Dictogloss our path into listening/speaking/writing tasks

Creating a dictogloss activity was hard, since it involved many different components that were supposed to achieve a specific objective. Besides, the the level of our students, which was A2, was a really  complicated level to work with because of the lack of linguistic resources they have.

As we have mentioned before, the  opportunity to include new methodologies or technologies into our classes is welcomed with open arms, and creating this task was a mixture of that, since we were used to focus on two abilities at a time, and developing materials for 3 of them was a refreshing challenge, that we expect to have accomplished well.

Also, and based on some of the activities that we completed when we were in classes, we thought that it could be great to create a new activity using music, since we are dealing with students who are easily motivated, and music is a motivating resource if used correctly.

In that sense, dictoglosses are really good for the integration of skills. We can get students to listen and to write, and even to speak with one well designed dictogloss activity. On the other hand, we must be really careful when planning a dictogloss activity, putting a lot of attention to the instruction, as they are the most important part for these kind of activities to work.


Here you can take a look to our Dictogloss activity. Have fun !

New ways to tackle grammar

As language students, we have been subjected to many different theories and approaches as to how we should teach the English language in our classes, that we sometimes  prefer to revert back to the traditional approaches, that feel safe and applicable in almost every context. Thus, we forget, or ignore activities that can be more engaging for our classes.

What we tried to accomplish with the grammar activity that is presented here, is to give our students the opportunity to, firstly, realize the context, get familiarized with it, and then make them  interact(guided) with two of their classmates.

We believe that grammar is one of the overused themes in schools, since it is the easiest one to teach (not in a matter of contents, but of resources) and we, as  teachers, do not have to really complicate ourselves,  when out there are endless lists of activities and handouts to give to our students, However, we do recognize that implementing, and trying out new ways of grammar teaching, can be beneficial to both, new and old teachers (and of course, for students too). By implementing new activities, we (the new generations of teachers) will be opening a door that its seems to be closed with a tight grip and that have sadly stuck our progress in the foreign language area.

We are willing to try out new methods, and to keep on studying in order to become more proficient on grammatical teaching of the language.

Now, you can revise our materials for a grammar class we have designed. Have fun !
 

Lesson Plan

Lesson Handout

Lesson Slides (If the display below does not work)

Final Reflections....One step closer to the world

Carolina:

I have many thoughts going on and on about this class in my mind, it was helpful, it was tiring, it was exciting, and it was dense at some parts, but it taught me a lot of ways to teach the same contents, it helped me to look for different resources and materials, and it has given me some insights into the kind of teacher that I am finally becoming.
I had some opportunities during the semester to put into practice a few things that I learnt, and though it was difficult at the beginning, once the students understand the aim, and how to develop the tasks it goes great.

I think that one of my strengths is that I am stubborn, now that the year is finally coming to an end, and I have had time to analyze how it went and what I did, I think that my stubbornness and perseverance, are what got me this far, is what keeps me fighting every day in order to finish my career and go around the world (travel) spreading what I know, and learning what I don´t.
One of my weaknesses is my "devotion" to do too many things at the same time, I do not know when to say no to a job, assignment or request of help, I simply go for it, and jungle with them, I do not know how I will do it, when I become a teacher, but I have one more year to figure that out.


Finally, our university, and the lives that we live, which are almost 100% related to technology and the Internet, gives us a whole set of online possibilities that even a decade ago where not even thinkable of happening. We can take classes online, we can shop, chat, date, travel, etc... through the internet, and as teacher we should totally use those elements and bring them into our classes (maybe not the dating part).
Lastly I want to add, that I am 100% sure of my capacities as a teacher, and despite the fact that I have a long road to way still, I am going to go with my head held up, welcoming whats new and trusting that what I have been working so hard to achieve is giving fruits, so I am going to enjoy it and keep moving forward, for as long as I live. It was a great experience, having had this class, thanks for the memories, have a great summer.

Raúl:

For me, this class has been a roller-coaster ride. It is not because the semester was short, and we had to rush all the contents, or because we had a lot of things to do. I believe that this class was a roller-coaster because we covered a lot of different topics, a lot of different activites, and it still feels like it was well connected. Even from before starting the EFL teaching programme, I always thought about how I was going to do my classes, to teach my classes, once I had finished the programme, because I literally had no idea. I knew I wanted to be a teacher, but I did not know how I was gonna be one. Throughout the courses, I could somehow visualise this idea of how to teach a class, but even the method classes fell short in some ways. This class in particular, was more enlightening, more down to earth.

We covered a myriad of activities throughout this course, that I would use too much space if I were to describe them all. They were interesting, they were useful, they changed the way I saw some aspects of language teaching, and finally they pointed me towards the direction I want to follow as a teacher.

Having said that. I still feel that this course lacked some things, or that it could have covered more ground. I believe we could have seen some theory behind material making, or how to assess material, And I definitely think that should have had a couple of classes on adapting material from different sources. I know we covered that a little bit with all the activities we made, but it would have been better if we had focused on that topic for a couple of sessions.

Overall, this was a very useful and enlightening class. Thank you very much.

EDpuzzle, a new branch of technology for teaching!

Ed Puzzle is a great tool for teaching listening, in audiovisual environments. It enables the teacher to introduce thought provoking questions, or clarifying messages when he or she needs to, to help students to understand the oral texts better, or to give them more information for them to understand those texts. You can do a variety of listening exercises that develop different aspects of this skill. Plus, it is unbelievable easy to use, and it allows you to crop the videos, feature you can use to make prediction activities, or to cut out unnecessary parts.

On the other hand, we believe that working with videos, or in these online platforms can be difficult sometimes. First, not all students have been exposed to these platforms, programs, apps, etc., so some of our students might not know what to do, or how to proceed with the activities. Second, The schools may not have a computer room available for you to do these kind of activities, or, even if they have them, they may not let you use them for English,  so, getting the equipment to carry out these online-media related tasks can be very difficult. Finally, sometimes having audio plus video might interfere with the overall comprehension of the oral text. It might distract some students, or lead them to focus on other aspects of the activities.

Overall, it is a great tool to do listening tasks, if you have the means to use it in your classroom. It can enhance the students' listening experience, and lead to a better understanding. Having said that, we also believe that pen and paper listening activities should still be part of every teacher plans, as pen and paper helps develop skills that multimedia environments cannot.

Here it is our EDPuzzle Activity we designed- Have fun !

(here is the link if the video below does not work: EDpuzzle Activity

Previous Portfolios

To kick off this final portfolio, we wanted to share our previous portfolios first. We think it is important to recognize all the work we have done so far, before presenting this last piece of this puzzle. Of course, these portfolios have been revised and corrected. Have Fun !

First Portfolio

Second Portfolio

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