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?
Take turns telling the basic details of your story. Click play on the timer and share the summary of the story:
When and where did the story happen?
Who is the main character?
What is the general story of the book?
Instructions: Now it is time for your book report. You will work in groups of four and you will have around 20 minutes to discuss your different books. You can use the following questions to guide your conversation.
Introduction: In the first part of the conversation, ask your partners questions about their books.
What audiobook did you listen to?
Who is the author?
What was the genre of the book?
Did you enjoy the book? Why or why not?
Story Basic Details: Now, take turns sharing your visual collage. Use the collage to illustrate and explain the following information.
Where and when did the story take place? (setting)
Who is your favorite character?
What is the story about? (VERY BASIC INFORMATION).
What was your favorite part of the book and why?
Conclusion: Finish the conversation by talking about your opinions regarding the book.
Does the book have a message?
Would you recommend the book? Why or why not?
What do you think about the quality of the audio recording and the voice of the narrator?
Did you enjoy the experience of listening to a book in English? Would you like to listen to another one in the future?
Culture & SLA - Week 4 - Cultural Practices and Perspectives
Introduction: Hello and welcome to Week 4 of the course Culture and Second Language Aquisition. In this class we discuss the practices and perspectives of culture from Moran's book and analzye the products, practices, and perspectives of Costa Rican culture through the eyes of an outsider.
Today's Goals:
Outline the linguistic, paralinguistic, and extralinguistic features of a cultural practice.
Explore the insights about cultural practices and perspectives from the point of view of an outsider in my culture.
Contrast broad cultural perspectives with my own individual perspectives.
Task 1: Folk Remedies
Many cultures have a rich and detailed repertoire of products and practices related to traditional folk remedies for common physical ailments. These products and practices are informed by cultural perspectives about the causes of illness and what keeps a person healthy. In this activty you will explore some of the folk remedies of your own local and family culture.
Your task this week was to read Chapters 6 and 7 in Moran's book and write a summary of the most important concepts. Take 15 minutes with your group members to explore your summaries. Share what you wrote with your partners and why it was significant to you. Then complete the synthesis document as a group.
“Practices are organized and
implemented in preordained ways according to the expectations of members of the
culture. They involve a linguistic dimension (written or spoken language), and
extralinguistic dimension (paralanguage and nonverbal language), manipulation
of products, and specific social circumstances, and often occur in particular
physical settings or places (p. 59).”
“Operations describe practices
that involve manipulation of cultural artifacts. Acts are specific
communicative functions with both linguistic and extralinguistic features.
Scenarios are practices enacted in specific social situations, involving
operations, acts and other sets of specific practices. Lives are sets of
practices organized by individuals through the ways they live their lives in
the culture (p. 59.”
Task 3: Exploring Cultural Acts
Click your group link below to explore the linguistic, paralinguistic, and extralinguistic features of common cultural practices.
“Perspectives are the explicit and implicit meanings shared by members of the culture, manifested in products and practices. These meanings reflect members’ perceptions of the world, the beliefs and values that they hold, and the norms, expectations, and attitudes that they bring to practices. To name the perspectives that underlie practices is to answer the question, “Why do the people of this culture do things in the way they do (p. 74)?”
Perceptions: What we perceive, what we ignore; waht we notice or disregard
Beliefs: What we hold to be true or untrue
Values: What we hold to be right/wrong, good/evil, desirable/undesireable, proper/improper, normal/abnormal, appropriate
Attitudes: Our mental and affective dispositions - our frame of mind, our outlook - charged with feeling or emotion
“Understanding perspectives, in my opinion, represents the most challenging aspect of teaching culture. The task, simply put, is to identify the perceptions, values, beliefs, and attitudes of the culture. However, culture consists of numerous communities, all coexisting under the same umbrella of national culture…some of them are in opposition – sometimes in open conflict… Given shifting points of view, how can language teachers hope to offer accurate explanations of cultural perspectives (p. 83).”
Task 5: My Culture from an Outsider's Perspective
Reflect on the reading "The Autobus Diaries" and describe the following cultural features that were present in the man's experiences.
