Reflecting Writing

By Karla Calderón

I want to start this reflection saying that the first time I went to the school to talk
to the person in charge of the UTP department, Mrs. Ximena Espinoza, she told me that
I was going to take the English Elective class so I asked her if the teacher develop her
classes in english, then she answered “I have no idea... by the way,I don´t think they
would be able to speak in english”. Then I said to myself that it is so common to
underestimate students like that because, despite the fact that some of them don´t pay
attention to the knowledge of language, there are a few who are very interested in
learning.

I disagree with the fact that Carol, my guide teacher, thinks in the exactly same
way as Ximena because when I asked her why she didn´t use the Input in her classes,
she told me that it would be impposible to teach them through that method because they
hardly knew how to say “hellow”.

I think the key to succeed in the process of learning a second language as english is to
“believe” in students. Because in my class there are a few who do not pay attention but I
think they need motivation from the teacher in order to change that lack of interest.
“The purpuse of orientation is essentially guiding in order to help people to know
themself s and the world around them” (Rodríguez,1991)

Reflacting on the effects of the previos task, I think that students would have a more
active participation in the activities if they are able to acknowledge their personal skills
and likes in order to use them for a better management of the second language
acquisition. Most of them know that english is important but the teaching is not the
appropiate and that is why they do not pay attention, besides they are afraid of making
mistakes when they have to talk in front of their classmates, many of them feel
embarrassed because they do not know how to pronounce the words.

“The concept of input is perhaps the single most important concept of second
language acquisition It is trivial to point out that no individual can learn a second
language without input of some sort...” (Gass, 1997) one time a student who has good
grades in english told me that he does not like to speak in english, of course he manages
some tenses but to pronounce is very hard for him. Maybe that happens when there is no
input available, I mean that he does not listen english very often, he only knows about
grammar rules. Any teacher of english knows that grammar is important but if you can
not express yourself in the other language, communication is almost impposible.
In this class there are several students who are capable of talking in english, they just
need the right teaching, I would definively use the TPR method with them, show them
american movies or videos so that they would be in contact with real english. And
definively, to let them know that they are able To Communicate in another language
would improve their self estime.