Oral expression and interaction

Hello, my readers!

Today's topic is focused on oral skills and how to motivate and enhance our students' participation during a speaking activity, whatever type of exercise you may choose: individual speeches, dialogues in couples, small groups, for and against debates, one-to-one with the teacher, etc.

It might seem highly recommendable to create a comfortable atmosphere for our students not to feel embarrassed when using their SL since the very first day. 

In order to guide myself and my readers as well, the following article taken from the British Council website is offered as a stepping stone resource to deal with the most common situations when teaching ESL to teenagers.

IMAGE FROM CREATIVE COMMONS

After the previous reading, I would like to continue developing my TU "Lost in the States" where the oral expression proficiency is covered as a "Giving and asking for directions" set of activities.

To start with, we will review together the most common locations they should already know such as: the cardinal points (North, South, etc.), left and right, prepositions of place (in, on, at, in front of, next to, behind, between, etc.)

Afterwards, we will follow with some instructions: go straight on, turn left/right, pass over, etc. To be honest, the funniest way to practise this topic with lower learners  is by using realia (maps and/or a compass), and also moving around the playground, the corridors, when possible, or the classroom. However, as an alternative, students can draw their own invented cities on a piece of paper or use Google Maps (on their mobile phones).

I have prepared an extra game my students could find on my Evaluation section on the top of my blog so to have fun and study before the oral exam. It was created with Educaplay and I called "How can I get to...?"

Hope you find this post useful and comment it kindly!

Merry Christmas!

Miss Bacaicoa

Listening comprehension skills: RECOGNIZING AMERICAN SPELLINGS

Hello, my readers!

Today I will help you both teachers and students to differentiate and detect the most broadly used English accents: the British, also known Received Pronunciation (RP), and the American (refering to the USA). My core objective is to neutralize the existing myths and prejudices against the usage any accent or spelling not coming from the Great Britain. 

Why is my worry for this controversy so huge and deep as to motivate this publication? 

The answer is simple: how I was taught English in Spain from school to high-school. 

If you click on the following link

https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/spelling/british-and-spelling there is an interesting summary of the main characteristics and also a brief video commenting them, even though maybe for slower students it is recorded a little bit fast, you can deeply read the text. 

My proposal to work out in the classroom (taking into account my TU proposal) is to go on a "word hunting" using a piece of news or the lyrics from a song. This activity will consist on highlighting or marking in different colours the different spellings you are able to transform into the opposite accent of the two studied. 

I will be glad to read your opinions, tell me if it works to you on a comment! 💬 

Remember that spelling abbreviations in dictionaries appear normally like you will read below: 

BY SANDRA BACAICOA

But, if there is a difference in a word rather than spelling between one accent and another one, there will be also marked in dictionaries. That is to say, if in BrE they use "autumn", its synoynm in NAmE "fall" will be also written in brackets) in the dictionary entry.

I consider that it is important to get your students face to paper dictionaries to enlarge their knowledge and open their minds, not only Beyoncé speaks English! Being aware of differences will make teenagers understand better prompts in activities, questions within a debate, videos you watch together, films at the cinema, and so on and so forth.

My recommendation for 2º BACH. students at home is watching and listening to TV series from different countries in order to enjoy real accents rather than boring listenings from text books. Here, I can offer you some examples your young students could fall in love with:

• Modern Family (NAmE/US) - Comedy
• Arrow (NAmE/US) - Superheroes, action, crime, mystery
• Sherlock (BrE) - Mystery
• Girls On Top (IndE) - Romance, fiction
• Degrassi: The Next Generation (CanE) - Teen drama

Afterwards, they can weekly or monthly talk about them during the last ten minutes of a session, sharing their opinions with their classmates.

Hope you have enjoyed and learnt from this post!

Soon again with you,

Miss Bacaicoa

SUGGESTIONS FOR INTRODUCING A NEW UNIT

Hello my readers, 

Today I am glad to introduce you my Teaching Unit  "Lost in the States" throughout a dashboard I have elaborated myself using Piktochart, a powerful tool for creating graphics and having a great success without investing a large period of time. Piktochart offers a wide variety of templates so you can complete them with your information and make it visually attractive to the audience! 

This "impact" created on the students, could have been also achieved with music, or a short video, but I prefered an image to start with. If we look closer, not just taking the first impression, this poster can lead to a brainstorming or a debate, in other words, valuable opportunities both for the students, to share anecdotes, and for the teachers to get to know their students previous knowledge on the contents.

Moreover, I am very keen on bringing realia (authentic daily objects) to the classroom as to relate their lives to the topics we are dealing with. 

Applying now the two previous suggestions to my teaching unit, we could start dividing our students into small groups of five and challenging them to discover what we will talk a about for the next weeks. As teachers, we can project the image on a big screen (as far as the school owns a projector) or print it big size and pass it around or post it on the walls/doors. For those with visual difficulties, we could also play the USA nation hymn at low volumn, let them touch a flag with many stars in 3D, or even a relieve map! And remember always to sit them in the first rows.

