Juan Salvador College is a coeducational simple instruction establishment which is located in San Javier. The school has classs from first to eight twelvemonth simple school. They besides provide instruction to kindergarten and pre-school pupils. The school is located in an urban country so that pupils from all sectors attend categories at that place. They have a in-between school twenty-four hours, since in the forenoon 4th from 4th to eight classs have categories and in the afternoon the other classs.
In footings of substructure the school has non many schoolrooms and that impedes the execution of JEC in this school. They have a computing machine room and a information projector in every schoolroom.
The instructors are really immature ; about none of them is over 30 old ages old. The English instructor is in charge of all the degrees, since in this school the English linguistic communication is taught from first twelvemonth on. Every class has four hr of English a hebdomad. The instructor largely uses the Grammat Translation Method during his lessons, and the pupils are used to working with the text edition that is chosen by the school.
I worked with the 7th class of the school. This class is composed by 19 pupils who, harmonizing to the instructor, are really motivated towards the English linguistic communication. Obviously the category are in Spanish every bit good as the engagement of the pupils.
The category and lessons have some jobs which will be exposed and explained in the undermentioned pages.
Pedagogical Problems
The school, particularly the class in which I worked presented some pedagogical jobs. Following, we will look into three jobs which I consider are the most serious in this schoolroom.
I. – The pupils do non understand the sound recordings that were designed for them and the aural input. The pupils have many jobs with the listening comprehension. They seldom pattern this accomplishment with native-like theoretical accounts of English and the exclusive input they receive is the small sum of vocabulary and pronunciations that are provided for the instructor, who about the whole category speaks in Spanish. Once, the instructor played some recordings to make a hearing trial. The trial was approximately fill in some missing words in a short paragraph and to place what type of conversation the talkers were holding. None of the pupil was able to think more than three right replies out of 12 spaces, and a few of them were able to understand that the recording was about a duologue between two friends. At the terminal of the category the instructor had to call off the rating of the activity, because it would hold been bad for the Markss of the pupils. The recording was from the Cadmium provided by MINEDUC with the public schools text edition of English. Furthermore, with a alteration of pronunciation the pupils had many jobs to understand the instructions provided by a different instructor.
II. – The pupils have many jobs of pronunciation. The pupils are unable to articulate right many words in English. The biggest issue is that many words of common usage, such as words related with day-to-day life looks, common verbs, pronoun, adjectives and simple vocabulary. The pupils pronounce the words in the manner that they are written. For case, some pupils pronounce the word you as [ jou ] alternatively of [ ju: ] . These mistakes are non corrected by the instructor and many of them are produced because of the mispronunciation that the instructor has of some words. This issue may be common in schools, but the job becomes greater when the pupils that are able to articulate about right a large figure of words change their pronunciation when hearing other schoolmate to articulate the word falsely. The mispronunciation of the words is a immense hindrance for the communicating in the schoolroom, since some pupils are unable to understand the incorrect pronounced words.
III. -The Students do non show themselves in English. The pupils of this category have many jobs of communicating in English. The pupils do non show themselves utilizing the mark linguistic communication but they use they use Spanish the whole clip in the schoolroom. Phrases of really frequent usage such as I do n’t cognize, May I go to the bathroom? or I need a pen are non used during the whole lesson. For the different events that occur in the schoolroom the pupils use Spanish, even those times that the instructor is seeking to explicate an activity in English. Once, I did a TPR activity and all the elucidations were given from one pupil to the other in Spanish. He was able to understand my instructions and to interpret them in English for the remainder of his schoolmates. This issue is given in every portion of the lesson. When working in groups the pupils use Spanish. When inquiring for aid to the instructor or to the assistants they use Spanish. Even when they are offering themselves as voluntary for one activity they raise their custodies and say “ yo ” alternatively of stating a phrase in English such as me! or I want! This issue does non impact the communicating, but it affects the development of their accomplishments in English, since one of the most of import parts when larning a linguistic communication is to utilize it every clip that it is possible.
Solutions
For the three jobs proposed supra, next we will suggest some solutions for these issues. The undermentioned solutions are based on the theories of acquisition of a 2nd linguistic communication, the theories of acquisition and methods to learn English, but particularly the experiences of learning English to kids of similar age of those with who I worked for 12 hebdomads.
1.-Problem 1: The pupils do non understand the sound recordings that were designed for them and the aural input.