Cultural Practices
Cultural Perspectives
Cultural Persons and Communities
Cultural Products
Task 4: Reflecting on Cultural Perspectives
Cultural perspectives are hard to describe because certain generalizations must be made that cannot take into account the differences in perspectives at an individual level. Read the following article with your partners and discuss the reflection prompts.
Grammar II - Week 4 - Imperatives and Simple Present
Introduction: Hello and welcome to Week 4 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 imperatives and the simple present.
Complete some grammar practice exercises to clarify your understanding of these structures.
Use imperatives and the simple present to ask and answer questions about your favorite holiday traditions.
Community Builder: Say 3 Things
In this warm up game we will take turns saying three things from a given category, one we like, one we dislike, and one we don't have any strong feelings about either way. Use the image below as a guide.
Grammar Expansion: Imperatives and Simple Present
Click on your group link below and comple the exercises to review the grammar points for this week.
Introduction: Hello, and welcome to Week 4 of English II. In today's class we will continue to talk about food, countable and noncountable nouns, and :
Countable and Noncountable Nouns
Some, Any
Like, Would Like
Much and Many
Guiding Question: What ingredients are in my favorite dishes?
Activity 1: Discuss with Your Partners
Answer these questions with your partners. Click play on the timer and speak for 10 minutes.
What did you eat today?
For breakfast I ate...
For lunch I ...
For dinner...
Did you cook the meals at home or did you get them from a restaurant?
Who buys the groceries (food) in your house?
Where do you shop for groceries?
How often do you shop for groceries?
How much does a typical family spend on groceries for 2 weeks?
What is your favorite restaurant?
Where is the restaurant?
What kind of food do they serve?
What is your favorite dish to order there?
When is the last time you ate in that restaurant?
Activity 2: Shopping List
Click your group link and continue creating your shopping list.
Grammar II - Week 3 - Nouns, Adjectives, and Prepositions
Introduction: Hello and welcome to Week 3 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 three principle parts of speech: nouns, adjectives, and prepositions.
Complete some grammar practice exercises to clarify your understanding of the parts of speech.
Use nouns, adjectives, and prepositions to describe your dream house.
Community Builder: Word by World Storytelling
Let's tell some improvised collaborative group stories. Each person will contribute to the story to keep it going. There are only 3 rules.
You can only say 1 word at a time (no phrases)
It must make grammatical sense
Listen carefully and don't try to over-analyze where the story is going
Grammar Expansion: Three Parts of Speech
Click on your group link below and comple the exercises to review the grammar points for this week.
Introduction: Hello and welcome to Week 3 of the course Culture and Second Language Aquisition. In this class we discuss the products of culture, both tangible and intangible, and how they can serve as portals to the exploration of the other four cultural dimensions.
Today's Goals:
Explore the practices, perspectives, communities, and persons associated with everyday Costa Rican cultural products.
Create a culture map to examine the interaction between products, practices, and persons in physical space.
Share a memorable cultural experience you had using the Cultural Knowings Framework and the Experiential Learning cycle.
Task 1: Future Archeology
Archeologists study the material culture (products) of past civilizations. With some cultures, there is a written record that helps researchers understand their associated practices and perspectives. However, in preliterate societies or ones whose writing system has not been decyphered, these associations must be infered. David Macaulay (1979) wrote a humorous book called Motel of the Mysteries to explore this topic.
Now, play the role of a future archeologist exploring the ancient ruins of the lost civilization of Ti-qui-cia. Choose several everyday cultural products that are common in Costa Rica. What would a future researcher infer about the practices and perspectives associated with it?
Your task this week was to read Chapter 5, select 3 quotes that were meaningful to you, and write a comment about each one. Take 10 minutes with your group members to explore your quotes. You will not have time to analyze each one so start with the most important ones first then move to the others.
Quote Exploration:
Read your quote.
What does it mean to you?
Why is it significant?
What insight does it give you about the topic of culture?
What do your partners think?
Theory Break: Cultural Products
"Products, the visible dimension of culture, are the gateway to the new culture, the new way of life. They are the first things that greet our senses when we enter the culture, and the differences stand out (Moran, p. 48)."
