MY EXPERIENCE AS AN ENGLISH STUDENT (II)

My experience as a foreign language student started at school when I was eight years old. I remember how we spent much of our time painting and filling in with the appropriate word in flash cards which we had to hand in later. We repeated words aloud and we did grammar exercises. These were the basis for our English education in primary education. Understanding, practising, reading and writing…

And this did not change that much during secondary period, although difficulty levels were raising little by little in terms of vocabulary and grammatical structures. As my blog-mate Anna has already said, our English teaching has been quite deficient in which some skills are concerned; that’s to say, listening and speaking. Maybe we are very proficient in which grammar and writing is said but our “purely” communicative abilities are a great deal over the rest of Europe.

In my case, it was thanks to my hometown’s Language School (EOI) that I began to face different situations in which speaking was necessary. We were also forced to practice listening in order to pass some exams and this helped me to start getting my ears used to understanding English. I believe that this was a great complement to my English formation.

On the other hand, my decision to become an English teacher was the consequence of many factors: good teachers along my educational life, desire to be a teacher to “enlighten” others with what I know and English being a subject which makes me feel good, comfortable and also, the love for foreign languages. Apart from that, I feel I could enjoy my life working with teenagers since it is an environment that I consider to be suitable for me and my personality to work in.

As a summary, I have to say I had/have had a satisfying experience as a language learner and thanks to it, I am here studying English and preparing myself to be a good professional in a future. I would like to add that the new generation of teachers has a great responsibility in portraying a better image of what learning a language is, providing the students with interesting material for them to “catch up” as soon as possible and creating, as a result, a good atmosphere for the learning, highlighting real everyday skills which have been ignored along time, such as speaking and listening.

Tatiana Gonzalo López

READING ALOUD FOR A WHOLE GROUP!

Audiobooks have traditionally been used in schools by teachers of second-language learners, learning-disabled or -impaired students, and struggling readers or nonreaders. In many cases, audiobooks have proven successful in providing a way for these students to access literature and enjoy books.


It might be appropriate to list the benefits of audiobooks for all students. Audiobooks can be used to:

• Introduce students to books above their reading level.
• Model good interpretive reading.
• Teach critical listening.
• Highlight the humor in books.
• Introduce new genres that students might not otherwise consider.
• Introduce new vocabulary or difficult proper names or locales.
• Sidestep unfamiliar dialects or accents, Old English, and old-fashioned literary styles.
• Provide a read-aloud model.
• Provide a bridge to important topics of discussion for parents and children who can listen together while commuting to sporting events, music lessons, or on vacations.
• Recapture "the essence and the delights of hearing stories beautifully told by extraordinarily talented storytellers" (Baskin & Harris, 1995, p. 376).

Audiobooks can be a welcome addition to every classroom. Many students are avid readers while others are struggling to become readers and still others have given up hope. Audiobooks have something to offer all of them.

This kind of books usually appears in MP3 or MP4 format. Some interesting webpages where you can find free audio book material which are worth browsing are the following ones: 

- http://www.booksshouldbefree.com/

- http://www.audiobooks.org/

- http://www.learnoutloud.com/content/blog/archives/2009/04/best_free_audio.html

- http://freeclassicaudiobooks.com/

My experience as an English student (I)

When I was around 8 or 9 years old my mother enrolled me in an English course and in singing lessons.

A year leater, I quitted the singing lessons because I did not like it whereas I continued with the English lessons until I came to live and to study in València when I was 18 years old.

My passion for the English language and for teaching comes from my English teacher, N.

I used to enjoy her lessons very very much. In only an hour we used to do a lot of grammar, listening and oral exercises. I always had the feeling that I was learning and improving my English, which I think it was crucial for my interest in it.

The skills I was not good at were pronunciation, speaking fluency and listening. However, thanks to a scholarship I got when I was 17 years old, I spend a whole month in Ireland. It was one of the best experiences in my life. Not only because of the fact of being abroad, travelling, meeting new people, etc, but also because I improved significantly my speaking fluency and my listening skill. This encouraged me to continue studying it.

Besides, N. also became a model to me. She has, from my point of view, the characteristics the best teacher have: she used to be kind and motivating. And most of all, she seemed to enjoy teaching and being proud of our progress.

All in all, this mixture of passion for English and my admiration for N is what brought me to be willing to become English teacher.

