EXTRA UNIT FROM LEARNER CENTERED TEACHING BOOK

THE PURPOSE AND PROCESS OF EVALUATION

In this chapter I learn about evaluation, which means to know about learners´ knowledge (how are they in their learning process). Also, teachers have to evaluate learners’ progress, their strengths and weaknesses. In order to evaluate or assess learners, exist different methods, strategies, and types of tests. These could be formal (tests, exams, quizzes) and informal assessment (comments, suggestions). So, here I have some examples of formal assessment that teachers use most of the time to evaluate learners, those are; proficiency test, achievement test, and placement test.  Furthermore, I realize that evaluated learners is important and useful because it keeps the balance between learning and grades. But I should considerate that the power of grades are important for learners because if they have a bad grade they will feel demotivated. I as teacher in order to apply this in the classroom, I should take a self- assessment because it lets us to know how good learners are in the learning process and how they progress. On the other hand, I as teacher should evaluate their effort, their logical reasoning, and their critical thinking. For accomplish it I evaluated learners by oral, listening, writing, and reading activities.

References:

• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Introduction to Process Evaluation in Tobacco Use Prevention and Control. Atlanta, GA: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, Oice on Smoking and Health; 2008.

          Available at: http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/publications/index.htm.

• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Framework for program evaluation in public health. MMWR 1999b;48(RR11):1–40.

EXTRA UNIT FROM LEARNER CENTERED TEACHING BOOK

CHAPTER THREE

The Role of the Teacher

In this chapter I learned that the role of the teachers is very important because they are the facilitators to teach well to the learners, so they are very essential for learners. As I can notice in this chapter teachers play different roles such as planner, assessor, monitor, manager and so on, but these roles teachers use depending on the lesson, because these are designed according learners needs, class size, students motivation and ability, and their learning styles. Furthermore, teachers are like guides, coaches, and midwife because they are guiding others, they say, model and give clues about what they have to do. In order to the role of the teacher can be guiding, here we have a set of principles that teachers do when they teach. First, teachers let students do more learning tasks. In this principle teachers should not always be organizing the content, generating examples, asking/answering questions, and solving problems, so teachers should give the opportunity to students to do this kind of activities in order to they practice and improve they knowledge. Another principle is that teachers do less telling so that students can do more discovering. In this part teachers always tell students what they have to do, like for example; help to do the homework, the reading, etc., teachers should let students to discover it by themselves. Finally, in order to apply this I as teacher must avoid helping students all the time, I must let them to discover the things by themselves. For example, as teacher I always monitor and guide them in order to they will do their activities in a correct way.

• Janelle Cox. (2000) Elementary Education Expert

• AMEE Medical Education Guide No. 20: The good teacher is more than a lecturer - the twelve roles of the teacher.

• Killion, J. (2001). What works in elementary schools: Results-based staff development. Oxford, OH: National Staff Development Council.

• Marzano, R., Pickering, D., & Pollock, J. (2001). Classroom instruction that works. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

Unit 8

Speaking

This unit is about speaking. Speaking is one of the four skills which is a productive skill. Speaking involves using speech to communicate meaning to other people. So, the purpose in speaking is to communicate meaning through pronounce words, use information, ask for clarification, greet people, ask and give information, and so on, but for accomplish these I can follow some speaking strategies. Which are making use of grammar, vocabulary and functions, making use of register to speak appropriately, use body language, using features of connected speech, producing different text types, oral fluency and using interactive strategies. These are very important in order to speak in a correct way and if a want give a clear message.

In order to apply speaking in the classroom I as teacher must encourage students to practice speaking by making some funny activities such as drills, repetitions, conversation in pairs which give them confidence. Finally, students and teacher must practice speaking, I mean practice in pronouncing new words and expressions, practice of necessary vocabulary and focus on language (grammar).

This is useful video that helps you How to keep a conversation going.

References:

• Adler, R., Rosenfeld, L. and Proctor, R. (2001)

          Find more at: http://www.skillsyouneed.com/ips/effective-speaking.html#ixzz3YkYTT3Ek

• “Spoken language: What it is and how to teach it” by Grace Stovall Burkart, in Modules for the professional preparation of teaching assistants in foreign languages (Grace Stovall Burkart, ed.; Washington, DC: Center for Applied Linguistics, 1998)

Unit 7

Listening

"The most basic and powerful way to connect to another person is to listen.  Just listen.  Perhaps the most important thing we ever give each other is our attention." (Rachel Naomi Remen)

This unit is about listening one of the four language skills which is a receptive skill. Listening involve making sense of the meaningful sounds of language. Furthermore, listening involves learning to be able to understand a range of relevant text types, understand different speed of speech and different accents. It means that people speak slow or fast, with more and few pauses. So, for that listening has different subskills which I use depending on the reason. These are listen for gist, specific information, detail, listening extensively and listening intensively.

