Reading

Reading

Reading is the second main source of Language because we learn through the words. The printed words are really important in the process of learning a new language; actually, there are many people who can understand the meaning of some words without knowing the language in which they are written. This happens between people who use the Roman alphabet because there are many similar words in languages which share it. Spanish speakers can learn English easily than Japanese speakers because the first ones have the same letters and can associate their own word with the words of the other language. Talking about Japanese speaker, they have more problems learning English because they first need to learn each letter of the alphabet, and then they start to learn word that are totally different from their own language.

The introduction of reading in a foreign language is a big challenge, but we have to focus our attention on sounds and letters to have success teaching the new language. Of course, the first step is to teach the alphabet and to repeat the sound of each letter as much as we can. Repeating is the best way to learn, but reading is important too. If we understand the words when we hear them, but we can't identify them when we read them, we DON'T know another language. As I said before, people who know the Roman alphabet can associate their own words with the words of the other language, but they need to keep in mind that some words look similar, but they have another meaning. For example, Spanish speakers can see the word in English "actually" and think about the word in Spanish "actualmente". Both words have a different meaning, and we as teachers have the obligation of tell them that they don't have to just say "the meaning" because is similar with a word that they know.

After teaching the alphabet, we have to teach sentences or phrases. The age of our students in very important to say if they will have problems learning to read or not. Young children are still learning their own language, so it is more difficult for them to start learning a new one. Another problem is that young children are not familiar with books, and they haven't had contact with printed words what do the introduction of reading more difficult. Probably, they'll need to practice more letter by letter and then complete sentences.

Students need to learn reading illustrations as much as sentences because through images they can understand better what a group of words is saying. Young children pay more attention to illustrations than words that's why they (illustrations) are a good tool to teach. If our students are a little older, we can focus more on the content than on the mechanics of reading. If our students don't know the Roman alphabet, we have to focus our attention on mechanics of reading than on the content. Now that we know what we have to teach first, we have to start reading some short stories appropriate for them. We can create our own stories with the words that they already know. For example, the colors, the greetings, the numbers, etc. Our students can read, and they will understand because they know the meaning of the words in the story.

Reading a class story is a good option because they know the words that we are saying. They know what "desk, table, whiteboard, and pencil" means, so they won't just say words without knowing the meaning. Reading a story about a topic they don't know is the worst decision because they don't have vocabulary about it. Students can read the story to start practicing their reading; every of them should read it to have the same level. We can also use real objects to do easiest the way in which we teach and in which they learn. Reading out loud is common in the classroom, but students don't practice outside. Children prefer to read silently at home maybe because they don't have confidence in themselves and prefer to read alone. Reading silently in the classroom is not good because the teacher can't hear our mistakes, and she can't tell us if we commit a mistake, but reading out loud has some problems. For example, if what children are saying is not interesting for the listeners, they can start to do a mess.

Silent reading is the way in which we'll read the rest of our lives. We aren't accustom to read out loud when we are reading a book or doing an exam that's why we as teachers have to teach them to read silently or out loud depending on the situation. Some children will love to read, and they'll read by themselves as soon as they can, but we'll have another child who will need a motivation to do it. In that cases, we have to building up confidence because they need to speak as much as they can to not be afraid of the new language.

To finish, we always have to remember that reading is one of the most important skills children have to develop. Of course, listening is the most important because we can't write without listen, but every skill depends on the other ones despite we can say that one of them is more important. We as teachers need to have a good pronunciation and intonation to our children develop their reading in the best way. At the end of teaching a foreign language, we'll feel totally happy with ourselves because we are educating a new generation of good students. 

introduction

English didactics is the science of teaching and learning of the english language literature and culture.

The reseach of foreign language didactics has two aims. it provides practice guiding theiretical concepts and at the same time applies itself to the empiric research of context concerning teaching and learning language. Being an important link between the scientific education at the university and the occupational field school, it is therefore a component of the bochelor with teaching option and the master of education.

