Week 13. BUILDING COMMUNITY IN THE CLASSROOM

Building a community in the classroom is very important for us as teachers and for our students. students have to get used to their new teacher or new students have to get used to the class and classmates, they have to feel comfortable in the classroom if we want to have a nice environment and of course if we want them to succeed in school.

So at the beginning of the year especially during the first month we have to create an emotionally secure “home base” for the children to learn in. There are different activities we can do, for example games where the children can know each other, or games they had played before, so they feel indentify with them. We can also use nice decoration. We have to show our students we care about their feelings, we have to help them whenever they need, and always listen to them. If we have to opportunity to include their families in some way in the process would be very helpful, remember families are a key ingredient to the students’ feelings.

We can have many tools to create a community in the classroom but what really counts is you: your loving, compassionate attitude towards the children in your classroom family that creates a joyful community

Week 12. Classroom Management

Classroom management is definitely one of the most important teaching aspects teachers have to deal with every day.  How can we manage a group where you have students that don’t participate in class, others that are always somewhere in this world but not in class, the student or students that love to talk and talk and keep talking about their plans after class or the party they had on the weekend, and of course the one that likes to calls everybody’s attention, and besides you have to give your class and finish the school program. It sounds impossible but it isn’t, first of all we have to understand our students and remind ourselves every second that they are adolescents and that they are experiencing a lot of changes, then we have to receive some kind of training by experts who can help us manage all this situations. But the most important aspect is to be patient, as the reading says: being calm: strength, being upset: weakness. Even though sometimes being calm is very difficult, at least for me, we have to try and breathe because the students enjoy when you get mad.

Finally, classroom management requires teacher experience, rules, and love for our students.

Week 11. Assessing Learning

I think common assessment techniques don’t measure students’ knowledge, most of them measure either grammar, reading comprehension or listening but not all of them. I remember when I was in high school I memorized formulas, concepts, practices, etc and with that was enough to pass the test. The problem is that a week or so after the test I had forgotten everything.

I like the idea of alternative assessment, because it reveals what students can do in language, it uses real life situations, and students have to practice what they have learned throughout a period. It’s good because the students can evaluate their own learning and their learning processes.

Features of alternative assessment:

·         Assessment is based on authentic tasks that demonstrate learners' ability to accomplish communication goals.

·         Instructor and learners focus on communication, not on right and wrong answers.

·         Learners help to set the criteria for successful completion of communication tasks.

·         Learners have opportunities to assess themselves and their peers.

The idea to let students assess themselves encourages them to become independent learners and can increase their motivation; some elements teachers can use are goal setting, guided practice with assessment tools, and portfolios.

The change from common assessment techniques to alternative assessment takes time for both the teacher and students so it’s important that the teacher goes step by step introducing rubrics first and explaining to the students everything very clear.

Week 10. Motivating learners

What is the difference between a motivated person and an unmotivated one? It’s very easy to see when people are motivated, they always want to learn more, they are looking for new learning strategies, they want to apply the new knowledge; while when people are unmotivated they don’t show interest about the topic, they think what they are learning is useless, get bored easily, and don’t like to practice the new knowledge.

Teachers have the responsibility to promote the engagement in the new language in the students. To do this they have to set goals: what do I as teacher want my students to achieve? In a second language the purpose is to communicate affectively, to be able to give directions in English, to travel to another country and know how you have to ask for help, food, cloth, etc. Teachers also have to:

• Encourage students to use the language spontaneously to communicate ideas, feelings, and opinions

• Identify informal out-of-class language learning experiences

• Ask students to evaluate their progress in terms of increases in their functional Proficiency.

week9. SYLLABUS

In one of the sessions of Introducción al Curriculum I had with Msc. Giselle Herra we studied the syllabus and we also did one, so I would like to use some of the information she gave us to explain its meaning: a syllabus is an outline and summary of topics to be covered in a course and it’s set up by an exam board or prepared by the professor.

The syllabus serves many purposes for the students and teachers such as ensuring a fair and upfront understanding between the instructor and students such that there is minimal confusion.Setting clear expectations of material to be learned,  behavior in the classroom, and  effort of student's behalf to be put into the courseThe syllabus has information such as: 

·         The Course Information: what the course is about.

·         Instructor Information: teacher’s name, education, e-mail.

·         Resources: texts, readings, materials, textbooks, supplementary reading.

·         Course Description- Objectives.

·         Course calendar/schedule.

·         Course policies: Class participation, attendance/lateness, missed exams or assignments.

·         Instructional Approach: teacher-student, student-student, student-peer tutor.

·         Academic Dishonesty.

·         Grading/ Evaluation.

·         Student feedback on instruction.

·         Available support service: when the student can contact the teacher or principal, in this part  should be included the schedule of the principal’s office as well as the schedule the student can contact the teacher.