RATIONALE
This task aimed at improving students’ motivation and Reading comprehension at Agustin Codazzi School. Agustin Codazzi students like English but they do not like reading English due to their lack of reading skills. These tasks helped them feel happy and motivated towards reading in English as they stimulated students’ imagination, creativity and participation. The purpose of this task was to engage students in different activities by using Pre, while and post stages, also, learners used Internet resources so as to explore, propose and create new things based on the previous reading activities.
PROFILE OF THE LEARNERS
This task was carried out with a group of 21 students, who are in 11th grade at a public school in Neiva. Most of them like English but when they have to face a piece of reading, they say they feel confused and frustrated because they do not understand a word, also, because they lack effective strategies to deal with English texts. The school is located in the south part of Neiva. Students come from poor areas. We usually work with a textbook that is called “American Shine for teens”. They normally get copies from the book. Their ages range from 16 to 19 years old. They are well-behaved. They dream of having a better future. Their English level is very low and the purpose of these reading tasks is to help them improve their ICFES results so that they can have the chance to enter any public university.
OBJECTIVE OF TASKS
1. To motivate students towards reading in English.
2. To guide them in the use of web resources to explore, create and propose.
3. To develop effective reading strategies by using pre, while and post-stages when reading environmental articles.
4. To create awareness about the importance of taking care of the environment
PROCEDURE
Pre-reading stage
The teacher showed the students a video about The Amazon drought. The video was about the lack of water in some parts of the Amazon and the way some rivers have died out. Students gave their insights and reflections about the topic and the video. Most of their comments were in Spanish because they wanted to express their ideas and thoughts in relation to this environmental problem. They do not feel confident when talking in English.
Then the teacher gave the students the copies of the reading, which had some blanks to be completed according to the listening of that text.
The students liked the activity although it was very difficult for them. However some of them understood some words from the listening exercise.
Then the teacher explained the meaning of some words from the listening exercise and asked students to read the text again at home and complete the reading comprehension exercises.
While-reading stage
The teacher selected some students to read the text aloud, meanwhile he was correcting some pronunciation mistakes students normally make when reading.
After reading the text, the teacher revised the comprehension exercises and students socialize the answers with the whole class.
Post- reading stage
The teacher explained to the students how to create a Facebook group; he actually created it and asked students to participate actively. The purpose was to get 100 members and now, the Facebook group has 95 members who support the campaign against the Amazon drought and all the consequences it has on nature and wild life.
Students are pretty motivated to participate in the facebook group as they have never done it before. This is a good opportunity for them to use technology. However, most of the comments were made in Spanish. Students, at least, participated a lot. This is a good start for them. They feel they can do something useful and real.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF SOURCES
In order to carry out this activity, I used an on-line article that was taken from www.breakingnewsenglish.com. Also, I used a video that I downloaded from www.youtube.com in order to show students how affected the Amazon was.
Article link; http://www.breakingnewsenglish.com/0510/051017-amazon-e.html
DISCUSSION
Well, there are many things I can tell in relation to this task. I could notice that students lack opportunities to explore new things and those opportunities should be given by teachers. They really enjoyed this task. Most of them participated a lot, they were willing to collaborate. They paid attention. They were really engaged with the facebook group. Many positive aspects came out from this experience.
On the other hand, there are some things I would like to change next time I decide to carry out any type of task. Next time, I would like to provide students with colorful articles so that they could see clear images. The copies were not good. I would try to get a more comfortable classroom for them to feel better and concentrate more on the task. The classroom was so hot and they got distracted.
In general, the activity was nice and students really liked it. They had never received a class with a laptop and a video beam so it was amazing for them. Students need to be given chances to imagine, dream and like English.
FACEBOOK GROUP;
file:///C:/Users/Hernan%20Dario/Documents/Master's%20program/Language%20learning%20resources/group.php.htm
Thursday, October 7, 2010
Saturday, September 18, 2010
Discussion Question
What kinds of teaching materials do you use to enrich and adapt your coursebooks?
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Improving second language acquisition
Improving second language acquisition processes
When I started to study Foreign Languages, at Universidad Surcolombiana, I didn’t imagine I was going to be in charge of such responsibility, which is teaching. Teaching is a very complex process that involves so many factors that need to be taken into account so as to make our students learn meaningfully, but sometimes, I used to ask myself why my students didn’t learn if I was bringing many activities and I was trying to do what I learnt at the university. Sometimes, I thought it was due to our educational system which is extremely flexible to some extent. So, what is going on? Am I doing a good job?
