FINAL BLOG

For me was very useful to know how approaches have changed as years went by, and how they had to change and adapt depending on the situation of the world and the new research done by psychologists and linguists. I think it will take time to understand well all of them, because they have many aspects and some of this aspects are still used today. I still have the same question Can you mix activities from different approaches? It seems that the answer is yes, because I have notice myself mixing activities, but I think that the most important thing is to have clear what is your final goal, what are you teaching English for. I'm certainly that the most important aim is to communicate, in our globalized world we need people to be able to speak and understand at least one more language; because, as Gardner says in his book "Five minds for the future"......"Without at least one discipline under his belt the individual is destined to march  to someone else's tune"
 So to prepare our students for this coming future they have to master a discipline and knowing English will help. That's why we teachers have this huge responsibility.
I enjoyed watching the videos, each approach was  much clear for me, I would like to have had more examples supporting the theory in classes, for me it hasn't been easy to differentiate them and how to develop a critical  thinking about it, because to me each approach was succesful in their time, of course now we can't apply them exactly the same, but why some activities are still useful?
I would improve "beginning from the very beginning", perhaps a little bit of history of each approach and how it evolved; of course we read it but  to me is necessary to comment more and catch my attention to some points that sometimes I don't realize are important. Also I would have liked to learn in class the steps to criticize articles or research.

Developing our professional competence

We as teachers must have clear our goals, one of the most important is the communicative competence, but to achieve this goal specially, we have to know very well our teaching principles, knowledge and skills.
 I agree with the author that as time goes by we change our style of teaching and we become aware of how important is to be prepared to be "good and responsible" teachers; good in the sense of efectiveness making a constant  and critical analysis of our practice and considering the social context of our students.
That's why is so important to attend conferences and workshops to achieve a professional development and move from "What to teach" questions to "How and why? I'm doing such activities. Fortunately, now I'm  at the stage that  I question myself if I'm going where I should go as a professional and I have changed my view of How and Why teaching the way I'm doing it, this has helped me a lot to make good decisions about methods, contents and techniques.
Reading this article, I've realized that skills and knowledge must go together in order to be a professional teacher a committed one that will look for opportunities to learn and develop every day.

NOTICING

1.- Do adults and children learn an L2 in the same way? What if any are the differrences?
I think it's easier for children because they don't feel embarrased if they make any mistake, so they  go on trying. Besides, the methodology used to teach the little ones is through games, songs, story telling and they have fun without noticing they are learning, however they are able to apply what they are learning to new situations. Perhaps, for adults it's more difficult in terms of daring to speak but they are  more aware of the input and they can turn input into intake more consciously and because of this be able to recognize and  correct their mistakes. All the learners  can transform input into intake too, if it's done in a meaningful context and according to their needs.

2.- Can we teach a language  or people learn a language? What if any is the difference?

I think that to teach we must have in mind what  are learners carachteristics and needs and the methodology according to the approach used. Of course, we can't forget that we must engage learners with the input using a good motivation. So, we must provide experiences to students in order to make them "notice" the language and encourage them to produce language but before they should have had enough "receptive tasks".

3.-How is language to be learned sequenced in your current context? Is sequenced according to the needs?

It's sequenced according to the projects worked and these projects are according to children interests. Basically, the sequence is based on developing oral language in order to encourage them to read simple sentences, we try to teach how to read in both languages at the same time. (Reading understood as comprension of what is read, not decoding only)

4.- What if any thing can we learn from looking at passed methodologies?

With the little ones I think that  some activities from TPR are useful because children learn better if they associate new concepts to movement, besides they have fun and this motivates them. From community language learning it's helpful that "learning is not viewed as an individual accomplishment, but something that is achieved collaboratively" so they learn to interact with peers in order to learn and apply new learnings to new situations.

