UNIT 28: IDENTIFYING THE FUNCTIONS OF LEARNER'S LANGUAGE.

Learners make use of a wide range of language functions for different purposes in task and activities by the interaction between teacher and student and student to student.

For example:

- When the teacher enters a noise classroom and ask them to be quiet. Later he greets them and collect the homeworks, students use LANGUAGE FUNCTIONS such as: Greeting, Apologising, Explaining, Checking answers, Expressing surprise and doubt, etc

-When the teacher hands out a reading text and give the instructions to complete a handout, students use LANGUAGE FUNCTIONS for asking for clarifications such as: suggesting, giving reasons, etc

For further reading please check out this link:

http://www.educ.ualberta.ca/staff/olenka.bilash/best%20of%20bilash/functionsof%20lang.html

Furthermore, the functions learners use are often the same as those used by teachers. However, teachers will tend to do more instructing than learners and learners tend to use different exponents to express the same language functions.

There is a list of links that you can check them out in order to read more about this topic

• http://www.ode.state.or.us/teachlearn/standards/elp/files/langfunc.pdf
• http://www.xtec.cat/alfresco/d/d/workspace/SpacesStore/b5e0815b-802e-490b-ba61-533bcc2f003c/Academic-Language-Functions-toolkit.pdf
• http://www.englishdaily626.com/language_functions.php
• 
  

UNIT 27: USING LANGUAGE APPROPRIATEDLY FOR A RANGE OF CLASSROOM FUNCTIONS

Teachers should use different language exponents according to the context of the lesson, the purposes and the learner's needs, age and level. So, the correct use of language in the classroom depends on our learners' profile. For instance,
-If we want to get learner's attention  when we close an activity or when we want learners to look at the board, we use short utterances such as: Stand up

-If we want to give instructions we must use imperative sentences with higher-level

-If we want to model the target language orally we can ask students to repeat the word or the grammatical structure after us.

-If we want to encourage students by giving instructions we can use language that make them feel positive about they can do and reduces their level of anxiety.

-If we want nominate students we use their names to get their attention and make them know who they are.

-If we use language to prompt we can provide them words, phrases, ideas or even time to help the learners continue to remember what to say.

Furthermore, I want to make emphasis in the use of discipline in the clasroom in order to manage the problems with it. Have a look at the video of student teaching if you want to become a good teacher who mantains discipline in the class.

This another video refers to encourage apropiate behavior in little children. I hope you enjoy watching them

UNIT 26: SELECTION AND USE OF TEACHING AIDS

I think learnes are visual therefore we must use flashcards, cardboards and videos in order to teach English.

The importance of using realia is based on the belief that it connects Language Acquisition to the real world. Please to read more check the following link out:

http://people.ucsc.edu/~ktellez/50strats.PDF

Furthermore, teachers must consider that classroom equipment are use for different purposes such as:

-Board: It is used for writing up planned vocabulary, grammar examples and explanations.

-Language laboratory is used for grammar drills.

-Computer is used for grammar exercises.

Let me talk about interesting teaching aids such as: flascards, puppets, charts and the teacher.

-Flashcards are used for teaching individual words for practicing grammatical structures.

Puppets are used for introduce new language in dialogues between pair of puppets. Also, children can also make their own simple puppets.

The teacher can use hand gestures, facial expressions and mime to elicit vocabulary items and clarify meaning and create context.

Unit 25: SELECTION AND USE OF SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIALS AND ACTIVITIES

One of the most difficult teacher's task is to choose supplementary activities such as:

-Class library of readers which give students confidence and encourages extensive reading. Personally, I enjoy reding for pleasure and my favorite books come from Macmillan edition.

-Skills practice books: they focus on individual skills 

-Teacher's resources and worksheets provide new ideas for lessons

-Websites provides a variety of lesson plans, tecahing materials and other resources.

-DVDs provide visual context and show body language.

-Language practice books provide extra practice and learner's autonomy.

-Electronic materials: provide motivation and familiar technology for learners.

-Games: They are awesome to increase student's motivation and enjoyment besides language practice.

I think we as English teachers must consider the scheme of work of the institutions and try to have a complete domain of the teacher's book in order to give learners the experience of working with more challenging texts and tasks. In the use of supplementary activities and materials teachers must try learners to get used to the methodology and procedures in their coursebook.

