Digital Portfolio by Melissa M.

TEACHING ENGLISH TO YOUNG LEARNERS: DIGITAL PORTFOLIO BY MELISSA MORA SOLÍS 1

INDEX WEEK 1 ……………………………………… 3 WEEK 3 ……………………………………… 5 WEEK 4 ……………………………………… 10 WEEK 5 ……………………………………… 14 WEEK 6 ……………………………………… 19 WEEK 7 …………………………………… . . 20 WEEK 8 …………………………………… . . 22 WEEK 9 ……………………………………. . 26 WEEK 10 …………………………………… . 30 WEEK 11 …………………………………… . 31 WEEK 13 ……………………………………. . 37 WEEK 14 …………………………………… . 38

WEEK 1: SYLLABUS AND TOPIC 1 SYLLABUS: During the first hour of the first class, we went through the whole syllabus. It was only the first day and I was already stressing out about all the assignments we have for this course. Planning, teaching experience, Service Learning, presentations... It was definitely a stressing hour, but since that moment I was pretty sure I was going to nail this course.

TOPIC 1: After going through the whole syllabus, we started the first topic of the course: The Child as a Language Learner. To start this topic, the teacher introduced a very important sub-title to this topic: Developmentally Appropriate Instruction. It was about providing all the necessary factors (environment, materials, contentâ&#x20AC;Ś) according to the childâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s level. The teacher explained three important dimensions that must be considered to provide the right factors: 1. Age appropriateness 2. Individual appropriateness

3. Appropriateness for the cultural and social context of the child We also went a little bit deeper and learned about preschoolers’ aspects according to this topic:  Thrive when they can experience new materials, roles, ideas, and activities-especially in pretend play  Take great interest in feelings and become able to express their emotions and identify those of others  Make important cognitive gains that invite them to represent their world in pretend play, symbols, objects, drawings, and words  Show astonishing gains in language skills Last but not least, we learned four more important facts that we as teachers need to know the appropriate way of implementing them:  Learning about children’s development and interests  Children’s language learning and acquisition  Making input meaningful to learners  Supporting children’s language acquisition and learning

WEEK 3: TOPIC 2, CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT, PLANNING TOPIC 2: The second topic for this course was Key Issues in Teaching Young Learners. It was divided into four subtitles:

1. LEARNING STYLES:  Interpersonal: People smart. You prefer to learn in groups or with other people.  Intrapersonal: Self smart. You prefer to work alone and use self-study.  Linguistic: Word smart. You prefer using words, both in speech and writing.  Logical-mathematical: Logic smart. You prefer using logic, reasoning and systems.  Naturalist: Nature smart (environment).  Spatial: Picture smart. You prefer using pictures, images, and spatial understanding  Bodily-Kinesthetic: Body smart. You prefer using your body, hand and sense of touch.  Musical: Music smart. You prefer using sound and music.

2. UNDERSTANDING LEARNING STYLES FOR EFFECTIVE TEACHING:

We analyzed a diagram that included all the four learning styles and what things do we need to use in order to teach with each one of them.

3. TEACHING STYLES: FACTORS  Career-stage factors:     

Exploration Commitment Diversification Serenity Conservatism

 Curriculum factors:    

Nature of subject Teaching method Assessment policy Syllabus model

 Knowledge factors:

   

Contents General pedagogical Contextual Pedagogical content knowledge

 Personal factors:  Learning style  Apprenticeship of observation  Living theories about teaching and learning

 Professional factors:  Professionalism  Professional identity

 Institutional factors:  School culture  Climate

4. TEACHING STYLES: TYPES We learned about the five types of teaching styles and which ones were teacher-centered and which ones were student-centered.

 Delegator:  These teachers tend to place much control and responsibility for learning on individuals or groups of students.  Student-centered

 Formal Authority:

 Teachers who have a formal authority teaching style tend to focus on content.  Teacher-centered

 Personal Model:  Teachers with this style tend to run teacher-centered classes with an emphasis on demonstration and modeling.  Teacher-centered and student-centered

 Expert:  The teacher believes that everything that he/she says is right and what his/her students say is not.  Teacher-centered

 Facilitator  Teachers with this style tend to focus on activities.  Student-centered

CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT: We watched a video about using behaviorism with positive reinforcements and another one about suggestions (Kindergarten Blog – GreenAppleLessons.org).

