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LANGUAGE TEACHING WITH YOUNG LEARNERS

As we know, students through by actions, games, songs, stories, rhymes and with their senses. 

We have to make them aware of the langauge features and differences, to do it we show them troguh examples. However, we don’t have to explain everything because we can confuse them, so, explain just when they ask.

Activities:

We can use puppets to motivate them or to make them practice as if the puppet is one more member of the class.

We can play mimes.

To make them practice what we have seen, we can use disappering dialogues.

To make them think, we can use  wordsearch or  puzzle.

THANKS!!!

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CHANTS, RHYMES AND SONGS

A common question when we teach kids is “What activites can I make in the class?” because we always think in an easy, funny and educational way to keep engaged our students. 

What can we use?

Chants: 

 We can say a chant and students have to follow what we are saying through movements.

We can use counting rhymes like “Five little elephants sitting on a boat” and we can use our fingers or pictures to make them have an idea about it.

Songs: 

We can use songs like “If you’re happy and you know it, claps your hands” which students can know more about feelings and we can clap our hands in order to make them know what it is. We can up the level every moment. 

We can use a round such as “London’s burning” that it’s one of the most popular to teach children.

If we are singing a song that has a story, we can use pictures. 

THANKS!!!

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MASLOW’S LIFE - EXPOSITION

Abraham Maslow was born in New York in April 4th in 1908 and he passed away in California in April8th in 1870 because he had cancer.

 When he was a child, he was really interested in Phylosophy but he noticed that he didn’t contribute in our society and that’s why he decided to study Psichology because he could help people. He studied Psichology at University of Wisconsin. He was one of the most influential psychologist of the 20′s century.  

His contribution

He founded the psychological current as Humanistic Psychology. Due to he was a witness of the second word war and that’s one of the reasons he focused all his atenttion in human motivation and he developed a theory about it. His theory contribute in Psichology and in Marketing & Publicity.

 It’s clear that his interests were driven by personal and shared experiences which help explain his contributions to humanistic psychology.

 THANKS!!!

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DESCRIBING YOUNG LEARNERS

Theories of learning and child development

When we talk about children, we also talk about four important theories of how they develop their learning. 

Jean Piaget: He said that children pass for a process (egontrism -> sociocentrism)  and he also said that this process involves five basic stages (sensory-motor stage, pre-operational stage, concrete operational stage, formal operational stage). His thought was that children learn if they do it by their own.

Lev Vygotsky: He suggested that children learn better in the zone of proximal development because their parents or someone who has more knowing help them. So, the more they interact with the language, the more they will learn. 

Abraham Maslow: He suggested that children learn better if they have the essential needs, that’s why he made a pyramid mentioning the feelings safety, being loved, belonging and esteem.    

Jerome Brunner: He developed the idea of instructional scaffolding which it says that any person can learn if they receive suitable instructions.   

THANKS!!!

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MARKING & GRADING TESTS - PART II

When we finish checking our students’ exams, we have to qualify them and we have to think in the best way of doing it. For example, we can put it from 0 to 20, from 0 to 100 or put letters instead of numbers like A+, A, B+, B and C; the score goes from the high score to the low score. 

What kind of tests can we do ?

We can use can-do-.statements at the end of the week, month or at the end of a coursebook unit, so our students can see their progress.

We can use peer evaluation, it consists that our students check their exams to each other.

THANKS!!!

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MARKING & GRADING TESTS -  PART I

When it’s our turn to check our students’ exams, practices, quizzes or their homeworks, it can seem such as a drag because it gives more work hahaha.

We have to be careful how we check it, why? Because we can’t do it subjectively, we have to show our students  their mistakes but in a kindly. 

In indirect test items, we can make an exam using multiple-choice questions besides it’s to easy to check and just one answer is the correct, so we won’t have problems if other teacher checks it instead of us because it will be the same answer. However, what happened with direct test items? We use this method if we are making an oral test or longer writings, in this case, the score changes according to how students do it for this we have to stablish some rules for those exercises, for example: the content, their organisation, their pronunciation,the correct use of grammar and vocabulary.

THANKS!!!

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TEST ITEMS AND HOW TO TEACH THEM - LESSON 12 PART 1

We have direct and indirect items. 

