FOUNDATIONS OF THE LEARNER- CENTERED APPROACH

CHAPTER 1

LEARNER - CENTERED TEACHING: ROOTS AND ORIGINS

This chapter mainly explains how someone became a learner - centered teacher, the approaches used as a collection of educational theories it helped to promotes learning.Also, when we want to change something at teaching process we must read to support our ideologies with further researches or findings in order to get a logical view. In this case, the author has read the transformative learning theory to change the pedagogy thinking. Besides, the author said that he saw an authoritarian, controlling teacher. I realized that motivation factor has an enormous impact on student learning process.

In addition, this chapter helped me to reflect on my teaching process because teachers feel that they have the power over students and almost all the time transmit afraid on their students. I realized that as human beings and as teachers we need to be patient and lovely with them especially when they are kids, and it is our opportunity to build confidence and respect between us. For example, at any situation or opportunity you can take an advantage by providing a constructive feedback to reinforce what he/ she made.In other words, students are part of this process supporting by Constructivist theory where learners are receiving the knowledge in an active way in other words it calls cooperative learning for example solving problems in peer or groups.

Teachers are facilitators in the knowledge acquisition, because we as teachers have the capacity to influence positively on their independent learning process by applying strategies to promote the responsibility to achieve their goals making them stronger as the author said maintain climates that are conducive to learning . Nowadays, I noticed that teacher and students have an extrinsic motivation to learn because learners do things just to get scores or points. While, teachers must orient to a conscious learning where they will be able to contribute, study and come prepared to each lesson.

Finally, I want to promote at my classroom the importance to produce a product, perform a skill and demonstrate their knowledge taking into account the transformative learning theory by promoting their encourage reflection, critique and development of self- awareness.I really appreciated this book because it provides a huge information about the learner- center teaching by sharing a personal teaching situation.

 Bibliography: 

Weimer, M. (2002). Learner-centered teaching: Five key changes to practice. John Wiley & Sons. 
retrieved from 
http://site.ebrary.com/lib/uta/docDetail.action?docID=10653948&p00=language%20eaching


Additional information

1.Princeton.edu,(2015)from
http://www.princeton.edu/cst/teaching-resources/methods/ModifiedPCASTTable.pdf

2. Vuir.vu.edu.au,(2015)from
 http://vuir.vu.edu.au/1445/1/Matsau.pdf

UNIT 8 SPEAKING

WHAT IS SPEAKING?

First, speaking Skill is the more important skills when we learn a foreign  language in this case English because when learners study grammar, syntax, phonology they can write, read, and listen but if you add everything as shown above you can speak perfectly and that is why I as an English teacher want to develop this skill on my students at each lesson, knowing  it demands a lot of time and effort but if we practice we can do it .

 Moreover, I like to teach speaking because they can interact and share their opinions, experiences and so on. For example, students can group in groups it helps them to join in group discussions and talk about habits or sports. Another way is when students give information to someone else it helps to explore how they use their speaking and listening when they exchange information.

Furthermore, speaking has essential things that we have to take into account like use a correct intonation,  use an appropriate register, use grammar and vocabulary, use language accurately among others. In fact, something we need to develop when we speak is the use of gestures to emphasize what we said like facial expressions.

At teaching classroom, teachers can facilitate interaction between students as turn taking is another interactive strategy to apply between them as in conversations, role plays and so on.

Finally, this unit was relevant at my learning teaching process because I learned useful elements about speaking like how to integrated skills lessons  and apply fluency activities as information - gap activities, in the same way, motivate and build confidence when they speak.

Well, I found this educational video that I want to share with you I hope you like it.

Bibliography: 


Spratt, M., Pulverness, A., & Williams, M. (2011). The TKT course. Ernst Klett Sprachen.

The TKT course. Module 1,2,3 

Additional information

1. Brandeis.edu, (2015) from http://www.brandeis.edu/departments/roms/pdfs/strategies-speakingskills.pdf

2. Princeton.edu, (2015) from http://www.princeton.edu/~pia/PracticalEnglishLang.pdf

UNIT 7 LISTENING

WHAT IS LISTENING?

