Sara Eunice Anaite Paredes Gonzalez.

Task 2.
Grafic Organizers

Cooperative Learning
Richard Coleman
SUMMARY
Cooperative learning is a method in English Language teaching and
teaching in general that allows students to collaborate and create global
learning among them.
This method is based on collaborative learning and group work, and allows
students to interact between them and not only with the teacher and the
text as in a traditional classroom.
We have to take into consideration that working groups has to be
something manageable, the perfect number is four, so students can
interact all at the same time. Working in pairs can be functional as well.
Is important to handle a positive interdependence among students to
achieve goals and benefit the entire group. As well is important the
individual accountability were all our students are equally important and
have to participate in an equal way. All the students should be participating
at the same time maximizing the interaction and gap in communication
between traditional classrooms and classrooms that apply the cooperative
learning.
The role of the teacher is mostly being a monitor in students learning and
scaffolding the process than a teacher as the traditional model of
classroom considerate the role of a teacher as the only guardian of
information.

REVIEW
Simultaneity principle:
This principle maximize of time our students speak in class. In a
traditional classroom, our students don`t speak much, but with
cooperative learning, they speak more and interact among them
allowing more practice and improving communication.
The communicative approach:
This principle allows the communication as a behavior that allows
learning focusing on meaning and communication not only on

accuracy. By interacting and focusing on meaning the students

store the way they learn and how to use it for further
communication.
Reducing risk:
This principle stands for the willingness a student needs to have for
being able to use the foreign language. This principle stands that the
less people hearing, the less anxiety a student has to produce
language. Groups with less people and creating a supporting
atmosphere can improve communication and reduce the risk to
speak.
Peers Pulling language:
The peers pull out the production of language by creating a positive
interdependence. In this atmosphere, other students collaborate with
peer correction, helping to close the gaps in language that another
student have and explaining topics that are not clear.
Language learning and gambit development:
This principle allows teachers to gambit some attitudes and in
certain way lose to achieve a better goal and acquire critical
thinking skills.

REFLECT
I have applied cooperative learning in my classroom.
At my daily courses, I have a seating arrangement in the classroom that
allows students to work in four groups, sometimes I vary because as they
are preschool kids sometimes they prefer to work alone. I assign individual
and group work.
They can help each other by coloring, cutting, producing language as well.
The best example in how cooperative learning work is with one of my
special kids. His name is Ariel and he has Asperger. One of his classmates
took the role of his helper and some decided to help as well. She helped
him to identify, color, write and all the activities he couldn`t do by himself.
Surprisingly both students improved in their language. Ariel improved not
only in English but as well in fine motility and Spanish.
In my Saturday classes with teenagers and adults is a little bit more difficult
to apply it but not impossible. I have a mixed class with adults and
teenagers where adults hate to work with teens. What I do is that assign
the role of group coordinator to the adult to make him of her feel is in
charge. Kids are amazingly smart, so working with the adults help them to
improve language production and they learn as well some social skills as
responsibility and self control.
So far cooperative learning has been working in my classroom leading
effective lessons and improving learning, and my voice is relief because I
stopped talking a lot and now I allow my students to speak more.

Communicative Language
Teaching
Gaby Gordillo
SUMMARY
The communicative language teaching is based on the communicative
competence.
This is based as well in the recent development of learning as the
interaction of the learner and users of the language, the collaborative
creation of meaning, meaningful interaction, negotiation of meaning and
the different ways of saving things.
The best activities to work in communicative language teaching are roleplays, meaningful repetition, pair work, projects.
The teacher is mostly a facilitator, monitor, source of guidance and help,
and counselor instead of the authority and the lecture giver. The
responsibility of the lesson is not only in charge of the teacher but as well
on learners.
The interaction among the students facilitates language production and by
that interaction the building of knowledge takes place.
The main features in communicative language teaching are:
Meaning
Contextualization
Students` interest.

