THE FIVE KEY CHANGES TO PRACTICE

The role of the teacher

 According to this book, teacher’s role involves more than simply standing in front of a classroom and lecturing. In fact, even though a teacher has power to spend the majority of the day in the classroom, the actual teaching component is only part of the job. An effective teacher should understand that teaching involves everything in a classroom. Therefore, those tree important areas are significant when talking about this topic, critical and feminist pedagogy, cognitive and educational psychology, and constructivist theory.  Those areas are so important we as future teachers. I think I would like to use 5 steps in order to teach my students. There are The 5 steps that teachers should use are: review material that has already been learned by the teacher, prepare the student for new material, present the new material, relate the new material to the old material that has already been learned, show how the student can apply the new material and show the material they will learn next.  As teachers we have to behave in different ways depending on the different stages of the lesson that they prepared. It helps teacher to maintain the class more active and controlled. Also, their roles can depend on the teaching approach they want to use in the class. On the other hand, they can be consider as a mentor, facilitator, assessor, planner and so on. For example, as mentor because they have to be in touch with learner’s life. We have to keep in mind that they are the ones who are in charge of model children, teenagers and adults in order to make them to become an excellent person. All this depend on how they manage their students and how well apply their role in classes.

References:

Work - Chron.com,. (2015). What Is the Role of Teachers in Education?. Retrieved 1 May 2015, from http://work.chron.com/role-teachers-education-8807.html

Wikipedia,. (2015). Educational psychology. Retrieved 1 May 2015, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Educational_psycholog

Learner-Centered Teaching

    Learner-Centered Teaching: Chapter one

From my  personal opinion, this part of the book is essential to know it shows to connect teaching and curriculum to the process of learning in the college and university classroom. I this chapter I learned a lot of things but the most relevant were. Organizing What I Learned, The Theories Behind Learner Centered Teaching and instructional practice. First, the role of the teacher it means teachers have lots of content to cover, and when students are working with new and unfamiliar content. Then, balance has power in the classroom. They decide what students will learn and how they will learn using strategies that give students control and responsibility with their ability to handle it. Third, the function of content teachers have lots of content to cover. Then, responsible for learning. Students do things for points, grades, because they’ll be quizzed. Finally, purposes and processes of evaluation use it the results .The goal of the learner-centered teacher is to maximize the learning potential inherently a part of any experience where students produce a product, perform a skill, or demonstrate their knowledge. focused on learning.  All this depend on how they manage their students and how well apply their role in classes. This approach has two object first, Students must construct their own meanings.Second, students discover knowledge for themselves. I would like to apply these approaches to teaching promote more and better learning for students.in the future.

References:

Ascd.org,. (2015). Educational Leadership:Teachers as Leaders:Ten Roles for Teacher Leaders . Retrieved 1 May 2015.

Work - Chron.com,. (2015). What Is the Role of Teachers in Education?. Retrieved 1 May 2015, from http://work.chron.com/role-teachers-education-8807.html

(Belenky, Clinchy, Goldberger, and Tarule, 1986), Women’s Ways of Knowing. Learner Centered Teaching book.

Unit 8

Speaking

    Unit 8 I reviewed about speaking is one of the four language skills. Speaking and writing are productive skills. Speaking is an interactive process of constructing meaning that involves producing and receiving and processing information (Brown, 1994; Burns & Joyce, 1997). Its form and meaning are dependent on the context in which it occurs, including the participants themselves, their collective experiences, the physical environment, and the purposes for speaking.First, when we want to communicate our meaning successfully to them. We use interactive strategies to help us achieve this. These include using body language such as gestures, eye contact, facial expressions and movement. Then, the way you listen, look, move, and react tells the other person whether or not you care, if you’re being truthful, and how well you’re listening. When your nonverbal signals match up with the words you’re saying, they increase trust, clarity, and rapport. When they don’t, they generate tension, mistrust, and confusion. If you want to become a better communicator, it’s important to become more sensitive not only to the body language and nonverbal cues of others, but also to your own. Finally, we are speaking involves making use of all the features of connected speech to convey our message. We use intonation, word and sequence stress, accurate individual sounds, linking and contractions to help convey our meaning. As a conclusion, all of those things are important when we are speaking every day. I would like to use information gap activities “describe and draw” one student has a picture which they must not show their partner. Then, all the partner has to do is draw the picture without looking at the original so, the one with the picture will give instructions and descriptions, and the artist will ask questions. We as a teacher should correct in speaking activities, not interrupting while they are going on, but giving feedback later.

