Teaching at Centro Escolar INSA

On Saturday, September 22, I had to evaluate my students. The previous Saturday I told them to form groups of 3,4,5 or 6: after I made them to choose a country, and they were going to talk about the culture, the traditions, the religion or religions, and the typical food of the country that they had already choosen. One of the thing that made interesting this activity was that every group had to prepare one of the typical food of the country and to give a little bit of the food to their classmates, and everybody agreed. 

I got up very early in order to be some minutes before the activity started because I wanted to monitor how they were going to arrange the classroom. I set the things that I was going to use in order to evaluate them.

I have uploaded some pictures in order to explain the job that my students did.

Well, this group talk about the United States of North America.  The boy who is with the girls in the picture is good at English bacause of that he tried to show off in the presentation. This guy thinks that he is the know it all, but I tried to make him know that there is not reason to threat their classmates with indeference. The girls made a lot of mistakes, but I gave them feeback in order to make them know what their mistakes were.
 

 This girls girls talked about Argentina. They all did a good job, and they show that all of them were ready. I liked the food that they prepared. Even though they did a good job, they made some mistakes. I gave them feedback, and they were aware of their mistakes. They said to me "thank you teacher, it will help us not to make the same mistakes in another presentation".

They talked about Italy. This group was the best of all. Not all of them are so good at English, but they did a good job. The third boy from left to right is very good at English; I think he had the level of a intermediate university student, I didn´t have that level when I was in high school. The other guys I think they learned the things by heart.

This guys talked about China. I think that like a teacher, I do not have to be so severed at the moment of evaluating my students, but those guys did not do a good job. I let them know that they could do a better job. Those guys were the ones who got bad grades. But I encouraged them to do a good job the next time.

 

Those girls talked about Mexico. Well in this group I cannot say that all of them did a good job. There were two girls who did not do a good job. I told them that when someone is working in a group, that person has to give the best because if he or she doesn´t, it will affect the grade of the group.

Those girls talked about El Salvador; they did a good job. The four girls like English, and they gave the best. Also I can say that the food they prepared was very good. They have problems at the moment of reading high quantities. But after the presentation I told them how to read high quantities.

Those girls talked about France. They did an excellent job, but they are taking English classes at UNICAES. Well they like English, and every time I asked them to participate: they helped me.

But even though they did a good job, their classmates very not so happy because they just bring bread with an special souce.

Those girls talked about Brazil, and I think they could give more. They did a poor presentation, and also the food they bring was not so good. They made a lot of mistakes, but I gave them good feedback.

I really enjoyed this activity, and I ate a lot. I had fun, and my students had fun too. They learned new things about the others countries as I did it too. It made me feel good because I reached the objective of the activity.

My experiences as a highschool teacher

I began my teaching practice some weeks ago at INSA. I thought it was going to be easy to work with high school students, but it had been complicated. I never thought I was going to face a lot of problems. As most Salvadorian people my students are not interesting in learning English. I realized that they like to joke with my tutor, and also my tutor allows them to joke with him. It has caused me a lot of problems because I am a serious person, and I do not like to joke with them. My challenge is going to engage them in my activities and to make them see English as a good tool in our society nowadays.

There is a student in my class, and he thinks that he knows everything. He is good at English for that reason he thinks that I do not have something to teach him. He told my tutor that he prefers my tutor to be in front of the class instead of me, and I let it be. But I began to reflect about that, and I noticed that I have to do something in order to change that. I asked my didactics teacher an advice, and he told me that I have to challenge my student. I think it is a good idea, and I will put it into practice in my next class. Of course, I won´t threat my students, but I will make them aware that I am teaching them because I want them to learn English.

One day I was so disappointed so that I said I was not going to care about my students learning. But after I reflected that it wasn´t my students’ fault, I felt encourage to better the way I am teaching them.

Now I know it is not going to be easy, but I know that I have the tools. So, I will do my best in order to be a good teacher and to transmit that to my students. I didn´t want to be a teacher, but I know that since I am studying a major that allow me to teach, I will try to be a good teacher.

