UNIT 8: SPEAKING

    Speaking, is one of the four language skills. As writing, listening is a productive skill. Speaking involves using speech to communicate meanings to other people. When we speak often: pronounce words, use intonation patterns, we use an appropriate register, we take part in a conversation, we use grammar and vocabulary, we use word and sentence stress, we use language accurately, and paraphrase. Furthermore, speaking involves several subskills. We make use of grammar, vocabulary and functions.

•  We make use of a correct register.
•   Use features of connected speech.
•   We use body language.
•  Produce different text types.
•  We use interactive strategies.

    When we speak we constantly have in mind the person who we are speaking to and our wish to communicate our meaning successfully. Also, we use interactive strategies such as, body language, facial expressions and gestures. All these things make speaking possible. The purpose of speaking is to communicate meaning. I consider that speaking has to be developed carefully in our students since speaking is the result of what we are teaching. Is the production of sounds which have meaning. In order to improve my students’ speaking inside the classroom we need to do controlled practices since this is going to develop fluency. Also, it is going to help them to use grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation. Besides, it is really important to motivate our students increasing their confidence by saying that the things they say are right. As a conclusion, we need to find strategies for applying inside the classroom this will let them to produce the language faster.

For further information:

• Talkenglish.com,. (2015). Basics of English Speaking . Retrieved 29 April 2015, from http://www.talkenglish.com/Speaking/Basics/Speaking_Basics_II.aspx
• YouTube,. (2015). How to improve your English speaking skills. Retrieved 29 April 2015, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sc4gh5gP1AE

CHAPTER 4: THE BALANCE OF POWER

    This chapter was really interesting since is talking about the notion that the balance of power in the classroom needs to change. The autor says that our authority as teachers is so taken for granted that most of us are no longer aware of the extent to which we direct student learning. As teachers we need to set up the calendar for the course and there are some other questions we need to take into account when we are going to give our subject. Also, it talks about what know students about the teacher for example they know that the teacher determines policy, due dates, the difficulty of the tests and how they evaluate them. But, is this correct? In this part I think that a teacher has to ask for students’ opinions, things that they would like to learn and what they would like to do. I think that we need to find the most suitable methodology when teaching.

For further information: 

·  Site.ebrary.com,. (2015). ebrary: Server Message. Retrieved 29 April 2015, from http://site.ebrary.com/lib/uta/reader.action?docID=10653948

· Toolkit.ineesite.org,. (2015). Retrieved 29 April 2015, from http://toolkit.ineesite.org/toolkit/INEEcms/uploads

CHAPTER ONE: EVENTS AND EXPERIENCES: WHAT MOTIVATED THE CHANGE

This part of the chapter resulted for me very interesting and i got motivated from this story. The author talks about how they decided to teach to the entry levels. But he was afraid because he didn’t want to fail when teaching to the students. So, he decided to improve things that he had done wrong in the past. He talks about how they decided to apply the approach for them. First, he made them do an assignment but all students got confused because they didn’t know what kind of assignment they had to do. But, fortunately his students started to work hard in order to get an “A” at the end of the course. The author wanted that them learned something relevant and useful in the near future. So, he decided to review a Brookfield manuscript (1995) but, it didn’t work and he decided that the learning has to be automatic and he could found some interesting strategies for them to use.

For further information:

•  Site.ebrary.com,. (2015). ebrary: Server Message. Retrieved 29 April 2015, from http://site.ebrary.com/lib/uta/reader.action?docID=10653948
•  TeachHUB,. (2015). How to Motivate Students: Top 12 Ways. Retrieved 29 April 2015, from http://www.teachhub.com/top-12-ways-motivate-students

Unit 7: LISTENING

Listening is one of the four language skills and it is a receptive skill. Listening involves making sense of the meaningful sounds of language.  There are some differences between the spoken language and the written language:

Written language	Spoken language
Doesn’t disappear	Disappears.
Uses punctuation	Uses stress and intonation
Consists of letters, written words, sentences, punctuation.	Consists of sounds, single words, sentences, utterances.
Has no visual support	Uses gestures, and facial expressions.
Follows a logical sequence.	Contains interruptions, hesitations.
Uses complex grammar.	Uses general vocabulary and simpler grammar.

