PFLE/Pedagogy/discussion1

Julio de Santos
I graduated from the B.A. in English language teaching in 2001, and since then, I had had the chance to work with university students, but this has been my very first semester working with students from highschool. It is a whole new thing for me. I have had discipline problems that were considered even unreal for me before. Little by little I have somehow aquired Students' confidence, but yet I'm sometimes experiencing problems with it. If you have any suggestion, please feel free to make it.--De Santos 22:19, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

Rosy Campos
= Adriana Medina =

I'm teaching grammar at propedeutico and levels 2 and 3 at fomento. For fomento courses, students gave presentations about Miguel Hidalgo as performance tasks to get ready for the "Third English Festival"; in fact, this helped students to get ready since the beginning of the semester. Regarding the grammar course, I've implemented what I call CLSIs (Cooperative Learning SItuations). This represented my fist try implementing this kind of activities in my groups; I'm aware I need to work on the planning, implementation and evaluation of these activities but I'm on the way. Next semester, I will try to focus on skills or subskills students need to become better collaborators. You may take a look at the CLSIs in this blog: http://eltpgc.blogspot.com/

I tape recorded students presentations and gave feedback to them regarding grammar aspects. Students have responded to these activities in a nice way; although they feel they do much work, they're motivated to do it. I used some technology such as: internet (blogs, youtube, email) and videotape recorder. This experience is meaningful and relevant for me because I'm applying something I'm interested in.

--AMF 14:04, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

= Martha González =

Describe a new approach, method, technique, tool, activity, etc. that you tried this semester. Why did it work? Why didn't it work? What would you do differently if you applied it again in a future lesson? What would you recommend if another teacher were to use your idea in their classroom?

I am teaching level II at Fomento Program and I decided to assign as the first Performance Task to create a Web Page about the Leader of the Past for the English Festival and I got surprised with my students' creativity. Most of them did it in different ways: some of the students used Facebook and some others actually worked so hard that I just was really satisfied because of their effort and the final web page. I have to remark that one of my students is studying Computer Engineering and he was the one who was the genious! I am really happy with their work and I really encourage you to try new things in your classroom, this really works and helps students to have an interesting perspective of learning the language!

Feedback

 * [[Image:80px-Wikineighbour V2.png|60px]]Martha, you talked to me about this and I congratulate you and your students. It must have been difficult for you to achieve that objective; anyway, the most important thing was that your students made use of their creativity. --AMF 14:17, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

= ALMA ZARAGOZA =

I would like to share a not very nice experience this semester, I am teaching level 1 and I gave the imput (vocabulary and so) and it was supposed that the objective of the activity was that the students were going to present their family tree, regarding to the family members vocabulary. Instead of that, the students copy all what I did, my own family tree, the same members, the same number of participants, they only changed names.. It was not the goal for that activity! I got upset, but few minutes later, I realized that the instructions of my activity were not clear enough, I just assumed those were clear. I totally forgot they were level one and I think my instructions were not the appropriate ones. I think for the next time I'll aply this activity but trying to emphazise on the instructions, I will try to set them in a different way, checking better that the students understand the instructions, and I will never assume anything again. :S'Bold text

Feedback

 * [[Image:80px-Wikineighbour V2.png|60px]]You're right Alma. We, teachers, must be very carefull with instructions because we tend to assume many things. Getting upset was a natural reaction of yours and your reflection on the event was excellent; I agree with you, we must pay attention to what you're asking and how you're asking.--AMF 14:23, 1 November 2010 (UTC) I gave my students the task to investigate information related to the English Festival. The gave me the name of the famous person. Then I made students get information related to this person as well as the cultural aspect of this country. Since they had all the information, they organized themselves on how to divide it. Then I had my accident and I had not been to school for two classes. My colleagues told me to use their emails in order to continue with the planning of the Festival. It was really useful since they told me what they were going to present and how they would present. At first I thought they needed more supervision, but then I realized they did a great job. The only problem was that they were afraid to speak in public, but they did it anyway. They even had the confidence to give information to other classmates about the country we had which was Saudi Arabia. The internet helped me and them to plan and proceed with The English Festival. I would recommend to use the internet as a tool for planning and having contact with your students. I would have wanted to have more time to plan face to face as well.--Monica R 04:05, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

Feedback

 * [[Image:80px-Wikineighbour V2.png|60px]]Thanks for sharing Alma! When providing the instructions for this activity, how involved were students in the decision-making process? Or looking forward, how might you involve students in deciding how the product and process might end up? --Benjamin Stewart 12:39, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

=Itzel=

The activity I want to share with you is a sort of performance task I did in an everyday class. I am teaching level VI and in one of the levels we see the order of adjectives when describing clothes. After we saw all grammar and vocabulary, I asked them to design their own clothes, so we spent one class actually sewing their clothes. After that, I asked them to prepare a fashion show in which they had to describe each one of their clothes' items. Finally they had to model their designs in a runway. It was funny, and students got really enthusiastic because they actually felt they were doing something with the language.