NOTICING

1.- Do adults and children learn an L2 in the same way? What if any are the differrences?
I think it's easier for children because they don't feel embarrased if they make any mistake, so they  go on trying. Besides, the methodology used to teach the little ones is through games, songs, story telling and they have fun without noticing they are learning, however they are able to apply what they are learning to new situations. Perhaps, for adults it's more difficult in terms of daring to speak but they are aware of the input and they can turn input into intake more consciously and because of this be able to recognize and  correct their mistakes

To be a communicative teacher

Looking at the chart that Simon posted it looks very difficult to become a communicative teacher,because it requieres to study the approach and all its implications and of course; that the headmaster "really" wants to apply it and is willing to make the changes required for it. Then, if teachers are taught on how to do it and "catch" the idea in depth they will be able to motivate other teachers and go on learning by  studying and applying the right methodology in classes. Besides, if you as a teacher see that your children are motivated,  they will work with enthusiasm and they will love to learn new things; this knowledge they will apply to solve problems or to new situations, so they should be eager to learn. And at the same time you as a teacher will feel  that slowly the changes are coming to the students minds and this will allow you to be patient and flexible because you will know what your students need and you must guide them in learning.
 You could think:"It sounds pretty well" and you are right..... I don't think it's easy but if you don't convince yourself that you can do it and study to achieve the goal with the support of the school authorities of course it will be very difficult. Well, if  we are well prepared and willing to do it it shiold work shouldn't it?

To be a communicative teacher

It seems to be very demanding, but if it is; it means that there is only a small group of teachers able to become one. Peter Medgyes comments some aspects, the first one is about analysing our students and find out their needs as a group specially in terms of motivation and at the same time consider the individual aspirations, I think it isn't easy but perhaps we should try to combine the different needs and aspirations and create a plan that fill theri expectations. Next, he talks about the need to focus on meaning and form, I think that to communicate an idea, or feeling we must be undeerstood by others; so if the form is wrong the message will lose meaning. Am I right?
 Before this approach english teachers had to take care of their subjects only, now that have changed, we should know about many different topics, but with globalisation we can know so many things, it's not easy, but it takes time. I think is a great idea to learn from our students or "learn with them" in the classroom could be very motivating, because they will be part of a whole process to get new information and we can guide them to develop strategies for it.
 We all know, in Chile at least; that as teachers you have to think of your students "as a whole" and sometimes act as their mothers or fathers, so as language teachers; sometimes; you have to advice students in different aspects. Stevick's idea, it's great but a bit difficult in a class how "can the teacher keep 100%  of the control and at the same time students are in charge of 100% of the initiative?
 I love idea N°6: books out! if we want to be flexible and design a programme according to our students needs a book should support and not constraint our classes. Besides without a book we can be more creative encouraging our students to be. (Usually they are more creative than us)
 I agree that "is impossible to be a an active theory maker and an active practising teacher" but could theorists find out  if their theory is right talking to teachers about it? Or could teachers ask theorists the ideas that back up the theory?
 Interesting article; it made me reflect on the importance of knowing what approach I'm going to follow and act consequently according to it.

Unpredictibility, creativeness and imagination

What a huge challenge! for us and for parents. Creativity is as important as literacy have you ever thought of that? I had, but I didn't think it was that important.

 We must prepare our students to be wrong and never stigmatize their mistakes, because in this way they will be prepared to think of many different solutions to their problems. It's time to change the view of education, stop focusing on thinking of one object to learn only; we must let children to develop their imagination and creativity otherwise How will they face this unpredictable future?

I loved the idea of the human ecology, human imagination should be used wisely in order to create new solutions to new problems.

 I didn't know about the lady that created "Cats"....... wise doctor and brave mom.

