Accent IS important !!

English in India - Kizoa Editar Videos - Movie Maker

Mushu & Funtiusha

He's a very dangerous baby. Don't mess around, he makes the bussiness around here

Activity 2.3 English Varieties

1. What English varieties can you think of?

• American, Jamaican, Indian English, British, Scottish,  Australian, New Zealand English, South African English, etc.

2. Provide a brief account of the main differencies between British and American English:

•  British normally writes "realise", with the phoneme /s/ whilst American English speakers write "realize", with the voiced sibilant /z/.
• Whereas in British we spell "travelled", Americans doesn't double the consonant, thus: "traveled".
• As for the diphtongs, in British English we tend to write "colour" whereas an American would consistently write "color".
• Similarly to the previous spelling differencies, in British we would write "centre" or "theatre" while in American they would stick to "center" or "theater" disregarding of the pronunciation.

Activity 1.7

1. What is CLIL? 

The term CLIL was coined by David Marsh, University of Jyväskylä, Finland (1994): "CLIL refers to situations where subjects, or parts of subjects, are taught through a foreign language with dual-focused aims, namely the learning of content and the simultaneous learning of a foreign language."

2.  Is there any difference between immersion and CLIL teaching?

One is embedded under the other. Immersion teaching is located within the concept of CLIL teaching. CLIL could be understood as the category whereas Immersion would be a strategy within the overall CLIL concept.

3. If so, what are the main differences? 

The final objective of immersion programmes is that the studentsbecome proficient in both the L1 and the L2, without any detriment to the acquisition of academic knowledge.

The language the students are taught in must be new to them, so that its learning resembles the L1 acquisition process.

The teaching staff must be bilingual, both to be able to implement the programme with the greatest guarantee of success and to ensure that throughout the school day all school activities can be smoothly carried out in the L2.

Activities for the DU - Group 6

Design 5 activities for a classroom in which there are 3 gifted students, 4 ADHD, and 3 students repeating grade.

Ice-breaker/Warm-up Activity: Moving Train

·         Students will be divided in four groups (7-7-7-7) and placed in four chair-lines, like train wagoons. The teacher will provide them with three vocabulary ítems related to sport activities and equipment, one of which will be an odd one (for instance, if we have tennis, racket, googles: googles will be the unrelated one). As for the procedure, students will have to identify the odd item and those who answer correctly will advance towards the front possitions of the train. The game will consist of five rounds. The winners will be the students who, having answered correctly first, sit in the first row of each “train”.

Vocabulary & Speaking Activity: Films & genres

·         Students will be provided with 8 pictures from different films. First, they will try to guess what genre the film belongs to, secondly, in pairs (or groups of 3), one of the members of the group will choose a picture and will be expected to explain it to the rest of the group in order for them to find out what the film is. Gifted students will be handed out extra vocabulary (producer, director, camera man, make-up artist, script-writer, actor, actress, stunt-man) on the film production staff for them to be able to develop further the explanation of the film they have chosen. Students with ADHD will be equally handed out support vocabulary to facilitate the completion of the former task.

Vocabulary Items:

o   Action film

o   Adventure

o   Comedy

o   Comedy

o   Crime

o   Drama

o   Epic /Historical

o   Horror

o   Musicals

o   Sci-Fi

o   War

o   Westerns

Grammar & Speaking Activity: some, any, no + indefinite pronouns

·         The teacher will create a dialogue with gaps and the students will have to fill the gaps according to the communicative situation. In affirmative, interrogative and negative sentences, they will have to choose the appropriate quantifier that suits the sentence better. Afterwards they will have to practise the dialogue paying special attention to pronunciation. For those students showing difficulty in fulfilling the task, we will provide them with the multiple choices (a-b). As for the gifted students, they will be required to fill the gaps, and besides, continue the dialogue with their own words once they have finished, making use of quantifiers and indefinite pronouns.

Writing Activity: Marketing Activity

·         Students will be asked to write a description of a music CD that they would like to sell on internet (Wallapop, Ebay, Amazon, etc). In the description, they will have to use their creativity and imagination in order to make it attractive and therefore sell it fast. Moreover, they will have to provide a name for the product, the price and brief description.

Gifted students will be provided with the opportunity to create a slogan for the product they are trying to sell. It will have to be attractive and representative of the product itself.

