Hands on Activities

Hands on Activities are a method which uses instructional techniques in order to manipulate the classroom sources. In this way the teacher is a guide and the student learn by creating and performing in class.

Suggestopedia Method

In this method the teacher has the control of the students in order to manage a guided class and cause a disposition on acquiring the second language.

https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B-C8mhvLq2rsN0VIMElTcDlTcHc

Methods and Keywords presented in class

     The Oral Approach and Situational Language Teaching

• The learner has to listen and repeat
• The teacher has the control of the content
• Language learning is habit-formation
• It's useful for beginners
• Put emphasis in grammar and pronunciation

     Total Physical Response (Asher)

• Speech-Action (repeat)
• Positive mood
• Teacher plays an active and direct role
• Students: listener/performer
• Activities: Role plays

     Communicative Language Teaching

• Communicative competence
• contextualization (social-culture)
• Learner-centered and experience based
• Meaning is paramount
• Group and pair work, interaction between students

     Suggestopedia

• Authoritative
• Performance
• Unconscious
• Music
• Therapy

     The Silent Way

• Responsibility
• Autonomous
• Grammatical and Lexical items are discovered by students
• Experienced Learning
• Rods, Chart and Symbols.

     Intercultural Communicative Competence

• Linguistic Competence
• Sociolinguistic Competence
• Discourse Competence

Audiolingual Method

• Foreign language
• Pattern Grammar
• Drill – mechanical exercises
• Structured
• Phonetic, syntax, morphology

Practicum Reflection

Type of school: Public

Number of students per classroom: 33 per classroom.

Numbers of hours a week: Two hours a week.

Textbook: FUN WAY: Student Book, FUN WAY: Cutouts and Picture Dictionary Booklet, FUN WAY: Home Practice.

Design: The classroom activities consisted in the use of the textbooks mention before, which the students used to work on them all the time. The instructions were the following: color in, trace, cut, match, draw and write.

Student´s and Teacher´s motivation / roles: The English class was purely based in behaviorism in order to create an atmosphere of control of the class. The students were given commands before doing the activities. The teacher only used the textbooks to give instructions and explain the subject. She didn’t encourage the students doing extra activities apart from the books. She didn’t write on the whiteboard any word to solve doubts. Sometimes children didn’t know what to do after the explanation of the activities.

Assessment (test, instruments): Similar to the activities from the textbooks. Students were assessed by doing texts based in mechanical skills (color in, trace, cut, match, draw and write).

Use of technology: Although the school had a computer room with a data-show, the teacher never did a class in there. She used too much the textbooks but none other source.

What design would you propose to improve the English subject in that school?

In the case of teaching English to little children of 1^st grade of Primary School, I think it is important to design not just one method but create several alternatives to do the English class a dynamic and interesting one.

During my practicum I experienced this need from the students, so I decided to ask the teacher to develop some extra activities in order to recall the units and their vocabulary. To do this I create many activities such as; songs played with guitar, Bingos of animals, cards to be memorized and so on.

The teacher should encourage her/his students; he/she must be a guide.

The nature of approaches and methods 2

Monday, March 19, 2012

Design

 Design is the level of method analysis in which we consider:

     v  What the objectives of a method are

v  How language content is selected and organized within the method (the syllabus)

v  The types of learning tasks and teaching activities the method advocates

v  The roles of learners

v  The roles of teachers

v  The role of instructional materials

Objectives

“Learning is not seen as the means of accumulating but as the means of becoming a more proficient learner in whatever one is engaged in” (Gattegno). The degree to which a method has process-oriented or product-oriented objectives may be revealed in how much emphasis is placed on vocabulary acquisition and grammatical proficiency and in how grammatical or pronunciation errors are treated in the method.

Content choice and organization: the syllabus

Decisions about the choice of language content relate both to subject matter and linguistic matter. In simple terms, one makes decisions about what to talk about (subject matter) and how to talk about it (linguistic matter).

By tradition the term syllabus has been used to refer to the form in which linguistic content is specified in a course or method. Inevitably the term has been more closely associated with methods that are product centered rather than those that are process centered.

Types of learning and teaching activities

The activity types that a method advocates often serve to distinguish methods. Differences in activity types in methods may also involve different arrangements and groupings of learners.

Learner roles

The design of an instructional system will be considerably influenced by how learners are regarded. A method reflects explicit or implicit responses to questions concerning the learners’ contribution to the learning process. The learner is seen as processor, performer, initiator, problem solver.

Teacher roles

The role of the teacher will ultimately reflect both the objectives of the methods and the learning theory on which the method is predicated, since the success of a method may depend on the degree to which the teacher can provide the content or create the conditions for successful language learning.

The role of instructional materials

The instructional materials in their turn further specify subject matter content, even where no syllabus exists, and define or suggest the intensity of coverage for syllabus items, allocating the amount of time, attention, and detail particular syllabus items or tasks require. Instructional materials also define or imply the day-to-day learning objectives that collectively constitute the goals of the syllabus.

The role of instructional materials within a method or instructional system will reflect decisions concerning the primary goal of materials, the form of materials, the relation of materials to other sources of input, and the abilities of teachers.

Procedure

This level describes how a method realizes its approach and design in classroom behavior. Procedure focuses on the way a method handles the presentation, practice, and feedback phases of teaching.

The nature of approaches and methods 1

Wednesday, March 14, 2012

The different realities within a classroom make the teacher’s role a complex matter to accomplish. Linguists and language specialists have tried to study the nature of approaches and methods to find a guide to facilitate the teaching-learning process.

There are three levels of conceptualization and organization: Approach, method and technique.

v  Approach is a set of correlative assumptions. It describes the nature matter to be taught.

v  Method is a plan for the orderly presentation of language material.

v  Technique is a particular tactic used to accomplish an immediate objective.

Approach

Approach refers to theories about the nature of language and language learning that serve as the source of practices and principles in language teaching.

Theory of language

Three different theoretical views of language and the nature of language skill inform current approaches and methods in language teaching.

v  Structural view: language is a system of structurally related elements for the coding of meaning.

v  Functional view: language is a vehicle for the expression of functional meaning. It emphasizes the semantic and communicative dimensions.

v  Interactional view: language is a vehicle for the realization of interpersonal relations and for the performance of social transactions between individuals.

Theory of language learning

Learning theories associated with a method at the level of approach may emphasize either one or both of the following dimensions:

v  Process-oriented theories build on learning processes, such as habit formation, induction, inferencing, hypothesis testing, and generalization.

v  Condition-oriented theories emphasize the nature of the human and physical context in which language learning takes place.

March 12th

What is the role of textbooks?

The role of textbooks is principally to recognize the context by reading through vocabulary previously learnt. Textbooks contain information taken from the real world, and this information can be written in many different styles such as informative, descriptive, persuasive, narrative and instructive texts. Also textbooks contain grammar content which is the base of the language.

March 12th

How are we teaching English in Chile?

In our country most people don’t know how to speak English, that’s why it’s important nor just to teach the subject but to teach it accurately. Our idiosyncrasy stops us to improve in English skills which are necessary for the development of Chile.

According to the videos which are taken from the reality, show us that in Chile teachers have applied traditional methods that weren’t working out. In order to make a change, a group of teachers are implementing new methods to teach English in a different way. One of these methods seen in the videos is to communicate through speaking and listening skills.

As a conclusion teachers are looking for new methods and techniques to create a real teaching-learning process.