In order to apply listening in the classroom, I can give students the opportunity to listen and practice to listen to many sources like for example songs, videos, visitor’s conversation, etc because those kind of exercises help them to love listening. Also, coursebooks are authentic material foe students because they develop strategies for dealing real language. Finally, I as teacher gives students to listen to a story, a video, or a conversation because those are relaxed ways which they enjoy listening to a foreign language. So, I as teacher must motivate student to listen to because it helps them a lot in their lives.

Here you have a link to a PPPresentation that helps you to know some strategies for listening.

 http://es.slideshare.net/glady_sambuyat28/strategies-for-developing-listening-skills

References:

• “Listening in a foreign language” by Ana Maria Schwartz, in Modules for the professional preparation of teaching assistants in foreign languages (Grace Stovall Burkart, ed.; Washington, DC: Center for Applied Linguistics, 1998)

• Adler, R., Rosenfeld, L. and Proctor, R. (2001) 
  Find more at: http://www.skillsyouneed.com/ips/listening-skills.html#ixzz3YkQMw4R5

Unit 6

Writing

Writing is one of the four language skills which is a productive skill. This means it involves producing language rather than receiving it. On the other hand if we want to write we need to be able to form letters and words, to join these together to make sentences and to communicate the message. In the classroom we have written essays, postcards, birthday cards, and so on. These are examples of written text types. When we write a text we used different degrees of formality or layout. Writing also involves using writing subskills, some of these are related to accuracy which uses the correct forms of language, spelling correctly, forming letters, joining letters, writing legibly, punctuation, vocabulary, grammar and correctly using paragraphs. So, we also need to go through a number of stages of writing, these are: prewriting, drafting, revising and editing. Finally, I can say that writing involves communicating a message by making signs on a page.

To apply this skill in the classroom first of all I as a teacher before start writing I must encourage students to think about why they are writing and who they are writing in order to focus on what they want to say. Furthermore, I can help students to practice accuracy in writing through labelling, copying, gap-filling, sentence transformation exercises, etc… In addition, I can work with models of text types which show students the patterns of language, vocabulary, register or layout. Finally, we can guide students in their writings through the use of a process writing approach.

Here we have a video that shows the 5 steps of writing.

References:

• James L. Collins (1999-2008) “Writing Strategies”

• University of Nottingham - Studying Effectively (https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/studyingeffectively/writing/strategies/index.aspx)

Unit 5

Reading

“Reading is a process of constructing meaning from written texts. It is a complex skill requiring the coordination of interrelated sources of information” (Stanley, 2007)

Reading is one of the four languages skills, it is a receptive skill. This means it involves responding to text, rather than producing it. Reading involves using different readings skills, they include: reading for specific information or scanning, reading for gist or skimming, reading for detail, inferring, deducing meaning from context, predicting and understanding text structure. Finally, I can say that reading is a complex process which involves understanding letters, words and sentences, understanding different text types, making sense of the text through our knowledge and using the appropriate reading subskill.

In order to apply this skill in the classroom I would like to say that reading is very important for me as a student and as a teacher, and for learners, too because reading helps learners and me to practice vocabulary. So, for that reason I must promote the reading habit to the learners through extensive reading which learners often do. For example, in the classroom we can read a story which be interesting for learners (catch their attention) and we can use different strategies that would be easy for learners understand the story as for example, Previewing which involves reviewing titles, section headings, and pictures to get a sense of the structure and content of the story, and skimming and scanning. Finally, if I help them in that way they love reading and they in the future will improve their knowledge.

 It is a video that show us a useful strategy to read.

• http://study.com/academy/lesson/reading-strategies-using-visualization.html

 References: 

• National Capital Language Resource Center (NCLRC). (n.d.). The essentials of language teaching. Retrieved April 23, 2007 from http://nclrc.org/essentials.

• Stanley, S. (2007). An Analysis of Rx for Discovery ReadingRTM for Elementary Students Below Average in Reading.

Unit 4

FUNCTIONS

In this unit I learn that a function is the reason why we communicate and how we use the language; and the language we use to express a function is called exponents which express different levels of formality, those are formal language which is used in more official and important situations and informal language which often occurs in relaxed situations, with friend and with people that you already know. Informal exponents are sometimes 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, which are inappropriate (unsuitable) and appropriate (suitable).