1.How will I attend to the individual learning style needs of the students, both instructionally and personally?

 

 

As students, if we can extend our learning styles, we have the chance of learning in a wider variety of situations. As teachers, tutors or trainer, we have a responsibility to ensure that we appeal to the whole range. It´s a pound to a penny that your class will contain students whose learning styles will differ wildly. No one of us learn in the same way.

Peter Honey identified four basic styles. The names he gives for each of these categories are activist, theorist, reflector and pragmatist.

Activist learning style

An activist, as the name suggest, enjoys active ways of learning. 

Theorist learning style

There´s nothing theorists like better than to have their minds stretched and challenged. 

Reflector learning style

The reflector likes to have plenty of time to observe what is taking place before embarking on a project.

Pragmatist learning style

Pragmatists like to be able to see the point of something.

Teacher have to take into account the different learning styles in order to make a lesson plan that will fit with their students individual learning styles needs. Since teacher are aware about that they have many students, and that all of them learn differently, they have to develop activities that are VAK (visual, auditory, kinesthetic). Teachers should know about their students’ strengths and weaknesses. How can teachers know about them? Teachers will know by measuring them in the activities they will carry out in the classroom. 

Teachers can help their students to discover what kind of learning styles they have developed more and how can they develop the others. Students can know what kind of style they have by knowing how they do in the activities teachers carry out in the classroom. I discovered what kind of style I had by reflecting in which activities (reading comprehension activities, listening activities, and oral activities) I got good grades. When students discover what kind of style they have or have developed more, it is easier for them to learn things quickly. Also it is easier for teacher to look for activities that will fulfill their student’s individual learning styles needs.

2. How will I see growth in the learners according to their stated needs/goals, as well as my course goals?

 

There are two words assessment and evaluation, and those words will help us to answer this question.

Assessment is all about checking your students´ progress and achievements. Assessment is vital for both you and your students to make judgments about their progress. Student assessment begins at the very first session.

As adults are this funny mixed of different experiences, knowledge, one of the things you are going to do is assess what your students know or can do. One way to assess your students is to give them a little entry test. Let them know that the test is just for you to know about their previous knowledge about the subject. After that during the course you can apply formative assessment.  

Formative assessment is the kind of assessment you will do as the course progresses. You can know change to a new topic if the students have pitfalls.

Then teacher can apply summative assessment which takes place at the end of a unit or a course.

   

You can see the growth of your students by certain factors.

Student’s motivation is the first factor. This will help us to know if the students feel comfortable and motivated to continue learning new things.

The second factor is students’ attendance. If you have a good number of students in your class, it will show how successful you are. The more your students drop your classes, the less successful you are.

The students’ result is the third factor. It means that if most of your students get good grades, you are doing a good job.   

To sum up, effective assessment:

•        is directly related to the learning outcomes and aims

•            give the students a sense of achievement
          

Evaluation

With evaluation, you are either having to make judgments about you own work as a tutor, or getting someone in to watch you teach.

There many techniques or ways that you can use in order to measure your progress.

You can pass surveys to your students with questions that go straight to the point.

You can ask your students for general comments about the subject.

I can tell you more but what matter is to know if you have reached your course goals, and if your students have fulfilled their goals as well.

3. How do I use the learner´s experiences within the instruction?

 

Teachers must consider their students´ previous experiences; teachers can reach this by asking questions related to different fields. For example, teachers can ask question like what is your profession. Do you speak more than one language? Do you like challenges? And so on. This will help teachers to know about their students´ previous experiences.

Teacher should remember that adults had had previous experience in the learning process. So, teachers are just going to engage the students in the process again.

Learning is hard, but there are additional reasons will find it harder than others. Not everyone can boast that they have had good experiences of learning in the past.

Adult students engage in the activities and play their role very well when they are exposed to real life´s situations.   

Why does Donah Zohar call dialogue a quantum process?

Dialogue is really aimed at going into the whole thought process and changing the way the thought process occurs collectively. Donah Zohar calls dialogue a quantum process, the means of doing quantum thinking.

