Speaking is one of the two productive skills together with writing. Thus, we have proposed a debate to develop the speaking capacity of a group of pupils. The topic of the debate must be asked previously to the students in order to create a debate of their interest. So, after the questions we have chosen tattoos as the topic of our debate. When students have to produce own speeches their social competences are also improved, as it is said in the curriculum of the ESO by la Junta de Andalucía, so we have achieve one of the objectives of this curriculum. On the other hand, other of the objectives is to be understood after hear and learn the oral messages that the other students produces, it means an intercommunication, a dialogue between boys and girls in which also other skills such as listening are developed, and this is also achieved through a debate. Furthermore, the ideal sequence of speaking must to be to make a plan, to organize and finally to speak, and this is the structure we are going to promote according to the order of 10 August, 2007. It is also very important that the students can communicate in fact; it is the most important fact in the learning of second languages. Here the teacher must take control of the situation and even help the students in some cases to create their own speeches. Finally I would like to mention that the way this skill must be evaluated is taking into account the individual capacities, the effort and the global sense of the speeches. In this way we are also following the previously mentioned curriculum. To sum up, I would like to say that with our activity we want to get both to follow the curriculum of the ESO by the Junta de Andalucía and to develop the students’ capacity of speaking.
As we know listening is a very important skill and it has an essential role in order to improve the other skills. We will pay attention to the comprehension of the listening, and the structure of the messages should be more complex as we go on with the lessons (depending on the situations and the type of the texts). The students will be previously asked, obviously, in order to know their likes. The important points to deal with are the followings: - We will work with original version videos and films, related to their hobbies and cultural issues, in order to deal with different competencies. - Songs are also a good idea. They would have the chance of listening and understanding lyrics composed by their favorite singers and artists. - Radio and telephone conversations have an added difficulty, so it is good to work with them. Listening to a radio interview or a conversation ordering some Chinese food, can be two examples. - Lessons or lectures given by a native speaker are quite intersecting. They could face a native speaker and the native accent. - In relation to the previous point, it is good to explain the special characteristics and teach them how distinguish between British English and American English. These are the main points in our view, but we have also to take into account the way we should assess our students. The capacity to understand the meaning of the listening activities in different context and also the capacity to identify the most relevant information will be evaluated. And the capacity of memorizing oral texts will be also taken into account.
In terms of reading we have to pay attention to the comprehension and expression of what students read. They should enjoy by reading and consider it as a means of information or transference of values. So, we have thought about a first activity which consists on asking students what are their interests or likes in order to motivate them. We will choose practical texts and related to their reality and lives because they will be able to understand better what they are reading. They will read newspapers' articles related to sport, music, cinema, present time... We have thought about these topics because we think that students can be interested in them. Moreover, they will read books that they will choose depending on their likes and interest. At a final activity, they could do a presentation (speaking activity), write a work (writing activity) or make a contribution on the blog about the book and their experience by reading it. The most important thing concerning with reading will be the comprehension of the text by the students and their capacity to express and communicate what they read to other people.
Listening is one of the most important skills children have to develope in order to communicate. Children must learn how to listen to the others and how to listen different kinds of information so the variety of listenings and the difficulty must be varied and progressively harder. Before preparing the activities of listening, students must be asked what would they like to listen to, what topics are they interested in or which type of music or singers they like. Once we have that information, we can prepare our listening materials alternating their likings and cultural issues. Some materials could be: - Original version videos or films with subtitles taking into account what they like and the competences they have to develope. - Radio and telephone listenings would be interesting because it is a harder task that a non native speaker of English has to face in real life. - Songs proposed by students with exercices like "filling the gaps". - Live listening with native speakers (it would be interesting to bring an American and a British at the same time so they can appreciate the accents they have) These proposals have to compile the different ways in which the students have to understand and extract information from them using different strategies so the teacher can assess the students the best way as possible.
When we talked about the planification of the use of speaking, one of the productive skills, we decided to perform a debate between the students. According to the ESO curriculum of 10 August 2007, debate together with conversation and dialogue are the forms to advance on the teaching of the combination of skills listening and speaking.
The work that will be done in previous sessions to the debate are: -The decision of the topic, that is agreed between the students and the teacher in a previous session, so that the teacher is sure the students are motivated and will actively participate thanks to their interest. -The teacher will show how different debates are between the students' mother tongue and their second language, in this case Spanish and English; if they are different in any way. The explanation of usual expressions and formulation of arguments must be shown and explained as well, so that the students have something to start planning on. This would deal with the clear and respectful way of expressing the information the students must achieve; and also will help to reduce the social distance of the students with their second language, which is also contemplated by the ESO curriculum previously mentioned.
The students have time to find information about the topic themselves at home and then time during the lesson as well to put their information and opinions in common with their groups. Once they have all the information clear, they will have time to plan how their speech will be constructed using the information and expressions that they have from previous sessions. This will help to improve their improvisation of the language use during their dialogue with their groups and their skill with concrete expressions used in the debate language.
According to the curriculum, what the teacher must value in the students' speech must be their capacity to communicate their facts with a structure that assures global sense of the intended meaning. There is also the importance of the use of previously explained debate language and the students' effort on their own speech. Politeness and non-discriminatory language is also part of the things that the teacher has to evaluate.
