NARRATING MY ANECDOTES IN A FOREIGN LANGUAGE

Carolina Gomez Gomez Diana Carolina Rojas Torres Liliana Sabogal

20051165056 20031187026

20051165045

Seminary IX

Professor: Mauricio Ochoa

Universidad Distrital Francisco Jos de Caldas School of Science and Education Licenciatura en Educacin Bsica con nfasis en Ingles Bogota, 2009

NARRATING MY ANECDOTES IN A FOREIGN LANGUAGE INTRODUCTION

This project was born from the necessity we as pre-service teachers found in our practicum of getting to know more about our students, their life, their experiences and thoughts. This because one of the problems an English teacher has to face in his performance is the lack of motivation for learning English, especially in those schools where students do not see clearly the connection between the contents of the class and their real life.

For those reasons we as researchers wanted to go further this matter of knowing more about our students. In this way we have the notion that it is possible to improve our performance what is more help our colleagues with our project giving them an idea of how can they apply students` life experiences in their teaching performance. At the beginning our concern was how to foster motivation and teach English in a meaningful way; As a result we came with the idea of using narratives in the class, moreover narratives done by students about their personal experiences what we called anecdotes since we consider that through this way we can identify more about their lives because Narrations according to what Mason states In her book school education (1925) is the telling back in one's own words what has been read aloud or read silently. Most children enjoy telling you what they know. To have an adult wait for their words with smiling eyes and anticipation is something any child cherishes. Charlotte Mason believed that this

love of telling could be used as a foundation for self-education. By this token, Our believe as educators and researchers is that, at the moment in which students narrate their anecdotes or experiences in the foreign language discover that they can express effectible in other languages and in the same way find useful and interesting the learning of any different language from the mother tongue. Consequently this project aims to analyze students personal life experiences in order to find similarities and differences among them, recognize patterns in children of this epoch and the importance of a foreign language in their life. In addition at the end analyze and describe the influence of those life experiences in the learning process. Finally this research is divided into two main sections. First our pedagogical intervention that is the pedagogical part of the project that was about the use of narratives in the class and secondly the research part that has to do with the recollection of data its analysis and also the description of the findings. In like manner there is the invitation for further research.

LITERATURE REVIEW

The narration and the students life experiences, which will be noted in this preceding section, are the constructs of this research project. Accordingly, we will start defining narration using writing skills to indentify the way students will express their anecdotes and what this implies to highlight at a later stage the meaning of students life experiences

NARRATIONS IN ENGLISH CLASSES A narration according to Charlotte Mason (1925) means the assimilation process of information and retelling of it. Some of the benefits of the use of narration in language classes may be the promotion of abilities such as selfeducation, improvement in attention, retention, expressive language, and higher level thinking. Therefore, according to the author, it is expected by a teacher that the students talk about their lives through the narration, which can be oral, written or drawn with the main purpose of communicate all their recalls in their own words. Accordingly, thanks to the use of narration, students may work in the four language skills such as writing, when they narrate their anecdotes in a written way; Listening when they listen to others narrations and the use of vocabulary the others do; Besides of reading, when students read their own and classmates narrations understanding the main topic and the situation they describe. So taking into account the last idea of the diverse manners narration can be uttered, it is indispensable to clarify that this project will develop the narration procedure with the writing approach, since we consider that for our students writing is the easier way to express themselves - according to what they have expressed to us, as well as we think this approach is suitable for us in order to see, characterize and analyze the data we need for working on our research question.

Hence, we consider essential to mention that narrations in general have six common elements, which according to McCarthy (1991, p.138) are:

Abstract- "short statements of what the story is going to be about" Orientation- "sets out the time, place, characters for the reader or listener"

Complicating event- "main events that make the story happen" Resolution- "how the events sort themselves out" Coda- "provide a bridge between the story world and the moment of telling"

Evaluation- "an element that weaves in and out of the story constantly...making the story worth listening to or reading".

WRITING PROCESS

Since we focused this aspect of narration on the process of writing, it is necessary to define writing as a dynamic and creative process that occurs in a context giving to the writers the opportunity to express their perception about their world and what happens around them. Goodman (1996), and Clavijo, (2001).