From my point of view, those who have devoted a huge amount of time throughout our lives to study a foreign language and then we want to be teachers of it have the advantage of being able to do it knowing from fisrt hand in which areas we have to insist more.

In my opinion, communicative language should be devoted more attention in class. It is very important to allow the students to take risks with the language and to produce output in order to know which mistakes do they make and correct them. By communicative language I mean speaking, but also listening (a skills which is barely worked throughout the secondary education).

Summing up, my experience as an English student has been very positive even though some skills, as I mentioned above, were weaker than others. And this fact will definitely influence my approach to the teaching of English as a foreign language.

Ana Rodrigo.

Visual Dictionary Online

One of the most amazing things of the ICTs is the wide range of resources we have at a clic on the internet.

We found very interesting this webpage: Visual Dictionary Online.

The Visual Dictionary Online is an interactive dictionary with an innovative approach, as it is defined by itself.

It has a widre range of themes, which is very interesting as it can be used in lots of different teaching contexts.

But not only this. tou can also explore and find the definition/explanatio for more than 6,000 words.

Have you have an example and the explanation of what is the dictionary about:

This is what oyu find in the main webpage, but if you clic on Human being, then you can choose among the following categories: Anatomy (muscles, skeleton, teeth, blood circulation, respiratory system, digestive system, urinary system, nervous system, male reproductive organs, female reproductive organs and breast).

If you clic on respiratoy system then you can choose between respiratory system, and you have an overview of it or lungs.

We clic on lungs and we get a picture of the lungs and each part of it is named and explained. Besides, next to the name and the definition, you have also the option of listening to the pronunciation of the word.

It is fanstastic and absolutely recommendable, especially for programs such as CLIL, in which students deal with content through a foreign language.

Amazing!

...and what about CrEaTiVitY?

Why is the teaching of arts so important, specially drama and dance, in school?
Is it related to the children's intelligence?
Is it possible that education is just oriented to get a job at the end of school?

The following video reproduces a famous speech by Ken Robinson, an important speaker and international advisor on education in the arts of governing, non-profits, education and art bodies, who deals with the topic of Creativity in Education. He considers Creativity as fundamental as literacy and numeracy, giving the opportunity for children to find what they are creative at, which is the nature of their intelligence.
He also points out the fact of learning to be creative because some values such as self-confidence, innovation and social skills are all that they will need for the new economies and to solve the unstable situation in the world.
So, Creativity is thought to be the heart of the learning processing.
Enjoy the video and come to your own conclusions!

10 Websites to Learn English Online for Free... HAVE A LOOK TO THEM!

There are many ways for you to learn and improve your English, such as to hire a teacher, to go to school, to take an online course, and so on. And among those ways, the cheapest and still efficient way is to learn English online for free.

You just need a computer with internet access, then visit some English learning websites and teach yourself without paying any money. It sounds cool, right? Among those websites, below 10 are certainly worthy of your attention:

1. Elllo

Elllo focuses on your English listening skill. You can listen to speakers from all over the world for different topics, such as sports, travels, games, and so on. There is related text script under the audio player. You can also listen to some nice English songs or watch some videos.

Go to Elllo

2. Fun Easy English

Fun Easy English mainly focuses on the basic English knowledge and teaching tips, its courses include pronunciation, grammar, idioms, slang, writing, tests and much more. Most of those courses are launched in Video format, in addition with text scripts and pictures.

Go to Fun Easy English

3. Go4English.com

Go4English.com is owned by British Council, which is the UK’s international cultural relations body. The website offers English learning information and tests for teachers, students and kids. You can learn English online while you are taking a test, listening to a song, or even playing a game.

Go to Go4English.com

4. Lang-8

Lang-8 focuses on writing in a foreign language. You write in the language that you are learning, then native speakers will correct your writing, and you can also help others learn your native language by correcting their writing.

Go to Lang-8

5. Busuu

For every language you choose to learn, Busuu provides a few courses, including writing exercises, vocabulary training, reading comprehension, and so on. Besides courses, you can also learn English online by joining the community and chatting with other members.

Go to Busuu

6. Livemocha

The Livemocha website focuses on learning a foreign language by courses and communications. To learn English online, you can pick up an English course, submit your answers, or chat with the members whose native language is English. And you can help other members by checking their submissions.