Didactics helps teachers to catch the ideas and methods that can apply in the teaching practices. Besides that, learners can understand and get the teachers' attention. To know about didactic is useful to learn how to teach a class and to apply methods that can be helpful for teachers.

The following topics were studied throughout the subject of didactics in the English language.

for example there are:

-glossary of teaching term

-Lesson planning and classroom activities / TVYL

-Introduction to TVYL

-Class Management and Atmosphere

-Oral Work

-Writing

-Topic- Based Work

-EFL, ESOL, EIL, LELF, English as a global Language

-NESTs vs Non-NESTs , among others , that were of great help to be able to introduce them to what would be the didactics in the English language, since it is not easy to teach a new language to begin with.

We should know terms, theories and studies related to the teaching of a foreign language to be able to carry out teaching practices in the kindergarten area.

glossary of teaching terms

A glossary is an alphabetical list of specialized words , terms or abbreviations and their definitions are generally related to a specific discipline or field of knowledge. 

It can also be said that a glossary is like a dictionary prepared with the terms of a subject that is available to students; also as an encyclopaedia, where the concepts that are included as glossary entries are explained in a more extensive way, as we can finally know that a glossary is like a store of information about a specific subject.

What are the glossaries useful for?

Glossaries can be useful in helping students identify and acquire the vocabulary of a discipline. Since it is a useful tool; As a topic of interest, the glossary is very used to learn a new language and more if it is in the practice of teaching. Make students automatically understand the words of their use in the readings or in class although it is a very difficult task many times, since not all students have the necessary skills to learn vocabulary from a limited group of words. In addition, providing a glossary ensures that students have a reliable source of word definitions.

Glossary and Dictionary are the same or are they different?


Both tools  have a similarity since in both you can find the meaning of words that for the reader may be unknown; but they have a difference and that is in the glossary are words with their respective meaning but a context particular , while in the dictionary are the meaning of words of any subject in general. 

By learning and understanding the words found in a glossary, the student can better adapt by correctly using the specific vocabulary of the discipline and, through practice, acquire a better understanding of the related concepts. Glossaries can be used to provide students with not only definitions, but also examples of how to use words in a context.

A glossary not only serves to know the definition of a word, it provides knowledge to students with technical vocabulary, which they put into practice every day in their studies or work.

The teaching of languages ​​as other educational specialties, can have specialized vocabulary and use of words that give a more useful approach to understand what is the topic or activity that is being carried out by a student in the process of learning or in the world of the teaching practice.

The glossary provides readers who are not familiar with some of the words and concepts that professional educators commonly use. As for example a student who is new in some area such as teaching, not all of us have a broad knowledge about a specific topic so the glossaries as mentioned above are useful tools to know new topics.

 As with other professions, in education, the use and meaning of certain terms is constantly evolving. In fact, a given term in education could be defined in more than one way. Therefore, an educational glossary is very useful to address the complications when teaching a foreign language.

The glossary of terms was very useful for the didactics of the English language since they are new terms and words in the foreign language we handle. In this subject was necessary to familiarize with educational terms and more for the purpose that was to make our first teaching practices, we had to see some topics to delve into what is the teaching practice and how to do it in a correct way, given that in the information given in the matter could be seen along, terms that were  in the glossary.

Terms not known,  but as a  teaching option career it is necessary to know about terms of education and above all terms to connect both studied languages, Spanish as the base language and English as the foreign language that we are learning.

Knowing about terms such as L1 or L2 was very important to provide a basis for the other didactics or subjects related to teaching practice. Since it was necessary to know some concepts only with their abbreviations to easily identify them.

Lesson planning and classroom activities/ TVYL

A lesson plan is a route that the instructor must take to teach what the students do and must do it effectively during class time. Class planning includes designing appropriate learning activities and developing strategies to obtain feedback on student learning.

Having a carefully designed lesson plan facilitates the development of the class and has the result of having a meaningful learning experience with your students, since the lesson plan is about planning each element in detail so that the student achieves the required learning.

