Portfolio Sandí B by Brandon Sandí

Universidad Latina de Costa Rica Faculty of Social Sciences School of English English Didactics

Portfolio

Brandon SandĂ August 11, 2016

RUNNING HEAD: Language, Learning and Teaching

Universidad Latina de Costa Rica Faculty of Social Sciences School of English English Didactics

Language, Learning and Teaching

Brandon SandĂ Wednesday 18, 2016

Language, learning, and teaching

Is interesting read this book called “The principles of language, learning and teaching” because this one was written by H. Douglas Brown, and by the way as you can see in the front page of the book there is an image of a window. Perhaps you are asking yourself why this is a simple image of a window and not just a colored page with a different picture with maybe some colored lines or for example an image of a kid, people… this book is about the explanation of the different methods and strategies you can use and understand when you become a teacher, and is really interesting and entertained read every topic and unit you can find on it, because in this book there are plenty of questions that you also have the answer, and is funny because most the questions and answers that you read probably were going around your mind and then when you read the book your mind starts get clear and the ideas too. The idea of a window makes an inference about all the possible choices, ways, answers that you can find there on the book in order to give you an idea of what you are going to confront at the time of teaching, of course you as a teacher. Douglas Brown gives you an idea about how the system of learning a new language works, for example he starts talking about when you were learning the new language that you know and also tells you about the difficult part of changing everything you know on your natural language into a new complete different one, according to what I read on the book. At the beginning the author suggests you some current issues in second language like; “who, what, how, when, where, why?” these ones are about the different facts and the importance of learning a new language and with just read this you

Language, learning, and teaching

can get little by little the crux about every title, is very attractive the way how he develops all the information. Moreover in this chapter, the author focuses on the strategies you must have to identify how your students learn new strategies, he suggests of course as a recommendation follow the steps you had follow in the past in order to learn the language that you learned. And by the way he also recommends to identify the way how you will develop the learning of the new language, for example the different techniques to share with your students and make them understand everything about your class. From the entire first chapter that is what I got, for me he tried to explain us the learning of a new language, he included examples, and also he gave an explanation very detailed about what a person will confront at the time of learn a language. I am not that kind of person who gets very deep into the book and tries to find something to agree or disagree, because usually when I read a book I trust on everything that I read and see, perhaps I do not have that ability to have a very critical mind and that is why I agree with all the thoughts of the people. In this case is not the exception; I really like how the author developed the first chapter because before read the book I expected some text with very difficult and technical language, but then I realize that the author explained everything that I wanted to hear, for me I think that the first chapter is a guide in order to you to know how the system of learning languages works. In conclusion I believe that this book has a very good guide to you, for example the people like us, that are in the university learning a new language, or studying to be a

Language, learning, and teaching

teacher, because it shows the different steps and strategies you must follow in order to success with you English teaching major, and also you can use this book as guide for you to prepare yourself in a future to teach a class successfully.

Language, learning, and teaching

6 References

Brown, H. D. (n.d.). Language, Learning and Teaching. En H. D. Brown, Principles of Language, Learning and Teaching (pรกg. 354). n.d.: Longman.

RUNNING HEAD: First Language Acquisition

Universidad Latina de Costa Rica Faculty of Social Sciences School of English English Didactics

First Language Acquisition

Brandon SandĂ Wednesday, June 1, 2016

First Language Acquisition

In this second chapter of the book, the author explain to us how amazing is the way how people learn new languages, and through the entire first paragraphs he is focused into explain detailed the origins of this ability. At the beginning he talks about the importance of learning new language and also he focuses his attention in the children specifically, because what I perceive about it was that, he likes more to start talking about the children and how the system of initiate interacting with a new language works. It is very hard to try to “summarize” all the ideas that the author has, because there are too much information, for example of course this text gives an idea about the system of the acquisition new language, but for me this is for you to know and then to apply it in your life, because at the time that I read this book when (despite the redundancy) I am reading, I imagine everything that I read and then also I imagine the different situations that a teacher would confront once step in front of the class. Anyways this is a good book to guide you at the time of teaching, because it shows you how the children differ with adults one from another and then also the various steps you must follow in order to make your students learn and comprehend. I find this book very interesting and this tool that the teacher provides to us, is not only to make our “papers”, is for to learn strategies and ways to develop our class very well in the future, and by the way to start creating in ourselves a critical mind to confront the world with our own thoughts and never let other people “implant” new ideas that could sound great for them but probably not for us, in my opinion I need to start changing my mind and create that critical ability because we as a teacher need it a lot, because we teachers can never ever give false information to the students and never let them questions without

First Language Acquisition

answers. We as a future teacher we have to know the way how our students operate and develop their skills in class and also know that everybody in the class is different and not all understand in the same way.

In my opinion, in this specific chapter there are a few things that I disagree, for example; I like more when something is brief and concise, and instead of the author “go straight to the point” he goes around the topic and even beyond of it, talking about theories which has relation with the style of learning of every person and by the way he also talks about these theories and their researchers. I do not care about what the origin of “behavioristic approach” or “nativist approach” was, the only fact that I am interested to is; what is the description of every approach, how it works and perhaps how I would apply it when I will be teaching a class, for me I believe that this is exactly what makes this chapter a little bit longer, all the explanation about the origin of the learning style or approach. In this case comes to my mind something that I read in the first chapter, if I am not mistaken in one of the parts in the first chapter it said something about your answer at the time of somebody ask you anything about the description of “learning” let´s say, and the author gives us as a recommendation of do not look for a very “technical” description and do not try to answer with the specific description from a book or dictionary. Well in this case I believe that the person who is reading this book, he is doing this because probably he or she will become a teacher and also is interested in learn more about the language learning and teaching, so based on this I do not see the reason why the author has to come up with the theories of “Piaget or Jean Berko….”, in

First Language Acquisition 10 order to explain more the approach. Because, of course is not bad refers to these people and their theories because at the end, the “scientists” made all of these hypothesis and theories to prove something or to make the system of learning and teaching better, but for me that is another thing which we could explain to adults not to children or teenagers. What matters here is the main description, explain how it works, and try to clarify our ideas giving us this tool to learn more and gain experience in order to make and give a successful class. As conclusion I consider this chapter is more related to the children and their acquisition of the language, because through the entire explanation of the chapter what we can find is different facts and sentences related to kids and the importance on how they can understand the words and how they can differentiate one sound from another, and as matter of fact how the children in wherever place they could live, how they assimilate and “absorb” the language.