Further work on the speaking skill can be done with the students with several other options. They could be encouraged to act some role-play as if they were in a television or radio program or they could be requested to perform oral presentations. These are also contemplated by the ESO curriculum of 2007.
In summary we have to point out that the students' motivation and effort are the main points in the planification of the activity. The direction of the teacher during the activity and the preparation in previous lessons are also valuable for the success of the intended work from the part of the students.
Writing is one of the two productive skills together with speaking. It is less relevant at the first stages of the obligatory education, but as the students go through the last two years of obligatory education and postobligatory education, this skill becomes more relevant. In other words, the students acquire the writing skill, progressively.
The teacher should consider reading and writing as cooperative skills. By reading the students decode texts written in a foreign language, and by writing the students codify a new text in a foreign language, as well. Thus, the progress in one of the skill affects considerably the other.
At the beginning the proposal for: ‘What and how to write?’ was applicable, mostly, to higher levels of education. But after reading the ‘Curriculum for ESO in Andalucía’ it has changed notably.
The contents, ‘what to write?’, are related to the ones proposed to develop the reading skill. They will be selected in terms of the interest, sex, age and context of the students. In the first stages, the messages produced by the student are functional ones, and progressively they will be writing more complex messages, even poetry, small theatrical stories, letters, and on the higher stage, in postobligatory education, they will be asked to write essays. At the last stage the students should show a clear domain on the coherence and cohesion of the text they codify.
The proposal about ‘ How to write?’ could be the following:
1. Reading about the topic proposed, which serves as a guide as provider of ideas to the text that the students will produce at the end. 2. Brainstorming about the ideas of the text and about the organization the author has carried out. 3. Creation of an ‘outline of organization’ which the students could use as a help for the text that they will produce. 4. Assignment: (either as class work or homework) which consists of the codification of a personal text, where it is shown what has been acquired. This last activity is the ‘object’ that the teacher uses to evaluate each of the students, since the previous work was done in group.
M. Carmen, well done, you have taken into account the legal framework and that was the point to tune up with you know how information. OK Ricardo. Gloria, ok, but you do not seem to make any reference to the official documents. The same for Inma. OK Tomás, but again, you should take into account the official BOJA/BOE documents. Isabel, I like the idea of reading and writing cooperatively, but I do not think you are planning such activities, well, somehow..
In order to make our students read, the first thing we should take into account is what they really want to read, as we can read in the BOJA for ESO, the reading activity should be a practice strongly connected with students’ reality. So, before starting the activity we ask the students about their preferences. The activity will consist on the following; the teacher will propose 4 different kinds of books for the reading (romantic, terror, historic or dramatic book) and the students should chose one of them for the activity. Although sometimes, the readings will be choose by the teacher from newspapers, in order to introduce the students in the nowadays situation of their country, in this way the reading will also be an instrument of knowledge, as it is proposed in the BOJA. The class will be divided into groups according to the book chose and their mode of working in the class. Each group will expose a final presentation in order to everyone in the class have a knowledge of the plot and characters from each of the books proposed by the teacher. This final presentation is also a method of evaluation, the teacher evaluated each of the groups, but they also evaluate each others. On the other hand, this final activity activated the creative and imaginative capacity of the students, as it is required in BOJA. In this way, we are also promoting the students to develop their capacity of speak in front of an audience, so we are working with two different skills: reading and speaking. At the same time, the students who are not exposing their work will be activating the listening capacity.
According to the curriculum of E.S.O. proposed by BOJA, writing involves to put your thoughts into words in a meaningful form and to mentally interact with the message (Inner speech). Furthermore, the writing skill helps the learner gain interdependence, comprehensibility, fluency, and creativity with the target language. Nevertheless, writing is the last of the skills being applied in the learning process although it is getting greater presence throughout the obligatory and post-obligatory education. Finally, it is important not to forget to stimulate and encourage creative writing (Inventive abilities) and to make students to work with their own experiences to enhance innovative but at the same time effective learning. Surely, learning to write is close related to learn to read, one supports the other. Besides, both are abilities acquired and developed through training or experiencing. Then, based on the Order of the August 10th, 2007 of the Junta de Andalucía, we have programmed the following activity to exercise the writing skill: The contents of the assignment will be selected depending on the students’ interests, sex, age and other contextual factors. After that, we will begin with a first contact with the topic (an extensive reading of a text for example); then, we will do a brainstorming of the main ideas and concepts on the matter; thirdly, we will draw an outline which will serve as a tool to guide them when writing their own text; and finally, the students will have to redact the assignment either at class or as homework to evaluate if they learnt how to write the chose text. Therefore, the procedure bellow constitutes a practice where reading and writing go together in a closed process: 1st) to decode the signs, 2nd) to recognize the main ideas, 3rd) to comprehend them, and 4th) to experience the act of codifying.
