Welcome to my blog. I use it to share activities with my English students and with teachers in different training workshops. If you like what you see, why not leave a comment?
Tell your partners about the perfect amount of the following items.
Task 1: Listening for Sign Posts
Signposts are phrases that serve the function of guiding the listener's attention during a talk. They help the speaker give a more effective message by indicating what he or she is going to say next. By learning to recognize common signposts, you will improve your listening comprehension abilities for extended texts. Click on your group link below and complete the tasks.
Two or three of the questions in Part 4 will ask you to intepret information from a graphic. Take the mini-test with your group. Click the link below and share your screen and computer sound.
In this task you will read a text to your partner and he or she will answer some comprehension questions. Make sure you read the instructions in the presentation carefully before you start.
Culture & SLA - Week 13 - Multicompetence as an Alternative to the Native Speaker Model
Introduction: Hello and welcome to Week 13 of the course Culture and Second Language Aquisition. In this class we will explore the topic of multicompetence as a model to explain the unique abilities of the L2 learner.
Today's Goals:
Look back and topics, assignments, and activities covered in this course and express ways in which our beliefs and understandings of culture have changed, deepened, or remained the same.
Explore the features of Multicompetence as a model for healthy L2 learner identity formation.
Collaborate to plan the final details and logistics of your ELT Textbook Review Assignment.
Guiding Questions:
What is multicompentence?
Do I consider it to be a valid alternative to the native speaker model in ELT?
What implications does it have for the formation of healthy teacher and learner identities?
What are my takeaways from this course?
Task 1: Final Course Reflection
Over the last 13 weeks we have covered a lot of content related to the nature of culture, culture's relationship with naturem, how culture is learned, how to teach culture, and other topics in SLA that have connections to culture. Click on your group link and complete the tasks.
Language learners are often unfairly judged in terms of what they do "incorrectly" and they are seen to have a "deficit" compared to some ideal standard. Although Bert is talking about accent change among native speakers of English, how can his views of language learning being an "additive" process relate to the concept of Multicompetence?
Task 3: Exploring Multicompetence and Appropriate Models for L2 Learners to Follow
For our final topic of this course we will explore possible problems with holding the native English speaker as the ideal model for learners to follow and instead look at the possible benefits of the Multicompetent English L2 User as an alternative. Click the link below and discuss the questions with your partners.
"Being a native speaker is ... an unalterable historic fact; you cannot change your native language any more than you can change who brought you up (Cook, 1999)."
"L2 students cannot be turned into native speakers without altering the core meaning of native speaker in English. A view such as 'adults usually fail to become native speakers' is like saying that ducks fail to become swans: adults could never become natives speakers without being reborn (Cook, 1999)."
"Most L2 users differ from L1 monolinguals in the way they know and use the L1 and the L2, but...should such differences be seen as deficits from the native speaker standard (Cook, 1999)."
"L2 users have to be looked at in their own right as genuine L2 users, not as imitiation native speakers (Cook, 1999)."
Implications for teaching:
Classroom teaching should be related to L2 user goals.
Use L2 users in course materials and encourage learners to identify Multicompetent L2 users as language role models.
Native English speaking teachers are not the best teachers by virtue of the L1.
Acknowledge students L1 in class activities.
View students' L1 knowledge as a meaning making resource.
Encourage codeswitching
Taking a multicompetent view of L2 learners can, "begin to acknowledge that L2 users have strengths and rights of their own by giving the students role models of L2 users in action and by requiring the use of both languages by one person: in short, convincing students that they are successful multicompetent speakers, not failed native speakers (Cook, 1999)."
How did Kahlylah's English L2 identity and sense of self change over time?
How can we help our students develop a healthy authentic sense of self as L2 users?
Task 5: Group Collaboration Session for Final Project
Feel free to take the remainder of our class time to work with your partners on your final project, ELT Textbook Analysis Paper and Presentation.
References:
Cook, V. (1999). Going Beyond the Native Speaker in Language Teaching. TESOL Quarterly, 33(2), pp. 185-209.
Grammar II - Week 13 - Comparisons and Superlatives
Introduction: Hello and welcome to Week 13 of the course English Grammar II. In this course we will cover an intensive survey of a variety of grammar topics. The purpose of this blog is to facilitate our synchronous class activities and to serve as a record that you can refer back to for study purposes.
Today's Goals:
Collaborate with your partners to complete a grammar study guide document explaining the main features of comparative and superlative adjectives
Complete some grammar practice exercises to clarify your understanding of these structures.