During many old ages in our state, the manner of learning English has been based on the Grammar Translation Method, which chief current unfavorable judgment is based on the premise of the usage of female parent lingua to learn a foreign linguistic communication. Nevertheless, many theories proposes that the pupils may be in a English context to larn the mark linguistic communication, so that they can have changeless input and end product to better their accomplishments. Following this same thought, I have come up with a web page that can be easy used by the pupils to better their English hearing comprehension: hypertext transfer protocol: //www.agendaweb.org.
The web page was designed to incorporate many links from different other web pages. These links contain material and exercisings of every sort of subjects in English. However, our focal point will be in the subdivision of Listening. These subdivisions are separated harmonizing to the degree of the pupils and most of the hearing activities provided there are based on narratives with written texts.
The thought is non to work with these listening activities during some lessons. If the hearing does non convey exercises the instructor may supply some press releases with some comprehension inquiries. It is recommended to get down with the first group of links in the subdivision listening we click on the 00 kids ‘s narratives. In this subdivision, in the lower portion, there are some links of some narratives which provides vocabulary, written text and hearing. The pupils may increase the trouble of the hearing activities once they complete some period of pattern. As this web page provides many links, the instructor can besides give some prep utilizing the same page. He can merely supply the nexus and the pupils may pattern at place, so that they can be invariably be exposed to regular and comprehendible input.
2.-Problem 2: The pupils have many jobs of pronunciation.
The normative linguistics tells us about the right manner of utilizing the linguistic communication in footings of grammatical constructions and theoretical accounts of pronunciation. Following the same premise, we can do a relation with the psychological school and experiences of Skinner, Pavlov and others. The solution of this issue is foremost based on the Behaviouristic Theory of larning a linguistic communication and some rules and premises of the Audio-lingual Method.
The importance of good theoretical accounts of English is really of import here and besides the repeat of those good theoretical accounts of linguistic communication. The instructor should establish their lesson in the development of proper pronunciations by supplying them input with a proper pronunciation. This input may come from different beginnings such as the same instructor, some pictures or recordings or some vocals.
A good manner for encourage the usage of proper pronunciation is to supply the pupils with the right theoretical account and so do them reiterate what the theoretical account nowadayss. In this manner the instructor is demoing foremost the theoretical accounts of English that are required for the pupils and they merely repeat until they get a proper pronunciation. Drilling activities are recommended here. We can besides utilize backward and forward repeats so that the pupils have no jobs with those phrases and words that could be hard for them to bring forth.
The instructor should besides rectify the errors of his pupils. There many ways of making this, so he can use some of them to acquire the pupils to hold a proper pronunciation. The most recommended in this peculiar instance to utilize the teacher-student rectification, due to the fact that there have already been many jobs with the spouse rectification and the pupils have produced an wrong theoretical account of pronunciation. The instructor is in a first chance the 1 who is in charge of supplying proper theoretical accounts of pronunciation, as it was already been stated before. In these footings, the instructor should supply the feedback in two ways. Once the pupil make the error, so the instructor corrects right the manner and besides one time the production of the pupils has already finish. The first manner is to avoid the mispronunciation of the remainder of the pupils, but this rectification must non blockade the speech production of the pupils nor keep the public presentation of the pupil. Here we are non seeking to develop eloquence, so that this sort of rectification is non damaging. The 2nd manner of rectification is utile for all the pupils, since all of them can take advantage of this chance of betterment.
3.- Problem 3: The Students do non show themselves in English.
Following the recommendations of some writers, we want to concentrate this solution on the premises of the instructor should arouse in a first phase the replies from the pupils. In this manner we may fall back to the Interactionism and Lev Vitgotsky ‘s Socio-Cultural Theory, particularly on the Zone of Proximal Development ( ZPD ) . The instructor must assist the pupils to acquire to a desire phase of development of their English accomplishments. In these footings the instructor should move as a facilitator for the pupils and besides as an adviser. The linguistic communication should be taught in existent context, so that the pupils feel comfy with what they are making ; besides, the langue used in the schoolroom must be English. This premises and rules can be found in the CLT, which will be a good ally in this solution.
First, the instructor should do that the pupils feel comfy in the schoolroom and with their schoolmates. They have known each other for a piece, so there should be no job of shyness in the schoolroom caused by the deficiency of cognizing each other.
The of import here is to do the pupil talk in English in order to acquire communicating in the schoolroom. The instructor should get down utilizing English during his categories, so that the pupils get comfy with the linguistic communication. The evocation of responses from the pupils is really of import, so the instructor should look for any case in which the pupils start utilizing English. At first the instructor should learn and show the pupils a content utilizing all the media possible for the pupils to understand and so supply them cases of practicing and communicate with this new cognition they are acquiring. The pupils must speak with their schoolmates even though they produce short sentences. The instructor should ever seek to set attending to the development of the category in these footings, because at first the pupil will be dared to utilize Spanish alternatively of English.
