
denotation meaning represents (e.g. Flower = vocabulary item / connotation
meaning it is a symbol of love).
I analyzed that other kinds of meaning come from
some vocabulary items form (e.g. Affixes and compounds). Likewise we have
idioms those are fixed expressions that cannot be traduce literally into
another language. Additionally we have
chunks those are phrases usually learn as a one piece (e.g. Nice to meet you). Furthermore,
I learned what are false friends, those are words that have a similar spelling
in two languages but do not have the same meaning.I reflected deeply about this case as a language learner is commomly though that a word written in the same form in our first language and means the same when learning second language (e.g. nose= naris in English/
nose=no saber in Spanish) I have realized that something similar to this happens
in a language and it is called Homophones. Homophones are the words of a same
language with the same pronunciation but with a different meaning or spelling (e.g.
peace and piece).All these kind of meanings we have to know in order to be
competence in a language. I consider that learning a language is mastering its
lexis.
As a conclusion I could said that learning lexis
is very important for a language learner, because that lexis is going to be
useful for conveying correct meanings in written or spoken way. We as future
teachers must be sure students know very well the special case of false friends,
because they tend to misunderstand meanings . So we may
point out that kind of cases and explain it very well.
In Unit 1, I learned about Grammar and Its key
concepts. When I hear or see the word Grammar immediately comes to my mind thousands of
rules, structures, tenses, parts of speech, etc. But what is grammar? According
to what I have learned, Grammar is the way how we use ,combine,
change and organize parts of speech, words
of groups of words to have a meaning.
I learned some of the key concepts of grammar such as grammatical forms and grammatical
structure. We use the term grammatical forms to refer to the way we organize
words (subject + verb + object) and grammatical structures is the term we use
to refer to the structures such passive voice, contrast clause, present simple,
etc. Furthermore, I realized that there are nine parts of speech in English language
such nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, determiners, prepositions, pronouns, conjunctions
and exclamations. A part of speech or word clase defines how a word act in a
sentence.
Also I differentiated between the terms
prefixes and suffixes both words are part of affixation that mean to add
letters at the end or beginning of a base word to have a different meaning. Prefixes
are letters added at the beginning of a base word (e.g. misunderstand) besides suffixes are letters added at the end
of the word (e.g. useless). Finally,
I analyzed what are the grammatical uses. Those refers to the structure used to
convey a meaning, a meaning that comes from the context of a grammatical use.
To sum up, I think that grammar must be teach
according to students necessities. What I mean with that is to teach the needed
grammar for a certain purpose using simple rules and explanations to make students
understand. Sometimes grammar structures are taugh with out being aware if students could use such structure to covey a message in L2. For a better explanation watch the video below
References:
Videos
Lily, W., & Colet,
J. (1945). A shorte introduction of grammar,. New York: Scholars'
facsimiles & reprints.
Teaching Grammar
Communicatively [Motion
picture on DVD]. (2012). Cambridge University Press ELT.