In order to improve the reading skill, I have thought about the following activity, taking into account the BOJA Curriculum: - It is said in the text that the reading has to be a pleasant activity for the student, so I decided to let the students choose between three different books with different themes, for example: adventures, love, and crime. This way, the student reads what he prefers and he does not get bored in the reading. The book should be read at home, and at the end of the term the student will do a test about the book, explaining the plot, main characters, and his personal opinion. - For class activities concerning with reading, the students will read articles about news, music, cinema, new tendencies... and they shall do some activities related to the text that will be corrected at the end of the class. This activity fits with the BOJA Curriculum, as it sais that the selected texts must have a practical function and that they must be linked to the students reality.
(First part) As future English teachers and according to the order of 10th August 2007 dealing with the ‘ESO’ curriculum by the ‘Junta de Andalucía’, we will have to develop the four basic linguistics skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing, including also what is now consider a different skill: talking. For this activity I am going to focus my attention on one of the five skills: listening, although it is important to say that in a real class, as we can read in the order mentioned before, neither of the five skills should be dealt separately but ones in combination with the others because neither of them are isolated skills. Before starting to work with a listening the and following the information of the 10th August order, a teacher must know that listening is one of the linguistics skills that takes the biggest part of our time in a communicative process so it is very important to work it and also to know how to do it. Other important aspect to bear in mind is that listening is a skill very developed in children but more complex in adults. Finally the teacher during the listening must be a guide and a cultural reference giving to the students the role of protagonists and addressees of the listening because we cannot forget that while listening we are at the same time learning culture, information, experiences, etc. so it should be the students who capture all the information and the protagonists of it. Now we can go to the resources that according to the order mentioned before we should use for our listening. We should use: familiar and scholar contexts, media (for example listening in television, radio, etc.) and academic molds that can be used as referents. The aims of our listening should be: to know to distinguish different dialects of the English language (also to know to recognize them in the media), to learn to listen and also to understand the importance of this skill in the study of a language, to learn to pay attention and respect the interlocutor and the information described in the listening, the memorization of basic texts and also the basic comprehension of information with a more difficult structure (descriptions, opinions, dialogues, etc.).
(Second part) Having all these in mind, the teacher can start to design the activities for the listening. The listening will be divided into three sections: pre- listening, while- listening and post-listening. The two first stages will correspond to the ear-training skill (discriminating sounds in isolated words, in connected speech, understanding intonation patterns, etc) and the last one will correspond to the comprehension skills (understanding of what is said). The pre-listening activity will consist in the following. The topic of this listening class will be English music in the 60´s. The teacher will give a little explanation about the music situation of that time: ‘The 1960's are remembered nostalgically in Britain as the 'rock and roll' years. This was the decade that British pop music erupted with energy, and through creating big stars of this phenomena, like The Beatles and The Rolling Stones, British pop music exploded onto the world scene. This was the flower power generation, when folk were encouraged to dance, wear wild clothing, and dig the music. This was the seminal time of social rebellion in the UK, led by the young, and music was leading the way in this social and cultural revolution’. After that the teacher will give to the students a list with some of the most influential music in the 60´s: the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, The Byrd's, The Small Faces and The Kinks. The class will be divided into five groups. Each group will have one music group and each group will have to choose one song of their musical group (the song that they most like). That is the task they have to do the previous day to the listening and after having choose a song, they will have to send to the teacher an email with the link where they have listened their song (it has to be a video clip in order that students get familiar with the clothes and context of that times). The next day the teacher will put in class the links with the five video clips and students (this time individually) will have to vote which is their favorite song. The song most votes obtains, will be the song for the listening activities. In that way, before the listening, all of them have had contact with songs in English and also with the song that they are going to work; and the most important thing, despite the fact that they have been involved in the election of the listening, they have been motivated because they are going to work with the song that most like them. In this case we are going to imagine that they have chosen ‘All you need is love’ (The Beatles): LOVE, LOVE, LOVE, LOVE, LOVE, LOVE, LOVE, LOVE, LOVE THERE´S NOTHING YOU CAN DO THAT CAN´T BE DONE. NOTHING YOU CAN SING THAT CAN´T BE SUNG. NOTHING YOU CAN SAY BUT YOU CAN LEARN HOW TO PLAY THE GAME -IT´S EASY. NOTHING YOU CAN MAKE THAT CAN´T BE MADE NO ONE YOU CAN SAVE THAT CAN´T BE SAVED NOTHING YOU CAN DO BUT YOU CAN LEARN HOW TO BE YOU IN TIME - IT´S EASY.
ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE, ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE, LOVE, LOVE IS ALL YOU NEED. LOVE, LOVE, LOVE, LOVE, LOVE, LOVE, LOVE, LOVE, LOVE ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE, ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE, LOVE, LOVE IS ALL YOU NEED. THERE´S NOTHING YOU CAN KNOW THAT ISN´T KNOWN NOTHING YOU CAN SEE THAT ISN´T SHOWN NOWHERE YOU CAN BE THAT ISN´T WHERE YOU´RE MEANT TO BE -IT´S EASY.
ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE, ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE, LOVE, LOVE IS ALL YOU NEED. ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE, (ALL TOGETHER, NOW), ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE (EVERYBODY) ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE, LOVE, LOVE IS ALL YOU NEED
(Third part) The next day they are going to work the while and post listening. In the while-listening the teacher will give them a photocopy with the lyric of the song but there is something strange in this photocopy: some words are missing and instead of them there are symbols! For example instead of the word ‘love’ there is a circle, instead of the word ‘can’ there is a square and instead of the word ‘can´t’ there is a rhombus. So listening the song they have to guess which are the words that those pictures represent. The aim of this task is to focus their attention into two points: one, the topic of the song which is LOVE, and two: to focus their attention in the use of the modals CAN/CAN´T. In this exercise they are transferring different codes: listening, pictures, and writing. Another while-listening activity can be that after the previous one, they have to give back to the paper and when in the song they listen ‘love’ they will have to up their arms, when they listen the word ‘can’ they will have to clap in time one, and when they listen ‘can´t’ they will have to claps in time two, with the aim of identifying the words without the text. After that they will pass to the post-listening activity that as it is based on the comprehension of the song, it cannot be based just on the listening but also in other kind of activities that imply writing or speaking. In this case in groups they will have to choose two verses of the song that they most like and then they will have to read the sentences to the other groups and explain why they like those sentences. In this exercise they are putting in practice what they have understood of the song, reproducing the sounds they have listened before and at the same time they are communicating between them. With this listening activities we have worked the points mentioned at the beginning according to the order 10th August as for example working with media, give the prominence to the students, give them the opportunity to choose, exercises where they have listened, recognized, reproduced and understand sounds, we have worked with a scholar context (the music of the 60´s and the use of modals) and although we were more focused on the listening skill we have worked also others such as reading and speaking.
Javier yo no sé si mi comentario ya te había llegado. Yo me acabo de conectar para ver si estaba evaluado y me encuentro con que mi comentario no está. Esto me va traer a mí por la calle de la amargura. Aprovecho para comentarte que el lunes empezamos MªCarmen y yo las practicas en el Bética Mudarra. Estuvimos allí el lunes pasado y nos trataron genial tanto Rafael, el profesor de inglés, como Rosa, la directora. Ya te iré comentando a lo largo de la semana lo que voy haciendo. Saludos.
Today has been my first day of practices in the college ‘el Carmen’. First, some weeks ago we had a meeting with the studies director D. Eduardo Castillo who really treated us very well and showed us the college. He gave us an appointment for last Friday 1st April and that day we had a meeting with the English teachers in order to assign us the tutor, the timetable and the courses. My tutor is Mª Jesús and the courses that I am going to see with her are 3º and 4º E.S.O. She said me that I should do the lesson plan for 4º E.S.O. The first days she told me that I´ll be observing and then I will start to teach. Today I have been introduced to the different courses and students have asked some curiosities as my hobbies, where I am from, etc. having a little conversation with them in English. After that the teacher has started with her lessons. The first hour has been with 3º A. In this case the teacher has corrected with them the homework (some in the blackboard and some orally) which consisted on exercises of vocabulary, one of true or false and another one of grammar. Then she has explained the conversion of adjectives into nouns and then they have read a text aloud. The final phase of this class has been a listening answering after it some questions and then the teacher has ordered them some exercise to do at home. She has followed the exercises and theory of the book although she has told me that sometimes she changes the order of the book. Students in general have been obeying her although in this class they talk too much between them. What I most like of this class has been that the teacher has dealt with vocabulary, grammar, reading and listening. The next hour has been with 4 B. IN this case I have come to class with a native man called Mathew who has one hour per week with each group. Mathews´ classes are base on the oral communication. What I have seen in this class is that they really do not know how lucky they are to have the opportunity to speak with a native boy because they have passed this hour laughing, talking in Spanish between them and almost do not doing any effort to have a conversation in English (one girl even has painted one´s nails during the lesson!). They said some things in English but they really did not listen at all to Mathew. The next lesson has been with Mª Jesús in 3º B. She has corrected the homework with them, they have translated a text orally, they have done grammar exercises and at the end she has asked them homework for the next day. This group has paid attention and also captures the explanations very quickly. This group is a little be more advanced in the book than the other and the teacher has told me at the end of the lesson that with them she goes quicker because they capture the information very soon. The last group has been 4º D and the process has been more or less the same: to check homework, doing exercises, a listening (that they have to do again for the next day because today we had not got time enough) and finally she asked for homework for the next day. There is one thing that I would like to comment. It is that I have seen that books continue being focused on grammar. Although there are texts and listenings the topics maybe are boring for them and the lessons can be a little bit monotonous. They do not have the opportunity of choosing in any case and they do not work in groups. I suppose that all of that will change little by little. As conclusion I can say that I am very happy with the teacher, the students, and the college. All people are being very kind with me and there are not problematic cases with the students in general. Today I have checked that I am sure of what I want to be. I am enjoining and wishing to start my own lessons. =)
Mª Carmen Llorente Tabas
ResponderEliminarSpeaking is one of the two productive skills together with writing. Thus, we have proposed a debate to develop the speaking capacity of a group of pupils. The topic of the debate must be asked previously to the students in order to create a debate of their interest. So, after the questions we have chosen tattoos as the topic of our debate. When students have to produce own speeches their social competences are also improved, as it is said in the curriculum of the ESO by la Junta de Andalucía, so we have achieve one of the objectives of this curriculum. On the other hand, other of the objectives is to be understood after hear and learn the oral messages that the other students produces, it means an intercommunication, a dialogue between boys and girls in which also other skills such as listening are developed, and this is also achieved through a debate.