A good thought in footings of communicating is to supply the pupils with all the tools they need before speaking: a batch of pattern, a batch of theoretical accounts of linguistic communication, a batch of feedback, a batch support from the instructor. The instructor should look around for anything that performs the function of a assistant of the development of the accomplishments of the pupils. The usage of realistic state of affairss make that the pupil find the English linguistic communication meaningful for their lives, so that they can take advantage of what they are larning in the schoolroom. Once once more we find here some constructs related to Krashen ‘s Affective Filter Hypothesis and ZPD. The instructor is in charge of doing the schoolroom comfortable to the pupils. It seems to be the first rule of this solution. A good thought would be to see some facets of suggestopedia, as the first concert in which the pupils may fell most relaxed and chill out their jitteriness.
Decisions
The proper designation of jobs and issues in the schoolroom is a function that the instructor must ever bear in head. We must ne’er bury that being a instructor of English besides implies that we are portion the schoolroom and if the schoolroom has jobs, we are holding jobs every bit good.
The mention that we can pick from all the theoretical background that we have must ever be our counsel in our public presentation as instructors. If it is good known that we do non fall back to merely one theory or method at one time, we pick the best of all the theories to do our ain manner of learning. In this minute, pieces of information provided in the texts of Kuramavidelu ( 2001 ) come to my head. We must ever see that the pupils are non all the same. Every category has different features that we must ever maintain on consideration. Every lesson must be prepared for a specific schoolroom and for a specific group of people. We can non presume that all the proposed solutions in this study would work in any schoolroom of our state. These solutions were thought and proposed for a peculiar group of kids and for a peculiar instructor.
The observation and the self-reflection of our public presentation in the schoolroom are ever of import to maintain in our heads. We can non believe that everything is all right merely because we prepared carefully the category. We must detect how it works, if the pupils are larning, if it is actuating, if it accomplishes our aim. The want of making ever our best and the will of betterment must ever be our counsel and support in all the activities we do.
As a hereafter instructor it is of import to see that it will non ever be every bit perfect as we would desire. Nevertheless, if we ever put our best on what we are making with our pupil we must be certain that all what we do is good for both the pupils and us as instructors of English.
Annexs
Activities for every solution:
I.- Solution 1:
The activity may be divided into assorted phases. He pupils must utilize the computing machine lab of the school and supply their ain earpieces. Once they are all in a computing machine they must travel to this nexus and listen to the narrative: hypertext transfer protocol: //www.storytimeforme.com/player/ ? id=fern12 & A ; fs=0. After listening the narrative three times the instructor provides a sheet of paper with some inquiries about the comprehension of the sound. This is the first measure and the pupils may go on practising at place with different sounds.
Then, in a different lesson, the pupils will be asked to recognize a individual word of the hearing sound. For that they need to shop to this nexus: hypertext transfer protocol: //www.adelescorner.org/listening/holiday/holiday.html and make the activity at that place.
After some lessons of practicing, the pupils will be encouraged to utilize sounds with no written text, so that they will merely hold to listen carefully. They will be able to listen to this sound three times from which one will be with the written text and so they will have a sheet of paper to develop some activities of comprehension. The undermentioned nexus provides many narratives to work with hypertext transfer protocol: //www.agendaweb.org/listening/all_levels2.html.
Solution 2:
The instructor will non utilize the female parent lingua during his whole lesson and during the whole activity. He must promote the pupils to utilize and execute the theoretical accounts provided by him. The significance necessities for the lesson will be conveyed by the instructor and utilizing some flash cards with images. The instructor will demo a flash card and he will bring forth the right theoretical account of the phrase or theoretical account so that the pupils repetition afterwards. The pattern must go on until the pupils are able to articulate the phrases or words given right. If the pupils make a error when practicing, the instructor must supply once more the proper theoretical account of pronunciation, so that the pupils can hear it good and copy the pronunciation of the instructor. Afterwards, the pupils will see the flash card shown by the instructor and so they will hold to state the phrase or word elicited. In instance of errors, the instructor must rectify quickly, so that the remainder of the pupil do non do the same error.
Solution 3:
The instructor must be worried for the communicating in the schoolroom, so that he must supply chances to acquire the pupils to pass on with each other. In this manner the pupils will be able to bring forth as much English as they can, but the instructor must ever be cognizant of the linguistic communication they need.