ADHD and second year students will be provided with a prompt which they will need to complete with short sentences. The gaps will relate to the grammar and vocabulary they have seen in class.

Speaking Activity:

·         The speaking activities are integrated in most of the activities this Unit proposes. See Gramar & Vocabulary activity above.

Final task:

Students will present their CD description to the rest of the class (volunteer task) and the rest of the students will determine if they would buy it or not.

CEFR for Languages

Activity 3.1

1. What is the CEFR?

The Common European Framework of Reference for Languages is a document published in 2001 which was designed in order to provide a guide and the basis for the elaboration of curriculim guidelines and language syllabuses, the assessment of a language proficiency and the desing of learning and teaching materials. It is used in other continents too, not only Europe.

2. What are the main aims of the CEFR?

According to the CEFR itself, its main aims are:

- To intensificate language learning and teaching to improve international communication and to obtain greater mobility combined with cultural and identity respect.

- To promote and facilitate co-operation among educational institutions in different countries.

- To provide a sound basis for the mutual recognition of language qualification.

- To assist learners, teachers, course designers, examining bodies and educational administrators to situate and co-ordinate their efforts.

3. How many levels are described in the CEFR?

There are nine levels, six "standard" and three "plus" which are used to recognise language qualifications and to facilitate educational and occupational mobility. The levels are A1, A2, A2+, B1, B1+, B2, B2+, C1 and C2.

4. How would you implement the CEFR descriptors in your classroom?

We think that it is always useful to acknoledge what we "can do", especially if we are talking about a language. 

However, we must realize that this could be frustrating if you are a beginner learner or if you are a teacher and you are supposed to teach them what is included in the CEFR. So, it is important to know that we are human beings and that our learning process is not automatic and it cannot be designed as a software would be.

Because of this, we would not really implement them in our classroom, at least not in a direct way. We could present them and we could debate with the students if the "descriptors" are useful for them but always having in mind that they are an archetype that could be achieved or not and, in the last case, it does not mean that we are not learning English.

Activity 2.1 - EU Language Policies

Activity 2.2: EU Language Policies

I-How many languages do you speak, apart from your mother tongue or L1?

    I speak English, Spanish, a tiny bit of Chinese and some Japanese.

II-Is your mother tongue your L1?

    It is. My mother tonge is Catalan, and it is the one I normally use in any context.

III-Are there things you find easier in one language than the other?

     To be honest, I find that Spanish and Catalan syntax is much easier than English'. Also, pronunciation and spelling are way easier in Spanish and catalan too than in English or Chinese. Nonetheless, although the syntax of Japanese is quite intricated, its pronunciation, spelling and word formation is surprisingly easy, easier than in Spanish or Catalan I would say. Last of all, the use of pronouns and stresses in Catalan is somehow trickier than in any other language I know.

IV-In terms of language use
  1-how would you describe the society you live in? Are the people in that society plurilingual?

    At least in my county they are. We speak Catalan and Spanish as mother tonges, being Catalan the main  mother tonge, and we also learn English from very young, so, yes it is a plurilingual society.

  2-how would you encourage ‘bilingualism’ in your classroom?

    The point with bilingualism is to make the students believe that learning and using a number of different languages really offers much to their academic or laboral life. Once they become aware of the possibilities that languages offer, they will undoubtedly use them as much as they can.

  3-do you feel some languages have a higher status in the classroom?

    Indeed. In Valencia, at least, Spanish rules over Catalan and English over Spanish and Catalan I would say. It is a matter of international status. Although Spanish is a very influential language spoken by many in the world, English is the agreed Lingua Franca and it is translated into the class context as English enjoying a higher prestige than the other official languages.

Activity 1.1 - EU Languages & Policies

Activity 1.1: EU Languages Policies

I- What do you think is the role of the EU Policies in Education?

The role of the EU Policies in Education is to standarize the Education inside the EU territory. Also, it encourages students mobility and provides economic aid in order to do it.

II- What do you understand by EU Language Policies?

Policies promoted by the EU Community towards language learning and use over the EU territory.

 III- Can you name any EU initiative related to Language Learning?

One of the EU initiatives related to Language Learning that comes to my mind is the famous ERASMUS + programme. Also, international scholarships to work & study abroad, and many others.

IV- In your opinión 

1-What are the main factors that drive EU Language Policies?