Go to Livemocha

7. VocabSushi

VocabSushi is for you to learn vocabulary with real-world, contextual examples found in the daily news. You pick up a vocab word, understand its means, read the sentence samples, listen to the speakers, then you can take a test and check if you have learned that word.

Go to VocabSushi

8. BBC Learning English

On the BBC Learning English website, you can learn grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation, and so on, you can take a test, you can also learn how to teach others English. The most interesting course is 6 Minute English, in which you can listen to a short audio record, which can be downloaded both in MP3 and PDF formats.

Go to BBC Learning English

9. Learn English Free Online

With an over 10 years history, Learn English Free Online is an abundant website for EFL/ESL learners and teachers. You can learn vocabulary with the related pictures, you can get some English learning tips, you can take some funny test, and so on.

Go to Learn English Free Online

10. Exam English

As the name, the website Exam English is for you to take exams, including TOEFL, CPE, KET, and nearly all the other famous international ESL/EFL exams. You can test your English level by reading, listening, grammar, vocabulary, or writing separately.

Go to Exam English

More resources....

MacMillan Dictionary Blog embodies the loves for a language.

We want to emphasize three parts of the blog which we consider interesting:

Common Errors in English: this is definitely useful for those students who have achieved a good level of English are in a phase in which they want to improve those tiny mistakes they make without being aware at all. We can say... it is a MUST for students of English as a foreign language!

Improve your English: MacMillan Dictionary gives tips to improve English. Interesting!

Language Resources: Definitely, this blog is absolutely complete! This section is very very useful... so do not miss it.

To blog or not to blog?

This question rises more and more among those teachers worried about interaction, motviations and introduction of the new technologies in the classroom.

From our point of view, to have a blog is a good tool to keep in touch with your students in an immediate way: it allows you to recommend videos, to encourage them to read determined articles or to visit webpages you find, among many many other activities you can do.

However, we are also aware of the fear or hesitation this can produce to some teachers.

For this reason we strongly recommend to visit this link and read the information published there. It talks about blogs in an easy and frankly way. Let's a have a look ;)

Being interactive while teaching and learning

Out of the blue we bumped into this webpage called: Interactives - Spelling Bee.

It is worth to have a look at it (and to use it!).  Contestants (out students)  in grades 1-8 will listen to three stories, one at a time, and then spell words from each story. Students in high school will listen to separate sentences and then spell the words from each sentence.

The aim of this webiste is, as it is explained there: "an interactive Web site where students can learn grade-appropriate vocabulary by practicing how to spell specific words and using contextual clues to understand their meanings. The activities at each grade level are designed to let students work at a pace that is appropriate to their skill level. Students hear words multiple times that they are asked to spell, typing and retyping words until they are prepared to submit their words for scoring."

For more information visit this link, where you can find a detailed explanation of what Spelling Bee is about.

We have been happily surprised by this website and we think it deserves to have a careful look at it. It seems really interesting and useful.

Learning tips

Don't miss this presentation: The basics of learning a language. 

Connecting classrooms

The necessity of achiving a good level in the foreign languages studied during the secondary education has given place to the creation of numerous interesting programs with the objective of improve the level of the target language.

One of those programs is Connecting classrooms and is organised by the British Council.

What is it?

"Connecting Classrooms is a global programme that creates partnerships between clusters of schools in the UK and others around the world. "

What are its objectives?

" (...) to improve their knowledge and understanding of other cultures and prepare them for life and work as global citizens."




We also found here that several high schools are participating in it. Visit at the webpage in order to get to know more about the experience. You can also have a look at the "report of activities" they did on October.

It seem an interesting program so we want to invite you to read more about it in its website. 

By the way, there are over 70 countries in the world participating in the program!

Interesting initiatives

Surfing the net we found an interesting competition adressed to students of secondary school of Catalonia.

This competition, THE FONIX 2011, has been celebrated since 2007 and it aims to encourage motivation towards the English language and to improve it.

The Fonix 2011 pretends to complement also the existing programs which help secondary students to learn English.

We think that this sort of iniciatives are strongly motivating for the students, specially for those who like English or are good at time because it an indirect way to encourage them to work more on the language.

For more information visit this website: http://www.concurs-angles.info/ and watch this video.

