Activity

We presented an activity today and I must admit I wasn't very happy with the result. I know that we are capable of doing much more and better than we did today. I know my buddy Nicolas did well, he had the voice and the ability to control a class. As for myself, I have many weaknesses that I must begin working on, such as:

1. Nerves: My nerves have been a problem in my life ever since I was a child, for some reason I just seem to crumble under pressure, which I believe is my biggest obstacle in becoming a good teacher.

2. Tone: I seem to have a weak voice, I haven't had the chance to hear it yet, but I know I have a low voice which seems to indicate a lack of confidence. Without it, the students could eat us alive if they choose to.

3. Modulation: Another nerve related weakness, although it seems to pop out in calm situations as well. I must learn to speak properly, this is a problem for me in both English and Spanish, so I must seek some help right away if I want to be understood.

4. Concentration: Under pressure I seem to lose my focus and seem to drift off and give an answer randomly without thinking or going off topic.

5. Confidence: I know I have the ability to be a great teacher, we all have that ability, the problem is that the moment I stand in front of a classroom, my confidence disappears.

6. Awareness: As a teacher I have to be aware of the entire classroom, I seem to focus only on the students that want to learn and seem to ignore the others who don't care. This also applies to conduct as well.

7. Control: As teachers we have to be in control of the classroom, we can't let the students take over, if we allow them to do that then we aren't doing our jobs. I need to have a bit of a "mean streak" to control the students. I feel as though I'm too nice.

In conclusion, I was very disappointed with my performance, I was even very angry with myself because I know I'm capable of doing much better, there are no excuses for what happened, but I know I must improve. I have some experience as a teacher so I must use that to show everyone that I'm capable of doing this.

I have the language, I just need the attitude.

I don't want to be one of the bunch, I want to be the best, period.

Supplementary Materials

Other than the coursebook we can use supplementary materials to increase the student's learning. Supplementary materials include the following:

1. Flashcards: These are used to increase the student's learning in a visual way, it helps them associate words with pictures.

2. Blogs: Blogs are used for students to express their opinion and explain what they have learned in their own words.

3. Online Games: Some online games can be used to teach English in a fun way that will keep the students motivated, such as word searches and crosswords.

4. Webquest: an inquiry-oriented lesson in which students work on a problem solving activity using online resources.

5. Glogster:  Similiar to a blog, but more dynamic and entertaining, in which students make a poster instead of a blog based on a topic, where they can use videos, pictures, etc.

Coursebook

Coursebook analysis: 8º Travelers

1. Objectives explicitly laid out in an introduction, and implemented in the material. (7.0)

They are shown at the beginning of the book and at the start of each unit

2. Approach educationally and socially acceptable to target community. (6.0)

It’s acceptable because it’s a Chilean book and it contains lots of material related to Chile, so it’s nothing different to the reality of the students.

3. Clear attractive layout; print easy to read. (6.0)

The print is pretty readable; the layout is ok, nothing spectacular, but also not too bad.

4. Appropriate visual materials available. (7.0)

It contains lots of pictures and visual exercises for the students to do.

5. Interesting topics and tasks. (6.0)

This book was published last year, so the topics are of current events, which capture the attention of the students a bit better.

6. Varied topics and tasks, so as to provide for different learner levels, learning styles, interests, etc. (7.0)

It has different topics in each unit that are related to their lives and includes activities that strengthen the four basic skills.

7. Clear instructions. (7.0)

I see clear instructions for the teachers; it’s very detailed in that sense. As for the students, the instructions are basic but clear and right to the point.

8. Systematic coverage of syllabus. (7.0)

It covers the syllabus because it provides a suggested year planning and all the objectives of each unit.

9. Content clearly organized and graded. (5.0)

It’s not organized according to difficulty, but based on a general topic, in which the content lies inside of it.

10. Periodic review and test sections. (6.0)

I wasn’t able to find a periodic review of the material, but I did find various “mini tests” in each unit.

11. Plenty of authentic language. (7.0)

This book contains plenty of authentic language, it includes various sayings and types of informal conversations.

12. Good pronunciation explanation and practice. (6.0)

There isn’t much explanation, but there is a lot of practice. It includes activities of repetition and dialogue.

13. Good vocabulary explanation and practice. (7.0)

It includes various examples of vocabulary in the units, showing the translation in Spanish and giving lots of exercises.

14. Good grammar presentation and practice. (5.0)

It focuses more on listening and vocabulary activities, leaving grammar a bit behind. There are grammar activities, just not as many.

15. Fluency practice in all four skills. (7.0)

It has activities based on all four skills; it even shows the objectives of them in the beginning of the unit.

16. Encourages learners to develop own learning strategies and to become independent in their learning. (6.0)

I believe the book accomplishes this, I can’t be 100% sure, because it depends on the student as well. But, it looks pretty entertaining and motivating, and not as dull as Headway.

17. Adequate guidance for the teacher, not too heavy preparation load. (7.0)

It’s extremely adequate; it has the objectives of each units, various exercises and even suggested planning for the year.

18. Audio cassettes. (7.0)

Since we are in the 21st century, can we say audio CD’s?

19. Readily available locally. (5.0)

I wasn’t able to find a downloadable version online, but since it’s a book used by the ministry of education, I believe it should be given out for free.

