Reflexion for week three!!! CALL, NEW WEBSITES AND OUTDOOR ACTIVITIES FOR TEACHING EFL!!!

Hello everyone!!! Good evening from Venezuela!

 It is still a very rich week, full of interesting readings, links, teaching experiences and more and more technology day by day. Now we know delicious.com. I never thought we could have a web page for saving our links, which I consider a wondeful tool for everybody and can make a teacher be more  orginized with his/ her teaching process. Just clicking on the link you need to use for and there it is, all the information you need right in your hands.

After reading Lindsay Miller´s text, I did realize that Teaching English is not only giving some grammar to the students, asking them to practise with an choral repetition and asking them to do researches and  bring that information to classes. We have to develop the four English skills (Reading, writing, listening and speaking) due to fact that this is the most important step in the teaching and  learning process.

NOTE: All my teaching experiences are based on a lesson plan first of all and after studying my students needs, as well. I want to talk about myself and the activities I do regarding these skills. If I want to develop WRITING, I ask them to write simple sentences and make them feel confident with what they are writing about, I do dictations but most of the students do not like them. I try to dictate interesting sentences, or at least, words, if we are studying some specific vocabulary. It´s important to take into account the student´s English level and ages.

For READING, I usually use songs and their lyrics. Most of students do love English songs, soft rock, pop, among others. They work under the syndrome of imitation. They try to imitate the singers pronunciation, but they do not have any idea of what they are singing about. In this order of ideas, we discover new words, new expressions and they learn how to pronounce under their own likes. Not only songs, but also Choosing interesting readings according to their interest. For instance: I got a thirty-five students section at the university. They study Industrial safety. I ask them to bring a text about what they are studying, safety equipments, implements, a supervisor labour, etc. They  feel really interested in that and they have to read it aloud in front of their classmates. They would feel ashamed, but after they finish the task, they feel very proud after some applauses. They discover this skill by themselves.

For LISTENING, I usually work with movies, videos and tv programs in English. That is why I identified myself a lot with Lindsay Miller´s text. For movies, I use the technique of watching the movie with sound off and the images, then sound on and no images, images and subtitles in English. It is a very funny activity where students feel they are part of the movie and they are as native as the characters when undestanding. Another activity is listening to some English songs as in the previews paragraph but with a different strategy. I write a list of words in the board. Most of them are related to the lyrics of the song. While listening to it, they have to circle all the words they hear from the song and then we start debating about how many words they could listen to and their meanings if they do not know any of them.

For SPEAKING, there are thousand of activities. but I´m going to mention just one. They know I´m  Spanish speaker, but I pretend to be an american person in class,  NO SPANISH AT ALL. They get close to me just to ask for the meaning of a word or any permission to go to the bathroom. If they ask it correctly, then I answer them, if not, I do not talk or even pay attention to them. They like it because they have to use their dictionaries or previews classes to communicate with me and also see it as a challenge.  

Regarding CALL, there are millions of meaningful activities for students at different levels, for all the skills and needs. I already used some web pages to find some interesting games and songs, grammar activities, quizes etc. Their links are:    http://www.agendaweb.org/     http://www.isabelperez.com/

http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/ They really work and students love them, specially the one for children. They will be also in my delicious page.

OUTDOOR acitivies are really helpful and good, this is because the students are in their own living context, real life and see this activity as one of the most interesting ones because they do love going out and sharing among friends. I want to share my experience with you. I already did it and I got great results. Last year, I was teaching an intermediate group of fifteen students in "The Language College". As a final oral exam, we decided to go out for lunch and they had to speak English while the trip. People looked strangly at us, but we never cared. After ordering for some hamburgers (Burger King), four tall, handsome american boys got into the restaurant. My students were in shock (LAL). They said: TEACHER!!! LOOK AT THEM, THE ARE NOT FROM VENEZUELA, ARE THEY?, TEACHER, CAN YOU SPEAK ENGLISH WITH THEM? (LAL)

After some minutes, I went straight to one of them and said: DO YOU SPEAK ENGLISH?

Yes, of course!!!!

My name is Teacher Maria, nice to meet you. But I need some help from you! ( EVERYBODY WAS LOOKING AT ME IN THE RESTAURANT). I´m here with  group of fifteen English student teenagers and I´d like you to go there and start asking some questions. This is part of their oral evaluation. WOULD  YOU MIND, PLEASE? and all my students were really scared because they have never faced with native speakers along their English course.

They were very pleased and happy because they could communicate with an american person for the fisrt time. After meeting the boy, HE WAS A FAMOUSE BASEBALL PLAYER FROM ASTROS DE HOUSTON  WHO WAS IN VENEZUELA PLAYING FOR A VENEZUELAN BASEBALL TEAM. HE LIVES IN BOSTON, but I do not remember his full name, Just Andrew. We took pictures and were the center of attraction in the restaurant. My students felt very proud of themselves, in fact, there was a girl who was really lazy for speaking and since the boy was handsome, she forced herself to speak and said: I LOVE THE COLOR OF YOUR EYES DARLING (LAL) " I felt very ashamed as a teacher"

 But everything was great! unforgattable moments!!

I hope you like and share my teaching experiences!!! thank you very much!