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.