RESPONDING TO RESISTANCE "Laerner centered approach"

Learner-centered teaching is an approach to teaching that is increasingly being encouraged in higher education. Learner-centered teachers do not employ a single teaching method. This approach emphasizes a variety of different types of methods that shifts the role of the instructors from givers of information to facilitating student learning.

Learner centered aproaches requires more work for teachers in the desing phase, but also it means more work for students because they have to work in learning tasks generating examples of the topic they are studying. Which is excelent because students learn what is the process to generate examples and also because they receive feedback and guidance from teacher. As a result they can obtain good examples for each task.

Moreover, students resist to this aproach because they are afraid of the things they have to do or the rules they have to follow in classroom. 

SPEAKING

  Speaking is a productive skill, which involves using speech to communicate meanings to other people. When we speak we pronounce words, answer questions, use intonation,  ask for clarification or explanation when something is not clear, we use appropriate register, we use word and sentence stress, we use facial expressions to let people understand what we want to say or maybe we can paraphrase it. Beside, speaking involves several subskills like  the  use of the grammar, vocabulary, and functions. These factors help to use the register  appropriately. 
 Features such as connected speech, use body language, producing different text types, oral fluency, and self-correction are involved for only one reason to communicate meaning. Teacher should use speaking activities in classroom because it helps students to develop the speaking skill but we can focus on particular aspects of speaking, e.g fluency, pronunciation, register, grammatical accuracy, body language, etc. The best way to do it is thought controlled practice activities (Gakonga) , we can use drills, and we can organize activities to work in small teams to do vocab games. Speaking activities (link) often follow the same pattern: Lead-in, practice activities, and post-task activities.

Bibliografía

Gakonga, J. (n.d.). youtube. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-bib16PF20

link, a. (n.d.). youtube. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzZ5AlI-IdE

LISTENING

          Listening is a receptive skill (English) because it involves responding to language rather than producing it. Listening involves understanding spoken language which is different from written language. In written language we use punctuation, logical sequence, and almost always we use exact vocabulary and more complex grammar. While in spoken language we use stress, intonation, and sometimes connected speech to make our spoken language more fluent. It is important that the speaker uses body language (gestures/ facial expressions) to support his/her communication. It is not well organized if it contains interruptions or hesitations because it shows that you are not sure about what to say how to say it. Furthermore, listening involves understanding different speeds of speech and accent. When we apply listening in classroom we should give the opportunity to listen to many sources of spoken language so students will be familiar because there are exposed to the language, so they can hear different accents, speed of delivery, and text types. We can find interesting activities  (lessons) to use with them, but it must be according their level. For example:  you can use listening lesson that can help your students feel confortable with the language and at the same time they will have the oportunity to deelop listening skill. 

Bibliography:

English, C. A. (n.d.). youtube. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4J23UqO6GQ

lessons, l. (n.d.). 5 minute english. Retrieved from 5 minute english: http://www.5minuteenglish.com/listening.htm

WRITING

“History will be kind to me for I intend to write it.” 

― Winston S. Churchill 

In this unit I have reviewed and learned something else about writing. We have to know that writing is a productive skill. So in teaching writing we have some aproaches like Producct Aproach: in this aproach teachers focus on the final piece of writing. This aproach was criticized because it ignores tha actual processes used by students to produce a piece of writing. The process approach: it enphasizes revision, and feedback from others so students may produce many drafts to be sure about their writing. The procedure is: prewriting, composing/ drafting, revising, and editing. Here you have more information:

"The writing process by Pow Toon"

The stages are recursive (nonlinear) and they can iteract with each other during the writing process. The genre aproch: this aproach is very important because students could be benifit from studing different types of writing texts. The process genre model: this model is very important because it helps us to recognize that we need to combine the aproaches results to apply them in a better way.
Moreover, the subskills of writing that we choose to teach should be according our students' age and need. When we want to do an activity with our students is necesary to encourage them to think about the reason for writing, what they want to say and how. In conclusion the activities that we want to apply should be according our students level. But it should be previously planned to work in an effective way.


Bibliography:

Toon, p. (2014, 01 11). youtube. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71Y2uIyJM4g

READING

                           Through reading you can improve your knowledge in some fields.

In this unit we have remembered important things about reading. Reading is a receptive skill - through it we receive information. In reading we have three strategies that can help us to understand better the text. Scanning (specific information), Skimming (general idea), and Reading for detail.

Furthermore, there are two types of reading: INTENSIVE READING (reading for detailed information). The purposes are: to study grammar, infer meaning, discourse marks. The process that we have to follow are Pre-reading (create interest), Reading (silent reading), Post reading (check comprehension). The other type is EXTENSIVE READING (fir gist), the purpose is to have fluency and enjoyment, we can apply this in groups or individually. Also because it lets students increase their vocabulary, teacher should use different kinds of reading according students level.

Here you have more information about reading. 

