UNIT 18: ASSESSMENT TYES AND TASKS

In this unit, I have learned many things related to assessment. First of all, I am going to explain what assessment means. It refers to the judgment teachers make on students’ performance by collecting information about it. We have to kinds of assessment formal and informal assessment. Formal assessment is used when teachers assess students by using different tests or exams (diagnostic, summative or progress tests) and they normally involve giving a grade to their work. Teachers use different assessment tasks to assess students. For instance, they can use multiple-choice questions, gap-fill activities, or sentence completion in the case of assessing the receptive skills. For the productive skills, they can use role-plays, compositions, interviews, etc. These assessment tasks can be described as objective or subjective. Objective tasks are easy to grade because there is no judgment involved by the marker at the time of scoring because there is only one right answer. On the other hand, we have the subjective tasks. They involve the marker´s judgment to decide if an answer is right or wrong. In addition, they require more time to score and it is necessary to use assessment criteria by the teacher. Second, informal assessment consists on observing learners to see how well they are doing something and then give feedback for how they can improve it. Unlike formal assessment, informal assessment does not involve giving a grade, and it does not use assessment tasks. This assessment can be done by the teacher using different checklists or taking notes, or by the learners through self- assessment or peer- assessment. In my teaching process, I think I should use both informal and formal assessment in the classroom since both help me to analyze my learners´ language abilities as well as their behavior and attitude for learning. For example, if I ask my students to work on a project I can use informal assessment by moving around the classroom observing how they collaborate one another, if they are motivated or not. Therefore, I will be able to see if it was good to use projects or not. Another example could be when learners have to write articles or compositions. I can use formal assessment to assess them by using specific criteria in which they can clearly see what their strengths and weaknesses were to improve next time.  To sum up, assessment have to take place in the classroom all time either in a formal or informal way in order to check if our teaching is reflected on students´ performance, and how motivated they are during  the learning process.  

Check this video which has extra information about this topic.

 

Here I share you some links where you can find extra information about assessment types and tasks.

·         e-ASSESSMENT COURSE FILES.(2009). Description of e-assessment activities and tasks.U.S. Retrieved from https://learningtechnologies.epigeum.com/courses/learning_technologies/113/course_files/html/course_files/2_1.html

·         Spiller, D. (2011). Assessment Tasks to Promote Learning. The University of Waikato. Retrieved from http://www.waikato.ac.nz/tdu/pdf/booklets/10_AssessmentTasks.pdf

·         Effieboo´s channel. (2011). Formative Assessment Techniques. UK. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zc67rq8XmtA

UNIT 17: PRACTICE ACTIVITIES AND TASKS FOR LANGUAGE AND SKILLS DEVELOPMENT

   

This unit mainly talks about the different activities and tasks teachers can use with learners for developing their language and language skills. These designed activities give learners more opportunities to practice and improve their use of language such as in vocabulary, grammatical structures, or subskills. The teacher should decide which activity is better for their learners. For example, if the teacher considers they need more practice on form he/she could design activities that promote controlled practice such as copying words, practice choral/ individual drills, or make them just replace key words in sentences using transformational drills. All of these activities are usually known as controlled activities because they give learners lots of guidance and support in using language accurately, and help them to make just few mistakes with language. In contrast, if the teacher thinks that his learners need to use language for communication, he/she can opt for the free activities because they focus more on fluency and give learners practice on recalling information, and interacting with others. They are free because learners can use whatever language they wish to complete a task. Examples of free activities are: discussions, rank ordering, writing emails, letters, and so forth. Between these two activities, we have the freer activities. They are a combination of both because they do not focus neither too much on form nor on fluency. There is a balance here because students can receive a little guidance and support and also they can integrate their ideas and language as they wish in their activities. Some examples of freer activities are: information-gap activities, role-plays and surveys. There are other activities that can help learners develop language skills such as multiple choice questions, true/false, jigsaw reading, table completion and others.

In my teaching process, I would apply this knowledge in different ways.  I would try to add variety in my lessons since it will help my learners to be motivated and more interested in learning. When I say variety, I mean to use different activities in each lesson. For instance, one day I can use controlled  activities for teaching the perfect simple. So, learners will have to complete series of exercises about grammar. Another day, I can use freer activities in which they have to write an essay guided by certain parameters established by the teacher and according to their own experiences. Other day, I can use free activities such as make them prepare postcards about “Halloween” in groups and expose them to the class. As a conclusion, teachers have to decide whether to use controlled, freer or free activities the classroom after carefully analyzing what their learners´ needs or preferences are and what skills or topic they want to teach that day.

