School visit: Bridgeport and Brewster

This has been the most interesting experience that I have had in the United States related to the teaching-learning process maybe because I had the opportunity to get into the classroom and see how an English native speaker teacher teaches to children whose first language is not English. The majority of the students in these both schools come from Mexico but some were born here that why some of them speak English as fluently as a native speaker does but some of them do not.

The fact that caught my attention positively was the size of the class. In Chile there are at least forty five students per classroom and in these both schools the largest class was about twenty nine students or so. Another thing that caught my attention was the fact that every teacher has his/her own classroom and he/ she can decorate according to their students need. I really liked the classroom atmosphere in Bridgeport.

In relation with the second school we visited I did not like it at all because in spite of having a big percentage of Spanish speakers, there were NOT any Spanish speaker teachers. So, I think is pretty difficult for these kids to learn. The only thing I liked from Brewster was its mission in which it was said that “…provide a positive environment where all students reach their greatest academic achievement potential, become self-directed, life-long learners who are able to comprehend, reason and communicate effectively.

Cheer in a positive maner
Lead by example
Always display school pride
Show respect to all
Success through sportmanship

Knowing our students

Anonymous.
(Elementary English teacher)

What I would consider a really successful English learning would imply the development of the 4 abilities in an integrated way and the possibility of applying what students have learned in different contexts. This can be made by designing learning activities (to develop the 4 skills) around a topic of the students's interests. Success should be measured to the extent they can produce oral or written texts based on the information (content, grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation, etc) they have learned from the activities, and also from their capacity to understand written and oral texts they read or listen to and to react and give opinions about some issues.
A bad learning would the opposite of what I have outlined before, that is it would be one that is solely based on one component of the language, for example only grammar or a list of vocabulary words out of context, without incorporating activities through which they can create or produce texts (orally and in a written form). Activities which lead to memoristic learning is an example of bad learning.

My trip to Seatle.

Last week Chile teach team went to Seatle, a very nice and big city.
Personally, I spent a very good time there, I went to the pike place public market, the acquarium, the space needle, but what I liked the most was the china town. It was just amazing.

I went to dance too, here is the link of the club, if you like to see it click on it.
http://www.clubcontour.com/

When we were comming back our van broke down. This was an funny experience.

Listening real English online

http://mansioningles.com/listening02.htm

Conditions:
Interaction
authentic audience
Expose to a variety of language
Right amount of time
Students- focused

What my teacher believes about technology

1.- What role do you think technology does take/can take in learning?
Technology is nowadays a fundamental element for learning provided it is not just another way of saying the same as in a paper and pencil work. Technology should be used in a creative and motivating way so that it can have real effect on the student. Although technology may facilitate the teacher's preparation of classes, it also implies being able to use technological resources (hardware), being updated with technological changes, and a capacity to understand and select the most appropriate information for classes. For the students, technology is a fundamental resource to be updated, to enlarge their knowledge about different topics and to develop their research abilities.

2.- what role should the learner take in the classroom?
The learner should have a very active role, this implies attention, concentration and willingness to engage in class activities and, finally, do them. The student should be an autonomous person who must be in charge of his/her own work, with initiative and self commitment.

3.- what role should the teacher take in the classroom?
the teacher should be a guide and councellor concerned with the student's activities, but above all, he/she should be able to provide students with different types of activities that foster their analytic and reflective capacities. The teacher should challenge the students' capacities and widen their horizons .

4.- what does good teaching look like?
In my opinion. good teaching is probably affected by multiple factors and made up of three main elements: an engaged student, an engaged teacher and life-like, challenging and motivating activities.

What role do you think technology does take/can take in learning?

I think the use of ICTs can improve learning: multimedia resources provide the same information in different ways, that provides input for the different learning styles; when working with computer programs students can work and repeat the same exercise as many times as they require and the computer will always be patient enough. The availability of information makes it possible for students to satisfy almost instantly their curiosity or desire to learn something else about the topics they are studying in class. But ICTs by themselves cannot make the difference, in my humble opinion, it is the way in which the teacher uses them that will make the difference.

What role should the learner take in the classroom?

