Hi! I’m Lulú Borjas and I’d like to add a comment. I’d like to add my reflection about the last courses and about this course. I think that in the last courses we have had the opportunity to remain how English language works, we did this in the grammar course and in the writing course we learnt how to write a paragraph. These courses have helped me to realize that to be a “good teacher” is a life time job. So I think that taking a English course, like this one about “oral production”, would help me to prepare myself and they will give me some fresh ideas to improve my classes. Besides, I think that in every single course there is something new to learn. However I have to add that I like to interact to other teachers because that’s the way we learn things about life and about other persons.
Hi everybody I want to say something, like Lulu I've learned a lot in the other courses and in this case is not the exception, however I was hoping to do some more oral practice or to learn or remember something about phonetics or something like that, but Lulu said, you learn always something new in every course you take...
Hi, everybody. I have been able to publish my comment at last. I have discovered that we need to have an account in any of the companies included in the list below in order to get access to this service. As I have my e-mail account in hotmail, I had to get a new one in google. The good thing is that I learnt something new. In fact, I would like to learn much more because I have a really poor knowledge of TIC's and I know that it is essential to use these tools nowadays. See you. Take care.
Well as you Know I work in CCH Naucalpan. I've taught reading com for almost 14 years. The class used to be in Spanish up to last term. Some teachers have started teaching four skills since last year, but to me next semester it is going to be the first time. I'm so happy about the 4s approach, I think it was a very necessary change. I consider that I should relearn how to teach the other three abilities. I really like to improve my English proficiency and methodology in oral production that's why I'm taking this and other courses. I had the opportunity to go to San Antonio UNAM's Extension and I can tell you that, as Lulú and Víctor said, You always learn something new. It was a great experience, eventhough In my opinion these courses in CCH should have started many years ago. It is better late than never. Good Night again.
During these days that we have been taking our Speaking course, I have been thinking, that it is our duty, as teachers of a foreign language, that we must continue improving our own knowledge of it everyday. We must also continue acquiring new vocabulary, learn more about the foreign culture, study about the new techniques and strategies used for language teaching, in summary, to be updated. And as I mentioned in one on the classes, students deserve educated and qualifed teachers.
Hi I´m Lulu Melgoza I´m working at CCH Vallejo. Everyday I have been learning something new in relation to English language, its culture and all over how to teach it.
The questions are interesting in relation to oral production, easy and understandable. MY REFLECTION...is: I´ve been teaching this ability for several years, every course I try to improve it, the technique, the material and if I have a course book that it does not have enough practice I look for others ones to help the challenge and to get the goal in this ability. Likewise, I´ve been learning new strategies used by my teachers in every course that I´ve taken to improve myself. Oral production must be taught every class and evaluated once a month,or everyday. As a teacher we can´t separate it from the other skills and when we have a suitable program we will be better.
List of oral production activities (Lourdes, Maria, Rocio, Teresa). *Drills (oral repetition) *Find someone who... *Questionaries *Pronunciation practice (with marshmallows in the mouth) *Conversations *Role play *Reading aloud *Dictation of statements *Making up a story *Ending a story *Situational questions: descriptions advice opinions directions solving a problem introductions
My reflection: When I was a student I learnt English with the grammar translation method, so most of the class was grammar and reading. For practicing speaking we used repetition drills and we had to memorize dialogues and even short plays. I remember that I was always stressed because we had to repeat the lines exactly as they were in the written text, therefore, we did not pay attention to the message. My sad experience with oral production is what makes me try to improve the way I teach. I think that we should provide the students with more than just an opportunity to speak, to exchange words. We have to consider other important aspects of communication like; tone, pitch and body language as well as norms of interaction.
The students have to discuss the order of some sentences that represent the first part of a love story. Then, they have to use their imagination to continue the story and finally they share their ideas ,orally, with the whole class.
Mini lesson plan
Number of students: 24 Level: beginners Time: 40 minutes Skills: speaking and Writing Objective: Students will talk and write about a story , to review simple past. Activity: "Love story" Materials: Cards, copies, board Evaluation: Informal (monitoring) Procedure:
1. Write "Love story" on the board. Elicit some words related to love and write them on the board. Check comprehension of these words.(5 min.)
2. Stick cards on the board with the following sentences: __They got married __they fell in love 1 Sussy and Robert met at a party __He invited her to meet his parents __They talked for a long time __They had 3 children __They kissed __they got engage
Get the students to read the sentences and check any new vocabulary. Students work in pairs and talk about the order of the sentences (monitor speaking). Ask for some feedback ( you may get different ideas) (15 min.)
3. Ask the students to write some sentences to continue the story (monitor speaking and wtiting). Ask for volunteers to share their stories. (15 min.)
4. To close, give the student a puzzle to find the past form of some verbs, including the ones in the story. (5 min.)
Hey Martin I am Jaime a.k.a. macho banana My reflection on the course is the next: I agree with what the teachers have been posting in the fact that teaching is a life time commitment, so our duty is to be ready to share knowledge. This course improved my vision on how to share knowledge with new techniques and approaches to teaching. Every course offers new ideas and this one hasn´t been the exception. Having had the chance to be with my colleages these days has allowed me with the opportunity to learn from them as I wish they have had the same opportunity. So long. I will be posting the rest these days.
Topic: Simple past and vocabulary related with crimes
Time: 25 to 30 minutes
Material: 5 different people drawn, cards
Procedure: * The teacher divides the class in groups of four.
*She gives each group a card with the description of the crimes that 5 different prisoners commited.
*The teacher sticks on the board the five pictures and tells to the class that those five people are prisoners. The prison is too overcrowded, so the court must decide which will be the two prisoners who would let free. *Each group is supposed to be the court and decide the two prisoners who will be released.
*Finally, the groups will mention to the class their decision and give their reasons.
Procedure: * The teacher will write on the board a list of adjectives of quality, and she will ask students to tell her the superlative form of the previous adjectives.
*After the teacher has checked the correct superlative form of the adjectives with the whole class, students will answer a fill in the blanks exercise with the most appropriate adjective. The teacher will check the answers with the class.
*When the previous exercise is over, the teacher will give each student a card. Students will divide the card in four parts and write their names at the middle of it. In the first part of the card, students will write the worst lie they have ever told in their lives; in the second, they will write the most interesting thing they have ever done; in the third one, they will write the best prank they have ever played; and in the fourth one, they will write which is their loveliest memento they have. When students finish writing their information, they will put the cards on their chests, they will stand up and when the teacher starts clapping they will walk around the class. When the teacher stops clapping, students will stop and start asking to the closest classmate about what they wrote on their cards. After some minutes the teacher will start clapping again, students will walk again, and when the teacher stops clapping, students will share the information with a different classmate, and so on. (Students really get fun with this activity.) When the teacher considers it has been enough, everybody will sit down. The teacher will ask students about the information they got from their classmates.
I would like to make my comment about the class in which Martin asked us to think about a recipe. If you remember I told the name of the recipe in Spanish (Rellenitos de frijol), because I insisted thet it was the name of the product obtained from the recipe. It is very common that some words be taken as loans from one language to another. In Spanish we call them "Préstamos Lingüísticos" and in English these words are called "Loanwords". English has acquired its loanwords from three different sources: from Mexican people who go to U.S., from the trade that U.S. holds with the Caribbean, and the last one, from the name of foods which have no English equivalent. Examples: chocolate, cilantro, dengue, hammock, macho.
COMMENT ABOUT THE COURSE I have always worried about how to assess oral production and when Martin mentioned “assessment criteria” and he mentioned the “Holistic and analytic assessment”. This called my attention due to the fact that it should be a very good idea to incorporate into my evaluation. I realize that because in the Holistic Assessment it was mention the participation of a colleague in the moment we are assessing. This would be a very good way to give a grade to a subjective skill such as Speaking with the help of another expert.
ORAL ACTIVITY I really love “surveys” in my classes because it is a funny way to find something interesting about the others. I have design this activity and I hope you can find it useful. This activity will carry out with the following stages: 1. The teacher (T) gives the paper with the questions to the students (Ss). He or She reads all the questions and assure all of them have been understood. 2. T gives to Ss 15 minutes to ask to 2 different persons about the questions. 3. T asks Ss if they found something interesting in their classmate’s answers. T assures that most of the Ss share their information to the rest of the class. Ask to two different classmates the sentences below. Write their answers. Possible answers: There are _______, there is _______, there aren’t any ___________. How many: Rooms are there in your home? Bathrooms are there in your home? Pictures are there in your living room? Windows are there in your living room? Chairs are there in your dining room? Posters are there on your bedroom? Table nights are there in your bedroom? Pillows are there on your bed?
MY REFLECTION Oral Production is very important to teach in class because SS need to express their questions, needs, feelings. Oral Production cannot be taught in an isolated way, it is related to other skills. SS must practice it in every class, that is important to improve their fluency and to make them aware that they need to increase their vocabulary.