TIP: During the first session of every unit, misspronunciation may happen between the students, do not worry about it! It would not help them repeating as machines several times their mistakes. Let their speaking turns flow.

I really hope this post has being helpful! 

Looking forward to keeping in touch.

Mrs Bacaicoa

CREATED BY SANDRA BACAICOA 

STEP BY STEP

How should languages being taught? 

Does it depend on the class goals? 

Are EFL methods clear enough?

Hello, my readers!

As you could know from the questions used as headlines, this post will be dedicated to establish a definition of "teaching" as an introduction, and secondly to discuss about the linguistic competences (to be even more precise the multilingual competence). Lately, I will explain several worldwide spread methodologies that you can use as English as a Second or Foreign Language teachers, including comments on their advantages, and some criticism from the language teaching failure at Spanish high-schools.

"Teaching may be regarded as providing opportunities for students to learn. It is an interactive process as well as an intentional activity." (Brown & Atkins: 1988) 

I would like to highlight the adjetive INTERACTIVE modifying the learning process as the key starting point for wondering on the teacher's role in the classroom. The importance of creating the most suitable classroom atmosphere has been an issue examined historically.

WHAT is a methodology? According to my last revision on the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary, it is "a set of methods and principles used to perform a particular activity". Therefore on the following list, my readers could find the ones I have used in my career so far:

• CLIL (Content Learning Integrated Language) or Content-based construction. 
• Natural Method (1970s/1980s) based on communication avoiding the representation of grammar as structure that must be memorised. In these days, it sounds more fashionable refering to "language immersion" rather than to "the natural way". That is the reason why some many English summer camps have proliferated in Spain from the 1990s.
• Task-based. This methodology employs short and real-world activities (for example: buying at the market, or going to the doctor). Its origin is to be found the major British approach to teach ESL from the 1960s, when Communicative Approach, it was not a method by itself, was being spread (Richards & Rodgers: 2009). Effectively developed in the SL/FL classroom, the results will be highly motivated and self-competent speakers.

TIP. WHY not combining some of them? Honestly, what works better in teaching continues to be like the Holy Grail of education... Every single learner will need specific adaptations depending on the proposed activity, this being so, for me it is a viable option not to become obsessed with one method or dynamic, but vary as much a possible or mix some of them so to engage your students into the target language (SL/FL). Researching about methodologies can solve teachers' problems and help them to establish routines that match with their own class needs.

References

Brown, George & Atkins, Madeleine. Effective Teaching in Higher Education. Routledge, 1988. Print.

"Methodology" Def. 1. Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary Online, Oxford, n.d. Web. 24 Nov. 2016.

Richards, Jack C. & Rodgers, Theodore S. Approaches and methods in language teaching. Cambridge University Press, (1986) 2009. Print.

simonfilm. "The Natural Approach" Online video. YouTube. YouTube, 10 April 2011. Web, 24 November 2016 

"Task-based Language Teaching (TBLT)" University of Alberta.  Best of Bilash: Improving Second Language Education, January 2011. Web. 24 November 2016

I really hope this was useful for you all!

Thanks for reading,

Mrs Bacaicoa

WELCOME

Hello my readers,

As an English Philologist and future Secondary teacher in Spain, this PERSONAL LEARNING ENVIRONMENT (PLE) is going to be used with academic purposes in order to practice in my ICT sessions during the Master's Degree from November 2016 to January 2017. Afterwards, you would also be able to find my memories on the internship period in a high school.

The main goal of this project is to help and contact to English teachers worldwide by offering them different resources and current education issues, as well as my own created materials based on a specific didactic plan (1 out of the 15 from my MA dissertation). 

This TEACHING UNIT (TU) here developed will be addressed at students in their last course of high school within the national education system (2º BACHILLERATO, in Spanish). Even though this fact, all the materials could be applied to any intermediate or high-intermediate English classroom. 

On the next lines you can find the sections in which my TU so called "Lost in the States" is divided. The first four areas correspond to the four blocks established by Conselleria d'Educació, all by myself I have added the last two in order to enhance my future students sociocultural knowledges.

1. Listening comprehension skills > American VS. British; formal and informal contexts.
2. Oral expression and interaction > Planning a trip, giving and asking for directions.
3. Reading comprehension skills > Consulting American online travel guides.
4. Writing expression and interaction > Journey diary (reflections on a trip).
5. Culture, history and traditions > Thanksgiving celebration, American idioms.
6. Grammar > Structures: "If only..."; "I wish I had..." 3rd conditional. 

Throughout all of them the use of ICT and dictionaries is highly recommended for success!


Thank you for reading, any suggestion for improvement will be accepted with open arms.

Mrs. Bacaicoa