References:

Area.dge.mec.pt,. (2015). What speaking is. Retrieved 27 April 2015, from http://area.dge.mec.pt/gramatica/whatspeakingis.h

Wikipedia,. (2015). Body language. Retrieved 27 April 2015, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_language

Unit 7

Listening

Listening is good for our students’ pronunciation, too, that the more they hear and understand English being spoken, the more they absorb appropriate pitch and intonation, stress and sounds of both individual words and those which blend together in connected speech. In this unit I reviewed listening is one of the four language skills. Listening is a receptive skill as it involves responding to language rather than producing it. Other ways of listening are listening intensively and extensively.  Extensive listening is encourage them to go to English language films with subtitles. On the other hand, intensive listening from extensive listening in that students listen specially in order to work on listening skills, and in order to study the way in which English is spoken but the conversation contains example of incomplete sentences, utterances.  Some listening texts in coursebooks are authentic material. Authentic speech is speech not spoken just for language learners in other words, it is language spoken for native or competent speakers of English, with no concessions made for the learner. For example; recorded speech on the radio or on the Internet. I would like to apply all of those aspects mentioned but I will use Monologues genres can be used for different listening tasks. For example, I can ask students to listen to lectures and take notes. In additionally, I would like to use music and sound effects although most audio tracks consist of speech. Songs are very useful because, if we choose them well, or verse, or listen to songs and say what mood or message they convey. As a conclusion, students need to hear people speaking in different genres, and that while we want them all to hear authentic English.

References:

YouTube,. (2015). Creative Writing - How I Improved My Writing Skills. Retrieved 27 April 2015, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pfj_05UE2CM

D.umn.edu,. (2015). Listening Skills . Retrieved 27 April 2015, from http://www.d.umn.edu/kmc/student/loon/acad/s

YouTube,. (2015). 5 Secrets to Improve Your English Listening Skills. Retrieved 27 April 2015, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtKX_H5wr5o

UNIT 6

WRITING

Teaching are many reasons for students to write, both in and outside class.  I this unit I reviewed many things. Writing is one of the four language skills. Writing and speaking are productive skills. When thinking about writing, it is helpful to make a distinction between writing for learning and writing for writing. Also we need to take in account the writing process we will want to involve them in the process of writing. In the real, world this typically involves planning what we are going to write, drafting it, reviewing and editing what we have written and then production a final and satisfactory version. Many people have thought that this is a linear process, but a closer examination of how writers of all different kinds are involved in the writing process suggests that we do all of these things again and again, sometimes in a chaotic order. In addition, subskills related to communicating our ideas using appropriate a style and register, organising ideas in a helpful way, using the feature typical of the text type we are writing, joining our words and sentences clearly and using appropriate functions to express our meaning. For example; narrating telling story complaining, requesting, thanking, summarising( expressing main points or ideas in a few clear words) and concluding. I would to apply to teach in the future to my students using music and pictures because are excellent stimuli for both writing and speaking. For example; we can play a piece of music and the students have to imagine and then write out the film scene they think it could accompany this can be done after they have looked at film script model so pictures offer a wealth of possibilities. I can ask students to write descriptions of one of a group of pictures. All of these activities are designed to get students writing freely, in an engaging way.

References:

Kent.ac.uk,. (2015). Written Communication Skills. Retrieved 27 April 2015, from http://www.kent.ac.uk/careers/sk/written-communication.htm

Skills, H. (2015). How to Improve Your Writing Skills. wikiHow. Retrieved 27 April 2015, from http://www.wikihow.com/Improve-Your-Writing-Skills

YouTube,. (2015). Creative Writing - How I Improved My Writing Skills. Retrieved 27 April 2015, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pfj_05UE2CM

Unit 5

Unit 5

Reading

Unit 5 I reviewed a lot of things. First, readers expect certain information to come in certain sequence we need to make a distinction between extensive and intensive reading. The term extensive reading refers to reading which students do often away from the classroom. For example: novels, wed pages, magazines, newspapers. In other words, I can said that extensive reading should involve reading for pleasure. On the other hand, intensive reading refers to the detailed focus on the construction of reading texts which takes place usually but not always in classroom. Also, I learned students need to be able to do a number of things with a reading text. They need to be able to scan the text for particular bits of information: for example; when we look for a telephone number this skill means they do not have to read every word and line. In addition, students also need to be able to skim a text that means to get general idea of what it is about. Another important points are come up with six reading principles. We need to take in account. Encourage students to read as often and as much as possible this means, the more students read the more better. Second, need to be engaged with the topic of a reading text. Then, prediction is a major factor in reading it means our mains starts predicting what we are going to read. Finally, jigsaw technique gives students a reason for reading and then sharing what they have found out. The fact that the more students read, the better they get a reading. I that reading is good for language acquisition in general, provides good models for future writing and offers opportunities for language study. I would apply to teach in the future in a variety of genres and that, where possible, the language of the texts should be authentic, unless it is too difficult for students in which case I will offer authentic like language.