Therefore, writing needs to be taught in a rich and authentic environment that engages students in the exploration of language actively. What means, children reflect how written language works as they are immersed in meaningful writing experiences. Critically important, however, is the fact that writing carries some stages which subsequently will address us to different dimensions.

Writing Stages and Dimensions

Gradner and Jhonson (1997) describe the stages of the writing as process created by writers as they work. And in which skillful writers move about the stages of the process, in a consciously and unconsciously manner.

1. Pre- writing: Where students set the ideas about they are going to write. Doing brainstorming, working on the ways the ideas are going to be presented, bringing back prior knowledge.

2. Rough Draft: Where students start laying out ideas on the paper. Writing with no concern for conventions. 3. Reread: Where students are supposed to do verification of their own work by reading for themselves the work that they have gotten so far.

4. Share with a

Reviser:

Where students share and

suggest

for

improvement , asking who, what, when, where, way and how questions about the development of the text

5. Revise: Where the students work in the improvement of what the text says and how the ideas are expressed on it. Providing attention to the additions, and details in order to complement what is already done. As well as Taking out unnecessary material. 6. Editing: Where students and the reviser in this case, we as the teachers and guides of the process - Work together on editing for the writing work.

7. Final Draft: Where students produce their final copy to discuss with the teacher about the feedback of the process, they results showing as final show of the work the final writing paper.

8. Publishing: Students publish their written pieces.

In this regard, now it is turn to point out the dimensions in which the writer student- will be involved in.

Contrary

to learning theories implied or stated in instructional and

methodological material that equate writing with filling the blanks worksheets,

patterned writing, or writing using different tenses, it is known that English learners are capable of much more than is generally expected from them (Samway 1992).

1. Communicative dimension This dimension Defines writing as an active, personal, theory building, theory -testing process that facilities the making of the meaning the writer want to express. Through writing, one can create and clarify meaning what clear up writing is not simply a mechanism for expressing preconceived well prepared ideas; instead, writing allows to explore and to articulate ones thoughts. Cushing (2002) states that knowing how to write involves being able to delicately integrate global and local conventions with ones own global and local intentions when one writes we try out our theory of the world and in the process discover what we know and think. As a consequence, thinking is developed through writing.

2. Fluctuating Dimension In this dimension, writing is not simple static, or a linear process. This linear view of writing has let the existence of several misguided maxims, like: English writing is also linear, ideas flow in one straight line (Hogue 2003, p 254). In the process of writing, new ideas are generated and plans are changing constantly. This phenomenon has been described by Cuishing (2002, page 245) as a kind of retrospective structuring

;movement forward occurs only after one has reached back, which in turn occurs only after one has some sense of where one wants to go.

3. Developmental Dimension This dimension allow students to generate ideas for writing, thinking on the purpose and audience, and writing multiple drafts in order to present written products that communicate their own ideas. Teachers who use this approach give students time to try ideas and as well as the feedback teachers give on the content of what they write in their drafts.

Nonetheless, it is important to take into account the phenomenon we have noticed about our students with reference to the tendency of the usual use of the written and sound system of their mother tongue when they are writing in English.

So, regarding the importance the mother tongue has in learning a foreign language Hudelson (1994) states that it is vital taking into consideration the use of the mother tongue when making decisions about how written language works. In this respect, Rodari (1999:88) states El nio usa el lenguaje

construyendo su sistema lingstico segn la sintaxis y la gramtica de su lengua materna. At this time, it is important to clarify that we reveal this aspect because this is something goes through all our research process and which we have not found as an obstacles taking into account we are dealing with English as a foreign language.

Afterward we will refer to the term literacy, generally interpreted as the ability to decode words to understand, and communicate by using written material in different contexts. However, beyond these interpretations, for us literacy is not only a matter of decoding different words to understand a text. It is a matter of social interaction to bring up the gaps in communication. This approach must be something that helps our students to understand those words through the use of their own personal experiences. This means that when the students acquire the ability to write and read, they are able to communicate and to share their own experiences with others within different contexts. When we refer to context we intend to give the students significant resources to perceive the English class in a different way. In addition to, the idea of using narratives in our proposal is going to help them to contextualize the contents studied in class with their personal lives what is the idea of critical thinking stated by Paulo Freire (1985)

