As teachers something very important to take into account is planning the lesson and courses. It permits teachers to know what to do in class.
You have to plan carefully because you do not know what is going to happen on the spot in class, and how learners will respond to anything, so that you must be prepared to cope with whatever happens, and planning increases your chances of a successful lesson. Planning is imagining the lesson before it happens; it involves prediction, organizing and simplifying.
For planning, you have to think about the atmosphere, the aims, the teaching point, the procedures, the material and the classroom management.
Here are some things to consider when planning a lesson:
· Where will I stand
· What do learners need
· What skills will learners be working on
· What do they know already
If you want your classes going well, you have to prepare it making a lesson plan, it could be a formal lesson plan which includes: teacher name, date, star time, teaching point, materials used, predicted problems, etc.
For these reasons it is important planning the lesson.
Teaching Grammar
For someone who is teaching a foreign language, teaching grammar is part of his/her teaching. Grammar can not be avoided.
As we know, learning a language involves: speaking, listening, writing and reading. Grammar is used in each of those skills, so we must teach grammar.
There are many views about what learners need to learn and how best to go about teaching grammar. Teachers have to know:
-what is grammar.
-How do people learn grammar?
-Part of a grammar lesson.
How can they help learners notice, understand, memorize language and how learners can use it.
Teachers have to define what grammar is before teaching it.
When we hear the word “grammar”, we immediately think in structures of sentences, rules and explanations.
Here are some definitions of grammar:
-Rules about sentences.
-Structures of what we say when we speak.
-Exercises about tense.
-Correct sentences.
But we also find grammar in others things. We can learn grammar by .
-Movies: how people there use the correct structures to say a sentence
-Books: how writers use grammar to express their ideas in the book
Also we can find grammar in songs, dialogues TV. programs etc.
We must know the correct way to teach grammar. It could be first, introducing the grammar rules, then providing examples and finally giving exercises.
By Leslie Recinos
The Young Learners
When we are teaching English to young learners we have to take into account that not all children learn in the same way. There is a big difference between what children of five years old can do and what children of ten year old can do. Some children develop early, some later; some develop gradually, others in leaps and bounds. We cannot say what exactly a child of 5 year old can do because they develop in different stages. We have to know the characteristics of young children in their learning. These characteristics are relevant for language teaching.
We can classify children in two groups level one and level two. Children between five to seven years old are all at the level one, the beginner stage. The eight to ten years olds are also beginners and they may have been learning the foreign language for some time.
Children move through a number of stages when learning English as a new language. As we said some go through these stages more quickly than others, and children will sometimes have the characteristics of more than one stage at the same time as they transition between stages. Understanding a child’s stage of learning is important for planning appropriate activities.
We have to maximize the exposure of young English language learners to the English language, we can use some strategies.
· Use simple but explicit language to give them instruction.
· Ask children to participate actively in an activity by giving them specific instructions.
· Use language along with demonstration when introducing a new skill or concept.
· Use objects and pictures to support explanations and event descriptions.
· Repeat the same idea or instruction more than once, the second time using shorter sentences, easier vocabulary and speaking more slowly.
We should take all these strategies into account when we are teaching English tor young language learners to increase their learning.
Class management and atmosphere
The atmosphere of a classroom is very important for student learning as your choice of content and the design of your assignments. A good atmosphere is when all students feel included, valued, and respected also can make classroom a more pleasant place to be and a motivating place to learn.
To have a good atmosphere we have to take into account some strategies.
· First, to be comfortable in class, the students need to be comfortable with you as a person. The most natural way to create this feeling is to begin your first class with a long, friendly introduction, don’t forget to leave time at the end for their questions.
· Second, a sense of humor in the classroom goes a long way. This might even be the single easiest way to create a relaxed and positive atmosphere. A teacher that jokes with the students will find the students much more responsive.
· Third, don't overcorrect your students' spoken English. Even though our job is to improve our students' spoken English skills, Improving our students' spoken English also means giving them good opportunity to practice it in class, as well as increment their confidence in their spoken ability.
· Fourth, using games, songs, movies, etc. in class as educational exercises will help students in their learning. Try not to overdo it, however or you may find yourself in the clown role and your students a very demanding audience.
· Fifth, organize your classroom neatly and methodically to control confusion and stress. You and the students need to know where to find books and materials at all times.
· Sixth, teach children to set measurable academic and behavior goals. Acknowledge the completion of the goals with stickers, treats, public announcements and certificates.
When we create a positive classroom atmosphere, students learn better. Every student must feel safe and important in the class in order for maximum learning to take place.
