Ana and Cristina´s road

The direct method´s goal of instruction is to learhow to use a foreing learning language to communicate.

The direct method has jus one basic rule: no tranlation is allowed, the meaning is to be conveyed directly in the target language through the use of demostration and visual aids.

The students can not use their native language in the classroom.

The teacher should demostrate not explain or translate.

Lessons should contain some conversational activity.

Grammar should be taught inductively.

The syllabus is based on situations or topics.

Some of the typical activities are: 

1)  Reading Aloud

      (Reading sections of passages, plays or dialogs out loud)

 

(2)  Question and Answer Exercise 

      (Asking questions in the target language and having students answer in full sentences)

 

(3)  Student Self-Correction

      (Teacher facilitates opportunities for students to self correct using follow-up questions, tone, etc)

 

(4) Conversation Practice

      (Teacher asks students and students ask students questions using the target language)

 

(5)  Fill-in-the-blank Exercise

      (Items use target language only and inductive rather than explicit grammar rules)

 

(6)  Dictation 

      (Teacher reads passage aloud various amount of times at various tempos, students writing down 

       what they hear)

 

(7)  Paragraph Writing 

      (Students write paragraphs in their own words using the target language and various models)

This principle was presented and applied in our class for a group of students. It turned out in  reallynice activity.

The grammar translation method

also called The Classical Method has been used by language teachers for many years. The classes developed with this method are based on translating information from one language to another, literature reading and  the target language grammar comprehension.

The primary skills to be developed are reading and writing.

The teacher
is the authority in the classroom ste students should be conscious of the grammaticla rules of the target language. this methodleaves behind the communication practice.

 http://www.englishraven.com/method_gramtrans.html

Diane Larsen-Freeman Techniques and Principles in Language Teaching.. Oxford: Oxford University Press. http://books.google.com/bookshl=en&lr=&id=iJ3Y_wkkwa8C&oi=fnd&pg=PR7&dq=Techniques+and+Principles+in+Language+Teaching&ots=FB443S9CaD&sig=gQLMtH6PLyvrmvNVNo-YxxiXISU#v=onepage&q&f=false

TPR or Total Physical Response method was the topic we talked about in one of our English IV presentations, made on june 21st 2010. On this episode we show you a video made for us which contains some importan information about this teaching method. I hope you like it.

So see it and enjoy it.

Ana and Cristina

UNIVERSIDAD DE LOS ANDES
NÚCLEO UNIVERSITARIO “DR. PEDRO RINCÓN GUTIÉRREZ”
CARRERA DE EDUCACIÓN MENCIÓN INGLÉS
DEPARTAMENTO DE IDIOMAS MODERNOS.
INGLÉS IV

MOVIES: WHAT CAN OR CAN NOT WE TAKE FORM THEM?
(REPORT.)

THE GROUP:
.
LAGOS, ANA.
MORALES, DELIA.

TEACHER:
JHONNY ANGOLA.

SAN CRISTÓBAL, JANUARY 2010.
Learning about anothe country´s culture might be a challenging experience specially if you don he va the chance of travelling to the specific place you wanto to know. Most people want to have kwonledge about the world arround them, but if you are a person who is studing to be a english teacher that knowledge is not just for fun, it may become an useful tool in side of the classsroom. All humman beeing, generally create for themselves a picture about foreing people´s life style, but where are most of those ideas taken from? The media and the art forms related to it.

Based on the previous statement a profesor in our university desinged some activities to led us live and analize the experinece of watching a movie and the role that the elements presented there, play in the creation of a cultural image. The current paper narrates the development of some class activities at the University of Los Andes in San Cristóbal Venezuela in 2009, specificaly a subject call English IV. Those activities were made in these order, first, the reading of some research articles, second the viewing of a movie call “Borat”, the discussion of the movie and article`s topics and the writing of a class report.

First of all, the reading asigment was about two articles, one of the called “Intercultural Moments in Teaching English through Film” written by Zoreda and published in 2006, this paper describes an EFL course in Mexico and the way they used films to try to understand people´s behavior on the situations shown in the film, making a selection of movies that may present an useful scene to that course students. It also talks about how people takes the afirmations made in movies, tv series, music and so on, as irrefutable truth without thinking that the majority of these creations are made to an specific audience and show just the information that their producer wants. That is the reason why the viewer can not take these information as a fact to understand or judge an entire society. The second article is a little older, it contains tips about aspects that can be worked with a movie in class, manage the movie analysis form a depeer perspective, taking into account its scrip, dialogs, scenery, between others.