A more active one, more independent from the teacher since all the information, say from the Internet is there for him/her to get. Therefore we may have more autonomous students, less dependent on the teacher's knowledge or lack of it if you want. I think learning to learn can be more easily achieved through technology. On the other hand, ICT can motivate students to develop different abilities or to make the most in spite of their capabilities.
Computers perhaps may encourage solitary work, so I think, it depends on the teacher to make it more collaborative, like group work , for example and in this way to help/teach them work more collaboratively

What role should the teacher take in the classroom?

Teacher , I think, may lose their central role, and they should become leaders and also managers of the class, but also facilitators, one who helps and also someone who is there learning with their students.
In my opinion ICTs represent a challenge for teachers because that means that we have to learn new things, and in some cases, we will have to learn things our students already know. This is a great challenge

What does good teaching look like?

It´s a difficult question to answer because teaching is a collaborative activity where teacher7student should work together. Anyway I would say, good teaching is getting the desire outcomes, helping to create an adequate learning environment, establishing an atmosphere of trust, helping and supporting students to discover their strong points and to strengthen their weak ones.

DEL.IC.I.OUS... Social bookmarking

www.delicious.com/chileteach

This link has several links inside that I consider are very useful for us because of some of these are related to the acquisition of English as a foreign language.

today I also learn about others interesting pages like
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/ and http://www.nationalgeographic.com/

Just enjoy them !!!

Martin Maximiliano

Third reflection: Bots as Language Learning Tools

Foreign Language Learning (FLL) students commonly have few opportunities to use their target
language. Teachers in FLL situations do their best to create opportunities during classes through
pair or group work, but a variety of factors ranging from a lack of time to shyness or limited opportunity for quality feedback hamper this. This paper discusses online chatbots' potential role in fulfilling this need. Chatbots could provide a means of language practice for students anytime and virtually anywhere.

Learning a language is not easy. Even under the best conditions students face cultural differences, pronunciation problems, ebbing motivation, a lack of effective feedback, the need to learn specialized language, and many other obstacles during their studies. Students in foreign language learning situations commonly face all of these general challenges while having little or no opportunity to use their language of study beyond the classroom, where students classically listen to a recording then repeat and/or write in a workbook. More recently, students might interact with some language software during laboratory periods. During class, students may or may not practice with other students and only in the smallest classes do students get a chance to practice one-on-one with their teacher. The practice students might obtain in class is often not very interactive and potentially plagued by lack of confidence, shyness, and unchecked mistakes in grammar and pronunciation (students in pairs or group practice).

Nowadays, there are 750 million EFL speakers in the world (Graddol, 2000), many of whom live in countries with relatively few native speakers and have little opportunity to practice English. A chatterbot’s purpose, as previously stated, is to carry on a conversation with a human being. This makes chatterbots a potentially valuable resource for EFL learners. Their value as learning tools is limited, however, by their still growing language abilities and design. In their present state they are most useful to higher level students. This is because most of them were designed to interact with and entertain native speakers.

Six ways in which chatbots can be potentially useful to the interested teacher are:

1) Free Speaking: This is a great way to give the students a chance to experiment. It is an excellent reward for those students who have completed their class work early. Depending on the class, the second time you assign students to free speak with a chatbot it may be helpful to give the students a topic to focus on. Assign a topic not attached to class work if this is meant to be a break rather than an extension of class.
2) Review: This has to be the most practical use of chatbots. In FLL situations it is common for students to spend a class covering material that they never get the opportunity to actually use. At the end of a class the teacher might reserve 10-15 minutes for students to try out their new language skills. This can be done with the textbook or without, depending on the teacher’s goals.
3) Self Analysis: Some chatbot WebPages provide a ‘view transcript’ function. This can be an excellent means of having students evaluate themselves, their partners, or even the bots. Simply have the students chat away in either of the above exercises, then view, print or email their transcripts to themselves.
4) For the Teacher: With the subscription of a bot like Jabberwacky, a teacher can keep track of studentbot conversations and get an idea of how students are progressing, what kind of language they need help with and perhaps most importantly, what kind of language and topics they want to learn more about.
5) For more advanced students, a piece of paper covering the screen except where he or she is typing (enter scissors and a little imagination), is a means of forcing the student to focus in on the audio and encourage them to reply as best they can. Though perhaps challenging and occasionally fraught with miscommunication, there is no risk to the
student’s confidence and when real communication occurs there is an invaluable sense of
accomplishment.
6) Finally, all of the above suggested uses assumed that computers were available in the classroom. In situations where this is not the case, similar exercises can be assigned as homework. If the teacher wishes to check and ensure the students are doing their assignments, again transcripts might be printed and brought to class or cut, pasted, and emailed to the teacher.

