Testing and assessment

Although we may think both concepts are the same it is not true but we must understand that  both are related and depend on each other.

Today   I learned that asssessment usually takes place during the whole semester and that it is part of the  continuos evaluation process which help us to evaluate our  students performance . 

On the other hand we can talk about testing that will consider tests which  provide us information to know what the students have learned.

We do not have to wait until the end of the semester to evaluate because through the semester we can use both techniques.

 

DIFFERENTIATING INSTRUCTION

Usually we  use a book in our lessons and most of the time we just answer it with our students so their learning can be monotonous,  for this reason we must be able to identify different types of learning in our students and once we have done it, we have to choose and design activities which addressees students needs, and if we have a book we can modify some exercises to become meaningful and useful to develop language skills. It depends on our creativity and the time we dedicate to plan our lessons.

I have learned that the book is just a resource but the way you use it and the way you take advantage of it depends on you as a teacher.

TEACHING TO WRITE

Teaching to write can be difficult due the number of students that we have in each class, but in the class I learned there are somethings we can do to save time, for example we can focus our attention in one aspect and give feedback about it, this feedback doesn't mean that we only focus our attention on the students mistakes but that we can recognize their achievements.

Something that was very interesting for me was the journal because even if the students don´t like to write it is gives the the opportunity to start writing by themselves and without thinking about making mistakes.

THE USE OF TECHNOLOGY

Nowadays technology is playing an important role in society , everyday there are new things to learn and to do  and our students are being part of this process. They like technology and all things related to it, so we must be able to look for material and websites that help us  to improve our teaching method and refresh our ideas. There are so many resources we can get in the web  and the most important thing is that they are real, we just need to look for them.

We just have to get used to using websites, and if it is difficult for us we must remind that we must try step by step, otherwise our methods will never change and perhaps we will lose our students attention.

BLAIRS LIBRARY

It is said that the best way to learn something new and  to learn vocabulary in a second language  is reading, so it is very important that we develop this skill in our students. Unfortunately we have to face different problems in our country because most of our students are not used to read very often, they seem to be interested in so many things but not reading but that is our opportunity to help them to develop this skill.

It can be difficult but no impossible and if we are sure that we can get it,  we will do it. We need to think that we can do it step by step , improving little by little, going from one level to another one,  we can not skip a level because they will get lost .

So it is important that we help our students but there are also some resources that can help us as a teacher to support our students and to get our objective, that is the case of the public libraries where people go to look for some information but I thinks it is also a place to share experiences and to meet people with similar interests as ours.

I am really impressed about the way libraries work here because they are completely different than in Mexico, the one that we visited today is modern and unique , the people who works in it are doing an excellent job so It made me think about the lack of places like these in my country where a library seems to be a quiet and boring place to go but at the same time it helped me to think about different things that can be done in our libraries to improve their service and  to catch people attention.

I realized about the people who work as a volunteer here and I was wondering why it can not be the same in Mexico and I think that it is due to a lack of opportunities to get a job, in my country people work almost all day  to get money to feed their family so they don´t have free time at all and the time they  got , they use it to share with their family. So instead of doing activities as volunteers they like to rest or look for another job to improve their income.

On the other hand there are people who don´t need to work a lot and who don´t do anything during the day so we can start inviting these people to develop programs like the ones that the library runs in our cities, we just need to be creative and eager to change it.

AMERICAN CULTURE

From my point of view there is no way to learn about American culture that being part of it, and I think we are doing well, we have learned too many things, apart of reading a book we had the opportunity to spend a night with an american family that in my case was to share with  a single woman.

I realized that our interests are similar but our lifestyle is different, as we are in our thirties we have some things in common for example our opinion about marriage and family but our lifestyle is different due to the problems that Mexico is facing nowadays, related to economic and security problems.

Our countries and people are different but we must respect our customs and opinions that is the way the people learn about each other and about other cultures.

Sometimes we tend to stereotype  people but I have learned that we must give us the chance to share and to learn about everybody.

I really liked the way she talked to me about different issues in her country and we could compare some problems with my country, she was curious as me so it was a great opportunity to learn and to share our experiences.

I must admit that I was worried about the experience because I did not know what to expect  but it was a great experience.

MICRO TEACHING

Every time we share our experiences we learn something new, micro teaching allowed us to apply what we have learned through this weeks, we learned about our strengths and weaknesses but the most important is that we learned that there are different ways to teach a class. Everybody shared an activity and tried to do the most of it.

In my school the head of the department is the person who usually evaluates our performance in the class but he never give us feed back about it, so we don´t know if we are doing well or not. Perhaps we think that our activities are accurate for our students  but we may be wrong, that is why micro teaching activity was important because we shared with other English teachers who understand and face the same problems as us.

I learned different activities that I can apply with my students.

JULY 16 th and 17 th

This week lessons have been very useful for us as teachers we have talked about different important things. I would like to start talking about objectives. Now I know that is important to set our goals according to bloom´s taxonomy and that we must be able to develop activities that provide our students which each level of complexity, it is good to start with easy activities but little by little we must try different activities which provide our students of challenges to develop a better critical thinking.

Talking about listening and reading strategies is really interesting because most of the time if we use a book in the class we follow the instructions and that is all, but we don´t now if this is really effective or meaningful for our students so we must learn to be creative and analyze each exercise that we are going to use in the class to make the most of it, otherwise it will be unnoticed by our class.

It is  also important to know about the principles of each skill because before using an exercise we can analyze  if it is suitable for our students of if we can do something to improve it.

On the other hand we talked about learning styles and multiple intelligence which is completely useful because we can know each student style that is useful to design our activities and include a wide variety for all our students. Perhaps we may think that some students don´t learn but we must discover what is the best way they do it. We must recognize that all people learn but in different ways.