For Freire and Luke, critical literacy is an approach in which people learn how to experience the world through the word it implies that when they use critically the

words to change their own surrounding world then it is said that there is a good critical comprehension of the tools acquired. In this case reading and writing. Through the use of anecdotes in the EFL class students will feel that they can connect their personal experiences with the new vocabulary, we have evidenced that students get more involved when they narrate funny things , gossips, or sad experiences. As all of us know everybody has a different way to narrate his or her experiences depending on the culture, the social context, the school , the family etc. that is why, we want to look for those characterizations in the students narratives performances because apart from enhance writing, we are going to find different aspects of their personal lives. To do that, it is necessary to go deep into the discourse analysis due to the fact that a discourse can change in different situations and what is more can influence the way you write and read your own world. As it was mentioned before literacy is the critical way we use the words, we can identify that when a student write something that he likes , maybe a place ,a trip they are going to use words to express their feelings about those

anecdotes in a positive way ,when they read they also understand the way the narrator or the author expresses his points of view by using certain words or expressions to show his or her own perception of his /her environment that is why literacy is a matter of culture ,social interactions and contents. That way, it has been seen the importance for the students to bring their personal story life to the classroom setting. Because they can express freely what they think, believe, liked and feel according to their previous experiences they have lived opening the line to mention in what way we are interpreting the Students life experiences for our project. Consequently, we consider that the ideas expressed before, leads to present the term of Life Experiences as the second construct of this research project.

STUDENTS LIFE EXPERIENCES

Anyhow, for us it is important to clarify the term experience in order to reach our general objective in this project. Experience is a key term, Jhon Dewey in his book experience an Education (1998) He argues that teachers must first understand the nature of human experience before and through the learning teaching process. For Dewey, experience is a personal and social term, and which are always present. People are individuals personal - and they need to be understood like that. But they are always in relation - social context. Moreover, Dewey held that one condition of experience is continuity and interaction. Continuity is that each experience a person has will influence its future, for better or for worse. And Interaction refers to the situational influence on a person's experience. In other words, one's present experience is a function of the interaction between one's past experiences and the present situation. The term experience in this case helps us to think through such issue as an individual childs learning while also understanding the learning takes place with other children, with a teacher in the classroom. This way is an important point to identify students experiences in order to look for their ideas, thought, perceptions, believes; as a way to achieve the requirements for the narration process. In this sense, Rosenblatt, (2002) states that students provide in their performances with past experiences, remembrances, needs and concerns to make meaning of them.

So, taking into account the aim of this project is to know and identify our students life experiences in order to involve them in the reflection and encouragement of expressing them in a written way, it is pertinent to state our own definition of life experiences as all those situations that people live daily and which have direct effect in our way to live and see the world. It means the empirical knowledge obtained from people and events.

Then as teacher we can set about progressively organizing the task in a way that it takes accounts of students past experiences, and followed by providing them with experiences which help to open up the students access to future

growth experiences, thereby, expanding the students likely contribution to society.

In view of this, teachers according to Wells (1995) as participants in the construction of meanings and knowledge with the students inside the classroom should adopt a responsive attitude for teachers is by organizing teaching around inquiries. Which are viewed as a way to connect the childs world with their new understandings, questions and issues that the child wants to explore further, (1996) he suggests the implementation of a curriculum that allows

learners to author each one of the components in the curriculum and thus become active participants. Currently, Building from the known theory we just mentioned. Connecting students own life experiences is essential for designing the way the wo rld and knowledge could be useful presented to the students. Initial engagements need to support learners in making connection to what they already know and in telling their stories about these experiences, which (Short, 1996) describes as the process of Learners bring the knowledge they have gained from the personal experiences of living in the world and of being part of specific cultural groups and social contexts. In addition, life experiences male allowance for demanding the recognition of diversity needs as the cognitive, social and academic experiences of the Childs inasmuch as they must be valued as the foundation of successful academic achievement and social integration. (Handscombe 1994). Owing this, we take advantages of our students life experiences to engage and motivate students to be active participant in the English class, thinking that the own students narrations that we named my anecdotes give many benefits to children knowledge since it is near to their reality, at this manner, students identify themselves into the narrations as a character using their imagination that motivate them to create an own perspective about the story, and at the same time to understand and assume certain attitudes that help them in their current and future lives, as Ellis G. writes about anecdotes are a useful tool in linking fantasy and the imagination with the childs real world. They provide a

way of enabling children to make sense of their everyday life and forge links between daily life and school (1991, p 9) Finally as a result, this learning process from the experience allows students to face a reflective practice. At the same time promotes the development of students autonomy improving their self knowledge and their personal growth.