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In this article it is said that many Foreign Language Learning (FLL) students commonly have few opportunities to use their target language, and teachers to do their best in creating the opportunities in which students can talk with another through working in pair or in group, but sometimes we have to keep in mind that some students are shy and they are afraid of making mistakes while they are speaking.
All of us know that to learn a foreign language is not easy because it involves pronunciation problems and also imply knowing a lot of words. Foreign language learners have little or no opportunity to use their language of study beyond the classroom. They do not practice the target language in real context; they learn the language just listening to a recording then repeating and/or writing in a workbook. Shy students are always afraid of speaking in from of their class so if they had the chance to express themselves freely the would overcome their shyness and would be able to improve their confidence too.

Favorite Podcasts for ESL/EFL

For teachers' use.

I thought these link could be interesting for us as a future teachers of English.
http://coolpodcasts.wordpress.com/category/language-podcast/
http://www.myngle.com/?gclid=CJ3orvnPvZUCFQv7agod-SO5Qg
http://esl.about.com/od/teachingenglish/Teaching_English_Techniques_Resources_Certificates_Employment.htm
This link is useful for teaching listening comprehension.
http://volkerh.public.iastate.edu/projects/podcasting/

For students to practice.

We, as a future teacher can encourage our student to use the following link to look for foreign language lesson, audio book and more.
http://www.oculture.com/2006/10/university_podc.html
For students to practice their listening comprehension and having fun
http://www.rhapsody.com/musicvideos
This link is suitable for any language learning student, because in this page allows them to choose the language they want to learn.
http://www.myngle.com/?gclid=CJ3orvnPvZUCFQv7agod-SO5Qg


For Gina improves her spanish.

Gina I would suggest you to visit the next link if you want to learn Spanish as a foreign language
http://www.123teachme.com/
http://www.studyspanish.com/
http://www.myngle.com/?gclid=CJ3orvnPvZUCFQv7agod-SO5Qg

Ideas.

I would create a podcast in which I would include some videos of native speakers conversation in order to improve the students' listening comprehension and some music videos too in order to catch students' attention and get them involved in the activity they are in. Also I would add to this podcasts some interesting reading to help students to understand authentic texts and also helping them in the acquisition of new vocabulary.

Emerging Technologies.

Computer Assisted Language learning (C.A.L.L)

Most C.A.L.L. programs are geared toward receptive skills (reading and listening) because of the current state of computer technology.

Listening :http://www.mansioningles.com/listening00.htm
Reading:http://www.mansioningles.com/Lectura01.htm
Grammar: http://www.mansioningles.com/gram_ej01.htm



Computer Mediated Communication (C.M.C)

Using chat has been shown to help students routinize certain often-used expressions to promote the development of automatic structure that help develop speaking and writing (spelling)skills.
The attractiveness of instant messaging for language learners resides particularly in the addition of voice and video options for communication

Synchronous tools.
http://chat.aim.com/
http://www.ivideochat.com/

Asynchronous tools.
http://forum.khurram.ca/
http://www.blogger.com/


Drill and Practice.

You can learn about personal pronouns clicking in the following link. A short explanation will be given to you.
http://www.mansioningles.com/gram22.htm

Then you can practice doing some exercises
http://www.mansioningles.com/gram22_ej1.htm

Second Reflection.

Overview of Pronunciation in Language Learning.

