What can I say . . .

Hi guys,

Close to midnight and I think almost everybody has sent their assignments on time. Congratulations for a great job done and THANK YOU.

Good luck colleagues.

Feedback time!

Hi everybody,

It is time for you guys to give me some feedback so I can improve the contents and activities we worked on Module 3. I want to say I had a great time working with you and I am sure we will see each other around.

Please take a minute to post responding to some (or all) of the statements below:

1. Something I learned in this module

2. Something I will apply in my present/future teaching situation

3. Something I would have liked to learn more about

Da rubric!

I can't wait to see your presentations tonight and get all of your ideas together. Here is the rubric we will use for this activity.

You guys rock!

Looking for the "perfect" book

I'm attaching the summary of ideas of the elements a good EFL textbook should have. Keep in mind all of this depends on the context, level and kind of students you have.

Take care!

Syllabus design

Hi guys,

Here is the summary of the four concepts kept in mind when designing a syllabus. See you in class!

LEARNABILITY

This concept explains that some structural or lexical items are easier for students to learn than others.

Based on this concept we teach easier things first and then increase the level of difficulty as students’ language level rises.

This concept might tell us that, at beginner levels, it is better to teach uses of was and were immediately after teaching uses of is and are, rather than follow is and are with the third conditional.

FREQUENCY

This concept tells us that it would make sense, especially at beginning levels, to include items which are more common in the language, than ones that are only used occasionally by native speakers.

Thanks to this concept we are in a position to say with some authority, for example, that SEE is used more often than UNDERSTAND, than it is to denote vision (e.g. Oh, I see). It might make sense, therefore, to teach that meaning of SEE first.

COVERAGE

 This concept explains that some words and structures have greater scope for use than others.

We might decide, on the basis of this concept, to introduce GOING TO future before the present continuous with the future reference, if we could show that GOING TO could be used in more situations than the present continuous.

  

USEFULNESS

 This concept explains the reason that words like BOOK and PEN figure so highly in classrooms (even though they might not be that frequent in real language use) is because they are words normally used in that situation.

This concept helps understand that words for family members occur early on in a student’s learning life because of the context of what students are linguistically able to talk about.

Reasons to use supplementary material

Some teachers tend to think that adding supplementary materials can create chaos and mess during the class. But that is not true. Reasons that this kind of material actually provides variety and improves creativity of teachers as well as students are:

* to provide extra practice in grammar, vocabulary and 

   pronunciation.

* to provide extra practice in skills work.

* to add variety in lessons.

* to replace materials in the textbook that the teacher thinks is 

   unsuitable.

* to add something that seems to be missing from the textbook.

* to include more authentic material in lessons.

Read again pages 177 to 180 of chapter 11 in our textbook and describe briefly an activity you could do with realia, pictures or cards to support one of the reasons stated above.

P.S. This our last forum! I'm missing you already.

Web based activities

Hi everybody,

I see some of you might have still questions about the web based activity you are to share with your classmates for the second grade of the module. Here is a list of the steps and the link to access the samples I showed you the other day in class. Have a blast!

1. Select a non-educational web site.

2. Create a lesson using that web site.

3. Write a lesson plan for the class. (Keep in mind the elements and approaches we talked about as well as the instructional objectives material)

4. Talk briefly about the web page and the activity in class. (Wednesday March 11)

5. Send the lesson plan by mail. (Deadline: Thursday March 12) I know you are to start the next module that day but I am so nice that I am giving you an extra day. Isn't your teacher the best?

Samples: http://www.slideshare.net/willys007/tefl-web-based-activities-45616217