ACTIVITY "FIND SOMEONE WHO…" Well, I really like to include this useful activity in my classes on Saturday courses. In this activity, ss are able to use the vocabulary, grammar and also you can include pronunciation, if you want to. What I have seen it is that my ss really enjoy this moving activity and they practice with oral production. I consider that this activity it is very flexible because you can include funny sentences and the same number of the sentences than ss you have in class. In that way, you assure that everyone has to ask a question to each classmate, instead of asking many questions to the same student. Steps: 1. Write three columns on the board, the first one with all the sentences you have (you also can dictate them), in the second one write the title “name”, in the third one write “Yes/No”. 2. Tell ss they should make questions with the sentences they have in the first column. For example, if the first sentence is: 1. Brush my teeth once a day. Ss should ask “Do you brush your teeth once a day? (if you want to practice with simple present). 3. Ss should stand up and start asking, it is funnier if the teacher set a time limit and tell them that when they finish they should sit down and the last who finishes will have double homework. (You will see how they will enjoy it). 4. Teacher will star checking the first sentence by asking: “Connie, who brushes their teeth once a day?” She answers:” Luis brushes his teeth once a day”. Then you ask Luis the second one and so on.
LIST OF ACTIVITIES TO BE USED IN ORAL PRODUCTION (WE WORKED IN TEAMS AT CLASS): -introducing yourself -asking and giving directions -talking about your neighborhood -expressing likes and dislikes -talking about your family -describing a trip -planning a vacation -giving a recipe -describing clothes -describing people}-describing the weather
My comment on the things that we learnt in the oral production course is the following one: I consider daily evaluation important not just because it is a way to control and keep in mind Ss participation but because, I consider, it helps Ss to work and develop a natural production. I think that when Ss know an evaluation is in the process they feel threatened about it. At least that is way I have felt and seen Ss in my class. I would also like to comment that during the learning process I encourage oral production to promote fluency and accuracy.
My reflection: I took these courses, because it was a good opprtunity to learn and prsctice more about the abilities given; it is to say, grammar, writing and oral production. I think that two years ago we had really few chances to practice these abilities, I mean, to write and to speak English, because we only taught reading comprehension and our lessons were in Spanish. I agree with Tere about that students deserve educated and qualified teachers, therefore we must study and be updated in all aspects of teaching
MY REFLECTION: Note: Sorry for the title that appears in my comments (Teacher Rocío…). I don´t know how this happened, I didn´t write that title. I think probably it is because some time ago I created a blog for a project and as it was for the students I wrote “teacher”. I teach at Prepa 4. We have been teaching the four skills for many years, so we are supposed to know how to teach oral production. However, I’m not so sure about that. I agree with our partners who say that there’s always something new to learn. I wrote this reflection at the beginning of the course. For this course I expected to improve my own oral production because when I took the other two modules of the “Diplomado”, they were for helping us improve our English in grammar and writing. Now that I´m attending this course I see that it will be for helping us teach oral production. I think it will be interesting because it will give us some more ideas of how to teach this skill. Furthermore, probably this course will make us reflect on our teaching and I´m sure we will be able to improve it. I think the questionnaire we answered made us reflect on the importance of the oral production skill and on the activities we do in class for teaching it. I´m sure we will learn a lot in this coures, of course from our teacher, but also from all our partners.
After the spontaneous answers to the questionnaire of the Module, my reflection goes in the following lines: I am taking this course in order to be aware of the various items of oral production. So far, there are some points to consider: 1) I did not reflect on it, 2) the place it has in my own learning of English as a foreign language, 3) I need to find out the specific relevance it has in my teaching at the CCH.
1. First reflection. Since it is one of the four abilities and I did not dedicated enough time to expand my information on it, then, I have to assume that there is a need to read what has been written on the subject. The reading materials from this Module of Oral Production are helping me to address this point.
2. Second reflection. Given the fact that I started to learn English many years ago, I must search the place Oral Production has in my personal learning of this foreign language.
3. Third reflection. Now, that I am teaching English at the CCH, the academic program is in a transitional period from Reading Comprehension to the experience of Teaching English in four skills. This particular experience will present the opportunities to consider and exercise Speaking in connection to Oral Production.
Based on the previous points I notice that I like to deal with Oral Production including my own questions too
ACTIVITY: NAME: The Birthday Line In this activity students get to know each other. They talk about their birthdays. 1.- The teacher chooses three students who will serve as “gossips” They will circulate among the other students and try to learn as much information as possible. 2.- All students except for the “gossips” line up according to their birthdays, starting with the students born in January. They call out their birthdays. 3.- Staying in line, students turn to a partner and describe how they like to celebrate their birthdays. ( I like to eat out with friends/ I like to make a party and invite all my friends/ I like to go to the movies, etc) 4.- Students turn to new partners to tell what they have learned from their previous partners. 5.- The “gossips” circulate and listen. 6.- In plenary, the “gossips” report to the class what they overheard.
COMMENT In my experience about teaching reading comprehension, I used to have the activity “Reading aloud”. First, because my ss wanted to do something with the language they were understanding. Second, this activity turned the class completely different. What I used to do is the following: after activating ss’ previous knowledge, scanning the text, working with vocabulary, answering some questions and doing other activities; ss were asked to read one paragraph aloud. Teacher read the paragraph several times and ss repeted it. The first time, the teacher read and ss just listened to. The second time, the teacher read slowly almost word by word and made emphasis on the difficult word pronunciation, and ss repeated it in the same way. Third, teacher read sentences faster and ss repeated them in the same way. Then ss had to practice in pairs or trios, in that moment, while the teacher was monitoring them, they used to ask about the correct pronunciation of the words. Finally, the teacher asked for volunteer or victims to read the paragraph aloud. The student who did it, had the applauses of the whole class. Now I know that pronunciation, stress and intonation should be taking into account in this activity. “It also provides a secure framework within which learners can focus on lower-levelfeatures of talk, such as pronunciation, without the added pressure of always having to plan the next utterances.
MINI LESSON PLAN Number of students: 25 Level: beginners Time: 60 minutes Skills: writing and speaking Objective: Students will make up and perform a story using a comic Materials: copies of a comic, copies of a comic without words in the bubbles Evaluation: Informal Procedure 1) Ss will be asked about comics. T. will ask about the most popular, where are they from, etc. 10’ 2) T. will hand out copies of a section of the comic. Ss will read about and difficult vocabulary will be explained. 10’. 3) Ss will answer written wh-questions about the comic. T will check the answers with the group. 10’ 4) T. will hand out the copies of a comic without words in the bubbles. Ss will work in pairs or trios and write down possible dialogues according to the drawings. T. will monitor ss’ work and answer possible questions about vocabulary or any other aspect. 20’ 5) T. will choose one team at random. Ss will perform their story and they will see many other possible stories of the same comic. 10'
1. Reflection about the questionnaire. Expectations and reasons to take these three courses. When I started to listen to Martin, I was a little afraid. I was pretty sure that the course was going to be more like a conversation circle. Probably due to the previous experience with the module of writing which was almost based not on teaching writing, but in our experience as writers, I was expecting to work less and to speak more. I haven’t had practiced my oral production since I studied English in 1996! Also, I have given reading comprehension classes only, not four skills. So this module was kind of “my prize”, “my gift” for having taken grammar and writing. But then I listened to “lesson plans for oral production”, “activities”, “theory”, and inside me I thought: “Oh no! Not again! How something as natural as speaking is, become one of the most terrible and stressing things? I mean, the thing is to communicate, isn’t it? Is it so difficult that it needs a special theory to be taught?” Well after the first shock we did the questionnaire and as I was answering to the questions I realized that of course I know many things, I’m just a little bit not outdated? But the privilege to communicate in another language is beautiful and for the first time in 10 years I’m going to experience it as a teacher. And now I feel really excited about knowing some theory, putting into practice with my students what I’m going to learn in the next few days and of course, to feel more confident about my work.
MY COMMENT One of the important aspects I read in the theory, was the criteria for speaking tasks, how we can maximize the students’ opportunities to speak. The participation in a discussion group in L2, makes the students more productive, more autonomous. We should have clear objectives which increase their communication and also that they have a sense of achievement. We must not judge the students if they make mistakes, instead we can try to help them where necessary. Speaking tasks also have to be related to real-life language use so that they can see that English is a tool useful outside the school. Aren´t students going to be more motivated if we take care of these aspects? I hope so.
2. Comment about the theory. We thought about general facts of the theory on oral production. For me many things were interesting and new since I had never reflected on those considerations. One of the things I think we could take advantage in the L2 language classroom is the supra segmental aspect. We talked about speed, pronunciation exercises, but what about the rhythm of English versus Spanish? In English we have a stress language. So intonation and rhythm patterns go a long way in carrying the meaning across in English. We can be speaking with perfect pronunciation, but put the stress on the wrong syllable and your whole statement may go without being understood. When you’ve learned to use the American pitch pattern to call attention to the important words in your speech you become more understandable. I think we could practice some exercises with our students about these differences so they can become more confident about their utterances. What do you think?
