FINAL PROJECT
HOW TO DO IT?
Example
Thank you guys for sharing this experience with me.
viernes, 19 de septiembre de 2014
Week#4 Grouping techniques based on the 4 Skills
The Four Necessities in Language
Reading is fun-way to knowledge hunt. We read or see innumerable quotes and proverbs on reading. How far is it true? It is true indeed- reading brings wisdom. Through reading, we learn a lot and it is the most prominent language skill. But the fact of making a reading habit or being good at it is the question here. For now, students, adults and even educators read very less. It is a well-known fact that when there were no televisions or computers or other forms of entertainment, reading was a primary leisure activity among the educated lot. People would spend hours reading books and travel to lands far away or enjoy love, cherish victorious moments and live history-in their minds. The tragedy is that, with time, people have lost their skill and passion to read. Reading has declined among every group of people in today’s world of technology and entertainment. There are many other exciting and thrilling options available, aside from books. And that is a shame because reading offers a productive approach to improving language- vocabulary and word power for example. When you possess rich vocabulary, you listen better as you understand more; then you can write better with more words to choose from; obviously you can speak better because of your intense word power. It is advisable to indulge in at least half an hour of reading a day to keep abreast of the various styles of writing and new vocabulary. Thus, the need to develop a habit to read is very important. Well, the skills will hopefully jump in automatically once the strong genuine habit has been established. The best and easiest approach is however, to make a small effort to read a piece a day… you will surely succeed.
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Writing is a gem to pick. A person with good writing skills is always victorious at expressing oneself. The writing skill is the ‘hard copy’ of your intellectual level or the level of your expression. The writing process is taught in schools and colleges. But, do you practice it in reality? Or Do you start to write as soon as the question is read. Pre Writing opens the doors to effective writing where you brainstorm almost anything under the topic or theme. You find a topic, narrow it, and consider the purpose, audience as well as the form of writing. You are not concerned with creating whole sentences or paragraphs at this point rather you should aim at defining an idea and getting it rolling. Then we write our first draft which is a compilation of our random thoughts. This is where our words form sentences and paragraphs. The third step is revision. Revision means “Seeing again.” Here you refine the ideas in their compositions. Revising consists of three activities: rereading the rough draft, sharing the rough draft in a writing group/with anyone, and revising on basis of feedback. You can add or substitute thoughts and words. The same can be done with deleting and moving your words in the draft. Editing is the next big thing. The cleaning up process where the clutter is cleared and ideas are allowed to shine happens here. We tend to putting the piece of writing into its final form and you fine-tune your work by focusing on correct punctuation, capitalization, grammar, usage, and paragraphing. The goal here is to make the writing ‘optimally readable.” The last is publishing you final piece. Each step is interchangeable and can be done as many as you dare or till your writing perfects. I always tell my students to work out at least three drafts. So this is it with writing…easy? It would turn out simply simple if you make it a habit and practice like you practice your favourite song or dance.
Listening is yet another necessitate in language. The more efficient a listener you are… the more successful and satisfied you will be. In the words of Janis we find that Listening…is not merely hearing: it is a state of receptivity that permits understanding of what is heard and grants the listener full partnership in the communication process. We need to develop a keen interest in making ourselves better ears. The fact that we listen more than our ears and we listen far more than the sound is very true. As any member in a society, listening is one important skill to possess as good listening is an integral part of communication process. A good listener shows readiness and possesses an ability to manipulate the sound into words and their contextual meaning. Then the good listener relates given meanings to other experiences and he shares responsibility with the speaker. Academically, listening skills plays a vital role in the teaching-learning cycle. A student learns better when he can listen better. A teacher is also in need of a good listening skill. All the way, listening should be enhanced in your life as to be a greater speaker. The attitude of the listener is another stepping stone to achieve this skill.
Speaking is all special. This skill is as important as the others. When you have words read, ideas written and thoughts heard, all you need is to express- your speaking skill. What you speak will determine the expressiveness in you. Speaking has many masks- public, friendly or academic contexts are few from the lot. Each context has the same need for the skill. Statistics reveal that when you talk, you use about five syllables per second and there are more than forty different speech sounds. Thus, every time you talk, your audience must catch all the five syllables per second out of the air, must recognize the forty sounds in them, must translate the syllables into words and finally they must translate the words into thoughts- you got to help them succeed in doing so. If you slur or muffle sounds, or project the sounds weakly, the listener will miss a lot, failing you as a good speaker. Therefore, proper pronunciation, diction and building a good vocabulary should be on your prioritized list.