First Language Acquisition 11 References

Brown, H. D. (n.d.). Language, Learning and Teaching. En H. D. Brown, Principles of Language, Learning and Teaching (pรกg. 354). n.d.: Longman.

RUNNING HEAD: Age and acquisition Universidad Latina de Costa Rica Faculty of Social Sciences School of English English Didactics

Age and Acquisition.

Brandon SandĂ June 8, 2016.

Age and acquisition

The third chapter focuses more into the children who had to learn from the beginning the language and the how this system works. At the beginning the author gives us a long introduction about the differences between the stages of the childhood and the adulthood, and then he goes deeper talking about some myths that the people use to believe just for the opinions they heard. I mean here the author gives us some steps and information about the differences between the first language acquisition and the second, for example telling us that a child must repeat the words and sounds they can hear from other people and try to do not give the children too much information about the grammar and all that facts because it says that the kids learn fast and naturally when they are growing up into the family. Something that I found important and interesting it was, see that of course the adults and the children do not learn in the same way and with the same ability, because in my opinion I think that a kid who is in his first stage of life has more things to learn and by the way a kid is always more attractive to learn some new information than an adult, because they have the mind more open and they want to know more new things just like the language, for example, because I believe that a kid would learn faster the language than an adult, they are not accustomed to do other things so it means that they have more chance to listen other people and learn new facts, moreover they have their mind clear, so it means that their brain is desirous for new knowledge and information that is why is the chapter is the idea hold that is easier for children to understand better the language even more than the older people. At this moment I cannot explain myself why this author insists to mention so much all the different experiments and theories and the searches that were made by

Age and acquisition

different “scholars” or scientist let’s say, because I find non sense talking a lot about the discoveries that this or that man or woman did, because what we want is just some information about the theme which we are reading, for example when you read the title which is “age and acquisition” we as a reader expect to see a big explanation of what these words are, I mean the explanation about what is the relation between the language acquisition with the age, because I consider that these chapters are long, not because all the useful information it contains, is because the author tells us about all these theories, scientists which are not the object of study in this specific chapter and he focuses his attention in all the ideas and the origin of this and that, instead of going straight to the point, for example when you start to read a section of some chapter, you usually start interested but then the author fills your mind with many different facts and ideas that does not have a big relevance in this chapter or in your situation as a teacher, and then towards there is the precious specific description that you were looking for since the beginning but you did not get it because now your mind is fully with theories an facts that probably are not so important. In conclusion, I consider that when you are going to read this book, you must have a critical mind to extract the information you are looking for, because here through the whole chapter you will face a lot but I mean a lot, of information which sometimes you can skip in order to continue with the idea you had a the beginning of one paragraph, but then I consider this chapter very hard to understand because what I can get from this chapter is that now we are going deeper but inside the head of the person, because here what it says has some relation or at least that is what I can infer from it, with the brain or the specific connection and function that the language has in our mind.

Age and acquisition

References

Brown, H. D. (n.d.). Language, Learning and Teaching. En H. D. Brown, Principles of Language, Learning and Teaching (pรกg. 354). n.d.: Longman.

Universidad Latina de Costa Rica Faculty of Social Sciences School of English English Didactics

Human Learning

Brandon SandĂ Wednesday 15, 2016

Human Learning

The chapter number four of the book “Principles of language learning and teaching”, is focused on how the human beings learn and what are their abilities and skills to learn a new language. We need to keep in mind that every human on this planet is different one from another, so then we as a professors need to know what their learning styles are and based on that start working on new strategies in order to success with our English class and make sure the people is understanding and internalizing the information that we gave. What is interesting especially in this chapter is for example, the different theories that we can find, beginning with Pavlov´s experiment about the dog which was trained and conditioned to salivate at the time of hearing a bell ringing, because in this specifically chapter what I found interesting is that now all the topics that are explained in the whole chapter, in this one particularly are easier to understand, because in this case when I was through the chapter reading all the information, I thought it was not very hard to comprehend in comparison with the other chapters already read, because probably this chapter was little bit more entertained because the chapter was more interesting and the details about how the human behaviorism and the different facts related to conditioned responses and by the some people with the theories I mean now with this information was more fun to read and a lot easier to understand the point of the explanation. I believe based on the this men; Ausubel, Skinner and Pavlov I can infer that this chapter has some relation with the constructionism system because, what I think is that if we see all of this information with for example a very philosophical mind or let’s say

Human Learning

thinking about cognitive aspects everything related to the feelings and how our brain works at the time of learning a new language, and by the way based on what we read about the experiences in this chapter we can also infer that this model proposed in the book has a methodology related to the constructionism system, because in this way for example the constructivist model is built starting with the knowledge already known despite the redundancy, because in this case the books suggests that we have already, since we were born some capability to learn and acquire the language with we will raise in the society, so based on this I can say that probably the book is suggesting us to use the method of constructionism and abandon the old idea to apply the method of behaviorism. The behaviorism is not the best tool to teach a new language because in this case at the time of use the behaviorist method what we are doing is just “copy and pasting” the knowledge that he teaching is transmitting to us, and there is no space for the “exploration” of new experiences, new information that we must look to some specific topic in order to know more about and probably get attracted to that idea. As a conclusion I really liked this chapter because now I can say that I could agree with some ideas, which were stated in the chapter, but I still thinking that the author should replace all of that information less relevant into more interesting and brief ideas. Because again I believe that the author is giving to much information more than enough, I would say, there is no reason why I could not find this information important, because it does it matters, but there are some ideas which are difficult to understand even though I really find the information useful.

Human Learning

19 References

Brown, H. D. (n.d.). Language, Learning and Teaching. En H. D. Brown, Principles of Language, Learning and Teaching (pรกg. 354). n.d.: Longman.

