STORYTELLING FOR CHILDREN

JOLLY JENNY

It's March and a baby giraffe is born.This baby giraffe is different. The baby girrafe has a blue tongue, purple hair and green eyes.

Father Giraffe says, "Giraffes don't have purple hair. Everybody will laugh at her. They will say she's ugly".

Look at her spots! Her spots are all different colors!" says Mother Giraffe.

"Oh, no!" says Father Girrafe. "Everybody will make fun of her. "Don't worry", says Mother Giraffe, I think she is beautiful just the way she is. I'm going to call her Jenny".

Every time Jenny goes out, the other girrafes laugh at her. "Look! That's Jenny. Ha , ha, ha.

She's different", says Jackie Giraffe. "Giraffes don't have green eyes. They have big, beautiful brown eyes like us".

But then Jesie Giraffe says, I know Jenny is different, but she's smart and she's funny. She's my best friend".

So the other giraffes ask Jenny to play.

Now they play together every day. Everybody loves her and calls her Jolly Jenny. Now the giraffes know that it doesn't matter how you look on the outside. It's what's on the inside that counts.

CROSS CURRICULUM APPROACH

English can be used to reinforce conceptual development. For example: color, sixes, etc. Furthermore, the reinforcement of concepts between different areas of the curriculum helps children to learn how to learn.

Also, language learning linked to the primary curriculum can be used to develop other subjects, sucha as mathematics, science, geography, art and drama.

In conclusion, the prymary curriculum can provide more meaninful environment.

NEUROLINGUISTIC PROGRAMMING

NPL is not a language teaching method. It does not consist of a set of techniques for teaching a language based on the theories and assumptions at the levels of an approach and a design. Rather, it is a humanistic philosophy and a set of beliefs and suggestions based on a popular phycology, designed to convince people that they have the power and to control their own and other's people's lives for the better, and parctical prescriptions on how to do so.

In language teaching NPL offers a set of humanistic principles that provide either a new justification for well-known techniques from the communicative or humanistic repertoire.

THE POST METHODS ERA FOR TEACHING ENGLISH

Methods as yhe teaching profession responds to the findings of the new research and to developments in educational theory and parctice.
There are some of the factors that have influenced language teaching trends in the past and that can be expected to continue to do in the future:

*Government policy directives: governments have driven educational changes on a fairly regular basis for decades and are likely to continue to do in the future.

*Responses to technology: technology innovations is likely to capture the imagination of the teaching profession in the future .

*Influences from academic disciplines: linguistics, psycholinguistics, and psycology have an impact on the theories of language and language learning and support particular approaches to language teaching.

*Research influences: second language teaching and learning is increasingly a field for intensive research and theorizing.

*Learned-based innovations: learner strategies, multiple intelligences.


Despite changes in the status of approches and methods, we can therefore expect the field of second teaching in the twenty century to be no less a ferment of theories, ideas, and practices than it has been in the past.

The lexical approach

The lexical approach es in language teaching reflect a belief in the centrality of the lexicon to language learning , and language use, and in a particular to multiword lexical units that are learned and used in single items.
In conclusion, lexical approches in language teaching seek to develop proposals for syllabus design and language teaching founded on a view of language in which lexis plays the central role.

AUDITION

Human brains decode the complex sounds of speech

A composite sound such as a vowel sound in human speech usually has three dominant frequency components. The movement of the eardrum and ear bones receiving such a sound is very complex, but when the sound reaches the basilar membrane, the frequency components are sorted out. Each of the frequency components sets off a separate travelling wave and each wave produces its peak at the position on the membrane that responds best to that frequency. Next, the hair cells on the membrane at each peak send signals indicating to higher centers that a certain frequency of sound has been detected.
What happens when signals from language sounds are sent to higher centers? So far, this has not been an easy question to answer. When researchers try to find which cortical centers and cells are involved in neurological functions, they often inject tracer materials into animal brains, perform experiments, and then dissect the brain to find out what areas were affected. Language processing has been difficult to study because it is a uniquely human trait and such experiments cannot be done on people. Studies of sonar and echolocation in bats have provided many insights into the processing of complex sounds.
Another way scientists find out about brain areas used in language is to study people with language problems. They then either study those patients' brains after natural death, or before death with techniques such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), which allows them to see the damaged areas and hypothesize about the functions of those areas.
Researchers are now also using positron emission tomography (PET) to study brain function during language processing in normal individuals. PET is a non-invasive procedure that shows local changes in blood flow and metabolism that occur when the brain is working-in this case, working to interpret spoken language. Through studies such as these, scientists have discovered many brain subdivisions for processing different aspects of language. The area for comprehending spoken language, for example, contains separate areas for decoding the meaning of words and for understanding the relationship of words in a sentence. These studies are opening new windows on how we decode language.

