EXTRA UNIT FROM LEARNER CENTERED TEACHING BOOK

The role of the teacher 

In this part of the book, I learnt how import the role of the teacher is in the classroom. First of all, I can say that to be a teacher is a work very hard because to be a teacher it is necessary to have vocation, patience and time because a teacher is not just the person who teaches knowledge, a good teacher will be the person who teaches values for the life and motivate learners. Teachers have different roles for example they have to be assessor, contributor, counselor, facilitator, diagnostician, manager, planner, reflector, monitor and so on. On the other hand, on the book says that there three teaching principals. First, students do more learning tasks. It means that pupils enjoy doing many activities in the classroom. The second is that teachers do less telling. In this way they help students to discover new knowledge and they can look for new definition for some words and they can build their knowledge by themselves, Finally, teachers do instructional design work more carefully, so teachers have the goals to prepare their materials in order to teach their classes,, but the teachers have to consider the learner’s need and levels. In order to apply this knowledge with my pupils, I will motivate them through activities, warm- ups, games that they like to do or topics they like to study, but it will be sometimes   

You can watch this video to find extra information 

Roles of the teacher 

Planner

References for additional information 

Tugba, C. (2014). What is the role of teache? [ Video]. Disponible en: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8OTZxXdWVUM.

Adrian, A. (2007). The teacher`s role in implementing cooprative learning in the classroom .

Mirian, B. P. (2000). Teachers and the role of the teachers` lounge. New York.

EXTRA UNIT FROM LEARNER CENTERED TEACHING BOOK

                    The purpose and Process of Evaluation

“From learner centered teaching book”, I learnt about the importance and the purpose of evaluation. Evaluation means to assess or judge the quality and the importance of effectiveness of something. Teachers have to evaluate learners’ progress or strengths and weaknesses.  Moreover, teacher must grade all assignments and task because in this way they can promote the learning process. Also, it can show what students learn. There are different methods, strategies, and ways to evaluate students. Teacher can use Informal and informal assessment. Formal assessment is when teachers judge learners ‘work through a test and then she or he gives a formal report. Meanwhile, informal assessment is when a teacher decides whether a learner is doing well or not. Another way to evaluate students is using formative assessment because through this kind of evaluation teachers can evaluate students during all program, but if the teacher use just summative assessment it can be unfair because it is at the end of a program and just provide grades and learners cannot receive feedback about their mistakes on the quiz.  From my point of view Self- assessment is more important because it let us to know how good we think our progress or language is. It means that we have the opportunity to see our progress in the learning process and if we have some weaknesses we can improve that. On the other hand, teachers can evaluate critical thinking, effort, problem solving, logical reasoning, and ability to synthetize. In order to apply this knowledge with my pupils, I will use all these strategies because they are very necessary. Furthermore, I will evaluate them through exams, quizzes, portfolios, and project works

You can watch the video to find extra information about the evaluation 

Ways to evaluate students 

References for additional information 

• Ola, S. A. (2015). Testing & Evaluation (types of assessments).

• Sangster, M. O. (2006). Assessment its purposes.

• Paul, W. (2002). Assessmnet: to measure or to learn?

UNIT 8 SPEAKING

Unit 8 Speaking 

In unit 8, I learnt about Speaking. Speaking is a productive skill. It involves speech to communicate meanings to other people. When we speak we use intonation, word and structure stress, accurate, individual sounds, linking and contractions in order to convey meaning. However, we have to be carefully with the stress and hesitations because if we do not use it correctly people can misunderstand our ideas. There are some features that we have to take into account at the moment to speak. For instance, use the correct language. It means use formal or informal language according to people who are you talking to. Moreover, your speech has to have accuracy, appropriacy, fluency because it shows a successful oral communication. In order to apply this knowledge with my pupils, I will use short dialogues, conversations and role plays. These activities will help them to improve their speaking, but before I will talk about some aspects that are really necessary to have at the moment to speak like the correct use of intonation, stress, accuracy, appropriacy, and sometimes they have to use gestures, eye contact, and facial expressions in order to covey meaning successfully. 

You can watch this video to find extra information 

Activities in order to teach our students 

Role plays 

Activities which students can use to improve their speaking

Worksheets 

References for additional information

Free speaking worsheets. (2011). Teach ESL today.

