THE RESPONSIBILITY FOR LEARNING

            From my point of view, responsibility plays a significant role when we are learning something. Especially on education, it is necessary to teach students to be independent learners. In addition, learners depend on the teacher to identify what needs to be learned, to prescribe the learning methods, on this case the goal of education is to be the creation of independent, autonomous learners who assume responsibility for their own learning. "Fewer students may be autonomous, responsible learners" Phyllis Blumberg, Ph.D (2001). I think it is because of the students' lack confidence in their abilities to learn on their own. We as future teachers must realize that most of teachers do not use strategies to help our students take responsibility for their own learning. On the other hand, I think the responsibility belongs to both the teacher and the students but the major work on this part is from the teacher because we should be well-prepared to face those situations about our learners and to teach them to acquire self-motivation, and individual responsibility. In conclusion, as teacher I will encourage students to make decisions about how they learn best. Create opportunities for them to pursue their own interests and practice skills in a variety of ways and I won't expect everyone to respond in the same way. Integrate technology to encourage creative expression of learning.  

You can look for more information on these links;

http://www.cls.utk.edu/pdf/ls/Week1_Lesson4.pdf

https://www.wpi.edu/Academics/ATC/Collaboratory/Idea/responsibility.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ilYEk-j-jp0

References:

- Phyllis Blumberg, Ph.D (2001), Responsibility for learning.

https://www.google.com.ec/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CCQQFjAB&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.usciences.edu%2Fteaching%2FLearner-Centered%2FResponsibility%2520for%2520Learning%2520-%25202%2520hr.ppt&ei=GKpBVY7PEZPWgwSIiIBg&usg=AFQjCNF_K3OqbtOJc28lh7cwGF-180-VQA&sig2=-baTJkdW9Ud9YAjfdfHTWA&bvm=bv.92189499,d.eXY

- Learner Centered Teaching book.

THE ROLE OF THE TEACHER

            From my personal opinion, this part of the book is essential to know as future teachers because a teacher's role involves more than simply standing in front of a classroom. In fact, even though a teacher spends the majority of the day in the classroom, the actual teaching component is only part of the job. An effective teacher should understand that teaching involves everything in a classroom. Therefore, those tree important areas are significant when talking about this topic, critical and feminist pedagogy, cognitive and educational psychology, and constructivist theory. Those have large implications for the role of the teacher because teachers should develop each of those aspects inside the classroom. However, I consider there are many traditional teachers, who don't take care about their learners but I think the goal of being teaching  is to involve students in their learning process and also helping them to acquire the correct knowledge and retaining information. Women’s Ways of Knowing (Belenky, Clinchy, Goldberger, and Tarule, 1986). "Challenging the nature of knowledge and raising questions about the role of expertise require that faculty revisit and reassess long-held traditional views of the teacher as the exclusive content and classroom authority". It is because the power in the classroom often benefits teachers more than it promotes student learning. To sum up, when teaching I will take into account what are my roles as teacher and I will create a good environment in order to avoid tiredness on students and I must keep in mind that an effective teacher makes everything to be succeed and to achieve specific objectives with the class.  

I found important information about this topic and I would like to share it with you

http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/sept07/vol65/num01/Ten-Roles-for-Teacher-Leaders.aspx

https://www.etoninstitute.com/blog/item/26-the-7-roles-of-a-teacher-in-the-21st-century/26-the-7-roles-of-a-teacher-in-the-21st-century

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhA0yIgEDVU

References:

- (Belenky, Clinchy, Goldberger, and Tarule, 1986), Women’s Ways of Knowing. Learner Centered Teaching book.