Please check out this links in order to read more about this unit.

http://www.finchpark.com/courses/tkt/Unit_24/supplementary_materials.pdf

http://yesyhd.wordpress.com/2012/06/07/unit-25-selecting-and-use-of-supplementary-materials-and-activities/

UNIT 24: SELECTION AND USE OF COURSEBOOK MATERIALS

It is the most interesting unit studied in this module because refers to the coursebook package which usually include a teacher's book, the tapescript, a student's book and a workbook or activity book. There is also a CD-ROM with an interactive whiteboard or extra material on a website.
All of this coursebook package is based on the study and analisis of the learnes' level, language needs and ineterests that is the class profile. I think the success of language teaching is based in the selection and appropiate use of coursebook materials during the long academic period. I know also that government try to impose educators to use the books they published it is mandatory for public education. However, if we work at private language schools we can use many coursebook package that will motivate students to become in autonomous learners.

Also teachers can adap the material used in the classroom. The strategies to be used are: extending material, shortening material, changing the metodology, changing the level of the material, reordering material and making use of all the resources in the book.

 Check out this link in order to read more about this topic:

http://www.eslbase.com/articles/authentic-materials-2

Furthermore, the coursebook usually provides the main content for a lesson, while teachers need to personalise materials for the use of the learners. For instance,

Teacher's activities: -Warmers: They are useful to provide context or situation for teaching.

                              -Pictures: Teachers can provide instructions for them.

                              -Dialogues: Teachers can apply role-plays using dialogues.

For more information about how instructors develop structures for students to engage course content before class by either creating their own materials or currating what already exists and placing it online. Please check  out this link:

UNIT 23: CONSULTING REFERENCE RESOURCES TO HELP IN LESSON PREPARATION

Talking about reference resources is very important for teachers. Especially, I think that it is very important to include supplementary materials such as phonemic charts and list of irregular verbs in our lesson plans.

Phonemic charts provide students the learning of accurate pronunciation of sounds in English. They will achieve a good level of pronounciation in English if they practice the sounds at least every day. The lists of irregular verbs will help them to practice and memorize the verbs in order to develop their vocabulary.

Have a look at the Teaching English Phonemic chart on which teachers argue for and against the use of phonemic charts on the lesson.

Furthermore, the use of grammar books for learning a foreing language is based on the belief that they help learners to see what information they need about grammatical structures and help teacher with suitable ways of describing or explaining grammar. For example, I think books that are really useful are from Cambridge University Press, since they are interactive and take into account the learner's need and interest. But, nowadays the use of technology has increased a lot and there are grammar books online. For example, check out this link:

http://www.grammarbook.com/

Something that I really like is the elecronic monolingual dictionaries that help teachers and students to keep improving their vocabulary. For example, the Cambridge dictionary and the Macmillan Dictionary.

http://dictionary.cambridge.org/
http://www.macmillandictionary.com/

There is also some suggestions for teachers that help them to chose the appropiate resources in lesson preparation, for instance:

• Developing your own understanding of language.
• Anticipating learners's difficulties
• Looking for new approaches to teaching lessons and new classroom activities
• Finding out how to use the material in your coursebook.

UNIT 22 Choosing assessment activities

I think a teacher must decide how and what evaluate from students. That is why it is very important to know how to choose assessment activities.There is 2 types of assessmen:formal and informal. It is formal when we use test and examinations.It is iformal when we monitor and observe learners while they are doing ordinary classroom activities. Our decision of why type of assessment is going to be used in the classroom must be related to our uroses or reasons for assessment.Furthermore the advantages of using fomal assessment in the class are many. For instance,they are easy to mark, and are single-focus activities. But, the disadvantage is that, they focus only on the language. 

Meanwhile the advnatges of using Informal assessment is that they focus on extended activities that demostrate the ability of the students to use the langage. But, the disadvantage is that they are less ractical to mark. One exaple of an informal assessment activity is the portolio, which is inclusive, reflective, informative and develomental. Teachers must ask them the learner's profile and have assessment criteria.

To practice more about choosing assessment activities please check out the following link:

file:///E:/descargas/tkt_module_2_choosing_assessment_activities.pdf

http://yesyhd.wordpress.com/2012/05/30/choosing-assessment-activites/

http://sba.hkedcity.net/introductorydvd/selecting.html

Finally, there is a video on which you will know more abot Assessment

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xd_QgdtFn54