Reference

http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/hearing.html

Neuroscience

Neuroscience is a relatively new discipline encompassing neurology, psychology and biology. It has made great strides in the last 100 years, during which many aspects of the physiology,biochemistry, pharmacology and structure of the vertebrate brain have been understood. Understanding of some of the basic perceptual, cognitive, attentional, emotional and mnemonic functions is also making progress, particularly since the advent of the cognitive neurosciences, which focus specifically on understanding higher level processes of cognition via imaging technology. Neuroimaging has enabled scientists to study the human brain at work in vivo, deepening our understanding of the very complex processes underpinning speech and language, thinking and reasoning, reading and mathematics. It seems timely, therefore, to consider how we might implement our increased understanding of brain development and brain function to explore educational questions.

STORYTELLING!

Storytelling has all the benefits of read aloud. It improves language skills such as vocabulary, prediction, sequencing, comprehension, story structure and recall. These skills will also help children become better writers. Just as is the case with read-aloud, children who engage in the activity learn about history and culture, develop emotionally and have better self-esteem. Storytelling stimulates imagination, also storytelling creates a love of story that translates into a potentially life-long love of books the same way read-aloud does.

The difference between read aloud and storytelling (or story re-telling, as is the case here, since we are working from children's trade literature and less from original work or family history) is that the act of storytelling is always active and inventive. The child needs to synthesize all sorts of cognitive operations (brain stuff) with gross motor skills (body stuff) and emotional interpretations (feeling stuff) to execute this performance, and because of this synthesis, every performance is unique to the teller. The other difference is the connection with the audience. The eye contact alone makes storytelling a different animal than read-aloud. When you try it, you'll see.

Bibliography: http://www.planetesme.com/storytelling.html

TEACHING ENGLISH IN THE CONTENT AREAS

Many teachers struggle with the problem of how to teach the contents areas to students whose English is limited. Should science and social studies wait until students are more fluent and can read the text?
No waiting is needed. For example in science students can learn with demonstrations, hands-on activities and experiments. In other hand, social studies teacher should use pictures, movies, filmstrips and video presentations.
But for limited- English students, teacher must include sufficient repetition for listening comprehension and ask frequent yes/no question to get feedback about vocabulary. Furthermore, teachers should allow time for students to learn the language needed to talk about activities.

1.1 SCIENCE ACTIVITIES

Teacher should use and discover different methods of science in order to keeps student motivation high and supplies the context for insights both into the natural world and into language.
The content of the elementary school science curriculum is generally tangible and concrete: our bodies, senses, the weather, living things, rocks, local land formations, the sky, simple instruments and machines.
Finally, your sense of wonder and participation in discovery will enhance the lessons. All good science lessons should answer some question and raise others, some open-ended[1].

1.2 SOCIAL STUDIES ACTIVITIES

For teach social studies teachers should reinforce vocabulary and use different resources as PowerPoint presentations or overhead transparencies, also is important to Use a variety of text, video, and taped material of varying degrees of difficulty[2].
Furthermore, in social studies teachers should Offer several options for projects so that each student can express his or her understanding in individual ways.

In order to make a motivate class social studies teachers should bring to class pictures, posters, or teacher- or student-created posters around the room , art prints .

Social studies teacher should coordinates time, space, materials for helps the class achieve their group and individual goals.

Social studies teacher must coordinates time, space, materials, and activities for helps the class achieve their group and individual goals.

[1] ELS TEACHER’S ACTIVITIES KIT.
[2] En línea: http://teachingtoday.glencoe.com/

USING TECHNOLOGY TO MOTIVATE

"Getting that sort of education in a world which will increasingly rely on computers is the real challenge for any education system, and it's reassuring to see that the issue is at least on the agenda already"

Bill Thompson

Technology is an ever-increasing part of the English language classroom. Today's teachers are developing new and exciting means of integrating language, writing, and literature with innovative technologies. So Teachers can use multimedia technology to give more colorful, stimulating lectures. Both of these have their place, but such use does not begin to tap the power of these new tools.