July 15th

TEACHING LISTENING

When we are teaching listening to our students the first resource we consider are cds but when you arrived to an English speaking country it can be difficult for you to understand people even if you were learning for a couple of years.

So we must be able to choose a wide variety of material and today it is easier to get it because technology is playing an important role in our lives,  for us like teachers it can help us a lot, to get videos, songs, movies and more I think  the most real examples we get ,  the most meaningful it can be.

It is also important to get different examples of listening exercises because we must keep in mind that all our students are different and that they have different learning styles maybe for some of our students can be easy easily to understand ideas but for some it can be very difficult so we have to choose strategies and exercises to help them to develop this skill and improve it´s learning.

CROSS CULTURAL COMMUNICATION

if I behave in some way it does not mean that it will be appropriate in each part of the world , we are  lucky of being multicultural, we are not all the same each of us is different according to  the country where we were born and raised we have our values, feelings and attitudes and as we understand the difference we must respect other people customs.

when we are visiting a foreign country we must learn about the culture and understand their lifestyle,  we are not going to change it , we must adapt ourselves to them and to learn new things. It would be better to look up for some information before visiting a country because it can help us to avoid a cultural shock.

Every nationality is different but that ´s why is interesting to know about each other otherwise it would be boring and for us like teachers to be involved in american lifestyle  will provide us of information and experiences to share with our students. We would not say the book says.... we will be able to say according to my experience .... and I think it would be more meaningful for their knowledge.

When we are learning a second language there are different things we have to learn  and some of them can be difficult,  particularly  grammar, we may think that it can be boring but  it mustn´t be like that because there are different ways to teach it.

I have learned that we don´t need to use our native language to explain it,  before coming to this course I used to teach it in my native language because I taught it was easier for my students but now I know I have to be creative to use different techniques to achieve my students comprenhension and to set a lot of examples in which they can practice and get used to use it.

OUR LEARNING PROCESS

To observe a class let us to understand the way american teachers teach the target language, most of the time we are wondering if we should or not  use native language in our lessons but with the activity we noticed we do not need it if we really want that our students  learn, it can be difficult sometimes because for most of our students it can be the first time they are learning a foreign language, but we must try to be patient and show them a lot of examples in order they can get it by themselves, we must remember that we are  facilitators and  we have to provide them of tools to develop their own knowledge.

I would like to mention that conditions for learning are different in our country and it can be more difficult but not impossible to reach our goal,  every day we deal with 50 students or more, there is just one teacher to develop all the skills in the students: reading, listening, writing and speaking , and we have just 3 hours per week, but I think that´s the reason we are here, we are willing to learn, to share and to open our minds to improve our labor and to do something different with our students.

If we want to change we have to start to change our teaching style, and our old strategies , society is moving on and we must do it too.To use inductive strategies will let our students to discover and apply their knowledge in practical situations just this way it will be meaningful  for them, otherwise they will just  memorize and won´t develop all the abilities.

Nowadays there are a lot of resources we can get to build up our students knowledge, and it is pretty interesting that we as teachers are being part of inductive strategies, that´s the way we will be able to apply them with our students, we are drilling and pushing ourselves to change , we have learned so many things just in a couple of days so I think we will improve our strategies.

July 9th

July 9th

Sometimes we think teaching is an easy way but it´s not true there are different things that we may not know, and that can be completely useful to our job.

Today we were talking about principles and I realized the importance of each one, I think before teaching we must know about them, and also how does the students learn ,  they way they react to certain activities and  what is good an what is wrong about our methodology, we can think that we are doing well when in fact we are not. So this principles gave us advises to improve our job and to make it challenging to our students. 

We also talked about observation and the importance of it, it gives us the chance to show how do we develop in front of our students , to have somebody who is looking at you,  provide you of tools and feedback about your teaching techniques, It mustn´t be a judgment it must be a reflection.

In the last lesson we learn that it´s very important to know yourself as a teacher cause this way we can encourage or students to learn the target language, we are working with teenagers or young adults and we must provide them with tools to accomplish their goals in order to succeed in life, it´s not just teaching a language it goes beyond and every teacher is able to do it.

To finish with my comment , who says that teaching can be boring?  it is such a rewarding experience we just have to get the  right activities to share with our students and to develop skills like teamwork and values and to be open mind to share experiences.

TRUE COLORS DESCRIPTIONS

Most of the time we wonder about people´s attitude or we get in trouble with them without reason but we have to realize that all of us are different  I think in the way we understand each other we can get better relationships and the same happen to our students, at the beginning of the year we suppose all of them are quiet but little by little we discover they have different personalities and learning styles, and that we have to deal with it through the year. So that´s why I think Molly´s activity is helpful to know our students and to design strategies and techniques according to their needs and expectations, It will be quite boring to have just one kind of personality in the classroom, there must be a balance and we can make the most of it when we decide to work in teams, we should try mixing personalities to get better results.

this activity also helped me to discover about my personality and how do people look at me.

BACKWARD DESIGN MODEL

At school we need to plan our lessons and it can be quite difficult, tiring and even boring but at least is something we can´t avoid, so If we make a good planning we can get better results and It will be easier for us to teach to our students

So I liked the advises that our teacher gave us, first of all, we need to know our big ideas, what do the students must know, then we have to design or create evidences that show us that they´ve learned , but I think the most important is to show to our students that  they are able to understand and to transmit a message in a second language. Once we have decided about the evidences we must worry about how do we get it, and I think this is the most difficult part cause we need to get the students involved and to attract their attention to learn and practice a second language, so It is not just about deciding what do we have to do it goes further, we have to be able to develop skills in our students.