Mid-Term Projects

Hello everyone!!

Here we have the first two projects for the Class! Luisa and Alejandro have done an excellent work on planning and peer review.

You can download them and post comments about our teachers' work. I'm looking forward to seeing the rest of your class plans.

PROJECTS

Just to Share... Teacher Paola Andrea Cardona

§ Building language awareness:

In many of my courses with kids I’ve notice that there is a common fact among students: most of the time they don’t speak English. They are starting the process of interacting with this language and in general they don’t realize the importance of it in their lives.

We as teachers are mainly the support they have, not only for telling them that it is important, but for encouraging them to use it in their daily activities as something fun that can enjoy and at the same time learn from it.

There are several activities to build language awareness that don’t have to be focus on a specific age, they can create consciousness in kids, teenagers and adults- those ones who are not completely involved with English and perhaps are true beginners; those things can help them to get involved in the process of learning the language enthusiastically.

§ Contextualizing language:

It is not a secret that interaction and visuals are vital to the development of an effective learning process no matter in which subject: English, social studies, arts and even math. Sometimes we learn both faster and better by association; our job as teacher is to provide as many activities to associate with the background knowledge as we can, of course, taking into account the aims and expectations of our students and avoiding the confusion with something else.

When contextualizing something, many doubts and misconceptions can appear- there has to be a fact that clarify those doubts with both the teacher’s help and the clarification of the existing context- everything around us (sounds, smells, objects, etc).

§ Integrated skills tasks:

This is something we must keep in mind all time because with activities like this we can not only test our students’ comprehension, but have a clear idea about their strengths and weaknesses and that way know specially where is important to focus.

When we talk about integrated skills task, maybe the first thing that comes to our minds (at least to mine) is something boring, long and sometimes even doubt about the success of the activity. I think those activities should be developed with games, that allow our students to have fun and acquire a kind of accuracy dealing with all the skills.

§ Authentic materials:

Sometimes I found myself in the middle of a lesson planning session without knowing which extra material would be helpful for my class, and actually I had never thought about the authentic materials we discussed in our last session.

To me, the class was mainly focused on the academic purpose and the materials I used were directly related with the topic of the class leaving music as an extra-aid to focus even more in the topic of the lesson, or sometimes to relax the students. Realia wasn’t something actively used, but after our session of “authentic materials” I came up with a bunch of ideas for my classes.

Not because I’m teaching kids it has to mean that the class is going to end up being a mess, but the authentic materials used can be that “key” to let the English as a passive component for a while and incorporate things from the outside -from that reality they know and enjoy- to set a nice class environment.

*Paola Andrea Cardona M*

Assessment for integrated-skill tasks: teacher Luisa Fernanda Quintero

Assessing integrated-skill tasks

One the most useful ways to get our students involved into the learning of a foreign language is through the integration of the different skills, which help them to see this new language as a tool of communication and as a bridge to get to know different cultures.

Content-based language instruction and task-based instruction are two types of integrated skills approach .The first of these emphasizes learning content through language, in which students practice the different skills while learning content such as science, math, etc. The second stresses doing tasks that require communicative language use and include pair and group work, since students need to develop different tasks which they should interact and cooperate with other people.

The importance of this approach is that the students are not solely exposed to learn a new language, but they are also communicating their own ideas while working on topics that are of their interest. Therefore, in this approach, assessment should be developed in a way in which students can demonstrate knowledge and ability in several areas.

A performance task is a good kind of assessment, since this provides the opportunity to put into practice what students have learned and to demonstrate what they are able to do, and what is difficult for them. Examples of this may include the development of a project based on a specific topic or on a topic of their interest, so they can feel comfortable and confident with what they are doing And at the same time, they are applying al the skills they have developed during the lessons.

Luisa Fernanda Quintero Correa

A few words from Teacher María del Pilar Rodríguez

Can we say that we have the whole the responsabilty of our students' leaning? We give them the basis to learn, we try to guide them towards success, but does it mean that if they don't reach their final goal is our fault? They learn what they really want to learn, if they don't want to, they won't; it is up to them if they really want to take advantage of what we are giving them. I'm saying this, because we as teachers try to give our students the best from us, telling what they should or shouldn't do, try to make them be aware of the importance of the use of English in class and why they shouldn't use spanish, but most of them never get to understand it, so their progress takes longer, so they think it is our fault, if we get to make them aware of this issue we will have reached a very important objective in our role as teachers

Miscellaneous: Teacher John Alejandro Arias

Metacognition and Secondary School Learners

We, teachers, provide the students with different ways to reach one goal. So it depends on them to select the most suitable and comfortable route, considering the knowledge about their own language learning process. The idea is that that they take a way in which they can achieve the objective, but the most important fact is that if they are able to do it, they can feel that they really learn and that they can apply what they have just learnt in another task.

Language awareness

Some of the problems that students may have are linked to their mother tongue because they usually manage their minds as translators, going form L1 to L2. They do not think in the target language to produce the target language. Therefore it is important to show them the differences and similarities between L1 and L2.

Cognitive Awareness

“Just because” or “because my parents want me to learn it” are the most frequent answers you may get when you ask teenagers “Why do they study English?” The word motivation becomes a nightmare for most teachers, then.

Social Awareness

If you are Roger Federer (No. 1) and you never lose, you will not improve your skills. That is the importance of Rafael Nadal (No. 2).

Cultural Awareness

You are NOT alone, you are NOT a legend.

Why Is the Development of Metacognitive Awareness Important?

When students get home, they usually reflect on what they have just learnt and why they learnt it. The frequent answer is “to pass the next exam”. After that, that knowledge becomes futile, and most of them just throw it away.

Metalanguage in Focus on Form in the Communicative Classroom

In my classes, I often put the form-focused instruction at the beginning, because I consider that my students will feel comfortable and confident enough to participate in post-communicative activities realizing of what they say and being able to say what they want to say.

Though focus on form allows students to draw attention to linguistic items that may be problematic to them, we, teachers, must be aware of our students’ shyness since most of the times they just pretend to have understood or deduced the grammar applied.

In my opinion, it goes totally linked to the purpose that students may have to learn the L2, if they have one.