“To be able to speak and listen in a second language, it is clear that language learners need something other than just phonemic correctness. As or more important seems to be the ability to comprehend and produce in a near-native-like fashion aspects of pronunciation such as stress, intonation, rhythm, and pacing, and to use gestures and body language appropriately; in other words, to have both linguistic and sociolinguistic competence” (Celce-Murcia, Brinton, & Goodwin, 1996; Florez, 1999). Most language learners feel that pronunciation is a crucial part of language learning. So, they believe the best way to improve their pronunciation is to practice, and many pronunciation experts agree that pronunciation teaching and learning must be situated in communicative contexts. Otlowski and Fraser (1999) concur with much of the current research that the goals of pronunciation teaching should be "developing functional intelligibility, communicability, increased self-confidence, the development of speech monitoring abilities and speech modification strategies for use beyond the classroom"

In order to reach these goals, some authors pay more emphasis on individual learners' needs, supporting a learner-centered approach that involves authentic tasks and the use of peers and groups for interaction and feedback to help learners be critical listeners and develop the ability to notice and repair their own and others' errors. In this model, the role of the teacher is facilitator rather than error corrector or ultimate speech model, it means that the teacher can offer various models, provide opportunities for practice, suggest specific techniques, and give encouragement and advice to learners as they work toward intelligibility.

Morley (1991) calls this role the "speech coach." Fraser (2000) calls for "high quality, effective materials, especially computer-based materials with audio demonstrations, for learners of ESL pronunciation" (p. 2). Such materials, according to Chun (1998), would have to "present authentic speech samples within their cultural contexts and call learners' attention" (p. 73) to specific features. She also suggests that the software must support pair interaction and emphasize natural discourse. It is supposed that the goal of the software is to improve clarity and accuracy of spoken communication and to help students develop effective communication skills. Connected Speech claims to do so by helping learners to identify suprasegmental features of spoken English, to reproduce them, and to be able to evaluate whether they did it well. The software covers pause groups, pitch change, word and syllable stress, and linked words, and also has exercises in minimal pairs and syllable recognition

In order to evaluate pronunciation software, we need to assess how well it teaches, or helps us to teach, in ways that will help students improve their pronunciation. There are some criteria that we have to keep in mind, but it does not imply that the software must meet all of these conditions.

1. Present Authentic Speech Samples and Natural Discourse.
The different versions (North American, Australian, and British English) and the inclusion of a variety of speakers in CS clearly demonstrate to learners that "English" is many different things.

2. Focus Learners' Attention on Both Segmental and Suprasegmental Features.

This is a real strength of CS. Learners can listen, produce, and learn about these features through a large number of exercises on any of three levels.

3. Support Social Interaction and Communication.
While the ultimate goal of CS is to improve students' oral communication, there are no opportunities within the software itself for authentic communication and no real examples of such.

4. Focus on Intelligibility.
According to Darhower (2002), the speech recognition does not always work, and when it does it does not always work well. In addition, whether the computer can recognize an utterance may not have any relation to whether the same utterance can be recognized by other speakers.

5. Support the Development of Metacognition and Critical Listening.
According to pronunciation research, this happens through real communication, which is not possible with CS.

6. Provide Opportunities for Practice.
CS does provide many opportunities for practice with both segmental and suprasegmental features. This practice is within the context of the audio clips, but because of the limitations of the technology, it is typically drill-based.

7. Provide Scaffolding and Individualized Feedback.
Help is presented in the form of both oral and written instructions.

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Personal Comment.

From my point of view, this article has attempted to show how students can improve their speaking and listening performance through a software called "Connected Speech" in wich students can listen to native speakers' voice recorded and then repeat the patrons of the speech. However, the author says that language learners need something other than just phonemic correctness. (stress, intonation, rhythm, and pacing, and to use gestures and body language appropriately are needed). Some learners think that pronunciation is a crucial part of language learning so, as they need to produce a cohesive and coherent discourse in order to understand and be understood, they claim that the best way to improve their pronunciation is through practice. I think that this software is so beneficial for those teachers who are not educated in pronunciation or not confident about their own because it provides support and help. Nevertheless, for those learners who do not learn well through drill and repetition this software will not be useful and thet might be bored quickly.