Syllabus

A syllabus is public document which serves as a general outline of a particular course. It's basically a list that is ordered by date and general topic. Some basic components and characteristics of the syllabus are:

1. Time Schedule: It can be based on the content to be reviewed from class to class or a specific test date.

2. Materials: This refers to the materials that will be used in the course, such as required or optional books.

3. Evaluation Breakdown: We can see what the grading system is composed of, for example the number of tests and the amount of weight each one has to come up with the final grade.

4. Objectives: It should specify what the student should be able to accomplish at the end of the semester.

5. Policies: Rules that are explained in case of an absence or any other situation that the student could face during the semester.

6. Basic Information: In this category we can include information about the institution and teacher contact information.

There are 10 different types of syllabuses.

1. Grammatical - deals with grammatical structures.
2. Lexical - lists lexical items.
3. Grammatical-lexical - a mixture of the grammatical and lexical syllabuses.
4. Situational - deal with real-life situations.
5. Topic-based - are based on different topics.
6. Notional - language concepts and vocabulary.
7. Functional-notional - deal with things we can do with language.
8. Mixed - mixture of the previous syllabuses.
9. Procedural - specifies learning tasks.
10. Process - is modified over time.

Testing Techniques

Most and Least Favorite Testing Techniques

I believe the most effective testing technique depends on the level of the student, so i'll just assume that he is at an intermediate level. I believe the monologue is the best testing ability because it evaluates the student's grammatical, lexical and oral skills at the same time. If a student can pass this test, which I believe is the most difficult, he's ready to move on to the next level.

I'm not really a huge fan of dictation because I don't believe that it can clearly show the level of a student, I don't see it as a reliable test, it's kind of subjective.

This is a basic opinion of what I believe is the best and worst testing techniques, but there are many factors involved such as the student's level, the type of ability we're trying to evaluate and the goal of the student have a big influence.

Other testing techniques

1. Reading Comprehension - this is a frequently used strategy in which the student has to read and analyze a text in order to answer some questions afterwards. These questions can include multiple choice, true or false or questions and answers, which are mentioned in the book, but an innovative evaluation technique would be putting some events from the text in order.

2. Visual Analysis - the students could observe a movie trailer or a very short sequence of a television series and analyze what happened, find some adjectives in a conversation, look for certain objects that could be vocabulary words, etc.

3. Listening Activities - this is very similar to reading comprehension, but with the difference that instead of strengthening the student's reading ability, we strengthen their listening skills.

Instructions

We would present this activity to the students in the following matter:

1. Ok students, today we’re going to play a game.
2. I’m going to show you some pictures
3. I’ll show you the picture from a different view
4. You have to try to guess what the picture is
5. If you don’t know what it is, say I don’t know or I have no idea or try it at least
6. Then I will show you the picture of the object and we can compare answers
7. For example, what is this?
8.

9. (Students) It’s a _______________
10. (Show picture)
11.

12. It’s a bottle


As we explain the activity we can catch the students attention by saying that we're playing a game, which depending on the age level, can grasp the attention of any child. We can see perception while we explain what we're going to do, we try to make it as detailed as possible, and we check their understanding through the example that we have made.

Presentations and Explanations

This unit was based on how teachers can affect a student's motivation by how he or she presents the lessons. As we know, the students have to be motivated if they want to have a better chance of learning, and the teacher could play a major role in that. For example, we can have a highly motivated student who is being taught by an extremely boring teacher, as a consequence the student's motivation can be affected by this. How could this be?

It's believed that there are three stages of a presentation that must be accomplished by the teacher, which are the following:

1. Attention: The title pretty much explains it, the first objective is for the teacher to grab the student's attention. The teacher has to make sure that they are concentrated only on them and not goofing off or wandering around. There are various strategies to achieve this, but I won't get into much detail.

2. Perception: In this stage, the student processes the information that the teacher is giving, the teacher has to make sure he repeats the information and gives it out in a way to make it comprehensible to the students.

3. Understanding: This final stage is one of the most important in which the contents that the teacher handed out must be related to the student's previous knowledge. It's where we make sure that the student has effectively learned the content and it just hasn't come in through one ear and out the other.

Analyzing these steps I remembered a presentation I did in General Linguistics last semester in which unconsciously, these three steps were present. With my partner we grabbed the attention of our students by hitting each other with our notebooks, then we achieved perception by repeating the information we had just given briefly, and we checked understanding by giving the students a few questions based on the sketch.

This will really help me in my teaching future....present because I can try to apply these three steps to my lessons, it won't be easy but I love challenges.

Survey Results

I surveyed 7 classmates, with most of the results coming back pretty similar. There were plenty of "agree" and "most agree" on topics related with how teachers should treat students and having control of the classroom. Most of the "disagree" and "most disagree" came in categories that dealt with having students take control of the classroom and using corporal punishment on the students.

Based on the results of the survey, I can conclude that most of my classmates believe that a good teacher cares a lot about his or her students, treats them with respect and sees them not only as students, but as human beings. It also reflects that the students, as future teachers view the teaching environment differently than most traditional teachers, they don't agree with corporal punishment and view the learning process as a team instead of it only being based on the teacher.

It seems as though we are a different generation of teachers whose goal is to change the way teaching is done and make it as interesting and fun to the students as possible. We have to teach students, but we also have to prepare human beings for life after they graduate from high school. We have an extra chip on our shoulder as future teachers, because we are the ones who have to eduacte and mold the future of our country. It's a huge responsibility, but we know we can do it.

If he can do it, we can do it. xD