The communicative language teaching involves the four skills of language

learning, speaking, listening, reading and writing.
REVIEW
Grammatical competence:
The ability to produce sentences in a language
Knowledge of building blocks of sentences.
Communicative competence:
The ability to use sentences for different purposes and functions
How to maintain communication despite the limitations in knowledge
Characteristics of CLT:
Real-life context
CLT provides skills they need in real-life
Ss sense of autonomy.
All learning styles are taken into account.
The activities keep ss interested.
Accuracy:
Is the practice of language focused on correct use of language.
Fluency:
Is the use of language focused on negotiation of meaning, use
communication strategies, correct misunderstanding and work to avoid
communication breakdown.
REFLECT
The communicative language teacher is attached to cooperative learning.
I have use communicative language learning in both my daily lesson with
preschoolers and teens and adults.
Is easier to work with the teens and adults because they produce the
language you require easier than kids.
I got new ideas in how to apply CLP with my kids even thou they are more
receptive than fluent.
Sometimes with kids they forget are in English Class and they use Spanish
to communicate even when instructions are clear.
It happened to me in one oral assessment. I was teaching: Do you like_____?
Yes, I Do and No, I don`t with the topic of fruits and vegetables.
They had to ask their classmates and fill up a chart with their classmates
answers. Some of them understand it and completed successfully the task.
Some of them instead of using target language where using Spanish to
complete the chart. I scaffold the answers to those students but they
continued using Spanish. Those situations can be really frustrating to
teachers, but they appear more frequently with kids, not with adults, not
teens.
With the teens and adults, the topic has to be meaningful of they will get
bored and stop talking about it and focused in something else.
They enjoy communicative practice. I have tried onion rings and fluency

lines to encourage it and has work.

I have a new perspective now in how to apply CLP and some new activities
to work with them.

Classroom Management
Richard Coleman
SUMMARY
Classroom management is the ways the teacher manage their students
learning and behavior to achieve learning objectives.
The teacher should consider to achieve the objectives of the classroom
management:
Region
Culture
The expected way a teacher should dress
How to manage discipline
The ability to make learning enjoyable

Board usage:
Is necessary to use the board wisely. The board has to be organized and
visible for all the students. As well is important to use different colors to
show the different usages of language.
Seating arrangement:
The four principal ways to arrange your sits are:
Semi-circle
Tango seating
Circle
Working station.
You can arrange other ways but these are the principal ones.
Voice and Body Language:
Is necessary to have a good posture and articulate clearly when speaking to
your class.
Chunk instructions if necessary to help your students understand how to
proceed in the activity.
REVIEW
Classroom management:
refers to the wide variety of skills and techniques that teachers use to keep
students organized, orderly, focused, attentive, on task, and academically
productive during a class. When classroom-management strategies are
executed effectively, teachers minimize the behaviors that impede learning
for both individual students and groups of students, while maximizing the
behaviors that facilitate or enhance learning
Techniques to manage effectively a class:
Focused attention
Direct instruction
Monitor students work and behavior
Model activities and values
Use non-verbal cuing
Establish a comfortable environment
Use low profile interventions
Use assertive discipline
Use positive discipline
Have clear and visible rules

REFLECT
It has been always the hardest part of being a teacher to me.
Sometimes is hard to maintain the order especially with kids.
There is always the temptation to lose the temper and shout: SIT DOWN

NOW! Or something similar. I had Young learners and they are moving all
the time and is extremely difficult to manage kids after a birthday party
when they had cake, coke and candies for example.
I will try next year some of the techniques learned in this workshop and try
to rearrange the sitting in my classroom.
I don`t have any problem on Saturday but I got some great ideas in how to
rearrange the sitting to create new activities.

Teaching Children
Alejandra Araujo and Rocio Estrada
SUMMARY
According to Piaget`s theories, the children are developed though stages.

The stages of development of the children are:

Sensory-motor (0-2 years old)
Preoperational stage (2-7 years old)
Concrete operational stage (7-11 years old)
Formal operational stage (11- adulthood)
Kids attention spam:
3, 4 and 5= age+1 minute
6-7=8 minutes
Teenagers and adults: 13 to 15 minutes
REVIEW
Sensory motor stage: Is a developing stage were kids main goal is
the learning of permanence principle.
Preoperational stage: Is a stage of cognitive development that occurs
between 2 and 7 years old, were kids are egocentric and its main
goal is to represent real world in images.
Concrete operational stage: Is a cognitive developmental stage that
occurs between 7 and 11 years old were children are more open to
others ideas and points of view but still being attached to concrete
experiences. The main goal of this stage is learn the conservation
and reversibility principle.
Formal operation stage: Is a stage that starts at 11 years old to
adulthood. This stage is characterized for the development of
abstract thinking.
Activities for kids:
Songs
Kinesthetic games
Repetitions
Work with flashcards
Use pencil
Give them something to care about
Dramas
Working outdoors
Projects
Reasoning according to age
competitions
REFLECT
I have been working with children during all this year. It has been a
challenge because after years without teaching, I got very young learners
(from 3 to 7). It was difficult to face because a lot of activities have been
developed, but I was too afraid to try them because I was afraid of losing
the control over the group.
With this two workshops I got extremely good ideas in how to work with my
kids and control the order as well.

