English language is a lingua franca that involves the development of a variety of skills in order to use the language in different contexts. How do we, English Language Teachers, make our students be able to function in English?
Nowadays English seems to be the lingua franca used for almost all purposes. Therefore it is stated that English has become a necessity in the globalized world we live in.
Eventhough our country has signed some Free Trade Agreements, we (our culture) still lack of some critical communicative skills as speaking. At this point, I would like to state that we should change the governmental plans of English, which in my opinion do not necessarily encourage students to develop that critical skill. Morever, I think that this situations has helped in the popularity of 'bad' method such as Grammar Translation due to its not use ofthe target language. then The question is the following:
if it is true that English is that important, why don't we teach (plans) more than 2 or 3 hours a week?
first of all I would like to say that, I totally agree with Manuel in his first comment about the necessity of learning English, because nowadays English is everywhere, and that's why is a priority learn it and also acquire it.
this situation in our country looks the same, because Chile is reaching new boundaries in economic fields, but as Manuel stated, Chilean schools are not developing communicative skills, but personally, I think that it is for a reason, and that reason is simple; because our country is still not ready to do it, because a mere modification of some governmental plans is not going to fix the problem, because grammar translation is actually a good method, because it focuses the attention on the essential element of every language, it's grammar, because before you talk you have to have some knowledge about structures and how to use them. the issue with this method is that the way that this one is applied, and in that case the guilt relies on the teacher, and how far he/she can go with this method because our country is not ready yet for such avant-garde methods like Silent Way or Suggestopedia, which demand teachers & students with other mentality... because let's face it those two methods are not going to be useful in our public schools...
We should just adopt what it seems to be useful for our own society. What is the point of establishing some methodologies of world-wide fame that are totally incompatible with Chilean classrooms? Once we have done an in-depth analysis of our classrooms and their students,only then we can shape our classes according to the students' necessities.
As future teachers, we must be able to encourage the development of necessary skills of the students (reading, writing, listening and speaking) for learning and acquiring the English language.
The methodologies that we have been studying during the last time will be very useful for reaching this purpose. I think every method has something interesting that we could recover and use according to the situations. For example, for developing the English language skills, Communicative Language Teaching could be a good method because it integrates the four skills and tries to carry out communicative competences, it means the ability for using the language grammatically correct and, in the proper situation. To develop our capacity for knowing y analyzing about when, how and where use the different elements of these theories will be our main challenge. So, the issue is to be able to carry out a proper selection judgment of the tools at our disposal which will allow us to have a strong background for facing the different situations in a classroom and achieving the development of students’ English language skills.
I agree with almost all the opinions, I think we are not able to implement teaching methods like suggestopedia, direct method, etc...because our reality does not allow us to use them. As we know in private school these methods (and other ones)are implemented without any problems, but what about the public education?I mean, as Victor said a change in the educational pograms will not change our education magically. That`s an utopian dream our government and our society can not understand.I mean, we wanted to have a bilingual country before 2020, but we are not thinking about our students reality. nowadays,students are learning mechanically, but are they developing their language skills? I don think so.
It is a great challenge to make English language to function in a society that, on the one hand, is not bilingual and that does not have the necessary consciousness of the real importance and necessity of the use of this language, on the other. The positions we are in (as teachers) do not allow us to make great things because the plans that the government have already incorporated in concrete school curriculums are very poor and do not convey to the dream of being bilingual. The idea is not to incorporate in the classroom things that are very ambitious and do not fit with the student’s background, affective variables, amount of time, teacher proficiency, and so on, which is the case of Direct Method, for example, because it tries to simulate the natural way in which students learn the language, and this is impossible because of the conditions we are in as a Spanish-speaking country where the environment does not facilitate or foment the use of English and students are not involved in such learning. It is more for advanced learners and it could function in some institutions like the one Charles Berlitz founded. Moreover, Chilean students’ relationship with English language is not unconscious like the one we have while learning our first language (mother tongue); it is learning not ‘acquisition’, so the hardships seem to be more. It seems to me that we have to be more realistic and adapt us to learners’ experience with the English language as well as context in order not to make English language a torture for students but an instance to foment communication. As Savignon said:”…Success in a particular role depends on one’s understanding of the context and on prior experience of a similar kind. Success requires making appropriate choices of register and style in terms of the situation and the other participants” (Savignon, 1997). In this case, I would necessarily apply some characteristics of Grammar Translation Method because it is like the base students need to build their knowledge and transmit what they know or think. I mean, how can we communicate our ideas if we do not manage the grammar rules that guide our speech/writing? In addition, I would take the use of material in the form of dialogue, tapes, and visual aids from the Audiolingual method in order to make students get familiar with the language. I would also take into account their comprehensible input (as much as I can) in order to know the student’s strengths and weaknesses and try to base my teaching on that information. Finally, I would put attention to students’ affective variables because they are determining factors while they face a new language, so I would try to do something about it.
I support the ideas of my classmates about the importance of teaching English, but I believe that our English Educational Programs are very poor because these usually are focusing only the development of one of the four English skills (listening-reading-speaking and writing). In my opinio based on the methods that appearing in the text that we had to read, the best one is the Communicative Language Teaching because it involves the four skills in our students.
On the other hand, we have to motivate our students through this new language (English) in order to achieve the real interested of them in the new subject.
However, we must be conscious of the different difficulties that we can have in our goal that is teaching English in a world where our students can access to many things using the technology. Although, we must take this as a help not as a disadvantage of us, it means, that we can use it in order to develop different activities using technology as a tool to achieve different goals inside our methodology.
finally, we must be prepared to face different situation in our classroom because we must be conscious that we are living in a globalizate world where the most important key of everything is English; for that reason, we as English teachers have an important role to do it in order to improve our Educational System.
First of all, I think that would be necessary to ask ourselves why English is a “lingua franca”. There are strong political, economical reasons for that to be so. However, answering the question given right now in this post, I’d rather to start saying that it is —although not impossible—per se difficult to make our students good performers of English, principally spoken English, due to the particular conditions of our country —among others, there are few opportunities in daily life for the students to practice English skills. At the same time, the challenge is really to face those limitations, to try very hard to do the best, in order for us as teachers to be able to improve the communicative competencies of our students. We want to have proficient students in English language, so we need to create the most suitable environment, not only in classroom but also in general social interaction: maybe forums, English clubs, movies and/or lectures along with discussions, etc., in sum, to create opportunities in daily life for the students become more proficient in mastering the target language, because, as the text shows, communicative competence “may be defined as the ability to function in a truly communicative setting…” (the underline is mine). One different or added goal could be to analyse how to match competence and performance by means of constantly entering students in communicative situations. As a teacher would be needed to know very well each of the factors that constitutes “language competence”, which at the end of the day will speak very well of us as really professional teachers. That is to say, it is necessary to try to get the language competencies at its organizational and pragmatic levels. Trying to define which kind of students DO we truly want to reach is an important issue as well—people as tourists (I’m quoting the text, p. 9) or people who will be able to interact in real interactive settings. At least, within the idea of proficiency, seem to be needed to reach people able to interact by knowing “a language well enough to use it for some real-world purpose”.
Today, our purposes (as future teachers) have been increasing in terms of how teaching can be improved or can be achieved on students who just manage their mother tongue. We are going to be future English teachers, so we have to know or perceive which methods or methodologies could work in a classroom with students who just speak a first language.
My experience showed me that teaching English without translation or just using the mother tongue do not work to achieve the English´s competences due to students are too interiorized with their first language and feel this foreign language too "complicated". So, I think we have to be careful if we are going to include a type of method; for example; The Direct one. This emphasizes to learn a second language interacting only in the Target language al the time but does it result in every context? I mean, in public/private schools?
On the other hand, all of you know what the four skills are and which ones can be easier to teach/learn or not, and it depends of us what kind of tools we are going to use to teach this language (games, pair work, etc.). Therefore, we have to analyze the students´s reality first (as Manuel said), to check their English´s level, to observe or aks their interests, and later to include the method we are going to apply in the classroom.
I really think that we as English teachers have to be eclectic in order to choose the better suggestions that these methods propose us, so in this way we can apply them in our classrooms according to our reality. I am aware of almost all these methods cannot be employed completely in Chilean classrooms not only because our conditions are not the best but also because them were created in other culture without considering our lacks, but being eclectic is a good start. That is our challenge as teachers and we must do it well, that is the reason why we must know about teaching methods and also due to the importance that English has today.
For this reason we as foreing language teachers have to focus in our conditions to teach instead of trying to reproduce every method that can function in other countries.
It is true that our country is in front of the gates of world-wide trade and technology development, and that English is almost the only way to accede to these benefits. But if it is so important, why just recently the Chilean government starts to really worry about it?
That is one of the problems of Chilean education, parliamentarian care about important things just when Chile seems in disadvantage with other countries.
As somebody said out there, we should not pretend to take famous but useless methologies which do not fit in our student's realities and do not fill their needs. As a teacher i rather prefer a work methodology based on the problems Chilean English teachers' have to overcome when teaching this subject. We need to make our students feel comfortable and conscious about the necessity of English to front the future.
Based on the methodologies we have treated in classes, I would like to proof if the natural approach would benefit our students' acquisition of this lingua franca, since as we did when learning our mother tongue, we passed a great time receiving input until we say a thing, so students will benefit from that silent period. Then when students arrive to another stage of their English development, teacher could try out other methodologies.
I think that could be impossible to implement an audiolingual method in our schools because these are not prepared for that. I think a teacher could choose for a most suitable method to produce student who can develop their language skills in a real setting.
I believe that we, as second language teachers, must be careful that one student not only has to know about grammar but also put into practice those rules. So, we should practice what Swain has stated “students should relate the rules in the language use”. In this context, the teachers can produce the communicative competence in the students. In this way, the students are going to be able to have a good development in a real environment. In my opinion, a good activity to evaluate grammar rules can be that students present a dialogue.