Furthermore, the ideal sequence of speaking must to be to make a plan, to organize and finally to speak, and this is the structure we are going to promote according to the order of 10 August, 2007.
It is also very important that the students can communicate in fact; it is the most important fact in the learning of second languages. Here the teacher must take control of the situation and even help the students in some cases to create their own speeches.
Finally I would like to mention that the way this skill must be evaluated is taking into account the individual capacities, the effort and the global sense of the speeches. In this way we are also following the previously mentioned curriculum.
To sum up, I would like to say that with our activity we want to get both to follow the curriculum of the ESO by the Junta de Andalucía and to develop the students’ capacity of speaking.
As we know listening is a very important skill and it has an essential role in order to improve the other skills.
ResponderEliminarWe will pay attention to the comprehension of the listening, and the structure of the messages should be more complex as we go on with the lessons (depending on the situations and the type of the texts).
The students will be previously asked, obviously, in order to know their likes. The important points to deal with are the followings:
- We will work with original version videos and films, related to their hobbies and cultural issues, in order to deal with different competencies.
- Songs are also a good idea. They would have the chance of listening and understanding lyrics composed by their favorite singers and artists.
- Radio and telephone conversations have an added difficulty, so it is good to work with them. Listening to a radio interview or a conversation ordering some Chinese food, can be two examples.
- Lessons or lectures given by a native speaker are quite intersecting. They could face a native speaker and the native accent.
- In relation to the previous point, it is good to explain the special characteristics and teach them how distinguish between British English and American English.
These are the main points in our view, but we have also to take into account the way we should assess our students. The capacity to understand the meaning of the listening activities in different context and also the capacity to identify the most relevant information will be evaluated. And the capacity of memorizing oral texts will be also taken into account.
In terms of reading we have to pay attention to the comprehension and expression of what students read. They should enjoy by reading and consider it as a means of information or transference of values. So, we have thought about a first activity which consists on asking students what are their interests or likes in order to motivate them.
ResponderEliminarWe will choose practical texts and related to their reality and lives because they will be able to understand better what they are reading.
They will read newspapers' articles related to sport, music, cinema, present time... We have thought about these topics because we think that students can be interested in them. Moreover, they will read books that they will choose depending on their likes and interest. At a final activity, they could do a presentation (speaking activity), write a work (writing activity) or make a contribution on the blog about the book and their experience by reading it.
The most important thing concerning with reading will be the comprehension of the text by the students and their capacity to express and communicate what they read to other people.
Listening is one of the most important skills children have to develope in order to communicate. Children must learn how to listen to the others and how to listen different kinds of information so the variety of listenings and the difficulty must be varied and progressively harder.
ResponderEliminarBefore preparing the activities of listening, students must be asked what would they like to listen to, what topics are they interested in or which type of music or singers they like. Once we have that information, we can prepare our listening materials alternating their likings and cultural issues.
Some materials could be:
- Original version videos or films with subtitles taking into account what they like and the competences they have to develope.
- Radio and telephone listenings would be interesting because it is a harder task that a non native speaker of English has to face in real life.
- Songs proposed by students with exercices like "filling the gaps".
- Live listening with native speakers (it would be interesting to bring an American and a British at the same time so they can appreciate the accents they have)
These proposals have to compile the different ways in which the students have to understand and extract information from them using different strategies so the teacher can assess the students the best way as possible.
When we talked about the planification of the use of speaking, one of the productive skills, we decided to perform a debate between the students. According to the ESO curriculum of 10 August 2007, debate together with conversation and dialogue are the forms to advance on the teaching of the combination of skills listening and speaking.
ResponderEliminarThe work that will be done in previous sessions to the debate are:
-The decision of the topic, that is agreed between the students and the teacher in a previous session, so that the teacher is sure the students are motivated and will actively participate thanks to their interest.
-The teacher will show how different debates are between the students' mother tongue and their second language, in this case Spanish and English; if they are different in any way. The explanation of usual expressions and formulation of arguments must be shown and explained as well, so that the students have something to start planning on. This would deal with the clear and respectful way of expressing the information the students must achieve; and also will help to reduce the social distance of the students with their second language, which is also contemplated by the ESO curriculum previously mentioned.
The students have time to find information about the topic themselves at home and then time during the lesson as well to put their information and opinions in common with their groups. Once they have all the information clear, they will have time to plan how their speech will be constructed using the information and expressions that they have from previous sessions. This will help to improve their improvisation of the language use during their dialogue with their groups and their skill with concrete expressions used in the debate language.
According to the curriculum, what the teacher must value in the students' speech must be their capacity to communicate their facts with a structure that assures global sense of the intended meaning. There is also the importance of the use of previously explained debate language and the students' effort on their own speech. Politeness and non-discriminatory language is also part of the things that the teacher has to evaluate.
