UNIT 32 LESSON STUDY

This innovative teaching way is a professional development process that Japanese teachers engage in to systematically examine their practice, with the goal of becoming more effective. This examination centers on teachers working collaboratively on a small number of "study lessons".

Lesson study is a simple idea. If you want to improve instruction, what could be more obvious than collaborating with fellow teachers to plan, observe, and reflect on lessons? (Lewis 2002)

From that quote I can reveal that lesson study is mainly based in cooperative and group work in which teachers support each other ideas in planning, teaching, observing, revising and sharing the results of a single class lesson or unit lesson. According to this website (http://www.uwlax.edu/sotl/lsp/overview.htm) it suggest that teachers follow these steps:

Form a Team: Teams are usually composed of 3-6 instructors.

Develop Learning Goals: Team members articulate what they would like students to know and be able to do as a result of the lesson.

Design the Lesson: The team designs a lesson to achieve the learning goals.

Plan the Study: The team decides how to observe and collect evidence of student learning.

Teach and Observe: One team member teaches the lesson while others observe and collect evidence of student learning.

Analyze and Revise: The team discusses the results and assesses student progress toward learning goals.

Document and Disseminate: The team documents the lesson study and shares their work with colleagues.

I love this way of working since the benefits are huge, primarily students because they are going to work over a precisely done lesson plan and definitely it is going easier for them to achieve the objectives of the class. Professors as well as they learn new thing each time they cooperate on the lesson plan developing because the process they follow is not that simple, the may have to do a lot of research.

SOURCES:

http://www.uwlax.edu/sotl/lsp/overview.htm

http://www.tc.columbia.edu/lessonstudy/lessonstudy.html

http://www.americanradioworks.org/segments/a-different-approach-to-teacher-learning-lesson-study/

http://www.educationworld.com/a_admin/admin/admin382.shtml

UNIT 31 WRITING LESSON OBJECTIVES

From my point of view, especially because of experience I may say that the most important fact in lesson plan are the objective setting, because there have been times when I thought my lesson or unit plan is ready until I demo it in my classroom, it happen that I’m struggling on the flow of the plan, the plan just do not smoothly goes on, is there when I realize that the objectives were not appropriate set. It is really crucial to be aware that setting objectives is not a big deal but either is something to take too easy, is just to be conscious and think that the objectives are not for you to achieve but for all your students who each has a different mind and way of learning. To success in a lesson plan the teacher has to write effective and measurable learning objectives according to the students, because they are the ones who are going be able to do certain things. For that it is recommended to write lesson objectives taking into account the Bloom´s taxonomy, talked before in blog 28, because there the objectives are set according the three important domains and motivate students not only to seek the objective but also to think critically.

SOURCES:

http://teaching.uncc.edu/learning-resources/articles-books/best-practice/goals-objectives/writing-objectives

http://www.aia.org/education/providers/AIAB040189

This video will help us to understand how other profesionals use the Bloom´s taxonomy when writing lesson objectives:

UNIT 30 BLOOMS TAXONOMY

At the first instance I consider really important before reflecting on the topic to know who Bloom was. Benjamin Bloom was an American educational psychologist who made significant contributions to the classification of educational objectives and the theory of mastery learning. He was the first one who made research on others aspects that can affect or benefit students in the classrooms, such home aspects or environmental aspects therefore he considered 3 important aspects which he determine them as “domains” in the developing of the TAXONOMY OF EDUCATIONAL OBJECTIVES, the three are: the affective domain which has to do with the feelings and emotions, the psychomotor domain has to do with skills; manual or physical and the cognitive domain which has to do with the knowledge. The incredible thing about this taxonomy is that it helps teachers to determine the level of thinking their students have achieved during a certain period of time or the level of knowledge they are in or even the intelligence type they have. It is important to state that Bloom´s taxonomy has had different changes in the taxonomy for that there is an old and a new version, I consider those changes are improvements professionals had consider according students’ needs.

SOURCES

http://www.fitnyc.edu/files/pdfs/CET_TL_BloomsTaxonomy.pdf

http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/2011/05/07/why-is-it-important-for-students-to-learn-about-blooms-taxonomy/

http://www.myenglishpages.com/blog/blooms-taxonomy/

http://study.com/academy/lesson/blooms-taxonomy-and-assessments.html

http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Benjamin_Bloom

http://www.nwlink.com/~donclark/hrd/bloom.html

UNIT 29 CATEGORISING LEARNERS´ MISTAKES

UNIT 29 CATEGORISING LEARNERS´ MISTAKES

We all know how hard it is to learn a second language. And this unit explains us the mistakes that learners make when they are acquiring the target language. These mistakes are categorized into errors and slips.

First, errors are when learners try to say something in the second language and they don’t know how to use the language. For instance, teachers can notice them when there is interference of the L1. Sometimes teachers realize that students use the same pattern of their mother tongue to write in the second language. It is common when pupils are learning the target language. But mistakes are an essential part of learning languages because you realize in which thing you have problems and you could improve your learning process by yourself (learner autonomy).

Second, when students forget things about language because they are tired or something like that it is called slips. The purpose of making mistakes is to learn from them and to improve our accuracy in language. Students have a lot of slips in the classroom sometime they use inappropriate word or utterance at the moment to use the language. When it occurred teacher have look for any way to correct them taking care with students’ motivation.