Seven Strategies to Teach Students Text Comprehension.

    http://www.readingrockets.org/article/seven-strategies-teach-students-text-comprehension

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MS-5k-yj2w

Functions

                                                                 

                  

 Every time we speak or write is because of a reason or a purpose. So here we have some examples of functions: apologizing, greeting, clarifying, inviting, advising, agreeing, etc. Here we have more explanation: 

                                    "Language Function by Williams Jennifer"

In this part I have learned that when we describe the function of the language we focus in how it is used. We have three different ways to describe the language: context (the situations). Exponent (what we say). And the function (asking, suggesting, or thanking someone). There are three functions of the language and each function depends on the context. We have formal (more socially distant) neutral, when we want to show neither great respect nor to much informality and informal (it is more socially casual). So I can practice formal, informal and neutral language in every day but according to our purpose and according to the situation because we should use the language properly.

Bibliography:

Williams, J. C. (s.f.). language functions. Obtenido de youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7jFPOfyA1U.

Phonology

Phonology

In phonology we have studied the sound of the words. In Phonology we have phonemes, the smallest unit of a sound, word stress, sentence stress, and intonation. To have accuracy and fluency in English we have to put in practice those things.  Because, it is important to distinguish the sound between words, how we have to pronounce it correctly and also where we have to make and stress. Because there some vowel sound that disappear for example in the word important which is pronounced as a schwa.  Intonation is another important feature because in this way speaker changes the level of their voice to show meaning. In this part we have to linked some words that end in consonant with the words that start with vowel. Also we say parts of the sentence with more or less stress, (sentence stress) in a sentence we can have primary stress and secondary stress. I can use it when I am reading, speaking because it shows how much we know about the language. And when we are teaching is our responsibility to teach students the language in the correct way, not fossilizing then with wrong pronunciation and if we are not sure about the pronunciation of a word we can ask for help in order to give the right answer to our students.

Bibliography:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTCx2hCxvHQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_wV4MrjdXY

LEXIS

                                              

                                

          LEXIS: Refers to individual words or  units of vocabulary that have specific meaning.  We can find some literal meaning  but also meaning in contex, the situation in which the word is used. In this chapter we remember that the meaning of a word comes from their form: prefixes, group of letters added at the beginning of the word. Affixes, letters added at the end of the word.  We can made this affixation to  base words to obtain another one. Thave clear a definition about lexis here we have a video that can help us.

"WHAT IS LEXIS?  By Julia Starr Keddle "

To learn a foreign language we use idioms, chunks,  synonyms and antonyms as in our mother tongue. Sometimes we can find false friends that seem to be equal  but it does not e.g  assist- asistir  (assist  means to help). We can use lexis when teaching but the most important fact is that we have to differenciate the meaning. Because there are some words that have same sound and different meaning (homophones) and also we have homonyms, same spelling/ pronunciation but different meaning. Those are the basic things that we have to know to help students understand the language, so in this way students can pick the language up because we should expose them to the correct language. Sinclair and Renouf (1988) point out that focusing on lexis in classrooms has several advantages. First, teachers can highlight common uses, and important meanings and patterns for frequent words. Both are worth learning because learners may have used this information in authentic situations.  Second, teachers can encourage a learner to make full use of the words that the learner already has, regardless of the learners level (S8inclair & Renouf 198, p.155

Bibliografía

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJgTDBYPH5s. (n.d.). youtube. Retrieved from your space: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJgTDBYPH5s

Renouf, S. &. (1988). In S. &. Renouf.

Grammar

Do we need to study grammar to learn a language? The answer is yes, when you are learning a   new language because grammar can help you to learn more quickly and more efficiently. But talking about first language the answer is no. Chomsky “believes that every child has a ‘language acquisition device’ or LAD which encodes the major principles of a language and its grammatical structures into the child’s brain.” (Chomsky)  This is  why children start to speak before they even know the word grammar. However it is important because Grammar is present everywhere at any time when we speak or write something. For this reason we have to know what grammar is. Grammar is how we organize words, parts of words, and group of words to have meaning. We use grammar unconsciously when we speak, listen, read, and write something with different purposes.  We can identify grammatical forms in parts of speech. In English we can find nine parts of speech. E.g. noun, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, determiners, prepositions, pronouns, conjunctions, and exclamations. These words describe how words behave in sentences. We can combine these words grammatically to convey meaning, but the meaning comes from the context. I as future teacher I should use grammar to explain the parts of speech and how students can use them. Nowadays, language teaching focuses on functions, language skills, fluency and communication. In Scott Thornbury´s book “How to teach grammar?”  (Thornbury) Teaches us about the way grammar could be taught and  how it should be used according teacher and students´ needs.

Bibliography:

Chomsky, N. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://aggslanguage.wordpress.com/chomsky/

Thornbury, S. (n.d.). amazon. Retrieved from amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Scott-Thornbury/e/B001ITVU2.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-bib16PF20