Building confidence in our students

When learning a foreign language is very important to motivate and encourage learners to be persistent but also to provide them with tools to face this challenge of learning a foreing language.

We , future English teachers, are very lucky because English language has a wide range of resources to practice, to discover new words, etc.

Regarding this issue, it is interesting this new tool names "Netspeak", The writing assistant. 

What is it?

Netspeak is a writing assistant that allows you to search the World Wide Web for common phrases and their linguistic usage. Netspeak can help you find the right wording for your specific context, quickly and easily.

Here you have an example:

Learning English with the British Council

The British Council has a very good webpage named Learning English where we can find useful exercises four our students whether to do them in the class or to ask them to do them at home.

We want to show an example of exercises of listening.

Since listening is one of the skills less focused on throughout the course due to the time constraints, it is very recommendable to provide the students with good listening activities.

The example we present is a video about "how to ask somebody to repeat something".

What is specially good about these exercises is that they consist of the video, some preparation exercises (important!), then a task based on the video once they have watched it and finally they have the transcript available.

We want to encourage all of you to be aware of the existence of these exercises and to take them into account. They can be excellent resources for using in class, for homework or for those students who are eager to learn and improve their English level. And what's more, it's easy and for free!

The Word of the Day

As ongoing English teachers we recommend you to visit regularly the section "Word of the the Day" of the Cambridge Dictionaries Online.

Here you will find a word comment every day. It is very interesting because you can discover rare words chosen at random by this dictionary.

Besides, Cambridge Dictionary Online is one of the best English dictionaries online. Once you enter into the main page, you can choose which dictionary want to use. You can choose among Learners, Advanced Learners, Idioms, Phrasal Verbs and American English.

It is very useful because it provides not only the definition but also it gives you the possibility to listen to the pronunciation of the word in the British and Amercian English. Both of them!

What we also like about it is the fact that when you look for the meaning of a word, then on the right side you have a list of words related to the topic of the one you looked for it. For example, if you look for "dazzling", it suggests blinding, bright, brilliant, corucasting, glittering, glossy, light and a large etcetera. Therefore, it provides related words to the topic of the word.

Then, if you scroll down the page, you can find a section named "related topics", and in this case, the topics suggested are related to the qualitites of light, and it suggests topics from the Light and colour topic area such as light, the qualitites of colour, common colours, etc.

If you did not know about it, have a look.. and use it! ;)

Everybody's gonna love TODAY!

From ancient times, Saint Valentine is considered as the patron of love par excellence.  He was punished for defending the right to love and be loved in the Roman period, when the Roman Empire was falling down.

 The Great Empire was falling into decline and the emperor Claudius III started to think that married men were less productive in the battlefield because they were affected by the feelings towards their wives and children and single soldiers did it much better than them. So, he ordered marriage to be banned. 

After hearing the news, Valentine, a Christian bishop, decided to go against doing it his way: he incites young people in love to come to him and get married. When Claudius found out what Valentine was doing, he asked for his detention and tried to convince him to resign Christianism. But this attempt was in vain. Valentine was ordered to be battered, stoned and finally, decapitated in February, 14^th.

The famous tradition of sending postcards for this day comes from a love story about Valentine and a jailer’s daughter, Julia. This young girl was born completely blind and needed to receive some special lessons. Valentine became his instructor and little by little he was falling in love with Julia. Even her eyesight is said to be recovered after becoming lovers. Just the day before his execution, Valentine sent a farewell letter to Julia signing as “your Valentine.”

Nowadays, these postcards are sent all over the world and it has become one of the most popular traditions in many generations. 

The following video belongs to the film ‘Saint Valentine’s Day’. Nothing better for this day than feeling the love everywhere! 

SPANISH PEOPLE "ALSO" SPEAK ENGLISH...

It is generally known that Spanish people have some difficulties when speaking other languages due to our different phonological system and also because of our poor education in oral language practice. Have a look to these funny videos where different famous Spanish figures try to communicate in English and pay attention to their pronunciation and performances. 

PODCASTS

Podcasts are a useful tool for improving our English.