Communicative Competence

Background: It's important to make the difference between grammatical (grammar based) approach to second language teaching and communicative  (communication based) approach to second language teaching, while the first approach stress on grammatical forms and the correct way of using them;  the second one is based on the appropriate ways of communicating and how grammar will help to learners to express properly making their statements, comments meaningful and easy to understand to native speakers of the second language. The paper proposes that, a theory of communicative competence( knowledge of grammar and other aspects of language) should be based on grammar and  sociolinguistic aspects and the relationships among them in order to get a reliable theory.
Communicative Competence:  Grammatical competence should be taught in the context of meaningful communication; using for this, aspects from sociolinguistics in order to organize social context grammar and meaning in a whole, that will allow students to communicate using the language rules and apply semantic aspects to understand what they are told and to express what they really want to express, using the right tone of voice and the right words depending on the situation they are involved.
Framework for Communicative Approach: To develop a Communicative Approach it should be based on; of course; communicative competence that responds to the needs of communication of the learners, giving them the chance to talk and listen to native speakers of the target language, in real situations. Besides, they should know the basic aspects of communicating the same aspects they acquired in L1, that's why it's important to develop strongly L1 and teach the sociocultural aspects of L2. To do this there are some important implications on syllabus, methodology, teachers training and material development.
Suggestions on Directions for Research: There are some areas on which research hasn't been done yet, that's why there are some questions without answers; such as it isn't clear if a communicative approach is enough effective to develop all the functions needed to communicate in L2 or if increases motivation in students and learners.

What's my approach indicator?

Before answering the questionnaire, I've never thought of my style of teaching; now; I've realized, that it's important to make children "think" in English, it's more natural and they don't have to spend energy on translating, so they can use that energy on comprehending and analysing the information received, but to make this happen there must be an intrinsic motivation, every class there should be a game, or song/video, or a "secret object" that catches their attention and make them be focused on the class, then; I think; if they like it they will like everything or almost everything from the class and thererefore, will like  English and we all know that it's easy to learn or do something if you like it. I'm sure that it's important to be gentle and empathetic specially when teaching a new language, but (this is my "contradiction") if you are not demanding are children going to learn what they need to? Until now I've been demanding, but not tough and it seems to work, children learn according to their potential, which is "huge" and we must take good advantage of that potential. That's why we must guide them to develop good and efficient  learning strategies, in this century students must learn how to look for information, figure out what kind of information they need and when it's appropriate to use it, learning contents it's not important any more because information is enlarged every minute; and knowing more than one language will lead them to get the information they need.

Different methodologies through years.

It's interesting to know how these methodologies, were born each one in response to a special need for that time; the Audiolingual Method for instance; comes from the "Army Method " its main characteristic was stress on oral activities, but it change into the Audiolingual Method based in linguistic and psychological theory. Because of this; linguistic patterns were taught, as well as, mimicry drills and oral practices following a model, there were almost any grammatical explanation, vocabulary is learned in context and pronunciation is very important, but as years went by, they discovered that  for language acquisition wasn't important to repeat patterns of pronunciation and that making mistakes helped for learning.
 Then on the seventies came the Community Language Learning which was an affective based method and put its attention in the deep structure of language according to Chomsky. The teacher is considered a "counselor" who translates what the student says in his/her native language and the repeats it. This happens many times until the students are independent from the teacher and they feel very self confident, What's good of this method is that you can adapt it  to  the needs of your class.
 Lozanov, was a bulgarian psychologist who created Suggestopedia, he thought that people could learn huge amounts of information if they are relaxed and listen to good music, baroque music, specifically that allows people to relax and learn, this method was applied to second language teaching using readings, new vocabulary words, dialogs, role playings. we learned from it that relaxation is important and the power of the human brain.
 Then Gattegno proposed The Silent Way, is more cognitive than affective, this method is based on the idea that the learners discovers and learns through problem solving. The teacher is silent most of the time, he/she uses some rods of different colors to introduce vocabulary, repeats a pattern and students do the same without corrections, the problem is that there wasn't a communicative atmosphere.
 TPR claims that principles of child language acquisition are important, that's why he proposed to do a lot of listening and acting, thes activities helped students to want to communicate.
Finally, on the 80s Krashen said that there are 3 stages, pre production, early production the extending production here teachers don't correct the mistakes, in this way learners speak a lot in a natural way.

