Portfolio

MY WEEKLY PORTFOLIO A MAGAZINE TO LEARN AND GROW

STUDENT: ANTONELLA PROTTI SANABRIA PROFESSOR: GIOVANNA REGIDOR VALERÍN II CO, 2015

WEEK

1

The past Wednesday May 13th, the first class of Theory of Bilingual Education took place. As usually, every first class in ULACIT (since I have been here as a student) starts presenting the classmates one another, the teacher that will give the subject, an then, the syllabus of the course.

All these process is very important for a teacher and for a student as well because we all need to know what is the course about, how it is going to be evaluated and of course how the teacher is going to give it.

I have talked with some people that have taken this course before, and they have told that it is very interesting but a little difficult in terms of the final project. With that in mind, I am a little relieved because besides the final project is changing this quarter, I have taken classes with teacher Giovanna before so I am prepared for what she might want from us. What are my expectation for this course? Well, I want to learn a lot form my teacher and my classmates as well; I think we all have a lot to share and learn form others .However, being a little more ambitious, I am looking forward seeing a great number on my grades of week 15.

WEEK

2

On our second week, we started seeing theory about how teaching English has changed with the pass of the years. The approaches were very different from the ones that are now used; and the techniques employed some decades ago were very focused in specific goals. The class also was focused on how context was excluded in English classes in the past and the importance of it nowadays for English teachers and learners as well. Important sources were focused on the class, for example Noam Chomsky with the idea of understanding the rules of a language before perform it; and Sauvignon talking about real life situation in the classroom and it influence on the learning process.

Why do we talk? I really liked this question, which was exposed in one video of the class. I am still thinking about an accurate answer for it.

I think we talk in order to express not only what we think but also we try to expose what we feel in some way and that is why language is sow important.

Furthermore being able to communicate in more than one language can provide us that freedom of expression in more places and with more people. Curiously, this is linked with the context and our need to understand people’s environment and surrounding.

Language Acquisition is such an incredible process, a baby since her birth tries to communicate with sound, crying and body language.

Then with the time, he or she acquires the ability to produce sound and talk, this all is very interesting to me. What calls the most my attention was seeing the baby ignoring a robot voice and responding to his moms voice, this shows how connected they are and how there is a kind of link regarding to what they are motivated for and our ability to understand others and communicate with them.

WEEK

3

This week has resulted great because it was my chance to present with my classmate Alonso about the Monitor Model. I have to admit that was very nervous, but at the end it ended excellent. All the class participated a lot and they seemed to be understanding very well everything that we were explaining to them. However, maybe we took a little bit of more time than the one the teacher provide us, but I think it is part of the usual issues that as a future teacher we will have to cope with.

The monitor model is a very interesting theory, it is created by Stephen Krashen, who is a psychologist, expert of linguistics that is very recognize for studying Second Language Acquisition (SLA). He says that we can acquire or learn a second language as a conscious or unconscious process. This theory is divided into 5 sub-theories, they say that people can correct themselves and acquire language easier is they are motivated to learn by real. Something that has an excellent result is the A+1 strategy, but how can someone be learning more if the subject is harder? it says that people have to feel a little challenged by the subject of matter in the class so they are encouraged to learn.

WEEK

4

Today's class (our fourth week) was very interesting because we saw a lot of presentations according to education, we played and discussed a lot about the topic presented. The first one was about LLS, Language Learning Strategies, and how different can be our skills in terms of learning process. This is super important because it defines the appropriate way in which we all should practice and improve our learning. Furthermore, it will be crucial in terms of teaching because we must take into account all the learning styles in order to provide efficient and meaningful education.

The next presentation was about the cognitive theory, and I love this one because I have done a lot of research about it some months ago... This is form Jean Piaget and it says that we can develop our concepts and ideas from an internal process in which we can combine the previous ones (schemas) with the new ones and create new knowledge. Finally the last ones but not least, Behaviorism, this is actually very important because it happen without even noticing it in our normal lifestyles, everything can be connected with some levels of behaviorism which is the study of how people react or behave from something in the environment. In my opinion, it is connected with the reasons why we do what we do. It can be reinforced positively or negatively and it has been happening since we are little babies with our parents' scolts and our teachers challenges to achieve good grades; all that through prizes, punishments, stimulus and reinforcements.