Nowadays, Young people listen to different kinds of music or watch movies in English and they are learning many words or phrases. Also, we can take this as an advantage in the English language teaching process  in our country. As a matter of fact, we as English teachers need to emphasize more in this receptive Skill because the process is kind of complicated because they need understand the difference between listening and hearing. In short, I understand that hearing is the act of delivering sound for example you can receive an applause and it is a sound. Equally important Listening means when you follow an active process where you receive, construct meaning and respond to non-verbal or spoken messages. As shown above listening involves  the ability to retain information.

All in all, when we teach to listen we need to explain them the importance of pay attention to intonation and stress in order to understand better the message or information provided by the speaker. In the same way, they need to learn how to identify sounds, key words, vocabulary and the body language that the speaker uses.

In balance, listening skills has subskills for example listening for main ideas or gist details, listening to predict or guess information, understanding vocabulary in context. Additionally, I want to apply some tasks at my classroom because I could notice that listening skill is not well developed for example learners can not answer questions about any lecture. First, I need to find authentic audios to provide them. Second, play it twice or three times depending on the students´ level then ask to complete tables or charts with key words as well as ticking with true or false , putting events in the correct order those tasks are going to reinforce their skill.

Additional information

1. Rost M. (1990). Listening in language learning. London: Longman. 

2. Underwood M. (1989). Teaching listening. London: Longman. 

3. Omaggio Hadley, A. (1993). Teaching language in context (2nd ed.).

4.  Boston: Heinle & Heinle Brooks, N. (1960). Language and language learning: Theory and practice. New York: Harcourt, Brace, and World.

Bibliography: 

Spratt, M., Pulverness, A., & Williams, M. (2011). The TKT course. Ernst Klett Sprachen.

The TKT course. Module 1,2,3 

UNIT 6 WRITING

 WHAT IS WRITING?

Firstly, writing is a productive Skill and is one way where we can communicate and express our feelings, ideas, opinions, etc. Also, everyone has the ability to write and we as English teachers can help students become better writers. Moreover, I think that writing is a  strong Skill in English because learners need to work hard to accuracy and cohesion on their writings coupled with practice for that reason  it takes a long time. 

At my teaching classroom, I can apply some tips to improve students´ writing Skill like practice writing in English daily, where they have to write short essays about different topics chosen from the groups by the same token  make them conscious of the importance to write and they will start to create a new habit.

In the final analysis, I learned the four approaches about this Skill they are the product approach, the process approach, the genre approach and the process genre model for teaching writing. In brief, I prefer to apply at my teaching classroom the process approach because it is easy to follow due to it has four stages in writing 1) prewriting 2) composing /drafting 3) revising and 4) editing. According to Tribble (1996), these stages are recursive because it involves repeated rule, procedure, application but we can add new ideas such as; a brainstorming order to get a piece of writing without spelling mistakes, punctuation or grammatical errors at the end of a lesson.

I found this interesting video that I want to share with you.

Bibliography: 

Spratt, M., Pulverness, A., & Williams, M. (2011). The TKT course. Ernst Klett Sprachen.
The TKT course. Module 1,2,3 


Additional information

1.Americanenglish.state.gov(2015)http://americanenglish.state.gov/files/ae/resource_files/developing_writing.pdf

2.Essex.ac.uk,(2015)http://www.essex.ac.uk/myskills/how_to_improve_your_academic_writing.pdf

UNIT 5 READING

What is reading?

Reading is a receptive Skill where learners gain more information about something and this language skill gives more input by the same token it helps us to learn, to summarize, analyze, connect, develop personal opinions and ideas .

At my classroom, I can do many activities to develop this Skill by providing authentic materials and guidelines on how it can be improved during the course. Likewise, it could be assigned as homework to read a short article and summarize in few lines. Also, I want to start with easier tasks / follow up activities where learners can recognize, matching, filling in, T or F, multiple choice and work individually, in pairs or groups.

In addition, we as English teachers need  to know the use of  Reading techniques and the types. I learned that skimming is one of the technique that provides a general idea of the whole text it concerns discovering the main idea of a text, where learners read just the first and the last part of a text  also the topic sentences and paying attention to others details like italics, pictures, etc.

Besides, scanning is another technique used to find the specific information by searching important words, facts or phrases to get it. At my teaching process, I can give to my learners some useful tips like read paragraphs diagonally, read the page in a “Z” or “U” or read the first sentences of each paragraph. Similarly, we can ask learners underline, highlight a key word or sentence and take notes or draw charts or graphs of the whole text to show the importance. It helps them becoming independent learners and develop their critical thinking.