I think many of my classmates have identified the problems our country face when tries to reach good levels of English proficiecy. The way I understand this is that only a little part of our population feels the need of learning English as something so close as a second language, because they know it is going to be useful in their future travels, studies, and jobs. Being realistic the amount of people nowadays think is going to study or work abroad is very few. There is a great majority who thinks they are never going to need English managment in their future daily lives. It is then when, in my opinion, the role of the teacher is crucial. It is our task to show our students the world it is possible to acces to when we manage a language in the proper way. In this point I agree with Canale and Swain when they point at the importance of the Sociolinguistic Competence (among others)in which "the second language can be used or understood appropriately in various contexts to convey specific communicative functions..." Following the point I can add how important is to show our students that learning (or acquiring, as others like to say) is not that they use to do in their English classes concerning to learn some vocabulary or some gammatical stuctures for saying hello and goodbye. We can show them how satisfying result to understand the lyric of a song or the jargon of a movie from their real contexts. Teaching through close aspects of our students lives.Show them it is not something that is so far. Maroa Amanda Cuevas
I still remember when the educational minister in 2003, said that Chile would be a bilingual country in 2010. Allegedly, Government brought american people in order to help to reach this dream. However, Chilean education is too far from that. Some students don’t even know good “Spanish” and we are thinking in learn a second language and handle it almost like our mother tongue. Chile is not prepare for this. As English teacher, we should help our students to realize the importance of English in the world and how it would help them, try to solve their cultural problems and level students’ knowledge. Besides, teachers need to encourage students’ interest, because of the typical classes traslating texts and completing things are not attractive methods. Finally, we have to know our students; their likes and dislikes, what they think, and so on, in order to realize how they are and adapt the different methods and activities according to their multiple intelligences and try to cover the majority of them.
As future English teachers, our role will be fundamental in the process of students' English learning because depending on what we teach students will be their performance and development of the language in different situations. The importance of the English languge is growing every day and it become essential nowadays as a requirement, for example, to get a job, to travel abroad or to get a degree. For those reasons, it is very imprtant our performance in the classrooms and also, to focus our teaching in an outstanding students' learning. To do that, it is necessary to provide students of favourable situations in classes or in task in order to prepare them for any different situation where they will require the use of English language, because, as I said, they will not use English just for school purposes. As Savignon said: " Communication takes place in an infinite variety of situations, and success in a particular role depends on one's understanding of the context and on prior experience of a similar kind. Success requires making appropiate choices of register and style in terms of the situation and the other participants" (Savignon 1997, p. 15)so that, to make our students to be able to function in English it is fundamental to give them the enough tools and knowledge at school because this is the best place to that in order to make them prepare to face life situations where they could use English language.
I can add that the main problem because English language is not function as we would like, it is because teachers put more attention on teaching grammar competences rather than communicative ones. It seems that English is just grammar, and during the whole schooling the most important is to know rules and traduce texts; finally, when students finished high school, most of them, (especially the ones who studied in public schools) don’t know how to manage a basic conversation with a foreign person. So, teachers should be focused more on performance what they can do with the language, that it is most important, rather than on the competence what they know (Chomsky). However, It doesn’t mean that grammar is not important but we as future teachers should be capable enough to incorporate into Chilean classroom the four major components that were mentioned by Savignon and others scholars: grammatical competence, sociolinguistic competence, discourse competence and strategic competence. Therefore, we should develop in our students the four skills (reading, listening, writing and speaking). So, my idea would be to do a class explaining grammatical rules and then with what I explained them, do some conversations and/or pieces of writing. All those things, previously considering learners’ background in order to we, as teachers, can plan the contents meaningful for them and according to their ages, difficulties, abilities, and contexts where students are involved.
Finally, I think that we shouldn’t blame English Educational System; the responsibility of a good education is part of everyone, especially of us, teachers. Consequently, if we really want to become in a bilingual country, we should do our best effort, if materials are not available, we should look for ourselves the tools that we need or we may just use basic things, sometimes with few and cheap things we can do fantastic class all depending on teachers' creativity, motivation and passion.
Today in our schools teachers are pain attentions in grammar competence more than communicative ones, that’s why as futures teacher we have to be able to develop in our futures students all the competences, especially we have to be capable to teach how to use the language appropriately. Both receptively and productively, in real situations (Dell Hymes)
For that reason, I will focus on methods like: Grammar translation because as Mayra said is the base that students need to build their knowledge and transmit what they think. Thereby, grammar plays an important role in construct correct sentences even though grammar is teaching during a whole period. Moreover, Natural approach has two important tenets: the affective filter hypothesis and the input hypothesis. The first one is related with the learner’s emotional state, it is important because the students have to be calm, have to be a high self- esteem etc. and the second one because… the more comprehensible input the greater the L2 proficiency. Comprehensible input is presented in the target language, using techniques such as TPR, mime and gesture. Group techniques are similar to Communicative Language Teaching and Learners start to talk when they are ready… (Krashen and Terrel 1983)
To finish this comment I would like to say that Chile is far to be a bilingual country because in our educational system the communicative competences are not well developed.
We all know the relevance that English language has nowadays, but we have to be aware of some possible negative aspects because we do not have to forget what issues are useful for our students. We have to remember what chilean reality is, and we cannot pretend to implement all foreing techniques because they do not work at all in our culture, so we have to know clearly what the target language is according to our necessities as a developing country. It is important pointing out that there is no a method better than other, and we, as English teachers, must decide among them and try to choose the best one when we want to develop a specific skill in our students.
Furthermore, English teachers, in order to develop communicative proficiency in students, have to be competent in CLT. They have to put the lenguage in context making it comprehensible for students as Dell Hymes suggested. Besides, we(as English teachers)have to know the social environment where students live in order to get the target language, but they also have to focus in the values to be developed in students.
It is known that the way that English has been taught in our classrooms is not the better one, especially in our public schools. Most of private schools hold their own paradigms, methods and approaches about English teaching, and "the secret" of their success is based mainly on privileged educational and social conditions as: a lower number of students per classroom (which do not exceed at least twenty or twenty five students)good sources and materials, and a good environment which promotes the necessary spaces to reach a meaningful learning.
Even though these facts have an important influence, I think that the key factor that determines a succesful process of learning is a good teacher who manages the language, and the most important thing: he/she must be capable to teach and make students learn using the four basic skills: listening, reading, speaking and writing.
According to CLT principles, some recommended activities to develop in classrooms are interviews, information gaps, role plays and so on. How a teacher who doesn't manage the necessary communicative competences pretends teach something that he/she is not really good at? As I pointed earlier, is essential that the achievement of meaningful communicative competences don't continue being a "gap" in Chilean Education, not only in chilean classrooms ( I mean the students) but also in English teachers training. When I'm referring to the concept of communicative competence is not just something related with accuracy; (in terms of grammar structure,for example)it is related mainly with being able to communicate something, incorporating what students know, live and think?
"Communicative competence may be defined as the ability to function in a truly communicative setting-that is, in a dynamic exchange in which linguistic competence must adapt itslef to the total informational input, both linguistic and paralinguistic, of one or more interlocutors". Teaching language in context, Alice OMaggio.
We all know that teaching English in our country, especially in public schools, is very difficult because of the nature of the English teacher and the students. Today many students have lost their interest in learning another language because teachers are focused in translating texts and in teaching grammar; however many other students are interested in learning the language because they want to communicate with foreign people and understand what they are saying. According to Chomsky, a learner develops the language naturally, but what happens with a second, or in our case, a FOREIGN language?. We all know that grammar is not the best way to learn the language, and it is our case because we aren't learning by studying grammar. Since our first year, we are being exposed to the language, and today we can communicate each other. Savignon says "...successful communication would depend largely on individuals’ willingness to take the risk and express themselves in the foreign language…”, so if an English teacher is not willing to talk with the students, how are they going to be willing to produce? We really need to change our minds and to give back to the students the possibility of learning a language that will be useful in their lives, and to encourage them to lose the fear they have with the language. There are many different ways to teach English, and teachers have lost so much time in teaching structures and vocabulary that will never be useful for the students. Macarena Vidal N. Section 2
Which are the aspects, we future English teachers, need to consider in order to make our students success in this process? I think the main points are the following.
Communicative Language Teaching is the theory that teachers use to develop a Communicative Competence in students learning a language. In my opinion, these would be the acceptable frameworks for the students to function in the language. Why do I say acceptable? Because it seems to be a more complete theory that does not focus only in developing one aspect or skill, like the theories we studied Audiolingual, Grammar Transaltion, etc…
What does it mean that a student is communicative competent? According to Savignon competence is “a presumed underlying ability”. Chomsky says that “it refers to one’s implicit or explicit knowledge of the system of the language”. To reach this challenge goal of developing a student who possesses a communicative competence we, English teachers, need to start from the base that the way the students are going to learn the language is trough communication. This learning must be based on real communication settings in which students interact, communicate meaningful contents and/or tasks among them that connect and integrate in somehow the four skills in a way that students receive and produce real life messages if it is possible at the very beginning. The students’ correct production or manifestation of these aspects would lead to a successful performance; hence students would be able to function in English. This seems pretty simple but all of us know that is not and that we have so many things to work on in order to have students that are really communicate competent English. This depends on students, governmental laws, society and teachers where we could do a lot.
Most of the Chilean people could think that English is not more than a language imposed to be learned to become Chile a bilingual country. Some of the students do not know the purposes of this subject in the school and they do not want to learn it. This situation can be changed if we as teachers take the responsibility of inform the importance of this language in our society. To learn English or other languages means a tool of globalization, is the possibility to know other cultures and other people, via internet or traveling to foreign countries. The limits imposed for each country should not be a block interposed between us as humans. We can destroy that block by means communication more than businesses, treaties or commerce because economically in those factors is fundamental to speak English, but if we talk about fraternity and society we can discover more important and transcendent aspects that can benefit our society in a stable way. I think that the strongest strategy we can use as teachers is motivation. Is common to see children frustrated for not be good in English, the idea is to convince them to reach that with effort and to show them that not all can learn at the same way and time. If they have the disposition, motivation and a clear objective to reach, to guide them will be easier because teachers have the elements to teach; just to know how to apply these elements is necessary. Valeria Opazo
As we all know English is a lingua franca in the sense that it is the main way we all have to communicate in global issues. There is obviously a great need for students to acquire this language in so little time. However, for one or another reason students have not reached standards in order to become proficient in this language for the purpose of communication. I consider that the reason why students have not acquired the necessary skills is due to many factors that they and their teachers should be able to overcome as a team. Teachers should be able to apply the right method in order to teach students the best they could with the purpose of enhancing students’ skills and knowledge about this subject matter. However, not everything has to do with students’ ability to learn, I support the idea that teachers should be more than a mediator in order to achieve the idea of students to become proficient in English; I mean, the teacher should be involved in students’ learning process in relation to their skills, problems, needs, feelings, and concerns. The teacher must become more a need analyst, and a counselor than a simple instructor. An example of this is the case of students who live in a high risk level school where children are being affected by many problems during their daily life, so the question here is: how to manage students in order them to overcome this situation, learning English when they are thinking of their problems? So, in this case we must apply the right method which makes them feel like studying and improving themselves. That is the main difference that we, as future teachers should have in mind in order to change the normal way thing have been always developed during class time.