I share you some links with information about different practice activities teachers can use in the classroom. Some are controlled, free and others freer activities.

ü  Language Link. (1997). Practice Activities and Tasks. Retrieved from http://jobs.languagelink.ru/tefl_clinic/teaching_knowledge/glossary/practice_activities_and_tasks.php

ü  ELTTRAINING. (2012). Teaching Grammar- getting creative with controlled practice. UK.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-bib16PF20

ü  Foreign Languages. (1998).Teaching Ideas. Retrieved from http://www.teachingideas.co.uk/foreignlanguages/contents.htm

ü  Foreign Language Teaching Methods. Speaking.(2010). Communicative Activities. Retrieved from http://coerll.utexas.edu/methods/modules/speaking/06/

UNIT 16: PRESENTATION TECHNIQUES AND INTRODUCTORY ACTIVITIES

 

In this unit I have learned two main things about language teaching. First of all, about presentation techniques. It refers to the ways used by the teachers to focus learners´ attention on meaning or form of new language when introducing it for the first time. The most common ways of presenting new language are Presentation, Practice and production or PPP, and Task-based Learning or TBL. In the PPP approach, the teacher tries to focus on both form and meaning of the target language. The teacher firstly sets up a situation, then models the target language in a controlled practice, and finally ask learners concept questions to check understanding of the use of language. On the other hand, in TBL approach the teacher tries to focus mainly on meaning. Learners have to complete a task which is normally based a problem-solving situation, which help them to experiment language as in real communication, similarly to the way children learn their first language. There are other ways teachers can use to present language such as: guided discovery, or Test-teach-test. Second, another important term to mention is introductory activities. It refers to the activities that are used by the teacher to introduce or teaching a lesson. There are three kinds of introductory activities: warmers, lead-ins and ice-breakers. Warmers are used when the teacher wants to raise students´ energy before starting a lesson, and they are not always connected to the topic lesson. On the contrary, lead-ins are connected to the topic and they are used to motivate students to study a certain topic or make a link between the topic and their own lives. Furthermore, ice-breakers are used by the teacher when he/she wants students to get to know one another in order to make them feel comfortable in the classroom. They are normally used at the beginning of the school year.

How can I apply this knowledge in a teaching situation? Well, regarding to the presentation techniques. It will depend on the topic and learners because before choosing a certain approach, I have to bear in mind my learners´ age, level, needs or learning styles. For instance, if they are just beginners, among 12-15 years old, have visual learning style, and are learning about the quantifiers “how much & how many”. I can teach them by using the PPP approach, since they need to understand both form and meaning to make their learning permanent. Now regarding to introductory activities. I can use the “hand catching” warmer (it consist on trying to catch your partners hand each time she/he passes his/her hand through yours) when I notice that most of my students are tired or stressed out because it  will help them to get rid of stress and be woken up for starting the lesson. Moreover, I can present a lead-in by sticking several pictures around the classroom, so students in small groups will have to move around the classroom by describing the pictures and sharing ideas one another before doing a writing activity. To sum up, the teacher should carefully analyze which presentation technique or an introductory activity to choose before planning because they have to take into account the learner´s characteristics in order to get at the end a successful lesson.

 

You can check this video for further information:

 

I share you some links that I consider useful and have more information related to this topic.

ü  Sciberras, J. (2013). PPP to TBL Different approaches to language presentation. U.S. Retrieved from http://www.slideshare.net/JGakonga/ppp-ttt-tbl-slideshare

ü  ESOL Nexus. (2007). Task-based approach. UK. Retrieved from http://esol.britishcouncil.org/content/teachers/staff-room/teaching-articles/task-based-approach

üCabral,A. & Colarte, A. (2012). Comparison and contrast: TBL + PPP. ISL UNA. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0laPOgDm7I