At the end they voted for the most original outfit.

--Itzel Portal 00:47, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

Feedback
.

= Alma lu =

My experience! I`m teaching level 2 in the Bilingual Nursing Major and I asked the students to present Illnesses we reviewed in the class; I presented a sample Illness so they could see and ask questions about it with the intention of modeling the activity. The day of the presentation, the students presented exactly the same material structure and THEY ASKED THE SAME QUESTIONS I DID. They tried to make excuses by saying they as nurses use those questions all the time but the truth was that I didn`t think they were going to copy what I did so I didn`t make the instructions clear.

= Ask and answer questions regarding this idea. =

= FLOR ZACARIAS =

I would like to share an experience that I had with a writing activity. I am teaching level III and the unit 3 is related to couples; there's an activity in the book in which the students have to create a love story individually according to some pictures, focusing on the past tense. I decided to have them work in teams and do a show-and-tell-like activity. This is because I've noticed that they have a low English level, they lack a lot of vocabulary and basic tenses. Therefore, they brought some wall charts, markers and colored pencils, and created a comic strip. I think that this was a good option for them to expand their vocabulary since they were working with classmates, there was a lot of peer correction, they brainstormed different ideas which made them write the story easier. Besides, I notice that students like to work in projects or in different activities in which they do more than just answering the book, and they are more motivated while learn and share what they know. After creating their comic strip, we made an exhibition in the classroom where they presented their story and at the same time I was correcting any mistake and giving feedback for everybody so that they could notice their weaknesses and strengths. The only trouble here is that they take much time doing the activity, so it's important to be careful with that.

Feedback

 * [[Image:80px-Wikineighbour V2.png|60px]]When it comes to saving time, one possiblility is that you have students do most of the time-consuming work at home as a requisite for this activity. In class, you check that students have done their homework so you can go on and finish the activity.--AMF 14:34, 1 November 2010 (UTC)


 * [[Image:80px-Wikineighbour V2.png|60px]]This sounds like a great activity Flor. Thinking about the time challenge, what exactly takes up the most time? Can you (or anyone) provide some alternatives to this activity that might save some time yet still be effective? --Benjamin Stewart 12:40, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

= Monica Marquez =

I gave the students the task to prepare a menu in order to use the vocabulary of food. They had to make a menu in groups of three with the following information: two appetizers, two main dishes, two beverages and two desserts. They would include the picture and the ingredients of each dish. After, the students would perform a role play in order to practice how to order something in a restaurant. They would have a prepared dialogue first in order to know what phrases are common when ordering. After, they would prepare their own dialogue and present to the whole classroom. When they presented, others needed to check if they understand, if it is clear, loud enough and so on. The students gave feedback that they liked it and I gave them a small feedback on what to expect when ordering in a restaurant. They should not always expect the same dialogue and gave other phrases. I think it worked and the activity was dynamic since it made them participate and they had fun making the menu.--Monica R 04:14, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

Feedback
Hi Mónica, how did you make sure other students were understanding what the presenters were saying? Sometimes it is difficult for me to make sure that students are really getting what their classmates say, can you give me any tip? --Itzel Portal 00:41, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

= María Flor Palos Guzmán = Hi I'm María Flor well I want you to share one of the experiences that I have had when teaching. Well, once in order to have a review before the exam, but a funny review what I did was that asked the students to bring plastic glasses, and I brought matches and thread. I asked all this stuff in order to create our own broken phones in order to have the famous activity of broken phone. So, I gave then thr thread and they made a hole in the center of the glass and then they passed the thread through the hole.After that, we had our broken phones.Later I made teams and I gave them the instructions to do our broken phone activity. They were ten and ten and I gave them sentences that were in disorder from the topics we had seen before and only one student from the team had to order those sentences and start passing the voice but just through the phone. If one of them did not understand what the students said they had to go back and ask one more time but only through the phone because if I saw that they were talking out of the phone I made them to start again the activity and it was very funny because they got desperate and they got a lot of fun. they were laughing because sometimes they understood different things from what it was supposed they had said and they were laughing and running and everything it was so funny. they enjoyed it and they told me that this activity had helped them a lot before the exam. --Flor 22:27, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

=Fernando Montantes= One problem I faced during the performance task for the first partial exam in fomento level 3 was when I asked the students to elaborate a guide or manual for a perfect first date. I proposed the activity for the students to give pieces of advice from themselves to their classmates. Only some of them really shared real experiences and they gave pieces of advice created by themselves. However the rest of them only looked for information on the internet and presented to their classmates. One modification I would do for the next performance task would be to clearly establish that the information should be based on students’ personal experiences for it to be a more relevant activity for the students.--Fermont 22:38, 8 November 2010 (UTC)