Direct test items: 

We use activities, like:

- Speaking

- Writing

- Reading

- Listening 

Indirect test items:

We use exercises, like:

- Multiple-choice

- True/false

- Complete with one word in the blank or with more than one word in the blanks 

- Matching activities 

- Dictations

- Proofreading (students have to identify the mistakes) 

- Sentence transformation ( students have to rewrite the sentences)

- Jumbled sentences (students have to put in the right order the sentences)

THANKS!!! 

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ASSESSMENT AND TESTING - LESSON 11 PART 2

When we design our own tests, we have to base it on our own assessment criteria. It means what kind of questions we will put (it has to be related to all what they have seen not just one part of it), if we have to put more discrete point items or integrative items (it has to have a balance) and we have to be really careful at the time we write the instructions  and it’s better if each instructions have an example so students can understand better. But, before we start  writing our tests, we need to make a list of what we want to measure and how. 

THANKS!!!  

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ASSESSMENT AND TESTING - LESSON 11 PART 1

We always asses and test our students to se how much and well they have learnt. To do this, we have several types of assessment.

We have formative and summative. Formative means that we help our students check their mistakes so next time they can do it well and summative means that we test them to see how much they have learnt in a while (a semester or a year). 

We also have informal assessment and formal assessment. In informal we evaluate students’ progress in order to choose what to do in the next lesson and in formal (diagnostic tests) we test our students during any stage of our lesson to help us plan what to do in the following lessons. For example: we test our students with placement tests (when they arrive for first time in one institution) to see what are their levels.   

Furthemore, we have progress tests and achievement tests. In progress, we make tests at the end of a week, month or when we finish a unit of the coursebook and in achievement, we make tests at the end of a semester or a year.   

In addition, in profiency tests we prepare our students to take an exam. 

Finally,we have portofolio assessment: Students base their homeworks on what they have done in the class. For example, we use continuous assessment  to keep a record of our students.

All those types of assessment helps us to see their knowledge progress. 

THANKS!!! 

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CLASSROOM TECHNOLOGY 3 - LESSON 10

When we talk about technology, we notice that exists several pages and apps that we can use to make an interesting class besides it also helps our students with their homeworks. For example:

We can use webquests like Kahootor or Quizzis to see if our students have understood the class. 

If we want our students to have an oral presentation, they can use programs like Voki or Camtasia and they can also use apps like PowerPoint or Prezi to show their presentations while they are speaking.

Some other teachers prefer to work with social networks like Twitter or Tumblr in order to make students present their homeworks. 

In one hand, we have platforms like Blackboard or Google Meet where students and teachers can share texts, exercises, videos, audio clips and more things. In the other hand, we have material like coursebooks and some of them have a companion website where students can easily do their cyber homeworks there and it also keep automatically their scores and participations.    

THANKS!!!

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OPINION ABOUT MYSELF - LESSON 9

I consider that I am good at writig, speaking and grammar because most of the time that I had quizzes,practices or something related to them I had null or less mistakes and I consider that I am really bad at listening because for me,in spite I have studied a lot of years,is still difficult to understand everything. 

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CLASSROOM TECHNOLOGY 1 - LESSON 8

Nowadays our world turns around technology, so we have to be prepared to use it. We have several options to teach with technology like Interactive Whiteboard , Flipcharts, Overhead Projector, computer or tablet computer. 

If we decide to work with technology, we have to keep in mind: 

If it will work it means that I, as a teacher, will be able to develop my class better and my students will understand the topic.   

The most important point, before we accept we must be sure that we will be training and that we will have acces to the information and we also must be sure that we will have technical support.

Even though it is a reality that technology and internet help us a lot but, sometimes, some teachers prefer to use the normal boards like the blackboard/board or white board.

Reasons why some teachers prefer to use normal boards over than modern boards

They can paste and take  out their materials and they show order. 

Teachers can have technical problems.

To use modern boards, we use a special a market and sometimes it can get damaged.  

Teachers can write, draw, show examples, show grammar construction or demostrate an activity. 

Students can use the board.

THANKS!!! 

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TEACHING WITHOUT MATERIALS - LESSON 7

When we talk about teaching without material, there are arguments in favour and against. 