UNIT 15: APPROACHES TO LANGUAGE TEACHING

In this unit I learned the different approaches that teachers can use in the classroom depending on what they want to focus on and the lesson´s aims. First of all, it essential to know what an approach is. It refers to the people´s views on what language is made up, how it is learned and what classroom practices are the most effective.   Each teacher has their own belief about it and they can opt to choose one rather than another in their teaching process. For example, there are teachers who think language is a set of grammar rules and that the best way to learn them is by analyising grammatical rules. Therefore, they prepare exercises where students have to work out what language means, or learn a list of words by heart. This approach is mostly known as the Grammar Translation Approach. On the other hand, there are teachers who believe that language is a tool for communicating meaning and the best to learn it is by using communicative activities. In order to achieve this, they try to use authentic materials where students can realize of how language is used in real communication, use pair and group activities to enable lots of interaction in the class. In addition, we have the teachers who prefer to use more than one approach because they think language is learned focusing on the different areas. Here we can say that they are using an eclectic approach which means they mix techniques from different approaches in order to achieve learners` expectations. There are many and many other approaches for teaching language such as, the Lexical Approach, PPP,Structural approach, etc. According to my own perspective, I think that we have to choose not only one approach, but various depending on the aims we want to achieve at the end of the lesson. For example, if I want my students to be able to use vocabulary of the unit I can use is the Lexical Approach. I could present them authentic interview in which they have to write down all the chunks they hear, and then I can ask them to create an interview in pairs by using the studied chunks. Another example, if I want my students to work out a grammatical structure by themselves I can use the Guided Discovery Approach in which I can start by giving a fairytale that contain past tense verbs. Then, I can ask them to work out what the rules seem to be for past tense. Once they have deduce the rules I will provide them all the rules for using past tense to check their discovery. To sum up, there is no approach that is best to use in language learning because all them has their benefits depending on the aims we want to achieve and the learners´ needs.

I recommend you to read these books:

·         Richards, J. & Rodgers, T. (2001). Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching. Second Edition. Cambridge. United Kingdom.

·         Brown, H. (2001). Teaching by Principles: An Interactive Approach to Language Pedagogy. Longman/ Pearson Education, White Plains, New York.

I share you two links that I consider useful and have more information related to this topic:

ü  A guide to learning English. (2011). Language Teaching Methodologies. UK. Retrieved from http://esl.fis.edu/teachers/support/method.htm

ü   Okumus, D. (2013). Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yL3KGtBfMak

UNIT 14: LEARNER NEEDS

 

This unit deals about the various kind of leaners´needs that can influence on the learning process. They could be personal needs, which refers to each student´s inner necessities that they want to fill. For example, their need for security, support, goals, praise, physical or psychological needs. Those needs vary depending on the age, gender, interest, motivation, or personality. Furthermore, we have the learning needs, which refer to the needs about the learning process. For example when learners need a specific language subskill for improving writing, or some exams strategies. Unlike personal needs they vary depending on their learning style, past language learning experiences, or level of skill and knowledge. Moreover, we have the professional needs, which refer to the academic needs that students have about learning English. For example, they want to know specific vocabulary, text types and functions, which are essential for their different jobs. As you can see these needs depend on the learner´s requirement and vary according to their employment or education.  To meet all learners´ needs is not easy for teachers because it is necessary a long period of observation and searching of the appropriate strategies per each individual. Something important to point out is that most of children and teenagers have personal and learning styles whereas younger adults and adults have professional needs for learning a language. In order to apply this knowledge in my teaching process, I will use a variety of strategies depending on the learner´s need. For example, if I observed that one of my students needs security when speaking in English, I will encourage to speak by saying “You can do it”, “It does not matter if your answer is not correct”, and once he has tried to speak I will give him a positive feedback. In the same way, if I have a student who is blind, I will try to use materials that are appropriate for their physical need such as bringing a reading in braille or some recordings of stories to the class. To sum up, to meet learners´ needs is part of being a good teacher and found them will motivate students to make their language learning process more relevant.  

There are some links below that I consider useful and have more information related to this topic.

·         eLearning Fundamentals. (2005). Learner Analysis:  Identifying Learner Characteristics and Needs. Retrieved from http://www.itma.vt.edu/modules/spring11/efund/lesson3/learneranalysis.pdf
·         Curtis, T. (2014).  The Importance of Understanding your learners needs. U.S. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMDI9lO12_4  ·         SCCRESA. (2011). Meeting the Needs of Today's Learners - Learning 2.0. Michigan. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qy2odhMmAQc

·Baglow, J. (2013). Meeting your Learners' Needs. Retrieved from  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMLAgXDdL0Q