Without questions, the Chilean government is making efforts in order to improve the level of accuracy in English language (Inglés Abre Puertas). However for responding your question is necessary to keep in mind that the level of education is according to the level of socioeconomic income that students’ parents have. Therefore the entire inequality of levels of education is the biggest wall that any teachers must overcome. My point is that teachers are able to teach anything perfectly if they have all necessary materials to do their work. In cases where you find 45 students in a classroom, and there are no materials, the process of teaching is impossible. Because the development of skills in order to use language in different contexts implies the use of an appropriate environment, classroom of 25-30 students, and lastly an useful technology for this purpose.
If I were the boss of a school, I putted 25 students per class, enough technology for developing listening and speaking skills. I improved the hours of English language per week to four.
Firstly, as teachers of English we must understand what teaching English in a global world means. English has become the universal language of our global society, which means that Chilean people and people in general need to know how to communicate in English to be part of this society. Thus, our mission is vitally important since we are providing our students with this important tool.
But, how can we reach that our students communicate in English so that they can have access to this global society?
First, Teachers of English need to switch their practice from a grammar-based teaching to a communicative competence- based one. Savignon (1972) defined communicative competence as “…the ability to function in a truly communicative setting…” Therefore, we must teach the language in such a way that the students be able to communicate in real situations which seems to be impossible in a grammar-based language classroom where structure and form are more attended than meaning. Dell hylmes argues that not only the ability to form correct sentences is included in communicative competence but also to use them at appropriate times.
Second, English teachers should be able to apply what they know about communicative competence in their L2 classrooms. The teacher should be eclectic in developing different type of activities to develop students’ four basic communicative skills (listening, reading, speaking and writing). No matter what activity is being developed during the class, it should develop student’s ability to communicate meaningfully. Canale and Swain (1980) formulated a theoretical framework for communicative competence that should be included in English language teaching. It considers four main components: grammatical competence, sociolinguistic competence, discourse competence and strategic competence.
As future English teacher, it is necessary consider that every method or approach would be appropriated depending on what context in which we will working on. Often, pedagogical courses students tend to think that some of these methods and approaches are obsolete;however,we have to keep in mind that every one have something positive. I believe that Direct Method or the Grammar Translation Method would be the correct for teaching a specific topic and in the other hand, Suggestopedia will be perfect to support another one(s) to make the learning a little more meaningful. Personally, I am sure the Sociolinguistic Competence is not only appropriated but also essential for students can be able to function in English trhough the developing in students the written and oral performing later, and for achieving successfully the Communicative Competence at the end of the almost eight years of formal English language subject.
I have read some of the comments of my classmates and I am completely agree with them. First of all, English has become a necesity in our lives. Every thing around us has to do with English lke internet, tv programs, games, music, movies and also the advertising in some places. We know that the plans for our country is to became bilingual, but now that we are a little more close to the educational system we realized that there is a hard and long road for English in our country. The goberment is making efforts to get the goals and overcome the difficulties, but it seems to be not enough. I believe this needs group work. It would be important to give English subject more importance. For exaple, to give moere hours of english as the rest of the main subjecs. There is a wrong idea in our society, it is considered that english is only for people who will go to the university or have better opportunities. Because of that, students in public school are less willing to learn the language. At this point teachers must develop methos and strategies to encourage their students, to motivate them. unfortunatly, there is a big difference between public and private schools; so, teachers must work in a different way having in mind the background of the students. I would try to focus on the communication skills. I think when you do something you learn better. Teachers need to be aware of that difference as also of the ways in which the students learn. Other necesary thing is that teachers of english shoud be able to aplly all what they know. To be teacher means much more than people believe. To be teachers means to give knoledge, to help to built it, but also to guide. Throught education we can improve society and quality of life.
First of all, I would like to start by saying that I like my classmates´ comments about that in nowadays it is very important English around the world, and also for our country.
The problem is that our country needs to change a lot of things in order to become a bilingual country before 2020. Probably, as teachers we are going to be the only English speaking people available to students, and although our time with any of our students are going to be limited, we can structure effective communication skills in the classroom. Students need to have a better English program whit much hours, workshops, clubs etc. For example, in the web page “usingenglish.com”, I read that teachers should recognize the ways in which their teaching skills can be adapted for the teaching of English for specific purposes. We have to learn how we can select, design and organize course materials, supporting the students in their efforts, and providing them with feedback on their progress.
In my opinion, every method is very useful depending on the environment conditions, students´ behavior, contexts and other factors. However, in the Chilean educational system I think that the best method to apply would be the Communicative Language Teaching because this method involves being worried about the four skills that a student needs to develop and improve during his or her educational years. In contrast to the Grammar translation method, which is one of the most common method used in schools I can say that there is no attention paid to accurate pronunciation. Furthermore, there is no attention paid to the use of language in communication and on the activities of listening and speaking. Therefore, by using the communicative language teaching students are going to learn the four skills. For example; students can write letters, through visual and listening activities the students can improve their level of English and also as a teacher we can know about their weakness and strengths.
To conclude my opinion I want to say that We have to show the best methods and strategies to make the learning process interesting, we have to encourage and motivate our students to learn English in their own lives. We are going to have on our hands an important role maybe for many years, so we have to be prepared for the different difficulties.
Cecilia Alarcón Rojas
References: http://www.usingenglish.com/teachers/article*s/teaching-english-for-specific-purposes-esp.html Approaches and Methods – an overview (adapted from Nunan 1989)
First of all, regarding we have seen in the course, we have to consider that there are many elements which can affect the student´s learning process. Here, I can mention, according to krashen, self-confidence, motivation and the affective filter among others. Likewise, we also have to pay attention on the context we are going to work and the learners’ capacities and abilities.
Moreover, we, as training teachers, must know and be prepared to face different situations where I am sure that we will need to know a lot of about how children act, react, and learn considering that each of them has specific ways and styles of learning. Another important point I would like to highlight is that we have to take into account that as a teacher we are in charge of making up a good atmosphere in this essential process. For that reason, to improve language competence, it is necessary to apply all of our knowledge to build a good environment, but that this environment obviously that has to be helped by my motivation, creating a relaxed air into the classroom, like first step. Second, I will put in practice some theories that can be useful according to the context; personally I would like that student are able to produce some speeches without putting attention on their grammatical mistakes, but I would like to give them the opportunity to develop all of their skill to reinforce and support communicative competences in order to get a good fluency and correcting grammatical mistakes throughout the process. Here, direct method could be a good alternative using English all the time.
Finally I would like to complement with groups work since I consider that communicating and interacting with other people is very important when you want to learn a second language. In this way I will apply interaction hypothesis to support my teaching process without forgetting the technology which is an essential tool in nowadays.
nowadays, as a future english teachers we know the importance of learning a second language in this global world. So, we should be able to work this challenge with our future students with the ue of some methods, approaches and techniques in which we can promote the importance of learning a second language in our students, and generating new knowledge in every single class. how we do our classes is very important as teachers as students because we are the responsable for achieving new knowledge succesfully in our students, and the students are the responsable for getting that knowledge sucessfully. it is for that reason that all these methods, approaches and techniques that we have seen during these weeks will be very useful for us. For example suggestopedia is a very complex methods for being used in this time, but it will be very useful as a warm-up activity in the class because the students will be totally motivated to learn a new knowledge, new words, and new competences, because the students will have time to relax, to listen to the teacher with a little text, and learn in a different way.
focusing on the communicative competences, we should be able to help students to become in efficient users of the englisg language using all of the habilities of the language, that is, speaking,listening, writing, and reading.for example with activities used in the CCL methods in which students develop their competences loosing their shiness and translate phrases in their mother tongue to english, or activties used in the audiolingual methods in which the students follow what teacher is saying and they develop their listening comprehension in a reinforcement way. Just in that way studennts will be able to achieve a certain level of english, using different methods with the purpose for being proficient users of the language.
i forgot to say that another very important way that it would be very useful for achieving that our student bacome in a proficient users of the english language could be the grammar translation because the students develop their competences in a easier way using firly their mother tongue, because in this way if the classes are taught in their mother tongue the sutdents feel closer to the other language because they achieve understand all the words and readings easily. this methods would be very useful just in their first classes in a way to close the students with the foreign language...
It is necessary to change typical English classes, I think each class has to focus on different activities in order to create a variety of issues, I mean with the purpose to involve students in the learning process. Teachers should focus not only on grammar explanation but focus on the learning language function, which means language use appropriately in real situations. Also, teachers should be facilitators, so it is very important to use the necessary tools for helping students to apply knowledge in several aspects with adequate proficiency to communicate. According to David Nunan (1991) there are five features of CLT, one of them is an attempt to link classroom language learning with language activities outside the classroom. For that reason, Teachers have to encourage the use of accessible technology, because students can develop their abilities in an effective way, for example search information on internet, read magazine and articles on line, watch and listen to videos in English, etc. We have to motivate students to practice in the classroom and outside in order to facilitate an active learning.
Wow... a lot of long answers... ok, here it’s mine
The fact that a language is a lingua franca involves that is used in many different contexts [even if the main purpose is economical development of the country]. So, yes we have to accept that this language is english and not another... Anyway... according to this variety of contexts in which we want the students to be proficient in the language, it is needed a very complete education, this would take more time than what it is spent nowadays in chilean classrooms, so, sticking to this country situation, teachers can only do our best with the little time and limited tools we have [or will have, actually]. The most important thing, or at least the one that is more urgent is to teach students to be able to communicate using the language. To communicate themselves in daily situations.
In English classes, teachers can use different methods [providing a lot of input, using techonology tools (dialogs, vocabulary, etc) so students can practice all the skills] and ways to motivate students to learn english also outside school [for example, by watching movies, television, listeting to music, etc... because english does not have to be listening to boring dialogs all the time]. Finally, it is important, actually, the most important thing is that teachers have to encourage students and facilitate them to be able to learn this language just as another language and to keep their identity and not to assume that English speaking countries are THE model for us, you know, we are free.
Thanks to the globalization, English is near us more than we think. As we know.. to be competent on english language allow us to have better opportunities in terms of jobs.. or well.. we all know the benefits of english. The issue is.. how to make the students understand this.. and how to make them be competent into this language.