Universidad Latina de Costa Rica Faculty of Social Sciences School of English English Didactics

Styles and Strategies

Brandon SandĂ Wednesday 29, 2016

Styles and Strategies

In the fifth chapter what is all about are the learning styles and strategies the people have in order to learn a new language, the entire chapter is divided into different segments or parts, every part is mentioned and explained, also at the beginning of the segments the author tries to explain the topic giving examples, which I consider is an excellent tool to introduce whatever topic you have to explain. I liked the way how the author divided the chapter, because what I can get from this chapter is for example the explanation of every part the book needs to cover, and in my opinion is a great idea to divide huge topics into little parts and go little by little trough every segments explaining what is all about, giving examples at the beginning in order to guide the reader and give him/ her an idea. Because probably if the author goes straight to the point without making any pause to give an example and clarify the ideas of the reader it would be probably a mess because then, we as a reader we could still reading even though we cannot understand anything but then at the end of the story if we try to organize the ideas about what we read, for sure we could not do it, I mean how we can explain something which we do not have an idea, is simply impossible, and is more important to read carefully these topics especially on this book, because at the end of the chapter we must have clearly ideas in order to make our critique and explain why we agree or disagree with the author. Then what I found more interesting is the segment of the left and right parts of the brain, I really like to hear the description of the different parts that make the brain, and is even more interesting listen and read what every part of the brain is in charge of, for example in the story, it tells about the both parts of the brain work as team but then I my mind comes an idea about; if the brain is a â&#x20AC;&#x153;teamworkâ&#x20AC;? then in each part of the brain,

Styles and Strategies

there are some areas which are working specifically in something, for example the short term memory and long term memory also the part of the brain which is in charge of the speech, the one dedicated to the mathematical thinkingâ&#x20AC;Ś so that is why in this case is amazing read more about how the human brain works, and of course is very important to for us as a future teachers to identify the parts of the brain because then we could have an idea of the learning styles our students have, and then try to explain it to them. Also it is very important in order to identify the learning styles, because we could make different activities which will benefit the students with the specifically learning style, we can call this method as a strategy. I believe that what the chapter suggests is to identify all of those parts in order to know the learning styles of our students and then based on that, we can create new activities which are the strategies to make the students understand what we need to teach and also make sure that the students understood everything without any problem. That is why I think all of these topics are very important facts to take in consideration, at the time of teaching because we cannot assimilate that all the students have the same capabilities and learning styles, we must know that there are different things that are involved in their mind that make them comprehend and understand various situations. In conclusion I will try to incorporate all the information that I read into my knowledge because as I said, at the time of becoming a teacher and start giving classes in the school, high school or university we must recognize all of these topics and then apply it to our students because we cannot go and teach with a very low level of knowledge related to learning styles and strategies.

Styles and Strategies

23 References

Brown, H. D. (n.d.). Language, Learning and Teaching. En H. D. Brown, Principles of Language, Learning and Teaching (pรกg. 354). n.d.: Longman.

Universidad Latina de Costa Rica Faculty of Social Sciences School of English English Didactics

Personality Factors

Brandon SandĂ Wednesday 6, 2016

Personality Factors

Now the sixth chapter is getting more attractive and interesting, because what is it about, is for example the different factors of course which belong to the personality of every person. In every subtitle, there are different facts and information which is very interesting to know as well as know how important is to take in consideration all of this facts at the time of have your students in front of you. The entire chapter is divided into different parts, and every title is connected directly with a variety of situations and feelings a teenager must face, for example among them there are, self-esteem, anxiety, motivation, empathy, risk takingâ&#x20AC;Ś. All of these facts of course are referring to different steps in the teenagerÂ´s life, and for each one there is the proper explanation with examples also, to clarify the topic, moreover the book also talks about some scientists who have theories or methods to prove that all of these information is true, they also give examples in order to explain the phenomenon. In my opinion, this chapter is more attractive than the others; I mean I found it more interesting perhaps for the fact that is divided into small topics, but then also the fact that all the titles that appear here are very interesting for me. For example at the beginning I thought it was a complex chapter, too hard to understand, but then when I read everything it started to make me more interested about all the possible situations that could appear in the life of the students. And by the way is amazing how this book can explain to you that these topics have more complexity than you think. Of course these facts are not only applied to the daily life of every person, it is more focused on the language acquisition, because maybe you could not imagine why these titles are so important at the time of learning a new language, and the reason why they do, is because; imagine all the possible things that can affect a person who is

Personality Factors

learning a new language, take a look at all the people who go to different places of the world to live or maybe just get a new opportunity to work, they must have to learn whatever the language could be in the place they are, so it means that to learn that specific language he or she must find a way in order to learn it, but here appears all the topics mentioned in the book, because probably he will suffer from the anxiety of learning the new language or also it may be followed for another fact such as the inhibition, which has a relation with the ego of the people or for example the risk taking which is go to other place even though you have no idea how to speak the language that is present there. That is why you must recognize very well these topics because, you have to take them in consideration at the time of teaching, because you cannot deposit and deposit information into the studentÂ´s mind, because that would be a behaviorism way to teach a language, you must have a constructivism method to apply it to them, and it would be taking in consideration the knowledge they already have and then keep all of these topics in mind because for sure, all of the tittles play a very important role in the students language learning, so in order to teach correctly you must understand the definition of every topic the book is giving and then you are able to apply a correct method to impart your classes and to know exactly the way how you are going to do it and most important know that it for sure will bring good results.

Personality Factors

27 References

Brown, H. D. (n.d.). Language, Learning and Teaching. En H. D. Brown, Principles of Language, Learning and Teaching (pรกg. 354). n.d.: Longman.

RUNNING HEAD: Sociocultural Factors

Universidad Latina de Costa Rica Faculty of Social Sciences School of English English Didactics

Sociocultural Factors

Brandon SandĂ July 13, 2016

Sociocultural Factors

The seventh chapter for sure is different from the previous one, because now the situation is going inside of the culture where a person lives. It tells about different aspects which made the life in society such as; stereotypes, the attitude, social distance… all of these terms refer to different facts which are always present in the culture of every place. Based on what this chapter says, and giving my opinion I believe that all of these terms are like a “sequence”, I mean in order to connect them, one depends from the other, and for example let´s take the facts, stereotypes and attitude. How a stereotype is made? Of course it begins with a false thought somebody has from someone else or something and then they start to passing around the “story” and that is how the stereotype arises, but in here appears the attitude of the person because now if the stereotype reaches to this person he or she has the ability to distinguish or to know if it is true or not. So that is exactly why I think this is like a sequence or connected steps. Also all of these terms have much relation with the acquisition of a new language, because most of the people who start learning a second language, they learn probably because they have an idea of how the culture is in those places so based on that they are able to learn more and more because they are interested on those aspects and they want to know how it works too. In this specific chapter the author is painting to us the entire panorama when a person starts the journey to learn a new language and also all the possible troubles and facts that interfere at the time of learning a new language. Because for example in order for a person to learn, of course there are several facts that are involved in his or her learning, and by the way it depends also how fast and easily will assimilate the new