On the other hand, the movie Borat, tells the story of a men, Borat interpretated by Sacha Baron , he is form a place called Kazajistán, the movie presents the events lived by Borat, since his birth place, Kuçzek, Kazajistán, showing his family, hobbies, community and plans to go to The United States of America with a camera men and his documentari producer called Vassilli. As he arrives to U.S.A., he gets himself involved in embarrasing situations with different people during a jourey from Washington D.C to California where he spects to find Pamela Anderson, the actress who he fells in love when he saw her in a TV program. Sadly his travel through the country becomes really hard, when his producer discovers he has been folishing him, he leaves him alone without passport or money. His producer only left him a plane ticket, a chicken, and a special magazine with pictures of Borat´s love: Pamela.

Now on, waching this movie was a little fun sometimes, but also there were things that leave the viewers stunned, becouse of the images shown, the people´s reactions to Borat´s beahvior, and the belives he expresed he has, about women, sex, racism, even war and world politic. I think he played with diferent situations and the people involved in them, becouse sometimes he insulted them and maybe as he was a foreing men he was able to get out of them with less problems than a native men with plenty knowledge about the U.S.A. culture could have get into in the same situations, I wish I could know which were his intentions when he decided to do this, for me it seems to be made just for entertaiment. On the other hand, if we try to see in it a message, according to this movie I wouldn´t like to visit the U.S.A. or Kazajistán if I`m arabian or jew! The movie makes us think that they are really hated in some parts of those countries.

Waching this from an out side point, this film may aware us about the extreme care we have to have when we choose a movie to present to our students in class, becouse they may get the wrong idea or its content might not be appropriate for that specific audience.

Adding to these statements, to prepare and apply activities of previewing and post viewing, can make the experience more productive, the students may have more time to think about what they saw and the teacher may have feed back and also learn from it, for future references, and on these way improve his teaching.

Finally, as students or teachers we have to be aware that “an image worth more tham thousand words”, being careful to evoid missunderstandings and the spread of incorrect information, most human being get more impresed by pictures or movies than for written infromation, that is why movies can become an excellent tool to try toteach and learn about the world and his inhabitans, movies and other visual aids are small windows to little worlds but as they perspective may be deeply subjective, we have to be concious about it, but most of all enjoy them.

UNIVERSIDAD DE LOS ANDES
NÚCLEO UNIVERSITARIO DEL TÁCHIRA
“DR. PEDRO RINCÓN GUTIÉRREZ”
CARRERA DE EDUCACIÓN
MENCIÓN INGLÉS
DEPARTAMENTO DE IDIOMAS
UNIDAD CURRÍCULAR: INGLÉS IV

AN AWESOME BUT SOMETIMES UNDERSTIMATED CHEST OF KNOWLEDGE.
(Essay)

AUTORES:
LAGOS C. ANA E.
MORALES S. DELIA C.
DOCENTE:
ANGOLA JHONY

SAN CRISTOBAL, FEBRERO 2010

The human body has an awesome system composed by billions of cells and little webs conectect all together, with a main organ called The Brain. Many of us can think about it as the bigest “boss” and controler in our body, or maybe we can find it in a delicate balance betwen its huge cualities and its structural weakness, but at the end it doesn`t matter the angle you decide to analyzed it, it always has been and will be subject of curiosity, reseach, amazement and specially the temple and chest that keeps the most valuable tresasure: Our knowledge.

As a result of the main rol of the brain in all the aspects of humman life, during many years people from diferent science specialties, have dedicated a lot of time trying to discover the brain secrets but even now all of them haven`t been revealed. The things that we know about it at these momment have change the bases and procedures in many science fiels, for some of them the use of these new information has been normal because of the nature of their studies, but contrary, the surprise or disagreement of some other, the neuroscience and its discoveries might be useful in the educational practice. One of the believers in these teory`s contribution to the improvement of the teaching and learning procceses is Eric P. Jensen (a former teacher and current member of the Society for Neuroscience).

Since ten years ago, Mr. Jensen wrote several books and articles related to the involment of brain in the educational procces with the neuroscience and neuroscientific`s help. He explained that “ the brain is intimately involved and connected with everything educators an students do at school” that is why everything must be planned to be engaged with the purpose of reaching the best conditions to teach, learn and develop all the brain`s potential and learning ability. “This science is based in what we know about how our brain works” and the decisions we take to improve our teaching practice acording to these principles.

On the other hand, it is important to highlight that brain base education according to Jensen “ requires a multidiciplinary approach” taken what is needed form each discipline, believing in what we do, but specially based on teachers aplying these knowledge, becouse most neuroscientis won`t do it just becouse it is not their specialty. Some interesting aspects showed in these article are for example: the way the author explains that the human brain can grow new neurons depending on the cuality of his nutrition and physical activity; also he explains that “schools present countless opportunities to affect students brains” even in a positive or negative way. On these point, he talks about how stress, anciety, depression may afect the brain funtion and of course the students and teachers personal and academic development.