By Rafael Merino
How to communicate with low-lever learners
This is a very interesting topic, because we, as a future teachers, we have to know how will be our communication when we are teaching the English language. In this topic we talk about how to use the mother tongue ( in our case Spanish) to teach. The topic said that forty years ago the teacher used the mother for instruction almost all the time, but nowadays this have changed. Teachers started to use audio-lingual method, based largely on behaviorist models of learning. This involved students listening to models and then repeating them, chorally and individually. Of course, in some teaching situations, use of the mother tongue is not feasible.
Here are some of the most important advantages of using the mother tongue (for teachers and learners)
· It is quicker and easier for the teacher to give instructions and explain new language in the students’ mother tongue
· Students can ask questions easily in their mother tongue
· The teacher can focus on similarities and differences between English and the learner’s mother tongue.
Here are some of the most important disadvantages of using the mother tongue (for teachers and learners)
· If the teacher consistently uses the mother tongue, students will inevitably do the same
· Students are also deprived of the opportunity to pick up a range of useful words and phrases that teachers commonly use in the classroom.
· In mother tongue classrooms, some students may not feel they are participating in an “English” experience.
Three kinds of teachers
There are many ways of teaching depend on your personal identity, style, skills and techniques. All these things obviously have a kind of impact in our students. You have to take into account the way how you teach your classes, and when is appropriate to use each of them. Having said this, we have the following kinds of teacher:
1-“The explainer”: This kind of teacher relies mainly on “explaining” or “lecturing” as a way of conveying information to the students. This teacher’s lesson can be very entertaining, interesting and informative. The students are listening, perhaps occasionally answering questions and perhaps making notes, but are not being personally involved or challenged.
2- “The involver”: This teacher is familiar with teaching methodology; is able to help students learn about the subject matter. This teacher is trying to involve the students actively and puts a great deal of effort into finding appropriate and interesting activities.
3- “The enabler”: This kind of teacher is confident enough to share control with the learners or perhaps to hand it over to them entirely. Decisions made in her classroom may often shred or negotiated. This kind of teacher may become a guide or a counselor or a resource of information. This teacher knows about the subject matter and about methodology, but also has an awareness of how individuals and groups are thinking and feeling within his class. He actively responds to this in his planning and methods and in building effective working relationships and a good classroom atmosphere.
By Marlene Ramos
The importance of rapport
Apparently, creating a good rapport is a hard way in some cases, but having a good rapport makes an excellent atmosphere inside the classroom.
You can follow many steps to get a good rapport, such as: Give something of yourself away; open up to people. When you tell people something about yourself, (other than the usual, name, age, job etc.), it gives them a window into your personality; a chance to see some of the real you.
Moreover, have the ability to laugh at yourself actually demonstrates a real strength of character.The people you are talking to are not perfect either. They will find it easier to relate to a person who can laugh at themselves.
Another important thing that you have to take into account is that you have to talk people in their level and if you notice something you like about a person, tell it and try to interact with all your students because all are different and you don’t have to judge anyone. Someone who feels they are likely to be judged by a person is unlikely to truly open up to that person.
Inside the classroom, you have to talk about topics they want to talk about. Most people like to talk about their interests and their lives. You have to pay special attention to what they are telling to make them feel comfortable with you. You have to know that you have to being direct but being direct does not mean being rude, it just means being honest with your intentions.
As a result, I consider that getting a good rapport make your classes interesting and make you a better teacher. I also believe that you have to be fair to everyone and demonstrate you are caring but also firm with them. Don’t be too mean and don’t be too nice, strike a balance. If you are too mean, they won’t trust you and if you are too nice, the students will take advantage of you.
To conclude; I can say that without rapport with your students, you cannot have a successful class and the students won’t trust you if they have problems or need help with something. You as a teacher will always be in a bad mood and your students will act out even more to annoy you because they will see that you don’t have good communication with them.
Learners and their needs
There are many reasons to consider why a person is learning English. And we have to be focus in their needs. If we know more about their needs; we could obtain a better class.
To finding out learners’ needs, we can use some tools and materials that can help us. But specially, we can make use of “Needs Analysis”. This include not only information about why learners might need language in the future, but also information about their present language level, what things learners would like to learn, and how they want to study, etc.
You can make activities with them that can include writing, speaking and observation to know how much help they need. To know in which things they need reinforcement, too.
When you dad made the Needs Analysis, you have to discover the information that you have obtained to the other students to let them know that all people inside the classroom have different points of view, expectations and needs.
Students tend to be afraid to give ideas in the class because most of them think the teacher knows everything, or that they decided. And that can happen if they are not sure about their own needs. Let them know that they can take their proper choices about what they want and need. When people feel they have some power or responsibility over what happens to them, it can really change their attitude to it. But only if you make the Needs Analysis you should ask about students’ needs.
Try to let your students know your interest in their needs and that is going to let them feel comfortable in your classes.
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