Engfluent. (2014). Engilsh speaking skills (by yoursef) [Video]. Disponible en: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAU2zx2Ri_M.

Kelly, L. (2010). Speaking with confidence and skill.

UNIT 7 LISTENING

Unit 7 Listening 

In unit 7, I learnt about how important listening is. Listening is a receptive skill. It involves responding to language rather than producing it. There are different listening subskills they are the following; listen for gist/global understanding, specific information, detail or to infer attitudes, Also, there are two ways of listening as listening intensively and extensively. When we talk about listening some aspects are consider as important parts for example, the intonation, phonemes, hesitations, stress, connected speech, gestures and so on. On the other hand, there some activities that are related with listening as for example introductory activities, main activities, and post-task activities. These activities require learners to use some of the language they have met in the class. Teachers can use authentic materials in order to practice listening with their learners. The materials are CDs, DVDs. It can be very useful because learners are exposure to a rage of accents and speeds of delivery. In order to apply this knowledge with my learners, I will let them to hear short dialogues in which they can identify the intonation, stress of native speakers. In this way they can improve their listening skill. 

Check this video in order to find extra information 

Worksheet 

Activities for students

References for additional information 

Emma, L. E. (2014). IELTS Listening- Top 14 tips`Video . Dsiponible en: 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OualsHB1FqE.

Matheus. (2011). Litening comprehension worksheets.

J, D. (2010). Developing listening skills.

UNIT 6 WRITING

Unit 6 Writing 

In unit 6, I learnt about the importance of writing. Writing is a process to write your ideas using symbols and letters. Writing is a productive skill. When we write something we have to take into account the degree of formality, but it depends on the kind of text we want to write. Also, it is necessary to use layouts and different ways of ordering information. Furthermore, Accuracy and cohesive are very important in your writing. On the other hand, writing can gave different purposes. For instance, it helps the memory to remember the vocabulary, grammar rules, or meanings, and it helps learner to take notes about any topic. A writer must consider all the steps in order to write something for example, planning organizing ideas, drafting, editing, proofreading, and re-drafting. In order to apply this knowledge with my learners, I will let them to write a paragraph about “their families”. Hence, the paragraphs will contain main idea and supporting ideas. Also, the punctuation will be very important.

You can watch this video if you want to review more information about writing 

Activities for students 

Example of short paragraph 

Worksheets 

References for additional information

• Kristin, P. (2012). How to teach creative writing techniques, part 4[Video]. Disponible en: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5UZ9ES4HP0.

• Jim, M. (2012). The 5-steps-writing process: From brainstorming to publishing. Life Rich.

• Petter, L. (2014). Free sentence writing worksheets for kindergarten ·11693.

UNIT 5 READING

Unit 5 Reading 

In unit 5, I learnt about the importance of reading. Goodman (1969) stated “Reading as a process of communication between human’s life. I agree with this point of view because through reading people can interact their ideas about any topic. Also, reading offers additional exposure to the language. Therefore, reading is a receptive skill and it involves reading for specific information (scanning), reading for detail, deducing meaning from context, understanding text structure, reading for gist (skimming) inferring and predicting.  There are ways of reading. They are extensive and intensive reading and reading for pleasure. Intensive reading has different purpose for example, to examine the use of specific features as (verbs, tense of forms), to infer meaning of new vocabulary, to learn about discourse markers (how phrases are used). According to Carrel and Carson (1997) “extensive reading involves rapid reading of large quantities of material or longer reading (whole book) for general understanding”. It helps learners to improve their reading skills. In order to apply this knowledge my learners, I will use different text types as for example, letters, articles, postcards, stories, leaflets, and poems because these kind of text are really useful for them. 

You can watch this video to find extra information

Worksheets

Activities for students 

                                                    Reference for additional information 

• Charles Alderson, J. (2010). Assesing reading. Cambridge .

• Tina, Z. (2013). The reading Process [Video]. Disponible en: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fPdgJOwbes.

• Bindurg, D. (2008). Extensive Reading . Norderstedt Germany.

