Unit 10 The Responsibility for Learning

THE RESPONSIBILITY FOR LEARNING

In this unit I learned valuable things. Students are not interested in being well educated. They just study to get a good grade. They don’t have passion what they are doing while they are learning. They see education as the way to jobs that pay well. In other words, students don’t accept the responsibility for learning. To overcome it, teachers have an important role because they are the only ones that can help them to accept the responsibility for learning. Teachers can do many things like stablish polices that require all types of details related to learning. Another thing that teachers can do is they should create a good atmosphere in order to motivate students to learn and promote autonomy in learning. Another reason to do it is teachers want students to function as responsible learners. it means students need to be independent, self-directed and self-regulating.

To sum up, I could say that our role as a teachers is activate the students’ passion for learning in order that they become more responsible and independent. For example, I can use different activities (role play, games, listen to music) in order that my students put interested in what they are learning.

VIDEO 1: It is about how to motive students

VIDEO 2: Here, you are going to find some strategies to help students take responsibility for their own learning

SOURCES:

Maryellen W. (2013). Learner-Centered Teaching : Five Key Changes to Practice. John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated.

YouTube. (2018). TEDxNorrkoping - Peter Gärdenfors - How to Motivate Students?. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=blWcbY5qA58 [Accessed 22 Apr. 2018].

YouTube. (2018). Ten Strategies to Help Learners Take Responsibility for Their Own Learning. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKLGPkIOX9c [Accessed 22 Apr. 2018].

Unit 9 The Role Of The Teacher

THE ROLE OF THE TEACHER

Teachers play an important role in the classroom. They have to deal with many things like leading with discussions, reviewing the materials, asking and answering most of the questions between other things. Part of an excellent teacher’s art is the ability to adopt a number several roles in the class, depending on what students are doing (Harmer J., 2007).

It means teachers work hard most days in order to manage all the things that they have to deal. To overcome some difficulties, teacher should create a good atmosphere that foster growth and learning in order that students feel comfortable and could learn without any problem. Also, teachers are asked to perform certain task and skills. Talking about task, teacher should perform the following things: preparation, keeping records, and being reliable. About skills, managing classes, matching tasks and groups, variety (activities), learning outcome.

As I learned in this unit, I had to put into practice this important knowledge about the role of the teacher in the future because in this way I could to manage all the things that I would do with my students. I had to consider the teacher task and teacher skills in order to create an excellent atmosphere in my classroom.

VIDEO: It is about what the teacher role is

SOURCES:

Maryellen W. (2013). Learner-Centered Teaching : Five Key Changes to Practice. John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated.

Harmer J. (2007). How to TeachEnglish. England: Person Longman.

YouTube. (2018). Role of a Teacher | John Calhoun | TEDxTaipeiFuhsingPrivateSchool. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAkvpQmkgBQ [Accessed 22 Apr. 2018].

Unit 8 Speaking

SPEAKING

Speaking is a productive skill. It involves conveying information or sharing one's ideas and feelings in spoken language to other people. When we speak we don’t plan what we are going to say. It happens because pressure of time does not allow us to organize it. In the speaking, we are going to find some subskills. They are making use of grammar, connected speech, oral fluency, and using interactive strategies. Also, when we speak we should consider some aspects that are important like register, body language (gestures), eye contact (facial expressions), accuracy, appropriacy, and the level of formality.

Speaking is an essential tool for communicating. So, it’s important to teach it to our students because it allows to share, communicate, express ideas or opinions between students. Nowadays, we can find different ways to teach speaking. For example: role play, discussions, information gap, storytelling, etc. These activities are good to improve the speaking skill of our students.           

VIDEO: It is about how to improve your speaking and fluency 

WEBSITE: Here, you are going to find more explanation about the different activities to promote speaking in your classroom.

http://iteslj.org/Techniques/Kayi-TeachingSpeaking.html

SOURCES:

Spratt M., Pulverness A. & Willians M. (2011). The TKT course.Modules 1,2,3. United Kingdom: Cambridge university Press.

YouTube. (2018). English Speaking Practice | How to improve your English Speaking and Fluency: SHADOWING. [online] Available at: https://youtu.be/GVWFGIyNswI [Accessed 22 Apr. 2018].