INSTRUCTIONAL DESIGN

Nowadays teaching a foreign language moves between what was taught based on the traditional grammar teaching and what is now intended to be

implemented based on the new perspectives about how to teach a language. First of all, we know the process of learning a language is connected to learning and usage of grammatical rules this process means that the application of those rules has a purpose in order to express experiences, ideas, feelings, beliefs. Etc. Thus in order to answer our wonderings about students life experiences and the ways they are expressed, we decide to formulate the following question: What does students narration of their anecdotes reveal about their personal life experiences? The innovative part of this project is the new experience that students have when narrating their anecdotes in a foreign language what allows us to get to know more our students and bring up the gaps between the contents proposed in the class and students` lives aiming to have a meaningful learning process. 6. Instructional objectives Short et all, in Clavijo (2001), propose the following activities for the projects developed by students which are personally significant to students life: Building from the known Connecting to and building knowledge from learners own life experiences what is essential for learning. Initial engagements need to support learners making connection to what they already know and in telling their stories about these experiences through the narrations. Therefore in terms of instructional objectives, we mention these three ones:

Increasing the development of writing skills. Promoting reflective thinking on students. Encouraging students to communicate and share their ideas in a clear way.

Thematic development First of all as it was mentioned before one of the ideas of this project was to connect the thematic and topics proposed by the school with the process of

writing students` anecdotes in order to see and analyze their personal life experiences. For those reasons the topics were adapted from the syllabus presented by Eduardo Carranza School in the following way:
1. TOPIC: WHO AM I?

Sub topics: Personal information (name, telephone number, address, age) Verb to Be

Application in the research Free narration about any anecdote

2. TOPIC: WHO AM I IN THE FAMILY? Sub topics: Family members (father, mother, sister brother, daughter, son, grandfather, etc) Verb to Be Adjectives of situations ( boring, funny, sad, happy, etc)

Application in the research Narration about students` familiar vacations

3. TOPIC: DESCRIBING MY WORLD Sub topics:

Adjectives of physical appearance (tall, short, blond, tanner, fat, thin, etc) Adjectives of personality (intelligent, funny, curious, honest, generous, etc)

Application in the research Narration about students` favorite toy and friends

TOPIC: SCHOOL

Sub topics:

Members of the school and their occupation (Student, Teacher, coordinator, etc) Elements of the classroom, ( book, notebook, eraser, board, etc)

Application in the research narration about any funny anecdote at school

TOPIC: IN FASHION

Sub topics:

Clothes ( t-shirt, jacket, vest, dress, etc) Colors ( black, orange , green, etc) Describing people clothes (she is wearing)

Application in the research Writing about students favorite way of dressing

METHODOLOGY

Regarding the methodology applied in the project it is important to write about the principles that guided it. To start with the main principle of the project is the Communicative approach which fits perfectly because the main goal of the research is mostly concern about social issues such as students` personal life experiences, hence the pedagogical intervention facilities the communication of those in an oral and written way.

First the communicative approach arose from the necessity to create a different method to develop language teaching and change the traditional concepts of

language such as grammar and vocabulary as the basis of language learning. in 1972 Wilkins proposed a different way to conceive language teaching and learning based on some syllabuses that attempted to focused on meaning rather than grammar and vocabulary and for the first time students needs were one of the most important components learning theory. to enrich language teaching and

