Unit 18

ASSESSMENT TYPES AND TASKS

Assessment is an important part in language acquisition, for that using assessment tasks with students will help them to clarify all their doubts. We can assess learners informally and formally.  Is good to start with a diagnostic test to see what they know and do not know.  A progress test let us know how well learners have learnt what we already teach, but in order to have a formative assessment we do not have to forget about feedback, feedback let students be aware about their strengths and difficulties. Another way that will help students to let language be more remarkable for them is Portfolios a collection of learners´ work done during the course to present to the teacher.

Sometimes it is preferable to use informal assessment because students will perform the language in a freely way without worry about the structure, grammar, spelling and punctuation. As teachers at this point is remarkable to give them feedback. But it does not mean that it is not important formal assessment with formal assessment we can see the development of our students and also we can include objective and subjective tasks.

Here you have a chart were you can find:

SUBJECTIVE AND OBJECTIVE METHODS OF LANGUAGE TESTING

TESTING FOCUS	SUBJECTIVE METHODS	OBJECTIVE METHODS
LISTENING	Open-Ended question and answer Note-Taking Interviews	Blank-filling Information transfer Multiple choice questions True/False questions Jumbled pictures
SPEAKING	Role plays Interviews Group discussions Describing pictures Information gap activities	Sentence repetition Sentence response to cues Question and answer (interview)
READING-COMPREHENSION	Open-ended comprehension Questions and answers in the target language or mother tongue Summary writing Note taking	Information transfer Multiple choice Questions True/False questions Jumbled sentences Jumbled paragraphs Cloze
WRITING	Guided writing e.g., letter Completion, re-writing, information transfer Free writing e.g., Compositions, essays	Blank filling Sentence joining

TESTING FOCUS		SUBJECTIVE METHODS		OBJECTIVE METHODS
GRAMMAR	Open-ended sentence Completion Re-writing		Expansion exercises Scrambled sentences Transformation exercises Multiple choice questions
FUNCTIONS	Giving appropriate responses Discourse chains Split dialogues		Matching Multiple choice questions Odd-man-out Listen and match
VOCABULARY	Compositions and essays Paraphrasing		Crossword Classification exercises Matching exercises Labeling

SOURCE: “Achievement Tests: Alms, Content and Some Testing Techniques” by Mary Spratt.

For  further information visit these webpages :

• Flinders.edu.au, (2014). Flinders University. [online] Available at: http://www.flinders.edu.au/teaching/teaching-strategies/assessment/tasks.cfm
•  App.griffith.edu.au, (2014). Assessment Matters. [online] Available at: http://app.griffith.edu.au/assessment-matters/docs/assessment-methods/tasks
•  

Unit 17

PRACTICE ACTIVITIES AND TASKS FOR LANGUAGE AND SKILLS DEVELOPMENT

 

With activities and a lot of practice students can extend their use of language. In controlled activities students can make few mistakes, but they can practice in accuracy and the form of language. With choral drills, individual drills, substitution drills, transformation drills, teachers can control learners’ knowledge and give guidance  and support  them rather than free activities, these kinds of activities allows students to be more fluent, practice and interact in order to communicate their feelings, knowledge and ideas.

In class it is better to mix the activities, we can vary them using freer activities and controlled activities so in this way you will motivate learners and also you will help them focus on form and the way they use the language. In a lesson you can start with choral drills, or substitution drills to let them realize what is the function of a word in a sentence.  Then you can continue with a freer activity as a role- play students like to be part of a group, add and share their ideas to perform a role-play, for that freer activities will help them to integrate new language with language they already know. 