It is relevant to contrast and consider the way we learn our first language and the way we acquire the second language. When learning our first language, the atmosphere is appropriate to get it; our parents help us discover what is unknown and the necessity we have to communicate motivates us to learn it and use it. On the opposite, when acquiring a second language, is like getting a new soul, a new culture, a new way of thinking, feeling and acting, so the process is more complex without a doubt. It is also important to consider, as Brown proposes; the learner characteristics, linguistic factors, learning processes, age and acquisition, context and purpose of learning the second language. To sum up, I started to think that I had underestimated and disregarded my students when thinking they couldn’t learn a second language while there are many aspects involved.
So, I came to the conclusion I have to motivate my students to learn English. Affective factors are undoubtedly immersed and they aren’t motivated at all. Love is the engine that moves the whole world, therefore, I should relate my students’ reality to the topics we use in the classroom to learn English so that they can love English and classes will turn out to be successful and meaningful for them, but we, as teachers, have to cope with another problem; not everybody is that motivated. Why is that?
We hardly ever take into account our students’ learning styles, and it is a MUST to analyze their acts and behaviors. Some of our students are field independent; some of them are field dependent. Field independent students aren’t good at working in groups because they usually prefer working individually, on the contrary, field dependent students like working in groups and cooperative learning can be such a good strategy to have them learn. By knowing this, our grouping techniques will be selected according to the community we are working with.
It is extremely important to try to determine if our students are visual; “learners who prefer reading and studying charts, drawings and graphic information”, auditory; “learners who like listening to lectures and audiotapes” or kinesthetic; “learners who prefer demonstrations and physical activity involving bodily movement”, Brown, (p. 129).
Our classrooms are also full of students who are ambiguity tolerant; in other words, students who easily accept changes and new ways of communication. While others are reluctant to understand different structures and expressions that are used in a second language; ambiguity intolerant. Those ambiguity tolerant students can help us lead certain activities in the classroom, such as; presentations, sketches, etc, and they can also help us with those students who do not want to participate and work because they think English is useless.
These are important clues we have to use to choose appropriate activities that correspond to our students’ learning styles. Most of the time, we don’t know these styles and we just go to the classroom and give traditional classes in which students get bored, and sleepy. These learning styles imply and suggest that we must design a wide variety of activities. Those activities should get our students involved in the English learning, those activities should make our students enjoy it and learn it in a meaningful way. In my opinion, meaningful has just to do with taking advantage of our students’ reality and context to make the English learning enjoyable and contextualized, but what is our students’ reality?
Our students’ reality is the use of technology; facebook, sonico, badoo, messenger, e-mail, blogs, on-line games, 3D simulators and all types of devices which they are more familiarized with than we are, but it does not mean we cannot use those elements to improve our teaching methods. We can’t detach learners from their reality and their real world is the use of computers.
However, Technology has advantages and disadvantages and some advantages are; the use of authentic material to learn English, the possibility to interact with native speakers without traveling that far, the use of visuals and sound. Unfortunately, technology has disadvantages as well, such as; the access to all types of information; porn, violent contents, etc. Based on that, we should also help our students identify what is appropriate and what is not, nevertheless, it is relevant to start using technology in our classes. In that way, we are responding to our students’ contexts and at the same time they are learning new things.
There are many things we can do, and even though, we have many problems; especially public schools. We, as teachers, can take advantage of some of the resources we have. Students come to our classrooms and their brains are just ready to learn as many things as they can. Our difficult task consists of motivating them, first, I think it is crucial to motivate them and help them build-up a high self-esteem, second, we have to promote different activities in the classroom and out of it. The use of technology plays an important role, and it helps our students lower their level of anxiety and shyness because they won’t have anybody telling them how many mistakes they made.
Traditional classes are not worthy; our world is running faster thanks to technology, the teacher should be a facilitator not an authority. Learning should be a nice opportunity for students to express themselves, to share, to communicate, and to become disciplined, studious. It is our job to help them develop critical thinking skills through different activities that match their learning styles.
Colombia has many social, economic and educational difficulties, but it does not mean we should be passive and keep on doing the same and making the same mistakes other people have made in the past. As our world changes, we should also change so that we can have better and top notch methods to teach and not only change our students’ minds but also their hearts.
When I started to study Foreign Languages, at Universidad Surcolombiana, I didn’t imagine I was going to be in charge of such responsibility, which is teaching. Teaching is a very complex process that involves so many factors that need to be taken into account so as to make our students learn meaningfully, but sometimes, I used to ask myself why my students didn’t learn if I was bringing many activities and I was trying to do what I learnt at the university. Sometimes, I thought it was due to our educational system which is extremely flexible to some extent. So, what is going on? Am I doing a good job?
It is relevant to contrast and consider the way we learn our first language and the way we acquire the second language. When learning our first language, the atmosphere is appropriate to get it; our parents help us discover what is unknown and the necessity we have to communicate motivates us to learn it and use it. On the opposite, when acquiring a second language, is like getting a new soul, a new culture, a new way of thinking, feeling and acting, so the process is more complex without a doubt. It is also important to consider, as Brown proposes; the learner characteristics, linguistic factors, learning processes, age and acquisition, context and purpose of learning the second language. To sum up, I started to think that I had underestimated and disregarded my students when thinking they couldn’t learn a second language while there are many aspects involved.