To make a lesson plan you must do:

1. Identify the learning objectives.

Before planning your lesson, you must identify the learning objectives of the lesson. A learning objective describes what the student will know or be able to do after the learning experience. It is usually written in a language that students easily understand.

2. Plan to evaluate the student's understanding.

The assessments provide opportunities for students to demonstrate and practice the knowledge and skills they should have.

The evaluation planning allows you to know if your students are learning what they have learned in the classes.

3. Plan to sequence the lesson in an attractive and meaningful way.

- Calling students' attention is a key to students paying attention to the class and studying it.

- Inform the student of the objectives: So that the students assimilate what they will learn and then put them into practice in the activities organized in the class.

- Stimulate the memory of previous knowledge: This stage helps the students to understand the new information relating it with something experienced by them.

- Present new content: Variety of interactive methods such as: readings, activities, projects, multimedia and others.

- Provide guidance: Advice students on strategies to help them learn the content.

- Practice: Allow students to apply the knowledge and skills learned in the class.

- Students must learn to apply knowledge in group or individual activities, and to provide comments on the topic.

A productive lesson is not one in which everything goes exactly as planned, but one in which the students and the instructor learn from each other and the class is not only a class but a time to play and learn at the same time with activities in the classroom.

 It is likely that teaching and learning techniques help students to participate actively in classes where they are aware of the knowledge acquired based on classroom activities that are very important when running one, especially in the area of kindergarten, since age is a great challenge to maintain the attention of children with common techniques and not flashy.

And as the name implies, are activities designed or implemented by the teacher to carry out or create conditions for optimal learning. The difference between a Learning by Design approach to employ various learning activities and other teaching approaches is related to the pedagogical nature or main intention of the selected activities. For that we must take into account these steps:

Planning an activity / task

Activity route maps

Before the lesson: become familiarize with the material / activity prepare any material or text you need.

-In class: lead-in / prepare for the activity.

Set the activity:  to give instructions, make groupings, etc.

Run the activity: the students perform the activity / monitor them.

-Close the activity: freedback.

Post-activity: do any appropriate follow-on work.

Exploiting an activity: The way in which teachers or students use research to meet their learning objectives.

The activities in the classroom are very useful when it comes to making a lesson plan which are the practices for a greater and specialized learning, the position that you need the techniques and the games to be able to see the students included the given topic In addition, students are guaranteed to entertain themselves.

Introduction to TVYL

Teach Very Young language Learners is a difficult task deal with teaching in very young learners in a new language being a new experience for them since they only have a language that is native to them. Teaching and learning are two sides of the same coin, but they are essentially different activities, although both take place in the public sphere of the classroom.

This book aims to help the reader to teach more effectively. They contain theories of great pedagogues and techniques that are useful in order to effectively teach a new language to young people. Many times it is a difficult task since age should have appropriate knowledge to get the attention of students so that they understand what they are studying as it is not easy to learn a new language like that from scratch, some children develop gradually other in leaps some children develop early, some late. Then there must be a stimulus and the teacher must motivate his students to continue learning a foreign language.

To teach foreign languages ​​to small children, they are between five and twelve years of age. A good age to acquire knowledge since children at that age are like sponges that absorb all knowledge easily.

Talking about teaching a foreign language to children is a challenge because they do not have knowledge about a new language or it is not the requirement to perform well but as before said they are the ones that are easiest to acquire knowledge easily and learning a foreign language will result in them exciting and interesting.

There are some pedagogues who with their theories have helped to teach a foreign language for example this Vygotsky, Piaget and Burner.

Vygotskian theory is about the central observation that development and learning take place in a social context.

Whereas for Piaget the child is an active learner alone and a world of objects, for Vygotsky the child is an active learner in a world full of other people. He said that with the help of adults, children can do and understand much more than they can on their own.