First of all...apart from all those methods than my classmates mentioned... (which are important of course) we have to motivate our students and make them feel eager to learn, make them understand that to know a second language, in this case english, is essential for every person to develop in this global society.
In terms on.. HOW to make the students be able to function in English.. there are certain methods, but since there are just few hours of english classes.. we should to divide them in order to work the 4 necessary skills. We used to do that in my school.. and it worked great. If we talk about a certain method, the most complete is Communicative Language Teaching, since it involves the main skills the students need to be proficient in a language. ANyways, language is to communicate right?...
Communicative language teaching, in my view, it would work in the classroom because is not traditional as for example Grammar translation method that focuses on grammar only ¬¬ right. as i said.. language is for communication purposes.. so, students need to learn by real situations, the materials used for teachers need to be real and actual. Other issue of this method is that the teacher is a facilitator here.. so students are responsible for their learning, we have to give them the chance to encourage themselves to try out this new language. The teacher could provide the learning environment principally, but we have to motivate them, that's the main point.
Firs of all, I would like to say that I agree totally with my classmates with regards to that English is a lingua franca and we know that English is used in everywhere and is necessary to learn some grammatical rules of it.
Well, I think that the main problem now in the classroom is that teachers teach grammar and they do not focus in the others skills (speaking, reading, and listening). I do not think that grammar is not important but what happen with the grammar rules learnt inside the classroom? The students do not practice and do not apply them. Although I think that we have to learn grammar before if we want to communicate.
If we want to develop the four skills we could use the method called Communicative Language Teaching because it " blends listening, speaking, reading and writing". Also one of the goals of this method is developing communicative competence. "Communicative Competence may defined as the ability to function in a truly communicative setting" (Savignon, 1972). So as future teachers we have to think a way for including this one. A good way are the activities related to it such as: dialogues but not normally memorized, translation only if the students need it, reading and writing from the first day, among others activities.
Another thing is we could know our students, I mean feelings, ideas, etc. and at the same time we can find some techniques for motivating them. Besides teachers should learn more about the strategies that the student use for learning and acquiring language. Now, we have more access easily to the technologies, so teachers can include tools related to technology as ppt, internet, web page, etc. Furthermore we were learning some methods and maybe we can take from them the goals, the methods and the others things and apply these ones at the moment of teaching a language.
Nowadays, English language is almost the word lingua franca which is not only used for communication among people, but also it is commonly used in technology issues and many other things, so it is a necessary and useful tool for students surrounded by an environment full of communication and competition.
According to that, I believe that CLT is a very good way to give the students the chance to acquire the English language. The reasons for that statement is that CLT provides grammar rules in an implicit way, so students don't have to memorize a complete set of rules to start talking the target language. However, I think that the Chilean reality is different because in public schools students have at the most four ours a week for the English module; consequently, in my concern it is too little time to keep the students practicing the target language. Besides, there are few well prepared teachers of this module which have produced a situation in which students haven't been receiving a meaningful input and they have not been surrounded by the target language.
As a conclusion, it is important for us to change this situations and motivate the students to acquire the target language and sourround them by it. Concequently, CLT could be a good alternative to change this situation. We have to remember that all of us are going be in this sistem of education, so it is our work to find the best way too improve the English language teaching of our country.
It's easy to say that we can use any of different L2 theories for making the students talk in english. But, the real fact is there are two big factors that define the success of this process; the classroom environment, and the teacher’s skills. I’m referring, in one way, to things like the students’ socio-cultural and the school conditions, because a teacher must know individual aspects and skills of his students. Also, to know about their background experiences, in order to understand the process in with the students become the person that is now. Therefore, the teacher will be able to shape the student’s developing skills into what he is looking for. In other way, the school characteristics are also conditions that affect the classroom environment. For example, a school with 30 students is not an easy stage for the teacher to perform. Also, a public school no always has the necessary tool to create a favorable environment for English teaching. These conditions could affect the teacher and student’s performance; because the teacher could not prepare a class in the way he wanted and the student could not have contact with the necessary tools for learning (Internet, audio CDs, English texts) About the teacher skills, I can say that the teacher not only has to know about theories but also having the skills to adjust these theories into his context. Because this theories where made in a different classroom context. And not always developed in a real classroom environment. So, the main aim is to have the ability to create a classroom environment with active learners who will be to perform in English on each class, and to have the necessary tools to create this environment…
As the majority of you have said, English is the language of the Globalization. The question is: Can we say that our country is doing something to help chilean students to achieve a good level in English speaking when they finish their high school? If we see around of us, we can find students doing traslation of long texts or lerning by heart long lists of regular and irregular verbs, but it is really difficult find students learning trough speaking or learning trough listening the language. We can certainly say that doing only translations students can learn all about English language? We can imagine the answer by our own experience. Learning what a word means is good, but we cannot are based only in that part of English teaching. Although grammar is more precise, the students only can learn a new language making mistakes, as Gattegno said: “making mistakes is an essential part of learning”. Teachers must combine in a good way the four abilities (reading, listening, writing and speaking) and pay special attention in speaking because it can demonstrate the intake of the students, what they really know about English language.
We live in a country were years ago the english was not important, but nowadays we live in a globalized world, so english is not something that we can ignore because if we think about the importance of learn and also acquire the english, I could say that it is as importanta as our mother tongue, but the bad thing in this discussion is that students and chilean people and also many people in the world don't realize about how important is to learn and to acquire the english to communicate in this globalized world that we live in. if we, future teacher of english, want to make our country a english speaking country we have to start changing our student's mind beacuse most of them don't realize about how important is to learn and acquire this language. If we think about all that teaching methods( that are very important and I think that these methods work) I would like to say that is not only apply this methds in classrooms, first we have to prepare our students and make them undrstand the importance of their leanrning, and how importnat is that they learn a second language ( english, the mundial language). We as teacher of english have to motivate our students to larn the english and develop their skills in terms of mak the a globalized students. I think that chile is not a english speaking country yet, because many people still think that learn english is not importan and those people transmit those thoughts to tehir kids and because of this students are not motivate to learn this second language, and I think that w as future teachers of english could change this situation motivating our tudents with modern methods, linking the english with things of their interest, making the english part of their lives.
First of all, it is really difficult to answer this question due to we have to mark the students down as only one type of students, who learn at the same time and make the same efforts to learn and work in the same task. Nowadays, the idea of having the same kind of students is almost obsolete and they are (or should be) considered as individuals, with different ideas and learning strategies and speeds. Despite this kind of controversy, there are many ways to encourage students to learn a second language (in this case, English) and be able to perform it well. In my opinion, the most important point to bear in mind when teaching a foreign language is teachers’ skills. If teacher is not able to communicate (including certain degree of proficiency) in the target language, he will be not able to teach that language, so we can compare this with one dumb person teaching other to talk (impossible? YES) Teacher’s communicative competencies are essential to encourage the students to go one step beyond and feel engage with learning the target language. Other important part is teacher skill to teach, I mean the way of teaching that he/she uses to generate input and receive output. In my opinion, all teachers must manage an eclectic set of teaching theories, methodologies and methods in order to meet the students’ needs. If one teacher only manages the TPR, it would be difficult to him to teach abstract concepts due to they can not be thought by using only body language. Also, it is important to encourage the students to show their competence in their performance, because there are many factors such as anxiety and tension that can affect this process and make the students feel almost frustrated with the language (using ideas from Krashen’s affective filter hypothesis). So, one other important point for teachers to bear in mind is to provide the students a relaxed and natural learning environment where all of them can feel comfortable and willingness to learn, making this process a cooperative and not a competitive one. To finish my comment (and leaving so many ideas out), I would like to emphasize that teachers are 50% responsible of students’ achievements, so it is very important to do our job well.
Well my dear students and teacher, I personally don't think that english must be "the" priority nowadays in our country. I would first emphasize the development of the "common sense" and principles(based on the western culture and the Judeo-Christian values) of our teachers and students "with" the english language as a tool not as a the main and only goal. It would be also fruitful to teach our young students of pedagogy to be creative and autonomous to, in this way, they can adopt new strategies of teaching taking to acccounut the context of the students and not imposing old-fashioned methods, like the ones we are seeing now such as the grammar translation method or community language learning, without analysing it. They were useful and do still now, but the times have changed and we need be more inquisitive. pd: I don't think that writing a lot means effective, so I wrote what I believe it is the necessary Bye ;)
Firstly, we have to take into account that there are some external factors that influence in the students learning such as didactic resources, the number of students in a classroom, the time for learning a second language, among others (output). Even though teachers apply some methods for teaching English, students’ll not learn English if external factors impacted negatively in their learning. From my point of view, CLT is a good alternative to make our students function in English. CLT helps students to acquire different skills which allow them to perform in several context s by using listening, speaking, reading or writing. I believe that communicative competence is a very good method for teaching an English language, but how effective is CLT in Chilean classrooms, which lack of ideal resources for developing it? I think that CLT is the most effective method to communicate each other because it considers the four areas of English language, but in order for this method functions it is necessary to think about all of those external aspects that impact in English teaching.
In nowadays we all now how important Ënglish is, in a globalized world. Now is necesary to have good English teachers to teach this second language. For that reason in the area of competences we are studying the methods, techniques and aproaches, but is not only important know them, we have to now how to apply them, according with the real context of the students, and what they have to learn depending on the grade. The teacher is the responsible of the student learning process, for that reason we have to teach the right thing, and more important is to be prepared every class. Another point that is relevant is to put into practice the four abilities of English... to teach English in a completly way.
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ReplyDeleteNowadays English seems to be the lingua franca used for almost all purposes. Therefore it is stated that English has become a necessity in the globalized world we live in.
ReplyDeleteEventhough our country has signed some Free Trade Agreements, we (our culture) still lack of some critical communicative skills as speaking. At this point, I would like to state that we should change the governmental plans of English, which in my opinion do not necessarily encourage students to develop that critical skill. Morever, I think that this situations has helped in the popularity of 'bad' method such as Grammar Translation due to its not use ofthe target language. then The question is the following:
if it is true that English is that important, why don't we teach (plans) more than 2 or 3 hours a week?
first of all I would like to say that, I totally agree with Manuel in his first comment about the necessity of learning English, because nowadays English is everywhere, and that's why is a priority learn it and also acquire it.