Following this, there are two types of Reading namely extensive and intensive Reading so I am going to analyze how they work.  Extensive Reading consists of get the general idea and people read for pleasure , it helps to improve their general knowledge  about any topic, for example, a novel you read before going to bed or articles from any magazine  that interest you because they are longer texts  . On the other hand, intensive Reading focuses on shorter texts and it includes finding specific information to be accurate in any detail, for example, a business letter.

Finally, I learned about lead- in activities it involves mainly looking pictures to understand the text using a brainstorming  and introductory activities helping to teach vocabulary. According to Howarth, P (2004) Students can integrate the skills by talking or writing about it or could focus on specific language in the text. In other words telling someone about what we have read is a very natural reaction to a text.

Additional information:

1. Www2.le.ac.uk,. (2015). Improving your reading skills — University of Leicester.

2. Leb.k12.in.us,. (2015).
http://www.leb.k12.in.us/StaffSites/boyetts/files/guidedreading/SDE-GettingStartedwithGuidedReading.pdf

Bibliography: 


Spratt, M., Pulverness, A., & Williams, M. (2011). The TKT course. Ernst Klett Sprachen.

The TKT course. Module 1,2,3 

UNIT 4 FUNCTIONS

What is a function?

During the review of unit 4 about functions, I can see that it is really essential to communicate. In addition, we as English teachers we can work in  a context in which is used in the classroom then  it is important for students to understand that one form may have many different functions. These includes greeting, clarifying, inviting, agreeing, apologizing. For example, Excuse me for not doing my homework, it's cause you asked me to do it, you didn't tell me to do it so I thought it was optional. This phrase was said by a child to his teacher and he was apologizing.

In the same way, I want to apply activities where students can use as many functions we have. It will help them to get opportunities to perform some linguistic functions like asking permission, requests. 

I want to plan a lesson , where students  will be able to share information naturally in peer or groups as they would in real life situations using polite phrases  expressing  different levels of formality  so I will provide appropriate language forms for conversations similar to those used in everyday life and emphasizing on learning language like chunks, for example, See you later is used in everyday situations.

According to Richards & Rodgers (1986)  the teaching of language functions forms part of the general movement toward communicative language teaching. In other words, the language is taught as a mean of communication, not as a system of grammatical structures. I consider that collaborative skill  provides opportunities to learners to progress specific group skill, we can emphasize the equivalent language functions. 

 Example: 

Additional information

1. Brumfit, Christopher (1984). Communicative Methodology in Language Teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Bibliography: 

2. Spratt, M., Pulverness, A., & Williams, M. (2009). The TKT Course Modules 1, 2 and 3. 

UNIT 3 PHONOLOGY

 What is Phonology?

During the review of unit 3 about Phonology, I can see that phonology is the study of the sound system of any language. It includes features like phonemes, word stress, sentence stress and intonation. Also, one of the most relevant element that we need to analyze are the phonetics because it studies how speech sounds are produced. In other words, phonetics and phonology of English mean how, why, we speak the way we do.

Importantly, the phonemes of a language are represented in writing by phonemic symbols such as /eə/ /ɛə/ /aɪ/ so each phonemic symbol represents just one phoneme. Additionally, we as  English teachers have to take into account this part about phonetics because this is the correct way of how to pronounce accurately. I consider that the phonetic chart  will help me at my teaching classroom because I can emphasise and teach to my students how each vowel and consonant is pronounced , and it will be an effective material for English classes. 

Mostly, the vowel sounds give to  words their volume  such as;  fish so  /i/ vowel sound is louder than fsh, on the other hand, the consonant sounds are the quieter sound. In fact, the Phonology covered more than you believe such as; voiced, unvoiced sounds, word stress, the syllable, primary stress all of those elements help us to identify its own function when we  pronounce , but we can improve our pronunciation by practicing the sounds and reviewing our knowledge about phonology.

I found those educational videos that I want to share with you.

Ortiz Lira´s IPA for Spanish speakers Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4.

PHONETIC CHART 

Additional Information

Books:

1. Well, J.C.( 2006) English Intonation- An Introduction. Cambridge: CUP

2. Teach, P. (1996) The intonation System of English London: CASSELL

Bibliography: 


Spratt, M., Pulverness, A., & Williams, M. (2011). The TKT course. Ernst Klett Sprachen.