Use comparative and superlative adjective forms to discuss modern problems and how they will be different in the future.
Community Builder: React to Quotes
Is history a story of uniterrupted progress? Does technology hold the key to solve our problems? Look at the quotes below. Tell your partners what they mean to you and if you agree or disagree with any of them.
Grammar Expansion: Comparisons and Superlatives
Click on your group link below and comple the exercises to review the grammar points for this week.
Group Discussion: Is the world becoming a better place?
Discuss the following prompts with your partners. Try to use comparatives, superlatives, too + adjective, (not) + adjective + enough, and as ... as when appropriate.
In what ways is life on Earth getting better? In what ways is it getting worse? Why?
How do you think future generations will judge the actions and attitudes of people in 2021? Why?
In what areas of our lives do you have an optimistic perspective about the present/future?
In what areas of our lives do you have a pessimistic perspective about the peresent/future?
Introduction: Hello students! In today's class we will dicuss the topic of city life in the future and the use of "will" to make predictions. Follow your teacher's instructions to complete the activites in this page during the lesson.
Guiding Question: What will major cities be like in the future?
Warm Up: City Skylines
You and your partners will pretend to be architects and builders. First, divide your group into two teams, Team A and Team B. Both teams should click the same "Construction Site" link below and then follow the instructions.
Read the predictions about life in San Jose in the year 2050. Tell your partner if you completely agree, partially agree, or disagree with each statement and why.
There won't be a lot of traffic in the city.
Most people will use public transportation.
There will be many tall apartment buildings.
The GAM will include Puntarenas and Limon.
There will be green areas and parks for the population.
Pollution will be a problem but it won't be as bad as other world cities.
Most houses and apartments will have solar panels to generate their electricity.
Around 70% of jobs will be online.
The city will be safer and there won't be so many problems with security.
San Jose will be a better place.
Task 4: My City in the Future
You are going to make predictions about life in your city in the year 2050. Flip the card and have a 60 second conversation with your partner about this topic. In each round, one of you will make optimistic predictions and the other will make pessimistic predictions. Then in the next round, change your attitude. You can use the following expressions to disagree with your partner:
In this silly warm up, you will work with your partners to play a counting game. You will take turns repeating the numbers 1, 2, 3. Each person should say one number and the next person in line will say the next number. When you get to 3, you go back to 1 and repeat the process. Sounds easy, right?
Not so fast! We will make it more and more difficult by gradually replacing the numbers with the gestures clap, snap, and pop. Once you and your partners completing one round, you can go to the next one.
Task 1: Practice with Paraphrasing
In this task you will work with your partners to practice paraphrasing. You teacher put you in a group. Click on your corresponding link below and complete Task 1. DO NOT click on the Task 2 tab until your teacher tells you to.
In this task you will read a text to your partner and he or she will answer some comprehension questions. Make sure you read the instructions in the presentation carefully before you start.
Culture & SLA - Week 12 - Learner and Teacher Identity in SLA
Introduction: Hello and welcome to Week 12 of the course Culture and Second Language Aquisition. In this class we will explore the topic of learner and teacher identities and the concept of the language ego in the SLA process.
Today's Goals:
Explore the concept of public and private self and discuss to what degree your preferences are idiosynchratic or culturally informed.
Discuss how our avowed and ascribed identities inform the ways we present ourselves to others.
Discuss the roles we have as teachers in shaping our students' identities as L2 and C2 learners.
Guiding Questions:
How do learners view their personal identity when learning a foreign language?
What role do I play in shaping my students' identities as L2 and C2 learners?
Task 1: Public or Private Self?
Ideas about what kinds of information are appropriate to discuss publicly and which are private depend both on personal and cultural factors. An exploration of this topic can help us better understand different cultural perspectives and it also helps introduce the topic of identity which will be the central focus of today's lesson. Click on your group link below and complete the quiz individually. Then compare your results with your partners.
"Culture resides in persons, in individuals. Each member of a culture, like a miniscule twist in a kaleidoscope, refracts and reflects the common colored lights of their culture in a unique display, recognizably similar yet unquestionably different (Moran, p. 98).”
“Like other aspects of culture, identity is both explicit and tacit. There are aspects of ourselves that we can describe or put into words and there are others that we cannot express, or that are simply outside of our awareness. Not until we find ourselves in situations where our sense of self – our values, beliefs, practices – is called into question do we perceive the tacit dimensions of our identity (Moran, p. 99).”