ReplyDeletethis situation in our country looks the same, because Chile is reaching new boundaries in economic fields, but as Manuel stated, Chilean schools are not developing communicative skills, but personally, I think that it is for a reason, and that reason is simple; because our country is still not ready to do it, because a mere modification of some governmental plans is not going to fix the problem, because grammar translation is actually a good method, because it focuses the attention on the essential element of every language, it's grammar, because before you talk you have to have some knowledge about structures and how to use them. the issue with this method is that the way that this one is applied, and in that case the guilt relies on the teacher, and how far he/she can go with this method because our country is not ready yet for such avant-garde methods like Silent Way or Suggestopedia, which demand teachers & students with other mentality... because let's face it those two methods are not going to be useful in our public schools...
We should just adopt what it seems to be useful for our own society. What is the point of establishing some methodologies of world-wide fame that are totally incompatible with Chilean classrooms? Once we have done an in-depth analysis of our classrooms and their students,only then we can shape our classes according to the students' necessities.
ReplyDeleteAs future teachers, we must be able to encourage the development of necessary skills of the students (reading, writing, listening and speaking) for learning and acquiring the English language.
ReplyDeleteThe methodologies that we have been studying during the last time will be very useful for reaching this purpose. I think every method has something interesting that we could recover and use according to the situations. For example, for developing the English language skills, Communicative Language Teaching could be a good method because it integrates the four skills and tries to carry out communicative competences, it means the ability for using the language grammatically correct and, in the proper situation. To develop our capacity for knowing y analyzing about when, how and where use the different elements of these theories will be our main challenge. So, the issue is to be able to carry out a proper selection judgment of the tools at our disposal which will allow us to have a strong background for facing the different situations in a classroom and achieving the development of students’ English language skills.
Marian Zurita A.
I agree with almost all the opinions, I think we are not able to implement teaching methods like suggestopedia, direct method, etc...because our reality does not allow us to use them. As we know in private school these methods (and other ones)are implemented without any problems, but what about the public education?I mean, as Victor said a change in the educational pograms will not change our education magically. That`s an utopian dream our government and our society can not understand.I mean, we wanted to have a bilingual country before 2020, but we are not thinking about our students reality. nowadays,students are learning mechanically, but are they developing their language skills? I don think so.
ReplyDeleteMario Vial Aliaga
It is a great challenge to make English language to function in a society that, on the one hand, is not bilingual and that does not have the necessary consciousness of the real importance and necessity of the use of this language, on the other. The positions we are in (as teachers) do not allow us to make great things because the plans that the government have already incorporated in concrete school curriculums are very poor and do not convey to the dream of being bilingual. The idea is not to incorporate in the classroom things that are very ambitious and do not fit with the student’s background, affective variables, amount of time, teacher proficiency, and so on, which is the case of Direct Method, for example, because it tries to simulate the natural way in which students learn the language, and this is impossible because of the conditions we are in as a Spanish-speaking country where the environment does not facilitate or foment the use of English and students are not involved in such learning. It is more for advanced learners and it could function in some institutions like the one Charles Berlitz founded. Moreover, Chilean students’ relationship with English language is not unconscious like the one we have while learning our first language (mother tongue); it is learning not ‘acquisition’, so the hardships seem to be more. It seems to me that we have to be more realistic and adapt us to learners’ experience with the English language as well as context in order not to make English language a torture for students but an instance to foment communication. As Savignon said:”…Success in a particular role depends on one’s understanding of the context and on prior experience of a similar kind. Success requires making appropriate choices of register and style in terms of the situation and the other participants” (Savignon, 1997). In this case, I would necessarily apply some characteristics of Grammar Translation Method because it is like the base students need to build their knowledge and transmit what they know or think. I mean, how can we communicate our ideas if we do not manage the grammar rules that guide our speech/writing? In addition, I would take the use of material in the form of dialogue, tapes, and visual aids from the Audiolingual method in order to make students get familiar with the language. I would also take into account their comprehensible input (as much as I can) in order to know the student’s strengths and weaknesses and try to base my teaching on that information. Finally, I would put attention to students’ affective variables because they are determining factors while they face a new language, so I would try to do something about it.
ReplyDeleteMayra Flores Riveros
I support the ideas of my classmates about the importance of teaching English, but I believe that our English Educational Programs are very poor because these usually are focusing only the development of one of the four English skills (listening-reading-speaking and writing). In my opinio based on the methods that appearing in the text that we had to read, the best one is the Communicative Language Teaching because it involves the four skills in our students.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, we have to motivate our students through this new language (English) in order to achieve the real interested of them in the new subject.
However, we must be conscious of the different difficulties that we can have in our goal that is teaching English in a world where our students can access to many things using the technology. Although, we must take this as a help not as a disadvantage of us, it means, that we can use it in order to develop different activities using technology as a tool to achieve different goals inside our methodology.
finally, we must be prepared to face different situation in our classroom because we must be conscious that we are living in a globalizate world where the most important key of everything is English; for that reason, we as English teachers have an important role to do it in order to improve our Educational System.
Margarita Ahumada Vergara
First of all, I think that would be necessary to ask ourselves why English is a “lingua franca”. There are strong political, economical reasons for that to be so. However, answering the question given right now in this post, I’d rather to start saying that it is —although not impossible—per se difficult to make our students good performers of English, principally spoken English, due to the particular conditions of our country —among others, there are few opportunities in daily life for the students to practice English skills. At the same time, the challenge is really to face those limitations, to try very hard to do the best, in order for us as teachers to be able to improve the communicative competencies of our students.
ReplyDeleteWe want to have proficient students in English language, so we need to create the most suitable environment, not only in classroom but also in general social interaction: maybe forums, English clubs, movies and/or lectures along with discussions, etc., in sum, to create opportunities in daily life for the students become more proficient in mastering the target language, because, as the text shows, communicative competence “may be defined as the ability to function in a truly communicative setting…” (the underline is mine).
One different or added goal could be to analyse how to match competence and performance by means of constantly entering students in communicative situations.
As a teacher would be needed to know very well each of the factors that constitutes “language competence”, which at the end of the day will speak very well of us as really professional teachers. That is to say, it is necessary to try to get the language competencies at its organizational and pragmatic levels. Trying to define which kind of students DO we truly want to reach is an important issue as well—people as tourists (I’m quoting the text, p. 9) or people who will be able to interact in real interactive settings. At least, within the idea of proficiency, seem to be needed to reach people able to interact by knowing “a language well enough to use it for some real-world purpose”.
REINALDO CORTÉS V.
Today, our purposes (as future teachers) have been increasing in terms of how teaching can be improved or can be achieved on students who just manage their mother tongue. We are going to be future English teachers, so we have to know or perceive which methods or methodologies could work in a classroom with students who just speak a first language.
ReplyDeleteMy experience showed me that teaching English without translation or just using the mother tongue do not work to achieve the English´s competences due to students are too interiorized with their first language and feel this foreign language too "complicated". So, I think we have to be careful if we are going to include a type of method; for example; The Direct one. This emphasizes to learn a second language interacting only in the Target language al the time but does it result in every context? I mean, in public/private schools?
On the other hand, all of you know what the four skills are and which ones can be easier to teach/learn or not, and it depends of us what kind of tools we are going to use to teach this language (games, pair work, etc.). Therefore, we have to analyze the students´s reality first (as Manuel said), to check their English´s level, to observe or aks their interests, and later to include the method we are going to apply in the classroom.
I really think that we as English teachers have to be eclectic in order to choose the better suggestions that these methods propose us, so in this way we can apply them in our classrooms according to our reality. I am aware of almost all these methods cannot be employed completely in Chilean classrooms not only because our conditions are not the best but also because them were created in other culture without considering our lacks, but being eclectic is a good start.
ReplyDeleteThat is our challenge as teachers and we must do it well, that is the reason why we must know about teaching methods and also due to the importance that English has today.
For this reason we as foreing language teachers have to focus in our conditions to teach instead of trying to reproduce every method that can function in other countries.
María José Acevedo
It is true that our country is in front of the gates of world-wide trade and technology development, and that English is almost the only way to accede to these benefits. But if it is so important, why just recently the Chilean government starts to really worry about it?
ReplyDeleteThat is one of the problems of Chilean education, parliamentarian care about important things just when Chile seems in disadvantage with other countries.
As somebody said out there, we should not pretend to take famous but useless methologies which do not fit in our student's realities and do not fill their needs. As a teacher i rather prefer a work methodology based on the problems Chilean English teachers' have to overcome when teaching this subject. We need to make our students feel comfortable and conscious about the necessity of English to front the future.
Based on the methodologies we have treated in classes, I would like to proof if the natural approach would benefit our students' acquisition of this lingua franca, since as we did when learning our mother tongue, we passed a great time receiving input until we say a thing, so students will benefit from that silent period. Then when students arrive to another stage of their English development, teacher could try out other methodologies.
Eric Valenzuela.
I think that could be impossible to implement an audiolingual method in our schools because these are not prepared for that. I think a teacher could choose for a most suitable method to produce student who can develop their language skills in a real setting.
ReplyDeleteI believe that we, as second language teachers, must be careful that one student not only has to know about grammar but also put into practice those rules. So, we should practice what Swain has stated “students should relate the rules in the language use”. In this context, the teachers can produce the communicative competence in the students. In this way, the students are going to be able to have a good development in a real environment. In my opinion, a good activity to evaluate grammar rules can be that students present a dialogue.
Tania Figueroa Castro
I think many of my classmates have identified the problems our country face when tries to reach good levels of English proficiecy.
ReplyDeleteThe way I understand this is that only a little part of our population feels the need of learning English as something so close as a second language, because they know it is going to be useful in their future travels, studies, and jobs. Being realistic the amount of people nowadays think is going to study or work abroad is very few. There is a great majority who thinks they are never going to need English managment in their future daily lives.
It is then when, in my opinion, the role of the teacher is crucial. It is our task to show our students the world it is possible to acces to when we manage a language in the proper way.
In this point I agree with Canale and Swain when they point at the importance of the Sociolinguistic Competence (among others)in which "the second language can be used or understood appropriately in various contexts to convey specific communicative functions..."
Following the point I can add how important is to show our students that learning (or acquiring, as others like to say) is not that they use to do in their English classes concerning to learn some vocabulary or some gammatical stuctures for saying hello and goodbye. We can show them how satisfying result to understand the lyric of a song or the jargon of a movie from their real contexts.
Teaching through close aspects of our students lives.Show them it is not something that is so far.