Iteslj.org. (2018). Kayi - Teaching Speaking: Activities to Promote Speaking in aSecond Language (TESL/TEFL). [online] Available at: http://iteslj.org/Techniques/Kayi-TeachingSpeaking.html [Accessed 22 Apr. 2018].

Unit 7 Listening

LISTENING

Listening is the capacity to understand and analyze what people are saying. It involves understanding the speaker's pronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary  (Saricoban A., 1999). In this unit, I learned lot of things that are related to listening. For example, listening involves understanding spoken language. To understand it we should deal with all the features that it has. Spoken language has different text types such as conversations, stories, etc. that have different ways of organizing language and information. Another important part in the listening is that we need to understand different speeds of speech and accents because not all people speak in the same way. As we know, listening has subskills as reading. We are going to use these subskills according to the kind of information we need to listen for. These listening subskills are: listening for gist, global understanding, specific information, infer attitude, intensive and extensive listening.

There are many ways of teaching listening to students. We can use different materials such as music, videos, movies. In order to teach listening we can follow three stages: Pre-listening:  we show pictures about the listening to students and ask them to talk about that pictures. During-listening: students are going to listening to an audio and we ask them to take notes about it. Post-listening: in this stage, we can ask some question related to the audio. The students can use their notes to answer it.

VIDEO: It is about how to active the listening task 

SOURCES:

Saricoban A. (1999). The Teaching of Listening. The internet TESL Journal , 4.

Spratt M., Pulverness A. & Willians M. (2011). The TKT course.Modules 1,2,3. United Kingdom: Cambridge university Press.

YouTube. (2018). Teaching Listening Actively. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e16mymdji68 [Accessed 22 Apr. 2018].

Unit 6 Writing

WRITING

Writing is a productive skill and it involves expressing a message by generating symbols on a paper (Spratt M., Pulverness A. & Willians M., 2011). In this unit, I learned important things related to writing. For instance, to write something we need to know how to make sentences and how to use grammar in order that our massage will be understood. As in the other English skills, writing has subskills, too. But they are related to accuracy and communicating. Referring to accuracy, we have spelling correctly, choosing the right vocabulary, etc. Referring to communicate, we have join word and sentences clearly and using appropriate functions. In writing, cohesion and coherence have an important role. Cohesion refers to the organization in terms of grammar. Coherence refers to a logical organization to make sense the meaning or message. To write something we have to follow some stages: Brainstorming, organize ideas, Drafting, Editing, Proofreading, Re-drafting.

I think that the best way to tech writing to students is following the stages that I mentioned before. For example, we can give our students a topic (favorite food). First, they are going to brainstorm their ideas like a graphic organizer. Then, students are going to organize their ideas. It means they are going to choose the best things that could be on the writing. After, they are going to start their first version. In this part, they are going to read all what they wrote. Next, they are going to start to editing somethings. For example, the grammar and the spelling of some words. They are going to check if the writing has coherence and cohesion. Finally, they are going to rewrite their final paper. This activity is very useful because they can realize in which section they need to improve.

VIDEO: Here, you are going to find some strategies about how you can improve your writing.

WEBSITE: Here, there are 15 steps to improve your writing skill 

https://www.grammarly.com/blog/how-to-improve-writing-skills/

SOURCES:

Spratt M., Pulverness A. & Willians M. (2011). The TKT course.Modules 1,2,3. United Kingdom: Cambridge university Press.

YouTube. (2018). Writing Strategies. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCIQE8TFNuI [Accessed 22 Apr. 2018].

How to Improve Writing Skills in 15 Easy Steps. (2017). How to Improve Writing Skills in 15 Easy Steps | Grammarly. Retrieved 17 April 2018, from https://www.grammarly.com/blog/how-to-improve-writing-skills/

Unit 5 Reading

READING

Reading is a receptive skill that involves responding to a text and making sense of a written text   (Spratt M., Pulverness A. & Willians M., 2011). It helps to understand the language of the text in different levels. Reading is an important part for language acquisition because it has a positive effect on student’s vocabulary knowledge (Harmer J., 2007).  it means that while students are reading they are picking up new vocabulary items. In this unit, I learned that If I want to understand a text or sentence I need to understand the language of the text and I need to connect the text to the real world. Another important thing that I learned is that there are three parts that connect the discourse: grammar, vocabulary, and the real world. To read a text or book students can use different reading subskills and they can use them according to their needs. Talking about reading subskill, we can find different kinds of subskills such as scanning, skimming, reading for detail, inferring, predicting, deductive meaning from context. Also, we can find other ways of reading such as extensive (reading for pleasure) and intensive (reading for language use).

