A comment about Didactics

The trade of education is something great, and the satisfaction of being a teacher I consider is amazing. However, becoming a good teacher requires constant practice and an appropriate guidance.

I felt unconfident to accept a job because someone told me that it was crucial that I took Didactics, which made me muse such as case. I don’t know the teachers goals toward us as student, and I wouldn’t like to be misunderstood, so I just want to provide my point of view about the presentations.

I really need a guidance to carry out an activity in the classroom if I will be evaluated as a teacher who must deal with students, materials and time, because I have never done it before, whereas other students may have experience at teaching. Yet, they also need it. I personally commented this to the teacher, and it worries me because my grades have been low. I understand that there are aspects that the teacher can’t change, for example our personality or style while teaching, but there must be basic tips that we must know, and then, after a bit of theory, we will be quite ready to perform upon them as beginners.

class activities

The last activities my classmates presented.

All of my classmates who acted as teachers last class, did it well, despite this was the first activity they carry out as teachers. They were very precise since they went to the point, even when the activities seemed quite simple but adequate. Enrique led his activities appropriately to a lower level, and that’s how children would learn in an active way. Through repetition is haw knowledge get to stick in our brain, so children and even adult, need of this so that they can acquire new information and the right way to pronounce, in the case of learning a language.

Luis did it very well, his expertise which he speaks English, helps him to have a nice and entertaining development of his class. That kind of funny material helps to keep students attention. I have seen Luis performance many times and I think he is a good teacher; he says right things.

Xavier did it great and was very precise; he used the time properly. His activities were very entertaining and meaningful. He knew how to adequate his activities according the characteristics of Content Based Approach, as everyone has done it.

HELLO PEOPLE!
We have already developed three more activities that belong to three different methods.
I was the first one, and as my method dwells on the usage of reading texts to work on the remaining skills, I chose that activities, which I noticed that were not as amusing as the other ones. As my method involves reading activities as a base to develop the rest of skills, the activities I presented were aimed for higher levels.

Rosa Elida is very talented when developing her activities, and as her method requires, she brought very dynamic activities to the classroom. Beginners or children would learn properly in that way because children love moving their bodies, and teachers must take advantage of that, in order to teach new contents or knowledge. I know two little children who like to sing and dance, and they have learned the month days through songs as they dance, so I say those activities would do the trick with children.

Ana and Lily were very creative because they brought colorful pictures to make the class motivating. As Rose, Ana presented an activity to teach in low levels, and showing pictures of what we want them to learn is a very effective way to teach content to children because they need to see things to hold the attention. Lily developed a nice activity, which is roll play, in which students improve the speaking skills. I pretty like those activities because are very funny.

Hello people!
I would like to comment about the first three activities that my classmates, Guadalupe, Claudia, Alexander and Vanessa presented. I liked them all; they were very creative when developing the activities.
Lupita is a very talented girl; she did it very nice. She managed well with the debated topic. We all like to talk about any topic when we are working in groups since we get to know how our classmates think, and also because just practice our speaking abilities.
Claudia’s activities aimed beginners, and I consider that her activities are effectives for learning a foreign language because that procedure keeps students attention, and it is a very meaningful way to teach low level students.
Alex presented activities that help students to know grammatical structures, which is important so that they can set the basis of the target language. From there forth, the learning process will rest on the basis they have acquired.
Jimenez developed very creative and dynamic activities with us. She tried to emphasize on our skills of memorizing, which is crucial when someone has to learn a language. She told me that I am good at guessing things because I guessed the letter she was going to work with, but in fact, I already knew it; then what I exercised was my memory because she told me that, three days ago.
Particularly, I consider that all of them have been cut for being teachers.

HI PEOPLE, WHAT IS GOING ON?
I would like to comment a little bit about the last methods that three of my classmates presented.
THE CONTENT BASED INSTRUCTION is one of the approaches they presented, which has very wonderful characteristics, and I consider as a very integral way to teach students to acquire a foreign language.
This approach focus stands on teaching a foreign language by teaching contents detached from the mere purpose of learning a new language. Somehow this fact leads the students through a multi-disciplinary learning; however it would result in a lack of care to the primary objective of learning a new language.
In this approach, students develop each skill as it is needed for learning a foreign language.
We all know how important motivations is so that the learning process can be effective, so this approach seems to take into account this important aspect because it regards about the kind of content the students are going to deal with. It also matters about the needs of each student, so that the students learning can be even.
As the theory mentions, all the skills are rehearsed in this method, and that makes it essential, but students could find some loopholes in here because as the activities are not just focused on learning a language, the students might disregard the main objective of the approach.

COMMUNITY LEARNIG LANGUAGE particularly floors me, due to the dynamism in which English seems to be taught. I have analyzed such as method, and I consider I would learn easily when applied this method because I have discovered that I learn comfortably in a communicative environment. I remember the way I learned vocabulary in Basic English was similar to the active way this method describes.
I remember when I asked my classmates for explanation of unknown words, and what I won’t forget how Luis (the one who jokes with teacher Aida) used to answer my doubts in a gentle way, so I thank him.
This method seems very democratic; by the way, we have talked just about democratic methods, which I think is essential at learning because students need a very comfortable environment to learn properly. As students can choose the topics to discus in the talking activities, everyone will show interest to speak as a community.
There are important characteristics this method has; the teacher is able to translate, and this is also important when studying in low levels.
If students are permitted to think about what issue they will talk when having talking activities, they might lose time while choosing the topic, or they might not find an appropriate one.