3. Mini Lesson Plan Number of students: 25 Level: basic/beginners Time: (60 minutes) Skills: speaking Purpose: For the first class of the semester students will interview each other using 3 WH questions. Materials: Blackboard, pen-board writers or chalk. Evaluation: informal T: teacher/ S’s: students/ Procedure: 1) Teacher introduces herself/himself: Hi! I’m (name). 5’ 2) T asks students to stand up and walk around the classroom. In this part T can say the students: walk in all directions, look at your partners and choose someone to work with. 5 to 10’. 3) Students sit in pairs. T asks S’s to think about and write down three questions in English they would ask a person if they want to get to know that person. For example: What’s your favorite music? Where do you live? What do you plan to do in the next 5 years? Who is your favorite singer? 5’ 4) S’s asks the questions to their partners and T monitors the activity. Student A asks the questions and B answers. Then B asks and A answers. 20’. 5) Student A introduces student B to the group and uses the previous information of the mini interview. For example: She is (name) she lives in (place, town), her favorite singer is (name)… And vice versa, B introduces A. 5’ 6) If possible, all the pairs say something about themselves. T monitors and listens to the students. 25’ 7) Close the session. T emphasizes the importance of cooperation and active participation in the class. Assigns homework: for example: write something new you learn during the class.5'
Find someone who... likes and dislikes. An ESL speaking activity I use this exercise near the beginning of a high beginner class. It serves as a "get to know you" activity, practices talking about likes and dislikes (enjoy +"ing", like +infinitive, like +noun). Before the activity I make a cline with "hate on the bottom, "love" on the top, and "really don't like/dislike", "don't like/dislike", "don't mind", "like/enjoy", "really like/enjoy" in between. Then I give students a chance to plan the questions, including the follow-up questions (a one or two word clue is given after each initial question for a follow up question) before beginning the activity. During the activity I usually circulate, participate a little bit (to encourage students), and listen a lot. I write down the mistakes I hear (especially regarding question formation) so that I can put them on the board and go over them with the entire class after the activity. Use follow up questions! 1. ________________ enjoys cooking. What...?
Do you enjoy cooking? What do you like to cook?
2. ________________ doesn't enjoy cooking. How often...?
Do you enjoy cooking? How often do you cook?
3. ________________ likes to listen to music. What kind...?
Do you like to listen to music? What kind of music do you like?
4. ________________ doesn't mind studying English. Why...?
5. ________________ doesn't like studying English. Why...?
6. ________________ likes pizza. How often...?
7. ________________ hates pizza. Why...?
8. ________________ loves animals. Why...?
9. ________________ really likes to watch TV. What...?
10. _______________ really dislikes watching TV. How often...?
11. _______________ is thinking about a TV show right now. Which...?
12. _______________ likes his or her job. Why...?
13. _______________ doesn't like to exercise. Why...?
Reflection about the theory I consider that the theory helps us to develop adequately a class or an activity, however any theory has to be adapted to the reality since there are a lot of aspects that were not taken into account when this theory was developed. E,g, the Mexican way of life. Nevertheless, there are a lot of aspects that are proved and must be considered in class. One of the most relevant for me is the speaking as a production skill. I think that when a student is speaking or at least trying to do it, involves a lot of processes since he has to identify which words can be used and more useful to express his/her ideas, he/she most try to be coherent and don’t miss out the listener interest, he/she can use a lot forms to express his/her ideas (simplifying structure, ellipsis, using formulaic expressions, use of fillers and hesitation devises) and all of them involve a superior way of thinking, therefore as speaking is a production skill, I consider that it has to be practiced as much as possible in class, no matter if it is for beginners or advanced students as much as they practice, they are going to be able to communicate their ideas fluently and with a great grade of accuracy.
Objectives: Terminal: • Students will be able to generate authentic language in meaningful situations. Enabling: • Students will be able to ask questions • for clarification • • Students will be able to summarize and explain • stories produced by other class members.
Materials: • Many pictures-each of the pictures represents a topic/theme.
Warm-up: (5-8mins) Ask the students if: • their friends have told them any stories lately. • they remember stories their parents told them of their parents' childhood. Ask the students: Who would like to share this story with us? One of the students will share a story. If there are no responses to this request, the teacher will share a short story. Introduction:(2 mins) Ask the students: Who likes to listen to stories? (They respond by a show of hands) Ask the students: Who likes to tell stories? (They respond by a show of hands) The teacher explains to the students that this is what they will be doing today. Explanation: (5 mins) Today you will work in groups of two. The teacher will organize the students into pairs. Each group will choose a topic and a picture that matches their topic. The topics include: • School • Work • Childhood • Birth • Marriage • Travel • Family • Weekend plans • Sports
Teaching: (30-35 mins) One of the group members will begin by sharing a story about the topic with the other group member. The student sharing the story will have about ten minutes to share it. The students will begin by telling how their story is similar or different to the picture. The listener will ask questions to check their understanding of the story. The types of questions to be used are wh-questions (they studied this in grammar class yesterday). The questions may be asked at the beginning of the practice or at the end. After the first person has finished sharing their story the listener will summarize and explain the story to the group next to them. This student has five minutes to summarize and explain their partnersí story. Then, they will switch and the member who listened and explained the story will share a story.
Evaluation: Teacher will circulate among the groups monitoring their communication in an informal way, providing assistance when asked to. Self Evaluation: After discussing this lesson plan with class members I realized I needed to make minor adjustments to it. Instead of having a few pictures available for discussion purposes, I will have a wide variety of picures for the students to use. The students will choose the pictures, which provide a visual stimulus for the discussion. Additionally, the wh-questions will be asked by the students at the beginning or the end of the story. This enables the teacher and the students to check listening and comprehension skills. Depending on the proficiency level if the students, the teacher will give them time to make an outline of their story before sharing it. This will help them to feel more confident in the activity as well as organizing their thoughts before telling their story to other class members.
Objectives: Terminal: • Students will be able to generate authentic language in meaningful situations. Enabling: • Students will be able to ask questions • for clarification • • Students will be able to summarize and explain • stories produced by other class members.
Materials: • Many pictures-each of the pictures represents a topic/theme.
Warm-up: (5-8mins) Ask the students if: • their friends have told them any stories lately. • they remember stories their parents told them of their parents' childhood. Ask the students: Who would like to share this story with us? One of the students will share a story. If there are no responses to this request, the teacher will share a short story. Introduction:(2 mins) Ask the students: Who likes to listen to stories? (They respond by a show of hands) Ask the students: Who likes to tell stories? (They respond by a show of hands) The teacher explains to the students that this is what they will be doing today. Explanation: (5 mins) Today you will work in groups of two. The teacher will organize the students into pairs. Each group will choose a topic and a picture that matches their topic. The topics include: • School • Work • Childhood • Birth • Marriage • Travel • Family • Weekend plans End of firstpart
Teaching: (30-35 mins) One of the group members will begin by sharing a story about the topic with the other group member. The student sharing the story will have about ten minutes to share it. The students will begin by telling how their story is similar or different to the picture. The listener will ask questions to check their understanding of the story. The types of questions to be used are wh-questions (they studied this in grammar class yesterday). The questions may be asked at the beginning of the practice or at the end. After the first person has finished sharing their story the listener will summarize and explain the story to the group next to them. This student has five minutes to summarize and explain their partnersí story. Then, they will switch and the member who listened and explained the story will share a story.
Evaluation: Teacher will circulate among the groups monitoring their communication in an informal way, providing assistance when asked to. Self Evaluation: After discussing this lesson plan with class members I realized I needed to make minor adjustments to it. Instead of having a few pictures available for discussion purposes, I will have a wide variety of picures for the students to use. The students will choose the pictures, which provide a visual stimulus for the discussion. Additionally, the wh-questions will be asked by the students at the beginning or the end of the story. This enables the teacher and the students to check listening and comprehension skills. Depending on the proficiency level if the students, the teacher will give them time to make an outline of their story before sharing it. This will help them to feel more confident in the activity as well as organizing their thoughts before telling their story to other class members.
The teacher gives different cards to each student to create a story. The students describe the picture to their partners without showing it to them. The students have to decide which card is first, second and so on, and why; then they create a whole story.
Lesson plan: General objective: The students will be able to create a story and tell it to their partners.
1. The teacher explains the meaning of some useful words for the topic (mask, thief, robber, steal, bag, etc) 2. The teacher asks questions to the students, about the topic, for example: a) Has anybody been stolen? b) Has anybody stolen from your house? c) When did it happen? d) How did you feel? e) What did you do? 3. The teacher divides students into groups of six members and gives a picture to each one 4. The students describe their picture, they must not show it to their partners. 5. The students create a whole story without looking at the pictures again. 6. The students tell the story to the rest of the class, or they write it.
I think that theory about oral production is important since it involves a lot of aspects. Communication is relevant for the human being and everybody has the necessity to communicate feelings, ideas, needs, etc., however, when a person has to communicate in a foreign language may not feel confident, even when he or she knows that the other people are not fluent or are still learning the language too. This is a real fact for most of our students, so, as teachers we must be aware of all those items included in speaking in order to help them to solve their problems and not only learning but also enjoying the language. One of the most interesting topics for me, and I think one of the most important, is the relationship between culture and language. I agree with Martin about teaching these aspects together.
LESSON PLAN MAIN OBJECTIVE: Ss will become aware of the importance to describe someone’s appearance. LEVEL: Beginners TIME 50 minutes SKILLS: Oral production, reading, writing MATERIALS: Cards with pictures of different people (one person per card) and other cards with the description of someone’s appearance. WARM UP: Ss will talk about the main aspects to describe someone’s appearance: his/her age, eyes, hair, clothes, etc. Teacher will ask why it is important to know how to describe someone. PROCEDURE: Ss are divided in two teams, A and B. Every member in Team A has a card with someone´s description: F. e.: He´s 30. He has blue eyes, a blue shirt, etc Every Ss in Team B has a card with someone´s name and his/her picture. All Ss get up and every member in Team A asks questions to every Ss in Team B until he/she finds the picture that corresponds to his/her description. F.e.: Is she a man or a woman? Does she have a yellow dress? Ss in Team B must answer looking at the picture they have. F. e.: Yes, it´s a woman, but she´s wearing a blue dress, not a yellow one . Then, Ss in pairs (picture and description together) write sentences about the person in the picture. The teacher takes the cards with the descriptions so that the Ss remember the spelling. The Ss should write something like this: His name is Peter. He has brown eyes and black, curly hair. He´s wearing a green T-shirt.