References:

Readathon.org,. (2015). Readathon. Improving lives through sponsored reading.. Retrieved 27 April 2015, from http://www.readathon.org/?gclid=CM2y2ffplsUCFdgOgQodXRcApw

Es.wikipedia.org,. (2015). Reading. Retrieved 27 April 2015, from http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reading

Nclrc.org,. (2015). Strategies for Developing Reading Skills. Retrieved 27 April 2015, from http://www.nclrc.org/essentials/reading/stratread.htm

Unit 4

Functions  

We can describe language itself in terms of its grammar or tis lexis. Functions are a way of describing how we use language .When we describe the functions of language we focus on the use of the language and its meaning for the people who are in the context Do you feel that your language lessons are overly focused on grammar and vocabulary? Do you find that students sometimes difficult to communicate effectively in some social situations?    The answer may be to teach your students more functional language. In Unit 4 is related about functions. Therefore, functions are a way of describing how we use language. It is the use of language for specific communicate. For example(greeting, clarifying) As we know if we communicate with another people we always have a reason why we are communicating. So the language we use to express a function is called an exponent. I could say that it depends on the context it is used in different aspects. In addition, when are talking about this topic teachers must explain their learners the levels of formality more or less relaxed ways of saying things. For example generally speaking, formal situations amongst people who do not know each other very well.  Also, when we communicate we need to take in to account appropriate language according to the situation, if it is time to use formal or informal language. Additionally, most of people usually choose to use the level of formality in order to communicate, this is called appropriacy, but I don't agree with that because I consider that people especially students should use informal language with friends or it just depend on the situation. Also, register reflects the situation in which it is used the language. To sump, I will teach to my future learners the importance and use of functions   with informal or formal ways. So, they can understand better. 

References:

Ode.state.or.us,. (2015). Retrieved 23 April 2015, from http://www.ode.state.or.us/teachlearn/standards/elp

YouTube,. (2015). Function Words - American English Pronunciation + Intonation/Word Stress. Retrieved 23 April 2015, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2mS7w_np2Nw

TeachingEnglish | British Council | BBC,. (2015).Functions. Retrieved 23 April 2015, from https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/knowledge-database/functions

Unit 3

Phonology

When we talk about phonology the first thing that comes to our mind is to analyse  these sounds and discover why this happens. This involves discovering how what happens in the brain is transformed and produced as the physical sound. In this unit I checked some relevant aspects about it. First of all, what is the meaning of Phonology? Is the study of sound features used in a language to communicate meaning .In English these features include Phonemes, words stress, sentence stress and intonation. First of all, a phoneme is the smallest unit of sound that can make a difference to meaning in a language. Think of when adults try to get a baby to say his or her first word. They often persuade  him or her to sound out the beginning of a word by repeating that sound, or phoneme, over and over by saying something like, 'M, m, m' for 'Mommy.' The 'm' sound, often written as /m/, is an example of a phoneme. On the other hand, we can say that the phonemes of a language are represented in writing by phonemic symbols, such as /i:/ /aI/. The phonemes of English are often shown in a chart, called the phonemic chart. Phonological phenomena are no longer seen as operating on one linear sequence of segments, called phonemes. Many classrooms have a copy of the phonetic chart on the wall. This can help direct learners´ attention to particular sounds when they learn new language or for correction so learners may not need to learn all the symbols on the chart but just the sounds that are problematic for them. Second of all, the stress accent on the syllables of individual words either in asentence or in isolation we give stress  to a syllable we say it with greater energy and usually higher with more length  vowel sound.. This called sentences stress. Normally one word in the sentence has primary and main stress. Finally, Intonation is important: if the word 'right' is said with the pitch of the voice rising, it is likely to be heard as a question or as an invitation to a speaker to continue, while falling pitch is more likely to be heard as confirmation or agreement. Trough it we can show emotions and attitudes emphasise according to other people the function of what are saying. As conclusion, Teachers and future teachers need a well-rounded concept of the phonology of the language they are going to teach and the native language of learners.