Economy and Politics. Economy always plays a key role in every decition taken by the EU community, and language is closely related to Politics and Power, so, Economy and Politics are the main factors that drive EU Language Policies.

2-What are the main factors that make people want to learn a language?

Its utility basically. People learn a language because it is a useful language, either to find a job, communicate, travel, study... In some cases, people take up learning a language due to status reasons

3-What are the main factors that make people interested in defending any specific Language Policy?

Self-interest. If a Language Policy benefits your language and, consequently you, then you will defend the policy to death. It could be identity, territorial, economical, political, laboral interests those that make you take a stand on a given policy.

Answering to Gifted Students needs: ways to work with them in the EFL class

16/12/2016

Today we had a master class on Gifted Students and the mistreatment they normally receive from school teachers. Most of the times it happens because the teachers don't know how to identify students with a gifted mind, other worse cases involve a teacher turning a blind eye on them. In this section I will try to approach the needs the gifted students have in the classroom and how to work with them.

1. Independent Projects:

"Create an Independent Project activity. You will find that many gifted and talented students tend to have a lot of extra time on their hands in your classroom because they finish their work rather quickly. Use this time to help them develop their creativity by allowing them to explore a special area of interest related to the topic being studied". (Teachers First)

 2. Vertical Enrichment:

 Basically, Vertical Enrichment claims that Gifted Students have to be provided with assignments or materials that go above the classroom level. Giving the high capacities students a bigger workload on the same classroom contents is counterproductive.

3. From expert to facilitator:

Another strategy that experienced teachers insure it works is to become a facilitator (helper) instead of the expert (authority). Don't tell them things straight away, lead them so they end up discovering things by themselves. This way you will keep the students highly motivated and the acquisition will be completed.

4. Multiple Inteligences:

Of course, students like to learn, however they maight get bored after a while doing the same over and over again. Trying to change the teaching strategies oftenly will result in a higher engagement from the students to the learning process since not all students learn the same way. In fact, there exist many learning styles: linguistic, logical-mathematical, visual-spatial, body-kinesthetic, musical, interpersonal, intrapersonal, etc.

5. Find a Mentor:

The students needs may go beyond the reach of the teacher's efforts. Instead of being a burden for the teacher, find the student a mentor who is willing to work with her in her areas of interest. It can be inside the school or outside.

These are some of the ways you can act when you have such a special student in your EFL class. Don't just ignore her needs because they mean an overload for you. Instead, try your best to commit the gifted student to the learning process, always bearing in mind her interests and priorities.

Links:
"Teaching Gifted Students". An actual example of how to work with Gifted Students.

"Al Este de la Campana de Gauss"

Activity 4: European Language Portfolio

What is the ELP?

The ELP is a document in which those who are learning or have learned one or more languages can record and reflect on their language learning and intercultural experiences.




Which three components are included in the ELP?

It has three components: a language passport, a language biography, and a dossier.




What are the main aims of the ELP?

• to help learners give shape and coherence to their experience of learning and using languages other than their first language

• to motivate learners by acknowledging their efforts to extend and diversify their language skills at all levels

• to provide a record of the linguistic and cultural skills they have acquired (to be consulted, for example, when they are moving to a higher learning level or seeking employment at home or abroad.




How would you implement a portfolio system in a secondary EFL classroom?

There are countless ways of implementing an EFL classroom by means of a portfolio. We could use specific and hands on projects, work with blogs, integrate creative writing in certain subjects and so on. Having students create the portfolio and reflect on their work will make them aware of the whole process instead of just the final evaluation grade. In our opinion, the best way to do so is to implement it step by step over a long period of academic time, give clear directions and setting the goal on the activity rather the evaluation.

Gifted students class presentation

Our last session of class was dedicated to a presentation about gifted students and how we, as teachers, can identify them within a class and therefore not miss the opportunity to help them grow their potential. The professional who came to show us the presentation, was a mom of two gifted kids and we think it was of paramount importance since her passion and knowledge was reflected in her personal situation. She talked about how stereotypes are very dangerous when diagnosing a gifted child and that sometimes it comes with lots of struggles to identify and help them become who they really are.