Further work on the speaking skill can be done with the students with several other options. They could be encouraged to act some role-play as if they were in a television or radio program or they could be requested to perform oral presentations. These are also contemplated by the ESO curriculum of 2007.
In summary we have to point out that the students' motivation and effort are the main points in the planification of the activity. The direction of the teacher during the activity and the preparation in previous lessons are also valuable for the success of the intended work from the part of the students.
Este comentario ha sido eliminado por un administrador del blog.
ResponderEliminarWriting is one of the two productive skills together with speaking. It is less relevant at the first stages of the obligatory education, but as the students go through the last two years of obligatory education and postobligatory education, this skill becomes more relevant. In other words, the students acquire the writing skill, progressively.
ResponderEliminarThe teacher should consider reading and writing as cooperative skills. By reading the students decode texts written in a foreign language, and by writing the students codify a new text in a foreign language, as well. Thus, the progress in one of the skill affects considerably the other.
At the beginning the proposal for: ‘What and how to write?’ was applicable, mostly, to higher levels of education. But after reading the ‘Curriculum for ESO in Andalucía’ it has changed notably.
The contents, ‘what to write?’, are related to the ones proposed to develop the reading skill. They will be selected in terms of the interest, sex, age and context of the students. In the first stages, the messages produced by the student are functional ones, and progressively they will be writing more complex messages, even poetry, small theatrical stories, letters, and on the higher stage, in postobligatory education, they will be asked to write essays. At the last stage the students should show a clear domain on the coherence and cohesion of the text they codify.
The proposal about ‘ How to write?’ could be the following:
1. Reading about the topic proposed, which serves as a guide as provider of ideas to the text that the students will produce at the end.
2. Brainstorming about the ideas of the text and about the organization the author has carried out.
3. Creation of an ‘outline of organization’ which the students could use as a help for the text that they will produce.
4. Assignment: (either as class work or homework) which consists of the codification of a personal text, where it is shown what has been acquired. This last activity is the ‘object’ that the teacher uses to evaluate each of the students, since the previous work was done in group.
M. Carmen, well done, you have taken into account the legal framework and that was the point to tune up with you know how information.
ResponderEliminarOK Ricardo.
Gloria, ok, but you do not seem to make any reference to the official documents.
The same for Inma.
OK Tomás, but again, you should take into account the official BOJA/BOE documents.
Isabel, I like the idea of reading and writing cooperatively, but I do not think you are planning such activities, well, somehow..
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ResponderEliminar-
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ResponderEliminarIn order to make our students read, the first thing we should take into account is what they really want to read, as we can read in the BOJA for ESO, the reading activity should be a practice strongly connected with students’ reality. So, before starting the activity we ask the students about their preferences. The activity will consist on the following; the teacher will propose 4 different kinds of books for the reading (romantic, terror, historic or dramatic book) and the students should chose one of them for the activity. Although sometimes, the readings will be choose by the teacher from newspapers, in order to introduce the students in the nowadays situation of their country, in this way the reading will also be an instrument of knowledge, as it is proposed in the BOJA. The class will be divided into groups according to the book chose and their mode of working in the class. Each group will expose a final presentation in order to everyone in the class have a knowledge of the plot and characters from each of the books proposed by the teacher. This final presentation is also a method of evaluation, the teacher evaluated each of the groups, but they also evaluate each others. On the other hand, this final activity activated the creative and imaginative capacity of the students, as it is required in BOJA. In this way, we are also promoting the students to develop their capacity of speak in front of an audience, so we are working with two different skills: reading and speaking. At the same time, the students who are not exposing their work will be activating the listening capacity.
ResponderEliminarAccording to the curriculum of E.S.O. proposed by BOJA, writing involves to put your thoughts into words in a meaningful form and to mentally interact with the message (Inner speech). Furthermore, the writing skill helps the learner gain interdependence, comprehensibility, fluency, and creativity with the target language. Nevertheless, writing is the last of the skills being applied in the learning process although it is getting greater presence throughout the obligatory and post-obligatory education. Finally, it is important not to forget to stimulate and encourage creative writing (Inventive abilities) and to make students to work with their own experiences to enhance innovative but at the same time effective learning.
ResponderEliminarSurely, learning to write is close related to learn to read, one supports the other. Besides, both are abilities acquired and developed through training or experiencing. Then, based on the Order of the August 10th, 2007 of the Junta de Andalucía, we have programmed the following activity to exercise the writing skill:
The contents of the assignment will be selected depending on the students’ interests, sex, age and other contextual factors. After that, we will begin with a first contact with the topic (an extensive reading of a text for example); then, we will do a brainstorming of the main ideas and concepts on the matter; thirdly, we will draw an outline which will serve as a tool to guide them when writing their own text; and finally, the students will have to redact the assignment either at class or as homework to evaluate if they learnt how to write the chose text.
Therefore, the procedure bellow constitutes a practice where reading and writing go together in a closed process: 1st) to decode the signs, 2nd) to recognize the main ideas, 3rd) to comprehend them, and 4th) to experience the act of codifying.