ACTIVITY MAKE AN UNFORGETTABLE TRIP! OBJECTIVE. The Ss will be able to persuade a tourist to take a trip MATERIALS: Cards with information about cities around the world. PROCEDURE: Ss are divided in groups of three or four. Other four Ss will be separated from the teams. Every team will receive three different cards with information about important cities in the world. F. e. Paris, Madrid, Athens, Sydney, New York, Sao Paulo, Mexico City, Rome, New Delhi, Bangkok, Tokyo, Istanbul, Berlin, Johannesburg. Every team will choose the city they prefer. They will imagine they are selling a trip to a tourist. The team must think about what people would like to visit: museums, pubs, national parks, monuments. They must convince the tourist to buy the tour to the city they chose. They must give strong arguments, like good price, unforgettable places, etc. The Ss who were separated at the beginning, are the tourists. Every tourist will listen to every team and will decide what tour they will buy and why. They will report to total class.
1. Tell your partner or classmates what you are going to do this weekend. Example, I'm going to play cards with my friends. I'm gonna visit my grandmother. 2. Pretend you just won $5,000 in the lottery. Tell your classmates what you will do with the money. Example, First, I'll put some of the money in the bank. Then, I'll invite you to a fancy restaurant. 3. You need some help with a big picnic tomorrow. Ask for "volunteers." Example, Who will help me with the food? We will. Thanks a lot. Juanita, will you bring some drinks? Yes, I guess I will.
Mini Lesson Plan Number of students: 25 Level: 6th. grade Time: 50 minutes Skills: Reading, writing, listening and speaking Objective: Students will write a letter about their experience in dating. Material: photocopies, cards Evaluation: Informal Procedure: T asks ss. what a date is and if they have had any dates. 2 min. T. tells ss. they are going to read a letter about a young woman telling a friend about a date she had recently, but before reading it they have to guess what happened. T. gives ss. a card with several words related to the story in the letter: Fernando, met, student, approved, twenty one, parents, introduce, gentleman, car, architect, Bogotá, birthday party, Friday, restaurant, mother, romantic, waiting, kiss. Ss. work in pairs and write what they think happened to the woman in the letter using the words in the cards. T. monitors their work. 10 min. In plenary, some pairs read their stories to the group and compare their stories. 2 min. T. gives ss. the photocopies with the letter and ss. read it. 5 min. Ss. compare their stories with the one in the letter and decide which story (the ones they wrote) is more similar to the real story in the letter. 5 min. Ss. answer some comprehension questions. 7 min T. checks answers with the group. 3 min Ss. write a letter telling a friend about a date they just had. T monitors their work. 10 min
Mini Lesson Plan Students: 25 Level: Beginners Time: 40 min Skills: Listening and Speaking Objective: Students will practice some phrases used with informal and formal conversations in the telephone after listening to several models and with the help of some cards. Activity: I´m not at home. Material: Tape recorder, CD, cards, photocopies. Evaluation: Informal (peer) Procedure: 1. Ss listen to some telephone conversations using informal and formal phrases. Teacher emphasizes the difference between them. (5’) 2. T gives to Ss the typescripts of the conversations in order to practice them and to practice intonation. (10’) 3. T gives Ss some cards. The cards are divided into A’s and B’s, in each card there are some names and the reference if this person is at home or at work, so they have to ask to the other person about them and then they change roles. (15’) 4. Finally some couples reply some conversations in front of the class. (10’)
Comment: As we can see in the part of the theory which we read, “Facts that can affect the nature of speech”, oral production is not easy at all. It involves some aspects like sometimes speaking under pressure of time , interpersonal interaction, dealing with fluency, producing speech at a normal speed under the pressure of time, stress and intonation. Most of the time the oral skill seems to be very difficult to students, now that we have read all this theory we can know why. Moreover, students don´t like to talk in front of their classmates because I think they feel very ashamed of pronouncing incorrectly. We should help students very much to overcome these fears. We should try to make them feel confident when speaking.
Next lines present present a personal comment which is based on the readings and material that was presented by the instructor during our course from 26 of July to August the 6th of 2010.
1. General Comments. I notice there is progress of the linguistic theory between 1987 and 2005. At least, the titles of the written works are just fine examples of it. I mean: on the one side, Bygate searched on "Speaking" which is one of the four abilities to learn a language. On the other side, aproximately two decades later, Thornbury presented the research on "How to teach speaking". So, both authors represent a theory to deal with situations where there was no concern in the process of teaching and learning.
2. The input of the course. Now in 2010, our course focused on the themes previously mentioned and proposes "Oral Production" in the process of teaching a foreign language. Therefore, it is a third part that was needed to attend.
3. Its connection to CCH. During so many inter semester and inter anual courses, I have heard, read, reflected on the pedagogical principles of the CCH. They are: learning to learn, learning to make(¿?), and learning to be. In connection with them, it emerges in the midst of the disorganization of speaking, one clear contribution of the theory from the researchers, that is learning to speak and at the academic level the claim is for "Oral Production".
On these points, the matter of the course not only is interesting but basic and important in the context of the University's centenary.
During next months I will be teaching to a group of the first semester. What to do in connection with Speaking / Oral Production?
To answer the last question, I suggest to touch a personal experience which is related to previous and contemporary entertaining experience of students at CCH. So, the activity is related to movies.
1. Everyone has a favorite movie and likes to talk about it within personal or group's interaction.
2. At the present time, no matter how many pictures a person had seen, there is a space,time and resources to consider the latest movie.
3. In contemporary's situation, it is very common to see as many movies as possible. They are sources to learn a foreign language.
4. In the first semester my students will process from Unit I to VII. This will give them basic vocabulary on occupations, relationships, directions, people, events and times, clothes, home and work. So, I think that at the end of the semester, the students will be prepared to build up questions and answers. At that point, in Unit VII, the session 29th can take place in last days of november.
5. The activity focusses on the uses of previous movies to exercise the ability of Speaking or Oral Production. Right, here in this point the question is to use the learned vocabulary from Units I to VII. To do that I need to continue working on a Lesson Plan.
Differences between speech and writing: "Speech is not spoken writing" (page 2)
Written language can be more precise than spoken language. Words can be chosen and thought, so the argument can be very sophisticated, the writer can write and re-write and the reader can read quickly or slowly or even stop to think about the message.
In speech the transfer of information is dynamic, more effective because we use a range of signals that help the listener understand the message better and easily. I think that in class we should consider not only speaking but also conversation, because it is the predominant way of interaction in the social context.
Aspects such as; facial expressions, head movements, gestures and distance between speakers should be highlighted. It is important also that the students be aware of intonation, stress and rhythm.
Most of the students only repeat dialogues mechanically without really interacting. That is why I think it is very important that we try to make the students conscious of all these aspects involved in conversation because when we speak we have to make decisions rapidly to adjust our conversation as unexpected problems appear.
Dear colleagues, Thanks a lot for your enthusiastic participation, I am sure we learned a lot in this course and do not forget -the harder you work, the luckier you get… Gary Player. José Martín Gasca
You know, after the last course I am prepared to continue in teaching at CCH. Now, while I am working with the new students, the questions on oral productions that were presented during one of your clases are quite quite helpful to interact with teenagers.
Your course enabled me to encounter my new students at CCH. The questions that were presented during one of your clasess, are quite helpful to interact with the teenagers process and to work harder on speaking and oral production.
I'm ready to work. Are you?
ResponderEliminarHello Martín!
ResponderEliminarI'm just checking how does this blog works.
Have a nice afternoon.
Mónica Monroy.
Well done Monica, I'm also checking how this blog works. See you tomorrow.
ResponderEliminarHi everybody!
ResponderEliminarI'm checking too. See you tomorrow!
I hope this is the good one! I've been trying to publish my comment several times.
ResponderEliminarTere
Este comentario ha sido eliminado por el autor.
ResponderEliminarIt´s good to know this blog is working, isn´t it?
ResponderEliminarHi, I am trying to send my comment. Maria
ResponderEliminarHi! I’m Lulú Borjas and I’d like to add a comment.
ResponderEliminarI’d like to add my reflection about the last courses and about this course.
I think that in the last courses we have had the opportunity to remain how English language works, we did this in the grammar course and in the writing course we learnt how to write a paragraph. These courses have helped me to realize that to be a “good teacher” is a life time job. So I think that taking a English course, like this one about “oral production”, would help me to prepare myself and they will give me some fresh ideas to improve my classes. Besides, I think that in every single course there is something new to learn. However I have to add that I like to interact to other teachers because that’s the way we learn things about life and about other persons.
Good evening teachers. I copy the next page for you. It has different advice for being a good English teacher,so I hope you like it.
ResponderEliminarhttp://web.upaep.mx/Idiomas/teachers/EffectiveELFteacher.htm
Hi, everybody. I'm trying to write a comment. I hope I will be able to. Thanks Teresa for sending us the advice site. Rocío
ResponderEliminarHi everybody
ResponderEliminarI want to say something, like Lulu I've learned a lot in the other courses and in this case is not the exception, however I was hoping to do some more oral practice or to learn or remember something about phonetics or something like that, but Lulu said, you learn always something new in every course you take...
