Journal

I think giving a class is quite nice because as teachers we need to be prepared for every obstacle in life that is going to help us in future; teachers also need to be complemented with students' knowledge and i think i need to be up to date in every signature.

Some classes which were given in a really bad way because personally i don't undersand some purposes and some were kind of boring, but in general i learned how to improve my next classes and not to commit the same mistakes. 

★ How Words Are Learned...★



★How important is vocabulary? ... "Without grammar very little can be conveyed, without vocabulary nothing can be conveyed"- David Wilkins. Vocabulary teaching has not always been very responsive to such problems, and teachers have not fully recognised the tremendous communicative advantage in developing an extensive vocabulary. "Strong emphasis on vocabulary, with a particular focus on high frecuency, useful words and phrases.

★What does it mean to "know a word"?... Knowing a word involves knowing:
                                          ♥ its form, and
                                          ♥ its meaning

★How is vocabulary learned?... In learning their first language the first words that children learn are typically those used for labelling.Child has to learn how far to extend concepts (in different situations or according to their needs. Finally, the child needs to realise that common words can be replaced by superordinate terms. This involves a process of network building (constructing a complex web of words interconnected). Languages that share words with similar forms have many more real friends than false friends.

★How many words does a learner need to know? ... An educated native speaker will probably have a vocabulary around of 20,000 words. This is the result of adding about a thousand words a year. Most adult second language learners, will be lucky to have acquired 5,000 word families even after several years of study.
              ♥Grammar: also problematic is the grammar associated with the word, especially if this differs froms that of its L1 equivalent
              ♥Meaning: when two words overlap in meaning, learners are likely to confuse them. Words with multiple meanings, unfamiliar concepts may make a word difficult to learn.
              ♥Range, connotation and idiomaticity: words that can be used in a wide range of contexts will generally be perceived as easier than their synonyms with a narrower range, words that have constraints.

★Whaat kind of mistakes do learners make?... It is not surprising that learners make mistakes with words. All lexical errors are instances of a wrong choice of form, we can categorise errors into two major types:
                             ♥form-related: include mis-selections, mistranformations, and spelling and pronunciation erros.
                             ♥meaning-related: errors typically occur whn words that have similar or related meanings are confused and the wrong choice is made.

★What are the implications for learning:

♥Learners need tasks and strategies to help them organise their mental lexicon by building networks of associations- the more the better.
♥Learnes need to wean themeselves off a rialance on direct translation from their mother tongue.
♥Theaching should direct attention to the sound of new words, particulary the way they are stressed
♥Learners need to be actively involved in the learning of words.
♥Learners need to make multiple decisions about words.

Reading Techniques

Subskills...

TESTING TECHNIQUES

Ordering parts of a text

We need to order events

Found logical events

Create a context

So we need to:

Understand the main ideas

Identify the right order

Recognize main parts of speech

Infer meaning from the whole context

Subskills

Reading Sub-skills

Recognising words and phrase in English script.

Using one’s own knowledge of the outside world to make predictions about and interpret a text.

Retrieving information stated in the passage.

Distinguishing the main ideas from subsidiary information.

Deducing the meaning and use of unknown words; ignoring unknown words/phrases that are redundant, i.e.; that contribute nothing to interpretation

Understanding the meaning and implications of grammatical structures, e.g. cause, result, purpose, reference in time (e.g. verb tenses; compare: “He could swim well” past, “He could come at 10 a.m.” future).

Recognising discourse markers: e.g. therefore + conclusions, however + contrast, that is + paraphrase, e.g. + example.

Recognising the function of sentences even when not introduced by discourse markers: e.g. example, definition, paraphrase, conclusion, warning.

Understanding relations within the sentences and the text (words that refer back to a thing or a person mentioned earlier in the sentence or the text, e.g. which, who, it).

Extracting specific information for summary or note taking.

Skimming to obtain the gist, and recognise the organisation of ideas within the text.

Understanding implied information and attitudes.

Knowing how to use an index, a table of contents, etc.

Understanding layout, use of heading, etc.

PROGRAM OF THE COURSE