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

Lesson Plan

Sorry guys and Miss Noelia.. but I've got a lot of troubles posting my Lesson Plan ... but finally here you got it ... so please ... leave your comments !! see you ... !!!

Theoretical Framework

Types of classroom listening performance

Reactive:---- Passive students
Intensive:.---- Focus on one thing
Responsive:_--- Ss. have to know what they are doing
Selective:----- Select the material: How is going to learn (by himself)
Extensive::-___ Ss. have to take notes and do conversations
Interactive: :::---To complete other skills
--------------

Principal for desing listening

We have to have a good development in listening.
Intrinsec & extrinsec Motivation
Focus on the topic
Listening Context
Key words/good listening strategies
Connection with all skills
---------

Listening Techniques from beginning to advance

Bottom up --------- Lexical Meanings.
Top Down excercises
Interactive excercises
________

Theoretical Framework

Examples : types of listening exercises



http://www.esl-lab.com/trip1/trip1.htm


http://www.esl-lab.com/zoo/zoord1.htm


http://www.ompersonal.com.ar/firstcertificate2/listening/fce08a.htm


http://www.englishmedialab.com/survival%20English/listening/ticket%20to%20Glasgow%20.htm


http://www.englisch-hilfen.de/en/exercises_list/hoeren.htm

Theoretical Framework

1. Retain chunks of language of different lengths in short –term memory.


2. Discriminate among the distinctive sounds of English.


3. Recognize English stress patterns, words in stressed and unstressed positions, rhythmic structure, into national contours, and their role in signaling information.




4. Recognize reduced forms of words.

5. Distinguish word boundaries, recognize a core of words, and interpret word order patterns and their significance.

 6. Process speech at different rates of delivery.

 7. Process speech containing pauses, errors, corrections, and other performance variables.

 8. Recognize grammatical word classes nouns, verbs, etc.), systems (e.g., tense, agreement, pluralization), patterns, rules and elliptical forms.



9. Detect sentences constituents and distinguish between major and minor constituents.


10. Recognize that a particular meaning may be expressed in different grammatical forms.



11. Recognize cohesive devices in spoken discourses.


12. Recognize the communicative functions of utterances, according to situations, participants, goals.





13. Infer situations, participants, goals using real-world knowledge.

 14. From events, ideas, etc., described, predict outcomes, infer links and connections between events, deduce causes and effects, and detect such relations as main idea, supporting idea, new information: given information, generalization, and exemplification.



15. Distinguish between literal and implied meanings.

 16. Use facial, kinesic, body language, and other nonverbal clues to decipher meanings.


17. Develop and use a battery of listening strategies, such as detecting key words, guessing the meaning of words from context, appeal for help and signaling comprehension or lack thereof.

Theoretical Framework

What makes listening difficult?

CLUSTERING: pick up manageable clusters of words , avoid not retainning long constituents or losing the idea paying attention to every word in a utterance.


REDUNDANCY: take advanse of reduncy in conversation to pay attention just to the sentences with new information. Be aware of insertions of “I mean “ and “you know”.


Reduced forms: As redundancy, reduced forms are very common in native conversation. Reduction can be phonological (“Djeetyeet” for “Did you eat yet “), morphological ( constractions like I’ll ), also syntactic and pragmatics.
 
Performance Variables: casual speech by native speakers contains hesitations, pauses, and corrections commonly. Also will include ungrammatical forms, some of these forms are simple slips for example “We arrived in a little town that there was no hotel anywhere”.


Coloquial language : learners who have been exposed to standard written English language sometimes find it surprising and difficult to deal with colloquial language(idioms ,slang, reduced forms and shared cultural knowledge).


Rate of Delivery: learners will nevertheless eventually need to be able to comprehend language delivered at varying rates of speed and, at times, delivered with few pauses.


Strees, rhythm and intonation: English is stress-timed language, English speech can be a terror for some learners. Also intanation patterns are very significant not just for interpreting straightforward elements such as questions, statements but for understanding more subtle messages like sarcarms, endearment, insult, solicitation ,praise,etc.


Interaction: to learn to listen is also to learn to respond and to continue a chain of listening and responding.


 
Listening exercise: http://www.esl-lab.com/rest1.htm
 
Ordering at a Restaurant




Instructions: Listen to the questions by pressing the "Play" link and then choose the best answer. See the Quiz Script here. Press the "Final Score" button at the bottom of the page to score your quiz.

1. PLAY:

A. Three people.

B. That'll be all.

C. No. We're not ready yet.



2. PLAY:

A. I'll take a large Sprite.

B. I'll have a piece of apple pie.

C. French dressing, please.


3. PLAY:

A. T-bone steak, please.

B. Medium.

C. I'd like rice with my steak.


4. PLAY:

A. I'll have the salad, please.

B. I'd like the rice.

C. Bread, please.


5. PLAY:

A. Yes. I'd like more water.

B. I didn't order this.

C. Yes. The food is great.