"Visible cultural products often appear discrete or isolated. However, if we look more closely at them, we see that they are almost always related to other cultural products, and that these collections of objects are ultimately linked to sets of cultural practices, set within specific communities, involving particular persons, and are carriers of meaning - cultural perspectives (Moran, p. 49)."
Cultural products can be broken into four categories:
Artifacts: "The things of the culture"
Places: Places or physical settings
Institutions: Social institutions to deal with "the business of living"
Art Forms: "Reflect the esthetic outlook, sensibilities, and philosophy of the culture" (perspectives) CLICK HERE
Task 3: Artifacts as Portals to Other Cultural Dimensions
Since products are the most visible dimension of culture, they are often what we first notice when entering a new culture but we don't need to stop here. Since all products are associated with practices, persons, communities, and perspectives, they can serve as an entry point that helps us explore the rich details and connections under the surface. Return to the links in Task 1. Look at some of the cultural artifacts and explore the 5 Dimensions of Culture framework by responding to the prompts belo
Product: What is it? Where do you find it?
Practices: How do you use it? When?
Persons: Which people use this?
Communities: Which groups of people use this object?
Perspectives: Why do people use this? What significance does it have in the culture?
Additional Associations: If you have time, use the prompts below to guide your exploration of this cultural practices assocaited with this artifact even futher. Not all will be applicable.
Making/creating
Designing
Decorating
Buying
Selling
Trading
Losing
Using/operating
Maintaining
Storing
Damaging
Repairing
Discarding
Recovering
Theory Break: Places
"Man-made settings are populated with numerous artifacts, arranged in particular ways within the physical space. The organization, layout, or interpretation of this physical space is a critical feature of places, just as much as the artifacts and their arrangements in these places (Moran, p. 52)."
Places are interesting cultural features to explore because of the reasons mentioned in the quote and also because it is within places that different cultural practices are carried out by communities and specific persons.
Task 4: Culture Mapping
Let's explore the topic of places in greater detail by drawing a culture map. Choose a public place that you are familiar with and draw a map of it from a top-down perspective. Be as detailed as you can and include the cultural artifacts in their locations. If your drawing skills are not great, just use simple shapes and symbols.
Suggested Places: You can choose any public place but be sure it is a specific real place that you visit.
Exploring the Culture Maps: Now share your maps with your partners and explain the following aspects.
Where is this place located within your city or neighborhood?
Describe the physical layout of the place and the artifacts found there.
What is the significance of the location of the artifacts?
What are the "hot spots", the points in the map where actions occur?
What can you say about the products, practices, perspectives, communities, and persons associated with this place?
Task 5: Your Cultural Learning Experience
Describe a time when you had an experience with another culture. Use the language of the experiential learning cycle and the Cultural Knowings framework to illustrate your learning process and your own reactions to it. Paraphrase what your wrote for the assignment this week.
References:
Macaulay, D. (1979). Motel of the Mysteries. Scholastic Inc.
Moran, P. (2001). Teaching Culture: Perspectices in Practice. Heinle, Cengage Learning.
Introduction: Hello, and welcome to Week 3 of English II. In today's class we will talk about food we like and don't like and we will study the topic of countable and noncountable nouns:
Countable and Noncountable Nouns
Some, Any
Like, Would Like
Guiding Question: What food does a typical Costa Rican family eat?
Activity 1: Discuss with Your Partners
Answer these questions with your partners. Click play on the timer and speak for 10 minutes.
What is your favorite meal?
What ingredients does it have?
Do you cook it at home or do you get it in a restaurant?
When did you last eat it?
What is your favorite snack?
How often (frequency) do you eat it?
Is it healthy or unhealthy?
Do you like to cook?
If yes, what can you cook?
If no, what can you cook when you need to?
What are some traditional Costa Rican dishes (platos)?
What are their ingredients?
Are they from a particular region in Costa Rica?
What is a popular food in your country that you do NOT like? Why?
What is a strange food combination that you like?
How did you discover this combination?
Activity 2: Food Vocabulary
Click your group link and follow the instructions in the document.
You will listen to a conversation friends and roommates Nick and Evan discussing food they like and dislike. Click your group link and follow the instructions.