Wilkins contribution was an analysis of the communicative meanings that a language learner needs to understand and express rather than describe the core of language through traditional concepts of grammar and vocabulary Richards and Rodgers (2001). Since that period of time teachers have tried to apply different methods and approaches to teach English based on their concept of those theories. Nowadays teachers focus on the meanings and the intentions of words and patterns in English for learners to express their own intentions and opinions. in or project rather than grammar and the well structure of the language we intend to stress the four skills specially writing through the use of students narrations about their experience in life. By this way our main objective is to give to our

students the opportunity to get more confidence when they are writing and speaking in the English class and to encourage their communicative competence. Theory of language teaching According to Hymes (1972) the theory of language is a matter of culture and communication which means that teachers must focus on what the students need to communicate in a proper way but is not a matter of a grammatical process and the perfect structure of the language as Chomsky stated in his theory of language. In the same way Hymes (1972) states that the main goal of the theory of language is the communicative competence so that, if someone

acquires the communicative competence is because he is able to interact in a community and what is more, he has a domain of the knowledge and also he knows how to use the language in different contexts, no matter if this is

grammatically correct but the most important is the message. Nevertheless Chomsky thought that if someone acquired the communicative competence this was because the students were able to produce correct sentences which sometimes limit them, because they are not immerse in the setting. That is why, the motivation to learn a different language and the confidence to speak would be affected. What it has been evidenced in our practicum is that

students do not feel confidence when they express their ideas in English because they think that what they are saying is not grammatically correct or because they do not have enough vocabulary to express what they want to say or write. The goal of language teaching is to develop what Hymes (1972) referred to as communicative competence Hymes coined this term in order to contrast a communicative view of language and Chomskys theory of competence. Chomsky (1965) held that linguistic theory is concerned primarily with an ideal speaker listener in a completely homogeneous speech community, who knows its language perfectly. Hymes held that such a view of Linguistic theory was sterile, that linguistic theory needed to be seen as part of a more general theory incorporating communication and culture. Hymes theory of a communicative competence was a definition of what a speaker needs to know in order to be communicably competent in a speech communicative. In Hymes view, a person who acquires communicative competence acquires both knowledge and ability for language.

Theory of learning

On the one hand, the theory of learning refers to the way students learn, through activities for improving their communicative competence and how these promote their learning. That is why in this project we want to include activities to contextualize our students in the narratives world and to provide them with the necessary tools to narrate their life experiences in English. Activities that involve real communication promote learning. A second element is the task principle: Activities in which language is used for carrying out meaningful tasks promote learning (Johnson 1982). A third element is the meaningfulness principle. Language that is meaningful to the learner supports the learning process. (Richards and Rodgers 2001). On the other hand it was considered that Through the use of narratives they

can express their experiences, feelings, because as human beings this is one of the way we use to experience the world. Role of the teacher The teacher has two main roles: The first role is to facilitate the communication process between these participants and the various activities and texts. The second role is to act as and independent participant within the learning teaching group.( Richards and Rodgers 2001).

Role of the student

The role of the learner as negotiator between the self, the learning process, and the object of learning emerges from and interacts with the role of joint negotiator within the group and within the classroom procedures and activities which the group undertakes. The implication of the learner is that he should contribute as much as he gain, and thereby learn in an independent way. (Richards and Rodgers 2001). Likewise during the process we identified one necessity of students that limited them to write confidently and it was the lack of vocabulary they have in English. For these reasons it was necessary to find another approach to help them with this issue. Then we came up with the use of some patterns of the lexical approach which according to Richards and Rodgers (2001) refers to the belief that the building blocks of language learning and communication are not grammar, functions, notions, or some unit of planning and teaching but lexis. That is words and words combinations. This approach attempts to work on the issues of vocabulary and collocation of words what we identified students needed when writing their anecdotes. Some of the patterns it was talked before are: a) Teaching individual collocation when explaining them the position of some elements in a sentence for instance the subject doing the action. b) Making students aware of collocation when talking about the importance of the use of verbs in a sentence and explaining the collocation of adjectives before nouns.

7. COGNITIVE STRATEGY

In order to apply the pedagogical intervention it was necessary also to find a suitable strategy which is the cognitive strategy that fosters students` enhancement of thinking skills they need at the moment of writing.