WEEK

5

By the time we were on week five, we kept studying some approaches on language education, all of them are focused on specific fields of our learning process characteristics. However, is there any approach that includes a little bit of every one as a whole and unique approach? I think we will discover it at the end of the course, and that is what makes it exciting.

By first, our classmate explained us the Translation method which is such a mechanic approach in my opinion. It consists of developing reading ability and mental discipline by giving to the students grammar rules and then ask them to translate specific drills. Some of the techniques it uses are translating a literary passage, comprehension questions, relating synonyms and antonyms and cognates (which are words that are very similar pronounced and spelled in both languages).

Nevertheless, where is context involved here? What about speaking and listening development of the student Answering the previous question, we have another approach, which is the Direct Method. In my opinion, this is one of he most difficult and exhausting ones, this because the teacher has the role of being the mean by which the students will learn through trial and error. It is very active, repetitive, and it requires a lot of attention and energy to teach and learn effectively. First the teacher show the subject, word or phrase to learn, then she or he says it, the students try to say it correctly, the teacher correct them and finally the students repeat the right way. My question here is: how are the students going to develop meaningful learning if all the knowledge is provided by the teacher?... There is no analysis or construction, just listening and speaking skills without reliability of future practice of the words learned. That was an approach from England, but from USA and very similar to this there is the Audio Lingual Method which is practically the same process which consists of pronunciation, morphology, grammar and drills. Thus, the teacher as the central focus of attention invite the students to imitate and repeat everything she asks them to.

WEEK

6

Communicative competence, here we are almost finishing the study of different teaching approaches that have been created through the past years and have helped to establish the present ones. It is already week six and this topic was super interesting, it sees those competencies as a way to the development of a linguistic knowledge that enables one to speak and understand a language. Creativity has an important role as well as context. This is the base to continuing with the communicative approach in which the students will have the chance to learn by doing and communicating them self. One of the phrases that called the most my attention from the teacher Giovanna was that here, the students do not learn the language just because, the person learn to communicate with people from other countries and cultures. Thus, it responds to a necessity that actually exists nowadays and differentiate us from others.

This consists of putting the students into real situation in life and teach them how they should communicate and act according to the language and culture off course.

The outcome that I like the most of this communicative competences is that people learn to develop tolerance to understand and accept that some persons can think different that them and act different, and this is called cultural understanding. Once a person is able to understand and respect this, the language will be just the mean by which they will share and communicate.

WEEK

7

Are we capable of having more than one learning style? Off course we are and actually we take different roads to put into practice either our audio-lingual, visual or kinesthetic abilities. On week seven we saw the different learning strategies that exists, which are a lot, and we made a test in order to know ourselves and our techniques regarding to our learning process. Also the teacher taught us a lot about why teachers should use learning strategies on class, and it is because we the students need them to improve their development as learners. One of the activities of this week consisted of making groups and explaining our classmates one topic according to learning strategies; mine was Metacognition. I loved this one because it involves inviting the student to analize and as fun as it sounds it involves "thinking about thinking", analyzing the way we understand the world around us. In terms of teaching we should invite our future students to be organized and to know themselves and their style of learning. By this path they will be better on language, school, and life.

WEEK

8

It results very interesting knowing how important can be some aspects regarding o the effectiveness of some learning strategies. We use a strategy in order to improve our learning or comprehension of something, it could be academically, professionally, even in life, we are making used of this techniques. How do we chose them? We have to know our learning style, and ourselves if we audiolingual, visual or kinesthetic, or a little bit of everything. Nevertheless, knowing our learning characteristics is not enough for achieving a well use of these strategies; there are some important variables making influence. For example, some researches has stablish different aspects like:  gender in which females use greater use us social and interactional strategies  personality that will define a lot (the person can be extrovert or introvert),  Motivation as one of the most important because the strategies a students will use will be completely different if he or she is really motivated on what they are learning,  The learning situation of course it will have a role in which the environment gives the students the tools for choosing learning strategies.

I loved the activity the teacher organized after seeing the previous topic, she asked us to think about two activities regarding the same topic, however, one of them must be done without context and the other whit it. Once the entire group had exposed their activities, we all finally understood how including context is such a useful tool for achieving meaningful learning. I could realize how difficult resulted for me in the past to learn some vocabulary or grammar when it was not provided with a context. The student does not even notice they are learning, and that is the most interesting fact of everything.