As in writing we need to follow a process when listening:

• Attending
• Interpreting
• Responding
• Remembering

On the one hand we can see that written and spoken language have different features.  There are utterances. Also, it has different text types an example could be conversations. Besides, there are different interaction patterns when speaking. Listening involves learning to be able to understand a range of relevant text types.  Linking sounds and words in order to form contractions and that is the problem of many people who is learning another language.  Some people speak slowly and with more pauses and others speak faster and with fewer pauses.  On the other hand there are different subskills. We have listening for gist/global understanding, specific information, detail or to infer attitude. Since, listening is one of the subskills is very important that we as future teachers develop techniques in the classroom with our students to help them to catch faster the language. as in writing is very important to pre-teach new vocabulary, setting pre-listening tasks, giving authentic material for them to use in real situations. Also, is very important that with beginners we use simplified texts. This activity will help them to increase their confidence and they will be able to learn faster. 

References: 

·         Study.com,. (2015). The Four Stages of the Listening Process - Video & Lesson Transcript | Study.com. Retrieved 27 April 2015, from http://study.com/academy/lesson/the-four-stages-of-the-listening-process.html

·         Learnenglishteens.britishcouncil.org,. (2015). Skills | LearnEnglishTeens. Retrieved 27 April 2015, from http://learnenglishteens.britishcouncil.org/skills/listening-skills-practice

Unit 6: WRITING

 Writing is one of the four language skills and is a productive skill. Writing involves communicating a message by making signs on a page. I took out some key concepts which I consider are the most important:

-Text types such as birthday card, a post card, your dairy or email are some examples of text types.

-We use different degrees of formality, different layouts and ways of ordering information.

- Writing involves some subskills: accuracy, appropriate functions to express meaning for example narrating, requesting, summarizing.

-When writing is important to have cohesion that is we need to use linkers. The texts have to be cohesive and be written in a logical way.

Stages of writing

Working out what you want to say.

Working out the order in which you want to say it.

Drafting: the first version of a piece of writing.

Editing: correcting and improving the text.

Proofreading: checking for mistakes in accuracy and correcting.

Re-drafting: writing the final version of your piece of writing.

Regarding this, all of this information is very important when writing. In addition, as a future teacher I could make use of the steps used to write with my students. We’ll be developing these steps together. When writing is useful to encourage the students in order to make them to have better idea. Therefore, there are activities that are useful for them like labelling, gap filling, sentence transformation; these activities will help them to develop accuracy. Another thing Is to give models of texts types, for letting them to have a guide for writing. I think all of those strategies will help us to write in a coherent way, helping them in other subjects, too.

For further information visit these links:

- Grammar.ccc.commnet.edu,. (2015). Guide to Grammar and Writing. Retrieved 22 April 2015, from http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/

- FutureLearn,. (2015). A Beginner's Guide to Writing in English for University Study - University of Reading. Retrieved 22 April 2015, from https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/english-for-study

Unit 5 READING

Reading is one of the four language skills. It is a receptive skill, like listening, this means involves responding to text rather than producing it. For reading we need to understand the language of the text at word level. We also need to connect the message of the text to our knowledge of the world. When reading, we need to understand what the letters are, how those letters are joined and what they mean.  There are some key concepts:

•  A discourse is a connected text.
• Coherence means the sense connection between the sentences.
• Cohesion refers to the grammatical links between the sentences.
• Reading involves using different reading skills.
• Reading for specific information (scanning).
• Reading for gist or skimming is also called reading for global understanding.
• Reading for detail means getting the meaning out at every word and out of the links or relationships between words and sentences.
• Intensive reading means reading inside the classroom.
• Infer means to get meaning from a text.
• Deducing meaning from context means involves reading the words around and unknown word or thinking about the situation.
• Predicting means using clues before we begin reading.
• Prediction helps us to decide if we wish to read the text and to make sense of it.
• Text structure involves understanding how certain types of text generally develop.
• Extensive reading means reading for pleasure.

Reading is a very useful skill which has to be carefully developed in the students. as a future teacher I think I will help them to develop their reading skill. First, I’ll pre-teach vocabulary that means I will give them the meaning of the words they don’t understand. Also, I can use lead-in activities making them to look at the pictures around a text. Then, I would make them to read and we can take out the main idea from each paragraph. As a conclusion, reading is very important for students and through reading they can develop their critical thinking.

For more information:

•  Wikipedia,. (2015). Reading (process). Retrieved 22 April 2015, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reading_%28process%29
• Pbskids.org,. (2015). Reading Games | PBS KIDS. Retrieved 22 April 2015, from http://pbskids.org/games/reading