• Wilma’s Greeting : Reading Comprehension – 3rd Grade Reading Worksheet - JumpStart

UNIT 4 FUNCTIONS

Unit 4 Functions 

In unit 4, I learnt about functions and exponents in the classroom. Function refers to the use of language for a specific purpose. Meanwhile, exponents refer to the language we use to express a function. Some examples of functions are the following: apologizing, greeting, clarifying, inviting, and agreeing. It is really important to use these functions and exponents according to the situations and you have to take into account the level of formality of the language you use. For example, people in connected speech most of time use formal language because it can demonstrate respect to others, but if you are with your close friends you just use informal language because it can demonstrate that you fell free to use the language in this way with them. Moreover, learners tend to use informal exponents that are colloquial. For instance, he`s off his head. On the other hand, people use neutral exponents that show neither great respect not too much casualness between them. In order to apply this knowledge with my pupils, I will use dialogues and role plays using the appropriate register. It means using the correct language according to the level of learners and learner’s needs.  

Watch this video in order to find more information 

Worksheets for students to get better idea about functions 

Activities for students 

References for additional information

Sprat Mary., P. A. (2011). TKT (Teaching Knowledge Test). En 2. a. The TKT Course Modules 1, The TKT Course Modules 1, 2 and 3 (págs. 27-30). Cambridge University .

 Ontesol. (2014). Teachin grammar: Understanding structures [Video]. Disponible en: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LW7ziNQadvk.

Kisdobos. (2010). Help Mr Splash (Simple Function in English).

Unit 3 PHONOLOGY

Unit 3 Phonology 

In unit 3, I learnt about how important phonology is in the class. Phonology is the study of sound features used in a language in order to communicate meaning. In English these features include phonemes, words stress, sentence stress and intonation. Inside of phonology we have different terms related to this topic. For example, a phoneme is the smallest unit of sounds that can make a difference to meaning in a language. Meanwhile, when we use connected speech we have to consider the different kind of stress like primary stress, secondary stress and contrastive stress. At the moment to speak people use to link words in order to show their fluency or to avoid pronouncing some words. Furthermore, people usually use contractions in connected speech. In phonology is important to use the correct stress in words because sometimes if you do not use the correct stress, people can misunderstand your idea. In phonology we have the opportunity to use a phonetic transcription like /kәn/ for /can/. In order to apply this knowledge I will use a phoneme chart to teach my pupils. Also, I will use CDs because it can help them to listen and then practice all sounds. On the other hand, the phonemic chart can help learners to analyze the phonetic transcriptions

You can watch this video to look for extra information 

Extra material for our students 

References for additional information

• Pamela, R. (2011). English phonology and pronunciation teaching. London .

• Practiceteachinguk. (2011). Teachin phonology [Video]. Disponible en: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BM5OgB7ycfg.

• Underhill, A. (2013). Phonemic chart . ÇANAKKALE ONSEKIZ MART UNIVERSITY.

UNIT 2 LEXIS

Unit 2  Lexis 

In unit 2, I learnt about the importance of lexis in English classes. Lexis refers to individual words or set of words for example, homework, study, whiteboard, tree, be on time and so on. When we talk about lexis we also refer to vocabulary, but this vocabulary has to be according to the context. Hence, learners have to analyze different aspect in order to acquire a second language for example it is necessary to remember that idiom as a group of words that are used together, in which the meaning of the whole word group is different from the meaning of each individual word. For instance, she felt under the weather; I’m between a rock and a hard place. On the other side, collocations are words that regularly go together for example, depend on, take a holiday and heavy rain. Also, is necessary to emphasize that there is a difference between lexical set and word family. For instance, lexical set are groups of words that belong to the same topic as family, furniture, food. However, word family refers to words that come through affixation from the same base form such as real, unreal, realistic, unreal. Moreover, in this unit was necessary to analyze the definitions of the following words false friends, homophones, homonyms, varieties of English, synonyms and antonyms. Knowing how important lexis is, I think I will need to apply it during all my lessons. I will assign some tasks according to the level of the learners and the students’ learners 

Watch these videos to find more information 

Worksheets 

                                    References for additional information 

• Adam. (2013). How to increase your vocabulary [Video]. Disponible en: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53SIKuCuHv0.

• Kids Learn Clothing Vocabulary (phrases 1) YouTube,. (2015). Kids Learn Clothing Vocabulary (phrases 1). Retrieved 21 April 2015, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=taoCF1cKZSY 

• Graves, M. A.-M. (2013). Teaching vocabulary to English Language Learner . New York.