Hi, everybody. I have been able to publish my comment at last. I have discovered that we need to have an account in any of the companies included in the list below in order to get access to this service. As I have my e-mail account in hotmail, I had to get a new one in google. The good thing is that I learnt something new. In fact, I would like to learn much more because I have a really poor knowledge of TIC's and I know that it is essential to use these tools nowadays. See you. Take care.
ResponderEliminarhi, I AM MONICA
ResponderEliminarHi everyone, I'll see if I did the correct procedure to post a comment. Good Night!
ResponderEliminarYes, I did it right
Well as you Know I work in CCH Naucalpan. I've taught reading com for almost 14 years. The class used to be in Spanish up to last term. Some teachers have started teaching four skills since last year, but to me next semester it is going to be the first time. I'm so happy about the 4s approach, I think it was a very necessary change. I consider that I should relearn how to teach the other three abilities. I really like to improve my English proficiency and methodology in oral production that's why I'm taking this and other courses. I had the opportunity to go to San Antonio UNAM's Extension and I can tell you that, as Lulú and Víctor said, You always learn something new. It was a great experience, eventhough In my opinion these courses in CCH should have started many years ago. It is better late than never. Good Night again.
ResponderEliminarMY REFLECTION
ResponderEliminarDuring these days that we have been taking our Speaking course, I have been thinking, that it is our duty, as teachers of a foreign language, that we must continue improving our own knowledge of it everyday.
We must also continue acquiring new vocabulary, learn more about the foreign culture, study about the new techniques and strategies used for language teaching, in summary, to be updated.
And as I mentioned in one on the classes, students deserve educated and qualifed teachers.
Hi I´m Lulu Melgoza I´m working at CCH Vallejo. Everyday I have been learning something new in relation to English language, its culture and all over how to teach it.
ResponderEliminarThe questions are interesting in relation to oral production, easy and understandable. MY REFLECTION...is: I´ve been teaching this ability for several years, every course I try to improve it, the technique, the material and if I have a course book that it does not have enough practice I look for others ones to help the challenge and to get the goal in this ability.
ResponderEliminarLikewise, I´ve been learning new strategies used by my teachers in every course that I´ve taken to improve myself. Oral production must be taught every class and evaluated once a month,or everyday. As a teacher we can´t separate it from the other skills and when we have a suitable program we will be better.
List of oral production activities (Lourdes, Maria, Rocio, Teresa).
ResponderEliminar*Drills (oral repetition)
*Find someone who...
*Questionaries
*Pronunciation practice (with marshmallows in the mouth)
*Conversations
*Role play
*Reading aloud
*Dictation of statements
*Making up a story
*Ending a story
*Situational questions: descriptions
advice
opinions
directions
solving a problem
introductions
My reflection:
ResponderEliminarWhen I was a student I learnt English with the grammar translation method, so most of the class was grammar and reading. For practicing speaking we used repetition drills and we had to memorize dialogues and even short plays.
I remember that I was always stressed because we had to repeat the lines exactly as they were in the written text, therefore, we did not pay attention to the message.
My sad experience with oral production is what makes me try to improve the way I teach. I think that we should provide the students with more than just an opportunity to speak, to exchange words. We have to consider other important aspects of communication like; tone, pitch and body language as well as norms of interaction.
Activity: Love story
ResponderEliminarThe students have to discuss the order of some sentences that represent the first part of a love story. Then, they have to use their imagination to continue the story and finally they share their ideas ,orally, with the whole class.
Mini lesson plan
Number of students: 24
Level: beginners
Time: 40 minutes
Skills: speaking and Writing
Objective: Students will talk and write about a story , to review simple past.
Activity: "Love story"
Materials: Cards, copies, board
Evaluation: Informal (monitoring)
Procedure:
1. Write "Love story" on the board. Elicit some words related to love and write them on the board. Check comprehension of these words.(5 min.)
2. Stick cards on the board with the following sentences:
__They got married
__they fell in love
1 Sussy and Robert met at a party
__He invited her to meet his parents
__They talked for a long time
__They had 3 children
__They kissed
__they got engage
Get the students to read the sentences and check any new vocabulary. Students work in pairs and talk about the order of the sentences (monitor speaking). Ask for some feedback ( you may get different ideas) (15 min.)
3. Ask the students to write some sentences to continue the story (monitor speaking and wtiting). Ask for volunteers to share their stories. (15 min.)
4. To close, give the student a puzzle to find the past form of some verbs, including the ones in the story. (5 min.)
Hey Martin I am Jaime a.k.a. macho banana My reflection on the course is the next:
ResponderEliminarI agree with what the teachers have been posting in the fact that teaching is a life time commitment, so our duty is to be ready to share knowledge. This course improved my vision on how to share knowledge with new techniques and approaches to teaching. Every course offers new ideas and this one hasn´t been the exception. Having had the chance to be with my colleages these days has allowed me with the opportunity to learn from them as I wish they have had the same opportunity. So long. I will be posting the rest these days.
ACTIVITY
ResponderEliminar"PRISONERS FREE"
Topic: Simple past and vocabulary related with crimes
Time: 25 to 30 minutes
Material: 5 different people drawn, cards
Procedure:
* The teacher divides the class in groups of four.
*She gives each group a card with the description of the crimes that 5 different prisoners commited.
*The teacher sticks on the board the five pictures and tells to the class that those five people are prisoners. The prison is too overcrowded, so the court must decide which will be the two prisoners who would let free.
*Each group is supposed to be the court and decide the two prisoners who will be released.
*Finally, the groups will mention to the class their decision and give their reasons.
LESSON PLAN
ResponderEliminarTopic: Superlative form of adjectives of quality.
General Objective: Students will reinforce the correct oral and written use of adjectives in superlative form.
Specific Objective: Students will share personal information with their classmates using adjectives in supelative form.
Time: 1 hour Materials: board,marker, student's book, cards
Procedure:
* The teacher will write on the board a list of adjectives of quality, and she will ask students to tell her the superlative form of the previous adjectives.
*After the teacher has checked the correct superlative form of the adjectives with the whole class, students will answer a fill in the blanks exercise with the most appropriate adjective. The teacher will check the answers with the class.
*When the previous exercise is over, the teacher will give each student a card. Students will divide the card in four parts and write their names at the middle of it. In the first part of the card, students will write the worst lie they have ever told in their lives; in the second, they will write the most interesting thing they have ever done; in the third one, they will write the best prank they have ever played; and in the fourth one, they will write which is their loveliest memento they have. When students finish writing their information, they will put the cards on their chests, they will stand up and when the teacher starts clapping they will walk around the class. When the teacher stops clapping, students will stop and start asking to the closest classmate about what they wrote on their cards. After some minutes the teacher will start clapping again, students will walk again, and when the teacher stops clapping, students will share the information with a different classmate, and so on. (Students really get fun with this activity.)
When the teacher considers it has been enough, everybody will sit down. The teacher will ask students about the information they got from their classmates.
COMMENT
ResponderEliminarI would like to make my comment about the class in which Martin asked us to think about a recipe. If you remember I told the name of the recipe in Spanish (Rellenitos de frijol), because I insisted thet it was the name of the product obtained from the recipe.
It is very common that some words be taken as loans from one language to another. In Spanish we call them "Préstamos Lingüísticos" and in English these words are called "Loanwords".
English has acquired its loanwords from three different sources: from Mexican people who go to U.S., from the trade that U.S. holds with the Caribbean, and the last one, from the name of foods which have no English equivalent. Examples: chocolate, cilantro, dengue, hammock, macho.
COMMENT ABOUT THE COURSE
ResponderEliminarI have always worried about how to assess oral production and when Martin mentioned “assessment criteria” and he mentioned the “Holistic and analytic assessment”. This called my attention due to the fact that it should be a very good idea to incorporate into my evaluation.
I realize that because in the Holistic Assessment it was mention the participation of a colleague in the moment we are assessing. This would be a very good way to give a grade to a subjective skill such as Speaking with the help of another expert.
ORAL ACTIVITY
ResponderEliminarI really love “surveys” in my classes because it is a funny way to find something interesting about the others. I have design this activity and I hope you can find it useful.
This activity will carry out with the following stages:
1. The teacher (T) gives the paper with the questions to the students (Ss). He or She reads all the questions and assure all of them have been understood.
2. T gives to Ss 15 minutes to ask to 2 different persons about the questions.
3. T asks Ss if they found something interesting in their classmate’s answers. T assures that most of the Ss share their information to the rest of the class.
Ask to two different classmates the sentences below. Write their answers.
Possible answers: There are _______, there is _______, there aren’t any ___________.
How many:
Rooms are there in your home?
Bathrooms are there in your home?
Pictures are there in your living room?
Windows are there in your living room?
Chairs are there in your dining room?
Posters are there on your bedroom?
Table nights are there in your bedroom?
Pillows are there on your bed?
MY REFLECTION
ResponderEliminarOral Production is very important to teach in class because SS need to express their questions, needs, feelings.
Oral Production cannot be taught in an isolated way, it is related to other skills.
SS must practice it in every class, that is important to improve their fluency and to make them aware that they need to increase their vocabulary.
ACTIVITY "FIND SOMEONE WHO…"
ResponderEliminarWell, I really like to include this useful activity in my classes on Saturday courses. In this activity, ss are able to use the vocabulary, grammar and also you can include pronunciation, if you want to. What I have seen it is that my ss really enjoy this moving activity and they practice with oral production. I consider that this activity it is very flexible because you can include funny sentences and the same number of the sentences than ss you have in class. In that way, you assure that everyone has to ask a question to each classmate, instead of asking many questions to the same student.