References: 

YouTube,. (2015). Introduction to Phonetics and Phonology. Retrieved 23 April 2015, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=elFOQnWr5Co

YouTube,. (2015). Introduction To Phonology. Retrieved 23 April 2015, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DK6ST72JJFk

Wikipedia,. (2015). Phonology. Retrieved 23 April 2015, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonology

Unit 2

Lexis

When we talk about lexis the first thing that comes to our mind is “vocabulary “in this unit I checked some relevant aspects about it. First of all, what is the meaning of lexis? It refers to individual words or set of words which have a specific meaning. For example: First of all, there is the meaning that describes the thing or idea behind the vocabulary items. The denotation of a word is its explicit definition as listed in a dictionary. Let’s use the word “home” as an example. The denotative or literal meaning of “home” is “a place where one lives; a residence.”  Then there is figurative meaning when speech or writing is not literal, it is figurative meaning we can give another meaning for heart for example.  “The tree of life or family tree” This imaginative meaning comes from, as a special form. It depends on in which context or situation the word is used. On the other hand, we can say that the meaning of some vocabulary items can also come from their form for example, prefixes, suffixes or compounds (nouns made from two or more separate words.   To arrive at an opinion, We have to take into account two important features when we want to any vocabulary teach there are , the context(situation) and the form because it helps students to deduce the meaning of any word beside it we never should teach vocabulary in an isolated way. Second of all, within the study of this unit we find some relevant lexical features that most of students have problems with the proper use of them for instance; collocations are words that often occur together e.g. do homework, take a nap, arrive at, depend on, to take a holiday and so on. Additionally, idioms of fixed expression as they can´t be changed but their meaning is usually different from the combination of the meaning of individual words they contain so it is a big challenge to teach or learn they cannot be translated literally. They are common phrases or terms whose meaning is not real, but can be understood by their popular use. e.g. Shape up or ship out means  tell someone that they should leave if they don't improve their bevaviour  or performance . Finally another important in language teaching and learning  are false friends are pairs of words or phrases in two language or dialects (or letters in two alphabets, that  look  or sound  similar, but differ significantly in meaning. e.g An example is the english embarrassed and the Spanish embarazado, As conclusion, we need to take in to account  when we teach  learners new words we need to check if these words are homophones or homonyms or have any false friends in their language. Then we can point this out to learners and help to save them from misunderstandings to make activities to help our students extend their knowledge of words. 

References:

TeachingEnglish | British Council | BBC,. (2011).Grammar vs lexis or grammar through lexis?. Retrieved 23 April 2015, Obtenido de  https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/grammar-vs-lexis-or-grammar-through-lexis

Philseflsupport.com,. (2015). Grammar & Lexis. Retrieved 23 April 2015. 

UNIT 1 Grammar

          In this unit I reviewed grammar so teaching process is one of the most important aspects for learner´s development. As we know, grammar refers to how combine, organise and change parts of words, words and groups of words to make meaning. These refers to how words are made up and presented in speech or writing. Using grammar helps teachers to apply the language in different ways using different an accuracy grammar that will allow learners to experience and to use the language in the classroom. Also, reference grammar can include parts of speech in English we have nine: Verbs, adjectives, adverbs, determiners, preposition, pronouns, conjunctions, and exclamations. So grammatical structures and words that contain prefixes and suffixes; it means that people who are in charge of teaching are part of it. As teacher we must to choose how to teach grammar in order to present our learners it will help them to use the language in appropriate way. On the other hand, grammatical refer how to grammatical structure are used to convey or communicate meaning teacher can use grammar in order to present to their classes. I would like to use in the future  grammar books that will help students to present the language showing the correct use and rules of it.Aditionally, using  bilingual dictionaries that will allow learners to look for words that are strange for them and the meaning of them grammatical structure, as do formal and structural grammar; but it also analyses the entire communicative situation: the purpose of the speech event, its participants, its discourse context .


Here you can see a video about Grammar:

References: 

Busy Teacher,. (2015). 5 New Fun Ways to Teach Grammar to ESL Students.

Obtenido de youtube http://busyteacher.org/2873-5-new-fun-ways-to-teach-grammar-to-esl-students.html

Www2.vobs.at,. (2015). Retrieved 23 April 2015, Obtenido de youtube     

  http://www2.vobs.at/ludescher/pdf%20files/grammar

Drabble, E. (2014). How to teach … grammar. the Guardian. Retrieved 23 April 2015,  Obtenido de youtubehttp://www.theguardian.com/education/2012/jul/30/guardian-teacher-network-resources-grammar