TOEIC Preparation: Week 10 - Part 7 - Reading Comprehension

Warm Up: Making Predictions

Spin the wheel and look at the option. On a scale of 1 to 10, how likely are you to do this in the next 48 hours? Why?

Task 2: Meaning from Context

Work with partners to read the text and sentences. Use context clues to guess the meanings of the words in bold. They are nonsense words that take the place of real words in English. Click your group link below to get started. 

• Group 1: CLICK HERE
• Group 2: CLICK HERE
• Group 3: CLICK HERE
• Group 4: CLICK HERE
• Group 5: CLICK HERE
• Group 6: CLICK HERE

Task 2: Vocabulary Questions

Work with your partners to complete the task below. In each reading you will find one or more vocabulary words. Read the words in the context of the sentence and make a guess about what they mean. How could you state these terms in other words?

• Text 1: Restate the highlighted term in your own words.

Click to see full size image

• Text 2: Restate the highlighted terms in your own words.

Click to see full size image

• Text 3: Restate the highlighted terms in your own words.

Click to see full size image

Now CLICK HERE to see your answer choices for each of the items above. Work with your partners to decide which option has the closest meaning to the highlighted words.

Task 3: Focused Practice

One of the challenges of Part 7 are the multi-passage texts where you need to read two or three related texts and answer questions about them. In this group mini-test you will work with your partners to complete two double passage sets and one triple passage sets.

• Multi-Passage Sets: CLICK HERE

Task 4: Focused Practice - Text Message Chains

One of the text types that you will find on the TOEIC reading exam involves text messaging chains or chat messages between colleagues or friends. In some questions you will have to decide what the writer is trying to say. Click your group link below and then continue to the Chat Quizes.

• Group 1: CLICK HERE
• Group 2: CLICK HERE
• Group 3: CLICK HERE
• Group 4: CLICK HERE
• Group 5: CLICK HERE
• Group 6: CLICK HERE

• Chat Quiz 1: CLICK HERE
• Chat Quiz 2: CLICK HERE

   Professional Practice I - Week 10 - Draft 2 Feedback

Introduction: Hello and welcome to Week 10 of the Professional Practice I of the BA in English Teaching at ULACIT term IIIC 2022. In today's class we will concentrate on revisions and feedback on your second draft so you can begin writing your final research proposal. We will also participate in a Teacher Development Workshop about ... 

Today's Goals:

• Discuss feedback on your second draft and remaining concerns about your projects.
• Design a discourse frames activity to develop speaking skills in low level learners.

Guiding Questions:

• What do I need to improve in my final draft in order to complete my report successfully?
• How can discourse frames activities help develop students' speaking skills?

Warm Up: Derailed

This is a fun fluency activity for intermediate and advanced students that can also be used to recycle vocabulary words. You are going to speak for one minute without stopping about a specific topic assigned by your partners. At random moments in your speech the teacher will spin the wheel to reveal a word which you must incorporate into your speech without getting derailed from the original topic of conversation.

Task 1: Weekly Check-In

It's week ten! There is only one more month left in the course. Let's try a different approach to our checkin meeting this week. Click your link below and follow the instructions in the document. 

• Ericka: CLICK HERE
• Natalia: CLICK HERE
• Selena: CLICK HERE

Teacher Development Workshop

Developing Basic Speaking and Writing with Discourse Frames

Task 2: Put the Paragraph Together

In this activity you will need to arrange a series of sentences into a coherent paragraph. Click your group link below and begin working with your partners. When you finish, discuss the following questions:

• Group 1: CLICK HERE
• How confident are you that you solved the puzzle?
• What strategies did you use?
• What specific clues from the text told you something about the probable order of the sentences?

Task 3: Our Discourse Frame Design
Now it is your turn to create a discourse frame activity. Click the link below and go to the section for your group. Choose a grammar structure to focus on and complete the task. You will share your ideas with your partners when you return to the main room.

• Group Worksheet: CLICK HERE
• Extra Resource: CLICK HERE - Discourse frames are not just useful for speaking exercises. They can also be used to help students learn to organize their ideas when writing.

Task 4: Draft 2 Feedback

Let's take the rest of our class time to do some writing and revisions. The teacher will work one on one in breakout rooms with each of you to give feedback on your latest submission and discuss possible solutions to concerns you have. When you are not in the feedback session, spend this time wisely by researching, revising and editing what you have already written, or by starting to code and analyze your data. 

   Professional Practice I - Week 9 - Data Processing, Analysis, and Interpretation 2

Introduction: Hello and welcome to Week 9 of the Professional Practice I of the BA in English Teaching at ULACIT term IIIC 2022. In today's class we will continue looking at techiniques for anlayzing and interpreting qualitative data that will help you draw conclusions and understandings about your study. We will also participate in the second half of a Teacher Development Workshop about teaching vocabulary. 

Today's Goals:

• Apply codes to qualitative data to identify emerging themes.
• Represent your data findings in graphical and narrative form.
• Participate in a number of practical activities to introduce and review vocabulary.