Another interesting facts are for example, the way how the brain`s work can be improved, acorrding to Jensen implement some of these actions may help the brain funtion, for example. a good nutricion, a good enviroment in class and including arts and phisical activities in the teaching program.

On the other hand me explains that there has been and still are many people who doesn´t think about these theory as useful or adapted to be used in classrooms, maybe because of its scientific procedence, neurocience is not a very common place visited or consulted by teachers, but he expects this to change and maybe many of his critics to realize of this theory`s relevance because even there is much more to research, experimenting and proving only using it by ourselves we can have the chance of decide if is useful or not.

Language is the most complex skill that a human being will ever master, is the complete expression of what it means to be human.

Human language involves both receptive and productive use. Receptive language use occurs during the comprehension or understanding of words and sentences. Productive language use involves idea generation and the articulation of words in speech.

Structural components of language:

1. Phonology: The system of the sound segments that humans use to build up words. Each language has a different set of these segments or phonemes.
2. Semantics: The system of meanings that are expressed by words and phrases. In order to serve as a means of communication between people, words must have a shared or conventional meaning.
3. Grammar: The system of rules by which words and phrases are arranged to make meaningful statements.
4. Pragmatics: The system of patterns that determine how humans can use language in particular social settings for particular conversational purposes.

Methods for Studying Language Acquisition
The primary method involves simply recording and transcribing what children say. Using videotape, researchers can link up the child's use of verbal means with their use of gesture and nonlinguistic cries to draw attention to their desires and interests.

Language Development
-Basic level of auditory processing, the infant has a tape recorder in the brain's auditory cortex that records input sounds, replays them, and accustoms the ear to their patterns.
- One of the best predictors of a child's vocabulary development is the amount and diversity of input the child receives.
- language is based on such a wide variety of alternative cognitive skills.
-The basic uses of language are heavily over-determined by this rich system of multiple supports.
Taken from:
http://education.stateuniversity.com/pages/2153/Language-Acquisition.

These are texts writen for us, they are related to different topics studied in class such as the brain´s role in learning, the diferences between male and female brain and so on...

HOW THE HUMAN BRAIN IS IN EVERYTHING.
(Essay)

AUTORES:
LAGOS C. ANA E.
MORALES S. DELIA C.
DOCENTE:
JHONNY ANGOLA

SAN CRISTÓBAL, MARZO DE 2010

The world and the people living in it is always changing, every day there are more questions to be answered and more ways to get those answers. On the medical area the brain has been an eternal mystery, but resent investigations have revealed tons of new information applicable in many knowledge areas including education and the teaching and learning processes involved in them.