PLANNING: We talked briefly about this topic, because we are supposed to learn about it in another course. We got an idea of how to make an effective plan with these factors:  Structure

      

Details Organization Extra activities In the class Realistic Weekly/Daily routines Special needs/Special activities

WEEK 4: TEACHING LISTENING TO YOUNG LEARNERS During this class, we learned about the first skill: listening. We went over a lot of information about it:

WHAT IS LISTENING? We went over a lot of important facts about listening that covered its definition, its ability and the difference between hearing and listening. Some of them are:  Listening is the ability to accurately receive and interpret messages in the communication process.  Hearing refers to the sound that you hear, whereas listening requires more than that; it requires focus.  The ability to listen effectively depends on the degree to which you perceive and understand these messages.

BACKGROUND TO TEACHING OF LISTENING:  Before listening:    

Plan for the listening task Set a purpose Decide if more linguistic or background knowledge is needed Determine whether to enter the text from the top down or from the bottom up

 During & after listening:     

Monitor comprehension Verify predictions and check for inaccurate guesses Decide what is and is not important to understand Listen/view again to check comprehension Ask for help

 After listening:  Evaluate: comprehension and strategy use, comprehension in a particular task or area, and overall progress in listening and in particular types of listening tasks  Decide if the strategies used were appropriate for the purpose and for the task  Modify strategies if necessary

DEVELOPMENT OF LISTENING SKILLS: We went over ten important tips in order to be able to develop listening skills: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.

Face the speaker and maintain eye contact Be attentive, but relaxed Keep an open mind Listen to the words and try to picture what the speaker is saying Don’t interrupt and don’t impose your “solutions” Wait for the speaker to pause to ask clarifying questions Ask questions only to ensure understanding Try to feel what the speaker is feeling Give the speaker regular feedback

10. Pay attention to what isn’t said- to nonverbal cues

CLASSROOM TECHNIQUES AND ACTIVITIES: We had some minutes to think about 10 activities or/and techniques we can use in order to develop the listening skills in a preschool classroom. We all had a lot of different ideas, but these ones are some of them:     

Give them commands Story telling Hockey Pockey Background music Sound Hunt

RULES OF LISTENING IN YOUNG LEARNERS CLASSES: We went over 9 important rules: 1. Students should be engaged on/or work in the listening task actively. 2. Students should be engaged with different listening tasks according to their age, learning style, listening capacity and phonological awareness. 3. The language teachers should train the students to listen to the English sounds carefully. 4. Teachers should train the young learners to follow simple instructions. 5. Different listening tasks should be addressed in class:  Listen & Do (Maternal limit)  Listen & Draw

6. 7. 8. 9.

 Listen & Color (Pre-K limit)  Listen & Mime  Listen & Predict  Listen & Respond (K limit)  Listen & Write  Listen & Identify  Listen & Match  Listen & Complete (Prep limit)  Listen & Read (Prep limit- Advanced) Student should be given a different task each time they listen to the same text. Input through tapes, videos or teaching modeling should be provided; the audio tools should be in good quality. The teachers should be aware of the important of familiarity, difficulty, and teacher’s language. It is important to embed listening into stories, games, routines, rhymes, and songs. They may not understand every word, but they can understand the meaning from the context, visuals and gestures as in real life.

IN THE CLASS: We watched a video about the Be a Good Listener chart. It included some commands they have to accomplish in order to be a good listener and another about developing listening skills.

WEEK 5: TEACHING SPEAKING TO YOUNG LEARNERS During this class, we learned about the second skill: speaking. We went over a lot of information about it:

INTRODUCTION: We discussed some aspects about teaching speaking to young learners to start the class. Some of them were:  We have to keep in mind the fact that what we have in front of us is a mixed class with varied abilities, expectations, motivation level, knowledge, and different learning styles.  Young learners are like sponges.  Mixed activities such as poems, rhymes, songs… are very helpful for them to grow their speaking abilities.  Interaction is an important way of learning.  We need to vary our approaches and offer as much opportunity as possible.

WHAT IS SPEAKING?  Speaking is one way for them to play with words and sounds.  Children experiment with the language when they are with their parents, family, siblings, and friends. They learn the power of their spoken words

by observing how a word can impact an adult’s feeling and how they respond to that kind of words.  Play is a vital and important aspect of a child’s development and language is part of that play.

