The use of L1 and L2 in class.

“I also enhanced my understanding that there was a difference between using translation as a method and using the L1 system as a reference for students, a facilitator”. (Isabela) I believe that this statement says it all. I agree with Isabela that translating a word in class in order to help students learn better is not a big problem, the problem is to translate every sentence; every word. Otherwise the purpose of learning English and practicing it would be lost.

I have been working as an English teacher for almost 13 years, and before working here at the Casa I worked in a school where Portuguese and English could be in the same sentence, but simple commands were spoken in English; on the other hand, big sentences could be “mixed”, for example: Ana, você trouxe seu homework? (For kids and juniors). And if students did not understand a word; teachers could speak English-Portuguese-English in which we called “sandwich”, for example: flats-sapatilhas-flats. So, when I started working at Thomas I thought that no matter what E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G should be spoken in English even if students did not understand a word. And one day, I was being observed by an experienced observer and my students were learning clothes; most of the class did not understand the word “sweatshirt” they got confused, they kept asking me “teacher, but and sweater? Is it the same? And coat?” and I gave my best to explain it; I showed them the pictures, but they did not get it. So during our post, she told me “Vivian, if your students don’t understand something and you explain it over and over; it is ok to say: sweatshirt- casaco because we could see that they were confused”.

Later on, we talked a bit more and from that day on I understood that a thumbs-up for translation is when it is used in class in order to help students learn the language, but quickly. However, what is the purpose of teachers speaking Portuguese in class? Students do not receive much input and the more Portuguese in class teachers speak the more students will speak too.

Another issue is, how much should teachers speak in class? Well, this is a tough question but I prefer to ask how much should students speak in class? Since, students are in class to learn, to produce; they should participate more, speak more; they should be there not only as a receiver but as a producer too. If teachers speak all the time, students can get bored and they will receive only the input and their output would be poor. I believe that there must be a balance between TTT and STT.

Before teaching grammar, teachers should think what approaches to use in class; if they are effective and what tools to help achieve their goals. Jeremy Harmer says that the vast majority of students of English benefit from a teacher-mediated focus on specific language forms, but why and how? I believe that when he mentioned this, he was giving the example of two approaches: deductive and inductive, strategies to facilitate our students’ learning process and the role of the teacher in class.

To start with, these approaches are very distinct from each other. In a deductive class, the teacher introduces and teaches the concept and then students do a task according to what they have learned. There is no time for them to come up with their own conclusion about grammar rules; in other words, teachers spoon-feed them. Another issue is that the class is very teacher-centered, which means that the teacher speaking time is very high and there is no interaction between teacher and students.

On the other hand, the inductive approach is the opposite of the previous one. I use the inductive approach in my classes because it guides students to notice the grammar and they come up with the rules by themselves; I give lots of examples to enhance my explanations; I drill and model the patterns before asking individually. Using it gives more opportunity for the students to practice the language and remember the pattern later. For example; my Junior 3 is learning present continuous, but I did not introduce the grammar by explaining it; I showed some pictures; then I asked: “What is she doing?” some of them answered and others did not; however, we practiced a lot until everybody had understood. I asked them to choose one action, draw and write about it. Later on, some volunteers showed the pictures to their classmate. The class asked: “What are you doing?” then the student answered: “I am____”. By the end of the class they were able to understand the meaning of present continuous and how to write accurately.

Furthermore, not only do I have to choose which approach to use, but also the activities, materials and other tools too. Jeremy Harmer suggests that we need to offer a varied diet of exercise to our students. While planning a lesson, I always keep in mind that my classes must be effective. I always think about activities that increase my students’ knowledge and how they can benefit from the exercise.

However, how should I plan classes in order to classes be effective? As my students are beginners, I use the straight arrow lesson procedure; first, I engage them; for instance, I show pictures and ask them to tell me the words, then I drill by saying different voices. For the second step, I present a dialogue and they have to practice listening and reading, listening and repeating and then role playing. Finally, I activate their schemata, so I ask students in pairs to create their own dialogue using the grammar point presented and the vocabulary learned.

In conclusion, effective classes are those that let students think and come up with their grammar “rules”; teachers should let their neurons connect by themselves instead of spoon-feeding them because when teachers make students “discover” the language and the grammar point and use it in a context; they will remember more than those who only memorize patterns and structures. 

      ESSAY

How  can teachers improve their teaching practice in order to help students learn effectively? First of all, before thinking about how a lesson plan could be done, it is important to bear in mind what kind of prior knowledge students have, what they already know before you start introducing a new topic. One more important thing I have learned is how to teach classes so the brain can learn in a friendly way. The amygdala, which is responsible for processing emotions, memory, making decisions and so on; once stimulated can stimulate good feelings or bad feelings. However, how can we as teaches could stimulate our students’ amygdala in order to students learn? We should let them think more, be more critical, engage them in class. Engaging our students does not mean that they must have fun it means that they will be with you the whole class; producing and participating.