First of all, Ph. D. Diamond M. (2003) in one of her lectures called “male and female brains” talked about her research on the brain´s structural differences between male and female, this research was made on lab rats because there were not many human being able to do it on them, but she explains that the brain´s structure of these little animals is very similar to the human one, that is why the results can be use to compare men and women´s brain constitution and functioning. Diamond explains in her lecture the way our brain is conformed, its main parts and how those parts development and functions get affected by factors like the birth, environmental conditions, age, hormones, sex and the things every being has to do according to his instincts or natural duties.
For example, Diamond M. (2003), says that areas like the cortex and the cortical morphology, thickness and symmetry are “ a key factor” in the process of knowing and understanding how female or male act, specifically when “ for the female animal, the main functions are to bear, protect and raise her offspring... something that may be more accessible and readily achieved with a symmetrical brain” on the opposite the “male behavior involves finding and defending his territory and finding his female, all rather focused functions, possibly benefiting form an asymmetrical cortex.”
The statements previously written may indicate that in some how the diversity of the female functions or the specifical male functions may be determinating factors on the brain´s constitution. The author makes clear that there are many other factors related to this and that the researchers on this area still have a lot to discover and to work with.
If we walk apart from the structure and focus more on “ What are the determinants of children´s academic successes and difficulties” according to Diamond (n/d) since long time ago in places like China, there has been a culturaly issue destinated to proportion a good care of the baby´s mind and general development even before they were born, these old principles advice women to “ behave favorable during pregnancy so that their offspring would be bright and survive well.” Nowadays, exists a concept called “ Intrauterine education” which mean to provide the best stimulate to the babies growing by taking “ into consideration pre- as well as postnatal conditions for forming healthy children and their precious brains.” Diamon M., (n/d)
Diamond explains that “ parents and teachers should create a climate for enchanted minds to obtain information, stimulate imagination, develop an atmosphere to enhance motivation and creativity and discover the value of a work ethic.” Some of Diamond´s advices to accomplish this vital mission are to provide:
...a steady source of positive emotional support-love encouragement... nutritious diet with enough protein, vitamins, mineral and calories...stimulate all senses, but not necessarily all at once...present a series of novel challenges that neither too easy nor too difficult for the child at his or her stage of development... enjoyable atmosphere that promotes exploration and the fun of learning...
These between others might lead to get many benefits on the children development and academical success as the author explains, but also she calls our attention because the lack of this support or the presence of a significant amount of the opposite behavior on parents and/ or teachers may cause difficulties to the children on their academical and personal life, she wants to make clear too that “ the cerebral cortex does not show significant growth with too much stimulation as it does with a moderate amount... Do not over stimulate.” Some parents may incurre in this kind of mistakes thinking that as more stimulus the child recibes the better it would be for him, without knowing that it won´t be neccessarily truth, the children may get tired or even get upset for living in so much pressure and this later may cause a rejection on everything related to education or the activities he was force to do without like them.
As a personal experience Diamond mentions what one of her daughters said once to her: “you gave us the freedom to choose what we wanted to do; you served as a role model showing if we worked hard we could succeed.” This meant a lot to her, but how many parents can quote such a beautiful words as she does? Most could say that: not many have this privilege. But what about if these norms are taken form that context and are tried to be applied in another country as Venezuela for example, would they work? Are there the necessary conditions? Apparently it may not; social conditions, medical care or even the basic information is not set for most of the country population, how can we expect for “ Intrauterine education” when sometimes many women don´t even have basic prenatal care? How can we expect for parents to be role models when they are not with their children, when they have to work all day trying to at least get the necessary for their support, or when for personal reasons the children are formed by other members of the family different from their parents or worse complete estrangers? This scenery doesn´t seem to be too hopeful because teachers are not only expected to do their job facilitating teaching and learning processes but also complementing or trying to do as a whole the work, these children´s parents should have been doing.
The previous may be an extreme vision of how the life of some is, but there are some many factors that seem to be working against the achievement of a good learning including the children changes itself. Willis J. (n/d) in words of Gardner ( 1999) exposes that there are “three current dominant intelligence styles of Linguistic, Visual-spatial, and Tactile Kinesthetic...” in previous years the Linguistic was the predominant, that´s how the teachers learned and may teach, but as the author also explains in the resent years the percentages on the kind of learning has changed too, making sometimes the teacher´s teaching stile obsolete or less effective.
Most students have something called “learning strengths” and these are related to their intelligence style, by improving the teaching techniques the learning activities can become more effective and even enjoyable for students allowing them to get a really meaningful learning taking advantage of all their personal potential, and being more successful in every area of their life.
These three articles may show an excellent research information and maybe if we study it hard and get to the point of really understand, believe, and apply it, we may become great teachers, but at this point, inside of the classrooms there are other problems to be solved, and getting a solution for them doesn´t seem to be too at the top of the corner because this must be a team work between parents teachers and everyone involved with the future generation growing and well being.

REFERENCES:

Diamond M., (2003) “Male and female brains” summary of the lecture for women´s forum west annual meeting.

Diamond M., (n/d) “What are the determinats of children´s academic successes and dificulties?”

Willis J., (n/d) “More About neuroscience and learning”

Hi... This is the missing piece of the transcription below, it gives the reason of this episode... listen to it. Bye..

The conversation, you are going to hear next is the result, of a long process of work in one of our college clases; during some months we worked as a team and discuss several topics in our classes and out of it.
To us is important to give this message to you, so try to listen to it and to understand it, but in case you can not hear clearly our speach, here is the transcription of our conversation...

Ana: Based on the film "The Great debaters" we can say it's a movie with a great social content, because it shows the discrimination problem.I think in our country exists nationalities discrimination or xenophobia. Almost in all places in Venezuela, foreing people are discriminated against.

Sara: I agree with you. I think in our country we have discrimination in other ways, like racism against Black, Chinese, and Indian people. I think some human beings don't feel good seeing other different ones.

Cristina: The way people discriminate that has affected more my life is political discrimination. My father works in a public institution, it has been a stressful expirience and also my husband has had many troubles finding a stable job.

Ana: I had an experience when I was working at the Venezuela's Consulate in Arauca (Colombia). I could see the way that authority of our country made fun of people who needed some permission or any documents and the Embassy attached made people waste their time. Foreing people are treated like cockroach.

Sara: Now, that you talk about your experience, I'm going to talk to you about my experience with discrimination. When I was in 6th grade, a classmate blow an eraser wiht chalk powder over my face and told me that I had to stay un that way... with my face on white. That was humiliating for me. She was racist.

Cristina: I think is awful. In my particular case I have seen that political preference has become more important than people's experience knowledge or merit. A couple of years ago my husband signed against the courrent goverment, for this reason he has been rejected from several jobs. It hasn't mattered all the effort that he has done. I think it is unjust the way that people are discriminated because of their nationality, race, or political preference. We all should have the same opportunities TO BE TREATED EQUALLY and FAIRLY .

From Leyber and Cristina : )

Vaccinate your children!