Steps:
1. Write three columns on the board, the first one with all the sentences you have (you also can dictate them), in the second one write the title “name”, in the third one write “Yes/No”.
2. Tell ss they should make questions with the sentences they have in the first column. For example, if the first sentence is: 1. Brush my teeth once a day. Ss should ask “Do you brush your teeth once a day? (if you want to practice with simple present).
3. Ss should stand up and start asking, it is funnier if the teacher set a time limit and tell them that when they finish they should sit down and the last who finishes will have double homework. (You will see how they will enjoy it).
4. Teacher will star checking the first sentence by asking: “Connie, who brushes their teeth once a day?” She answers:” Luis brushes his teeth once a day”. Then you ask Luis the second one and so on.
LIST OF ACTIVITIES TO BE USED IN ORAL PRODUCTION (WE WORKED IN TEAMS AT CLASS):
ResponderEliminar-introducing yourself
-asking and giving directions
-talking about your neighborhood
-expressing likes and dislikes
-talking about your family
-describing a trip
-planning a vacation
-giving a recipe
-describing clothes
-describing people}-describing the weather
My comment on the things that we learnt in the oral production course is the following one: I consider daily evaluation important not just because it is a way to control and keep in mind Ss participation but because, I consider, it helps Ss to work and develop a natural production. I think that when Ss know an evaluation is in the process they feel threatened about it. At least that is way I have felt and seen Ss in my class. I would also like to comment that during the learning process I encourage oral production to promote fluency and accuracy.
ResponderEliminarMy reflection:
ResponderEliminarI took these courses, because it was a good opprtunity to learn and prsctice more about the abilities given; it is to say, grammar, writing and oral production. I think that two years ago we had really few chances to practice these abilities, I mean, to write and to speak English, because we only taught reading comprehension and our lessons were in Spanish. I agree with Tere about that students deserve educated and qualified teachers, therefore we must study and be updated in all aspects of teaching
MY REFLECTION:
ResponderEliminarNote: Sorry for the title that appears in my comments (Teacher Rocío…). I don´t know how this happened, I didn´t write that title. I think probably it is because some time ago I created a blog for a project and as it was for the students I wrote “teacher”.
I teach at Prepa 4. We have been teaching the four skills for many years, so we are supposed to know how to teach oral production. However, I’m not so sure about that. I agree with our partners who say that there’s always something new to learn.
I wrote this reflection at the beginning of the course. For this course I expected to improve my own oral production because when I took the other two modules of the “Diplomado”, they were for helping us improve our English in grammar and writing.
Now that I´m attending this course I see that it will be for helping us teach oral production. I think it will be interesting because it will give us some more ideas of how to teach this skill. Furthermore, probably this course will make us reflect on our teaching and I´m sure we will be able to improve it.
I think the questionnaire we answered made us reflect on the importance of the oral production skill and on the activities we do in class for teaching it. I´m sure we will learn a lot in this coures, of course from our teacher, but also from all our partners.
Reflection.
ResponderEliminarAfter the spontaneous answers to the questionnaire of the Module, my reflection goes in the following lines: I am taking this course in order to be aware of the various items of oral production. So far, there are some points to consider: 1) I did not reflect on it, 2) the place it has in my own learning of English as a foreign language, 3) I need to find out the specific relevance it has in my teaching at the CCH.
1. First reflection. Since it is one of the four abilities and I did not dedicated enough time to expand my information on it, then, I have to assume that there is a need to read what has been written on the subject. The reading materials from this Module of Oral Production are helping me to address this point.
2. Second reflection. Given the fact that I started to learn English many years ago, I must search the place Oral Production has in my personal learning of this foreign language.
3. Third reflection. Now, that I am teaching English at the CCH, the academic program is in a transitional period from Reading Comprehension to the experience of Teaching English in four skills. This particular experience will present the opportunities to consider and exercise Speaking in connection to Oral Production.
Based on the previous points I notice that I like to deal with Oral Production including my own questions too
ACTIVITY:
ResponderEliminarNAME: The Birthday Line
In this activity students get to know each other. They talk about their birthdays.
1.- The teacher chooses three students who will serve as “gossips” They will circulate among the other students and try to learn as much information as possible.
2.- All students except for the “gossips” line up according to their birthdays, starting with the students born in January. They call out their birthdays.
3.- Staying in line, students turn to a partner and describe how they like to celebrate their birthdays. ( I like to eat out with friends/ I like to make a party and invite all my friends/ I like to go to the movies, etc)
4.- Students turn to new partners to tell what they have learned from their previous partners.
5.- The “gossips” circulate and listen.
6.- In plenary, the “gossips” report to the class what they overheard.
COMMENT
ResponderEliminarIn my experience about teaching reading comprehension, I used to have the activity “Reading aloud”. First, because my ss wanted to do something with the language they were understanding. Second, this activity turned the class completely different. What I used to do is the following: after activating ss’ previous knowledge, scanning the text, working with vocabulary, answering some questions and doing other activities; ss were asked to read one paragraph aloud. Teacher read the paragraph several times and ss repeted it. The first time, the teacher read and ss just listened to. The second time, the teacher read slowly almost word by word and made emphasis on the difficult word pronunciation, and ss repeated it in the same way. Third, teacher read sentences faster and ss repeated them in the same way. Then ss had to practice in pairs or trios, in that moment, while the teacher was monitoring them, they used to ask about the correct pronunciation of the words. Finally, the teacher asked for volunteer or victims to read the paragraph aloud. The student who did it, had the applauses of the whole class. Now I know that pronunciation, stress and intonation should be taking into account in this activity. “It also provides a secure framework within which learners can focus on lower-levelfeatures of talk, such as pronunciation, without the added pressure of always having to plan the next utterances.
MINI LESSON PLAN
ResponderEliminarNumber of students: 25
Level: beginners
Time: 60 minutes
Skills: writing and speaking
Objective: Students will make up and perform a story using a comic
Materials: copies of a comic, copies of a comic without words in the bubbles
Evaluation: Informal
Procedure
1) Ss will be asked about comics. T. will ask about the most popular, where are they from, etc. 10’
2) T. will hand out copies of a section of the comic. Ss will read about and difficult vocabulary will be explained. 10’.
3) Ss will answer written wh-questions about the comic. T will check the answers with the group. 10’
4) T. will hand out the copies of a comic without words in the bubbles. Ss will work in pairs or trios and write down possible dialogues according to the drawings. T. will monitor ss’ work and answer possible questions about vocabulary or any other aspect. 20’
5) T. will choose one team at random. Ss will perform their story and they will see many other possible stories of the same comic. 10'
Dearest Colleagues:
ResponderEliminarHave a nice weekend and excellent scholar term.
1. Reflection about the questionnaire. Expectations and reasons to take these three courses.
ResponderEliminarWhen I started to listen to Martin, I was a little afraid. I was pretty sure that the course was going to be more like a conversation circle.
Probably due to the previous experience with the module of writing which was almost based not on teaching writing, but in our experience as writers, I was expecting to work less and to speak more.
I haven’t had practiced my oral production since I studied English in 1996! Also, I have given reading comprehension classes only, not four skills. So this module was kind of “my prize”, “my gift” for having taken grammar and writing.
But then I listened to “lesson plans for oral production”, “activities”, “theory”, and inside me I thought: “Oh no! Not again! How something as natural as speaking is, become one of the most terrible and stressing things? I mean, the thing is to communicate, isn’t it? Is it so difficult that it needs a special theory to be taught?”
Well after the first shock we did the questionnaire and as I was answering to the questions I realized that of course I know many things, I’m just a little bit not outdated? But the privilege to communicate in another language is beautiful and for the first time in 10 years I’m going to experience it as a teacher.
And now I feel really excited about knowing some theory, putting into practice with my students what I’m going to learn in the next few days and of course, to feel more confident about my work.
MY COMMENT
ResponderEliminarOne of the important aspects I read in the theory, was the criteria for speaking tasks, how we can maximize the students’ opportunities to speak. The participation in a discussion group in L2, makes the students more productive, more autonomous. We should have clear objectives which increase their communication and also that they have a sense of achievement. We must not judge the students if they make mistakes, instead we can try to help them where necessary. Speaking tasks also have to be related to real-life language use so that they can see that English is a tool useful outside the school. Aren´t students going to be more motivated if we take care of these aspects? I hope so.
2. Comment about the theory.
ResponderEliminarWe thought about general facts of the theory on oral production. For me many things were interesting and new since I had never reflected on those considerations. One of the things I think we could take advantage in the L2 language classroom is the supra segmental aspect. We talked about speed, pronunciation exercises, but what about the rhythm of English versus Spanish?
In English we have a stress language. So intonation and rhythm patterns go a long way in carrying the meaning across in English. We can be speaking with perfect pronunciation, but put the stress on the wrong syllable and your whole statement may go without being understood. When you’ve learned to use the American pitch pattern to call attention to the important words in your speech you become more understandable.
I think we could practice some exercises with our students about these differences so they can become more confident about their utterances. What do you think?
3. Mini Lesson Plan
ResponderEliminarNumber of students: 25
Level: basic/beginners
Time: (60 minutes)
Skills: speaking
Purpose: For the first class of the semester students will interview each other using 3 WH questions.
Materials: Blackboard, pen-board writers or chalk.