Burner talked about the scaffolding and routines, and for him; language is the most important tool for cognitive growth, and he has investigated how adults use language to mediate the world for children and help them to solve problems. And support to a child in carrying out an activity.

Then the book talk about how learn a second language according the age, also the influence of the first language on the second.

Some people have problems with this topic, because they translate in their mother tongue and then they say the things as they think is the correct way.

The book of teaching languages to young learners by Lynne Cameron was a very important and interesting tool when it came to knowing about the techniques that we should use when it comes to teaching a foreign language to young apprentices.

Since the techniques and methods are not the same, they are more rigorous because of the age the student has and it is also a very beneficial stage to learn a new language since at an early age it is very good to acquire new knowledge.

In the book you can see the steps to follow so that a student can grammatically learn a language because in the first levels of the new language do not focus on that aspect, but often it turns out to be a problem since it is a little difficult to learn how use all structures required to occupy them.

The Young Language Learner

The young language learner we can find a big difference between what children can do. Some children develop early, some later. Some children develop gradually. Others in leaps and bounds. For the successful teaching of English in primary schools, above all, it is essential for the teacher to understand the young learners´ characteristics, instincts, and interests in their cognitive, linguistic and emotional aspects, because this will play a crucial role and how the teacher builds children´s knowledge.

We should take into account that children hare short attention span. So teachers should vary their techniques to break the boredom. They should give varied activities as handwriting, songs, games, etc.

ü  Children are very active. Teachers must try to ask them to play games, role plays dialogues and involve them in competitions to get their attention.

ü  Children respond well to praising. Always encourage them and praise their work. They differ in their experience of language. Treat them as a unit, don´t favour those who know some English at the expense of those who do not know.

ü  Children are less shy than older learners. Teachers should ask them to repeat utterances, resort to mechanical drills. They are imaginative, use realia or pictures to teach new vocabulary related to concrete meanings.

ü  We shouldn´t forget that children enjoy learning through playing, young learners learn best when they learn through games. Let games be an essential part of our teaching.

Most activities for the younger learners should include movement and involve the senses, Teachers needs to have plenty of objects and pictures to work with. Demonstrate what teachers want to do with them.

Let the pupils talk to themselves, make up rhymes sing. Songs, tell stories, play with the language make the learning easily for children.

ü  Children are crearly capable of learning foreign language through participating in the discourse of classroom activities; thus, vocabulary teaching has a centre stage in the way how teachers teaching. Besides, although opinions differ how much grammar can be taught, vocabulary learning can be stepping stories to learning and using grammar. It so, very young children learn vocabulary items related to the different concepts they are learning, when children learn numbers or colors in their native language, they are adding concepts as well as vocabulary items. Children have an amazing ability to adsorb language trough play and other activities which they find enjoyable. How good they are in a foreign language is not dependent on whether they have learnt the grammar rules or not. It’s a teacher, you should note the structures, functions and grammar items which you want to pupils to learn as well as those they already know. Teachers can model strategy use, teach sub-skills needed to make use of strategies, include classroom tasks for help young learners reflect on their learning process trough evaluating their achievement. The best time to introduce some sort of simple grammar is either when a pupil asks for an explanation, or when you think a pupil will benefit from learning some grammar.

Class Management and Atmosphere

Class management and atmosphere there are some things which will help the teacher to create a secure class atmosphere:

Teacher´s should work in children´s attitude and abilities. Students can be encouraged to become indepent and adventurous in the learning of the language, teacher´s should help the children to feel secure in this process. Teachers have a big challenge when they should create the class atmosphere, for that reason teachers should have into account: respect their pupils because everybody have a different perception of the things.