As it is defined Cognitive Strategy Instruction (CSI) is an instructional strategy which emphasizes the development of thinking skills and processes as a means to enhance learning. The objective of CSI is to enable all students to become more strategic, self-reliant, flexible, and productive in their learning endeavors (Scheid, 1993) which were some of the characteristics that called our attention at the moment of applying a strategy. On the one hand in this strategy there are some established steps that we considered useful for the development of the project stated by OMalley et al. (1985). Repetition: it was applied individually when a student came to the teacher looking for a word or expression and the teacher made him to repeat for getting the correct pronunciation Resourcing : This is used by the student when they need to express something in their mother tongue Translation: When it is necessary the teacher use the mother togue in order to clarify concepts and ideas Grouping: Refers to all the concepts given by the teacher and that are used for the students as an strategy to develop tasks during the naration process. Keyword : Those are given by the teacher for all the students in that way students can apply then when they consider it is necessary. Contextualization: It is applied during the classes not only with the contents studied in the class but also with the vocabulary. in this case teachers try to establish a connection between the subjects sutdied in class and their real setting

According to what has been presented in this chapter about the approach and the strategy we as pre-service teachers and future researchers decided to apply in our pedagogical intervention in this group, the activities have been designed

following some of the steps proposed in the theory of the strategy and approach. Other have been modified according to our beliefs about the learning and teaching process, as avoiding to much learning by repetition and applying more effective use of language in kind of natural ways.

9 DESCRIPTION OF THE ACTIVITIES DURING THE PEDAGOGICAL INTERVENTION In this part we are going to mention the way we have planned to develop the pedagogical intervention. This project is process oriented due to the fact that it was focused mostly in the process rather than in final products. Therefore it was decided to apply it by stages in which the teacher and the students will have specific roles. It has been designed four main stages in which the process will be carried out. .stage 1 Knowing the world of narratives In this stage the teacher is going to build the conception of narrations of anecdotes with the group in order to manage the same concept. Also the teacher will show some narratives samples to introduce the world of narratives t students, Role of the teacher: According to the first stage the roll of the teacher is to provide our students with tools to build a proper concept about what a narration is. Besides, it is important to give them some examples about narratives. Therefore some activities were planned. Elicit some definitions from our students about narratives Give them some of the components of the narratives like beginning, plot and ending. Give them some examples about anecdotes

Role of the students In this part students have to get involved in the narratives world and they start by giving some definitions of what they knew about anecdotes and narratives. In addition, they have to be active participants and spectators of the teachers` anecdotes. Stage 2 Experimenting my narrative world In this stage it will be applied some workshops about how to write a narration and it will be connected to the topics of the school syllabus. Role of the teacher In the second stage we as teachers have to motivate our students to start writing some anecdotes. That is why; we created some workshops in which students have to narrate some anecdotes as if they were the main characters of it. Also we have to act as a human dictionary for them, in order to clarify some vocabulary to develop this task and give them some ideas to complete the workshop successfully. Role of the students The students have to be active askers if they want to start writing their own anecdotes. some of the strategies that they are going to use to complete the task are : Use their mother tongue when it is necessary Write the vocabulary that they already know Ask for new words in order to write their own ideas

Stage 3

Let`s do it

In this stage students will start doing their own narrations based on what they learned in the last stage and also on the input the teacher gives each section of class.

Role of the teacher The teacher has to promote the interaction and the motivation in the class so it is important to support them when they do not know how to say or how to write a word. Some times, it is evidenced that students feel frustrated when they can not express their ideas and they prefer not to write or say anything. It is remarkable that in this stage we have to be active listeners of their anecdotes and give them a feed back for them to correct their mistakes. Role of the students In the workshops applied in this stage, students have to provide personal aspects in their narratives. They can write sad, funny or happy personal experiences. Additionally, they have to relate the contents studied in class with their real life. Apart from giving information and relate contents in their narrations they have to be the audience of their own classmates by this way they are going to take what is useful for them and they are going to get to know more their own partners. Stage 4 Sharing experiences In this stage students will share their experience not only about their life but also about the process. Students will show their portfolios to the homeroom teacher and the Pre-service teachers to share their feelings about this academic anecdote. Role of the teacher

In this stage we as teachers have to be active listeners of our students narrations and give them a feedback of their process during the classes. Role of the students In this part our students are going to be narrators of their own personal life experiences, they are going to realize about all their process during the English classes and they are going to be listeners of their classmates` anecdotes. These are some of the activities that they have to develop in this stage : To write their autobiography taking into account the elements worked on the previous stages To share their experiences with their partners To listen to others personal life experiences

10 ACHIEVEMENTS TO EVALUATE WRITING: Students write narrations about their anecdotes

LISTENING Students listen to their classmates `narrations and understand the main topic