As a conclusion, I will apply functions in the classroom through debates, discourses and so on. I consider that those are good methods that are going to help students to learn more functions in order to communicate in a better way. 

This video shows some examples of functions.

References

• Savignon, S. J. (1983). Communicative competence: Theory and classroom practice. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
• K. Kinsella (2010). LANGUAGE FUNCTION

UNIT 3

PHONOLOGY

This unit is about phonology. Phonology is the study of the sound features used in a language to communicate a meaning. In English these features include phonemes, word stress, sentence stress and intonation. In phonology all these symbols are phonemes which are often show in a chart, called the phonemic chart.

This chart groups the sounds into vowels, diphthongs and consonants (which are divided in voiced and unvoiced sounds). Furthermore, word stress, sentence stress and intonation are important, too at the moment to learn phonology because with these features speakers change the level of their voice to show meaning.

I will apply phonology in the classroom through show the learners the phonemic chart because it helps them  to understand how they must to pronounce a vowel, diphthong or a consonant and motivated them to practice in hearing and recognizing sounds through listen to TV, radio programmes, and some websites in English.

This video is very useful because shows how we must pronounce the consonants in order to have a good pronunciation.

References:

• Jakobson, R. (1962) The phonemic concept of distinctive features. In A. Sovijärvi and P. Aalto, eds. Proceedings of the Fourth International Congress of Phonetic Sciences. Mouton & Co. 440-455.
• Susan Anderson ( 2003) Phonology is the study of how sounds are organized and used in natural languages.

Unit 2

             LEXIS

This unit is about lexis. The term lexis means vocabulary. Lexis makes reference to individual words or set of words which have specific meaning. In this unit I learn that words have different kinds of meaning, those are classified in denotation, figurative meaning, meaning in context and the meaning of some words come from their form. An example of the last kind of meaning is affixation, it is the process of adding affixes which can be suffixes, prefixes or compounds, it also includes collocations, idioms and chunks. On the other hand, false friends, homophones, homonyms and varieties in English can related to one another.

Here we have some tips to learn vocabulary:

ü  Teachers need to teach words in context rather than isolated.

ü  Record the meaning of the new words, pronunciation, any synonyms, etc…

ü  Teachers need to check if words have any false friend or if those words are homophones or homonyms to avoid misunderstanding.

I can say that I as teacher in order to teach lexis  I must consider that learners have different kinds of learning styles but I consider that the better way to teach lexis is through pictures. For example, The topic is “Categories”. I can star saying students to work in groups of four or five. They hand out a piece of paper with three columns which are labelled with the name of a lexical set: Food, transport and clothes. I call out a letter of the alphabet (e.g. A). The students draw down as many pictures they knew began with the letter in about 2-3 minutes. The group with the most words win. Another example can be Pictionary, I divide the class into two groups, and one member of each team goes to the board. The teacher flashes them a card with a word and the learners have one minute to guess the word on the basis of their drawing on the board.

Bibliography

• Ten ways to expand students' lexis (Chris Milnes on 30th July 2014)
• Thornbury, S. (2002) How to Teach Vocabulary, Harlow: Pearson.       
• Schmitt, N. (2000) Vocabulary in Language Teaching, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Unit 1

GRAMMAR

In this unit I learn all about grammar. So, grammar refers to how we combine, organize, and change parts of words, words and groups of words to make meaning. We use grammar unconsciously, and it includes a large number of forms and uses. We can identify grammatical forms in parts of speech which are nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, determines, prepositions, and so on; grammatical structures, prefixes and suffixes. Finally, grammatical uses refer to how grammatical structures are used to convey meaning.  In addition, I can say that exercises and activities focus on form which are important to give learners practice and at the same time develop accuracy in both.

In my opinion I consider that teach grammar is a hard work but I as a future teacher must find the ways to teach learners grammar in a better way I mean not as old teacher who teach grammar by forms or structure, I must find funny ways to teach like for example I could use the computer to study a certain grammar task because the use of technology is more effective at the moment to learn, and learners can find many interesting web pages where they can practice. Another example can be when we are teaching the simple present or the future get learners to practice with each other in order to they can share their knowledge.

 Here we have two videos that gives you some useful tips on how to teach grammar.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lpE7Wi-F0ZA

Bibliography

• Material for this section was drawn from “Grammar in the foreign language classroom: Making principled choices” by Patricia Byrd, in Modules for the Professional Preparation of Teaching Assistants in Foreign Languages (Grace Stovall Burkart, ed.; Washington, DC: Center for Applied Linguistics, 1998)
•        “Grammar is the business of taking a language to pieces, to see how it works.” (David Crystal, )