A case of Effective Language Teaching

The teacher is an ELD English Language Development specialist. There are 11 students in her class and they come from many different countries five of them speak Russian, three of them speak Karen, and the rest of them speak Spanish, Arabic and Ethiopian.

All of the students are learning English as a second language, and most of them understand it and speak with some difficulties, but we can undersatand them without problems.

The teacher technique is teaching English through content and in groups, in fact she is teaching them about Native American people.

One of the problems that she has been dealing with is that it is very difficult for students to keep quiet and follow her instructions, so she used the Guided Language Acquisition Design (GLAD) is a model of professional development which is tied to English Language Development (ELD) standards, the model trains teachers to use local district guidelines and curriculum in providing instruction in multilingual classrooms. It consistently results in teachers with a renewed commitment to high expectations and high standards for all students.

According to GLAD, there is a technique called Narrative, which consist in reading a book together with the students, so the teacher was showing some pictures about the story, then she asked the students about the book; and after that she gave them pieces of paper which contains some sentences about the story, so the teacher read the book again, and every student have to listen to her and stick the paper in front of the correct picture. In this case, the book was about Native Americans, and the students were very quiet and interested listening to her, everybody participated woth enthusiasm during that activity.

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I believe that this was effective because they were engaged with the story, they had to think, analize, and comment about the book, and they worked together as a group, they helped each other, and they were always sharing information beteween them.

Podcasting My Way to Mastery of English

The podcasts that I found are about different topics, and I chose them because they deal about topics that I like, such as: oil painting, literature, the news, miscellaneous things,recipies and English and some other languages grammar.

In spite of the fact that I like these topics, I chose them because I really believe that I can learn English through content, so it is motivating for me to learn things that I like listening English podcasts about it. They will assist me in terms of increasing some of my literacy skills; for example, listening, growth of vocabulary, and pronunciation. If the podcast is interesting to me, I think I will repeated again; although I do not know how frequently I would do it, since I am very visual person, and listening is kind of boring for me.

Links:

http://www.china232.com/107-cosmetic-surgery.php

This Podcast is about cosmetic surgery, it also has some different topics to hear about.

http://www.cnn.com/services/podcasting/index.topic.html

CNN podcasts that have the most important news.

http://pets.podcast.com/

Since I love pets, the podcasts here give you many topics about your pet, such as, health and care.

http://www.learnoutloud.com/Podcast-Directory/Literature/-/Crackle-Back-Short-Stories-Podcast/7009

Here you can find podcasts about books, short stories, poems,etc.

http://www.beefyandlamby.co.uk/microsites/sos/podcasts.html

Here you can find as many podcasts recipies as you want.

http://www.mylanguagetips.com/

Podcasts abput English grammar and some other languages too.

If Only He Knew…

If only he knew that learning takes place in social interaction, since the first group of students has not acquired English language yet, they need to stay with the other group which is very proficient in English; in order to interact; so they can help each other because the teacher can create situations in which their students can develop social interactions.

If only he knew that English language learners need opportunities for functional use of the language they are developing, and classroom organization plays an important role. He should listen to the teacher, when she is asking him to have only one group; in fact they need each because the first group, which is very slow it is always in silence; and the second group is very noisy, talkative, and participative. Besides, both groups have students around twelve years old and if they work together they will increase their English language acquisition.

According to Rigg and Hudelson (1986) social interaction is critical for effective language learning, they mention some important social aspects of learning:

1. People develop their second language when they feel good about themselves and about their relationships with those around them in their second language setting.

2. Language develops when the language learner focuses on accomplishing something together with others rather than focusing on the language itself. So group activities… are ideal.

Five benefits for group work second language learners:

1. Increases language practice opportunities.

2. Improves the quality of students talk.

3. Helps individualize instruction.

4. Promotes a positive affective climate.

5. Motivates learners.

Finally, if only he knew when students discuss topics in groups, the talk opportunities are multiplied.

Websites:

Links:

http://www.aston.ac.uk/current-students/welfareservices/studyskills/groupwork.jsp

http://teaching.berkeley.edu/bgd/collaborative.html

RESPONSE TO A QUESTION ABOUT ENGLISH TEACHING

This is the question that I answered.

Could you suggest me some materials which can help me to improve my students writing skills?

Some activities that you can develop in the classroom; in order to improve your students writing skills are:

1. The use of Blogs.

I do not know if you are interested in the use of technology inside of the classroom, but if you or your students have a blog, you can talk, discuss and write about many topics, you can also give your students feedback making comments about what they have been writing about, suggesting things; In fact you can actually observe their progress.