As a group, we talked about this topic after watching the video “la campana de Gauss” and our conclusions were in fact very similar: we hardly ever think about the possibility to find these kinds of students in class and, even if we do, we do not attribute problems to their coexistence in the classroom. We tend to think that gifted students are smart and well behaved and that they will not need any extra help from the teachers. However, our brainstorming process shifted a bit after the presentation and we realized that things are not that easy. We need to be fully aware and we need to pay special attention to all our students, even the best ones. Because observation is key to finding out the problem on time.

Is English a Global Language?

We are all actually aware of the ubiquitous use of English nowadays. Development of the internet, globalization and international travel are just some of the main factors which has been creating the necessity to have an effective tool to interconnect numerous aspects of modern reality which is a Global Language. To be called a Global Language it must be accessible all round the world, with an impressive number of native and second language speakers using it to establish diverse relations at economic, diplomatic and day-to-day levels. These are requirements needed for a language to be chosen as a “lingua franca” and these are criteria English language satisfies. If we look back to the human history we will obviously reveal other languages which became or almost became global ones such as Latin, Koine Greek, Akkadian, Aramaic, Volapuc o Esperanto. Regarding the last one it is necessary to mention that it has been popular even among contemporary learners as it is considered to ease learning process of any other European language to be learnt afterwards. Each of aforementioned languages played similar role in their era as Chinese, French or Arabic do today. Certainly, we should not forget about disadvantages English as “lingua franca” may bring into society (such as possible suppression of minor languages) but it’s clear that its advantages far more overweight negative aspects and, what is important, it gives a present-day world keys to improve and develop.

Bilingual Group in a Plurilingual Society?

   
 What is curious and distinguishing about our group is the fact that we are all bilingual students. Of course, we have all brought different personal identity funds into our team, however we have got well known advantages of being bilingual. Among languages we speak there are English, German, Russian, Spanish, Ukrainian and Valencia. Despite of such a variety of languages we still consider our mother tongue to be our L1. Why? Probably because circumstances we live in still allow each of us to enjoy the use of the first language. Having said that, I do believe there are always some situations when we can subconsciously switch into L2 because some relevant knowledge is coded by means of it and this might typically be a very specific notion or reference.

    Speaking about society we live in I would say it’s a bilingual one in case we are talking about Valencian Community having in mind Spanish and Valencian languages. However, it’s a plurilingual one if we look at it through the European Union Lens. We perfectly know that more than two languages can be official languages in some countries or their regions (Belgium, Switzerland, Ireland). That’s why plurilingual education has been highly promoted recently. Obviously, we are going to encourage bilingualism in our classroom because we think it plays a vital role in helping students to get to know and to understand different cultures. Therefore, it’s a task of a teacher to create a positive environment where no language will get a higher status, on the contrary, different languages must harmoniously complement one another.

Global language, a matter of power.

"A language becomes a global language because of the power of the people who speak it."

David Crystal starts his speech with this premise when he's asked for his opinion on the "global language" concept, which shows us how language is important in History of human kind. According to Mr. Crystal, English has become a global language nowadays but this has been possible thank to the recent history of this language and the people who speaks it.

As a fact, he thinks that this kind of "rank" has nothing to do with the structure of the language. If English has become a global language nowadays is thanks to the political and military power shown by the British Empire throughout 15th century. Of course, other factors are also the main cause of this fact, as the technological power shown a century after, the Industrial Revolution and the fact that English was spoken in both U.S.A and U.K. in the 19th century, where these two nations are known for being the main economic powers in the world. For more information, just check the video.

As for Should English be taught as a 'global' language?, Mr. Crystal presents the dichotomy between teaching production and teaching comprehension. Besides, he continues by saying that it is important to show students different English varieties in a matter of pronunciation and grammar, in order to improve and to develop their listening comprehension. We, as a group, agree with this idea.

Euginne said that it is very important and necessary to expose students to the different accents of English and that this fact would encourage them to discover "diversity" as an essential aspect of languages. In this sense, we should not impose one specific accent which would result in students thinking that there's a "correct" way of pronouncing and the rest of them are "wrong". This must be practiced in vocabulary and phonetics activities, obviously. However, it is also necessary to show them some kind of "fixed" content, especially in grammar, so they can use it as a support for learning and passing the activities proposed.