Finally, always remember that mistakes are the gateway to improvement and are essential to our development. Without mistakes your progress will stall.

Bibliography:

·         Mary Spratt, Alan Pulverness, Melanie Williams (2001) TKT Teaching Knowledge Test course Module 1,2 and 3

·         Retrived

from:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2EpwOB-JWs 

·         Retrived

from: https://www.google.com.ec/search?q=LEARNERS%C2%B4+MISTAKES&biw=1366&bih=623&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjJlY_jl8vKAhXBqR4KHdY8BXAQ_AUIBigB#imgrc=JI_hy5sB-HenMM%3A

UNIT 28 IDENTIFYING FUNCTIONS OF LEARNERS' LANGUAGE

UNIT 28 IDENTIFYING FUNCTIONS OF LEARNERS' LANGUAGE

UNIT 28 IDENTIFYING FUNCTIONS OF LEARNERS' LANGUAGE

Language can vary every time and in every situation so it depends how a person or in this case students use it in order to communicate with others. This unit is related to the use of language in the classroom by students. So the most relevant aspects are range of language functions and the exponents.

First, students use different functions in order to express anything about the class. For example one function they use the first day of class is greeting with teacher and classmates, in this task students use the language in two ways formal to speak with teacher and informal to speak with friends. Another example of it is during the lesson, students often ask for clarifying instruction so language in classroom is very important because it is used with different purpose and we can notice that teachers and students use the same functions.

Second, the grammar or the sentences that students use to express any purpose it is called exponent. The exponents that students decide to use in class depend on the level, needs, context and age. For example, children cannot communicate very well in English but they try to use the language because they have the need to express their ideas. Also pupils have different needs that motivate them to speak in English by using the learning context.

To sum up, students speak in the target language by using some exponents with different functions. 

Bibliography:

·         Mary Spratt, Alan Pulverness, Melanie Williams (2001) TKT Teaching Knowledge Test course Module 1,2 and 3

·         Retrived

              from:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Lzd2Ydv0ls            

UNIT 27 USING LANGUAGE APPROPRIATELY FOR A RANGE OF CLASSROOM FUNCTION

UNIT 27 USING LANGUAGE APPROPRIATELY FOR A RANGE OF CLASSROOM FUNCTION

Language belongs to human beings because all people used it in order to communicate their ideas and thoughts. But not all people know the way to use the language correctly and some people think that teachers have the responsibility to teach it to their students.  For that reason you need to know three important aspects about language these are the concept, the functions and the use of the language appropriately.   

First, Language can be defined as a basic form of communication that humans use by using verbal, symbols, gestures, or motions. Teachers use language every time in class to getting learning attention or to explain any task. For example, in the classroom when teachers instructing students they used language to explain any activity and if they used the inappropriate language students could not understand the task.

Second, Language functions refer to the purposes in which we use language to communicate. As humans we have the necessity to communicate among as so our language is varied like formal, informal, neutral, and have specific grammatical structures and vocabulary are often used with each language function. For example, in the classroom teacher used language for different functions may be to suggesting or to asking something.

Third, teachers need to know which words are appropriate for using in class in order to communicate with students. But also teachers are in charge to modeling the target language for students. For that reason, if a teacher doesn’t correct himself any mistake or error or bad pronunciation students could learn in a wrong way.      

To sum up, the language you use show what kind of people you are.

Bibliography:

•  Mary Spratt, Alan Pulverness, Melanie Williams (2001) TKT Teaching Knowledge Test course Module 1,2 and 3
• ELD Strategies (2009) What are language function 
• Retrived 
• from: https://www.google.com.ec/search?q=language+functions&biw=1366&bih=667&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&sqi=2&ved=0ahUKEwiG8bWc8crKAhVFKB4KHacIC4IQ_AUIBigB#imgrc=TKDoNs-yw36pWM%3A

UNIT 26 SELECTION AND USE OF TEACHING AIDS

UNIT 26 SELECTION AND USE OF TEACHING AIDS

This unit showed some important information about selection and use of teaching aids for teacher to take into account when teaching. We can define teaching aids as the resources and equipment that we find in a classroom some of them are white boards, CD players, Overhead projectors, These things help a lot a teacher giving many advantages.

Also I learnt that the choice of these resources is made based on the different aids that a lesson has. Realia like flashcards, puppets, charts and also the teacher are the most common aids used in class. First of all, realia which are real objects that can be easily bring to the class  make it more dynamic and of course it helps the teacher a lot by making it more varied and the students can feel more interested in learning. 

Moreover, when the teacher uses flashcards, the individual words help students to learn grammatical structures more easily since it provides prompts for students to make the lesson more understandable.On the other hand we have puppets which are very useful for teaching young learners like kids, we can use them in dialogues, conversations, etc. 

Finally, the most important one is the teacher who can use gestures and facial expressions to convey meaning in a lesson. As a result, by using all of these aids we can improve the way we teach and the way the students see the learning process.

Bibliography:

•  Mary Spratt, Alan Pulverness, Melanie Williams (2001) TKT Teaching Knowledge Test course Module 1,2 and 3