Using Quantum Thinking, you can connect to the answer to any question. You can even connect to multiple right answers and pick what appeals to you. Quantum-thinking is the ability of the mind to function at a higher level of creativity and innovation. This level of thinking allows one to accurately envision the next generation products, services, and modes of operation. 

Since dialogue is a very important tools that helps teachers to get along with their students and to make the students bring out the best of them, teachers should take into account twelve principles.

1. Needs Assesment: This principle deals with the students´s expectations, and what teachers can offers to them. As we know adults students and students in general like to have a very clear idea about what the course that they will take is about, and what the teachers can offer them. Students may register for the same program they all come with different experience and expectations.

2. Safety is a principle linked to respect for learners as decision makers of their own learning. This principle guides the teacher´s hand throughout the planning, during the learning needs and resources assesment, in the first moments of the course. It also enables the teacher to create an inviting setting for adult learners.

3.  Sound relationships for learning involve respect, safety, open communication, listening, and humility. Dialogue is an important tool in quantum thinking. Why is it important? It is beacause through quantum thinking offers additional benefits for problem solving, developing new inventions, planning for the unknown.

4. Sequence and Reinforcement. Sequence means the programming of knowledge, skills, and attitudes in an order that goes from simple to complex and from group supported to solo efforts. Reinforcement means the repetition of facts, skill, and attitudes in diverse, engaging, and interesting ways until they are learned.

5. Praxis means action with reflection. As we adults students have to re-create the content through participation. They redesign the skills, knowledge, attitudes they are learning as they see them fit their contexts.

6. Respect for Learnes as Decision Makers. Respecting learners as decions makers of their own learning is a principle that involves the recognition that adults are in fact decions makers in a large part of their lives. So, adults students make decions and have clear what they want to learn. Engaging adults in their own learning means engaging them as subjects of that learning.

7. Ideas, Feelings, Actions. It is not a matter just of learning a topic. Some adults are afraid of being threaten. And it is because teachers do not take about their emotions.  When adults students are in the learning process they use three aspects of learning: ideas (cognitive), feelings (affective), and actions (psycomotor).

8. Inmediacy. The principle of immediacy helps the teacher decide how to organize the sessions in a course. As we know adults students want to see results very soon, but if they do not see results, they give up and quite the course.

9. Clear Roles. A teacher can be intent upon a DIALOGUE  with an adult learner, but if the learner sees the teacher as the professor with whom there is no possibility of disagreement, no questioning, no challenge, the dialogue is dead in water. 

10. Teamwork is itself both a process and a principle. Teams provide, in the adult learning experience a quality of safety that is effective and helpful. As adults eduactor we must remember that feelings are never simulated. If an adult feels overwhelmed and excluded in a small group of people, those feelings are real. So, the teacher has to hellp the adult, and the teacher must design for the inclusion of all adults. Team invite the welcome energy of competition. I really like this: nothing in the universe grows or develops alone.

11. Engagement. Throgh learning task we invite learners to engage themselves actively in the strategic issues or their organizations and of the community. This is a good quote of Zohar, "When we do not use dialogue and instead ask learners to be passive, they indeed learn. They learn who to be passive, to be good employees (students). They learn that they have no power, except to obey. This is not the goal of adult learning in my perspective. When learners are deeply engaged, working in small groups or teams, it is often difficult to exticate them fron the delight of that learning. 

10. Accountability is the result of ussing all the other principles. 

Teachers should taken into account those principles while making a lesson plan. It is beacuse this whole process will help the teacher to put into practice the dialogue as a quantum process since we know that Quantum-thinking is the ability of the mind to function at a higher level of creativity and innovation. Working with adults is not easy but through dialogue we can easier make the adults students to bring out the best of them. Since Danah Zohar call dialogue a quantum process, teachers should apply some techniques in order to motivate adults students, engage them in the activities, and make them learn the language. Dialogue helps teacher to reach several objectives such as get along with the students, enhance the students to participate in the activities. Throug dialogue the teacher offers a new perception of the world and the learning process.   

 

 

  

Teaching by Principles Chapter 13 - 14

How is order set up and kept in learning environments?