The Humanistic Tradition

These methods are based on a "common belief in the primacy of affective and emotional factors within the learning process" (David Nunan). All of them propose that learners must feel confident and motivated by the target language and its culture to learn it succesfully; on the other hand if these conditions are not present, not even the latest methods and techniques will make students learn.
 Earl Stevick has interpreted the humanistic methods in language teaching and he concluded that there are five functions of the teacher, because the emotional attitude towards the teacher is really important.
 These functions are:
1.- The cognitive function: the teachers posses the knowledge and students expect to receive it.
2.- The classroom management function, students trust that teachers will organize properly: time, techniques and materials.
3.- Practical goals, teachers have to create correct syllabuses, in order to, show clearly what they are going to learn.
4.-The personal or interpersonal function, teachers are responsible to create an adequate  atmosphere where the emotions are met.
5.-This is the most important function, teachers must be motivated and enthusiastic to radiate it to their students.
The Community Language Learning created by Curran, states that "learning another language is probably the most anxiety provoking activity an individual can undertake in the classroom". So this method claims that a community of learners sholud be created in the classroom and move them to be completely autonomous from teacher. But this method, cuold be non appropriate to be used by unexperienced teachers, because it points to the emotions and attitudes of learners and "destroy the very cohesion and solidarity which the method is supposed to create"
 Another method is called The Silent Way, it was devised by Gattegno, on 1972, the most important  thing for this method is "the importance of the inner state of the learner in the learning process" again the affective carachteristic is pointed as very important to learn.  One of  the problems is that this method suggests to teach very few vocabulary words and language models. Even though the syllabus and the classroom techniques are conventional, the role of the teacher is to assume in an indirect way monitors the process of learning.
 And the last one, called Suggestopedia suggests that the learners are able to memorize a huge amount of information, they just need to be relaxed almost hypnotized, using music and controlling breath they could learn up to three thousand words in a day. This information has been refuted by some researchers.

Strong and weak skills

I like english, but now studying the master, I've noticed that speaking is the weakest skill, I think because I don't speak at my job and because of this I'm not fluent, it looks like I don't know the right words, but I do know them I just can't  use them at the moment I'm speaking. To improve this skill I try to watch T.V. programs in english and keep some  expressions in  my mind, the  thing is, if I don't have the opportunity to use them they will be forgotten. Another idea that comes to my mind is to ask my teachers and classmates to correct me when I make mistakes. Listening is getting better, thanks to T.V. too and of course, classes, I'm getting used to different "pronunciations" from our teachers, but it's great to understand easily.
 I believe that my strongest skills are reading and writing, it's easy to me to write and read about something, I think it's because I have more time to think about and look for the unknown words in the dictionary.
 Even though, reading and writing are a bit easier for me, I think the best way to be fluent in a second language is to practice it in a natural context so, this is what I have to do  from now on, specially speaking in classes, taking a deep breath, think carefully on the best words and ..........speak.

How did I learn English

When I was  eight years old my parents bought a new house in a new niegborhood, so I had to go to a new school. In this school everything was taught in English, everything except Spanish of course. I remember that the teacher spoke in English all day long, but it wasn't hard for me to understand. I had to learn many vocabulary words with their meanings in spanish and learn dialogues by heart to represent in front of the class. We also read stories, listening to the teacher and trying to follow  the lines with our fingers. That's what I remember from third and fourth grade.
 In fifth grade, it was a bit different, there were levels from the higher to the lower. I was in the higher; at the begining I felt lost because the rythm of the class was too fast for me, reading on my own, answering questions aloud, learning vocabulary words in english and of course grammar, many diferent exercises to practice present perfect or past continous. But as we always read a text, those structures were in those texts, so it wasn't so difficult, the teacher taught us a "kind of formula" and then we applied it making the exercises. At the same time, every week, we had to learn 10 or 15 verbs and their tenses, and every week represent different dialogues or tell poems in front of the class. The stories were about different topics, one month travels around the world, the other buying at different shops etc....
 In high school, we wrote many texts and read some books but I remember only one "Tom Sawyer" I don´t know why I forgot all the others.
 Even though learning english was easy for me and I liked it a lot, it was too different from how english is taught now in my school.