UNESCO.(2012,August14th).Reading Writing Listening Speaking- The Four Necessities in Language.Retrived http://snovu.blogspot.com/2012/08/reading-writing-listening-speaking-four.html
Week #3 Teaching Culture & Mental Map
The Place of "Culture" in the Foreign Language Classroom.
A Reflection
Ramona Tang
National University of Singapore
A Reflection
In this article, I give a personal reflection of the place of "culture" in the foreign language classroom. Re-examining the notions of integrative and instrumental motivations to language learning, I suggest that language and culture are inextricably linked, and as such we might think about moving away from questions about the inclusion or exclusion of culture in a foreign language curriculum, to issues of deliberate immersion versus non-deliberate exposure to it.
In the field of foreign language teaching, one aspect that occasionally emerges as a topic of discussion is the relationship between knowledge of a foreign language, and knowledge of the culture from which that language "originated". From my (admittedly limited) experience with foreign language education, it would appear that the question of "culture" is often relegated to the end of a language teaching plan. It seems as if it is always something of a bonus if the teacher manages to find time to introduce a bit of the culture of the foreign language into the classroom - some music perhaps, or a traditional dance, in the final lesson of the course. If learners are particularly lucky, they get a chance to spend a month in the foreign country to "immerse" themselves in the "culture" of the country. But is that one class session enough? Is one month enough? Is it necessary?
According to Pica (1994: 70), the question "how necessary to learning a language is the learner's cultural integration?" is something which "troubles teachers, whether they work with students in classrooms far removed from the culture of the language they are learning or with students who are physically immersed in the culture but experientially and psychologically distant from it". Numerous other researchers have tried to address issues along similar lines, including Gardner and Lambert (1972) who postulate that learners may have two basic kinds of motivation. The first is integrative motivation, which refers to the desire of language learners to acquire the language while immersing themselves into the whole culture of the language, in order to "identify themselves with and become part of that society" (Brown 1994: 154). The second is instrumental motivation, which refers to the functional need for learners to acquire the language in order to serve some utilitarian purpose, such as securing a job, or a place at a university. The argument is that such instrumentally motivated learners are neither concerned with the culture from which their target language emerged, nor interested in developing any feelings of affinity with the native speakers of that language.
But questions of this sort and research of this sort appear to me to presuppose that culture can be separated from language, that culture is something that needs to be introduced into the language classroom and to the learner, and that learner and teacher have some sort of a choice as to whether "cultural integration" is to be included in the "syllabus" or not. I would like to suggest that language and culture are inextricably linked, and therefore it may be pointless, and perhaps even impossible, to ask ourselves: "how much of the culture of a country should be taught along with the language?"
Language is culture. When a person decides to learn French, for example, he or she is not merely absorbing the linguistics of the language, but everything to do with French and France. What he or she is taking in includes all the preconceptions about the French language, that it is beautiful, that it is romantic, that it is spoken along the Seine, and so on. I may be accused of stereotyping here, and perhaps I am, but this does not discount my underlying point, which is that most, if not all, languages come with some cultural associations attached. By speaking the language, therefore, one automatically (to a greater or lesser extent) aligns oneself with the culture of the language. To speak a language well, one has to be able to think in that language, and thought is extremely powerful. A person's mind is in a sense the centre of his identity, so if a person thinks in French in order to speak French, one might say that he has, in a way, almost taken on a French identity (see for example Brown 1994, and Littlewood 1984). That is the power and the essence of a language. Language is culture. Language is the soul of the country and people who speak it.
Does this then mean that the "integrative" and "instrumental" motivation which have been discussed for years do not exist? Is that what I am saying? No. I think the person who has "integrative" motivation simply acknowledges that he or she is actively seeking to know about the culture, whereas the person with "instrumental" motivation does not want to add anything on to his or her knowledge of the language. He or she may not want to sample the food, or get to know the night-life, or visit places that have nothing to do with work, or read about the history of the country, or chat with shopkeepers behind the counter of a grocery store to find out whether that high-rise across the road was once a park where children played. But those are frills; those are extras. Language itself is already culture, and therefore it is something of a moot point to talk about the inclusion or exclusion of culture in a foreign language curriculum. We might perhaps want to re-envisage the situation as a contrast between an active and deliberate immersion in culture, and a non-deliberate exposure to it.