Maroa Amanda Cuevas
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ReplyDeleteI still remember when the educational minister in 2003, said that Chile would be a bilingual country in 2010. Allegedly, Government brought american people in order to help to reach this dream. However, Chilean education is too far from that. Some students don’t even know good “Spanish” and we are thinking in learn a second language and handle it almost like our mother tongue. Chile is not prepare for this. As English teacher, we should help our students to realize the importance of English in the world and how it would help them, try to solve their cultural problems and level students’ knowledge. Besides, teachers need to encourage students’ interest, because of the typical classes traslating texts and completing things are not attractive methods. Finally, we have to know our students; their likes and dislikes, what they think, and so on, in order to realize how they are and adapt the different methods and activities according to their multiple intelligences and try to cover the majority of them.
ReplyDeleteJosé Barrios Barrios
Section 1
As future English teachers, our role will be fundamental in the process of students' English learning because depending on what we teach students will be their performance and development of the language in different situations.
ReplyDeleteThe importance of the English languge is growing every day and it become essential nowadays as a requirement, for example, to get a job, to travel abroad or to get a degree. For those reasons, it is very imprtant our performance in the classrooms and also, to focus our teaching in an outstanding students' learning. To do that, it is necessary to provide students of favourable situations in classes or in task in order to prepare them for any different situation where they will require the use of English language, because, as I said, they will not use English just for school purposes. As Savignon said: " Communication takes place in an infinite variety of situations, and success in a particular role depends on one's understanding of the context and on prior experience of a similar kind. Success requires making appropiate choices of register and style in terms of the situation and the other participants" (Savignon 1997, p. 15)so that, to make our students to be able to function in English it is fundamental to give them the enough tools and knowledge at school because this is the best place to that in order to make them prepare to face life situations where they could use English language.
Soledad Gutièrrez Sànchez
I can add that the main problem because English language is not function as we would like, it is because teachers put more attention on teaching grammar competences rather than communicative ones. It seems that English is just grammar, and during the whole schooling the most important is to know rules and traduce texts; finally, when students finished high school, most of them, (especially the ones who studied in public schools) don’t know how to manage a basic conversation with a foreign person. So, teachers should be focused more on performance what they can do with the language, that it is most important, rather than on the competence what they know (Chomsky). However, It doesn’t mean that grammar is not important but we as future teachers should be capable enough to incorporate into Chilean classroom the four major components that were mentioned by Savignon and others scholars: grammatical competence, sociolinguistic competence, discourse competence and strategic competence. Therefore, we should develop in our students the four skills (reading, listening, writing and speaking). So, my idea would be to do a class explaining grammatical rules and then with what I explained them, do some conversations and/or pieces of writing. All those things, previously considering learners’ background in order to we, as teachers, can plan the contents meaningful for them and according to their ages, difficulties, abilities, and contexts where students are involved.
ReplyDeleteFinally, I think that we shouldn’t blame English Educational System; the responsibility of a good education is part of everyone, especially of us, teachers. Consequently, if we really want to become in a bilingual country, we should do our best effort, if materials are not available, we should look for ourselves the tools that we need or we may just use basic things, sometimes with few and cheap things we can do fantastic class all depending on teachers' creativity, motivation and passion.
María de las Mercedes Salas R
Today in our schools teachers are pain attentions in grammar competence more than communicative ones, that’s why as futures teacher we have to be able to develop in our futures students all the competences, especially we have to be capable to teach how to use the language appropriately. Both receptively and productively, in real situations (Dell Hymes)
ReplyDeleteFor that reason, I will focus on methods like: Grammar translation because as Mayra said is the base that students need to build their knowledge and transmit what they think. Thereby, grammar plays an important role in construct correct sentences even though grammar is teaching during a whole period. Moreover, Natural approach has two important tenets: the affective filter hypothesis and the input hypothesis. The first one is related with the learner’s emotional state, it is important because the students have to be calm, have to be a high self- esteem etc. and the second one because… the more comprehensible input the greater the L2 proficiency. Comprehensible input is presented in the target language, using techniques such as TPR, mime and gesture. Group techniques are similar to Communicative Language Teaching and Learners start to talk when they are ready… (Krashen and Terrel 1983)
To finish this comment I would like to say that Chile is far to be a bilingual country because in our educational system the communicative competences are not well developed.
Mara López Castañeda
We all know the relevance that English language has nowadays, but we have to be aware of some possible negative aspects because we do not have to forget what issues are useful for our students. We have to remember what chilean reality is, and we cannot pretend to implement all foreing techniques because they do not work at all in our culture, so we have to know clearly what the target language is according to our necessities as a developing country. It is important pointing out that there is no a method better than other, and we, as English teachers, must decide among them and try to choose the best one when we want to develop a specific skill in our students.
ReplyDeleteFurthermore, English teachers, in order to develop communicative proficiency in students, have to be competent in CLT. They have to put the lenguage in context making it comprehensible for students as Dell Hymes suggested.
Besides, we(as English teachers)have to know the social environment where students live in order to get the target language, but they also have to focus in the values to be developed in students.
It is known that the way that English has been taught in our classrooms is not the better one, especially in our public schools. Most of private schools hold their own paradigms, methods and approaches about English teaching, and "the secret" of their success is based mainly on privileged educational and social conditions as: a lower number of students per classroom (which do not exceed at least twenty or twenty five students)good sources and materials, and a good environment which promotes the necessary spaces to reach a meaningful learning.
ReplyDeleteEven though these facts have an important influence, I think that the key factor that determines a succesful process of learning is a good teacher who manages the language, and the most important thing: he/she must be capable to teach and make students learn using the four basic skills: listening, reading, speaking and writing.
According to CLT principles, some recommended activities to develop in classrooms are interviews, information gaps, role plays and so on. How a teacher who doesn't manage the necessary communicative competences pretends teach something that he/she is not really good at? As I pointed earlier, is essential that the achievement of meaningful communicative competences don't continue being a "gap" in Chilean Education, not only in chilean classrooms ( I mean the students) but also in English teachers training. When I'm referring to the concept of communicative competence is not just something related with accuracy; (in terms of grammar structure,for example)it is related mainly with being able to communicate something, incorporating what students know, live and think?
"Communicative competence may be defined as the ability to function in a truly communicative setting-that is, in a dynamic exchange in which linguistic competence must adapt itslef to the total informational input, both linguistic and paralinguistic, of one or more interlocutors".
Teaching language in context, Alice OMaggio.
We all know that teaching English in our country, especially in public schools, is very difficult because of the nature of the English teacher and the students.
ReplyDeleteToday many students have lost their interest in learning another language because teachers are focused in translating texts and in teaching grammar; however many other students are interested in learning the language because they want to communicate with foreign people and understand what they are saying.
According to Chomsky, a learner develops the language naturally, but what happens with a second, or in our case, a FOREIGN language?. We all know that grammar is not the best way to learn the language, and it is our case because we aren't learning by studying grammar.
Since our first year, we are being exposed to the language, and today we can communicate each other. Savignon says "...successful communication would depend largely on individuals’ willingness to take the risk and express themselves in the foreign language…”, so if an English teacher is not willing to talk with the students, how are they going to be willing to produce?
We really need to change our minds and to give back to the students the possibility of learning a language that will be useful in their lives, and to encourage them to lose the fear they have with the language. There are many different ways to teach English, and teachers have lost so much time in teaching structures and vocabulary that will never be useful for the students.
Macarena Vidal N.
Section 2
Which are the aspects, we future English teachers, need to consider in order to make our students success in this process? I think the main points are the following.
ReplyDeleteCommunicative Language Teaching is the theory that teachers use to develop a Communicative Competence in students learning a language. In my opinion, these would be the acceptable frameworks for the students to function in the language. Why do I say acceptable? Because it seems to be a more complete theory that does not focus only in developing one aspect or skill, like the theories we studied Audiolingual, Grammar Transaltion, etc…
What does it mean that a student is communicative competent? According to Savignon competence is “a presumed underlying ability”. Chomsky says that “it refers to one’s implicit or explicit knowledge of the system of the language”. To reach this challenge goal of developing a student who possesses a communicative competence we, English teachers, need to start from the base that the way the students are going to learn the language is trough communication. This learning must be based on real communication settings in which students interact, communicate meaningful contents and/or tasks among them that connect and integrate in somehow the four skills in a way that students receive and produce real life messages if it is possible at the very beginning. The students’ correct production or manifestation of these aspects would lead to a successful performance; hence students would be able to function in English. This seems pretty simple but all of us know that is not and that we have so many things to work on in order to have students that are really communicate competent English. This depends on students, governmental laws, society and teachers where we could do a lot.
Name: Valeria Leiva Arenas
Section: 2
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ReplyDeleteMost of the Chilean people could think that English is not more than a language imposed to be learned to become Chile a bilingual country. Some of the students do not know the purposes of this subject in the school and they do not want to learn it. This situation can be changed if we as teachers take the responsibility of inform the importance of this language in our society. To learn English or other languages means a tool of globalization, is the possibility to know other cultures and other people, via internet or traveling to foreign countries. The limits imposed for each country should not be a block interposed between us as humans. We can destroy that block by means communication more than businesses, treaties or commerce because economically in those factors is fundamental to speak English, but if we talk about fraternity and society we can discover more important and transcendent aspects that can benefit our society in a stable way.
ReplyDeleteI think that the strongest strategy we can use as teachers is motivation. Is common to see children frustrated for not be good in English, the idea is to convince them to reach that with effort and to show them that not all can learn at the same way and time. If they have the disposition, motivation and a clear objective to reach, to guide them will be easier because teachers have the elements to teach; just to know how to apply these elements is necessary.
Valeria Opazo
As we all know English is a lingua franca in the sense that it is the main way we all have to communicate in global issues. There is obviously a great need for students to acquire this language in so little time. However, for one or another reason students have not reached standards in order to become proficient in this language for the purpose of communication. I consider that the reason why students have not acquired the necessary skills is due to many factors that they and their teachers should be able to overcome as a team.
ReplyDeleteTeachers should be able to apply the right method in order to teach students the best they could with the purpose of enhancing students’ skills and knowledge about this subject matter. However, not everything has to do with students’ ability to learn, I support the idea that teachers should be more than a mediator in order to achieve the idea of students to become proficient in English; I mean, the teacher should be involved in students’ learning process in relation to their skills, problems, needs, feelings, and concerns. The teacher must become more a need analyst, and a counselor than a simple instructor.