Guiding Questions:

• How is qualitative data analysis a bottom-up process?
• How can I represent my findings from qualitative data analysis.?
• What are some useful strategies to introduce and review new vocabulary words?

Warm Up: Say Three Things

In each round one of your partners will be the speaker. He or she will choose a topic from the list below and say three things related to that topic.

• one thing he/she likes
• one thing he/she does not like
• one thing he/she does not have strong feelings about

Then the partners have to guess which is which. Then a new partner chooses another topic and says their three things.

Click to see the full size image

Task 1: Weekly Check-In

It's week nine/ten! There is only one more month left in the course. Let's find out what you have been up to since our last meeting.

• How were your site visits this week?

• Tell us about your highlights:

• Celebrations
• Challenges
• Questions/Doubts

• Tell us some specifics about one of the lessons or activities you taught:

• What was the class?
• What was the topic?
• What were your aims or objectives?
• What did you intend for students to do?
• What actually happened?
• How do you feel about it?

• What are your responsibilities for next week?

• How many hours have you accumulted in your bitácoras?

Task 2: Draft 2

We will take time on Friday to for careful, one-on-one feedback on your second draft and support on what is coming for the final draft. 

• Natalia's Proposal
• Reflection: Take a moment to review the rubric at the end the document below. Regarding your Draft 1, which aspects of the rubric do you think you may need to improve? Why? What doubts do you have about your proposal?

• Group Link: CLICK HERE

• Sharing and Feedback: Share your proposal with us. 

• Share your screen. 
• Walk us through your proposal.
• What are your doubts or problem areas?
• CLICK HERE for peer feedback criteria.

Task 3: Analyzing Qualitative Data

Last class we talked about data collection methods. Now let's talk about what to do with the data once you have collected it. 

• Group Link: CLICK HERE

Task 4: Coding Our Data and Representing Our Findings

Last week we learned the basics of coding. This week we will take the process to the next step to represent our findings both graphically and in narrative form. Click the group link below and follow the teacher's instructions.

• Group Link: CLICK HERE

Teacher Development Workshop

Practical Strategies for Teaching Vocabulary

Task 4: Vocabulary Workshop

Let's continue with our workshop. Click the link below and follow your teacher's instructions.

• Group Link: CLICK HERE

Your Turn to Discuss!

Instructions: Now talk with your partners about your own experiences and ideas for vocabulary teaching. 

• What is challenging about teaching vocabulary?
• What vocabulary activities have you participated in as a student or used as a teacher?
• What insights have you gained about vocabulary teaching through this workshop?
• Are any of the ideas here applicable to the classes you are teaching this term?

  Teaching and Assessing Listening - Week 10 - Input and Interaction

Introduction: Hello and welcome to Week 10 of the course Teaching and Assessing Listening for the master's in English teaching at ULACIT term IIICO 2022. In today's class we will talk about features of the spoken input we provide and how these provide opportuntities and challenges for listening instruction.

Today's Goals:

• Analyze two sample listenings to identify organizational features associated with the genre.
• Evaluate the authenticity of a listening text and activity sequence.
• Describe factors that contribute to the difficulty of a listening text or task.

Guiding Question: 

• How can I help my students develop discourse and genre competence?
• What does authenticity mean when it comes to listening texts and tasks?
• What factors contribute to the level of difficulty of a text or task and what strategies can we use to simplify?

Warm Up: Poem Analysis

For our warm up today you will do several activities related to a poem. Click on your assigned group link below and follow the instructions.

• Group 1: CLICK HERE
• Group 2: CLICK HERE

Topic 1: Input: Features and Factors

This week's reading analyzes the nature of the input we provide learners in listening instruction. Click on the group link below with your partners and follow the instructions in the document. 

• Group Link: CLICK HERE

Topic 2: Listening and Prototypical Knowledge

Let's go into more detail about the topics of discourse, genre, and prototypical knowledge associated with top-down processing.

• Group Link: CLICK HERE

Topic 3: Authenticity of Texts and Tasks

Now let's talk about authenticity. Click the group link below and follow your teacher's instructions.

• Group Link: CLICK HERE

• Group 1: CLICK HERE
• Group 2: CLICK HERE

Topic 4: Difficulty and Simplification

Let's now finish with our final feature of input to consider for this week. Click the group link below and follow your teacher's instructions.

• Group Link: CLICK HERE

Topic 5: Clarifying Your Listening Construct and Assessment Framework Component

It's time to get started. Click your group link below and follow the instructions given by your teacher in the document step by step. 

• Group 1: CLICK HERE - Peter & Gabriela
• Group 2: CLICK HERE - Arianna, Francisco, & Ignacio
• Group 3: CLICK HERE - Natalia & Stephanie

References: 

Buck, G. (2001). Assessing Listening. Cambridge University Press.

Rost, M. (2017). Teaching and Researching Listening (3rd ed.). Routledge.