The most important key to create an interactive language classroom is the initiation of interaction by the teacher.  Professor Brown define in the book Teaching by Principles  interaction as the heart of communication; it is what communication is all about. The other definition that I like the most is the following interaction is the collaborative exchange of thoughts, feelings, or ideas between two or more people, resulting in a reciprocal effect on each other. The success of classroom learning is very  much dependent on how students relate to each other, waht the classroom environment is, how effectively students cooperate and communicate with each other, and of course what roles the teacher and the learnes play. Teachers may play the folling roles:

• The teacher as controller
• The teacher as director
• The teacher as manager
• The teacher as facilitator
• The teacher as resource

Teachers should be able to assume all five or these roles depending on the goals that they want to reach. Teachers have to create a good a atmosphere where the students can feel confortable. Doing so, students will be able to express their thoughts, ideas, opinions and so forth. In such way it will be easier for teachers to set up and kept the order in learning environments. 

Nowadays the task of the teacher is to make students participate in a 80% so that the participation of the teacher should be 20%. No less important terachers should motivate their students. Motivation plays an important role in the classroom. One of the best ways to develop the teachers´s role as an initiator and sustaniner of interaction is to develop a repertoire of questioning strategies. There are many ways to classify what kings of questions are effective in the classroom. Perhaps the simpliest way to conceptualize the possiblities is to think of a range of questions, beginning with display questions that attempt to elicit information already known by the teacher, all the way to hinghy referential questions that request information not known by the questioner; sometimes responses to the latter involve judgment about facts that are not clear or a statement of values.

The information below gives us a good strategy that teachers should implement in theirs classes in order to know their students. As teachers are aware about thier students´s likes and dislikes, teachers may have an idea what they can do and what they cannot do in order to make the students partipate in an actively way. 

This leades us to answer the following question:

What is the impact of strategies-based instructions on teaching English as a foreing language?

Before we need to know how to sustain interaction though group work some of the techniques that we can use in the classroom. There are several techniques for implementing interaction in the classroom, but probably the most common thus the most used is group formation or group work. 

As everything in life group work has its advantages and disadvantages.

Advantages:

1. Group work generates interactive language
2. Group work offers an embracing affective climate
3. Group work promotes learner responsability and autonomy
4. Group work is a step toward individual instruction.

Even though teachers should take risks, there are a lot teachers that give excuses (disadvantages) for avoiding group work. 

Disadvantages:

1. The teacher is no longer in control of the class
2. Students will use their native language
3. Students´s errors will be reinforced in small group
4. Teachers cannot monitor all groups at once
5. Some learners prefer to work alone

Teachers are in charge of the classroom, and everything that may happen in the classroom will depend on  teachers´s attitude.

There are a lot of techniques that teachers may use in the classroom.

 1. Games
 2. Role plays and simulaitons
 3. Drama
 4. Projects
 5. Interviews and so forth (if you want to know more about that you can read chapter 14 of the book Teaching by Principles)

The teacher is the responsable of selecting an appropriate group technique, and he or she should introduce the technique, justify the use of small groups for the technique, model the technique, give explicit detailed instructions (instructions are the heart of every single activity in the classroom), divide the class into groups, check for clarification, and set the task in motion.
 
Teachers  should plan carefully the activities that they will develop in the classroom. As Francisco Quintanilla (didactics teacher) If you are not really sure of implementing those activities in the classroom, do not do it because everything will be a mess. 

Set up and keep the order in the class is not easier, and teachers face a lot ot problems. But if you are a risk taker teacher, you will get into good and bad experiences that will help you to fulfill  the profile of a good teacher.

The impact of stragies-based instractions is that students will learn in a more effective way. Also, students will have fun, and they will develop their skills.  Students will engage in the activities, and the teacher will have the control of the class even if he is apply group work that nowadays is an effective technique which helps students to learn in a good environment and to communicate with their classmates.

As a conclution, I agree with the use of group work because students relate each others. While learning a second language in this case English, students should learn how to socialize with their classmates and to be exposured to real-life situations. 
 

How do Classroom Management Parameters Help to Make Lessons More Effective?


