WEEK 1: SYLLABUS We started the course by introducing ourselves and then we went through the whole syllabus. The syllabus includes a lot of projects and presentations, but I’m sure I can do it, and in a very successful way. One of the projects that this course includes is a Service Learning. I’m not a fan of Service Learning Projects this quarter, because I have a lot of them, but that’s not going to interfere in my goal of finishing this course with an amazing grade. Moreover, we have a methodology presentation, a field trip, two forums, classroom activities and a portfolio about the whole course. I already took this course once, and I failed it because I wasn’t really into it. For this quarter, the syllabus has changed a lot and I hope I enjoy it this time. I think it is a very important course and I really want to learn from it and be able to use all the knowledge I’m going to get from it for my career.
WEEK 2: DISCUSSION QUESTIONS AND THE CEFR DISCUSSION QUESTION: We answered a few questions about the chapters we were supposed to read for this week. They were about Contextualizing Language Instruction and The Nature of Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching. The first 6 questions were about the first topic (Contextualizing Language Instruction) and the last 5 questions were about the second one (The Nature of Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching). We answered them in groups of 3-4 people. The first ones we did it all by ourselves, but the ones from the second topic we did them with the teacher because it seemed like nobody read that chapter. I liked answering those questions because I think it was a really good way of proving to me if I really understood the topic, or not.
THE CEFR: For this topic, we first watched a video about what is it and how does it works. After that, the teacher explained us a little bit more about it and then gave us an activity so see how well we were catching the information about it. It was kind of a fill on the blanks/matching. We had the chart about the levels of the CEFR, but it had some spaces without information and we had to fill them with the right number, according to the other information she gave us on another piece of paper. It was really entertaining, and we all did really well on the practice.
WEEK 3: PRESENTATIONS AND Q&A PRESENTATIONS: The Monitor and Nativist theories were presented by two classmates. They brought a Power Point presentation each one. Both presentations were very interactive and we got to learn a lot from them.
Q&A: After both presentations, we used the questions we had to bring to the class. The teacher gave us to construction papers and asked us to choose one question for each theory and write them down on the papers. Then, we gave her all the questions and we discussed them as a group. It was a pretty cool activity because all of us were participating and giving our opinion about the theories we just learned.
WEEK 4 & 5: PRESENTATIONS WEEK 4: On week 4, Cognitivism and Behaviorism were presented by Alejandra and Irene, respectively. They brought Power Point presentations with the information and they also gave us the printed information. Both presentations were very interactive and I learned a lot from them.
WEEK 5: On week 5, we learned about three teaching methods: GrammarTranslation Method, Direct Method and Audio-Lingual Method. They were presented by me, Valeria and Wendy, respectively. After my presentation (Grammar-Translation), I did a little activity with them that was called The Translation Race. They had to translate the sentences I gave them and the group with more points, won. They enjoyed it a lot and it was a good way of distracting them a little in order to keep going with the next presentation. Also, as with the presentations from week 4, we used Power Point presentations and gave the printed information to our classmates.
WEEK 6 & 7 WEEK 6: PLANNIG: On Week 6, we started by planning the first lesson for our tutoring session, according to the format that the teacher gave and explained us. It was a very good opportunity for us to ask all the questions we had in order to make our lesson plans the right way. I really think it was an amazing activity!
MATCHING DEFINITIONS: The teacher pasted on the wall definitions about the reading we had for this week and then gave us the terms for us to match them with the definitions. We worked all together and checked them one by one. When one of the definitions was matched with the wrong term, we had to try again. It was really nice, because usually at college all we do is sit on our desks and listen to the teacher. Doing activities like this one motivates me a lot and I’m sure my classmates felt motivated, too.
TRUE/FALSE
The teacher gave us a practice that included facts about the topic. We had to mark if they were true or false. Then, we had to compare our answers in pairs and after that, we checked them all together. It was a really good activity in order to see if we had the information clear in our heads. I liked that the teacher cared about checking each answer. Sometimes, teachers don’t do that and the students are not able to know if they were wrong or right.
COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE We also studied Communicative Competence. It was a really important topic for us to learn and I liked it because I was able to understand everything that was explained about it. The information we studied about it was:
Communicative Competence’s definition Facts Theoretical source Practical source 4 parameters to the system of rules that underlie communicative behavior Halliday: 3 basic functions Functions
 Audio-lingual methodology  Communicative approach
WEEK 7: On Week 7, we learned about Learning Strategies. At the beginning of the class, Fiorella presented about the topic. After her presentation, the teacher gave us a kind of test in order for us to know which one is our learning strategy. It was really entertaining and also useful. After doing it, I had no idea of my learning strategy. It was a nice activity! Hope we can keep doing stuff like that during this course.
WEEK 8 PRESENTATION: The first minutes of the class were spent in Mariam’s presentation. She presented about Chapter 4 of Cohen’s book, which was about applying strategies to contexts. In the middle of the presentation, she asked us to fill a chart with some characteristics about us, including some aspects about our learning process. It was a nice presentation and I think we all enjoyed the activity! For me, the most interesting and important information from the chapter were all the variables that are related to the choice and use of learner strategies. Those variables were: age, gender, motivation*, career orientation/reason for study, personality, nationality/culture/ethnicity, proficiency/achievement, and learning situation. *For me, the one that called my attention the most was the one of motivation. Of course, all the variables mentioned are important somehow, but I think motivation is the key for success. If someone’s not motivated about something, it is more difficult. According to Cohen and Macaro (2007), Oxford and Nyikos
(1989), “in a large-scale study of US college students, found that highly motivated learners used four (out of five) categories of strategies significantly more often than did less motivated learners”.
VIDEO: We watched a video about teaching and learning strategies. The video included examples of teachers using different strategies. At the end of the video, it included a little summary about it. It was a very interesting video to see, because sometimes we only read about the strategies but we’re not able to understand them very well because we are not watching how they actually work while applying them.
QUESTIONS & DISCUSSION: After watching the video, the teacher asked about what we watched and which learning strategies we saw in the video. We discussed it all together and analyzed what happened in the video. I think it is very important to discuss what we learn during the class, because sometime it is the best way for some people to understand. It is also a great opportunity for us to give our opinion and for clarify some things about it. It is a way in which
we can learn and also give our knowledge to our classmates and teacher.
REFERENCES Andrew D. Cohen, E. M. (2007). Applying Strategies to Contexts. In E. M. Andrew D. Cohen, Language Learner Strategies (pp. 71-72). Oxford University Press.
WEEK 9 RECYCLING PLASTIC On week 9, teacher Floria invited us to listen a few presentations her students had made about recycling plastic. Some of us went with teacher Giovanna and the other half went with teacher Floria. According to Schenker (2014), “recycling basically involves turning used materials that are labeled as recyclable over to your local waste facility designated in a disposal container as “recyclable” materials to be taken and reused as material for a new purpose”. I think it was a nice activity because we got the chance of getting information of a topic we weren’t expecting to, and it was very useful.
WEEK 9 &WEEK 10 PRESENTATIONS ABOUT SL After the recycling presentations, we went back to the class and started the Service Learning presentations. It took us two weeks to do all the presentations. We had to present what we did with our student, explain the four sessions, give our justification, our
limitations, objectives, recommendations, and share our final results. It was amazing to listen to all the different experiences and to be able to comment about them.