So, I came to the conclusion I have to motivate my students to learn English. Affective factors are undoubtedly immersed and they aren’t motivated at all. Love is the engine that moves the whole world, therefore, I should relate my students’ reality to the topics we use in the classroom to learn English so that they can love English and classes will turn out to be successful and meaningful for them, but we, as teachers, have to cope with another problem; not everybody is that motivated. Why is that?
We hardly ever take into account our students’ learning styles, and it is a MUST to analyze their acts and behaviors. Some of our students are field independent; some of them are field dependent. Field independent students aren’t good at working in groups because they usually prefer working individually, on the contrary, field dependent students like working in groups and cooperative learning can be such a good strategy to have them learn. By knowing this, our grouping techniques will be selected according to the community we are working with.
It is extremely important to try to determine if our students are visual; “learners who prefer reading and studying charts, drawings and graphic information”, auditory; “learners who like listening to lectures and audiotapes” or kinesthetic; “learners who prefer demonstrations and physical activity involving bodily movement”, Brown, (p. 129).
Our classrooms are also full of students who are ambiguity tolerant; in other words, students who easily accept changes and new ways of communication. While others are reluctant to understand different structures and expressions that are used in a second language; ambiguity intolerant. Those ambiguity tolerant students can help us lead certain activities in the classroom, such as; presentations, sketches, etc, and they can also help us with those students who do not want to participate and work because they think English is useless.
These are important clues we have to use to choose appropriate activities that correspond to our students’ learning styles. Most of the time, we don’t know these styles and we just go to the classroom and give traditional classes in which students get bored, and sleepy. These learning styles imply and suggest that we must design a wide variety of activities. Those activities should get our students involved in the English learning, those activities should make our students enjoy it and learn it in a meaningful way. In my opinion, meaningful has just to do with taking advantage of our students’ reality and context to make the English learning enjoyable and contextualized, but what is our students’ reality?
Our students’ reality is the use of technology; facebook, sonico, badoo, messenger, e-mail, blogs, on-line games, 3D simulators and all types of devices which they are more familiarized with than we are, but it does not mean we cannot use those elements to improve our teaching methods. We can’t detach learners from their reality and their real world is the use of computers.
However, Technology has advantages and disadvantages and some advantages are; the use of authentic material to learn English, the possibility to interact with native speakers without traveling that far, the use of visuals and sound. Unfortunately, technology has disadvantages as well, such as; the access to all types of information; porn, violent contents, etc. Based on that, we should also help our students identify what is appropriate and what is not, nevertheless, it is relevant to start using technology in our classes. In that way, we are responding to our students’ contexts and at the same time they are learning new things.
There are many things we can do, and even though, we have many problems; especially public schools. We, as teachers, can take advantage of some of the resources we have. Students come to our classrooms and their brains are just ready to learn as many things as they can. Our difficult task consists of motivating them, first, I think it is crucial to motivate them and help them build-up a high self-esteem, second, we have to promote different activities in the classroom and out of it. The use of technology plays an important role, and it helps our students lower their level of anxiety and shyness because they won’t have anybody telling them how many mistakes they made.
Traditional classes are not worthy; our world is running faster thanks to technology, the teacher should be a facilitator not an authority. Learning should be a nice opportunity for students to express themselves, to share, to communicate, and to become disciplined, studious. It is our job to help them develop critical thinking skills through different activities that match their learning styles.
Colombia has many social, economic and educational difficulties, but it does not mean we should be passive and keep on doing the same and making the same mistakes other people have made in the past. As our world changes, we should also change so that we can have better and top notch methods to teach and not only change our students’ minds but also their hearts.
Friday, April 17, 2009
The importance of being an english teacher!!!
I never imagined I was going to be an english teacher, and I didn't even think about how much I was going to enjoy it. There are two important things that I would like to talk about...
First of all, I have to say that being a teacher is such a difficult job, because you have the challenge to shape and change people's minds and hearts, and it gets more difficult when you have to teach a second language. A second language is like a second soul, and it gives you the capacity to broaden your way of thinking.
In conclusion, not only are you an english teacher but also a person that guides, shapes, and helps people think out of the box.
First of all, I have to say that being a teacher is such a difficult job, because you have the challenge to shape and change people's minds and hearts, and it gets more difficult when you have to teach a second language. A second language is like a second soul, and it gives you the capacity to broaden your way of thinking.
In conclusion, not only are you an english teacher but also a person that guides, shapes, and helps people think out of the box.
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