As we already know, the classroom management helps teachers to have control over the students, control of the class, and a good classroom atmosphere in order to make learning takes place, and classroom management also aims at encouraging and establishing student self-control through a process of promoting positive student achievement and behavior. Moreover, as the students have some distracting behavior in classes, teachers have to take into account the classroom management parameters that help teachers to prevent that distracting behavior and to show their abilities, attitudes, and characteristics to make learning takes place easily and to have the control in the classroom. These classroom management parameters are very helpful for teachers since these parameters guide teachers in order to control their students’ behavior.

The first parameter is “Attention.” Asattention is the cognitive process of selectively concentrating on one aspect of the classroom environment while ignoring other things, teachers have to deal with this situation with their students almost every day. Taking into account that there are many distractions in a class, teachers have to catch their students´ attention in order to make them be concentrated in their class and also to make them feel interested and motivated about learning a new topic. One of the most effective techniques that teachers can use to catch the attention of their students is to make different activities and to use different strategies to teach the lessons to their pupils. Teachers can also make their students pay attention encouraging them, teaching them with enthusiasm and humor, dramatizing, and so forth.

“Momentum” is another classroom parameter. Momentum is describe as the smooth flow of events which are not necessarily noticeable when everything is working well, but are highly visible when the flow or momentum is interrupted or not working. Teachers have to have all the things they are going to use to teach the lessons ready before the class starts since a good momentum in a class is noticeable when the teacher has prepared all the materials since the very beginning. Furthermore, as it is difficult to catch the students´ attention, teachers have to be aware of knowing what things can break the momentum in a classroom. Teachers know that there are many intrusions that can break the momentum in a class, but the most important thing that teachers have to know when intrusions appear is how to deal with the intrusions that almost always break the momentum in a class. Also, teachers have to be aware about making the appropriate transitions within a class because it can also break the momentum. Definitely, every time teachers have created a good momentum with their students, learning takes place easily and sometimes without any problem. In momentum, teachers plan the lessons well, they do not wing it and teachers also deal with interruptions effectively and efficiently.


Another classroom parameter is“Space.” Space is a good classroom management parameter as well as it is about maximizing the classroom’s physical space to facilitate easy teacher movement and proximity, as well as student movement and transitions. In space, the classroom should be arranged to promote efficient learning and minimize students’ behavior problems. The classroom should also be flexible to allow for different types of learning activities. Using space, students must be able to see and hear instructions without any problem and have efficient access to learning materials, and the teacher should be able to easily monitor students and provide feedback to them. A good advantage of using space is the flexibility to accommodate both large group and small group activities and the adjustment of the room to meet the needs of the particular activity. Moreover, there are some techniques teachers can use to seat their students such as in lines, in semi circle, in square, and so on.

“Time” is another classroom management parameter that teachers use in their classes. As teachers have a limited time to teach their students, managing class time is very important. I learned that the efficient use of time is an important variable in helping students achieve learning goals and making the classroom a pleasant place for teachers and students. Something important here is that it is up to the teacher to keep the class moving along swiftly enough to reduce boredom, but slowly enough to keep the class together. It is very useful that teachers know how to organize the time for their classes; they can do it in different tasks. For example, teachers have to take time to plan their lessons, to teach the topics, to make activities, and so forth. Organizing the time, teachers help their students to learn effectively and even how students can use their time not only in the class but also outdoors.

Another important classroom management parameter is “Routines.”Routines give both teachers and students the ability to see clearly what is expected and know how to follow through. This parameter is focused on creating orderly classroom routines that help students understand what is expected each day without making them feel bored. Teachers have to create routines within their classroom as routines help teachers to have a good classroom management. It is important that teachers tell their students what they are going to do but taking into consideration that students will not feel bored due to the routines; teachers have to look for the best ways to make routines funny in order to have effective and efficient classes every day.  Moreover, classroom routines are important because students enjoy their classes more when they know the routines. 

