To be a fool or not to be a fool

Living in the United States people are true to the expression of freedom of speech. While growing up we are taught to express our feelings and ideas even when they’re not appropriate in a given situation, this means that even when we should respect and be quiet, we often aren’t. 

In elementary school students didn’t really back talk, they mostly acted on impulse when didn’t like something. For example, during cookie & milk time students would get two cookies, some of them would want more and take them from their classmates, the teacher would tell them that what they were doing was not right and/or appropriate, they didn’t exactly back talk but would express that they were still hungry. Back talk wasn’t a big deal in elementary from my experience.

On the other hand, back talk was heavy in middle school, I don’t know if it was our hormones acting up but it seemed like we always looked for a reason to argue even if it was with a teacher. When we had to work in groups set up by the teacher that’s when most of the back talk started because some students weren’t pleased with their current partners. There was a situation were a student did not want to work with me, he had a small argument with the teacher about his reasons for not wanting to work with me and the teacher didn’t do anything except telling him to get to work; then he got knocked out by my friend. They were both sent to the office because the teacher could not handle the situation anymore.

I believe the teacher should have taken control in the first instant of the situation so that it wouldn’t have gotten out of control. I would’ve given him the option of working with his partner and complete the task or complete it on his own.

When I was in 10th grade, I was the one back talking, I remember a specific occasion where I was in English class; the teacher asked me to read an article on the OHP.

Me: “no, I don’t want to. Ask somebody else to do it”.

Teacher: ” if you don’t read it, you will have to write an essay on respect”.

Me:  “no comprende”.

Teacher: “maybe if I put the article in Spanish you’ll be able to read it”.

Me: “why, just because I’m mexican?”.

Teacher: “well, if you can’t read English  then maybe you can read Spanish”.

Me: “s**** you”

And I stormed out the room. I went to the office, talked to my counselor; the next morning my English teacher apologized to me, explaining his reasons for acting that way and asking me if I was still comfortable in his class. After this he became one of my favorite teachers and we got along very well my last two years.

I had a physics teacher who was very strict when it came to grading, but as a person easy-going. One day she asked me to go up to the board to do a problem, I answered her with a smart remark, she responded with a positive reinforcement, I still refused to do the problem, she stayed quiet and everybody else the same, maybe a minute had passed when I decided to get up and do the problem, I solved it, sat down and she gave me a positive comment. 

In my experience these were two different teachers who handled the situation very differently, my English teacher might have not handled it in a very positive way but in the end recognized his error, on the other hand, my physics teacher handled it perfectly and made me feel very good about myself, with barely any effort at all.

 

 

 

Bloom’s Taxonomy Activity Example

Intermediate level, young adults.

Activity: My job

* Presenting a clip from Dirty Jobs

1. Recalling: name chores of their childhood.

2.Understanding: write a short paragraph explaining why they had chores in the first place and classify them in order of dislike, going from the least likeable to the most likeable.

3. Applying: In groups, mime the chores of their childhood in order to get the class to guess the chore.

4. Analysing: compare  your past chores to an actual job, mentioning similarities and differences. From the video shown, choose a job that is unknown to you and do some research on it.

5. Evaluating: present the research done to the class and critique it, stating the pros and cons to it as well as any benefits or difficulties that it might present.

6. Creating: make a report with the objective of persuading their classmates to work in their chosen field of work (dream job), describing the job itself, what the work environment is like, why they should do that, as well as the benefits and difficulties that go along with it.

Richards, J.C., Interchange Intro, 2005.

Online tools to facilitate learning

In order to learn vocabulary there are many tools online that provide a more fun way to achieve this. I found that Zondle is a very appealing tool for any teacher out there and once I realized it existed, I immediately knew I could definitely use it not only for this course but for my own classes and since it provides various games for a single topic, I know it will be entertaining for my students.

The activity created is just a simple quiz with an animated background in order to make it more interesting to the user.  This activity can be viewed here: http://www.zondle.com/cdl.aspx?qp=106296&a=37

The other tool I liked, thinking of my students, was Jeopardy Labs (https://jeopardylabs.com/). It allows you to create your own jeopardy game, which you can not only use to learn vocabulary but to examine more complicated things such as tenses, structures, and so on.

Unit 12,13,14 project

The results I got from the learning style and multiple intelligence test did not really surprised me but in one hand, made me conscious of how I teach.

This project also helped me figure out that not all my students learn the same way meaning that I should be more careful in my lesson planning.

Here’s the link to my project: http://mrl.li/186k72K

My Venn Diagram

 

Here’s the link to the video I watched: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCChBcJaT50

My thoughts …

I believe motivation depends on each person, what I mean by this is that there is extrinsic and intrinsic motivation. Extrinsic is the motivation that comes from external influences like parents, teachers, friends and/or objects. Intrinsic is the motivation that comes from within like your will power to engage, continue and achieve a goal. What I mean with motivation depending on the person is this exactly, which factor moves you?