UNIT 8 - SPEAKING

            Unit 8 is about Speaking. It is one of the four language skills, speaking is a productive skill like writing. It involves using speech to communicate meanings to other people and also a lot more than just using grammar and vocabulary accurately in speech. Furthermore, students often think that the ability to speak a language is the product of language learning, but speaking is also a crucial part of the language learning process. As teacher, I realize that I should use interactive strategies to help students to deal with this significant skill. For instance; using body language such as gestures, eye contact, facial expressions and movements to put the message across more strongly and clearly, of course clarifying meaning, asking for opinions and agreeing to keep the interaction between everybody in the classroom. In addition, Speaking can be formal or informal: Informal speaking is typically used with family and friends, or people you know well. On the other hand, Formal speaking occurs in business or academic situations, or when meeting people for the first time. "Speaking is probably the language skill that most language learners wish to perfect as soon as possible. It used to be the only language skill that is difficult to practice" Washington, DC (2003). Students have to take into account that in oral communication there are important aspects that play major part in successful and those are: fluency, accuracy and appropriacy. In conclusion, I would help to develop this skill to my learners by making them recording their own voice and after that they will listen to the errors they have when speaking. And also making students practicing role plays I think it will help a lot in their learning process.  

You can find more information about Speaking skill on these links:

https://www.englishclub.com/speaking/what-is-speaking.htm

http://www.cal.org/caela/esl_resources/digests/Speak.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAU2zx2Ri_M

References:

- Washington, DC (2003). The National Capital Language Resource Center

http://www.nclrc.org/essentials/speaking/stratspeak.htm

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

UNIT 7 - LISTENING

           Unit 7 is about listening. As all of us know listening is one of the four language skills. It is a receptive skill like reading. Therefore, this skill involves making sense of the meaningful sounds of language. As future teachers, it is necessary to know that learning to listen involves learning to be able to understand a range of relevant text types. However, most of students have their own reasons for listening. For example; listening for gist or for a global understanding. "Listening involves a sender , a message and a receiver. It is the psychological process of receiving, attending to constructing meaning from and responding to spoken and/or non verbal messages" Rost M. (1990). I consider that students will learn a lot if teachers give them the opportunity to listen to many sources of spoken language and also ask them to listen what they want, so this exposes students to arrange different text types and have fun when listening. In addition, I think learners should develop strategies for dealing with the challenge of real language, while simplified texts allow them to build up their confidence because effective listening skill leads effective communication. To sum up, as teacher  I will help students to develop this receptive skill by providing them introductory activities as pre-teaching key words, and playing some interesting audios according the topic they are learning.

You can find more interesting information about this topic on this links:

http://www.mindtools.com/CommSkll/ActiveListening.htm

http://www.slideshare.net/SivathanuN/listening-skill-development

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8zNx_IarUw

References:

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

http://www.the-criterion.com/V4/n1/Babita.pdf

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

UNIT 6 - WRITING

            Unit 6 is about writing. First of all, writing is the visual representation of a language. It helps students to communicate and understand how the parts of language go together Also, it is a productive skill and one of the four language skills, also it involves producing language rather than receiving it. Therefore, I may say that writing involves communicating a message by making signs on a page, "Reading is extremely interconnected to the writing process" (Erkaya, 2005; Hirvela, 2005). So, when talking about writing learners should be able to form letters and words, to join these together to make sentences. There are some text types: essays, e- mails, a post card, a diary, etc. So learners can see from this list that text types involve different kinds of writing as each text type has different characteristics. In addition, when teaching how to write we should encourage students to make a text cohesive including ideas, opinions and structures to get a clear message or paragraphs as well as the logical way of organizing information is the main point here. However, teachers sometimes works with models of text types when teaching writing and those models can make students to understand why is important the use of new vocabulary and topic sentences in a text. Therefore, most of learners find reading easier than writing because when they read they don't have to produce the languge but on the other hand, learners find speaking more difficult than writing because when they speak they have to produce a lot the languge. To sum up, I would like to teach writing my students by applying the writing process : pre-writing, drafting, revising and editing and telling them that good writers must be sure of sentence construction, spelling and punctuation, as well as style and appropriate register.

