viernes, 21 de diciembre de 2012
miércoles, 19 de diciembre de 2012
Ways of assessing.
When we talk in class about assessment I first thought
that we were going to do the same that we’re used to do in the major part of
the subjects in University. At the beginning, the things that came up were things
that I already knew. When we were the ones who had to decide the items in a
rubric, the class became different. We had to choose what we considered that was
needed to be evaluating in our PLE presentation. We wrote the criteria we
wanted at the top of the rubric. Some examples were said to the rest of the
class. We voted which one was the more adequate for us and we copied it.
We
talked about the fact that evaluation with positive and constructive language
is very powerful. As teachers, we don’t want children feel disappointed or
frustrated, that’s why we must decide what words and expressions are more
likely to be used in class.
CLIL. What is not a CLIL?
After reading Do Coyle’s article, I want to talk about
two topics that appear in the article and that I found interesting.
- CLIL is not teaching what students already know but
in a foreign language.
The idea of CLIL goes beyond learning new vocabulary
in a foreign language. It is learning some contents and skills that are from a
particular subject (that is not language) through a language that is not the
students’ first language.
- CLIL is not a “backdoor” language teaching or
additional subject teaching.
If as teachers think that CLIL is an additional
activity or subject, then students will think the same. Children that consider
that a subject or a lesson is not so important lose their interest on that
learning. As teachers we can evaluate differently each activity or lesson
(depending on the objectives and the evaluation criteria) but that doesn’t mean
that what has been taught is only complementary. Everything that is included in
a lesson plan or in a project has been previously considered and accepted. We
should skip that fact because that can affect on the teaching and learning
process.
martes, 18 de diciembre de 2012
Little things matter!
The
affective side of learning is also interesting and that is a topic that we are
not used to talk about. The use of the words is as meaningful (or even more in
some occasions) as the use of gestures or actions. When I think about this,
what come to my head are images of a film: Les Choristes. In that film,
children are used to be punished. I still remember the classic moment when the
responsible of the school says that every action must have a reaction. We must
understand that every child has an individual situation, background, family
context, self-concept and self-esteem. Then the action and the way every kid
behaves are a consequence of all those items.
As
teachers, we can’t change their lives outside school but what we can do is that
the time he/she is at school, he/she feels as good, comfortable and safe as we
can. This is not an easy task because we will have lots of students (and if
there’s only one English teacher for the whole school, then the number of pupils
are multiplied). But we must make an effort and this effort starts from caring
about how they feel and how they learn. A negative word from a teacher can hurt
more than a low mark. And sticking the student favorite color sticker in
his/her forehead so they can tell his/her parents he/she has done a good job it’s
better than just writing a good comment in the agenda or in our block.
There are
so many details that we must take into account so we make children feel
encouraged to learn and to go to school.
How deep will I teach instead of how many things will I teach.
The title
of this entry sums up what the main idea that I take in consideration after
talking about classroom management and planning activities. It is taken (not
literally) from the article we read “Rethinking Classroom Management”, written
by Natàlia Maldonado and Pilar Olivares. Sometimes we are more worried about
teaching contents and more contents but we don’t pay attention to the way we’re
doing it. It can be easy to see from the outside but when you’re in the school
and class dynamic, things become more confusing.
I remember planning some
activities while I was in trainee.
It was difficult to create activities that include everything because the contents were difficult to assimilate for children because sometimes there were too many items. That’s why I had to rethink the activities to make them simpler but more effective. It is not how many things (even though the more they learn the best they progress), it is how they learn (in a significant way, with hands-on activities, trying to answer question they feel are important to be answered, etc.).
It was difficult to create activities that include everything because the contents were difficult to assimilate for children because sometimes there were too many items. That’s why I had to rethink the activities to make them simpler but more effective. It is not how many things (even though the more they learn the best they progress), it is how they learn (in a significant way, with hands-on activities, trying to answer question they feel are important to be answered, etc.).
domingo, 16 de diciembre de 2012
Learning and sharing from the very beginning
A few weeks
ago, I stayed a couple of days in Lyon, France. It was a tourist visit so it
was really short but I saw something that really impressed me. When I was on my
way to Lyon’s airport, I had a woman and her daughter sitting near to where I
was. I wouldn’t have noticed that they were there if they hadn’t started
speaking Spanish. It was like: “Oh, they are Spanish people”. But then, I heard
that their accent was quite different and that they were mixing both languages:
French and Spanish. The little girl was speaking perfectly both languages. I
couldn’t say which one was her first language. That situation made me feel
like: “Come on, look at her! She’s very young and she is able to use French and
Spanish!”
It reminded
me what we had talk in class about taking into account what a child knows and
use it as a benefit issue for the rest of the class. Sometimes teacher act not
good enough when they’re not valuing other languages that can be known in a
group of children. The reality is that there are children out there that know
different things that others don’t. So we must feel lucky when having this
variety and try to plan lessons and activities that let students explain the
others but also learn from the others because every child (no matter who he/she
is or if he/she can speak this or that language) has something to share and to
learn from their classmates.
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