But let's start by explaining what is a podcast: According to the Wikipedia, "A podcast (or non-streamed webcast) is a series of digital media files (either audio or video) that are released episodically and often downloaded through web syndication. (...) The mode of delivery differentiates podcasting from other means of accessing media files over the Internet, such as direct download, or streamed webcasting. A list of all the audio or video files currently associated with a given series is maintained centrally on the distributor's server as a web feed, and the listener or viewer employs special client application software known as a podcatcher that can access this web feed, check it for updates, and download any new files in the series. This process can be automated so that new files are downloaded automatically. Files are stored locally on the user's computer or other device ready for offline use, giving simple and convenient access to episodic content."

As we said above, podcasts are a useful tool for improving our English because there are thousands of podcasts in English available for free which you can download and put into your iphone, ipod or mp3 or 4 and listen to them, especially when you are going to work, to the faculty, on the tube, etc. 

One easy way of finding interesting podcasts easily is in the itunes program. If you do not have an ipod or iphone, don't worry, you can download it anyway.

So, download the program, install it into your computer and once you have it, go to the itunes store and look for podcasts. Choose: audio podcasts. Scroll down the page and look for the section named "outstanding supplier". There you will find the links to BBC, CNN, The Wall Street Journal among others. 

BBC has a wide repertoire of podcasts. You can find podcasts which talk about the English language (Talk about English, The English We Speak) and others that talk about history (A History of Mozart in Dozen Objects, A History of the World in 100 objects, Secret History of Social Networking,etc) among others. 

We specially recommend the one called 6 minutes of English  because they are usually interesting and short, so you do not get bored. However, we invite you to inquiere into this program and find the podcasts which most interest you. It's very easy and interesting!

NO WAY!

FORBIDDEN TO BECOME A TEACHER LIKE THIS ONE!

We claim a better English education at High School and a better formation for future English teachers in public Spanish universities... LET'S MAKE A REAL CHANGE!

MASTERIZED OR MARTYRIZED?

Our experience within this master's course has been a mixture of 'comings and goings' of feelings. We belong to a generation who is undergoing an important shift into the educational system and this is being a double-edged tool for both students and teachers.

On the one hand, there are some positive aspects about the master's development. We are dedicating more time studying in depth issues related to education (psychological teenagers characteristics, curriculum constraints, teaching methodologies, innovative programmes for EFL, etc) since the master has been extended in time. The training period has also been prolongued and, as a consequence, we have a wider idea of the classroom reality. Apart from that, we have been required to work in groups sharing different views and impressions as well as to make a great amount of oral presentations, contributing to the enrichment of our confidence when speaking in public, a feature which is essential in the teaching practice.

On the other hand, we also find some shortcomings in the master. To start with, we have been required to do a huge amount of projects, presentations and other type of works within a very short period of time. This has been a difficult issue to deal with because of the time constraints and the volum of the works required. From our point of view, there is an unbalance between the quantity of papers and their quality. The quality should be over the quantity; therefore, the time invested would be more profitable. Moreover, we think that the content of the master is not as practical as it should be and it lacks the explanation of important issues that are relevant in the teaching profession such as error correction (when is it better to correct the students? how can we do it? which is the best way to do it?), classroom management (what can we do with those students who do not want to study? how can we teach English providing them a lot of input?), teaching strategies and not only being overloaded with abstract theories, and a large etcetera.

Despite of this, we expect to finish the master with a certain ability to face our profession in an efficient way.

Let's practise pronunciation!

Phonetic and phonology are essential points when studying a foreign language.

English language is difficult in pronunciation specially for students whose mother tongue is Spanish, among others.

Here you are a useful link which can be very useful for the students in order to improve phonology, specially for those who study English and do not have the opportunity to be immersed in English learning as often as it would be desiderable.

THREE MARIES TOWARDS ONE GOAL: -ENGLISH-ATION!!!

HOWDY, LEARNERS!

WELCOME TO OUR PROJECT!

We are three English language students taking a master's course to be prepared to become secondary education teachers in the University of Valencia (Spain).

This blog has been created as a part of the subject "Innovation and Research" and our main goal is to provide the readers with different sources of information and materials which can be very useful and profitable in the teaching and learning process.

We would like to say that the approach to this blog is intended to be different than what we are used to finding, making use of funnier and interesting material in order to engage both students and teachers into the English world!

The driving force which induces us to teach English from this approach is that we are convinced that entertainment and passion are the key elements to motivate people to learn. So, LET US ENTERTAIN YOU!