Pupils need to know what is happening in the class, they need to feel that teachers are in change. When never to pupils is trying to tell you something accept whatever he or she says. Pupils have to be told that everyone makes mistakes learning a new language. Also teachers need to stablish routines like greetings, birthday calendar, in that way students can be attentive and what is happening every day. Also teachers should give the children the responsibility for doing practical jobs in the class to create the costumes in children about the things that they must do. On the other hand, teachers should not organize competition, give them physical rewards or prizes, don´t give children English names. For many students exist many things that open possibilities for increase engagement, increased independence and more productive work. For example, the way like teachers arranging the desks, groping the children, cooperation is something which has to be natured and learnt, group work should not be attempted the children are used to working in pair works.  If cooperation and communication are to be part of the process of learning a language as well as part of the process of growing up, the sooner, the pupils learn simple, meaningful expressions in English, the easier it will be, it very important way of helping pupils progress from dependence on the book and the teacher to independence is to give them the necessary tools. One of the tools is classroom language.

Oral Work

Oral work is one of the most important skills that students should have but we can find some limitations, speaking is perhaps the most demanding skill for the teacher to teach, in their own language children are able to express emotions, communicative intentions and reactions, but in English there are limitations because of the lack of actual language, for example: teachers don´t know what students want to say. If you want your pupils to continue thinking about English, simply as means of communication, then you cannot expect to be able to predict what language the children will use.

Also teachers need to find the balance of the way like students speak. What important with beginners finding the balance between providing language trough controlled and guided activities and at the same time letting them enjoy natural talk.

At the moment when the students commit mistakes, teachers should be attentive. When the pupils are working with controlled and guided activities, we want them to produce correct language. If they make mistakes at this stage they should be corrected at once.

When children start learning English, they are presenting new language orally, students obviously need to be give language before, they can produce it themselves. Language has to go in before it can come out. Teachers hare for think in the pupils know what they can do.

One of the most successful way of presenting language to young children is through puppets or a class mascot. Having “someone” familiar constantly on hand whom you can have conversations about anything and everything. Another strategy is that teacher can use very simple drawings on the board, and at the moment when students have to speak drawing can help them to get ideas. Silhouettes can be use on the overhead projector; they can be movement if you attach a piece of wire to them. Other suggestions can be that teachers can use simple and clear pictures to presents new language you can act situations, controlled practice goes hand in hand with presentation since it is important that pupils try out new language as soon as they have heard it. In controlled practice there is a very little chance that pupils can make a mistake, with guided practice follows on directly from practice and will often be done in pair or in small groups, guide practiced usually gives the pupils some sort of choice of language is limited.

Writing

Writing

Writing in English is not easy because the pronunciation and the way in which we have to write the words are totally different. For example, the pronunciation of the word "audio" is /ˈɑː.di.oʊ/. A Spanish speaker can write "oreo" as the cookie instead of the correct spelling; this is just one example of many we can say. If your students can write in their own language, they can learn faster to write in a foreign language (if they don't have the same alphabet in both languages, it can be more difficult to learn the new one). In the classroom, we focus our attention in writing because it is the most difficult skills that students develop. The teacher has to teach a little of grammar and spelling; spelling is very difficult even for teenagers, so young learners will have to repeat each word as much as they can to memorize the way in which they have to be written.

Errors have to be gently correct because young children tend to cry easily, and we don't want to deal with that problem. If our students made a mistake, we would just tell them that it is not well written and give them the correct way to write it. Young children will learn easily if we say the things in a good form. They just need to be understood every moment, and we should make them feel comfortable with us their teachers. Reading will help students to know the "rules" of writing that's why is very important that they first learn to read and then to write correctly. We use many controlled practices with children who are starting to learn a new language; we just write on the whiteboard or show some illustrations about the topic we are teaching, and our students have to write the name of the objects or the illustrations that they see, but free practices are important too. Free practices help students to be more confident with their skills. They have a better performance in free practices because they can make mistakes without feeling bad.

Students who are beginning to learn a new language should read out loud while they are written because they need to create a relation between what they are writing and what they are saying. In that way, learning to write well is more easy for them. At the beginning, students probably can't understand why they are writing, but they are having their first experience with their writing. They are just copying what they see or what the teacher says, but with a little bit of time they'll start to understand the words they see, and they won't just write things without sense for them. Matching is a very good option to relate words and illustrations; we can do many matching practices with every topic that we have to teach. For example, if we are teaching numbers, we can search a practice with de numbers and their names in English, and students can match each number with their name. These are practices to improve our writing because we are seeing how to write well the word that we are learning.