I think that teaching reading is very important for students who are learning another language because they are going to increase their vocabulary knowledge while they are reading. The first thing that we should consider when we want to teach reading is the students’ level. Also, we should choose the best text or book that catch the attention and interest of the students. It is going to encourage students to read and to complete the exercises. To do an activity with a text, we can start to show a picture about the reading and ask students to guest what they are going to read. Then, we give students the text or the book. They should read and then complete the activities that they are going to find at the end of book.

VIDEO: Here you can find some strategies to teach reading in the classroom.

SOURCES: 

Spratt M., Pulverness A. & Willians M. (2011). The TKT course.Modules 1,2,3. United Kingdom: Cambridge university Press.

Harmer J. (2007). How to TeachEnglish. England: Person Longman.

YouTube. (2018). Powerful Method for Teaching Reading to Classroom of Students. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPsAuf1ihMk [Accessed 22 Apr. 2018].

Unit 4 Functions

FUNCTIONS

This unit is about functions. A function is a reason why people communicate or express with them (Spratt M., Pulverness A. & Willians M., 2011). It means that everything that we say has a purpose. We are going to find different kinds of functions such as greeting, clarifying between others. Also, I learned that functions are a way how we use a language.

We normally use functions through exponents. Moreover, an exponent can express different levels of formality (formality, neutral, informality) according to the situation in which we are. For example, with friends, we should use informal language because there is confidence. If we are talking with our teacher or boss, we should use a formal language. And finally, if we are talking to our siblings, we can use a neutral language. In other words, we choose to use the level of formality according to the situation. Also, we can choose what is appropriate or inappropriate in each situation.

I think that function is something we as future teachers are going to use every day in class so the best way to teach it is asking students to do some exercises in a writing or speaking way. For example, ask students to write formal letters (it means they are going to select the correct vocabulary) or maybe ask students to make a role play and the topic could be  introducing yourself (here, they are going to use a neutral language). Those are good examples to teach functions in our classroom. Moreover, I could provide my students a wide variety of opportunities to practice grammar and vocabulary related to functions.

VIDEO : It is about Functional Approach 

WEBSITE: Here you can find more information about Functions of Language and some activities about it.

https://sites.educ.ualberta.ca/staff/olenka.bilash/Best%20of%20Bilash/functionsof%20lang.html 

SOURCES:

Spratt M., Pulverness A. & Willians M. (2011). The TKT course.Modules 1,2,3. United Kingdom: Cambridge university Press.

YouTube. (2018). Functional Approach - Adip Rohadi. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZjmGPZK6u4 [Accessed 22 Apr. 2018].

Sites.educ.ualberta.ca. (2018). Functions of Language. [online] Available at: https://sites.educ.ualberta.ca/staff/olenka.bilash/Best%20of%20Bilash/functionsof%20lang.html [Accessed 22 Apr. 2018].

Unit 3 Phonology

PHONOLOGY

Phonology is the study of the sounds patterns that occur within languages. (Catford J., 2001) explained that phonology is the study of how sounds are organized into systems and utilized in phonology is to learn the correct pronunciation of the words. The most important subtopics in this unit is phonemes, word stress, sentence stress, and intonation. First, a phoneme is the smallest unit of sound and has a meaning. Also, I learned that phonemes of a language are represented in phonemic symbols (help students to know the right pronunciation of a word) and these symbols we could find in the phonemic chart. It is divided into some groups such as vowels, consonants, diphthongs, voiced and unvoiced sounds. Talking about word and sentences stress I can say that is when we pronounced a word in a sentence with greater energy and the other with less energy. And finally, intonation I could say is the way people change the level of their voice to show meaning or put more emphasis what they are trying to say.

Teaching phonology is going to be the most important part of the process of language learning because it is going to teach them the right pronunciation of the words. However, for students are going to be difficult to learn about phonemic symbols because they sometimes confused the sound at the moment that they are talking. It happens because they try to say something in their mother tongue. To overcome it, we can teach minimal pairs and make them to repeat some words that they have some difficulties at the moment they want to pronounce.

 VIDEO: It is about 3 steps to teaching pronunciation.

