Luciana Colluci’s workshop (06/06/2008)

During Luciana Colluci’s workshop we watched the movie The Emperor’s club. We were asked to identify the teacher’s roles on the movie:

The teacher’s roles were well shown on the movie. Planner, this role is seen when the teacher, Mr. Hundert, planned the competition on Roman history. Everything was settled, but one of the students was cheating, even in this kind of situation the teacher was able to solve the problem, because in my opinion he was prepared to any eventuality.
Mr. Hundert proved to be a good informer, he was familiar with the subject he taught. Manager, he could organize the learning space, he made sure that everything was running smoothly. The students had a routine to follow, we noticed it in one of the first scenes when he told the students that it was time to sleep.
He was an involver when he motivated Sedgewick, a rebellious student, to learn about Roman history. He was tough when it was necessary but he was gentle when he saw that Sedgewick wanted to learn. He trusted him.
He was a diagnostician when he looked for Sedgewick’s father in order to let him know about his son’s behavior. His father didn’t care for anything wrong that his son was doing, since this moment Mr. Hundert managed to find out that the boy’s indiscipline was related to the lack of interest of his father in him.
One thing that I found relevant in Mr. Hundert’s method was that he wasn’t attached to any teaching style, he was malleable, he had the great ability to change his approach to teach his pupils properly. As far as I am concerned all the teachers must have this skill.

Maria Nilce's workshop (05/16/2008)

Technology is causing a revolution in education. I think it’s extremely important, the education became more appealing and students have more sources of knowledge. It also became faster, if we recall how it was to teach English twenty years ago. For example to teach listening using a tape, every time that the teacher wanted to repeat the listening he had to rewind the tape, and it took time to get it in the right part.

The e-board which was shown to us in Maria Nilce’s workshop is a good example of modern devices that can be used to teach English in an involving way. Almost all the people like technology, so I think using this kind of board keep students attentive and they get motivated. Teachers can do basically whatever they want with an e-board, it’s a multipurpose appliance. Teachers can play songs with it play movies, do listening activities, fill in exercises, whatever. I was astonished with that. Since technology evolves quickly, much more are about to come.

Alessandra Masson’s workshop (04/12/2008)

A comment on the articles written by Jeremy Harmer, published on the magazine English Teaching Professional.

The articles are related to the main aspects of the English teaching process: grammar, vocabulary, listening, writing and speaking. Harmer writes about these topics in a very objective and clear way. He describes some difficulties that English teachers have and give useful tips.

According to him grammar has always been a problem for language teachers and students. Rules are often highly complex and interpretations of these rules are often highly controversial. He tells the story of grammar teaching throughout the century beyond suggesting that teachers have to be familiar with grammar rules and teach grammar in a lively way. He claims that grammar shouldn’t be taught apart from vocabulary, because one makes the other works.

Vocabulary has to be dealt with in a careful way. Many words have different meanings if we take into account the context. He affirms that perhaps the best ways to teach vocabulary are listening and reading. He encourages the use of monolingual dictionaries as a way to learn new words.

In my opinion Jeremy Harmer is completely right when he says ‘the best listening exercise is listening to the teacher’, therefore teachers must have an accurate pronunciation. I also I agree with him when he states that writing exercises shouldn’t be over corrected. According to him it is invaluable to use some codes like V for vocabulary, Sp for spelling and G for grammar.

It was worth reading these articles, I learnt a lot.

Leila Maxwell’s workshop (04/18/2008)

In her workshop Ms. Maxwell asked us to write an activity planning which encompasses oral and written skills, describing each step. So here it is:


Content:

· the English alphabet
· spelling names
· How do you spell your name?
· The Beatles’ song

Level

Basic

Time needed

One class of one hour and 15 minutes

Material needed

· a stereo
· a board, a marker
· flash cards of the letters

Instructions

1. tell the students that the theme of the class is the alphabet. Ask if any of them know it.
2. show them the flash cards, ask them only to listen at first
3. drill the alphabet with the students
4. tell them that some letters have a sound in common and we can form group of letters, write the groups on the board:

A H J K /ei/
B C D E P T V Z /i/
F L M N S X /e/
I Y /ai/
U W /ju/
R /ar/
O /ou/

5. Teach the students: How do you spell your name? Ask them to take turn asking and answering their classmates.
6. Work with the song All together now, by The Beatles. Ask them to write down the letters they can listen in the song.

All Together Now
The Beatles
One, two, three, four,

Can I have a little more,

Five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten,I love you.

A, B, C, D,

Can I bring my friend to tea,

E, F, G, H, I, J,I love you.

Bom bom bom

bom-pa bomSail the ship

bom-pa bomChop the tree

bom-pa bomSkip the rope

bom-pa bomLook at me.

All together now, all together now,

All together now, all together now,

Black, white, green, red,

Can I take my friend to bed,

Pink, brown, yellow,

orange, and blue,I love you.

All together now, all together now,

All together now, all together now,

Bom bom bom

bom-pa bomSail the ship

bom-pa bomChop the tree

bom-pa bomSkip the rope

bom-pa bomLook at me.

All together now,

all together now,

All together now,

all together now,

All together now!
7. Give them the lyrics, work with them the pronunciation of the whole song.

Beatriz Pucci´s workshop (04/04/2008)

An overview of the structures of the English Language, it was the theme of Beatriz Pucci´s workshop. During her workshop a big variety of exercises on different structures of the language were presented, e.g. question structure, present perfect structure etc.

I found all the exercises very interesting, because when you are a teacher you have to be acquainted with all kinds of teaching styles.
This workshop broadened my mind, I managed to learn new styles of working with different structures.

The lecturer said that we have to work on vocabulary with things that the students are interested in, like songs, tabloids and movies. In order to find out what they like we have to talk to them and ask them what their interests are. I have applied her suggestions with my students and they proved to be true.