Final
Project
1. Background
Learners
The
students are a group of 20 young people, from 15 to 25 years, most of them are
students and a few are workers. These learners are on level B2 of English.
During the class, half of the students showed interest on the topic by
participating on the speaking activities (they mostly made pronunciation
mistakes, which were corrected by the teacher kindly, the teacher avoided the
use of L1 for corrections or questions.), they also asked for help when
necessary. As said before some of them that looked reluctant to participate and
did not try because of lack of interest, and shyness. Others used their first
language to speak during the class with other students.
Setting
The setting
is a B2 level English as Second Language class; it is at the middle of a six
month duration course, the classroom counts with one computer with internet
access, there is also a projector so the students’ are able to see clearly what
is shown in the computer screen, it also counts with an appropriate audio
equipment so the students can listen well audio materials reproduced n the
computer. In addition, the institute offers conversation clubs for further
practice, and a library with a wide variety of digital and traditional English
teaching and learning materials.
The topic of the session observed was the
practice of speaking through debates; the student’s book (master mind)
introduces and develops the speaking practice with content related to water.
The class did not question my presence in there, so I did not interfere with the
class, it was normal and fluent. The method to check the activities was to let
the students correct their selves, and misunderstandings were clarified by the
teacher when necessary, so the students were well assessed during the
activities.
Course Goals
The
main goals of the course are to initiate students into English language
learning and teaching through other cultures, it intends to instruct
individuals to interact with international context, respect, and understand
culture diversity. Individuals are likely to interpret and produce English, use
strategies to solve communication problems, and continue English learning
independently and permanently.
Students' needs
Something
that has to be noticed is the fact that students from this level are required
to make at least an understandable use of speaking skills, for this reason it
is logic to think that students from this course need to take advantage of the
time spent on class to practice such skills, this is because for students the
practice of speaking skills outside the second language classroom may be seen
as not normal, uncomfortable, or sometimes embarrassing, in contrast with other
skills like listening, writing and reading that can be practiced in a more
controlled environment of confidence and frequency, speaking needs more focus
on L2 classrooms.
2. Issue
or Problem
The
problem observed during the class was the lack of interest from some of the
students, this carried out their reluctance towards participating on speaking
activities, and also it involves shyness towards the impossibility to
communicate their thoughts in a proper way that comes from a lack of practice
speaking skills. As seen this is like an infinite circle where it can be
noticed the importance of the material presented for practice and production.
3. Initial
solution and expected response
·
What you decided to try
Based
on the previous observations I decided to present audiovisual materials such as
You Tube videos with interesting and understandable content taking into account
the students age and occupation. As an advantage, web videos can be found with
native and non native speakers, and new and different vocabulary. For example
in this case the learners from 15 to 20, mostly students may be interested on
videos with interesting facts such as water care (now a days is a common topic),
the video would contain interesting facts about lack of water and water care
like a documental with a wide variety of images, for better understanding the
video must be narrated and subtitled in English. After watching the video
students can be
questioned about the video contents and discuss about it.
·
When and where you decided to try it
To
avoid the interruption of the lesson based on the program this intends to be an
extra activity to complement or reinforce what has been learned during the
session, (the selected material has to be related with the session topic) so
the presentation of the video would be at the end of the unit covered in the
book so after its presentation would come the production. Also it must be
presented on the classroom; this is because it presents adequate equipment for
this.
·
Explanation of how what you tried is different from
what you have done before
This time
is different from other experiences when trying to solve teaching and learning
process because now it is a specific case that emerged from a previous
observation. In similar projects and works done before, the problems or cases
where mostly given to me to make the problem solving easier, but now I needed
to be capable of detecting the problem at a normal classroom.
·
What you thought would happen
I
thought students would be more involved into the conversation and may be getting
an extended group discussion with every one participating, sharing ideas and
points of view taking into account what they have seen in the video and own
knowledge.
4. Response
and reflection
·
Student response
Students
enjoyed this activity because of the material presented, still there were some
students that acted reluctant when participating, but less than the lesson
observed before. The only disadvantage was the time because it was at the last
so the discussion had a lack of time so I could not make sure that everyone
participated at least one time. On the other hand something that made notice
the effectiveness of this activity was the effort employed by the students who
participated to make their selves clear to understand and add ideas to the
discussion.
·
What you thought about what happened
I think it
was helpful for the students to have more practice and extra information from
other sources (apart from the books and program) so they are able to learn more
and new useful cultural information related to English, I wish there would be
more time for this activity.
5. Changes
made or changes planned
·
What you tried next or what you plan to try next
What I plan
to try next is to repeat the activity but make sure to have enough time to make
a proper discussion about the video presented, and design an exercise based on
the video to reinforce new knowledge obtained, also time to answer questions
related to the use of language like meaning and pronunciation.
·
What you think will happen
With this
new changes I think there will be a more complete and fruitful discussion were
all students are going to participate and add ideas about also they will ask
about the use of language and culture, in simple terms they are going to learn
more in a relaxed and enjoyable environment towards speaking.
6. Conclusion
·
How what you observed will affect the way that you
teach
Now I think
that whenever I have the opportunity to teach, I am going to make technology an
important part of the teaching process, I will try to be up to date with
teaching technology and implement it in the program.
·
Overall suggestions for others as a result of the
project
I would
suggest that when using technology as a complement in L2 classrooms there are
many things to consider to make it work focused on what it is liked to be, it
must be considered students and program, but also be sure of how does the tool
works in order to take as many advantages as you can.
7. Resources
·
Articles or resources used
I used a You tube video that provided students more
interesting facts about water, for instance new vocabulary related to water as
the unit requires to. The video was narrated by a person with UK English accent;
still it was really understandable for students. The video contained several
images about water, so it was visually attractive.