2. Portfolios

A portfolio is a collection of students’ best or evolving work overtime; so as a teacher you can actually observe important aspects of their writing skills. I think this is not as modern as the use of blogs, but it is very useful.

3. Magazine or Newspaper.

In groups or individually you can ask your students to write and create a magazine or newspaper about any topic they like using pictures, comics, etc.

4. Pen pals.

There are many websites on the Internet, when you can actually meet or get in touch with students from other cities or countries. You can use the old way “Snail Mail” (letter) or e-mail.
Some websites such as: http://www.yahoo.com/ have groups to do this activity; although you can also create your own group and contact student`s from another school, so they will be writing letters to each other and hopefully they will become friends.

The website http://www.friendship-by-mail.com/ contains information about pen pals, and it will help you to understand what snail mail is.

I responded as I did because these kinds of activities must be planned according to student’s interests, and technology motivates them, since it is the way they communicate with their friends, so it is a very important tool.

Another aspect that I focused my answer was that the teacher needs to follow students’s improvement, then every writing activity must be saved somewhere to compare and see the difference between new and previous work.

Finally, the teacher have to make his or her students feel comfortable with the activity, that is, students have to feel that what they are doing is important, since they are communicating ideas, feeling and thoughts to the rest of the class, or the people.

The video shows an idea of Pen Pal programm between High School and Elementary School students.

Websites that might help

My English language learner is from Russia. She is 13 years old, and she lives with her parents.

One thing I noticed about her is that she does not speak much English, so she is always feeling frustrated because she cannot communicate her own ideas; although I think she is doing a big effort trying to develop her language skills in English.
Since she needs to practice a lot, I will really like to help her with some websites that I found on the INTERNET. Some things that I have observed, is the fact that she is lacking of vocabulary, listening and reading comprehension skills, because of these she is not able to speak in plain English.

The websites that I suggest her should be interactive and interesting, in order to make an “attractive learning” for her.

These are the websites that I found to help her.

http://www.theyellowpencil.com/

This is a very complete and interesting website. It contains lost of activities, such as: word puzzles, writing and spelling activities, questionnaires, 3 online tests and also videos about any topic, in order to work pronunciation.

http://comics.com/peanuts/?Page=2

This is a website about Charlie Brown’s comics, which are very funny and short. I am sure she will love to read this; so she could do some reading comprehension.

http://www.youtube.com/

She could search for some songs with karaoke. I think this website will really help her because she can sing and read at the same time, which is very fun.

http://pbskids.org/sesame/elmosworld/index.html

I saw her reading a book about Sesame Street, and she told me she really like the characters, so I think this website is just for her, since there are many interactive activities, such as: rhymes, visual and listening interactive activities.


www.britishcouncil.org/kids-songs-easy.htm

In this website you can find easy songs with karaoke, short stories with pictures, listening and writing activities.

The use of the Internet and these websites may increase the student learning and interest about English, this is, she will begin to understand it, and she would not be only learning the language, she will also believe that they are funny and interesting.

A Topic in Language Eduaction that I want to know more about

Gina I have the Chilean Time!

An area of language teaching that I would like to know is VTS (Visual Thinking Strategies), since I think that it is a very interesting area of language teaching that has not been used very often inside of the classrooms.

One of the things that has triggered my interest is the fact that VTS increase students critical thinking skills, due to children start using their eyes to make sense of the world as soon as they open them as infants. They also develop analitical, speaking and listening skills, because VTS encourages observation that forms the basis for ideas. Discussion allows for those ideas to be given shape in language. VTS questions ask students to probe, draw inferences, and cite evidence to back up opinions.

Art triggers observations and ideas, and VTS discussions give young people a chance to talk about what they see and to apply what they think and know, this help them to build vocabulary and learn to paraphrase.

These are websites that I found and you can have more information about VTS.

http://www.visualthinkingstrategies.org/

http://www.vue.org/

These links have helped me to read and understand some research about this strategy that it is fun for students and also effective. To support my idea, and explanations I will like you to click on the following video.

The Classroom Story

I this story case, I found out very interesting and effective classroom strategies, for example, I noticed that visualization was one of the things that students agree, when they were asking wich technique they would use. Besides, double check of the instructions, in order to make sure not loosing important information.

According to this, read instruction carefuly and also observe a picture about it, it is a very helpful strategy for students' learning.

The second case, was about reading some important plane features, so students agree on take turns (role playing), moreover, reading comprehension strategy is the key word in this case, they had to pay attention to the one who was reading the text; vocabulary was also important to clarify the meaning of the text.