When it comes to learning a second language motivation is important. If you’re learning a second language because your job requires you to then you’re motivated to exceed in your work field. For me it was different, English is my second language but my motivation was so that kids wouldn’t make fun of me this of course had to do with my confidence. I saw firsthand what is bullying and it’s not pretty. My motivation was to become the best student I could be this of course was possible not only because of me but also because of my ESL teacher. When I found myself stuck she would always find the way to encourage not only me but all her students succeed.

Last Saturday we got a taste of distance teaching and blended. There is also the face to face teaching, all these are different but this doesn’t mean that one is better than the other. On the other hand I believe each one has its attributes. The distance teaching is great for learners with a difficult schedule to work with because of their personal life. This method is helpful in the sense that they work when they can and at their own pace. Distance teaching works very well with independent, fast learners’ type of person this has to do with learner autonomy, but when that person needs more help then that’s when the blended approach is more useful.

 The blended approach is exactly that a blend of distance and face to face teaching. The teacher is present to facilitate the learning process and to encourage the learner to keep moving forward and to fulfill their goals thus busting their confidence and sense of achievement. I personally enjoy this because it involves technology which nowadays is crucial. We are living in an era of new technologies and we as teachers have to keep up with new ways to motivate and encourage our students. Face to face is what we are mostly familiar with, from my experience this method is as fulfilling as it is challenging. This way you personally see your student’s achievements and their problem areas therefore you are there in person to help and motivate them. I’ve had parents tell me that they are happy with me as a teacher and I see my students progress along the way and that gives me joy.

Voicethread

 

http://voicethread.com/share/4484461/

Scoring Rubric for Speaking Skill

Scoring rubrics help teachers grade students on a equal plain field, what Imean by this is that the students know exactly what is being graded therefore they know what to work on.  

http://rubistar.4teachers.org/index.php?screen=PrintRubricDownloadFile&rubric_id=2314935&

Literature Circles

The literature activity presented is for unit 9 “Changes”, from the teacher’s book “Success”, which focuses on was/wasn’t and were/weren’t. The reading material used in this activity is the fictional novel “The Host” by Stephenie Meyer, chapters 1 and 2.

 

Pre-reading activities:

The teacher provides the name of the book and a list of words needed to be comprehended the chapters assigned; he/she also reads the prologue and asks students to write in a paragraph what they think the book is about and where they believe the book is going.

During reading activities:

Students are asked to write in their own words their answers to the following questions (using was/were wasn’t/weren’t):

-What was the main character’s (wanderer) first memory? Do you agree that it was the worst memory? Why?

-Could you re-write her first memory? Provide an example

-Who else was in the room with her? What were they doing there?

-Do you think the seeker genuinely cares about wanderer? Why?

They’re also required to write a sentence for each word on the list given that is different than the one presented in the book.

Post-reading activities:

Students get together in small groups and discuss wanderer’s feelings about her new body and the world she was now in; students also think about a situation in which they experienced similar feelings and share with the class what happened and what those feelings were.

Graphic Organizers

From my experience working with graphic organizers, I would have to say that they are an essential part for writing and expressing our own ideas. What I mean by this is the following, when we had to write an essay we would start with a type of organizer called “5 paragraph essay outline”. Which was in this order first paragraph was the introduction or “attention grabber” which was your three main ideas for the essay. Second part was the “body or thesis statement”, which was composed out of three separate paragraphs each one describing one of the three main ideas in a more complete statement and giving proof to back up your idea. The last part was the “conclusions paragraph”, this is where you wrap up your essay to the reader. Recapitulating your thesis statement and showing the reader what you had to accomplish with the essay. In order for it to be a complete essay each paragraph had between 5 and 7 sentences.

When it came to describing a story in detail, which was just read we used a story map. This helped us analyze and/or summarize the story by making us think of the beginning of the story, what and who. Made us analyze the middle of the story, when and how. The ending was the conclusion, why, in this part we sometimes had the chance to change the ending of the story by including our own ideas and changing it with our thoughts.

Brainstorming was big when it came to writing period. For this we use a cluster/cloud map, this one helped us brainstorming various ideas for different topics. The topics where either chosen by the teacher or sometimes us the students and according to the topic was what we had to think of. But this type of map was usually before a more organized one, for example we had to write about the environment in an essay form we would work with the cluster map to brainstorm a lot of ideas that had to do with the environment. After we had all of our ideas on the map then we moved to an outline in this case the 5 paragraph essay outline where we chose the most important of ideas from the cluster map, but also including the thesis statement more ideas that were in the cluster map.