An example of this is the case of students who live in a high risk level school where children are being affected by many problems during their daily life, so the question here is: how to manage students in order them to overcome this situation, learning English when they are thinking of their problems? So, in this case we must apply the right method which makes them feel like studying and improving themselves.
That is the main difference that we, as future teachers should have in mind in order to change the normal way thing have been always developed during class time.
Paula Adasme A.
Without questions, the Chilean government is making efforts in order to improve the level of accuracy in English language (Inglés Abre Puertas). However for responding your question is necessary to keep in mind that the level of education is according to the level of socioeconomic income that students’ parents have. Therefore the entire inequality of levels of education is the biggest wall that any teachers must overcome. My point is that teachers are able to teach anything perfectly if they have all necessary materials to do their work. In cases where you find 45 students in a classroom, and there are no materials, the process of teaching is impossible. Because the development of skills in order to use language in different contexts implies the use of an appropriate environment, classroom of 25-30 students, and lastly an useful technology for this purpose.
ReplyDeleteIf I were the boss of a school, I putted 25 students per class, enough technology for developing listening and speaking skills. I improved the hours of English language per week to four.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteFirstly, as teachers of English we must understand what teaching English in a global world means. English has become the universal language of our global society, which means that Chilean people and people in general need to know how to communicate in English to be part of this society. Thus, our mission is vitally important since we are providing our students with this important tool.
ReplyDeleteBut, how can we reach that our students communicate in English so that they can have access to this global society?
First, Teachers of English need to switch their practice from a grammar-based teaching to a communicative competence- based one. Savignon (1972) defined communicative competence as “…the ability to function in a truly communicative setting…” Therefore, we must teach the language in such a way that the students be able to communicate in real situations which seems to be impossible in a grammar-based language classroom where structure and form are more attended than meaning. Dell hylmes argues that not only the ability to form correct sentences is included in communicative competence but also to use them at appropriate times.
Second, English teachers should be able to apply what they know about communicative competence in their L2 classrooms. The teacher should be eclectic in developing different type of activities to develop students’ four basic communicative skills (listening, reading, speaking and writing). No matter what activity is being developed during the class, it should develop student’s ability to communicate meaningfully. Canale and Swain (1980) formulated a theoretical framework for communicative competence that should be included in English language teaching. It considers four main components: grammatical competence, sociolinguistic competence, discourse competence and strategic competence.
As future English teacher, it is necessary consider that every method or approach would be appropriated depending on what context in which we will working on.
ReplyDeleteOften, pedagogical courses students tend to think that some of these methods and approaches are obsolete;however,we have to keep in mind that every one have something positive.
I believe that Direct Method or the Grammar Translation Method would be the correct for teaching a specific topic and in the other hand, Suggestopedia will be perfect to support another one(s) to make the learning a little more meaningful.
Personally, I am sure the Sociolinguistic Competence is not only appropriated but also essential for students can be able to function in English trhough the developing in students the written and oral performing later, and for achieving successfully the Communicative Competence at the end of the almost eight years of formal English language subject.
I have read some of the comments of my classmates and I am completely agree with them. First of all, English has become a necesity in our lives. Every thing around us has to do with English lke internet, tv programs, games, music, movies and also the advertising in some places. We know that the plans for our country is to became bilingual, but now that we are a little more close to the educational system we realized that there is a hard and long road for English in our country. The goberment is making efforts to get the goals and overcome the difficulties, but it seems to be not enough. I believe this needs group work. It would be important to give English subject more importance. For exaple, to give moere hours of english as the rest of the main subjecs.
ReplyDeleteThere is a wrong idea in our society, it is considered that english is only for people who will go to the university or have better opportunities. Because of that, students in public school are less willing to learn the language. At this point teachers must develop methos and strategies to encourage their students, to motivate them. unfortunatly, there is a big difference between public and private schools; so, teachers must work in a different way having in mind the background of the students. I would try to focus on the communication skills. I think when you do something you learn better. Teachers need to be aware of that difference as also of the ways in which the students learn. Other necesary thing is that teachers of english shoud be able to aplly all what they know. To be teacher means much more than people believe. To be teachers means to give knoledge, to help to built it, but also to guide. Throught education we can improve society and quality of life.
First of all, I would like to start by saying that I like my classmates´ comments about that in nowadays it is very important English around the world, and also for our country.
ReplyDeleteThe problem is that our country needs to change a lot of things in order to become a bilingual country before 2020. Probably, as teachers we are going to be the only English speaking people available to students, and although our time with any of our students are going to be limited, we can structure effective communication skills in the classroom. Students need to have a better English program whit much hours, workshops, clubs etc.
For example, in the web page “usingenglish.com”, I read that teachers should recognize the ways in which their teaching skills can be adapted for the teaching of English for specific purposes. We have to learn how we can select, design and organize course materials, supporting the students in their efforts, and providing them with feedback on their progress.
In my opinion, every method is very useful depending on the environment conditions, students´ behavior, contexts and other factors. However, in the Chilean educational system I think that the best method to apply would be the Communicative Language Teaching because this method involves being worried about the four skills that a student needs to develop and improve during his or her educational years. In contrast to the Grammar translation method, which is one of the most common method used in schools I can say that there is no attention paid to accurate pronunciation. Furthermore, there is no attention paid to the use of language in communication and on the activities of listening and speaking. Therefore, by using the communicative language teaching students are going to learn the four skills. For example; students can write letters, through visual and listening activities the students can improve their level of English and also as a teacher we can know about their weakness and strengths.
To conclude my opinion I want to say that We have to show the best methods and strategies to make the learning process interesting, we have to encourage and motivate our students to learn English in their own lives. We are going to have on our hands an important role maybe for many years, so we have to be prepared for the different difficulties.
Cecilia Alarcón Rojas
References:
http://www.usingenglish.com/teachers/article*s/teaching-english-for-specific-purposes-esp.html
Approaches and Methods – an overview (adapted from Nunan 1989)
First of all, regarding we have seen in the course, we have to consider that there are many elements which can affect the student´s learning process. Here, I can mention, according to krashen, self-confidence, motivation and the affective filter among others. Likewise, we also have to pay attention on the context we are going to work and the learners’ capacities and abilities.
ReplyDeleteMoreover, we, as training teachers, must know and be prepared to face different situations where I am sure that we will need to know a lot of about how children act, react, and learn considering that each of them has specific ways and styles of learning. Another important point I would like to highlight is that we have to take into account that as a teacher we are in charge of making up a good atmosphere in this essential process. For that reason, to improve language competence, it is necessary to apply all of our knowledge to build a good environment, but that this environment obviously that has to be helped by my motivation, creating a relaxed air into the classroom, like first step. Second, I will put in practice some theories that can be useful according to the context; personally I would like that student are able to produce some speeches without putting attention on their grammatical mistakes, but I would like to give them the opportunity to develop all of their skill to reinforce and support communicative competences in order to get a good fluency and correcting grammatical mistakes throughout the process. Here, direct method could be a good alternative using English all the time.
Finally I would like to complement with groups work since I consider that communicating and interacting with other people is very important when you want to learn a second language. In this way I will apply interaction hypothesis to support my teaching process without forgetting the technology which is an essential tool in nowadays.
Luis Campos
nowadays, as a future english teachers we know the importance of learning a second language in this global world. So, we should be able to work this challenge with our future students with the ue of some methods, approaches and techniques in which we can promote the importance of learning a second language in our students, and generating new knowledge in every single class.
ReplyDeletehow we do our classes is very important as teachers as students because we are the responsable for achieving new knowledge succesfully in our students, and the students are the responsable for getting that knowledge sucessfully. it is for that reason that all these methods, approaches and techniques that we have seen during these weeks will be very useful for us. For example suggestopedia is a very complex methods for being used in this time, but it will be very useful as a warm-up activity in the class because the students will be totally motivated to learn a new knowledge, new words, and new competences, because the students will have time to relax, to listen to the teacher with a little text, and learn in a different way.
focusing on the communicative competences, we should be able to help students to become in efficient users of the englisg language using all of the habilities of the language, that is, speaking,listening, writing, and reading.for example with activities used in the CCL methods in which students develop their competences loosing their shiness and translate phrases in their mother tongue to english, or activties used in the audiolingual methods in which the students follow what teacher is saying and they develop their listening comprehension in a reinforcement way. Just in that way studennts will be able to achieve a certain level of english, using different methods with the purpose for being proficient users of the language.
i forgot to say that another very important way that it would be very useful for achieving that our student bacome in a proficient users of the english language could be the grammar translation because the students develop their competences in a easier way using firly their mother tongue, because in this way if the classes are taught in their mother tongue the sutdents feel closer to the other language because they achieve understand all the words and readings easily. this methods would be very useful just in their first classes in a way to close the students with the foreign language...
ReplyDeleteIt is necessary to change typical English classes, I think each class has to focus on different activities in order to create a variety of issues, I mean with the purpose to involve students in the learning process. Teachers should focus not only on grammar explanation but focus on the learning language function, which means language use appropriately in real situations. Also, teachers should be facilitators, so it is very important to use the necessary tools for helping students to apply knowledge in several aspects with adequate proficiency to communicate. According to David Nunan (1991) there are five features of CLT, one of them is an attempt to link classroom language learning with language activities outside the classroom. For that reason, Teachers have to encourage the use of accessible technology, because students can develop their abilities in an effective way, for example search information on internet, read magazine and articles on line, watch and listen to videos in English, etc.
ReplyDeleteWe have to motivate students to practice in the classroom and outside in order to facilitate an active learning.
Israel Navarrete O.
Wow... a lot of long answers... ok, here it’s mine
ReplyDeleteThe fact that a language is a lingua franca involves that is used in many different contexts [even if the main purpose is economical development of the country]. So, yes we have to accept that this language is english and not another... Anyway... according to this variety of contexts in which we want the students to be proficient in the language, it is needed a very complete education, this would take more time than what it is spent nowadays in chilean classrooms, so, sticking to this country situation, teachers can only do our best with the little time and limited tools we have [or will have, actually]. The most important thing, or at least the one that is more urgent is to teach students to be able to communicate using the language. To communicate themselves in daily situations.
In English classes, teachers can use different methods [providing a lot of input, using techonology tools (dialogs, vocabulary, etc) so students can practice all the skills] and ways to motivate students to learn english also outside school [for example, by watching movies, television, listeting to music, etc... because english does not have to be listening to boring dialogs all the time]. Finally, it is important, actually, the most important thing is that teachers have to encourage students and facilitate them to be able to learn this language just as another language and to keep their identity and not to assume that English speaking countries are THE model for us, you know, we are free.
