DIDACTICS II
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Newsletter
4 29th
June 2001
Instituto Nacional Superior
del Profesorado de la Universidad Tecnológica Nacional
Cátedra de Didáctica Especial
del Primer y Segundo Ciclo de la EGB
Profesores : Omar Villarreal
& Andrea Coviella,
Marina Kirac, Marisa Caccia and Claudia Alvarez
Instituto Superior de
Formación Docente Nro 41 de la Pcia de Buenos Aires
Escuela Normal Superior
"Próspero Alemandri" de la Pcia de Buenos Aires.
Profesor: Omar Villarreal
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"The most
impotant function of education at any level is to develop the personality of
the individual and the significance of his life to himself and to others. This
is the basic architecture of a life: the rest is ornamentation and decoration
of the structure"
Grayson Kirk
Dear All,
These are hectic weeks, aren´t they?
I guess “parciales” keep piling up, plus
the practice lessons, plus work, home and … life.
Today we are sending you two new
questionnaires to help you with your reading for the parcial. We are sure you will find them useful.
Remember that
your questions are always most welcome
either in class or through our TUTORIALS in our Website.
Have a great weekend
Omar Villarreal
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A Reminder about
the Parcial and the Make-up
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Parcial :
Friday 20th
July 8:30 - 10:30 hours.
(Both
Morning and Afternoon Shifts)
Publication of Results
: Friday 20th July 12:30 hours
Make
up
: Wednesday 8th August . 13:30 hours
(Both
Morning and Afternoon Shifts)
Material to be
included : The whole of Fichas de Cátedra 1 & 2
plus the corresponding sections
from Ur, Penny ( 1996).
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Questions from
Prof. Claudia Alvarez to help you to prepare your Parcial
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Scrivener, Jim. 1994. Learning Teaching.
Oxford: Macmillan Heinemann
Chapter 4
1)Think of an activity in which students talk about
future plans and get practice in:-asking about somebody else´s plans
-informing about personal interests and preferences
-giving precise details about concrete plans
2)Mention five activities that should be ideally
carried out in groups. Explain how you would do the feedback to them.
3)What steps and /or considerations should be taken
into account before an activity is run for the teacher to take a more low-key
role? Give an example
4)What lesson type have you been mostly exposed to
as a student? How has this affected your view of a “good” class?
5)What features are to be expected from a coursebook
and what should we avoid while using it?
Chapter 5
1)What are the aspects to be considered when
planning a lesson?
2)Why are objectives necessary to be stated in our
lesson planning?
3)What does a good balance of the activities in a
timetable guarantee?
Chapter 9
1)Why is it useful to expose students to “above
their level” language instead of “teaching” them grammar?
2)Select a/some teaching point/s and find a text
(either written or aural) to present a group of students with. (Decide on age –
group and kind of institution) Devise activities graded in such a way you end
up getting your students to use such teaching point/s in a free production
activity.
3)Think of a strategy to enliven a drill, in which
learners are to use “neither…nor”
4)What are some of the strategies we can apply in
order to check sts´ understanding of meaning?
5)Draw the difference between “meaning to form” and
“form to meaning”.
6)Plan a CRRA lesson on Comparison of Adjectives.
7)Plan an ARRC lesson on Simple Past
Ur, Penny. 1996. A Course in Language Teaching: Practice and Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Module
1
1)Why is
presentation necessary in the language teaching class?
2)What is the risk
of exposing learners to “unmediated “ new input?
3)How does the
activation of learners´schemata help in the learning process?
4)Summarize the
benefits of effective presentation.
5)Provide the
presentation of “Commands”in a way of your own creativity.
Module
2
1)Look for
instances of automatization practices in different coursebooks and write the
titles to them.
2)What does
success-orientated involve and why is it said to be preferable to
teacher-monitored full-class practice?
3)Give an example
of a practice activity for “Present Continuous” taking heterogeneity into account for a 6th.
Form (3rd. year of English)
4)How would you
improve scenario 1: Spelling if you agreed with the criticism made to it?
5)Imagine you want to
present your students with a text. You know some of the words are unknown to
them. What steps would you follow having read already about the risks we may
run. Account for your choices.