BACKGROUND TO THE TEACHING OF SPEAKING:  Speaking is equally important in children’s overall language development.  Speaking is the way they communicate about what they feel or what they need, and also the way their adults communicate with them.  It is the first output after the first input, long before they can write.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF SPEAKING SKILLS:  Young learners will probably have limitations in speaking.  Children have a clear advantage when it comes to pronunciation if they begin learning English as a foreign or second language at any early age.

MEAN LENGTH OF UTTERANCES:  It is a measure of linguistic productivity in children.

 Calculated by collecting 100 utterances spoken by a child and dividing the number of morphemes by the number of utterances.  A higher MLU is taken to indicate a higher level of language proficiency.  The expectations for speaking for children should be tailored to their development.

OVERGENERALIZATION OF ERRORS:  Children very good in interpreting meanings and they can see the patterns that occur in a sentence.  Children have a tendency to over-generalize grammar rules when they are learning English.  When teaching children to speak a second or foreign language, it is important to keep in mind the development of their skills in their native.

CLASSROOM TECHNIQUES AND ACTIVITIES: Brown stated 7 principles for designing speaking skills: 1. Use techniques that cover the spectrum of learners needs, from language-based focus on accuracy to message-based focus on interaction, meaning and fluency.

2. Provide motivating techniques. 3. Encourage the use of authentic language in meaningful contexts. 4. Provide appropriate feedback and correction. 5. Capitalize on the natural link between speaking and listening. 6. Give students opportunities to initiate oral communication. 7. Encourage the development of speaking strategies.

AUDIO-LINGUAL METHOD:  New material is presented in dialogue form.  There is dependence on mimicry, memorization of set phrases and overlearning.  Structures are sequenced by means of contrastive analysis and taught one at a time.  Structural patterns are taught using repetitive drills.  There is little or no grammatical explanation at all.  Vocabulary is strictly limited and learned in context.  Great importance is attached to pronunciation.  Very little use of the mother tongue by teachers is permitted.  Successful responses are immediately reinforced.  There is a great effort to get students to produce error-free utterances.

COMMUNICATIVE LANGUAGE TEACHING:  Connects classroom-based language learning with the language that learners need in order to communicate outside the classroom.  Goal: enabling students to use the language to communicate.  It is necessary to connect classroom learning to the real life childfocused situations where children use language.  CLT with children is slightly different than CLT with adults in part because children often enjoy playing the role of an adult or grown-up.  The focus is on getting the message across and helping children acquire fluency.

OTHER TECHNIQUES & ACTIVITIES:  Games  Talking and Writing Box  Tongue Twisters  Error Correction

WEEK 6: LESSON PLANNING During this class, we made a weekly lesson plan in which we had to choose a topic and plan based on listening and speaking skills. I chose Community Helpers and their work places.

WEEK 7: TEACHING READING TO YOUNG LEARNERS During this class, we learned about the third skill: reading. We went over a lot of information about it:

WHAT IS READING? Reading is the process of looking at a series of written symbols and getting meaning from them. When we read, we use our eyes to receive written symbols and we use our brain to convert them into words, sentences and paragraphs that communicate something to us.

BACKGROUND TO THE TEACHING OF READING:  Exploit the reader’s background knowledge  Build a strong vocabulary base  Teach for comprehension  Work on increasing reading rate  Teach reading strategies  Encourage readers to transform strategies into skills  Build assessment and evaluation into your teaching

 Strive for continuous improvement as a reading teacher

THE DEVELOPMENT OF READING SKILLS:  Prediction  Identify the characters in a story  Describe character similarities and differences  Recognize, identify, describe setting  Identify sequence in a story  Identify plot in a story  Recall and retell story events  Distinguish between realism and fantasy  Model and apply classification and categorization  Recognize the main idea of a story  Apply compare and contrast  Draw conclusions in a story  Apply cause and effect

WEEK 8: FIELD TRIP We went to New Hope, in Heredia, to do an observation. I observed a Pre-K group while they were receiving an English class. It was an amazing experience! Hereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s my observation form:

WEEK 9 FIELD TRIP DISCUSSION: We discussed our experience during the observation we did on the field trip on Week 8. Each one of us shared the important information from it and we also talked about what we liked, what we didn’t like and what we would’ve done to change the class.