Evaluation: informal
T: teacher/ S’s: students/
Procedure:
1) Teacher introduces herself/himself: Hi! I’m (name). 5’
2) T asks students to stand up and walk around the classroom. In this part T can say the students: walk in all directions, look at your partners and choose someone to work with. 5 to 10’.
3) Students sit in pairs. T asks S’s to think about and write down three questions in English they would ask a person if they want to get to know that person. For example: What’s your favorite music? Where do you live? What do you plan to do in the next 5 years? Who is your favorite singer? 5’
4) S’s asks the questions to their partners and T monitors the activity. Student A asks the questions and B answers. Then B asks and A answers. 20’.
5) Student A introduces student B to the group and uses the previous information of the mini interview. For example: She is (name) she lives in (place, town), her favorite singer is (name)… And vice versa, B introduces A. 5’
6) If possible, all the pairs say something about themselves. T monitors and listens to the students. 25’
7) Close the session. T emphasizes the importance of cooperation and active participation in the class. Assigns homework: for example: write something new you learn during the class.5'
Find someone who... likes and dislikes. An ESL speaking activity
ResponderEliminarI use this exercise near the beginning of a high beginner class. It serves as a "get to know you" activity, practices talking about likes and dislikes (enjoy +"ing", like +infinitive, like +noun). Before the activity I make a cline with "hate on the bottom, "love" on the top, and "really don't like/dislike", "don't like/dislike", "don't mind", "like/enjoy", "really like/enjoy" in between. Then I give students a chance to plan the questions, including the follow-up questions (a one or two word clue is given after each initial question for a follow up question) before beginning the activity. During the activity I usually circulate, participate a little bit (to encourage students), and listen a lot. I write down the mistakes I hear (especially regarding question formation) so that I can put them on the board and go over them with the entire class after the activity.
Use follow up questions!
1. ________________ enjoys cooking. What...?
Do you enjoy cooking? What do you like to cook?
2. ________________ doesn't enjoy cooking. How often...?
Do you enjoy cooking? How often do you cook?
3. ________________ likes to listen to music. What kind...?
Do you like to listen to music? What kind of music do you like?
4. ________________ doesn't mind studying English. Why...?
5. ________________ doesn't like studying English. Why...?
6. ________________ likes pizza. How often...?
7. ________________ hates pizza. Why...?
8. ________________ loves animals. Why...?
9. ________________ really likes to watch TV. What...?
10. _______________ really dislikes watching TV. How often...?
11. _______________ is thinking about a TV show right now. Which...?
12. _______________ likes his or her job. Why...?
13. _______________ doesn't like to exercise. Why...?
Reflection about the theory
ResponderEliminarI consider that the theory helps us to develop adequately a class or an activity, however any theory has to be adapted to the reality since there are a lot of aspects that were not taken into account when this theory was developed. E,g, the Mexican way of life.
Nevertheless, there are a lot of aspects that are proved and must be considered in class.
One of the most relevant for me is the speaking as a production skill. I think that when a student is speaking or at least trying to do it, involves a lot of processes since he has to identify which words can be used and more useful to express his/her ideas, he/she most try to be coherent and don’t miss out the listener interest, he/she can use a lot forms to express his/her ideas (simplifying structure, ellipsis, using formulaic expressions, use of fillers and hesitation devises) and all of them involve a superior way of thinking, therefore as speaking is a production skill, I consider that it has to be practiced as much as possible in class, no matter if it is for beginners or advanced students as much as they practice, they are going to be able to communicate their ideas fluently and with a great grade of accuracy.
Lesson Plan: Oral Communication
ResponderEliminarProficiency Level : intermediate
Time: 50 minutes
Objectives:
Terminal:
• Students will be able to generate authentic language in meaningful situations.
Enabling:
• Students will be able to ask questions
• for clarification
•
• Students will be able to summarize and explain
• stories produced by other class members.
Materials:
• Many pictures-each of the pictures represents a topic/theme.
Warm-up: (5-8mins)
Ask the students if:
• their friends have told them any stories lately.
• they remember stories their parents told them of their parents' childhood.
Ask the students:
Who would like to share this story with us? One of the students will share a story. If there are no responses to this request, the teacher will share a short story.
Introduction:(2 mins)
Ask the students: Who likes to listen to stories? (They respond by a show of hands)
Ask the students: Who likes to tell stories? (They respond by a show of hands)
The teacher explains to the students that this is what they will be doing today.
Explanation: (5 mins)
Today you will work in groups of two. The teacher will organize the students into pairs. Each group will choose a topic and a picture that matches their topic. The topics include:
• School
• Work
• Childhood
• Birth
• Marriage
• Travel
• Family
• Weekend plans
• Sports
Teaching: (30-35 mins)
One of the group members will begin by sharing a story about the topic with the other group member. The student sharing the story will have about ten minutes to share it. The students will begin by telling how their story is similar or different to the picture. The listener will ask questions to check their understanding of the story. The types of questions to be used are wh-questions (they studied this in grammar class yesterday). The questions may be asked at the beginning of the practice or at the end. After the first person has finished sharing their story the listener will summarize and explain the story to the group next to them. This student has five minutes to summarize and explain their partnersí story. Then, they will switch and the member who listened and explained the story will share a story.
Evaluation:
Teacher will circulate among the groups monitoring their communication in an informal way, providing assistance when asked to.
Self Evaluation:
After discussing this lesson plan with class members I realized I needed to make minor adjustments to it. Instead of having a few pictures available for discussion purposes, I will have a wide variety of picures for the students to use. The students will choose the pictures, which provide a visual stimulus for the discussion. Additionally, the wh-questions will be asked by the students at the beginning or the end of the story. This enables the teacher and the students to check listening and comprehension skills. Depending on the proficiency level if the students, the teacher will give them time to make an outline of their story before sharing it. This will help them to feel more confident in the activity as well as organizing their thoughts before telling their story to other class members.
Lesson Plan: Oral Communication
ResponderEliminarProficiency Level : intermediate
Time: 50 minutes
Objectives:
Terminal:
• Students will be able to generate authentic language in meaningful situations.
Enabling:
• Students will be able to ask questions
• for clarification
•
• Students will be able to summarize and explain
• stories produced by other class members.
Materials:
• Many pictures-each of the pictures represents a topic/theme.
Warm-up: (5-8mins)
Ask the students if:
• their friends have told them any stories lately.
• they remember stories their parents told them of their parents' childhood.
Ask the students:
Who would like to share this story with us? One of the students will share a story. If there are no responses to this request, the teacher will share a short story.
Introduction:(2 mins)
Ask the students: Who likes to listen to stories? (They respond by a show of hands)
Ask the students: Who likes to tell stories? (They respond by a show of hands)
The teacher explains to the students that this is what they will be doing today.
Explanation: (5 mins)
Today you will work in groups of two. The teacher will organize the students into pairs. Each group will choose a topic and a picture that matches their topic. The topics include:
• School
• Work
• Childhood
• Birth
• Marriage
• Travel
• Family
• Weekend plans
End of firstpart
2nd Part
ResponderEliminar• Sports
Teaching: (30-35 mins)
One of the group members will begin by sharing a story about the topic with the other group member. The student sharing the story will have about ten minutes to share it. The students will begin by telling how their story is similar or different to the picture. The listener will ask questions to check their understanding of the story. The types of questions to be used are wh-questions (they studied this in grammar class yesterday). The questions may be asked at the beginning of the practice or at the end. After the first person has finished sharing their story the listener will summarize and explain the story to the group next to them. This student has five minutes to summarize and explain their partnersí story. Then, they will switch and the member who listened and explained the story will share a story.
Evaluation:
Teacher will circulate among the groups monitoring their communication in an informal way, providing assistance when asked to.
Self Evaluation:
After discussing this lesson plan with class members I realized I needed to make minor adjustments to it. Instead of having a few pictures available for discussion purposes, I will have a wide variety of picures for the students to use. The students will choose the pictures, which provide a visual stimulus for the discussion. Additionally, the wh-questions will be asked by the students at the beginning or the end of the story. This enables the teacher and the students to check listening and comprehension skills. Depending on the proficiency level if the students, the teacher will give them time to make an outline of their story before sharing it. This will help them to feel more confident in the activity as well as organizing their thoughts before telling their story to other class members.
Actividad:
ResponderEliminarThe teacher gives different cards to each student to create a story. The students describe the picture to their partners without showing it to them. The students have to decide which card is first, second and so on, and why; then they create a whole story.
Lesson plan:
ResponderEliminarGeneral objective: The students will be able to create a story and tell it to their partners.
1. The teacher explains the meaning of some useful words for the topic (mask, thief, robber, steal, bag, etc)
2. The teacher asks questions to the students, about the topic, for example:
a) Has anybody been stolen?
b) Has anybody stolen from your house?
c) When did it happen?
d) How did you feel?
e) What did you do?
3. The teacher divides students into groups of six members and gives a picture to each one
4. The students describe their picture, they must not show it to their partners.
5. The students create a whole story without looking at the pictures again.
6. The students tell the story to the rest of the class, or they write it.
Sorry, but I couldn't include the pictures for the lesson plan. I'll send them to Martin by e-mail.
ResponderEliminarReflection about the theory
ResponderEliminarI think that theory about oral production is important since it involves a lot of aspects. Communication is relevant for the human being and everybody has the necessity to communicate feelings, ideas, needs, etc., however, when a person has to communicate in a foreign language may not feel confident, even when he or she knows that the other people are not fluent or are still learning the language too. This is a real fact for most of our students, so, as teachers we must be aware of all those items included in speaking in order to help them to solve their problems and not only learning but also enjoying the language.