Sociocultural Factors

information given by the teacher, because it is not only go and learn some language from the night to the next morning, because there are facts sociocultural mainly, which are going to play a very important role in the daily life of that person, for example; every day when he or she needs to go to buy something to the supermarket, in there he or she is obligated to talk and to use the correct, proper vocabulary in order to get what is looking for , then we can perceived here one of the facts that are involved and mentioned by the author in the book. These ideas and facts that are stated here are very important at the time of becoming a teacher, because a teacher must recognize the variety of learning styles he will have in the classroom, and starting from there he is obligated to create new strategies and propitiate the understanding for the students and more over he must take in consideration all of the possible facts that are always present and the time of learning a new language, because remember that every aspect in one personÂ´s life counts at the time of better understanding and assimilation of new information which is going to be extremely useful in the future of that person.

Sociocultural Factors

References

Brown, H. D. (n.d.). Language, Learning and Teaching. En H. D. Brown, Principles of Language, Learning and Teaching (pรกg. 354). n.d.: Longman.

Universidad Latina de Costa Rica Faculty of Social Sciences School of English English Didactics

Cross linguistic influence and learner language.

Brandon SandĂ July 13, 2016

Cross linguistic influence and learner language

The eighth chapter from this book written by Douglas Brown tries to give the description of “comparative analysis hypothesis” by talking about terms such as “transfer, interference, avoidance and aspects related to language loss”. The book also mentions something about the “L1” and “L2” factors which play a very important role in the language learning acquisition of every person, it also infers as “similar=easy, Different=difficult”. In this specific chapter everything turns around the aspects of “L1 and L2” which also refers to the difficulties of the people at the time of learning a second language, so this facts works for identify those aspects in which people have troubles. Also these facts represent different things such as, grammar, phonetics and language rules and structures; basically what this is about is just to find errors in the language learning. In my personal opinion, this chapter is for sure very difficult, because I tried to understand all of the information and theory that is stated here, but it was very hard and even though I read several times the parts I could not get, I still do not have a clearly idea about what are the purposes of this chapter and what exactly it refers to. Everything now is more confusing, because the book is entering deeper into what linguistic is and all the facts that it covers, so by way of our understanding and starting from the idea that we are teachers and not linguistics specialists, Douglas Brown needs to be more aware about the way how he is writing and tried to be more brief with the ideas he wants to write, because for example when I started reading the chapter I thought that it was going to be harder than the others and for sure it is, because it was not so easy as the previous ones, now like I said everything was complicated and i honestly could not understand at all the information Douglas Brown wanted to express.

Cross linguistic influence and learner language

Moreover I searched for more information just to see if it was just me, but the results I found were practically the same information the book has, so what I did, was read more the book to see what I could find in order to clarify my ideas and i tried but I still have different doubts about this chapter. Basically what I got from the text is that everything is interrelated with the term “CAH”, which means “cross linguistic influence” and what is all about is the internal and external factors which have relation with a person who is learning a second language, now here appears the already mentioned terms “L1 and L2” that are related with the different errors a person could have in his or her learning process of the second language. In conclusion I say that would be a great idea to summarize all the ideas and information into a new different topic which provide better understanding for the reader and by the way to suggest more clearly examples in order to specify and clarify more the ideas that need to be given by the author.

Cross linguistic influence and learner language

References

Brown, H. D. (n.d.). Language, Learning and Teaching. En H. D. Brown, Principles of Language, Learning and Teaching (pรกg. 354). n.d.: Longman.

RUNNING HEAD: Communicative Competence

Universidad Latina de Costa Rica Faculty of Social Sciences School of English English Didactics

Communicative Competence

Brandon SandĂ July 27, 2016

Communicative Competence

Before the last chapter of the book, we find the ninth which is about the communicative competence. In this chapter the author wants to tell us about how the people manipulate the language, and if they are doing it correctly and the many ways how they do it. Also the author gives different facts such as grammar, discourse or sociolinguistic, those are information which interferes in the way how people convey the message while they are speaking. The author also mentions that the communication is a series of communicative acts, which there are a lot of elements which belongs to the same message and play an important role in the way how the message is made. This chapter is more focused on the communication itself, because the author tries to explain very deep different aspects that are important at the time of express the ideas in the different ways of communication. In my personal opinion this chapter explains a lot of details about the different reading skills such as reading, listening, writing and speaking, but for sure is more focused into the speaking part, because it shows also different examples of how people express their ideas at the time of speaking and all the different names for the little facts that we never pay attention and they are very important when we are having a conversation with somebody. Also another thing that called my attention was the four different competences which are; the grammatical, strategic, sociolinguistic and the discourse, all them are connected by the same fact the communication but the difference goes for example in their definition each one comprehend a part in the communicative experience, one is related to how the word are made the other one is about understanding social content, the other is the ability of connecting sentencesâ&#x20AC;Ś all of them are related to the communication system and play an important role in our way to express our ideas and what we want to say.

Communicative Competence

In my opinion the entire chapter is giving us the idea of what the communication is and all the different facts that we can find and we never pay attention. For example we as future teachers we must prepare the students to develop their skills in different situations just like the book mentions, requesting, refusing and the type of vocabulary they must know to use it in some specific situation. That is why is important to read all the information the book gives, because when you read it, probably you will have an idea of what the communication is and then apply that knowledge you learned, into prepare your students to recognize what is the description of communication, what communicative competence is and also all the variety of facts and things the communication involves. In conclusion this chapter was also hard to understand at the beginning but then going through the reading, the book will guide you little by little explaining all the facts which interferes in the communication, but the most important thing here is that you must recognize all of these aspects and internalize them in order to apply all that knowledge in your job as a teacher because, probably using this technique you will be able to create a very well prepared students which are prepared to confront any situation they could face in their career as a professionals in the areas they chose. And more over you are giving them the tool needed.

Communicative Competence

References

Brown, H. D. (n.d.). Language, Learning and Teaching. En H. D. Brown, Principles of Language, Learning and Teaching (pรกg. 354). n.d.: Longman.

