CHANGING FROM A THERAPEUTIC TO A DIAGNOSTIC TEACHING PRACTICE

Today I invite you to reflect on how you see your teaching practice. In order to help you, there are four questions below:

1) What are the three things you do to help your students learn?

2) How do you know this things help?

3) Where do you get evidence of what helps students learn?

4) Now, choose the sentence  that is most appropriated regarding your teaching experience:

(   ) The teacher will teach therefore students will learn.

(   ) The teacher will teach so that students can learn.

My point today is to make you reflect whether your teaching style favors a therapeutic or a diagnostic approach. A therapeutic practice will heal, repair and fix while a diagnostic one will look for problems, assess and investigate. Most teachers tend to favor the therapeutic one because they just focus on the “right here right now” because they claim there is little time to anticipate situations for teachers have very stressful and busy routines. I can see this teachers’ point of view but I do believe we can work more focused on a diagnostic practice if we allot time for planning and reflection. Teachers who see the teacher’s job as teaching and the teacher as knower will find a hard time to shift the way they teach. On the other hand, teachers who see the teacher’s job as learning as well and the teacher as acknowledger will see teaching as a very magical moment, where we can make a difference in someone’s future. What about you? How do you perceive your teaching practice, let’s reflect upon it?

Are you a highly efficacious teacher?

Probably, you have already asked yourself this question a couple of times but do you know how to evaluate how eficacious you are? I list below  some attitudes and characteristcs a highly eficacious teacher has:

  1)   Efficacious teachers will put forth a high degree of effort in order to meet their commitments.

  2)   Efficacious teachers attribute failure to things which are in their control, rather than blaming external factors.

3)   Efficacious teachers also recover quickly from setbacks, and ultimately are likely to achieve their personal goals.

4)   Efficatious teachers enjoy and learn by observing a peer succeed at a task because they know  it can strengthen their beliefs in their abilities.

5)   Efficacious teachers know a positive mood can boost one's beliefs in self-efficacy, while anxiety can undermine it and they strive for it on a daily basis. A certain level of emotional stimulation can create an energizing feeling that can contribute to strong performances.

Well, if you answered NO for any of the statements above it does not mean you are not a good teacher. My point in this post is  showing that schools and companies, by and large, have just a 10% of efficacious employees. 70% are efficient staff, in other words, teachers that meet deadlines, follow prodecures and techniques but rarely will they venture to go forth. (Welch) I strive to be part of this 10% share.What about you?

Furthermore, it is important to point out that teachers with a high sense of efficacy about their teaching capabilities may have an easier time motivating their students and enhancing their cognitive development. These teachers may also be able to rebound from setbacks and more willing to experiment with new ideas or techniques. Low efficacious teachers may rely more on a controlling teaching style and may be more critical of students. (Woolfolk Hoy, 2003 and Bandura)

"Schools in which staff members collectively judge themselves capable of promoting academic success imbue their schools with a positive atmosphere for development that promotes academic attainments regardless of whether they serve predominantly advantaged or disadvantaged students. “ ( Bandura)

Olympic Games: exploring the pronunciation of Sports Score

It is a sure thing sports is a topic students are generally fond of talking but something I have felt is that when it comes to talk about sport score they usually have a hard time. Reflecting upon it, I came up with an activity aimed at teaching the right way to pronounce sport scores and I think there is no better time to explore it as Olympic Games are on!!!

Procedures:

Split the students in groups of 3 or 4.

Give each group a small piece of paper with some sports scores. Sample Sentences: 1)The score was 2-0. 2) The score was tied 6-6 3)The score was 3-2.

Now students are supposed to record on their cell phones the way they think the score should be pronounced. After, when all the students are done with the voice recording, they play it for the whole group. Then the teacher can go to the site http://www.englishteachermelanie.com/pronunciation-how-to-say-different-numbers-in-english-video/ so that they can compare to their answers or the teacher himself can teach them the right way.

Mobile phones as pedagogical tools: a taboo or a trend?

Reviewing research projects on the pedagogical use of technology and  mobile learning, Göth (2009) argues that mobile devices distract rather than support students to reach their learning goals.  On the other hand, other researchers approach this problem in from an interaction design perspective.  (Eliasson, 2010). They argue that the right use of technology as a pedagogical tool would foster lifelong learning as a means of providing students with the knowledge and skills they need to succeed in a rapidly changing world. As educators we know that it is not feasible to equip learners at school with all the knowledge and skills they need to prosper throughout their lifetimes. Therefore students will need continually to enhance their knowledge and skills, in order to address immediate problems and to participate in a process of continuing vocational and professional development. The new educational imperative is to empower people to manage their own learning in a variety of contexts throughout their lifetime (Bentley, 1998). Educators have to see mobile learning and personal technology in a positive light because it may create a variety of educational possibilities although, it is crucial teachers be aware of what to consider when designing learning activities for these cutting edge tools. Thinking of it, I propose below some classroom activities that were the outcome of my reflection! Have a try!

1)   Cell phone dictation: this is a simple variation from the traditional dictation. Instead of using paper, students would write the words as text messages. It could be also done as competition: the teacher dictates a word and the first one to type it correctly scores a point.