I have three Junior 1 groups and at this stage kids do not know much English; they are true beginners. My lesson plan is going to be about Unit 3- lesson 2- Book: Take Shape 1 and I can assume that my students’ prior knowledge is: greetings, colors, asking and answering names, age and, finally, toys which are the main topic in the unit.

Taking into consideration that in the previous class they had been taught toys, the first stage of my lesson plan will be correcting the homework they had to do. In my opinion, correcting the homework and reviewing what students have learned from a previous class is a way to fire until you wire because, according to neuroscience, every time someone learns new subject the cells from the brain connects; communicate to the other cells and with enough repetition this communication becomes automatic.

Also, to wire their cells in the brain, I will elicit from them toys that they can remember from the other class. As they speak, I will write the toys on the board. And this is an important step because students will produce the language and, as Vygotsky states, language is one of the cultural developments. After that, I will ask them to open their books to page 26 and we will explore the pictures together, and it is at this stage that the grammar point will be introduced in the dialogue for the first time. I believe that the learning cycle will start at this point because students will go through all the actions, which are: sensing, integrating, organizing ideas; assembling langage and acting. Moreover, by listening to the dialogue, reading, and observing the pictures they will be sensing the language; this means they will be receiving the first input from outside. Afterwards, they will listen to the conversation and repeat it, so they will have the opportunity to understand the language; create meaning, and later gather all the information and organize it in the brain. At last, they will act out the dialogue putting everything into practice. It is important to remember that scaffolding is also being used at this point because the task will be divided into simpler steps and their attention will be focused on specific points.

Later, I will write the grammar point, which is asking and answering questions, on the board: Is it a____? J Yes, it is and L No, it isn’t. While showing them pictures of toys I will ask “Is it a ball?”, for instance, and then the class should answer. Later, I will choose one confident student and have him or her ask another student the question above mentioned, always monitoring their dialogue, because, as Vygotsky believes, the teacher should provide modelling in order to help students learn.

In order to make sure my main goal is achieved, I will give students pieces of paper and ask them to choose one of the toys, draw it, and write only the question: Is it a ____? I will give them 7’ to 10’ to finish the activity. Afterwards, we will sit down on the floor and they will show their drawing to the whole and ask: Is it a____? and the class will answer J Yes, it is and L No, it isn’t. At this point, I will not introduce anything, just monitor them. I believe that at this time the magical middle has been achieved because students will feel securer to ask and answer as well. The definition of the magic middle comes from the theory of the ZPD (Zone of proximal development). This magical middle is the difference between what a learner can do without help and what he or she can do with help; in other words, we should teach students something that is not too difficult and not too easy. Teachers must find the balance between these two aspects. Moreover, this activity is based on concrete experience because they are putting their hands on it and, according to the last step from the learning process, they will be able to produce, make, act and so on.

Later, I will ask them to copy the homework and as wrap-up activity we will play a game – the Chinese whisper – so that they can practice pronunciation, review vocabulary and produce language.

I would like to describe Piaget’s theory in which he believes that a child learns though stages, which is called: theory of cognitive development. Kids from Junior 1 are seven to eleven years old and according to Piaget’s they are on stage of concrete operational. Abstract thinking has not developed yet, so kids learn by using concrete objects at this age students and they also have the ability to group words or things into categories, for instance:  the units from the book Take shape are divided by a set of vocabularies (food, toys, colors and so on).  To summarize, I realized that kids at this age should use more concrete supplies in class, such as realia, pictures and so on. That is why I asked my students to create their answers and choose one toy to draw it because I believe that they will develop their abilities in English much better.

Thinking outside the box.

This semester at my TDC course helped me think more about my classes, since the first day of this subject that I have been thinking about how my classes are and how could I change them in order to help my students learn in a positive way. Every class I go or every text I read gives me more ideas to use; there are three steps or words that triggered me the most, which are: the prior knowledge, the three functions and the concrete experience.

First, before planning the class, the teacher should bear in mind what kind of background, experience her or his students have and their age; these are called prior knowledge. We as teachers should not think about our own experience, background or the way we prefer to learn because each person has his or hers own experience and methods to trace their own path in learning. In Zull’s words: “when we find out what our students already know, we are actually finding out about their neuronal network. We are discovering the connections they have in their brains”.

Second, according to Zull, there are three functions of the cerebral cortex: sensing, integrating and motor. Sensing is related to all four senses (listening, hearing, smelling and tasting) that are input. In this level, students gather their information and integration means to organize all this sense in the brain, analyze and then put everything into practice, by creating, speaking, writing and so on.   

Third, students learn by concrete experiences, which mean that they learn, simply, by being involved into living the experience, for example if the teacher teaches a dialogue or grammar point it’s important that students role play it, pretend in a place and they have to use the grammar point taught.

