Reflection Activity 4

“Opening a classroom door”

1.    What was the role of the teacher?

The role of the teacher was to be in front of the class and manage the students. for example she made them to be quite all the time, I was like a police women or something like that.

2.    What was the role of the students?

They have to be quite, in order, pay attention and nothing else. It was boring to see.

3.    What were some characteristics of the teaching/learning process?

She used a mixture of all methods, but the latest class was based on Direct method and grammar translation. She was like very interesting to show them grammar and nothing else.

4.    What was the nature of student-teacher interaction?

Well it was like the weather, they some days were very interesting in the class, but other days not at all, ( it was like hell ), no one wanted to learn and the chaos was awful.

5.    What was the nature of the student-student interaction?

They were very closed to each other, they were allways helping to the ones that couldn´t learn very well, but sometime were some kinds of fight for stupid things, but they could over the problem.

6.    How were the feelings of the students dealt with?

They were very good but, they were hyperactive children, all the time were talking to the next table or played with something. 

7.    How was language viewed?

Well it was a very good class, but they think that english is not important, because they are going to study another thing. It was sad to hear that.

8.    How was culture viewed?

well, they were very interesting in some things like sports, music, but nothing related about culture styles.

9.    What areas of language were emphasized?

well  the teacher only emphasized in reading and writing, I think that was the reason that they thought this class was boring.

10. What language skills are    emphasized?

Like I mentioned in the other question, The entire class was focused on writing and reading.

11. What was the role of the students’ L1?

She used L1 a lot, she explained every single thing in spanish and teacher always avoided to talk in english. I was like very disapointing, because I wanted to talk in english but she always answered in spanish.

12. How was evaluation accomplished?

Well she used the same evaluation all the time, match the sentences, true or false, etc.

13. How did the teacher respond to student errors?

well sometime she correct them in front of the class, and it was very bad to see, because of that the students did want to participate the rest of the class.

14. What techniques did the teacher use?

Dictation Translation Memorization

Reflection Activity 3

"Teaching philosophy" 

Well I think this is a mixture of enthusiasm/ expressiveness, clarity in explanation and rapport/interaction. The teacher must be very didactic and everything must to be clear for the students, maybe there is no formula for this, you just need to be quite open with your students, I mean you have to understand them and make them feel comfortable in classroom.

Second language are learned by using all the skills of our students, for example give them the opportunity to explore all their possibilities and all their knowledge. They must feel like their learning something for life, and this new language is going to be use.

Well, the most important factors to learn another language are the age of the students, maybe their previous knowledge, or their cultural background, the way that they learn.

The role of the teacher should be like a personal trainer, I mean we have to give them the tools  and show them the best way to learn, and then they have to continue this knowledge by themselves, and we just correct their mistakes, helping them to know what is important in this new language.

Reflection Activity 2

Children learn a second/foreing language easier than adults.

I think this sentence or assumption it is rigth, children are like an sponge, they can absorb what ever you teach them, that is very impressive, and also it is a good tool to give them more knowledge about the foreing language that they are learning about.

According what we saw in class, after puberty (critical age), brain loses its flexibility and this makes it difficult for an adult to acquire a language like a native.

I was reading an article about this statement, and I  found some very interesting ideas, for example:

"Children are much quicker at learning a foreign language because their brains are still forming and accept new information much easier"

Another quote that I found very interesting was:

" When children are taught a foreign language at an early age, they learn in a method that works for their brains, and many language learning programs are trying to replicate this learning process".

http://onlinefreespanish.com/aplica/news/10_15_08.htm