NATURAL APPROACH

Hi people!
You have already noticed that there are methods that share certain characteristics, and I have found three of them that are similar. The natural approach, the audio lingual method and the situational language teaching are the ones that share the principle that language is learned for communicative purposes. The words natural approach leads me to think about the natural way in which we all have learned a language (Spanish). We learn from our parents, friends and different people, without noticing it. The natural approach concerns about rehearsing listening skills which is fundamental because we learn by listening, we need to develop it so that we can communicate with the others.

One of the points I consider is a disadvantage is that the students are not forced to speak English from the beginning; however, I consider that it must be the contrary because students should get involved with the language since the very beginning.

THE SITUATIONAL LANGUAGE TEACHING

Hello friends, how is it going?
The situational language teaching has similarities with previous seen methods such as the audio lingual method; these methods hold that the learning is a habit formation; that is to say, that students will learn and will develop their abilities through the process. I consider this is an effective theory that would do the trick on beginners or scholar systems because when teaching an academic learning, students must be taught the integral knowledge by rehearsing their skills and not by waiting they learn the target language through a habit that might be belated or the student doesn’t acquire as it is expected.

It says students should avoid mistakes, which is important and drags students into an investigative learning in order to avoid errors. This approach makes emphasis on speaking abilities which is similar to audio lingual method, so it concerns about students who speak skillfully.

because Anita comented about my METHOD

WELL Anita, I understand your poit of view about whole language, but I consider that it is very helpful if you start reading since the biggining BECOUSE I think students get involved with the language while reading.
to read since the biginning means to learn new vocabulary and improve your fluency and your knowledge about THE TARGET LANGUAGE.
TO read since the biginning does not mean that it must be a 200 pages book, but a short and meanful reading. HOWEVER, I RESPECT YOUR POIT. THIS IS MY POINT.

SECOND PRESENTATIONS

· Hi people! How are you all?
We have studied three more methods of which I presented one. Now I will to express my opinion about them in a general way.
The certainly called smartest girl, Vanessa, talked about THE AUDIO-LINGUAL METHOD, which remains me my brothers’ English learning.
They live in the US and they have had to learn to speak such as language because of the need of communicating with their co-workers.
This methods purpose is to teach its learners to communicate, so it doesn’t care too much about grammar rules. Even though Vane mentioned that one of the objectives is accurate pronunciation and grammar, I am sure that it refers to the grammatical order in which people talk without knowing that it is grammar. For example, people who have never gone to school indeed know how to speak in a grammatical structure but they are not able to explain such as structure.
This method has a principle that I like; it holds that a language is acquired through repetition, which is true. On the contrary, THE TOTAL PHISICAL RESPONSE suggests that students have to be firstly ready to be able to speak. I think that during the learning process, students have to practice since the beginning because as students they will never be ready without practice. To learn and teach a language is used analogy because teachers have to explain issues through analogy and students memorize or store the new language by associations and analogy; that is another principle that THE AUDIO-LINGUAL METHOD holds, and I am in agreement with this.
TOTAL PHISICAL RESPONSE is a method that I would apply if had to teach to kids because they are willing to play any kind of games. It could be applied to young people but we have to omit some activities in order to adapt it to the age of the learners. Taking into account that there are students with different behaviors, a fun class would be not fun for another student that doesn’t like to play games with his classmates.
This method is similar to WHOLE LANGUAGE since it emphasizes in readings and as the center of the learning so that the remaining skills will be developed beginning from readings. This doesn’t mean that the system is going to disregard or that we will consider not important the remaining skills. What I have discovered is that as whole language says, we develop several skills through readings. People, who read a lot, are very silver-tongued and they view things differently. I am sure that reading edifies our personality.

· What’s going on people!
After the first three teaching methods we have studied in class, I would like to make some comments about them. I know that all the methods have been developed to make the teaching process easier, but as everything, they have their advantages and their disadvantages.

THE DIRECT METHOD:
This seems a very effective method because its characteristics show that it insists on the mere learning of the target language. It drags students into readings since the beginning of the process, and I really believe that students can develop different skills though reading. However, students have to develop the ability of thinking in the target language because it is not allowed to translate into the native language. This is crucial to learn a language, although I think we have to translate every word when we are beginners so that we can get involved with the language and get familiar with vocabulary, and then we will be able to carry out the task of not translating.
It says that grammar is taught inductively, so I think that the students will remain with some deficiencies at the end since grammar is crucial in foreign language learning.
I quite like this method because I agree with the statement of the principle that says that vocabulary is acquired more naturally if students use it in full sentences rather than memorizing word lists on account of that I think I have learned a considerable amount of vocabulary, but I can’t use it as I’m talking, as the Cream of the Crop (Vanessa) said.

THE SILENT WAY METHOD:
Teachers usually insist on the background or what the students already know to start the course, and that is what this method does. However is a very passive method in which student could not learn as it is hoped. Learning a new language implies to repeat to get accustom to the usage of the language, but a principle of this method says that a foreign language is not learned by repeating after a model, which could do the trick not in the process of learning a new language.
As I am a student, I consider that the silence of a teacher would not encourage me to cooperate; on the contrary, I would lose my will to be in the classroom. However, this method holds that students could be affected positively by this.

SUGGESTOPEDIA METHOD:
This is a very dynamic method; I had heard about this before when I read a book and it seemed very interesting to me.
Almost all pedagogues are in agreement that students have to be relaxed and comfortable so that their education can be effective. When the environment in which education is carried out, the attention and the students’ attitude improves. I like the principle of this method that says that students have to rely on the power of their brain because we rarely get to know how big our capacities can be, and that our brain is an amazing system.
I would rather study through this method than the previous two. I really like to learn through musical activities and like to sing. I like to play games, although I can adapt myself to learn in any system, but I am that one who like classical music and dynamic activities and democratic learning, so I really like this method because it works in that way.