VIDEO 2: It is about phonetics

SOURCES:

Spratt M., Pulverness A. & Willians M. (2011). The TKT course.Modules 1,2,3. United Kingdom: Cambridge university Press.

Catford J. (2001). Apractical guide to phonetics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

YouTube. (2018). 3 tips for sounding like a native speaker. [online] Available at: https://youtu.be/ChZJ1Q3GSuI [Accessed 22 Apr. 2018].

YouTube. (2018). How to sound like a native speaker: THE SECRET. [online] Available at: https://youtu.be/sezrHctwOJ0 [Accessed 22 Apr. 2018].

Unit 2 Lexis

LEXIS 

In this unit, I learned about lexis that is the entire vocabulary of a language. It means words that have a specific meaning. According to (Spratt M., Pulverness A. & Willians M., 2011) words have different kinds of meaning. First, denotation is the meaning that we can find in the dictionaries. Second, figurative meaning is an imaginative meaning that people give a word. And finally, context meaning is the meaning that we are going to find in the same context. Also, the meaning of some words could come from their form. For example, affixation and compound nouns. Sometimes the words often go together, like in collocations, idioms and chunks. According to (Spratt M., Pulverness A. & Willians M., 2011) Collocations are words that usually go together. Idioms are fixed expressions that cannot be changed and have a particular meaning, and chunks are language that occurs in fixed as a one piece. Moreover, words are also interrelated with others, for example in synonyms, antonyms, lexical sets and word family. Finally, something difficult for us is to deal with False friends, homophones, homonyms, and varieties of English because we sometimes confuse the meaning of these terms.

(Willis D., 1990) notes that it is easier for students to start the examination of the target language if they start from lexis, which is concrete, rather than from grammatical rules, which are abstract. It means students can learn the language in an inductively way. They are going to have more exposure to the language rather than just learn the grammar. I think that teaching it to my students is going to be very useful because they are going to learn a larger number of phrases that they can use in the real life and they could improve the speaking skill. However, at the beginning will be difficult for them because they don’t understand some phrases, but I think if they practice and use the phrases correctly they are not going to have any problem in the future. Remember this phrase “practice makes perfect”

VIDEO: It is about the importance of lexis to communicate

SOURCES:

Spratt M., Pulverness A. & Willians M. (2011). The TKT course.Modules 1,2,3. United Kingdom: Cambridge university Press.

Willis D. (1990). The Lexical Syllabus. London: Haper Collins .

YouTube. (2018). The Power of Lexis: Vocabulary Teaching Today. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8K0qgnw4MPY [Accessed 20 Apr. 2018].

Unit 1 Grammar

GRAMMAR

In this chapter, I had the opportunity to learn several concepts related to grammar. First, let us have a look what is grammar. Grammar is a description of the rules that govern how a language’s statements are formed. It means that grammar is a system of rules that allow people to combine, form and interpret phrases and sentences in a specific language (Thornbury, 1999). Also, I learned that grammar includes grammatical forms and grammatical uses. Grammatical forms refer how phrases and sentences are presented in speaking or writing way and we can recognize it in parts of speech, grammatical structures and words that have prefixes and suffixes. As we know there are nine parts of speech in English. They are noun, verb, adjective, adverb, determiners, preposition, pronouns, conjunction and exclamation. In other words, I could say that each part of speech shows how words behave in sentences. Moreover, grammatical uses refer to how grammatical structures are used to share meanings, opinions or ideas.

There are two ways in which a learner can learn grammar: first the deductive way (rule-driven) and the inductive way (rule-discovery) (Thornbury, 1999). In my point of view, both ways are good to teach grammar. However, I will use inductive way because students are going to have the opportunity to discover their own learning. It means that I can star with some examples that I write on the board then students are going to analyze those examples and find maybe the parts of speech of each sentence. It is going to be useful for learners because they can infer and put into practice what they learned before.

VIDEO: It is about how to teach grammar inductively.

SOURCES: 

Spratt M., Pulverness A. & Willians M. (2011). The TKT course.Modules 1,2,3. United Kingdom: Cambridge university Press.

Thornbury, S. (1999). How to teach Grammar . England: Person Education Limited .

YouTube. (2018). How to Teach an Inductive Learning Lesson. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-RlLVQYhJt8 [Accessed 20 Apr. 2018].