In this book you will find many activities and materials that you can put in practice in class

• Google Books, (2014). Materials Development in Language Teaching. [online] Available at: http://books.google.com.ec/books?hl=es&lr=&id=TmhyTQji2UEC&oi=fnd&pg=PR1&dq=ACTIVITIES+AND+TASKS+FOR+LANGUAGE+AND+SKILLS+DEVELOPMENT&ots=EIcuR3qDSX&sig=tgJfnkJj9dgedqNvML1ivrXb8G4#v=onepage&q=ACTIVITIES%20AND%20TASKS%20FOR%20LANGUAGE%20AND%20SKILLS%20DEVELOPMENT&f=false [Accessed 6 Dec. 2014].

Unit 16

Presentation techniques and introductory activities

The first thing in this unit is to differentiate presentation techniques and introductory activities. Presentation techniques are the ways used by the teacher to focus learners´ attention on the meaning. Introductory activities are activities used by a teacher to introduce a lesson or teaching topic. We can find some lessons of presenting a new language as the cases of PPP (Presentation, Practice and Production )and TBL (Task-based learning ) using any of these two ways to present  new language , you will have many advantages. For example PPP gives learner the opportunity to practice the language in a freely way building confidence in learner. TBL allows students to experiment and create a real communication.  The introductory stage of a lesson is the main part of the teacher class, for that is important to know the difference between Lead-in and Warmers; warmers  are used to raise students´ energy level  and Lead-I n introduce the content of  a lesson.

It is important to  start with a lead-in  if you what to let students be ready for the topic you will teach , then you can present the topic using pictures, songs or any activity that do not let students worried about what they are going to learn, also at the practice time the confidence built in class will be the most important part, pair and group activities can help at this stage to develop the language in a better way  and finally you can develop more communicative tasks that will allows students to produce the language in a freely way.

•  YouTube, (2014). TTT methodology part 1. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDoRuSDYgYM [Accessed 6 Dec. 2014].

 You can find more information here:

• Jobs.languagelink.ru, (2014). Presentation Techniques, Approaches and Introductory Activities. [online] Available at: http://jobs.languagelink.ru/tefl_clinic/teaching_knowledge/glossary/presentation_techniques_approaches_and_introductory_activities.php [Accessed 6 Dec. 2014].

Unit 15

APPROACHES TO LANGUAGE TEACHING

The ways and the methods we use in the classroom refer to the approaches we base on. One of the traditional and most use approach is the Communicative approach that mainly use communicative activities witch focus on fluency. Our beliefs about teaching, language and learning a language can be transfer in approaches, by practicing in classroom. There are a many varieties of approaches that allows teacher prepare good classes, which can have a great influence in learners and on English language teaching practices and materials as PPP(Presentation, Practice and Production) ,Lexical Approach, Functional Approach, Grammar Translation, Total Physical Respond and so on.

A good example of PPP approached could be:

• ·         Flashcards mime and presenting the target language in a short conversation and in context, all of these help students to understand the meaning of language.
• ·         Drilling -to repeat together the sentence they are learning (target language). This can be done over the presentation part of your lesson.
• ·         Production, using sentence gap filling or sentence ordering  as  if I had taught past tense verbs (went shopping/to the cinema/played, could be a good activity to develop this approach. 

In this video you will find a bit explanation about some different approaches teachers can use in their classes 

YouTube, (2014). CELTA - Different approaches to teaching language -PPP to TBL. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5r-DRmN42fE.

Unit 14

LEARNER NEEDS

As teachers we can face many needs from students as personal, learning, or professional needs, and depends on us to help learners to overcome all these needs;  it could be by using methods and approaches  to let them feel more comfortable , or just applying the language, skills, materials they prefer to work with, but we have to be careful  and be aware about the age genre, interest, personality and motivation from learners because is not the same teaching children that adults we have to vary activities and tasks to make language more meaningful.

In class with children we have to build confidence, but the most important thing is to motivate them with dynamic activities, songs, stories, something that allows students remember and acquire the language without worried about the structure the grammar, role plays, a show theater, conversation, games activities with puppets could be some good ideas to practice in class if we notice that in that ways learning turns easy we have to be the clowns of our children. 