READING Students read and understand their classmates narrations

SPEAKING Students narrate orally experiences they consider relevant

CRITERIA FOR EVALUATION

According to our proposal, we focus the syllabus as procedural or process oriented defined by Nunan ( 1999) as the ones which concerns basically in the learning experiences themselves. For these reasons our criteria for evaluation is going to be oriented mostly in the process of the semester more than in the products. Anyway, there will be final products like the autobiography. Criteria Product CLASS WORK Writing skill: Students make descriptions of their family in the aspects studied in class (Physical appearance. Personality and dressing) Students write short compositions about the 15% / Description %

anecdotes they consider relevant Listening skill: Students listen to their classmates narrations and get required information. 15% Students listen to partners oral presentations and understand the topic and the main information Reading skill: Students read short stories and get the main characters and the second characters Students read some partners narrations and 60%

understand the main issue Students read their narrations with good pronunciation 15% Speaking skill: Students share their experiences with their partners

Students have short conversations providing personal information Students describe their best friend in the three aspects studied in class (physical appearance. Personality and dressing) 15%

FINAL PRODUCTS

Students write an autobiography using all the issues 20% we worked on during the semester such as description of people and places, narration of experiences and so on. Students listen to a conversation and get the main required information Students make a presentation about any anecdote they consider relevant Students have compiled all the narrations and the 15% activities done in class in their portfolio having it organize and divided by sections Students go to the 80% of the classes during the 5% semester

PORTFOLIO

Attendance

13 Schedule: class date, activities and contents DATE WEEK 1 ACTIVITY PRESENTATION TEACHER BICEVERSA WEEK 2 DIAGNOSIS STYLES OF LEARNING NEEDS ANALYSIS WEEK 3 SYLLABUS DESIGN GRADING CONTENTS WEEK 4 FIRST STAGE GETTING TO KNOW THE NARRATIVES` WORLD WEEK 5 FIRST STAGE AND CHOOSING OF STUDENTS

PEDAGOGICAL WORKSHOPS) WEEK 6 FIRST STAGE

INTERVENTION

PEDAGOGICAL

INTERVENTION (WORKSHOPS) WEEK 7 SECOND STAGE EXPERIMENTING MY OWN NARRATIVES` WORLD WEEK 8 SECOND STAGE PEDAGOGICAL (WORKSHOPS) WEEK 9 SECOND STAGE PEDAGOGICAL (WORKSHOPS WEEK 10 THIRD STAGE LET`S DO IT INTERVENTION INTERVENTION

WEEK 11

THIRD STAGE INTERVENTION NARRATIVES

PEDAGOGICAL WRITING

WEEK 12

THIRD STAGE INTERVENTION NARRATIVES

PEDAGOGICAL WRITING

WEEK 13

THIRD

STAGE

PEDAGOGICAL WRITING

INTERVENTION NARRATIVES WEEK 14 THIRD STAGE INTERVENTION NARRATIVES WEEK 15 FOURTH STAGE

PEDAGOGICAL WRITING

SHARING

EXPERIENCES WEEK 16 FOURTH STAGE SHARING

EXPERIENCES WEEK 17 DATA ANALYSIS

WEEK 18

DATA ANALYSIS

WEEK 19

DATA ANALYSIS

WEEK 20

FINDINGS

STAGE TO KNOW THE NARRATIVES WORLD

EXPERIMENTING MY NARRATIVE WORLD

RESEARCH PORPUSE

BUILDING CLASS CONCEPTS

TO ANALISE STUDENTS` ANECDOTES

TO DOCUMENT STUDENTS` WRITING

LETS` DO IT

PROCESS.

SHARING EXPERIENCES

TO ANALISE STUDENTS` LIFE EXPERIENCES

BIBLIOGRAPHY

H. DOUGLAS BROWN (1994). Teaching by principles An Interactive Approach to Language Pedagogy. PRENTICE HALL

H. DOUGLAS BROWN. Principles of language learning and teaching 4th edition. PRENTICE HALL

Olga Moudraia, Walailak University, Thailand June 2001 Lexical Approach to Second Language Teaching

Internet resources

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_grammar

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_grammar

http://coe.sdsu.edu/people/jmora/almmethods.htm http://www.ed.gov/pubs/OR/ConsumerGuides/classuse.html http://www.ed.gov/pubs/OR/ConsumerGuides/classuse.html