RUNNING HEAD: Theories of Second language acquisition

Universidad Latina de Costa Rica Faculty of Social Sciences School of English English Didactics

Theories of Second Language Acquisition

Brandon SandĂ August 3, 2016

Theories of second language acquisition

The last chapter of the book written by H. Douglas Brown, which title is “Theories of second language acquisition”, is the final explanation about learning a new language and what it implies. In my opinion I believe that this chapter is another explanation about how the language is assimilated and learned by a student, because through the chapter we can find different explanations about how is their first “touch” with the language and that everybody begins speaking language by imitating others and also that, parents usually correct the errors somebody could have by seeing him or her trying to infer how to speak. I really liked this last chapter because, now

the book is telling us all the

important facts that interferes in the language acquisition, by this purpose the books also mentions theories and hypothesis “scientists” made in order to prove the behavior a person has when is learning a new language, and by the way they mention something about what happens in their mind at the time of learning, what is it that happens in that calls their attention in a new language. I really enjoyed read it all, because in my personal opinion I think that the book clears our ideas when we reach the end of the book because now everything starts making sense and then by reading the entire chapter, you come up with previous ideas you learned from the previous chapters you have already read and internalize the information, which is good because it means that you have learned from the previous information given, and now you know or have an idea about how to use all these methods in class in order to put them in practice with your students and be able to watch all the behavior the book mentioned before with your own eyes.

Theories of second language acquisition

In the other hand what I did not like had to read all the theories from the people who did the research, because as I said before in the other critiques, when you are reading some interesting paragraph from the book and then you got the point of it then you are getting more interested and you want to learn and read more about that idea or information, but suddenly your “ illumination” is interrupted by all the talk which is not very convincing or related with idea that caught our attention and there is the moment when you lost all your focus and moreover your mind starts going around to another completely different fact which now calls your attention. And the problem with this becomes when it is time to reunite all the ideas already read, because then your mind is debating with the “old” ideas you have read with the new information got from a different section of the book. That is why I do not like all the information provided, I prefer mention a theory just a little bit, to support my idea and then continue with the main topic that was the point of my information. In conclusion, for me this is a very nice book, to recognize and apply all the techniques present here, and by the way this is an excellent tool to recognize all the facts and information given, because for sure everything the book is telling you is true, and of course it gives a guide to help you in your life as a teacher, but you can also differ from the ideas stated here, is not a must to agree with all the information provided you can have you own perception from every chapter and starting from that you can change the method and apply it to your class just to see if it gives you the results that were expected. But to conclude is amazing all the new information you get from the book, and for sure there are facts that you already know but you will see that the facts presented here, will be part of your daily life, but depends of you all the possible things

Theories of second language acquisition

you could share and teach to your students in order to build into them the will of discover their abilities to learn and comprehend a new language. And to appreciate the power of the knowledge they have learned from you, the teacher.

Theories of second language acquisition References

Brown, H. D. (n.d.). Language, Learning and Teaching. En H. D. Brown, Principles of Language, Learning and Teaching (pรกg. 354). n.d.: Longman.

45 School: El Carmen Sixth Grade Written English Teacher: Brandon Sandí Date: June 7, 2016 General Objective: To describe city services and transportation. Specific Objective: Discuss about the transportation of your local community. Describe how often people use transportation in the community. Identify the different services of transportation.

Warm up Have a conversation about what kind of transportation you can find in the community.

Time 10 minutes

Show the students the different kind of transportation.

10 minutes

Give the students time to do some exercises on the book. Divide the class in groups and give them the activity brought by the teacher.

10 minutes 10 minutes

Activities In my Neighborhood… I see people on cars and buses… Do your parents use transportation? (Presentation) Using pictures and explains them, all the different possible transportation around the world. Short answers, with some listening exercises in the book. Some cards with pictures, ask them to create a story using elements of transportation

Content Words and vocabulary written on the board. Simple Present

Materials

Presentation on the screen. Questions and answers to the students.

Power Point Screen

Doing some “scaffolding”

WorkBook

Talk in English using vocabulary given and simple present

Cards and images

46 School: El Carmen Sixth Grade Written English Teacher: Brandon Sandí Date: June 7, 2016 General Objective: To describe city services and transportation. Specific Objective: Demonstrate what problems affect your community Describe what transportation problems are. Classify all the different transportation problems. Warm up Show the students what transportation problems are.

Time 10 minutes

Activities One of the most known transportation problems is: - Traffic jams, accidents…. Search images on the web. These are transportation problems… Listening exercises.

Content Simple Present

Materials

Search some images on the web and show the students other transportation problems. Read the unit number… and practice the dialogues in pairs. Put in practice what the students learned from the transportation problems.

10 minutes

Presentation on the screen.

Power Point Screen

10 minutes

A play in which they are journalists talking about some transportation issues.

Using everything that we saw about transportation problems.

Warm up Post on the board images about the different city services.

Time 10 minutes

Activities Ask the students what kind of services they can recognize on the images.

Content Vocabulary city services.

10 minutes

Book Unit 2

Materials Images or photos

47 The teacher will describe and explain what city services are and their function. Make some listening and writing exercises on the book. The students will make a presentation about city services.

10 minutes

Show the presentation on the computer screen.

10 minutes

Listening and writing exercises. About city services. The studentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s choose some topics to make a little spontaneous presentation about the information provided by the teacher.

10 minutes

Simple present

Computer

Book Unit 2 Using everything that we saw about city services.

Board and computer.

Universidad Latina de Costa Rica Faculty of Social Sciences School of English BIN-20 Didactics of English

Lesson Plan Unit Eleven “It´s really worth seeing”

Brandon Sandí July 21st, 2016

Universidad Latina de Costa Rica English class 11th Grade Teacher: Brandon SandĂ Castro Date: July 21st, 2016 Time: 40 minutes General Objective: By the end of the unit, students will be able to recognize aspects of the world. Specific Objective: After paying attention to information about aspects of world, students will describe landmarks and monuments from different places of the world, using the correct vocabulary. Lesson plan

Timing

Activity

Content

Warm-up

10 minutes

-Vocabulary about countries. - Speaking skill

Board Pencils Notebooks Pilots

Presentation

10 minutes

-Landmarks and monuments vocabulary. -Simple past -Passive voice

Practice

10 minutes

Board Posters Images Pens Pilots Handout Computer Video Pencils

Production

10 minutes

The teacher draws in the board a chart which contains names of some countries of the world. He tells the students to draw a similar chart on their notebooks, after that, the teacher starts asking for characteristics they know from the specific country in order to fill the chart. (the teacher also participates in the activity) The teacher using posters with pictures posted on the board, he shows different landmarks and monuments which belong to places in the world. At the same time he explains to the students the characteristics of each one and also he solve question they probably have. The teacher gives a hand out to the students to complete questions, with the answers the students will write based on the video they will watch on the computer. At the same time the teacher will be giving more details to help the students have more answers. Students are divided into groups of three people. The teacher assigns to them a specific topic related to landmarks and monuments, also he provides a picture. The students must prepare a short presentation to talk about it in front of the class using the vocabulary studied in the book.