One of the most interesting topics for me, and I think one of the most important, is the relationship between culture and language. I agree with Martin about teaching these aspects together.
LESSON PLAN
ResponderEliminarMAIN OBJECTIVE: Ss will become aware of the importance to describe someone’s appearance.
LEVEL: Beginners
TIME 50 minutes
SKILLS: Oral production, reading, writing
MATERIALS: Cards with pictures of different people (one person per card) and other cards with the description of someone’s appearance.
WARM UP: Ss will talk about the main aspects to describe someone’s appearance: his/her age, eyes, hair, clothes, etc. Teacher will ask why it is important to know how to describe someone.
PROCEDURE:
Ss are divided in two teams, A and B. Every member in Team A has a card with someone´s description: F. e.: He´s 30. He has blue eyes, a blue shirt, etc
Every Ss in Team B has a card with someone´s name and his/her picture.
All Ss get up and every member in Team A asks questions to every Ss in Team B until he/she finds the picture that corresponds to his/her description. F.e.: Is she a man or a woman? Does she have a yellow dress? Ss in Team B must answer looking at the picture they have. F. e.: Yes, it´s a woman, but she´s wearing a blue dress, not a yellow one .
Then, Ss in pairs (picture and description together) write sentences about the person in the picture. The teacher takes the cards with the descriptions so that the Ss remember the spelling. The Ss should write something like this: His name is Peter. He has brown eyes and black, curly hair. He´s wearing a green T-shirt.
ACTIVITY
ResponderEliminarMAKE AN UNFORGETTABLE TRIP!
OBJECTIVE. The Ss will be able to persuade a tourist to take a trip
MATERIALS: Cards with information about cities around the world.
PROCEDURE: Ss are divided in groups of three or four. Other four Ss will be separated from the teams. Every team will receive three different cards with information about important cities in the world. F. e. Paris, Madrid, Athens, Sydney, New York, Sao Paulo, Mexico City, Rome, New Delhi, Bangkok, Tokyo, Istanbul, Berlin, Johannesburg. Every team will choose the city they prefer. They will imagine they are selling a trip to a tourist. The team must think about what people would like to visit: museums, pubs, national parks, monuments. They must convince the tourist to buy the tour to the city they chose. They must give strong arguments, like good price, unforgettable places, etc.
The Ss who were separated at the beginning, are the tourists. Every tourist will listen to every team and will decide what tour they will buy and why. They will report to total class.
4. Activity
ResponderEliminarTalking about the future.For beginners.
1. Tell your partner or classmates what you are going to do this weekend.
Example,
I'm going to play cards with my friends.
I'm gonna visit my grandmother.
2. Pretend you just won $5,000 in the lottery.
Tell your classmates what you will do with the money.
Example,
First, I'll put some of the money in the bank.
Then, I'll invite you to a fancy restaurant.
3. You need some help with a big picnic tomorrow. Ask for "volunteers."
Example,
Who will help me with the food?
We will.
Thanks a lot.
Juanita, will you bring some drinks?
Yes, I guess I will.
Mini Lesson Plan
ResponderEliminarNumber of students: 25
Level: 6th. grade
Time: 50 minutes
Skills: Reading, writing, listening and speaking
Objective: Students will write a letter about their experience in dating.
Material: photocopies, cards
Evaluation: Informal
Procedure:
T asks ss. what a date is and if they have had any dates. 2 min.
T. tells ss. they are going to read a letter about a young woman telling a friend about a date she had recently, but before reading it they have to guess what happened.
T. gives ss. a card with several words related to the story in the letter: Fernando, met, student, approved, twenty one, parents, introduce, gentleman, car, architect, Bogotá, birthday party, Friday, restaurant, mother, romantic, waiting, kiss.
Ss. work in pairs and write what they think happened to the woman in the letter using the words in the cards. T. monitors their work. 10 min.
In plenary, some pairs read their stories to the group and compare their stories. 2 min.
T. gives ss. the photocopies with the letter and ss. read it. 5 min.
Ss. compare their stories with the one in the letter and decide which story (the ones they wrote) is more similar to the real story in the letter. 5 min.
Ss. answer some comprehension questions. 7 min
T. checks answers with the group. 3 min
Ss. write a letter telling a friend about a date they just had. T monitors their work. 10 min
Mini Lesson Plan
ResponderEliminarStudents: 25
Level: Beginners
Time: 40 min
Skills: Listening and Speaking
Objective: Students will practice some phrases used with informal and formal conversations in the telephone after listening to several models and with the help of some cards.
Activity: I´m not at home.
Material: Tape recorder, CD, cards, photocopies.
Evaluation: Informal (peer)
Procedure:
1. Ss listen to some telephone conversations using informal and formal phrases. Teacher emphasizes the difference between them. (5’)
2. T gives to Ss the typescripts of the conversations in order to practice them and to practice intonation. (10’)
3. T gives Ss some cards. The cards are divided into A’s and B’s, in each card there are some names and the reference if this person is at home or at work, so they have to ask to the other person about them and then they change roles. (15’)
4. Finally some couples reply some conversations in front of the class. (10’)
Comment:
ResponderEliminarAs we can see in the part of the theory which we read, “Facts that can affect the nature of speech”, oral production is not easy at all. It involves some aspects like sometimes speaking under pressure of time , interpersonal interaction, dealing with fluency, producing speech at a normal speed under the pressure of time, stress and intonation. Most of the time the oral skill seems to be very difficult to students, now that we have read all this theory we can know why. Moreover, students don´t like to talk in front of their classmates because I think they feel very ashamed of pronouncing incorrectly. We should help students very much to overcome these fears. We should try to make them feel confident when speaking.
Comments on Theory related to Speaking.
ResponderEliminarNext lines present present a personal comment which is based on the readings and material that was presented by the instructor during our course from 26 of July to August the 6th of 2010.
1. General Comments.
I notice there is progress of the linguistic theory between 1987 and 2005. At least, the titles of the written works are just fine examples of it. I mean: on the one side, Bygate searched on "Speaking" which is one of the four abilities to learn a language. On the other side, aproximately two decades later, Thornbury presented the research on "How to teach speaking". So, both authors represent a theory to deal with situations where there was no concern in the process of teaching and learning.
2. The input of the course.
Now in 2010, our course focused on the themes previously mentioned and proposes "Oral Production" in the process of teaching a foreign language. Therefore, it is a third part that was needed to attend.
3. Its connection to CCH.
During so many inter semester and inter anual courses, I have heard, read, reflected on the pedagogical principles of the CCH. They are: learning to learn, learning to make(¿?), and learning to be. In connection with them, it emerges in the midst of the disorganization of speaking, one clear contribution of the theory from the researchers, that is learning to speak and at the academic level the claim is for "Oral Production".
On these points, the matter of the course not only is interesting but basic and important in the context of the University's centenary.
Alberto
An Activity:
ResponderEliminarDuring next months I will be teaching to a group of the first semester. What to do in connection with Speaking / Oral Production?
To answer the last question, I suggest to touch a personal experience which is related to previous and contemporary entertaining experience of students at CCH. So, the activity is related to movies.
1. Everyone has a favorite movie and likes to talk about it within personal or group's interaction.
2. At the present time, no matter how many pictures a person had seen, there is a space,time and resources to consider the latest movie.
3. In contemporary's situation, it is very common to see as many movies as possible. They are sources to learn a foreign language.
4. In the first semester my students will process from Unit I to VII. This will give them basic vocabulary on occupations, relationships, directions, people, events and times, clothes, home and work. So, I think that at the end of the semester, the students will be prepared to build up questions and answers. At that point, in Unit VII, the session 29th can take place in last days of november.
5. The activity focusses on the uses of previous movies to exercise the ability of Speaking or Oral Production. Right, here in this point the question is to use the learned vocabulary from Units I to VII. To do that I need to continue working on a Lesson Plan.
Alberto
Differences between speech and writing: "Speech is not spoken writing" (page 2)
ResponderEliminarWritten language can be more precise than spoken language. Words can be chosen and thought, so the argument can be very sophisticated, the writer can write and re-write and the reader can read quickly or slowly or even stop to think about the message.
In speech the transfer of information is dynamic, more effective because we use a range of signals that help the listener understand the message better and easily. I think that in class we should consider not only speaking but also conversation, because it is the predominant way of interaction in the social context.
Aspects such as; facial expressions, head movements, gestures and distance between speakers should be highlighted. It is important also that the students be aware of intonation, stress and rhythm.
Most of the students only repeat dialogues mechanically without really interacting. That is why I think it is very important that we try to make the students conscious of all these aspects involved in conversation because when we speak we have to make decisions rapidly to adjust our conversation as unexpected problems appear.
Thank you.
Dear colleagues,
ResponderEliminarThanks a lot for your enthusiastic participation, I am sure we learned a lot in this course and do not forget -the harder you work, the luckier you get… Gary Player.
José Martín Gasca
Hello Martin:
ResponderEliminarYou know, after the last course I am prepared to continue in teaching at CCH. Now, while I am working with the new students, the questions on oral productions that were presented during one of your clases are quite quite helpful to interact with teenagers.
Alberto
Hello Martin:
ResponderEliminarYour course enabled me to encounter my new students at CCH. The questions that were presented during one of your clasess, are quite helpful to interact with the teenagers process and to work harder on speaking and oral production.
Alberto