REASONS IN FAVOUR

Most of the time students prefer to talk instead of studying the book and this is when magic moments occur because students are engaged with the class and they learn better.  

Students’ live may be as interesting as the content of the book.   

REASONS AGAINST   

We have students that prefer to have individual work because they’re shy and they don’t like speaking a lot. 

It’s true that sometimes students’ lives are interesting but it’s also true that sometimes the topics from the coursebook are more interesting then their lives. 

If we decide to teach without material, we have to take advantage of all the magic moments that happen in the class for this it’s a good idea to motivate them to participate by prasing them or giving them a chance to do it. Don’t forget that if our students commit a mistake, we have to correct them kindly so we won’t interrupt their participation ( we can reformulate or repeat their sentences in order to make them notice their mistakes). We also should recycle the language it means to see the topics more than once time because the more they do it, the more these topics will become a permanent part of their langauge knowledge. 

Buuut... If we have already decided not to use material, what activities can we do? 

We can say things that we like and we don’t and students have to do the same.

We can give them 5 sentences (4 are true and 1 is false). They have to guess what sentence is false. 

We can make them tell a storie about the topics they have seen. 

Students can act and they can bring pictures or objects to do it more realistic.    

THANKS!!!

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SUPLEMENTARY MATERIALS AND ACTIVITIES - LESSON 6

After explaining our class, we can give our students supplementary material just to be sure that they have understood. For this, we have to keep in mind what materials we can use, for example, if in our class we have our students who have mixed-abilities, we should give them different materials to work, but what kind of supplementary material can we use? When we talk about supplementary material, we have a lot of options like: 

Make them read extensive reading (it has to be graded according to the level of our students). 

Give them worksheets, stories or dialogues (students have to write their answers).

Photocopy the material from the book. 

However, before thinking in “what materials and activities can we use?” We have to be sure if

The material is easy and understandable.

It’s appropiate for their age, level, interests and cultural background.  

THANKS!!!

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USING DICTIONARIES - LESSON 5

Students always ask us the meaning of the words that they don’t know and in most cases we know the meaning and we can tell them. However, it is always a good idea to tell our students to use their own dictionaries but sometimes they don’t have and they don’t know how to use it. 

First, we have to tell them that exists different kinds of dicitionary:

Bilingual dicitionaries: It is written in two languages.

Bilingual learners dictionaries: It’s especially for language learneres.

Monolingual dictionaries: It is written in one language (native).

Monolingual learners dictionaries: They contain just  the definition of the word. 

Production dictionaries (Thesaurus): It helps the writer find suitable words and avoid repetition.

Second, we have to tell them what they can find in good learners’ dictionaries: 

Headword: It’s the word that you’re looking for.

Frequency: They can appear as S1(It means that this word is in the top 1,000 of speaking) or W2 ( It means that this word is in the top 2,000 of writing). 

Part of speech: Most of the times it’s abbreviated in paper dictionaries. I.e.: Noun=n, Adjective=Adj., etc.

Pronunciation: In papers dictionaries is done in phonemic script and in online dictionaries appear with audio recordings. We can also find the different spellings and pronunciations between American English and British English.    

Finally, we can make some activities and make students feel comfortable using their dictionaries. 

THANKS!!!

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THINKING ABOUT THE NEXT COURSEBOOK - LESSON 4

To choose the next coursebook, teachers and the heads of the school have to keep in mind several thinks. For example:

Be sure that this book is the best for teacher and students and that it has the needed components (audios, teacher’s guide, etc.).

We need to think carefully about if  it has an atracttive design, if it’s in order, if it has clear instructions for students to understand. Furthemore, we have to decide if the content is correct taking into account if the topics are interesting in a culturally and socially way and appropiate for their age and level.  

We have to evaluate wheter the coursebook uses a large methodoly or different activities and procedures.

We also have to consider what we want our students to achieve and for this, the book has to have a balance in language skills (writing, reading, speaking and listening) and we also have to check the sillabus of grammar and vocabulary to see if it’s graded.

We will look the materials that come with the coursebook (workbook, audio recordings, DVDs, etc.) and if the coursebook has a companion website or an online material. 

THANKS!!!