TEACHING WRITING: We studied the last of the four learning skills: writing. It was a brief explanation, because we as Preschool teachers are not going to need it in a deep way because our students are not there, yet. We studied different aspects about it:

WHAT IS WRITING?  Writing is a method of representing language in visual or tactile form.  Writing is the process of using symbols (letters of the alphabet, punctuation and spaces) to communicate thoughts and ideas in a readable form.

BACKGROUND TO THE TEACHING OF WRITING:  Just as the nature and expectation for literacy have changed, so has the nature of writing. Much of that change has been due to technological developments. These developments not only expanded the types of texts that writers produce, they also expanded immediate access to a wider variety of readers.  Writing is an increasingly multifaceted activity.  Everyone has the capacity to write, writing can be taught, and teachers can help students become better writers.  Developing writers require support. This support can best come through carefully designed writing instruction oriented toward acquiring new strategies and skills. Certainly, writers can benefit from teachers who simply support and give them time to write. However, instruction matters.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF WRITING SKILLS:  Writing is a productive skill that requires concentration and effort, even for those who write professionally throughout their lives.  Writing, like playing a sport or a musical instrument, requires regular practice to do it well.

 Writing is a process. Revision is always part of good writing, and revision takes patience and effort.  Good writing has a very important companion: good reading.  Young students sometimes find it difficult to making the transition from speaking to writing.  When writing becomes part of a child’s world, there are conventions that suddenly come into play – punctuation, spelling, grammar. It can be a struggle to explain things without hand gesture or intonation.  They must find a way for their voice to come across on a piece of paper or a computer screen.  The easiest part of teaching writing to young children is by continually reading to them. We also learned some important tips: 1. Introduce students to good writing 2. Motivate students to write about the world around them 3. Emphasize that good writing is a series of steps  Brainstorm your ideas first!  Organize your ideas into groups  Write a paragraph around each group of ideas  Revise your work

CLASSROOM TECHNIQUES AND ACTIVITIES:  Creative writing  Peer writing  Journal diaries and storytelling  Cooperative writing  Cartoons  Book projects  Tracings

LESSON PLAN: The teacher gave us back the first lesson plan (listening & speaking skills) and gave us feedback about it. After that, we started another lesson plan. This one was about reading & writing skills. The idea was to choose a topic or a unit and make a lesson plan for it with three activities using reading skills and three activities using writing skills. We weren’t able to finish it at class, so we had to take it home.

WEEK 10 CORE SECTION PRESENTATIONS On week 10, we had to present our Core Section to the teacher and our classmates. We had to present our plans and the materials we are going to give to the institution. In my groupâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s case, we only presented it to the teacher because one classmate was late because of personal reasons. Even though I was feeling a little stressed about it, it was amazing to be able to present all our plans and the materials in which we spent a lot of time and love to make them.

WEEK 11 TOPIC 7. TEACHING VOCABULARY TO YOUNG LEARNERS     

Vocabulary can be defined as the words we teach in the foreign language. A new item of vocabulary may be more than just a single word. All languages consist of words. Vocabulary is still widening. We come across completely new words that are made up according to new technologies and according to the needs of real life.  The learner while learning the vocabulary of a second language can come across several challenges:  Making the correct connections, when understanding the second language, between the form and meaning of words.  When producing language, using the correct form of a word for the meaning intended.  To meet these challenges, the learner needs to:  Acquire a critical mass of words for use in both understanding and producing the language remembers words over time.  Be able to recall them readily  Develop strategies for coping with gaps in word knowledge, including coping with unknown words, or unfamiliar uses of known words to take responsibility themselves for vocabulary expansion.

HOW ARE WORDS LEARNED?  Thinking about little children who learn to speak, then they always start with words used for labeling, so that the concept, for example, of a cat has a name cat. But of course not every animal is a cat. The child needs to learn how far to extend the concept of a cat.  Thornbury states that children have to develop some kind of network building – constructing some complex idea.  Let them see or perhaps touch the vocabulary item, for instance a house. We need to let them repeat it in different ways and they should be given a chance to listen to the teacher talking about it.  The mother tongue is never used, there are no translations.  Culture is considered an important aspect.  What really works especially for young learners is the Total Physical Response method – TPR.  Communicative Language Approach (Teaching) – CLT – stresses the meaning of a language in context.