Education

I think I am right if I speak on behalf of my classmates and say that we have never had such collaborative and cooperative lectures before. True as it is that firstly we were puzzled by the novelty of the methodology, and confused because we had never faced such teaching before, I must admit that after a couple of sessions one gets to like it: the learning atmosphere, the freedom of speech, the companionship, the close teacher-sudent relationship that makes you feel as taken into account, etc. The last one is hugely important since students are not mere empty receivers of information nor working robots, we have anxieties, we have opinions, we have ideas, we have many things to bring into the class context, in fact, we are the class context, we just need a safe environment to open ourselves up to the teaching process and, definitely, a methodology including both the teacher and the students' goals is bound to succeed. So here is the point, if you feel you matter, the content will matter to you, after all, we are persons, and persons need to be relied on in order to outperform. Let me recall something, when we were due to present the ppt we prepared about Bakhtin, we were quite nervious. We have always been expected to perform clockwise, but it was not until you said that we couldn't bring any sheets to the scaffold, that we had to rely on ourselves, and that we could do it perfectly, that we realized that, indeed, we are able of a lot more than we think, we just need to feel confident. So confidence, a close teacher-student bond, a cooperative atmosphere, and being taken into account are some of the deficiencies of our current Educational System that must be tackled the sooner the better. We are forming future workers, but we are persons above all standards.

To see:

"How to espace Education's death valley" by Ken Robinson

To read:

"Out of the box learning" by Cambridge University: how to improve the quality of Education if we stop considering ability as stable and attainable.

 "Teacher: a Friend, a Philosopher and a Gudie" by Debasis Pati: "In their childhood years apart from their mothers, children spend maximum time with their teachers."

Recommended film:

"The Forbidden Education"











          

Our group interactive photo

https://www.thinglink.com/scene/864470424698748928

About us

SECONDARY SCHOOL TEACHER: ONE MORE CARING ADULT IN THE LIFE OF A TEENAGER


Our group is a group of 4 people who have decided to devote our lives to the true calling which is to become teachers. We are Arnau Oltra, Eugenia Neaga, Juan Miguel Sánchez and Tetiana Vysotska. Born in Spain and the USSR and having got different identity funds we have met during this masters’ course willing to live with a deep sense of purpose to be able to impact the future of students.

What we all have in common is a profound understanding of the necessity and constant readiness to be a lifelong learner to transform strict school curriculum into a creative, free of prejudice and highly motivating studying process because it’s a teacher who decides what will happen in the classroom each day. We want to give our students skills and views to make them aware of their enormous potential. Of course, we have high expectations of our students but with readiness to give extra time and help to whose he need it in the hopes to make a world a better place.

In our opinion being a teacher is not a job but a vocation and we are here to to make our dream come true.

Collaborative Project

Our first collaborative project as a group consisted in getting to know in depth one of the core linguists within this course. Our assigned linguist was Bakhtin and it was actually a challenge to understand and explain his work to the rest of the students in just ten minutes. Despite our doubts at the beginning, we all agreed that Bakhtin’s work was very interesting and important for all the philologists and especially those who want to pursue a more literary approach in their career. In our opinion, the aim of the project was to grasp the timeline of the most influential linguistic theories and frame them in a continuum. This project helped a lot with that and made us use a very important technique when teaching: synthesizing. Being able to explain a linguistic theory as a group and in a personal sort of way is not an easy task. It requires comprehension instead of memorization, proper vocabulary usage, examples and so on. We think this type of activity made us realize that there is a need of information adaptation and it is our responsibility as teachers to highlight the most important aspects and maybe skip the less important ones. For instance, Bakhtin holds three main theories which are related one to another: Dialogism, Polyphony and Heteroglossia and it would be very difficult to explain them individually even if one of them bears more theoretical knowledge than the others. As a group, we decided to integrate them all in our presentation and talk about them from a holistic perspective. That was our particular way to proceed as autonomous topic designers, nonetheless, there are other different approaches which we may use in a future.

http://faculty.georgetown.edu/irvinem/theory/Bakhtin-MainTheory.html

🔺Click here in order to avoid being Megan!🔺

As for the linguists we have seen in our peers’ presentation, we would like to highlight Noam Chomsky. Being the father of modern linguistics, our admiration for this man is beyond explanation. Of course, we already knew some aspects of his personal life and his Universal Grammar theory, but still, we all agreed that it always amazed us how influential this theory was and still is even after receiving harsh criticism.  

Moderators

Arnau
Eugenia
Tania
Juanmi

CFD: Group 6