Barbara Mordillo Moro
ResponderEliminarIn order to improve the reading skill, I have thought about the following activity, taking into account the BOJA Curriculum:
- It is said in the text that the reading has to be a pleasant activity for the student, so I decided to let the students choose between three different books with different themes, for example: adventures, love, and crime. This way, the student reads what he prefers and he does not get bored in the reading. The book should be read at home, and at the end of the term the student will do a test about the book, explaining the plot, main characters, and his personal opinion.
- For class activities concerning with reading, the students will read articles about news, music, cinema, new tendencies... and they shall do some activities related to the text that will be corrected at the end of the class. This activity fits with the BOJA Curriculum, as it sais that the selected texts must have a practical function and that they must be linked to the students reality.
(First part)
ResponderEliminarAs future English teachers and according to the order of 10th August 2007 dealing with the ‘ESO’ curriculum by the ‘Junta de Andalucía’, we will have to develop the four basic linguistics skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing, including also what is now consider a different skill: talking. For this activity I am going to focus my attention on one of the five skills: listening, although it is important to say that in a real class, as we can read in the order mentioned before, neither of the five skills should be dealt separately but ones in combination with the others because neither of them are isolated skills.
Before starting to work with a listening the and following the information of the 10th August order, a teacher must know that listening is one of the linguistics skills that takes the biggest part of our time in a communicative process so it is very important to work it and also to know how to do it. Other important aspect to bear in mind is that listening is a skill very developed in children but more complex in adults. Finally the teacher during the listening must be a guide and a cultural reference giving to the students the role of protagonists and addressees of the listening because we cannot forget that while listening we are at the same time learning culture, information, experiences, etc. so it should be the students who capture all the information and the protagonists of it.
Now we can go to the resources that according to the order mentioned before we should use for our listening. We should use: familiar and scholar contexts, media (for example listening in television, radio, etc.) and academic molds that can be used as referents.
The aims of our listening should be: to know to distinguish different dialects of the English language (also to know to recognize them in the media), to learn to listen and also to understand the importance of this skill in the study of a language, to learn to pay attention and respect the interlocutor and the information described in the listening, the memorization of basic texts and also the basic comprehension of information with a more difficult structure (descriptions, opinions, dialogues, etc.).
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ResponderEliminar(Second part)
ResponderEliminarHaving all these in mind, the teacher can start to design the activities for the listening. The listening will be divided into three sections: pre- listening, while- listening and post-listening. The two first stages will correspond to the ear-training skill (discriminating sounds in isolated words, in connected speech, understanding intonation patterns, etc) and the last one will correspond to the comprehension skills (understanding of what is said).
The pre-listening activity will consist in the following. The topic of this listening class will be English music in the 60´s. The teacher will give a little explanation about the music situation of that time: ‘The 1960's are remembered nostalgically in Britain as the 'rock and roll' years. This was the decade that British pop music erupted with energy, and through creating big stars of this phenomena, like The Beatles and The Rolling Stones, British pop music exploded onto the world scene. This was the flower power generation, when folk were encouraged to dance, wear wild clothing, and dig the music. This was the seminal time of social rebellion in the UK, led by the young, and music was leading the way in this social and cultural revolution’. After that the teacher will give to the students a list with some of the most influential music in the 60´s: the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, The Byrd's, The Small Faces and The Kinks. The class will be divided into five groups. Each group will have one music group and each group will have to choose one song of their musical group (the song that they most like). That is the task they have to do the previous day to the listening and after having choose a song, they will have to send to the teacher an email with the link where they have listened their song (it has to be a video clip in order that students get familiar with the clothes and context of that times). The next day the teacher will put in class the links with the five video clips and students (this time individually) will have to vote which is their favorite song. The song most votes obtains, will be the song for the listening activities. In that way, before the listening, all of them have had contact with songs in English and also with the song that they are going to work; and the most important thing, despite the fact that they have been involved in the election of the listening, they have been motivated because they are going to work with the song that most like them. In this case we are going to imagine that they have chosen ‘All you need is love’ (The Beatles):
LOVE, LOVE, LOVE, LOVE, LOVE, LOVE, LOVE, LOVE, LOVE
THERE´S NOTHING YOU CAN DO THAT CAN´T BE DONE.
NOTHING YOU CAN SING THAT CAN´T BE SUNG.
NOTHING YOU CAN SAY BUT YOU CAN LEARN HOW TO PLAY THE GAME -IT´S EASY.
NOTHING YOU CAN MAKE THAT CAN´T BE MADE
NO ONE YOU CAN SAVE THAT CAN´T BE SAVED
NOTHING YOU CAN DO BUT YOU CAN LEARN HOW TO BE YOU IN TIME - IT´S EASY.
ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE, ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE
ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE, LOVE, LOVE IS ALL YOU NEED.
LOVE, LOVE, LOVE, LOVE, LOVE, LOVE, LOVE, LOVE, LOVE
ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE, ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE
ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE, LOVE, LOVE IS ALL YOU NEED.
THERE´S NOTHING YOU CAN KNOW THAT ISN´T KNOWN
NOTHING YOU CAN SEE THAT ISN´T SHOWN
NOWHERE YOU CAN BE THAT ISN´T WHERE YOU´RE MEANT TO BE -IT´S EASY.
ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE, ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE
ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE, LOVE, LOVE IS ALL YOU NEED.
ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE, (ALL TOGETHER, NOW), ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE (EVERYBODY)
ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE, LOVE, LOVE IS ALL YOU NEED
(Third part)
ResponderEliminarThe next day they are going to work the while and post listening. In the while-listening the teacher will give them a photocopy with the lyric of the song but there is something strange in this photocopy: some words are missing and instead of them there are symbols! For example instead of the word ‘love’ there is a circle, instead of the word ‘can’ there is a square and instead of the word ‘can´t’ there is a rhombus. So listening the song they have to guess which are the words that those pictures represent. The aim of this task is to focus their attention into two points: one, the topic of the song which is LOVE, and two: to focus their attention in the use of the modals CAN/CAN´T. In this exercise they are transferring different codes: listening, pictures, and writing.
Another while-listening activity can be that after the previous one, they have to give back to the paper and when in the song they listen ‘love’ they will have to up their arms, when they listen the word ‘can’ they will have to clap in time one, and when they listen ‘can´t’ they will have to claps in time two, with the aim of identifying the words without the text.
After that they will pass to the post-listening activity that as it is based on the comprehension of the song, it cannot be based just on the listening but also in other kind of activities that imply writing or speaking. In this case in groups they will have to choose two verses of the song that they most like and then they will have to read the sentences to the other groups and explain why they like those sentences. In this exercise they are putting in practice what they have understood of the song, reproducing the sounds they have listened before and at the same time they are communicating between them.
With this listening activities we have worked the points mentioned at the beginning according to the order 10th August as for example working with media, give the prominence to the students, give them the opportunity to choose, exercises where they have listened, recognized, reproduced and understand sounds, we have worked with a scholar context (the music of the 60´s and the use of modals) and although we were more focused on the listening skill we have worked also others such as reading and speaking.
Javier yo no sé si mi comentario ya te había llegado. Yo me acabo de conectar para ver si estaba evaluado y me encuentro con que mi comentario no está. Esto me va traer a mí por la calle de la amargura.
ResponderEliminarAprovecho para comentarte que el lunes empezamos MªCarmen y yo las practicas en el Bética Mudarra. Estuvimos allí el lunes pasado y nos trataron genial tanto Rafael, el profesor de inglés, como Rosa, la directora.
Ya te iré comentando a lo largo de la semana lo que voy haciendo.
Saludos.
Today has been my first day of practices in the college ‘el Carmen’. First, some weeks ago we had a meeting with the studies director D. Eduardo Castillo who really treated us very well and showed us the college. He gave us an appointment for last Friday 1st April and that day we had a meeting with the English teachers in order to assign us the tutor, the timetable and the courses. My tutor is Mª Jesús and the courses that I am going to see with her are 3º and 4º E.S.O. She said me that I should do the lesson plan for 4º E.S.O. The first days she told me that I´ll be observing and then I will start to teach.
ResponderEliminarToday I have been introduced to the different courses and students have asked some curiosities as my hobbies, where I am from, etc. having a little conversation with them in English. After that the teacher has started with her lessons. The first hour has been with 3º A. In this case the teacher has corrected with them the homework (some in the blackboard and some orally) which consisted on exercises of vocabulary, one of true or false and another one of grammar. Then she has explained the conversion of adjectives into nouns and then they have read a text aloud. The final phase of this class has been a listening answering after it some questions and then the teacher has ordered them some exercise to do at home. She has followed the exercises and theory of the book although she has told me that sometimes she changes the order of the book. Students in general have been obeying her although in this class they talk too much between them. What I most like of this class has been that the teacher has dealt with vocabulary, grammar, reading and listening.
The next hour has been with 4 B. IN this case I have come to class with a native man called Mathew who has one hour per week with each group. Mathews´ classes are base on the oral communication. What I have seen in this class is that they really do not know how lucky they are to have the opportunity to speak with a native boy because they have passed this hour laughing, talking in Spanish between them and almost do not doing any effort to have a conversation in English (one girl even has painted one´s nails during the lesson!). They said some things in English but they really did not listen at all to Mathew.
The next lesson has been with Mª Jesús in 3º B. She has corrected the homework with them, they have translated a text orally, they have done grammar exercises and at the end she has asked them homework for the next day. This group has paid attention and also captures the explanations very quickly. This group is a little be more advanced in the book than the other and the teacher has told me at the end of the lesson that with them she goes quicker because they capture the information very soon.
The last group has been 4º D and the process has been more or less the same: to check homework, doing exercises, a listening (that they have to do again for the next day because today we had not got time enough) and finally she asked for homework for the next day.
There is one thing that I would like to comment. It is that I have seen that books continue being focused on grammar. Although there are texts and listenings the topics maybe are boring for them and the lessons can be a little bit monotonous. They do not have the opportunity of choosing in any case and they do not work in groups. I suppose that all of that will change little by little.
As conclusion I can say that I am very happy with the teacher, the students, and the college. All people are being very kind with me and there are not problematic cases with the students in general. Today I have checked that I am sure of what I want to be. I am enjoining and wishing to start my own lessons. =)