I hope that answers the question...
Karime Carrasco.
Thanks to the globalization, English is near us more than we think. As we know.. to be competent on english language allow us to have better opportunities in terms of jobs.. or well.. we all know the benefits of english. The issue is.. how to make the students understand this.. and how to make them be competent into this language.
ReplyDeleteFirst of all...apart from all those methods than my classmates mentioned... (which are important of course) we have to motivate our students and make them feel eager to learn, make them understand that to know a second language, in this case english, is essential for every person to develop in this global society.
In terms on.. HOW to make the students be able to function in English.. there are certain methods, but since there are just few hours of english classes.. we should to divide them in order to work the 4 necessary skills. We used to do that in my school.. and it worked great. If we talk about a certain method, the most complete is Communicative Language Teaching, since it involves the main skills the students need to be proficient in a language. ANyways, language is to communicate right?...
Communicative language teaching, in my view, it would work in the classroom because is not traditional as for example Grammar translation method that focuses on grammar only ¬¬ right. as i said.. language is for communication purposes.. so, students need to learn by real situations, the materials used for teachers need to be real and actual. Other issue of this method is that the teacher is a facilitator here.. so students are responsible for their learning, we have to give them the chance to encourage themselves to try out this new language. The teacher could provide the learning environment principally, but we have to motivate them, that's the main point.
Camila Gutiérrez M.
Firs of all, I would like to say that I agree totally with my classmates with regards to that English is a lingua franca and we know that English is used in everywhere and is necessary to learn some grammatical rules of it.
ReplyDeleteWell, I think that the main problem now in the classroom is that teachers teach grammar and they do not focus in the others skills (speaking, reading, and listening). I do not think that grammar is not important but what happen with the grammar rules learnt inside the classroom? The students do not practice and do not apply them. Although I think that we have to learn grammar before if we want to communicate.
If we want to develop the four skills we could use the method called Communicative Language Teaching because it " blends listening, speaking, reading and writing". Also one of the goals of this method is developing communicative competence. "Communicative Competence may defined as the ability to function in a truly communicative setting" (Savignon, 1972). So as future teachers we have to think a way for including this one. A good way are the activities related to it such as: dialogues but not normally memorized, translation only if the students need it, reading and writing from the first day, among others activities.
Another thing is we could know our students, I mean feelings, ideas, etc. and at the same time we can find some techniques for motivating them. Besides teachers should learn more about the strategies that the student use for learning and acquiring language.
Now, we have more access easily to the technologies, so teachers can include tools related to technology as ppt, internet, web page, etc. Furthermore we were learning some methods and maybe we can take from them the goals, the methods and the others things and apply these ones at the moment of teaching a language.
Carolina Faúndes
Section 1
Nowadays, English language is almost the word lingua franca which is not only used for communication among people, but also it is commonly used in technology issues and many other things, so it is a necessary and useful tool for students surrounded by an environment full of communication and competition.
ReplyDeleteAccording to that, I believe that CLT is a very good way to give the students the chance to acquire the English language. The reasons for that statement is that CLT provides grammar rules in an implicit way, so students don't have to memorize a complete set of rules to start talking the target language. However, I think that the Chilean reality is different because in public schools students have at the most four ours a week for the English module; consequently, in my concern it is too little time to keep the students practicing the target language. Besides, there are few well prepared teachers of this module which have produced a situation in which students haven't been receiving a meaningful input and they have not been surrounded by the target language.
As a conclusion, it is important for us to change this situations and motivate the students to acquire the target language and sourround them by it. Concequently, CLT could be a good alternative to change this situation. We have to remember that all of us are going be in this sistem of education, so it is our work to find the best way too improve the English language teaching of our country.
It's easy to say that we can use any of different L2 theories for making the students talk in english. But, the real fact is there are two big factors that define the success of this process; the classroom environment, and the teacher’s skills.
ReplyDeleteI’m referring, in one way, to things like the students’ socio-cultural and the school conditions, because a teacher must know individual aspects and skills of his students. Also, to know about their background experiences, in order to understand the process in with the students become the person that is now. Therefore, the teacher will be able to shape the student’s developing skills into what he is looking for.
In other way, the school characteristics are also conditions that affect the classroom environment. For example, a school with 30 students is not an easy stage for the teacher to perform. Also, a public school no always has the necessary tool to create a favorable environment for English teaching. These conditions could affect the teacher and student’s performance; because the teacher could not prepare a class in the way he wanted and the student could not have contact with the necessary tools for learning (Internet, audio CDs, English texts)
About the teacher skills, I can say that the teacher not only has to know about theories but also having the skills to adjust these theories into his context. Because this theories where made in a different classroom context. And not always developed in a real classroom environment.
So, the main aim is to have the ability to create a classroom environment with active learners who will be to perform in English on each class, and to have the necessary tools to create this environment…
Luis Alvarez
As the majority of you have said, English is the language of the Globalization.
ReplyDeleteThe question is: Can we say that our country is doing something to help chilean students to achieve a good level in English speaking when they finish their high school?
If we see around of us, we can find students doing traslation of long texts or lerning by heart long lists of regular and irregular verbs, but it is really difficult find students learning trough speaking or learning trough listening the language. We can certainly say that doing only translations students can learn all about English language? We can imagine the answer by our own experience. Learning what a word means is good, but we cannot are based only in that part of English teaching. Although grammar is more precise, the students only can learn a new language making mistakes, as Gattegno said: “making mistakes is an essential part of learning”.
Teachers must combine in a good way the four abilities (reading, listening, writing and speaking) and pay special attention in speaking because it can demonstrate the intake of the students, what they really know about English language.
Sherezada Ruz
We live in a country were years ago the english was not important, but nowadays we live in a globalized world, so english is not something that we can ignore because if we think about the importance of learn and also acquire the english, I could say that it is as importanta as our mother tongue, but the bad thing in this discussion is that students and chilean people and also many people in the world don't realize about how important is to learn and to acquire the english to communicate in this globalized world that we live in.
ReplyDeleteif we, future teacher of english, want to make our country a english speaking country we have to start changing our student's mind beacuse most of them don't realize about how important is to learn and acquire this language. If we think about all that teaching methods( that are very important and I think that these methods work) I would like to say that is not only apply this methds in classrooms, first we have to prepare our students and make them undrstand the importance of their leanrning, and how importnat is that they learn a second language ( english, the mundial language). We as teacher of english have to motivate our students to larn the english and develop their skills in terms of mak the a globalized students.
I think that chile is not a english speaking country yet, because many people still think that learn english is not importan and those people transmit those thoughts to tehir kids and because of this students are not motivate to learn this second language, and I think that w as future teachers of english could change this situation motivating our tudents with modern methods, linking the english with things of their interest, making the english part of their lives.
First of all, it is really difficult to answer this question due to we have to mark the students down as only one type of students, who learn at the same time and make the same efforts to learn and work in the same task. Nowadays, the idea of having the same kind of students is almost obsolete and they are (or should be) considered as individuals, with different ideas and learning strategies and speeds. Despite this kind of controversy, there are many ways to encourage students to learn a second language (in this case, English) and be able to perform it well.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, the most important point to bear in mind when teaching a foreign language is teachers’ skills. If teacher is not able to communicate (including certain degree of proficiency) in the target language, he will be not able to teach that language, so we can compare this with one dumb person teaching other to talk (impossible? YES) Teacher’s communicative competencies are essential to encourage the students to go one step beyond and feel engage with learning the target language.
Other important part is teacher skill to teach, I mean the way of teaching that he/she uses to generate input and receive output. In my opinion, all teachers must manage an eclectic set of teaching theories, methodologies and methods in order to meet the students’ needs. If one teacher only manages the TPR, it would be difficult to him to teach abstract concepts due to they can not be thought by using only body language.
Also, it is important to encourage the students to show their competence in their performance, because there are many factors such as anxiety and tension that can affect this process and make the students feel almost frustrated with the language (using ideas from Krashen’s affective filter hypothesis). So, one other important point for teachers to bear in mind is to provide the students a relaxed and natural learning environment where all of them can feel comfortable and willingness to learn, making this process a cooperative and not a competitive one.
To finish my comment (and leaving so many ideas out), I would like to emphasize that teachers are 50% responsible of students’ achievements, so it is very important to do our job well.
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ReplyDeleteWell my dear students and teacher, I personally don't think that english must be "the" priority nowadays in our country. I would first emphasize the development of the "common sense" and principles(based on the western culture and the Judeo-Christian values) of our teachers and students "with" the english language as a tool not as a the main and only goal. It would be also fruitful to teach our young students of pedagogy to be creative and autonomous to, in this way, they can adopt new strategies of teaching taking to acccounut the context of the students and not imposing old-fashioned methods, like the ones we are seeing now such as the grammar translation method or community language learning, without analysing it. They were useful and do still now, but the times have changed and we need be more inquisitive.
ReplyDeletepd: I don't think that writing a lot means effective, so I wrote what I believe it is the necessary
Bye ;)
Firstly, we have to take into account that there are
ReplyDeletesome external factors that influence in the students learning such
as didactic resources, the number of students in a classroom,
the time for learning a second language, among others (output). Even though
teachers apply some methods for teaching English, students’ll not learn English
if external factors impacted negatively in their learning.
From my point of view, CLT is a good alternative to make our students function in English.
CLT helps students to acquire different skills which allow them to perform in several context s by using listening, speaking, reading or writing. I believe that communicative competence is a very good method for teaching an English language, but how effective is CLT in Chilean classrooms, which lack of ideal resources for developing it?
I think that CLT is the most effective method to communicate each other because it considers the four areas of English language, but in order for this method functions it is necessary to
think about all of those external aspects that impact in English teaching.
FERNANDO FAUNDEZ R
In nowadays we all now how important Ënglish is, in a globalized world.
ReplyDeleteNow is necesary to have good English teachers to teach this second language. For that reason in the area of competences we are studying the methods, techniques and aproaches, but is not only important know them, we have to now how to apply them, according with the real context of the students, and what they have to learn depending on the grade.
The teacher is the responsible of the student learning process, for that reason we have to teach the right thing, and more important is to be prepared every class.
Another point that is relevant is to put into practice the four abilities of English... to teach English in a completly way.
Cinthya Rosales