Copying can be the tool to introduce writing to our children. As I said before children can just copy what the teacher says, but copying is just the first step to start developing their writing. We don't have to say that copying is a bad tool just because students don't know what they are writing; be sure that they'll learn in the process. An activity that we can do with our children is to write a short sentence in the whiteboard and give them some seconds to see it then we have to erase the sentence from the whiteboard, and students have to try to write it. They can commit a mistake the first time, but they just need time to memorize well the word, and with their knowledge about vocabulary they will copy the sentences without mistakes.

Fill-in exercises are very useful, but we as teacher have to create these fill-in exercises with words that the already know. We can't give them a mini paragraph with words they haven't never seen because they won't do anything. They can also be frustrated because they don't know anything about the teacher is talking, and they can start to lose the attention in the class. The activities mentioned above are controlled, buy students need to explore their writing in a freeway. They need to write what they are thinking, what they are felling, and what they are experimenting to be interested all the time because if they are just writing things without sense for them, they'll stop to practice. We have to remember that they vocabulary is limited, so the will need some help to express their feelings, but they need to write alone as much as they can.

Students can create dialogues to interact with their students. Of course, this can be very difficult for them, but we as teachers can give them short dialogues, and they can write them on their notebooks to practice their writing and then their speaking. The last that we need to know is that we have to encourage our students to start practicing their writing with all the activities that I mentioned because they need to develop a confidence with themselves when they are writing, but we don't have to insist on doing it. Students have to write when they want. That activity has to give pleasure for the students; they don't have to see it as an obligation. If they see writing as an obligation to pass the subjects or to make our teacher happy, we really fail in our labor of teaching the new language to our students. Please, we have to love teaching to make our students love every skill that they will acquire with us.

Topic- Based Work

Topic-based work

What does topic-based mean?

If someone tell you that your textbook is topic-based, they want to tell you that the information in the book is about one subject or topic. Other textbooks for children are story-based or activity-based, but the topic-based ones are more useful because students focus their attention in just one topic, and it is easier to start thinking about experiences about that topic. Students can be more motivated or more interested in a topic that they know, and in which they can talk about their life's stories. If students are just listening stories that are not related with their lives or just fill-in sentences without sense for them, they will lose the attention to the class. Working in just one topic help to improve student's memory because they start to associate the words they are learning with the topic. When they don't remember a word or the meaning of a word, they can think about the topic, and probably they will remember the meaning.

If you are worried about the time that you have to spend teaching just one subject, let me tell you that it depends on the interest the students show, the amount of vocabulary you want to teach, and the material you have. The material is very important to work with young learners because we cannot just start to talk about one topic; we have to call their attention with illustrations and real objects. We as teachers have the obligation of find the best way to work with our students, and that they feel comfortable talking about the topic we are teaching. Topic-based work is related with all the skills we develop because we need to write, to listen, to read, and to speak about each topic we study in the classroom. As in everything we teach, we need controlled and free practices obviously related with each topic.

In an introductory course, we can teach topics in which our students are interested, but if they have English as a principal subject, we can't. We need to teach topics that the institution chooses, which they consider more important for children. At the begging, we can teach topics like the colors, the greeting, the numbers, etc. These will be interesting topics for our learners if we present it to them in a creative way. If the school leave you to teach the topics that you want, you can choose it based on the other subjects. For example, in Natural Sciences they can study the animals, you can teach the same topic in English to be easier the work of memorize the names. Another example can be to teach the numbers (from 1 to 10 because they cannot acquire too much information) If they are learning the same topic in Mathematics.