2)   Numbers dictation: the teacher asks all students to write their cell phone numbers on a piece of paper. When they are done, all the pieces are put in a box. The teacher raffles a numbers and reads it aloud. Students are supposed to call this number. One of the cell phone is going to ring and the number on the income call is the winner. Important: students are not supposed to answer the calls!!!

3)   Calculations dictations: the teacher dictates a calculation and the first student to say aloud the right result scores a point.

4)   Pronunciation Challenge: the teacher may select a list of words that are frequently mispronounced. Students are supposed to get in groups and record on their cell phone the way they think the words are pronounced. After, when all the groups are done with the voice recording the teachers goes to freedictinary.com or any other online dictionary and play the right way to pronounce. They play their recordings and compare to the right ones.

5)   Adjective pics contest: students are split into groups and they are given a list of adjectives (eg furious, lazy, smart, stubborn, kind, sleepy…) then they are supposed to take pictures showing these adjectives. After all the pictures were taken, students from other groups or even teachers are invited to vote for the ones they like the most.

A look at traditional review and Note-taking vs. Mindmaps!!

Observing students in class writing down the new vocabulary that comes up, more often than not, a student will write down the new word with the translation in his own language next to it. Of course, writing things down is necessary if you want to review later. But at the end of one lesson, the student has a couple of pages of new words that are completely at random – apple, happy, gun, gloat, keyboard, violet, etc. Impossible to retain a list of words like this. Even if you tried to memorise them, the fact that they are irrelevant to each other makes it difficult to remember them. So, what can we do as educators? My answer is: A LOT.

Stimulating students to use mind maps to make "vocabulary networks" is a better way to help them retain new vocabulary items. This involves writing a single word, your theme, in the centre of the page and linking words that go with it. Let's take "theft" as an example. Draw a line from the word "theft" to a new bubble with a description in it - "Theft from a bank" - then write the word "robbery" next to it. Then the word for the person, "robber", the verb, "to rob".

You can continue to fill the page with "shoplifting", "mugging", "pick pocketing", "burglary", etc, noting all the related words you can think of. Use a dictionary to find the words in the language you are studying. Now you have a page of words that are relevant to each other, thus making them easier to recall when you are talking in your new language. Mind-maps are even more effective if you add little drawings and lots of colour - your brain likes to be entertained!

A very nice tool to get your students started is available at www.text2mindmap.com. This site is a web application that converts text to mind map. You simple input your list of keywords and Text to Mind Map (Text2MindMap) will draw a mind map for you.

Have a try! I highly recommend using it for review classes before final tests!

Source: eslbase.com

THE RING GAME! Let’s play!

Objectives of the Game: Catch the person with the ring. This game can be used to practice or review vocabulary or grammar. If the teacher wants a more controlled practice he may prepare some questions in advance. If he wishes to use for warm-up or wrap-up than the students’ production can be free.
Items Needed: 1 ring, any kind.
Directions: Pick one person to be "it" and everyone else makes a circle around the person. The "it" person closes their eyes while they count to 10. The others pass the ring to the student beside him, hiding it in their hands, and the "it" person, after counting, opens their eyes and tries to guess who has the ring. It the “it” person guesses who is holding the ring, he chooses the next person to be “it”. If the student doesn’t guess he has to answer a question or perform a simple task like: say a word you learned from today’s lesson. Then the person who was actually holding the ring will be “it”. I love playing this game as wrap-up but it can be easily adapted to any other moment of the lesson. Hope you have lots of fun with your students!

Gap-filling exercises – new ways to use them in class!

Do you find gap-filling a useful activity? For sure it is! Gap-fills are an excellent way to reinforce vocabulary, and allow the student to encounter the vocabulary in a variety of contexts. The exercises can be worked on individually or in pairs in class, or can be assigned as homework to be quickly reviewed in class the next day.

But…what about giving it some high-tech spice and a personalized touch? Check these cool activities fostering vocabulary teaching, interaction and at the same time promoting learner’s autonomy!

1)   At learnquick.com it is possible to create cloze exercises and tests very quick. This way students can create their own exercises and exchange with the other classmates. A nice activity would be having students transcribing their own essays or any piece of writing activity into a gap-fill. A challenging variation I like the most is a gap-fill exercise in which the words which are gapped are presented in their root form. In this way, students have to choose the correct word from the contexts given, and supply the appropriate form of the word, such as a different derivation or different tense.

2)   Gap-fill exercises can be presented as crossword puzzles. Rather than presenting dictionary definitions as clues, use gap-fill sentences in context. An excellent crossword puzzle program is available free of charge from eclipsecrossword.com. The program allows you to make a crossword puzzle within minutes. All you have to do is type in the answer and the sentence clue, and the computer will generate the best configuration to fit all the words into the puzzle. To make it more interactive, this activity can be done  as a race between groups.

3)   At classtools.net teachers can create a variety of vocabulary gap-filling exercises. The basic program is available free of charge. Go to http://classtools.net/widgets/quiz_6/lYggq.htm and give it a try! This WordShoot game is very cool!