“Identities become even more
complex when persons of one culture and
language enter other cultures and learn other languages. The degree to
which they do or do not integrate these new ways of thinking, acting, and
interacting affect their cultural identity.
For those of us who are nonnative teachers, these dimensions of our identity emerge in our language classrooms (Moran, p. 103).”
Exploring our avowed and ascribed identities: CLICK HERE
“When students whose first language is not English first encounter the learning of English as an additional language, they cannot really avoid the issue of learner identity (be it imposed, assumed, and/or negotiated) because they must participate in a community different than what they are used to (Farrell, p. 33).”
“Throughout their careers teachers construct and reconstruct (usually tacitly) a conceptual sense of who they are (their self-image), and this is manifested through what they do (their professional role identity) (Farrell, p. 34).”
“TESOL teachers, who are often the first contacts for newcomers in ESL situations and cultural informants in EFL situations, play a key role in not only helping to construct their L2 learners’ identities but also determining how they want to construct their own identities as TESOL teachers (Farrell, p. 35).”
"At the very least, TESOL teachers can reflect on their own L2 learning experiences as well as their intercultural experiences and identity formation and revisit their classroom teaching practices with those reflections in mind (Farrell, p. 36).”
Task 4: Exploring Bilingual Teacher Identities
Joyce is a Costa Rican English teacher who moved to the US for several years to teach Spanish. In this recording she shares differences in how she viewed herself as a teacher and how others viewed her in both circumstances. Listen to the interview then discuss the questions.
What aspects of Joyce's teacher identity seem to be important?
What were some of the differences between how she viewed herself and her role as a teacher and they way that others viewed her?
What other ideas about the topic of your teacher identity were provoked in you by this recording?
Task 4: Exploring Our Teaching Personas and Language Egos
Click the worksheet link and work with your partners to discuss the questions. You do not need to write.
Grammar II - Week 12 - Modals of Advice and Necessity
Introduction: Hello and welcome to Week 12 of the course English Grammar II. In this course we will cover an intensive survey of a variety of grammar topics. The purpose of this blog is to facilitate our synchronous class activities and to serve as a record that you can refer back to for study purposes.
Today's Goals:
Collaborate with your partners to complete a grammar study guide document explaining the main features of modals of advice and necessity.
Complete some grammar practice exercises to clarify your understanding of these structures.
Use modals of advice and obligation in a roleplay to correct someone's behavior.
Community Builder: Cultural Differences
Watch the video and answer the questions.
What is the context of the scene?
What happened in the video?
How did the man probably feel?
How did the other peopel probably feel?
What could explain this situation?
What are some other cultural "do's" and "don'ts" that you have experienced or heard about to be polite in other cultures?
Grammar Expansion: Advice and Necessity
Click on your group link below and comple the exercises to review the grammar points for this week.
Read one of the scenarios below. Then click play on the video timer and two students have a conversation for one minute to resolve the situation. You can give advice and also remind the person about their obligations. When the time is over, you can read another scenario, Click play on the video timer, and act in another scene.
Scenario 1: Social Media
Jessica is a customer service representative at SuperMart, a clothing store. She is friends with most of her coworkers on Facebook. Her boss recently looked at her Facebook profile and noticed that many of her posts, likes, and messages happen during working hours. Jessica thinks there’s nothing wrong with checking her FB on her phone as long as she gets her work done. Her manager wants to speak with her about this.
Scenario 2: Student Complaints
Jeff is an economics professor at a private university. Recently, his supervisor has received many complaints from Jeff’s students about the quality of his classes. Students say he is not prepared for class. They say he spends a lot of time talking about politics and his personal opinion about topics in the news instead of talking about content related to the course. They also say that his exams contain information that they never saw in class. Jeff’s supervisor wants to have a meeting with him to talk about the situation.
Scenario 3: Punctuality
Lindsey works as a cashier (cajera) at the National Bank downtown. She is a hard worker and is very meticulous with her job. However, she has had many problems with punctuality recently. She frequently arrives 5 or 10 minutes late and she always has an excuse. Her manager has already spoken with her about this problem and she promised she would make and effort to arrive on tie. However, the problem has continued and she was 25 minutes late for work this morning. Her manager called her into the office for a meeting.
Scenario 4: Computer Use
John is an employee at DataTech where he is in charge of customer accounts. The IT department has received complaints from many employees about the slow WIFI recently so they started investigating. They discovered that John frequently uses the WIFI to stream music, movies, and podcasts on his company laptop during working hours. His supervisor wants to have a meeting with him to discuss the topic.
