martes, 16 de noviembre de 2010

Eleven Principles of coping in large multilevel classes



Principle eight: choice and open endedness activities.
By Profesor: Viviana Salguero 
email: visalco@gmail.com
Open-ended exercises allow students many possibilities for choosing appropriate language items and gearing the exercise to their own level of competence. This kind of exercise is success-oriented due that every student should  work with the new language.
Some examples of open-ended activities are:
1.      Give students beginnings of sentences in order to have them finish the idea:
                                                               i.      I have never...
                                                             ii.      When I get older I…
2.      Giving students sets of questions and allow them to answer 2 or 3 of those questions
3.      Brainstorm ideas
4.      Round table conversations
5.      Never ending board games
6.      Mini debates
7.      Question mingle
Among others


This is an example of a Never Ending board game. Students take turns throwing a dice or a coin and answer the questions. This game can be adapted for any topic, in  grammar or fluency tasks.

Questionnaire & Answers

martes, 2 de noviembre de 2010

Reaction Paper: Third Reading

Evolution of Instructional Materials Design
by Prof. Viviana Salguero C.
Effective materials usually include the following features:
  • §  Instructional goals (adaptable)
  • §  Up-to-date information (accurate and relevant)
  • §  Flow of information (well-organized, coherent and unified)
  • §  Reading level and vocabulary (appropriate)
  • §  Effective layout, visual presentation and physical features
  • §  Zero stereotypes or biases
  • §  Multidisciplinary content
  • §  Small concepts
  • §  Insights and thinking skills
  • §  Real world applications of informal skills
  • §  Supplemental and reference materials

miércoles, 13 de octubre de 2010

The Calendar Song



Using motivational strategies such as friendly and appealing activities, as depicted on this video, can develop the right climate into the classroom. Always remember: the task should be: Not too easy, Not too hard!

miércoles, 6 de octubre de 2010

Principles of Effective Materials Development

By Professor Viviana Salguero
 visalco@gmail.com

PRINCIPLES OF LANGUAGE ACQUISITION

PRINCIPLE
MATERIALS DEVELOPMENT
1
Learners should be exposed to a rich, meaningful, comprehensible input of language in use
1-     Contain plentiful spoken and written texts
2-     Language is authentic, it represents how it is typically used
3-     Language input is contextualized
2
Learners need to be engaged affectively and cognitively in the language experience
1-     Prioritize the potential for engagement (basing a text that is likely to achieve affective and cognitive)
2-     Use of reading and listening activities that make learners think personally
3-     Use of activities that make learners think and feel before , during and after using the target language 
3
Learners should achieve positive affect to achieve communicative competence
1-     Texts and tasks are interesting, relevant, enjoyable to exert a positive influence in learners attitude
2-     Set achievable challenges to raise learners self-esteem
3-       Stimulate emotive responses through the use of music, songs, literature, and art.
4
L2 Learners can benefit from using mental resources they used when acquiring L1
1-     Use of activities that encourage learners to visualize inner speech before, during, and after experiencing a written or spoken text
2-      Use of activities that encourage learners to visualize inner speech before, during, and after using language themselves
3-     Use of activities that help the learners to reflect on their mental activity during a task
5
Learners can benefit from noticing salient features of the input
1-     Provide the learners with experience that engages them holistically
2-     Help learners to make discoveries for themselves
6
Learners need opportunities to use language to try to achieve communicative purposes
1-     Provide opportunities to learners to produce language
2-     Activities should be design to use language
3-     Activities should be design to help learners to develop the ability to communicate fluently, accurately, appropriately and effectively
4-     Activities should be fully contextualized
5-     Provide feedback opportunities




PRINCIPLES OF LANGUAGE TEACHING

PRINCIPLE
MATERIALS DEVELOPMENT
1
Content and methodology should be consistent with the objectives of the course
1-     English should be real
2-     Materials need to be written in a way that teachers can make use of them as a resource and not have to follow them as a script
2
Teaching should be designed to help learners to achieve language development and not just language acquisition
1-     Activities should involve and encourage the use of imagination, inner speech, prediciting, interpreting
2-     Activities should not be restricted to the language forms and functions
3-     Materials should help the teacher asses the learners and give constructive feedback
3
Teaching should provide learning opportunities to help learners become more mature, creative, constructive, collaborative, capable, and confident as result of the course
1-     Materials should be cross-curricular, not only focus on language learning
2-     Materials should include some content-based teaching
3-     Activities should help learners to develop skills
4
Personalize and localize the materials to relate them in different ways to the needs and wants and learning-style preferences of every learner
1-     Materials should provide the teacher with ideas for localizing and personalizing generic activities
2-     Materials should help teachers to suggest ways in which learners can make their own choices and work at their own level and speed.