To conclude, I expect that some may disagree with my rather "deterministic" view that language is culture. A counterargument could well be that some people who decide to learn French, for instance, have no inkling at all of French culture. Indeed, they may not even know where France is on the map. How then can language be culture for them? To such a counterargument, I would say that while there may in theory be cases of such isolated individuals, I believe that in reality this is rather unlikely. But more than that, even if the learners themselves are not initially aware of the cultural associations attached to the language they are learning, others are, and will perceive them as being aligned with that culture. And if social theories of identity formation are to be believed (e.g. Brooke 1991), a person's identity is a social construct, and is (in part or in whole) the product of societal perception. I would like to add here that I am not in any way suggesting that a person cannot actively and deliberately reject the "cultural baggage" that accompanies a language. I am merely suggesting that it is there, and therefore we might want to consider not treating language and culture as if they were ultimately separable.
I remember that, as a student of German, I wanted to watch all the German television programmes I could find. I fiddled for hours with my radio set, trying to find a German station. I found myself quietly rooting for anything German. This last was not a conscious choice. I see it as language affecting who I was, for ultimately, language is not dead; it is alive, and as such can never be divorced from the culture that produced it and the people who speak it halfway across the world.
MENTAL MAP AS STRATEGY OF LEARNING
What is a Mind Map?
A mind map is a diagram for representing tasks, words, concepts, or items linked to and arranged around a central concept or subject.A mind map uses a non-linear graphical layout that allows the user to build an intuitive framework around a central concept. A mind map can turn long list of monotonous information into a colorful, memorable and highly organized diagram that works in line with your brain's natural way of doing things.
The five essential characteristics of Mind Mapping
- The main idea, subject or focus is crystallized in a central image.
- The main themes radiate from the central image as 'branches'.
- The branches comprise a key image or key word drawn or printed on its associated line.
- Topics of lesser importance are represented as 'twigs' of the relevant branch.
- The branches form a connected nodal structure.
How to create a Mental map?
miércoles, 3 de septiembre de 2014
Week#2 Motivation
What is motivation?
The following definitions of motivation were gleaned from a variety of psychology textbooks and reflect the general consensus that motivation is an internal state or condition (sometimes described as a need, desire, or want) that serves to activate or energize behavior and give it direction (see Kleinginna and Kleinginna, 1981a).
- internal state or condition that activates behavior and gives it direction;
- desire or want that energizes and directs goal-oriented behavior;
- influence of needs and desires on the intensity and direction of behavior.
Importance of motivation
Most motivation theorists assume that motivation is involved in the performance of all learned responses; that is, a learned behavior will not occur unless it is energized. The major question among psychologists, in general, is whether motivation is a primary or secondary influence on behavior. That is, are changes in behavior better explained by principles of environmental/ecological influences, perception, memory, cognitive development, emotion, explanatory style, or personality or are concepts unique to motivation more pertinent.
Citation: Huitt, W. (2011). Motivation to learn: An overview. Educational Psychology Interactive. Valdosta, GA: Valdosta State University. Retrieved from http://www.edpsycinteractive.org/topics/motivation/motivate.html[ Visited: 03-09-2014]
Watch the video:
RSA Animate.(2010).The surprising truth about what motivates us.Retrived from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc[ Visited:03-09-2014]
For tips go to...Improve student motivation
Teachthought.2012,November 12th).21 Simple Ideas To Improve Student Motivation[Message 1].Retrived from http://www.teachthought.com/teaching/21-simple-ideas-to-improve-student-motivatio/
miércoles, 27 de agosto de 2014
Week#1 : Meaningful Learning
WHAT IS MEANINGFUL LEARNING?
Go to this slide show: Meaningful Learning
Stratton,N.(2011).What is meaningful learning?.Retrived from http://www.slideshare.net/nicstt/what-is-meaningful-learning-7403262/[Visited:27/08/2014]
Bedingfiel,N.(2007).Meaningful Engaged Learning Model Cartoons.Retrived from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-Y1Asp9qYQ[ Visited:27-08-2014]
Welcome
PRESENTATION:
Hello! My name is Catalina Durán, I am an English teacher, my passions are reading, investigate, teaching and learning. My purpose with this Blog is sharing knowledge,experiences and strategies for Teaching English with my colleagues of Colypro in the course "Estrategias Didácticas para la enseñanza del Inglés" imparted by Msc.Errol Vargas Hernández . I hope you enjoy this Blog as much as I do it.OBJECTIVE:
This blog delivers the objective to share experiences and materials that will enrich your pedagogical practice as a teacher in order to make English classes more meaningful and fun for our students.You will find, articles, videos, ideas, examples and even more for this purpose.
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