Final Project

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.