The TKT course. Module 1,2,3 

UNIT 2 LEXIS

What is Lexis?

During the review of unit 2, I conclude that lexis is one of the most important parts of the second language acquisition. At classroom teaching, teachers need to teach vocabulary in context so our students are practicing constantly and they can use many words as they can. Also, when teachers illustrate the words in many sentences are more helpful to them than lexical explanations but we as an  English teachers have to look for the best way to teach it, where students become masters of the use of various syntactic and semantic uses of words in authentic English sentences or phrases.

In addition, there are many elements that are covering this unit as collocations they are words can be used together  in a language  as in this example lined paper. As well as,  Idioms and fixed expressions can be considered items of special collocation but those restricted collocation which can not normally be understood from the literal meaning of words which make them up such as An arm and a leg, it means that something is very expensive or costly. 

Furthermore, the varieties of English are ways in which words can relate to another language like False friends it means that they are words which have the same or similar form in both languages but with a different meaning  as jubilation – jubilación  in English it means happiness, but in Spanish it means pension or money. 

Finally, I consider that lexis should come before grammar in teaching English, and classroom teachers and  need to focus on the meaningful of lexical elements.  It is needed to focus on phrases and patterns as contents of lexis teaching; on the other hand, this does not mean that teachers should overlook  grammar.  What is truly expected from teachers is to make connections between grammar and lexis, for example, lexical patterns may link grammar and lexis. I will apply this knowledge in my teaching classroom with activities like crossword or puzzles because that is the way to help my students to understand better the meaning instead of just reading and memorizing the definition and also where students use the  new vocabulary is by  playing games, is another fun way to learn easier the language.

I found this educational video that I want to share with you.

Well, this what I have learned from unit 2.   


Bibliography: 


Spratt, M., Pulverness, A., & Williams, M. (2011). The TKT course. Ernst Klett Sprachen.

The TKT course. Module 1,2,3 

Additional  information

Books:

1. Gairns, R. & Redman, S. (1986). Working with Words: A Guide to Teaching and Learning Vocabulary. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

2. Redman, S. (2003). English Vocabulary in Use. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

3. Schmitt, N. (2000). Vocabulary in Language Teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

UNIT 1 GRAMMAR

WHAT IS GRAMMAR?

In my review  grammar refers to system and structure of any language. I consider that most of the students hate grammar because it includes many parts of the speech, rules and principles guiding the use of the language within the sentence but we as English teachers must focus on communicative activities in order to get students be motivated to study the grammar. According to the TKT (Teaching Knowledge Test Book) Grammar helps us to combine, organize and change parts of words and groups of words to share a meaning. In addition, we have grammatical forms it refers to how words are made up and presented in speech or writing. 

Indeed, we have nine parts of speech such as; verbs, nouns, pronouns, adverbs, adjectives, prepositions, conjunctions, and interjections, determiners or articles. They play a main role in a sentence for that reason we have to know how to recognize the parts of the speech and how they joined in a sentence in order to write or speak correctly and legible. Also, it has a high level of importance because it helps  how to punctuate sentences. For instance, something that can I said about nouns. They are divided into two main categories, but  many students are confused between proper nouns and common nouns.  Proper nouns refer to the names of people or places that are capitalized as (Aims Community College, John Smith, etc.).On the other hand, Common nouns are named that do not require capitalization like (pen, table, bag, etc). 

Finally, I learned useful information about grammar  during the review of unit 1 through reflective blogs, tests, and activities developed in the classroom. I will apply this information in my teaching process by creating flashcards, posters , presentations with examples and definitions of each part of speech in order to emphasize the essential elements of grammar and achieve the objectives at my teaching classroom.

 I found this video with educational  information that I want to share with you.

Well, this what I have learned from unit 1.



Bibliography: 


Spratt, M., Pulverness, A., & Williams, M. (2011). The TKT course. Ernst Klett Sprachen.

The TKT course. Module 1,2,3 

Additional Information

Books:

1. Aitchison, J. 2003. Words in the Mind. (3rd ed.) Oxford, UK: Blackwell.

2. Cruse, A. 1986. Lexical Semantics. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. 

3. Labov, W. 1973. The boundaries of words and their meanings. In C.-J. N. Bailey and R.W. Shuy, (eds). New Ways of Analyzing Variation. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.