 Culture & SLA - Week 10 - Social Contexts of SLA

Introduction: Hello and welcome to Week 10 of the course Culture and Second Language Acquisition for the master's in English teaching at ULACIT term IIIC0 2022. This week we will follow up on the topic of pragmatics that you saw in many of your reading group articles last week in order to look at the social contexts the shape the second language acquisition process. We will also participate in our pending reading group workshop and clarify instructions about the culture lesson plan assignment.

Today's Goals:

• Analyze cultural differences in communication styles and pragmatics.
• Discuss the ways that social contexts can influence the process of SLA.

Guiding Questions:

• How do social factors influence the second language acquisition process?
• What cultural feature am I thinking about including in my lesson plan?

Warm Up: Analyzing Pragmatic Considerations

As you know, becoming communicatively competent involves more thant just linguistic knowledge. Pragmatic and interactional competence are essential to ensure smooth social interactions among cultures. Click the link below to read a brief handout adapted from Stringer and Cassiday (2009).

• Digital Handout: CLICK HERE

Task 1: Social Context of SLA

For homework you focused on the "Macrosocial Factors" that affect the out comes of the SLA process. Let's take a moment to focus more on each of these factors in a class discussion. Click the link below.

• Discussion Task: CLICK HERE

Task 2: Reading Group Workshop

Now it's time for your reading group workshop. Before we participate in your presentations, let's quickly review the learning objective and justification.

• Learning Objective: Demonstrate your ability to read an academic article and accurately identify and synthesize key concepts presented in the text in order to lead a group discussion exploring the implications of the theory to your teaching practice.

• Justification: A key skill of a professional educator is the ability to draw upon relevant theory from academic literature from the field in order to inform his or her teaching practice. Although academic texts can be challenging, it is essential to develop the ability to read, interpret, and synthesize the core ideas of academic articles when pursuing a degree in a graduate level program.

• Group 1: Natalia and Sandra - Cultural Codes for Calls: The use of commercial television in teaching culture in the classroom

• Group 2: Francisco, Peter, & Stephanie - Cultural Mirrors: Materials and methods in the EFL classroom

• Group 3: David, Jessica, & Arianna - Materials for Cultural Awareness

Peer Feedback Framework

Task 3: Prepare Your Culture Lesson Plan

Your homework for the week is to submit your culture lesson plan based on the Four Cultural Knowings and the Experiential Learning Cycle. A few weeks ago, you participated in a demo lesson on the topic of tipping in US culture that followed the same cyle. Take a moment to brainstorm some possible cultural topics you would like to explore in your lesson plan.

The final chapter in in Moran's book can be very helpful for thinking of possible activity types, question prompts, outcomes, and teacher roles in the four stages of the plan.

Click to see full size image.

Click to see full size image.

Feel free to also take a look at the lesson plan for the Demo class as inspiration.

• Demo Lesson Plan: CLICK HERE

Your other pending assignment is the group project to analyze a textbook. Do you have any questions about this?

• Textbook Analysis: CLICK HERE

References:

Moran, P. (2001). Teaching Culture: Perspectives in Practice. Heinle Cengage Learning.

Savile-Troike, M. (2012). Introducing Second Language Acquisition. (2nd Ed.) Cambridge University Press.

Stringer, D. & Cassiday, P. (2009). 52 Activities for Improving Cross-Cultural Communication. Intercultural Press.

  TOEIC Preparation: Week 9 - Part 7 - Reading Comprehension

Warm Up: Say Three Things

In each round one of your partners will be the speaker. He or she will choose a topic from the list below and say three things related to that topic. 

• one thing he/she likes
• one thing he/she does not like
• one thing he/she does not have strong feelings about

Then the partners have to guess which is which. Then a new partner chooses another topic and says their three things.

Click to see the full size image

Task 1: Restaurant Reviewers

You work as a team of chefs in Gordon Ramsay's newest restaurant. Today a group of 5 restaurant reviewers will visit the restaurant and try the different dishes. There is only one rule. Each restaurant reviewer MUST TRY a different dish. NO DISHES can be repeated. Read the information below and decide which dish you want to serve to each person and why. 

• Group Document: CLICK HERE 

Click the image to see a larger version.

Click the image to see a larger version.

Task 2: Practice with NOT Questions

Remember that the NOT questions are the most time consuming and difficult questions in Part 7 of the reading test. The best strategy is to answer these questions last and go one by one through the answer choices using the process of elimination. Read each text with your partners and decide on the correct answer from the questions below.

Click to see full size image

Click to see full size image

 Click to see full size image

Click to see full size image

 Click to see full size image

 Click to see full size image

Click to see full size image

Click to see full size image

Click to see full size image

Task 3: Focused Practice

Take the following group quiz with your partners. All of the texts in the quiz are examples of advertisements, another common text type in Part 7 of the TOEIC. The quiz has 15 questions. Be sure to skim the questions before you start reading.

• Text Types: Advertisement - CLICK HERE