Look on these links for more information about this topic.

http://api.ning.com/files/diaImK5aKNluVb-WkA1lKKpQSItq79NnuI2oD9*w1jy-WE3x6SUre1RoAjExhl7K7GVzJ2XRO92d4vJzFjIm4jR1WBaVBwru/HowttWriting.pdf

http://www.time4writing.com/teaching-writing/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPUh9mfSqWU

     References: 

- Erkaya, Hirvela, (2005),Electronic Journal of Foreign Language Teaching

http://e-flt.nus.edu.sg/v3n22006/rev_laborda.pdf

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

UNIT 5 - READING

            Unit 5 is about Reading. It is a receptive skill and one of the four language skills, also it involves making sense of writing text. Therefore, we as future teachers should know that reading involves all about grammar and it helps learners to practice a lot of vocabulary. "Encourage students to respond to the content of a text (and explore their feelings about it), not just concentrate on its construction" Harmer Jeremy 1997, so I may say it is connected to a discourse. In addition, reading involves using different reading skills, for example: reading for gist or skimming, it is also called reading for global understanding. When talking about reading we have to take into account that a really important sub skill involves the relationship between words and between sentences, it is called reading  for detail. However, English learners should realize that there are two ways of reading, extensive and intensive reading. Extensive reading is to read for pleasure, for example; to read some magazines or newspaper at home or in the bus, etc. On the other hand, intensive reading is to read inside the classroom, for example; to read textbooks to do homework, learn vocabulary and to learn specific things. In addition, I have noticed most of students find reading as a complex process, from my personal opinion it is because it needs a lot of understanding of words and sentences to catch the main idea from a text. To sum up, I would apply all those aspects about reading when teaching, for example; helping students by pre - teaching vocabulary. It means to make them practicing vocabulary before they read the text and  I will encourage learners to practice reading by allowing them to read what they want in order to make it funnier.

I found some interesting information about this topic and I would like to share this with you.

http://es.slideshare.net/AlexisCentrellaV/teaching-reading-1

http://www.nclrc.org/essentials/reading/stratread.htm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBslJMq4LAg

References:

- Harmer J. (1997), text and Oxford Seminars text.

http://projectoverseas.wikispaces.com/file/view/HOW+TO+TEACH+ENGLISH.pdf

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

UNIT 4 - FUNCTIONS

            Unit 4 is about functions. It mainly focuses on why we communicate. As all of us know if we communicate by speaking or writing is always for a reason. Therefore, functions are a way of describing how we use language, as well as an exponent is the language we use to express a function, it can express different functions at the same time. "A language function refers to the purpose for which speech or writing is being used. In speech these include: giving instructions, introducing ourselves, making requests" Pozzi, D.C. (2004). I would say that it depends on the context it is used in. In addition, when talking about this topic teachers must explain their learners the levels of formality that exist when we communicate taking into account how to use the appropriate language according to the situation, if it is time to use formal or informal language. For example; it is appropriate to say Good morning teacher! and not Hello teacher!. Sometimes that sounds rude and it is not the correct way to greet teachers it is a really informal language. Furthermore, most of people usually choose to use the level of formality that suits a situation, this is called appropriacy, but I don't agree with that because I consider that people especially students should use formal or informal language at the correct moment and not just when they want. Also, we should realize that language that reflects the situation in which it is used is often referred to as register. As a conclusion, I will apply functions in the classroom through the Communicative Approach because I consider it is a good method that is going to help students according to their communicative necessities. As functions involve everything when communicating, I will encourage my students to talk as much as they can by making debates or role plays inside the classroom.  

I found some interesting information about this topic and I would like to share this with you.

http://www.ode.state.or.us/teachlearn/standards/elp/files/langfunc.pdf

http://treasures.macmillanmh.com/assets/extras/0001/0367/Forms_and_Functions_FINAL.pdf
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQ1ME4snl7I

References:
- Pozzi, D.C. (2004). Forms and functions in language: Morphology, syntax. Retrieved March 10, 2005, from University of Houston, College of Education Web site: http://www.viking.coe.uh.edu/grn11.intr/intr.0.1.2.htm

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