REFERENCES Schrenker, A. (2014, September 10). Earth's Friends. Retrieved from http://www.earthsfriends.com/why-recycling-important/
WEEK 11 LYDIA’S PRESENTATION Lydia presented chapter 6 from The Handbook, which was about using the interactive approach in order to develop interpretative communication. Lydia explained to us three important modes of communication: 1. Interpersonal: “After receiving feedback students engage in communication about a particular topic which relates to the interpretive text…” (Terril, n.d.) 2. Interpretive: “Students listen to, view and/or read an authentic text and answer information as well as interpretive questions to assess comprehension” (Terril, n.d.) 3. Presentational: “Students engage in the presentational mode by sharing their research/ideas/opinions…” (Terril, n.d.) It was a very interesting topic and we were able to put it into practice at the end of the presentation, which was a good activity. After she explained everything, she divided us into groups and asked us to read an article. After reading it, we had to
comment with the rest of the class what we interpret from it. It was amazing to see how everyone can think so different about the same thing.
VICKY’S SERVICE LEARNING PRESENTATION Vicky wasn’t able to present her Service Learning before this week, so she did it right after Lydia’s presentation. She told us a little bit about her students, her problems, possible solutions, and also showed us and explained us the lesson plans she used in order to get the results she was expecting.
ARTICLE ACTIVITY At the end of the class, we did an activity using the articles the teacher asked us to the week before. In groups of 3 people, we had to choose one of the articles we had, read it and make a plan using the three modes of communication we previously studied and practiced with Lydia’s presentation. It was an amazing activity even though it was a little hard for us as a group to agree in what we wanted to do with our plan.
RESOURCES Terril, L. (n.d.). Wiki Spaces. Retrieved from https://lauraterrill.wikispaces.com/file/view/Interpersonal+Mode.pdf
WEEK 12 CH 8. DEVELOPING ORAL & WRITTEN INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION This topic was about what to expect from students according to their level to communicate in a foreign language and also about strategies to help them develop speaking proficiency.
SUBLEVELS: LOW: They use their linguistic energy to sustain the requirements of the level, although they struggle to do so. MID: They represent a number of speech profiles, based on their mix of quantity and quality at level, and the degree to which they control language features from the next level. HIGH: They communicate with ease and confidence when performing the functions of their respective level.
ORAL PROFICIENCY LEVELS:
IMPLICATIONS FOR THE OPI: 1. Teachers should become familiar with the ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines and the ILR rating scale.
2. Students must go beyond their traditional role as responder to the teacher’s questions, and their interactions must take on the characteristics of typical conversations that occur between native and non-native speakers outside the classroom. 3. The need to provide opportunities for students to hear a great deal of comprehensible and authentic language.
TYPES OF PRACTICE STUDENTS NEED AS THEY WORK TOWARD PROFICIENCY: NOVICE: Acquiring concrete vocabulary in context through activities such as TPR. INTERMEDIATE: Engaging in spontaneous conversations on familiar topics related to self and personal environment, as well as work or school. ADVANCED: Conversing in a participatory manner. SUPERIOR: Discussing topics concretely and abstractly.
INFLUENCES ON WTC: SITUATIONAL: Communicative behavior or L2 use, one’s behavioral intention or willingness to communicate, the desire to
communicate with a specific person, and one’s communicative self-confidence. ENDURING: Interpersonal motivation, intergroup motivation, selfconfidence, intergroup attitudes, social situation, one’s communicative competence, intergroup climate, and one’s personality.
STRATEGIES:
Instructional conversations Teacher self-talk Turns-at-talk Routines & Gambits Gestures Students discourse in pairs or group activities Enhancing small group communication through strategy training Cooperative learning such as role plays Conducting cooperative learning activities Using literacy exploration to develop advanced-level discourse Dialogue journals
 Key pal and pen pal letter exchanges  Corrective feedback in oral interactions
ENTRY 10. COURSE REFLECTION During this course, we were able to learn a lot of important topics, tips and strategies that are essential for our future as teachers. It was my second time taking the course, and I definitely liked it better this time. I am not sure about it, but I think the dynamic of the course changed and this time was more interactive and the topics we more interesting for me because they weren’t the same topics from General Didactics. Also, my motivation this time was on its highest and that helped me a lot to get through the whole course without any problem. My favorite assignment was the Portfolio. I felt like I was the only one enjoying it, but only because it was an amazing way of proving how much I have changed, my motivation, how much I