Passive voice. -listening skills -writing skills Vocabulary about landmarks and monuments. -Speaking skill

Material

Picture Pen Board Tables

English class 11th Grade Teacher: Brandon SandĂ Castro Date: July 21st, 2016 Time: 40 minutes General Objective: By the end of the unit, students will be able to recognize aspects of the world. Specific Objective: By discussing the characteristics of some countries, students will be able to describe countries around the world using the vocabulary studied in class. Lesson plan

Timing

Activity

Content

Material

Warm-up

10 minutes

-Vocabulary about countries. - Speaking skill

Presentation

10 minutes

Through a power point presentation, the teacher shows to the students characteristics of countries around the world, at the same time he is explaining every characteristic trying to giving clues. Then he will ask the students which country they find that fit with the information given. Also in the presentation the teacher shows banners of countries and he asks the students to give characteristics.

Practice

10 minutes

The teacher gives a handout to the students, which contain a match. It has two sections one with names of countries and the other contains characteristics, they have to complete the practice and then after they finish, they will compare answer with partners and at the end of the exercise, the teacher will review it orally by asking the students to answer. Also he gives more information to guide the students.( can use the board)

-Vocabulary about countries. Passive voice. (simple past) Speaking skills and comprehension. Vocabulary related to countries. Listening and speaking skills.

Board Pencils Notebooks Pilots Computer Power Point

Handout Pens Pencils Board

Production

10 minutes

The teacher will create a game that is about answer the questions proposed, it has two stages. He will divide the class in two teams. After divide the class, the first stage is answering correctly the questions done by the teacher, like a tv show in which the teacher would be the host. Then the second stage is to analyze a text in order to come up with all the possible countries that could fit with the characteristics given in text.

Listening, speaking and reading skills.

Paper sheets pencils

English class 11th Grade Teacher: Brandon SandĂ Castro Date: July 21st, 2016 Time: 40 minutes General Objective: By the end of the unit, students will be able to recognize aspects of the world. Specific Objective: After explaining information about the countries around the world, students will discuss with a partner facts from the countries already mentioned using the proper vocabulary. Lesson plan

Timing

Activity

Warm-up

10 minutes

-Vocabulary about countries. - Speaking skill

Board Pencils Notebooks Pilots

Presentation

10 minutes

Students will watch a video through the video bin, which is about people from other countries talking about the traditions and special characteristics the country where they live has, the students must pay attention to what the people are saying, and also to other facts the teacher is saying. The teacher gives the students little papers with information about different countries, everyone in the class has to read all the paper and then make a list of all the characteristics they found on the specific text they were given. At the end of the task, they have to share the information in the front of the class.

Vocabulary learned from the previous classes.

Video bin Computer

Practice

10 minutes

Content

Material

Listening and speaking skill. Reading, speaking and listening skills. Vocabulary of countries and given by the teacher

Pieces of paper Pencils Pens

Production

10 minutes

The teacher will divide the group into trios every trio has to plan their own activity, to involve all the class. Their task is to create an activity related to recognizing characteristics of some countries. The have freedom to create and develop whatever activity they want to apply. But they must use the correct vocabulary.

Vocabulary studied in class. Countries Speaking, listening and writing skills.

Board Notebooks Computer (option) The classroom

Universidad Latina de Costa Rica Faculty of Social Sciences School of English BIN-20 English Didactic

Lesson Plan New Interchange – Jack C. Richards Unit 12 “It´s been a long time!”

Brandon Sandí August 3, 2016

Writing Activity 1: Describing Activities

Activity 1 Level Goal Technique Objective Purpose

Materials

Topic: Information about Past activities / Target Content: Ask about someone´s past and describe recent activities. B1: Intermediate English Level. Describe and talk about past activities Writing Exercises After paying attention to people´s past activities and experiences, students will be able to define their own and other classmate´s recent or past activities by using the correct vocabulary studied in class.  To help students identify and use the proper structure at the time of describe past activities.  To visualize student´s writing and speaking skills. 60-Minute Lesson Plan

Segment

Time

Instructor’s Task

Participants Learning Tasks

Rationale

-Warm-up Schema Activation

10 Minutes

-Students will discuss about their different activities or experiences they had and after that they are also able to share the information with the rest of the class.

-By doing this activity the students will practice their speaking skills and at the same time students will be more sociable with their classmates by sharing the information with the rest of the class.

-Pre-Writing Activity

10 Minutes

- The teacher divides the class into pairs or trios and at the same time the teacher gives them a handout with different pictures about people talking about past activities. The teacher begins talking about one of his memorable experiences in life, based on one of the pictures of the handout, after that the teacher tells the students to do the same thing but with the classmates who are in the group. And also the teacher tells the students that after that exercise, anybody can share something about the conversation they had, and while doing this the teacher will be writing some information on the board about the stories they heard. -The teacher will play a video in the video beam, which is about 4 people talking about past experiences. The teacher gives a sheet of paper to the students, which contains the names of the four people in the video, following the teacher tells the students to write down the information they got from the video played about the for conversations listened. After done this, the teacher starts asking

-Students will complete the sheet with their own answers they got from the video.

- With this exercise the students are able to practice their speaking, reading and listening skills.

-Writing Activity

10 Minutes

-Post Writing Activity

10 Minutes

Assessmen t

20 Minutes

questions from the video and also the teacher reviews the answers the students wrote by paying attention orally. -The teacher will provide the students different short stories which are about past experiences a character had, the teacher tells the students that their task is to read carefully the text and after that, extract the information related to the past activities and answer the questions he will write on the board . When the students are done with this, the teacher will review all the possible answers the students wrote by asking them to come to the board and write everything they have written about the story. -The teacher will create groups of four people. Then the teacher will tell the students to come up with a story of a fictional character they will invent, but the studentsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; task is to create the story talking about experiences that character had. After done this, the group of students will come to the front and will tell the story they wrote, to their classmates. The other students are able to make questions and comments about the story created by their partners. -the teacher will assign to the students a task which consists in; choose a memorable moment in their life, write a little essay about it, talking about their past experience and that especial moment. Following while they are writing this, the teacher is helping the students to make it correctly, by monitoring them. Then when everybody is done with the task, the teacher will tell the students to exchange their notebooks or sheets of paper with another classmate, forming then, a pair to read each other story and to speak a little bit about both stories, if they have something in common or not they can share it with the rest of the class and the teacher will be the one who gives feedback in case they committed a mistake.