WEEK

9

This week our task consisted of reading a chapter about he different communicative modes and is characteristics, some of the most important points of the whole reading were: INTERPRETIVE (listening, reading and viewing) According to reading and listening, it is very interesting how people make use of their background knowledge, experiences and schema in order to understand the world around them and create new mental images. Bottom-up(sequencing) and topdown (guessing game) are useful subskills that can help students to understand better a language, both interplay in the learning process Socializing will have its role too, the students and teacher can interact finding meaning according to experiences, context and analysis. From the other hand, approaches like “look-back-and-lift-off approach” are not actually worth it in terms of meaningful reading and listening comprehension because there is none analysis and understanding involved.

L1 and L2 may be connected in terms of learning processes, however the way they have been learned differ a lot, for me the most explicit difference consists of the fact the L2 is learned with some previous reference to be based on. Even when listening and reading are together they differ each other also, in reading texts there is grammar involved, both in listening materials there some pronunciation and reduce forms. Furthermore, with reading the students can re-read the text but in listening, they have just one opportunity to catch all they can.

Regarding the viewing process, it is amazing how the visual fact has such an important and positive effect on learning process, by seeing (and listening) when, where, and how the L2 is developed, students can understand better culture, pronunciation and organization of the language.

As future teachers…

We cannot sub estimate our students’ ability to analyze and think critically, we must have metacognitive awareness of when and how t0 lift he level of a task, reading or lesson. Context, research, and background is crucial for meaningful learning. We also need to provide them accurate strategies to increase their comprehension skills. While reading, listening, and viewing provide effective contexts and activities for acquiring new knowledge and language. Our responsibility consists of integrating the three of the modes so they can develop comprehension skills from different perspectives. Thus, they will be able to interact with the text, analyze it, build strategies of comprehension and finally interpret it and its context.

WEEK

11

On week eleven, we studied an interesting case about a "Survival game" which is used as a communicative tool in second language classes.

In this kind of games, the students are asked to experienced the second language as a whole and the only language that can be spoken by them.

By this way, students will be exposed to the language and they will need to learn in order to communicate themselves. I liked very much this activity because it provide a new way for the students to learn and the teachers to teach a second language in which the students learn by doing and enjoying. The teacher also gave us some tools when doing this kind of activities, an advised us to have some pride and reinforcements for the students to invite them to make an effort to learn and keep practicing the language.

WEEK

12

INTERLANGUAGE, understanding this wide concept was one of the main objective on this week lesson. The teacher divided us into five groups with and interesting activity. We were asked to be experts of an article section each group, and then, we were expected to share our knowledge and exchange information with the other experts of the other sections in order to understand the whole content in an interactive and communicative way. This was super useful for the teacher to ensure their students were going to learn a little bit of everything and also practice the language and their analysis skills.

We all as humans are different one another; thus, we will have different ways to speak a language and to communicate as well. This fact is much related to Second Language Learning and the way every person decides to speak it even correctly or incorrectly. Each person will have a unique style of speaking even if this does not have any grammar error, the person will design its own linguistic system to communicate with others. In my opinion, Interlanguage hypothesis is very interesting because it shows how people can defer in their style for expressing themselves.

WEEK

13

On week thirteen we had the last class about theory before final presentations and grades delivery. The end is arriving and I have to admit that is unbelievable the way you learn something without even noticing it. It says a lot about the university methodology and teacher's talent who, as a giver of knowledge, does not have an easy job; at the end of the day (as she have told us) it is really worth it all the effort you do.

The last topic of this course had to do with different methods that has been applied in order to teach grammar. Personally, I did not know that you can actually teach grammar with context as you can with vocabulary. But how you can teach grammar with context if it consists of standardized rules and structures formulas? .... Well, the main idea of giving meaningful instruction of grammar is based on students discovery rather than having the teacher giving all the information and grammar rules to the students so they would have to practice them infinite times. The idea of this "conversations" between learners and knowers is based an interactive exchange of ideas so the students discover how grammar rules can be contextualized, thus they are aware of their mistakes and how to correct them.

THANKS As my final entry, personally, I would like to thank teacher Giovanna who has shown me the real meaning of vocation and professionalism, she loves what she does and that is the key for everything to succeed and achieve meaningful understanding of the students. I have already taken some course with the teacher and I have discover many skills on education that I did realize I had, more than in other theoretical classes. I wish the best for the teacher and I also hope to take more courses with her and keep learning from all her experiences and knowledge.