The last but not the least important classroom management parameter is“Discipline.” Teachers have to discipline their students to control their actions and behavior in order to have a good classroom atmosphere and create a good learning environment. As students tend to misbehave, teachers have to establish rules since the beginning of the year or semester; furthermore, teachers have to punish their students when they break the rules because if teachers do not do that, they will lose the control in their classes. If teachers foment discipline in their students, they will be teaching them to be discipline and responsible for their future life. If teachers establish rules and tell their students the consequences of breaking the rules and they follow the rules since the very beginning, students will be discipline and they will learn more so that learning will take place.

Multiple Intelligences

(Being an intellectual creates a lot of questions and no answers)

Multiple intelligences was the last topic that the teacher developed in the class. He talked about Howard Gardner. He is an American developmental psychologist who is a professor of Cognition and Education at  Harvard Graduate School of Education at Harvard University. He is best known  for his theory of multiple intelligences.Gardner argues that there is a wide range of cognitive abilities, and that there are only very weak corrections among them. For example, the theory predicts that a child who learns to multiply easily is not necessarily generally more intelligent than a child who has more difficulty on this task.There are eight types of multiple intelligences.

1. Linguistic intelligence: a sensitivity to the meaning and order of words.

2. Logical-mathematical intelligence: ability in mathematics and other complex logical systems.

3. Musical intelligence: the ability to understand and create music. Musicians, composers and dancers show a heightened musical intelligence.

4. Spatial intelligence: the ability to "think in pictures," to perceive the visual world accurately, and recreate ( or alter) it in the mind or on paper. Spatial intelligence is highly developed in artists, architects, designers and sculptors.

5. Body-kinesthetic intelligence: the ability to use one´s body in a skilled way, for self expression or toward a goal. Mimes, dancers, basketball players, and actors are among those who display bodily-kinesthetic intelligence.

6. Interpersonal intelligence: an ability to perceive and understand other individuals -- their moods, desires, and motivations. Political and religious leaders, skilled parents and teachers, and therapists use this intelligence.

7. Intrapersonal intelligence: an understanding of one´s own emotions. Some novelists and or conselors use their own experience to guide others.

8. Naturalist intelligence: the ability to recognize and classify plants, minerals, and animals, including rocks and grass and all variety of flora and fauna.

All of us have the eight types of multiple intelligences. Teachers, parents, and any person can develop the multiple intelligences. Teachers should take into account  the multiple intelligences while teaching. They can apply the multiple intelligences in their activities that they are going ti develop in the class.

When asked how educators should implement the theory of multiple intelligences, Gardner says, "(I)t's very important that a teacher take individual differences among kids very seriously The bottom line is a deep interest in children and how their minds are different from one another, and in helping them use their minds well."

An awareness of multiple-intelligence theory has stimulated teachers to find more ways of helping all students in their classes. Some schools do this by adapting curriculum. In "Variations on a Theme: How Teachers Interpret MI Theory," (Educational Leadership, September 1997), Linda Campbell describes five approaches to curriculum change:

· Lesson design. Some schools focus on lesson design. This might involve team teaching ("teachers focusing on their own intelligence strengths"), using all or several of the intelligences in their lessons, or asking student opinions about the best way to teach and learn certain topics.

· Interdisciplinary units. Secondary schools often include interdisciplinary units.

· Student projects. Students can learn to "initiate and manage complex projects" when they are creating student projects.

· Assessments. Assessments are devised which allow students to show what they have learned. Sometimes this takes the form of allowing each student to devise the way he or she will be assessed, while meeting the teacher's criteria for quality.

· Apprenticeships. Apprenticeships can allow students to "gain mastery of a valued skill gradually, with effort and discipline over time." Gardner feels that apprenticeships "should take up about one-third of a student's schooling experience."

With an understanding of Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences, teachers, school administrators, and parents can better understand the learners in their midst. They can allow students to safely explore and learn in many ways, and they can help students direct their own learning. Adults can help students understand and appreciate their strengths, and identify real-world activities that will stimulate more learning.

Here is a web page where you can take a test and level your multiple intelligences.

http://www.bgfl.org/custom/resources_ftp/client_ftp/ks3/ict/multiple_int/index.htm