Reading log #1

Chapters 3-4

This first reading was really interesting because usually when we plan a class we
don't pay attention if the students learnt or not. It means that sometimes the
objectives of the lesson are too general and we don't really expect students to do an
specific task, thats why we can't measure the objectives. However, I would like to go
deeper in the different kind of objectives, I agree that it turns around students, but it
would be better if we know how to apply the correct verbs in the objectives in order
to have the clear demonstration of student learning.

It is really important to activate the schema to know what students already know in
order to see if the objectives are appropriate. And this is what I try to do with my
students, it helps them to relate the new knowledge with the previous one, they can
recycle content using it in real situations. In some cases we don't allow students to
work fluent because we prefer accuracy; However, we can give them the chance to
do what they can do and from here on we can improve step by step until we get that
students can have a combination of both accuracy and fluency.



Reading log #2

Chapter 5

Something that I learnt in this chapter and that I consider every teacher should
know is that we can arrange students in different ways, and it depends on the
objective of the lesson that you can arrange them in specific ways, by groups, pairs,
circle, semi circle. In a typical arrangement is known that the students at the back of
the classroom often are doing something different.

When we have a large class, for example we can work with small groups in order to
maximize the students talking what is our real purpose in a fluency activity. It is
very important that when students are talking we can not interrupt them because
they can feel frustration. However, it is also important that you as a teacher need
tom monitor the activity and make sure that they are doing it correctly or even if
they are really doing the task.

The teacher is the responsible of establish a good rapport inside the classroom;
furthermore, he has to design the time for each activity, taking into account that
some activities are flexible and if students are working very well, you can give them
more time. Another aspect that it very important is the materials and resources, if
we have our own classroom, we can decorate it not only to motivate students, but
also to students remember some vocabulary. The use of technology is another way
to motivate students, because you do something different and it is something that is
their real contexts.








Reading log #3

The group

I would like to say that this reading was a little bit complicate for me, I tried to read
some parts several times, but it was difficult to understand. However, what I learnt
about the cycles is almost what usually happen in real life. When we are at our
childhood we are looking for a leadership, we are trying to follow some patterns and
we are nor independent.

Otherwise, during adolescence it is more complicated because this kind of students
are often looking for an identity and they really like to be the leader, so they have a
negative reaction to any leadership. When they are already in the adulthood is
easier to accomplish their tasks, they like working collaborative and they do not
care about short comings from the other people. Some people go back to one cycle
even if they do not have finished the full cycle. The last stage is transforming and it
occurs when the purpose was changed or even when we do not have enough time
to complete the task.



Reading log #4

Giving and receiving feedback

As the reading says, giving and receiving feedback never will be easy. We as
teachers always have had the opportunity to face this experience. However, do we
really give or receive effective feedback? Or this was just a criticism?. It is
important to take into account many aspects while giving feedback. The first is the
attitude, in one hand if we are giving we can not be so rude, on the other hand if you
are receiving feedback you can not have a negative attitude, it means to refuse the
feedback. When we are giving effective we may able to help the people that we are
giving feedback.

The effective feedback comes immediately and it comes from direct from the
sender, it should include relevant information and we should be aware the way
make suggestions to the other person. We as teacher should promote the use of
feedback not only with our colleagues but also with our students. We already have
the main aspects that we should have into account.



Reading log #5

Seeing student learning: teacher change and the role of reflection

This reading was very interesting, because most of the time we are thinking in what
we are teaching and we do not really pay attention in what students have learnt.
When we are planning it is important to tale into account that the center are the
students, making a reflection before or after the class and other one during the
class. Those reflections are the nones that we do when we know if some activities


went good or we need to change or adapt, furthermore, during the class there will
be some troubles that we have to solve at the moment.
It is important for students to know that a feedback always is a good way to change
activities or even attitude when it is necessary. For this reason is really important
to be a hundred percent inside the classroom and thinking about the class, because
we used to be at the classroom, but thinking about some many things.





Reading log #6
Tell me more on the fine art of learning

This reading was so interesting because we do not really like listening to people.
We just hear and this is not the point. When we are listening it is really important to
make sure that we are emphatic we the other person in order to understand to they
want to tell us.

The same happens inside the classroom, we do not really listen to students, we do
not see beyond what they just express. Like a woman, we have to have the ability to
listen to the others carefully, we need to know our students to create an effective
plan that when we work with them. At the beginning it will be difficult because we
are not accustomed but if we want to have a better environment we should take care
of listening students.



Reading log #7

The three dimensions

When we are teaching English always have been very difficult to cover these three
dimension because we just focus the class in one our two dimensions. For this
reason I consider interesting this reading. However, I was wondering about some aspects
that for me were a bit difficult.

Something I really liked was that they consider that in any topic we teach, we need to
include the three dimensions. One of the most common experiences is that we as teachers
just give the form and maybe the meaning, but we do not guide students to use the
knowledge and this is a relevant factor to engage students in order to make students
identify that what they are learning is useful to motivate them.



Reading log #8

Epilogue: implications for teaching

It is very important that we as teacher have to take into account that what we are
going to teach is related to a real context. It means, that it needs to be significant to
student, otherwise, they are not going to be interested and they won't want to learn.


Also what is important is to be aware of what do we expect of learners. Most of time
we just focus our our teaching to the structure or vocabulary, but we do not watch
out what students will learn and will do with that knowledge.

Reading log #9

Theories of reading

When we are teaching a reading class or even when we are reading a text, we need
to have clear some aspects, for example:the purpose of the reading, they type of the
text, locate the topic sentences, make some predictions about the reading. This is
because it will help us to understand better the reading.
Usually when we are in a reading activity we do not have the chance to develop the
three stages: pre,while and post. And we don not care about the characteristics of
the reading. It had to have grammar structures and vocabulary familiar with the
reader. Also it has to be related to the context and according to their age, interests
and background culture.
During the pre-listening we can make students to predict what is going to be the
text about. While-listening is what we are going to do while we are reading or the
task that we have to complete to check understanding and finally the post-reading
is what students are going to produce about the reading.






Reading log #10

The changing face of listening

Using listening activities when teaching is a difficult work, because we need to
select the text and it needs to be according to students' characteristics and
interests. When we work with listening, we have three stages: pre-listening,
listening and post-listening. We usually spend more time in the pre-listening, where
we introduce the topic and make students predict what is going to be the text about.

However, it is proposed to spend more time in what students are going to do with
the language that they extracted from the listening. Also it is important to include
authentic materials in our activities in order to turn the listening in a real context
activity.



Reading log #11

The Cultural Experience

There is a big importance of this reading because in the last week we are going to
teach a cultural class. And, at least for me, it was something new the use of the four
cultural knowings. I used to teach a cultural topic just by presenting it but I never let
students to interact or to know what they have to do to learn that topic.



The four cultural knowing are composed by knowing about where is when we
present the cultural information, then knowing how that is the cultural practices,
knowing why, when students experiment cultural perspectives and finally knowing
oneself where students react with the cultural information, how they deal with self
awareness.
When we are going to teach a topic it is very important that we show students how
they are going to use it to make this topic relevant.