WHICH WORDS AND WHAT SHOULD BE TAUGHT?  The significant point in teaching vocabulary is the selection of words we as teachers want to teach.  We need to consider the frequency.  Specifically with young learners, words that they are familiar with and they can stick to them should be taught.  Very often, words are taught according to themes and topics.

 The learners need to be taught the form of the word, then grammar, collocations, meaning, and word formation.  In the form, pronunciation and spelling should be mentioned.  The grammar of a new item also needs to be taught. Depending what level the learners are, they should be taught to follow some grammatical rules.  It is good when the learners know the synonyms & antonyms.  Word formation – using prefixed and suffixes, hyphenated words, etc, is too difficult for young learners.  Knowing the word and understanding its meaning go hand in hand.  Young learners often put words together with what they can see, hear or with that they can touch.  We will not teach them for example the irregular plural form right away, but they need to know it.

VOCABULARY PRESENTATION  Firstly, we should consider how many words should be presented during the lesson.  This is closely connected with several factors:  The level of the pupils – beginners, intermediate, etc.  Their familiarity with the words – have they come across these words or are they completely new?  Words difficulty – are the words abstract, are they easily pronounced, can we find similar words in the learner’s native language? Etc.  Can the words be easily demonstrated?

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 Shall we use realia or anything that the pupils can become familiar with?  Can pictures be used to elicit vocabulary? Teaching the vocabulary “in spoken form first” to prevent students from pronouncing the words in the form they are written, placing new items in context, and revising them. There are techniques that are particularly appropriate for certain types of words. The younger ones react quite well when we show them concrete illustrations, the older ones can manage pretty well abstract explanations or even definitions. The presentation of new vocabulary can be classified, for example, according to verbal and visual techniques. Among visual techniques we can find pictures, flashcards, photographs and magazine pictures, wall charts, posters, blackboard drawings, word pictures, several realia that teachers can hold up or point to. Mime, action and gestures can be used especially for explaining actions and times. Learners can label pictures or objects or perform an action. Verbal techniques consist of using illustrative situations, descriptions, synonyms and antonyms, collocations, scales, and using various forms of definition. For example, definition by demonstration (visual definition), definition by abstraction, contextual definitions, and definition by translation. Explanation can become extremely difficult especially with beginner levels.

 Another way that can be used is translation. This technique is not used much recently, even though it its quick and easy but can be very discouraging for learners.

CREATION OF ACTIVITIES: MY ACTIVITIES LISTENING: Topic: Animals Activity: The teacher will call out loud each animal name and will reproduce their sound so students can identify them. For example, if the teacher says “dog”, she will reproduce a barking sound.

SPEAKING: Topic: Animals Activity: The teacher will teach them the animals’ vocabulary by showing them flashcards, telling them the name and asking them to repeat each animal’s name with complete sentences. For example, if the teacher shows the dog, they have to say “it is a dog”.

READING: Topic: Animals Activity: They will read a book about animals using puppets. Each student will have a puppet and every time their animal appears in the story, they have to raise their puppet.

WRITING: Topic: Animals Activity: My Animals Book – Students will create a book in which they will have to draw each animal the teacher teaches them and then, they will have to write a complete sentence about it. For example, “this animal is a dog”.

WEEK 13 TEACHING STYLE PRESENTATIONS On Week 13, my classmates presented their teaching style essay in a creative way as it was asked by the teacher. Because of personal reasons, I was not able to present mine, so I did it on Week 14.

WEEK 14 SERVICE LEARNING PRESENTATIONS On Week 14, we did the final presentation for the Service Learning project. We had to recall our objectives and the justification of the project, a little summary of the unit plan, our limitations during the whole process, and the recommendations.

MY TEACHING STYLE PRESENTATION Because I was not able of presenting my teaching style on Week 13, I did it on Week 14. I divided the class into two groups, each one with two cardboards (one for facilitator and one for formal authority) and 6 facts per cardboard. They had to put the facts on the right cardboard and the winner group got chocolates. Then, I asked them their opinion about my teaching style and talked a little bit about the reasons why I presented those two styles. Then, I showed them a video named What Do Facilitators Do.