We have to teach a specific number of topics through the year, but as I said before the time we need depends on the interest our children show. If they are not interested in what we are teach, we'll need more time to achieve our students memorize that topic. When they are really excited with a subject, they tend to learn easily, so we have to try to develop each topic in a dorm that result interesting to our students. As soon as you choose the topic, you should make the material to teach it; remember do it with many colors and illustrations that call the attention of your pupils. You are working with young learners, so you can't present them a simple chart without illustrations or something that results interesting. If you say "this topic is so basic, so I can teach it rapidly" you are wrong because young learners need patience to success in the labor of learning something.

Before choosing the topic and doing the material, you should think about which skill you need to work more. If our students are less enthusiastic when they are writing, you should work more with written activities. You have to create in their minds the idea that writing is funny because you can express whatever you want or maybe because while you are writing something, you create an illustration related with the topic you are working on. Topic-based work allows us to have a world of possibilities to teach any topic; we famous our attention just in one subject about which we can create paragraph, sentences, or even we can share our own experiences related with the topic.

To finish this topic, we can say that topic-based work is better than story-based and activity-based work because we are just dealing with one subject. Learning the vocabulary and other things about it will be easier. Students won't have to learn many information which sometimes is unnecessary because we have to focus our attention in a specific topic. All the activities have to be related to not lose our students' attention at any moment; they need to think about each topic as the most excited that they have studied. Remember, first you have to choose the topic, then you have to create the material and evaluate if the students are interested or not to evaluate how much time do you need to teach it, and the last point of topic-based work is to teach each class with energy and enthusiasm to our children develop an interest in each topic despite at the beginning that say that it is a boring one.

Planning Your Work

PLANNING YOUR WORK

Planning is a very fundamental tool for teachers. To be able to plan well is one of the key skills that teachers should have because it involves imagination, creativity, organization, responsibility, and passion for teaching. I think that planning your work allows you to imagine what is going to happen in the classroom since when teachers plan their work, they know how the time will be distributed in each activity, and how the lesson will fit in the class.

There are a number of benefits to writing a lesson plan. First, lesson planning produces more unified lessons. It gives teachers the opportunity to think deliberately about their choice of lesson objectives, the types of activities that will meet these objectives, the sequence of the activities, the materials needed, how long each activity might take, and how students should be grouped

For teachers the most difficult part of planning their work is to look for different methods that fit with each student’s capacity of learning because there can be methods that can fit with some student’s abilities, but there can be others that don’t. besides that, i consider that the lesson planning process allows teachers to evaluate their own knowledge with regards to the content to be taught

Also, we must mention why planning the work is important:

I think that most teachers plan lessons in order to feel more confident in the class.  If we know what we are trying to achieve in the lesson, we are freed up to spend more time with the learners rather than worrying about our next step. Planning is also important to map out learning activities in a coherent and logical way, in order to help students, understand, learn and practice concepts and skills which will develop their abilities in English.  

When planning the teacher’s work is important that every teacher sits down and think about the necessities of every student, and how they are going to cover every single necessity. One important thing to have in mind when planning a lesson is that teachers want to provide variety for their students because, as soon as they become bored, they have lost the crucial attention that students need to learn.

A very good way to vary making a lesson plan is to provide information that can be interesting for the students, but how can teachers do this?

Well, the newest threads are always interesting for the students. For example, the music can be a big help to beef up student’s learning. The good part of using threads is that they can be interpreted in different ways, but essentially they are activities & routines that students are familiar with, and which they will have no trouble picking up again.

As I mentioned in the brief explanation above, there are some aspects to consider when making a lesson plan and in the picture we can see which they are:

To create a lesson plan could be difficult for all the teachers because it takes a lot of time to think about all the activities that will be performed during the class, but also, it helps teacher to look more relaxed and confident at the moment to teach. According to some students from the major of licenciatura en el idioma ingles opción enseñanza, who had passed through this experience of teaching, planning their work to go to teach was not easy, but it was their biggest tool when teaching their students.  A teacher without that big tool is similar to a soldier without his weapon, so now, we can understand why planning our work as teachers is necessary to achieve all the objectives that we think about when we plan our classes.