-Students will pay attention to the text given and they will extract the information requested

-Students will put in practice their reading, writing and listening skills by doing this exercise and paying attention to the variety of information they will find.

-Students will work on their story in order to show it to their classmates using the correct vocabulary. They will explain information about past experiences and also they are able to answer the questions of the other classmates. -the students will choose their favorite memory or experience and he or she will share it with one classmate first and then with the rest of the class and the teacher.

-students using their imagination will create a story involving past activities and situations; they are able to improve their speaking, reading and listening skills.

-Students are going to practice their writing skills by making the essay and also they will practice the speaking skills by telling it to the rest of the class using the correct vocabulary and the past continuous, simple past and also past perfect continuous. Moreover they will receive feedback from the teacher.

Universidad Latina de Costa Rica Faculty of Social Sciences School of English BIN-20 English Didactic

Observation Report #1

Brandon SandĂ June 30, 2016

UNIVERSIDAD LATINA DE COSTA RICA ENGLISH DEPARTMENT PRACTICUM SEMINAR BIN-31 OBSERVATION REPORT

SUPERVISOR Brandon Sandí Castro

DATE

May 24, 2016

STUDENT TEACHER: Errol Mena

GRADE

ID# 2015010679

CLASS SUBJECT: English______________________ TIME: From: 8:40 am________ To: 10:00 am

INSTITUTION Colegio Técnico de Puriscal

COMPONENTS

Level 9th Grade

Meets expectatio ns



Approachi ng expectati ons



Group 9-1

Needs improvem ent



Does not meet expectati ons



 4

EXPECTATIONS

1. Appearance Shows neat and appropriate professional appearance

2. Routines

Completes the corresponding routines

3. Warm up Activates students’ prior knowledge, motivates students to learn, and prepares students for the instruction.

4. Content knowledge Demonstrates knowledge of subject matter and curriculum.

5. Preparation has written lesson plan and appropriate and useful materials

Non Applica ble

6. Language use Correct grammar, spelling, pronunciation, rhythm, intonation

7. Instructional delivery Makes clear connections between goals and activities, uses effective presentation skills, demonstrates knowledge of different resources, strategies, techniques, achieves more student talk than teacher talk, uses appropriate follow up to engage students, maintains a comfortable and pleasant environment, uses a variety of activities/strategies to support learning

8. Classroom management Demonstrates effective management skills, provides opportunities for students to demonstrate responsible behavior, establishes an effective classroom routine that students clearly understand, and maintains a functional and comfortable classroom setting and a level of student activity appropriate to the lesson.

9. Appreciation of student development and diversity

Demonstrates good understanding of individual differences and needs

10. Creativity

Majority of activities and ideas are fresh, original, attractive and nice.

11. Assessment Appropriate instruments, techniques, activities and strategies are used to assess studentsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; achievement of learning goals; promotes studentsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; self- assessment.

12. Closing Brings students to a successful ending, provides opportunities for students to complete their learning experience.

GRADE = TOTAL NUMBER OF POINTS

X 100

481

COMMENTS

He needs to control more the class in terms of monitoring the students and keep the class in order and quiet.

Signatures

Supervisor

Modify this number if NA is used.

Student teacher_

The observation that I did it was in the high school already mentioned, “Colegio Técnico de Puriscal”. It was a great opportunity to see how a teacher in the real life deals with the students, the knowledge the teacher must teach to them and also the different ways the teacher uses in order to success with the task . Previously in the document attached, we can find the rubric in which the teacher was evaluated, then following I will go deeper into the topics given, explaining why the number of each component. Before I entered to the class, I greeted the teacher, who is a really nice person and very kind. I explained to him the reason why I was there and he accepted, not complaining. He was dressed in formal way just as the usual teachers, with dress pants and a shirt who I believe it was was given by the high school, because it had the name written in one of the sleeves, so in terms of appearance the teacher fulfilled with everything. Then taking in consideration the routines, he said that he does not usually make “warm ups”, instead of that, he goes straight to point because he said also that sometimes he does not have much time in order to enlarge the class with different steps, so that is why he just starts explaining the topics and teaching the unit or the topic he had to. The teacher whose name is Errol Mena, he seems to be a prepared teacher, who can manage and developed whatever topic it could be given, but if we talk about the method he uses in order to teach a class, I can say that he does not use his own lesson plan, I mean he does not create any, he just follow the instructions of a lesson plan which is already done and what he told me, is that he “based himself” on that lesson plan but, he does not always agree with everything is stated on that lesson plan, he just takes some suggestions in consideration and then he develops the class according to the method created by him in his mind, I mean according to his creativity. In this teacher, I could see a lot of “hidden potential”, because with a “naked eye” is easy to recognize that he was well prepared and I can perceived much knowledge he could teach, by the way he is very creative but unfortunately the class does not lend itself to explode that ability. Another interesting fact about him and that is related to the way how he develops the class is that very often he loses the control of the class, at the point of listen some students shouting, talking, playing, using cellphones and even cursing, but unfortunately he is more focus on his work, qualifying exams, checking the homework, asking for the extra homework… instead of control the class and make them respect the rules. By the way he is very friendly and closer with the students, (which I consider is a “double edged weapon”), of course he tries

to encourage the students to keep in the way, studying, and he tries to incorporate abilities to talk and comprehend English to the students but sadly some of them are not interested, another important aspect is that he must do some “scaffolding” while he is asking for homework because I could perceived some students were “cheating” I mean copying another’s classmate homework and at the end the teacher did not know what happened. I conclusion and I believed that this teacher is making a great job, but is a shame that nobody appreciates what he is currently doing. More over being very closer and friendly with the students is a “double edge weapon” because there too much information that probably they can handle it and use it, to different purposes, that is why you must keep your “distance” with the students, not being too much “bitter” but at least be sociable and funny, and try to do not tell much personal and private information about you, does not matter what, remind your students that you are the teacher not another classmate or friend.