UNIT 13: LEARNER CHARACTERISTICS

In this unit, I learned some of the learner´s characteristics which are important to know in order to help students learn a language. These characteristics include motivation, as we have already seen in unit 9, it is important to keep learners´ desire up to study a foreign language and it depends on learners and teachers. In addition, teachers have to take into account the learners´ learning style because they vary depending on each individual. It refers to the different ways in which a learner like to learn or how she/he learns best. We have different learning styles the most common are: visual- when learners learn by watching, auditory- when they learn by listening, kinaesthetic- when they learn by touching and moving, and so forth. We cannot say exactly who has certain learning style because one student may have more than one learning style. Furthermore, we have to think about the learners´ learning strategies. They refer to the ways that learners choose and use to learn language. For example, some learners may choose the repeating strategy for remembering new words whereas other learners may choose paraphrasing or asking the teacher to give feedback on their language use.  Maturity is also part of learners´ characteristics because each student have a different level of maturity. For instance, children are commonly known for their short attention span, teenagers because their concentration is still developing, and adults because of their capacity to concentrate for longer periods. Finally, the learners´ past language learning experiences influence in the learning process, especially, in teenagers and adults since they have had a previous experience learning a foreign language. To apply all knowledge about this topic, I would first try to find out what my students´ characteristics are. For example, I can use some questionnaires to find out which learning style predominates overall the group, or just by observing in which ways they like to work best. After that, I can prepare activities according to their preferences, for example, I can prepare communicative activities for the ones who are impulsive and like to use foreign language. On the other hand, I can bring a handout where they have to focus on form rather than on meaning. As a conclusion, teachers have to discover what their learners´ characteristics are in order to analyze which activities they can bring to the classroom to make their learning successful.

There are some links below that I consider useful and have more information related to this topic.

·         Weimer, M. (2014). Seven Characteristics of Good Learners. Retrieved from http://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/teaching-professor-blog/seven-characteristics-good-learners/
·         Pappas, C. ( 2013).  8 Important Characteristics of Adult Learners. U.S. Retrieved from http://elearningindustry.com/8-important-characteristics-of-adult-learners

·         Languages & Children. (2009). Characteristics of Young Learners. Retrieved from http://www.pearsonhighered.com/assets/hip/us/hip_us_pearsonhighered/samplechapter/0205535488.pdf

You can also watch this video:

·         Marcy, P.(2013). Personal Characteristics of Language Learners. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJsk-O0U_z4&list=PLpn-Of7Xlrg4BLJd2nI25yoWTcLMy4MBI

UNIT 12 : DIFFERENCES BETWEEN L1 AND L2 LEARNING

In this unit, I learned some of the differences between first language (L1) and second language (L2) learning. These differences are classified taking into account the learners ‘age, ways of learning and the context that they are learning in. First, regarding to learners´ age. When learning a firs language, generally we pick it up when we are babies listening to our parents using the language. It occurs at the same time we develop our cognitive skills. Then it continues through the years of childhood and improves into adolescence. On the other hand, when learning a second language, it can start when we are adults or in primary or secondary school when our cognitive skills are not yet developed. Second, regarding to context. People usually learn a first language by lots of exposure and interaction with people who speak the same language (native speakers) specially their parents. On the contrary, in a second language learning, learners are often taught grammar with little exposure to language since it can only be hear in the classroom which most of times is about 2 hours a week.  Moreover, when learning a first language there is strong motivation for doing it because we feel the need to communicate, we can play and experiment the language. Whereas in a second language our motivation can vary: strong, little or no motivation because the teacher only uses controlled practice activities and corrects mistakes all time. Third, regarding to ways of learning. In the first language, learners learn by talking about things that are presented in their surrounded while second language learners talk about topics that are mentioned in a book. Furthermore, first language learners receive a lot of encouragement and praise when using language which do not always occur with second language learners since some teachers do not treat all students equally, some of them receive more encouragement and praise than others.  I consider this is important to be aware of because we, as teachers, need to understand that learning a first language and a second language are two different processes.  When learning a second language we have to promote exposure because learners need to use language as much as possible to learn it. What I can do in this situation is to bring to the class authentic materials such as articles from magazines, movies, songs, etc. Thus, my students will notice how language is used in real life situations similar to that of first language. In addition, I can encourage interaction in the class by promoting group presentations in which learners help each other with language, it should be done depending on the student learning style, or designing responsibilities to each student. To sum up, the differences between learning a first language and a second one has goes from the age, ways of learning, and the context in which it is learned. The teacher´s task is to promote activities that are similar to those we acquire learning a first language. 

There are some links below that I consider useful and have more information related to this topic.

* Vivian Cook, V.(2010). The Relationship between Fist and Second  Language Learning. Retrieved from http://homepage.ntlworld.com/vivian.c/Writings/Papers/L1&L22008.htm

* Al Ghazali, F.(2006). First Language Acquisition Vs Second Language Learning: What Is the Difference?. The University of Birmingham. Retrieved from http://usir.salford.ac.uk/22469/1/First_Language_Acquisition_Vs_Second_Language_Learning.pdf  

More books that  you can read:

^* Clarke, E.V. (2003), First Language Acquisition, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

*Cook, V.J. (2008), Second Language Learning and Language Teaching. 4th edition. London: Hodder Educational.