 Lesson planning is at the heart of being an effective teacher. It is a creative process that allows us to synthesize our understanding of second language acquisition and language teaching pedagogy with our knowledge of our learners. Sometimes, teachers forget a very important part of planning their work ,and it is to motivate their students by telling them how good they are, or giving them pieces of advice to improve.

In conclusion, think of a time you entered a class with a hastily written lesson plan or no plan at all?

·         How was that experience?

       •   How did you feel?

       •   How would the lesson have been improved with more thorough

Those questions are for you to think about and reconsider if you are doing a good job as a teacher. If the answers of those questions are not as good as you expected is because you are not making a correct use of your lesson plan, or you are not planning your work correctly.

The Tools of the Trade

THE TOOLS OF THE TRADE

First of all, let’s define what tools of the trade means.

The tools of the trade or the tools of your trade are the skills and equipment that you need to do your job. It means all the things that will be useful to develop a class.

It is important to take into consideration all the tools that will make you be a good teacher since those things will help you to define if you are doing a good job or not.

We can also include the Words creativity and imagination in this part because they are two very important elements for teaching.

It is necessary to explain why the words creativity and imagination are included in the tools of the trade as i mentioned in the paragraph above.

The answer for that is that creativity and imagination go together with the ability that a teacher owns at the moment to develop a class, but also, the physical world is the main means of conveying meaning to Young learners. A long list of aids is necessary in the classroom to convey a meaning in some way.

If a teacher wants to convey a very clear message to his/her students, to make use of different kind of objects will be the best way to do it. If you make a full use of things and objects as well as the language, you will have good results as a teacher because in that way, you can get the student’s attention, and the process of learning will be easier for them.

As teachers to bring universal learning ideas to life in your classroom by creating and sharing your own educational materials is essential. Some of the materials that teachers can carry out to the classroom are:

Class mascot

A class mascot could be a good tool to use in a class. It can be a teddy bear, a doll, or a character that is significant for them.

Puppets

The teacher can create his/her own puppets. The puppets can be made with paper, bags, glove puppets and even puppets made with your hands or fingers. This technique is very useful if you apply it to develop activities such as, stories, dialogues, and sketches.

Paper dolls

This could be a good option to teach topics such as, the body parts, and clothing.

Picture cards

In here, the teacher can collect several drawings, pictures or cut-outs from magazines. They would be created in different size. It depends on the activity that the teachers want to do with the students. Then, the teacher may assign those picture cards to each student to develop the topic.

Card games

Most of the teachers use this technique to develop a topic. Card games can help students to memorize words just seeing them since thanks to those games they will recognize them later. Find innovative games that teach critical thinking.

Word/sentences cards

In here, the teachers can make cards that contain words or sentences that students are used to hear during the classes, so they can recognize and know how they are written.

I would add more of these tools to the list of materials that teachers need to have to improve their teaching process, and they would be:

Calendar, a clock, maps, wallcharts, toys, building blocks, cassette recorders, projector, and all the things that the teacher thinks are necessary.

There are several tools that teacher can use for the teaching process. However, there will be some of them that will not be appropriate or useful for any student that is why, teachers must have several more options in order to supply every student’s necessities. Textbooks, audio and video recordings, websites, and teacher-designed worksheets, tasks, and activities represent just some of the many “tools of the trade” for language and literacy teachers and learners.

Teaching/learning materials such as these play a very important role in the classroom and thus deserve careful analysis and evaluation to ensure that they are engaging, supporting and inspiring learners to the fullest extent possible. One way to check if these tools will work for the students is to examine the materials for the knowledge processes, to experience, and to analyze them.

Nowadays, technology plays a big role in the teaching process that is why, some teachers have started to use apps to make the process more efficient, and the students can be more interested about it since technology is a topic in which students are very familiar with.