Universidad Latina de Costa Rica Faculty of Social Sciences School of English English Didactics

Audio-Lingual Method.

Brandon SandĂ August 10, 2016

The audio-lingual method is a method which appeared after the second war, it helped the soldiers from different countries to solve their problems to learn a new language. So based on the difficulty that involve teach them a new language, the

army tried to invent a method in order to teach them easily, which consisted in the repetition of different words and sentences that they could remember, and also they created and intensive language teaching methodology to development of teaching materials and the analysis of modern language. In this case the audio-lingual method, tries to make the people learn the language without too much information that they could not handle, instead of that the method gives the students a short dialogue that can be presented in many different ways and based on that the teacher is able to assign to the students whatever exercise he or she consider proper to make, using the dialogue given. In this exercise by paying attention to the activities done and after being repeated for several times by the performers or the teacher. The Student is able to remember the information based on what he saw and got from the dialogue given. For example keep in mind the example that we just did in the class, the role that was played by me, Felipe and Alejandro, was to repeat the same dialogue to students and with that, they are able to remember all the information that we gave, and based on that the students can present the same dialogue by doing a similar performance or if they want, they can created a new situation by using the same structure. That is why this method is important, because we are trying to make the students learn by giving them easy examples, and with this we as a teachers , we can make our classes more simple and even more interactive, because in this way the teacher can bring different objects to give them to the students and then they are able to create their own situations with the structure gave by the teacher.

Moreover this method has different characteristics such as; Drills are used to teach structural patterns, set phrases are memorized with a focus on intonation, grammatical explanations are kept to a minimum, vocabulary is taught in context, Audio-visual aids are used, and focus is on pronunciation, correct responses are positively reinforced immediately.[ CITATION Alend \l 5130 ] according to the information that was provide by the teacher this is a very old method that is used not very often by teachers, but it does not mean that it is useless, is just that there are new other ways how we can teach easily. Because in this case what we just do is repeat everything several times to â&#x20AC;&#x153;copyâ&#x20AC;? the information in the studentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s minds.

References: C. Richards, J., & Rodgers, T. S. (2001). Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Taylor, A. (n.d.). blog TJ Taylor. Recuperado el 08 de 08 de 2016, de The Audiolingual Teaching Method: http://blog.tjtaylor.net/method-audio-lingual/

Universidad Latina de Costa Rica Faculty of Social Sciences School of English English Didactics

Commucative approach

Brandon SandĂ C. August 10, 2016

The communicative approach is based on the idea that the successfully language learning comes from having a communication with real meaning, it means that

learners in a real communication their strategies to language learning acquisition are going to be used so they are allow to use their abilities in order to comprehend and learn what they are speaking. For example, in the demo that we did the last week we tried, first of all to explain the students a hypothetical situation which involved two people who lived in different places, one from a rural place and the other in a city, the students were told that between these two characters it will be one more, who comes from other country. The purpose of the activity was to assign the students a role either the person from the rural place or the person from city and there will be another partner who was going to play the role of the foreigner chosen by the teachers, the important part here was first explain the situation to the students and then give them the structure of the conversation that was created for them to recreate it in front of the class. The purpose of this activity was to make the students speak among them in small groups and also make them perform the story in front of the class by using the structure given by the teachers, in here the teacher can recognize the level of English each students has, but the most important thing is to identify that they are able to speak the language and to share their ideas even though they make some mistakes but towards the end of the class the teacher can correct their mistakes by giving them an explanation about it or also using examples about the thing that they used in order to make them understand the topics and assimilate more the information given.

The objective of the communicative approach is make the students speak and learn by talking about something, it does not matter if they do it alone or with another person because at the end what the communicative approach wants is to improve their speaking skills and to learn by the practice, and also including some structures to see how they are in terms of creating activities involving structures given by the teacher. That is why the communicative approach can take the form of whatever activity the teacher considers appropriate for the topic studied in any specific moment. The problem appears when somebody does not have the proper level of English to participate in the activity because then he or she would have problems at the time of expressing their ideas, or it could be the other way around he or she could express their ideas but do not using the correct grammar, which the teacher could use to improve their skills.

References:

English, T. (n.d.). Teaching English. Recuperado el 08 de 08 de 2016, de Communicative approach: https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/communicative-competence Richards, J., & Rodgers, T. (2001). Approaches and methods in language teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Universidad Latina de Costa Rica Faculty of Social Sciences School of English BIN-20 English Didactic

Observation Report #2

Brandon Sandí August 10, 2016

For the observation in the private high school, I visited the “Colegio Nuestra Señora del Pilar” located in Escazú. My observation started at 7:00 am with a

group of tenth grade, whose teacher was a woman called Elizabeth Carvajal, she was properly dressed according to the rules of dressing of the high school. She started the class asking questions about the unit they were studying; I think it was the Unit 10, in here she was just asking the questions and waiting for whoever wanted to participate, of course the ones who kept silence also were chosen at least to answer an easy question. After that the teacher started to give them the verbs corresponding to the unit in order to make them be familiar and memorize everything for the next class. The teacher Elizabeth showed knowledge about what she was doing, I mean he knew exactly every topic she was explaining, because she mentioned that she made her studies at the Universidad Nacional and also she had several years teaching with the same format and methodology, regarding the way how she deliver the instructions, she told me that when she had us as her students was easier because she did not have to explain too much things to us, we were more attentive than the students she has now. She told me that the students that comes to the seventh grade are harder to teach because most of them do not know much about English so even though at the time when the teacher ask if they understood everything and they say “yes”, the next class they do not have an idea about the facts that the teacher mentioned. Regarding the way how she develops the class, in my opinion is the same way how she did it when I used to study there, she told me too that the format she uses has not changes at all, but the fact that called my attention was hear that she makes the lesson plan for every week and she sends it to a “plataform” they have on the web. Also the she mentioned that she most of the time uses Spanish, because there are students who have problems with the language, thing that I consider is bad because she must try to

use English and if they do not know, she ought to find a way how to explain it to that minority. As a conclusion of course this teacher has some problems, regarding pronunciation, class control and development, but however the method she uses is effectively good, because at the end the one who wants to learn English success, even though she or he have problems, never give up, so it means that the methodology she uses works, but works for the one who makes a effort to keep forward.