It is important to remember that the children require to be moving around

and playing to learn. As teachers we tend to forget that. As well, in the
schools in certain way demand us to have our classes in perfect order, and
to have our kids sited down all day long, but impossible with children.
I didn`t know about the attention spam, I knew it was short, but I wasn`t
sure how short it is actually. This is an important key I will take into
consideration planning my future activities to avoid distraction with my
kids.
As well, I learned the best way to address their learning is through
interaction with the language. I don`t explain grammar rules, but now I
have better ideas in how a game can influence their learning, and mostly
tactile and kinesthetic games.
I enjoyed both workshops and I ended with a lot of funny ideas I will
implement in my classroom, a lot of new activities will help all my children
to learn and communicate in EL and become with time more fluent.

Teaching Teens
Mandy Zapet
SUMMARY
For being able to teach teens we need to take into consideration:
The physical changes and development
Hormonal changes
Body changes
Sexual awareness
Social characteristics
Want to make personal choice
Need acceptance
Test limits
Emotional changes
Learning how to express feelings and emotions as adults
Misread facial expressions
Self-consciousness
Sleep patterns
Needs around 8-9 hours sleep
Sleep patterns are irregular.
All this changes can affect teenagers in their daily performance and mood.
It is not easy to be a teenager.
Teens

needs in classroom:
Variety and meaningful activities
Discipline to know their limits
Kinesthetic activities
Encourage them to take decisions
Clear classroom management
Cooperative learning should be taken into account
Remove distracting material

REVIEW
Adolescence: a period of time following the puberty during one
person changes from child to young adult
Seating arrangement: The students should be facing the teacher and
board away from windows and distracters.
REFLECT
I have a class with teens at IGA zone 11. Sometimes I have that lazy
student that is sleeping all the class, or we have that teen who is always
with the cell phone on his or her hand during all the class.
Sometimes we just forgot how difficult is being a teenager, how challenging
is becoming a young adult and all the physical changes we have gone
through.
This workshop helped me to remember how I felt 15 and 10 years ago,

when I was a teenager, all the changes and all the feelings I got. After this I
will get more empathy with my kids and remember how to act in different
situations with them.
I will include more kinesthetic activities to avoid some of them get bored or
sleepy during the sessions and will include as well more technology into my
classroom.
Now I have some tools and more enjoyable activities to work with them and
as well joined with some NTC workshops I have better ideas to improve
participation and meaningful learning with them.
I just hate English in common books because are not meaningful for
teenagers but after this workshop I just realized It is only matter of being
creative and know your students to have effective lessons.

Assessment
Gaby Gordillo
SUMMARY
In the classroom there are three ways to check for the accomplishment of
objectives:
Assessment
Testing
Evaluation
Types

of assessment:
Formal and informal
Formative and summative
Criterion and norm-referenced
Traditional and alternative assessment

Assessments are the way to know if the objectives or learning settled up

were actually met.
Assessing our students can as well affect them in positive or negative ways
according to the assessing and the attitude we have to it.
An effective assessment work best according to the workshop when
includes:
Provides diagnostic feedback
Helps educator to set standars
Evaluates progress
Relates to students real life knowledge
REVIEW
Assessment is a process of identifying learning goals and
determining how well students are meeting them. It is ongoing, a
process of monitoring learning and teaching.
Testing is one type of assessment that formally measures learners
English language performance, it can measure knowledge.
Evaluation involves the use of test scores or assessments for some
kind of decision making. It often involves the gathering of
information to determine the extent to which a language program
meets its goals.
Formal assessment: Are the systematic ways to assess students,
usually giving a grade is involved.
Informal assessment: Is the daily checkout of students knowledge.

Formative assessment: Is the daily assessment given to our

students and occurs during learning and teaching process.
Summative assessment: This kind of assessment summarizes the
knowledge the student has, and is formal in its nature.

REFLECT
Sometimes we just tend to forget how assessing and testing is completely
different.
I have the same feeling that Marielos expressed on the workshop that
actually our oral assessments are tests.
What I have been doing and will continue doing is not letting my students
know I am evaluating them. What I actually do all the time is that I give the
dates of oral assessments the first day of classes and then, I plan an
activity to evaluate them. I don`t tell my students they are being
evaluated, I let them speak, I listen to everybody talking, and then I give
out grades of the oral assessment. With this kind of activity, I avoid the
anxiety of being observed and that all the words they say are taken into
consideration to give out a grade.
I learned as well how important is the alternative assessment in the modern
classroom. Sometimes we just want to get all the score of our students
from testing and it is proven that it doesn`t work in that way. I will assign
more projects and portfolios at school and investigate other ways
assessment can take place to avoid them to focus only on the test and
failing for personal reasons.
It is difficult to work with the standardize tests as IGA, specially at school
were the exams are given to you 5 minutes before test, but It is the way
that it is so I will continue doing my best to prepare my students not only
for the exam but for life.