We can say that the technology in teaching a language can be useful for you because you can stimulate and develop writing , grammar, listening skills. Also, schoolstudents learn best when they are actively engaged with the content. When students participate in hands-on, inquiry-based learning, they develop lasting skills that often translate into higher levels of student achievement. Lessons that include technology applications provide teachers with ways to motivate students into becoming active, real-world learners.

Furthermore, Computer-based strategies help students develop higher-order thinking and problem-solving skills. Participation in real-life applications included in technology-rich teaching environments promotes the ability to draw analogies, infer relationships, predict outcomes, and analyze data.

In conclusion, Technology in teaching mean LEARNING BY DOING. As students are busy manipulating data and learning by doing, involvement in their own learning increases, along with their enthusiasm. Students are no longer passive recipients of knowledge; they become active participants in the learning process. The learning environment is positively affected by the use of technology-based instructional strategies.


Bibliography: http://www.newhorizons.org/strategies/technology/front_tech.htm

http://teachingtoday.glencoe.com/howtoarticles/using-technology-to-motivate-middle-school- students



Critical Question

How can technology help you personalize learning language?

MY ROLES AS A TEACHER

In the calssroom teachers may change from one activity to another. We can say that teachers has different performance styles depending on the situation.

In he section below I am going to indicate all teacher roles:

*Controller: when teachers give explations to students, when tecaher is leading a question and answer session and when teachers are controlling the discipline in the classroom.

*Organizer: this is one of the most important roles because all the time techers are organising activities to do with their students and this often involves given students information and telling them how are they going to do the activity (put them into pairs or groups )and closing the activities.

*Assesor: when teacher offer feedback and grade students.

*Prompter: the techers prompter give suggestions to students when they are doing a role play or a different active activities.

*Participant: when tecahers take part in students tasks. For example: tecaher are part of a student`s group.

*Tutor: teachers are tutors when they work with individual or small groups giving them preparation, feedback for pointing them in directions.

*Observer: we will want to observe what students do, so in that way we can give them useful feedback. So teachers need to be able to work and oberve simultaneous our students.


Bibliography: HARMER, Jeremy.The practice of english language teaching. Longman.


But...WHICH ROLE I SHOULD PLAY IN THE CLASSROOM ?

I think teachers play different roles depending of the situations and the student's needs.
In occasions I am a contoller teacher, sometimes I am participant of my students extra curricular activities and always I am an observer teacher because I need to know how my students are working in my classes in order to give them a good feedback.

What is an english teacher?

English teachers are like gardeners, "they plant the seeds and then they watch and help them to grow. Also, english teachers not only teach grammar, vocabulary words and phonetics, furthermore they are mediators, tutors, investigators and reflectives.

In conclusion, Teachers are like actors they play different roles in the classroom

ELT TEACHERS JARGON

The ELT TEACHERS JARGON is like a dictionary that has the technical vocabulary. This vocabulary is important for a professional teacher because haas the basic worlds teacher should know about pedagogy and didacticas in language teaching.

The most useful words in my role as an english teacher are:


*COGNATE: a word in a second language is very similar (in spelling, meaning,..)to the equivalent word in the other language.

*EMERGENCY ACTIVITIES: Activities (always ready to develop) that can be developed if we have time left over, at the end of a session, or if an activity doesn't work quite well.

*FALSE COGNATE: A word in a second language that is quite colse to its equivalent in the mother language but only in terms of its spelling, not in meaning.

*FLUENCY: The use of the language freely to express our own ideas.

* HANDOUT: Material to be distributed among the puplis.

*OUT-OF-CLASS ACTIVITIES: Activities that are done outside the class (clubs, libraries)

*OUT OF CLASS LEARNING: The learning hat is produced not inside the class but outdoors (tv, internet, radio).

*REALIA: Any kind of material from english-speaking country we can bring to class. For example: Photos, posters, books, souvenirs, postcards, flashcards.

*SILENT WAY: It's the method to tecah languages; here the teacher doesn't speak and uses colours to explain.

*WARM UP: An activity you do at the beginning of the class.

*WORKSHEET: A piece of paper you make an activity on.

Bibliography: http://www.ub.edu/homeub/en/welcome.html

WHICH WORDS DO YOU OFTEN USE IN YOUR CLASSES?