I would like to describe one activity that I do in class in order to introduce vocabulary about food items to young learners. I start the class by eliciting from them what kind of food they like and write their answers on the board or I play the hangman game on board and then elicit from them the items as well. Later, I show them some pictures.  While showing the pictures, I (drill the words and work on spelling and pronunciation).do some activities: drilling, working on spelling and pronunciation. After students feel confident and safe about the vocabulary, I start to ask some questions such as: what do you like the most? What do you like the least? Is this food healthy or unhealthy? Then, I ask them to open their books and practice the vocabulary in the book.

However, this is the point that I changed in my class this week: instead of asking them to open their books, I did another activity which I showed students one short video related to food and asked them beforehand to grasp all the items they could see and later write in a piece of paper. After this activity, I told them to talk to their friends about what they have seen and check spelling. I also invited the ones who wanted to come to the board and write one food. Later, I gave them ten more minutes to come up with a dialogue to use in a restaurant, they did it, role played it and loved it.

To summarize, the activity that I just thought about contains the important steps for the brain to learn and what Zull commented in his book is that not only how will our students learn, but also how we as teachers can improve learning environment in our classes and how we can plan a better class in order to work all the skills and achieve the goal to all students. It is important to keep in mind that teachers have the “power” to make the students like the subject or not. 

Is age the most important key factor in pronunciation achievement?

Some people study the factors which influence pronunciation achievement the processes which are: personality, sociocultural factors, age, aptitude, exposure and role of the first language; of course, all of these factors are important. However, as being a teacher for kids for such long time, I could notice that the age is the most important factors for a person to have good pronunciation, but why? There are many reasons why I believe this.

First of all, when kids are exposed to the language they tend to learn faster than adult and they are not afraid to make mistakes. According to Karen Lund (2003), who is senior lecturer, PhD (Danish as a second language), she believes that around the age 5-6 there can be pronunciation features in the new language that one never acquires, this applies both to suprasegmental features as intonations, stress and rhythm and to segmental features such as quality vowels and consonants.  

Second, kids’ brain is open for new in-put vocabularies, expressions or structures. Once they are exposed to the language early they tend to be more fluent and have better pronunciation than the ones who were not. Moreover, a study was made by a neuroscience for kids consultant, Melissa Lee (2002), says that if a person is not exposed to a language during the childhood, he or she will never be able to speak the language as well as someone who learned language normally. Although, it is said to be able to learn many vocabulary words, but will probably never reach a normal level of speech.

Third, on the other hand there are some people who believe that age is not important to acquire a good pronunciation because there are other factors more important than only being exposure to the language early. However, I still agree that the sooner to learn the language the better for the oral and speaking skills.

Finally, the factor which influence pronunciation achievement the processes is just a matter of what people believe the most. As I said before I do believe that the age is the most important due to researches I have read and by teaching young learners for so long I could notice their ability to achieve their language proficiency and have good pronunciation.

How important is pronunciation in overall English language learning and teaching?

Before studying phonology I used to believe that pronunciation did not play an important role in speaking, I believed that other skills such as: writing, grammar, reading and listening were more important to focus on. However I have changed my mind. Why do teachers teach their students the importance of saying the word properly? Because teaching pronunciation can be the trickiest subject to teach or to learn and knowing how to pronounce the words well is a must in speaking.

Firstly, teachers should be a facilitator to their students in order to teach them the most commom types of accents and their different pronunciation and teach how to avoid errors. Moreover, the more you pronounce the words correctly the more fluently you will sound and may avoid being intangible by other speakers. Because the first thing native speakers notice during a conversation is the pronunciation.

Secondly, not only should we have good pronunciation but also we need to be understood, because sometimes pronunciation can interfere with the ideas a person is trying to get across. The main goal is that an easily be understood by native speakers or others English speaking people. Moreover, native – speakers are more concerned about the errors in pronunciations than grammar errors foreigners make.

To sum up, knowing grammar and vocabulary are important as well, but it is essential that a person must have a good pronunciation in order to be understood by other people. Although, teachers work on their students’ pronunciation and tell them their current errors, do activities which can help students increase their understanding about being tangible and give tips like; for example, practice as much as you can and do not be afraid to speak or to make mistakes.

This portfolio is about the essays that I did during the TDC writing course, they were produced over the period of three months. The TDC (teacher development course), offered by Casa Thomas Jefferson, is a course focused on perfecting teachers’ methodology and skill.

When I first applied for the TDC course, not only was I expecting to improve my knowledge, but also to increase my network of workmates, to learn methodology and to feel more secure in the classroom. After three months of hard work, I can now see the results. I feel more comfortable and secure to analyse different texts and to write them in different ways. I believe that my writing skills have improved and I can guide my students’ writing in a better way.

I hope you enjoy reading these essays and it is a pleasure to be able to share them with you.