Here you have some links to find more relevant information:

• Ascd.org, (2014). Teacher Response to Student Needs: A Starting Point for Differentiation. [online] Available at: http://www.ascd.org/publications/books/103107/chapters/Teacher-Response-to-Student-Needs@-A-Starting-Point-for-Differentiation.aspx [Accessed 5 Dec. 2014].
• Yates, B. (2014). Learning Needs Analysis. [online] Assetproject.info. Available at: http://www.assetproject.info/learner_methodologies/before/learning_analysis.htm [Accessed 5 Dec. 2014].

Unit 13

LEARNER CHARACTERISTICS

Motivation, learning styles, learning strategies, maturity and experience are the main factors that motivate learners to learn a language. There are a lot of learning styles as visual, kinesthetic, reflective, and individual and so on, that influence the way learners learn and the way they need to be taught. The way learner learn the language is based in learning strategies this strategies let students remember, use and process the language in order to achieve their goals a good example of this is to record yourself speaking, then listen to your pronunciation and mistakes  and correct them. Maturity involves becoming mature physically, mentally and emotionality to acquire in a better way the language taking in care the age and their needs.

It is essential to know the learning strategies of our students some of them will find learning a language easy but few of them could find it hard, for that it will be a good idea to take them a test to know their learning styles, but I don’t think is a good idea to teach them about learning strategies because I think that is something we born with or just develop during our growth. For that teachers have to let learners be more comfortable and confident in class by using activities as mingle, communicative activities or any other group work that help students to develop the language. 

Here you can find some characteristics and strategies for adult learners:

• YouTube, (2014). 10 Characteristics of Adult Learners. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1OSh6vN-6E [Accessed 3 Dec. 2014].
• Yates, B. (2014). Characteristics of Adult Learners. [online] Assetproject.info. Available at: http://www.assetproject.info/learner_methodologies/before/characteristics.htm [Accessed 3 Dec. 2014].

For further information you can visit:

• Unco.edu, (2014). Learner Characteristics. [online] Available at: http://www.unco.edu/cebs/psychology/kevinpugh/5-7320/ITcomponents/learner.html [Accessed 3 Dec. 2014].
• Carla.umn.edu, (2014). The Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition (CARLA). [online] Available at: http://www.carla.umn.edu/learnerlanguage/ind_diff.html [Accessed 3 Dec. 2014].

Unit 12

Differences between L1 and L2 learning

There is a big difference between learning L1 than L2, we start learning our first language since we are babies and all our lives, rather than L2 we start learning at school but that is not enough to acquire the language. It is obvious that we are exposure and we need to use L1 everyday but in L2 we do not have any motivation to start or continue learning and acquiring the language, especially out of the school, collage, or university. But one of the most important things is that we as learners are always corrected by teacher and we are frightened at the time to talk, we tend to no use L2 for fear to make mistakes.

As teachers we have to build a strong confidence with learners to let them talk in a free way without thinking in errors; motivate learners to use the language inside and outside the class; expose the language to learners by using recordings, readings and videos , activities that encourage them the use of the language. Praising learner can be very motivating, and always said learner how well they are doing.

Here is a slideshare link to see the differences between L1 and L2

http://es.slideshare.net/jalomi112/l1-and-l2-acquisition

For further information see:

• Homepage.ntlworld.com, (2014). Comparing First and Second Language Acquisition by Vivian Cook. [online] Available at: http://homepage.ntlworld.com/vivian.c/SLA/L1%20and%20L2.htm [Accessed 27 Nov. 2014].
• Jamaica., T. (2014). The Similarities and Differences between L1 and L2 acquisition and the Significance for Second Language Pedagogy in Jamaica.. [online] Academia.edu. Available at: http://www.academia.edu/5208843/The_Similarities_and_Differences_between_L1_and_L2_acquisition_and_the_Significance_for_Second_Language_Pedagogy_in_Jamaica [Accessed 27 Nov. 2014].