6)Think of a set of
presentation-practice activities to deal with the Simple Present 3rd.
person singular in a group of 10 year-old (1st. year of
English)
Modules
1 and 2
1)Why is the
presentation of a new item necessary in the class and is not so in an immersion
context?
2)What are the
benefits of effective presentation?
3)Have you tried
any of the ideas of presentation suggested in the book? If so, say the drawback
it may present.
4)You have planned
to give your students a role-play activity, what are the steps you would follow
bearing in mind they have not been exposed to this sort of actvity before?
1)Where does
creativity appear in the skill learning process and what does it mean?
2)What are the
characteristics of an effective language practice?
3)You have asked
your class to produce some information about themselves taking a model text
and photograph as an example. You
notice that some of them find it hard to do it , they lack strategies to grasp
elements of the model given, how would you solve it?
4)What is the
criterion to follow as to the sequencing of practice activities?
Curtain,
Helena & Carol Ann Pesola. 1994. Languages and Children:Making the
match. White Plains, New York : Longman
Chapter
13
1)Mention some of
the contributions of the use of varied materials and resources in the foreign
language classroom.
2)Think of an
activity for each of the elements mentioned below:
*yarn of different colours
*paper plates
*blindfolds
*pocket chart
*butcher paper
3)Self – evaluate
your activities by answering these questions:
Was the use of the material necessary for
accomplishing the task?
What has been the linguistic pay-off of
it?
What will be the age group it is intended
for?
Have I thought of the meaningfulness of
the task in those children´s own
world?
4)What are the
points to take into account to decide on a certain textbook?
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More questions for
the Parcial. This time from Analía Figliola, our assistant teacher.
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1- At
the beginning of chapter 1, there are ten beliefs about language learning. Read
them very carefully, explain on what grounds and to what extent they are
considered a benefit or a hindrance to language learning. Also relate them to
your daily experiences in the classroom and analyse to what point they hold
true for you.
2- What
is the classification of strategies that is proposed by O’Malley and Chamot?
What do they consist of? What can of learner makes use of them most?
3- What
cognitive styles of learners are described in chapter one? Can you explain what
each of them mean?
4- Willis
mentions four conditions for language learning. Can you explain what each of
them mean and why they are so crucial in language learning?
5- Define
task according to Willis.
6- Why
does meaning come before form in TBL?
7- Can
controlled language practice activities be regarded as tasks as defined by
Willis? Why? Why not?
8- Can
role-plays be considered tasks? Why? Why not?
9- What
view does TBL hold as regards the teaching/learning of skills?
10-Mention
different kind of tasks and explain what they consist of very briefly.
11- Explain
possible starting points for tasks and also think about what could work best in
your classroom.
12-Are
there chances for learners to use both spontaneous and planned language? In
what cases? What kind of purposes are pursued each time?
13-How
can learners benefit from tasks done in pairs or groups?
14-What
parts make up the TBL framework? What are each mainly concerned with?
15-What’s
the teacher’s role within this framework?
16-
What steps are suggested for the pre-task stage?
17-
Mention and explain some pre-task activities.
18-What
ways are discussed to make instructions more readily accessible to
learners?
19-There
are different patterns of interaction and turn-taking. Can you mention them?
20-Mixed level groups, talkative students,
large classes, a balance between L1 and L2 are some of the problems addressed
in chapter 3. Could you write about how they could be tacked according to
Willis?
21-What are teachers mainly expected to do
during the task cycle?
22-Is accuracy emphasised at this stage?
Why? Why not?
23-What does the planning stage consist of?
24- Can you explain the purposes for
reports in chapter 4?
25-Explain what generally happens during
the report stage?
26-What processes or steps for planning
writing are described in this chapter?
27- What are text-based tasks?
28-What kind of material is compatible with
this approach? What criteria are described for selecting material?
29-How can reading and listening be best
tackled?
30- What kind of text-based and prediction
tasks are discussed in chapter 5?
As you see both
teachers and students are working full speed towards D-Day.
Congratulations and
keep up the hard work!
A big hug
Omar
Villarreal