Reflection about identifying our approaches to language learning technologies improving professional development

Reflection about identifying our approaches to language learning technologies improving professional development

The text helps us to face our fears when we think about technology in our classroom, it provides us a framework referring about technological tools and explaining how we can choose a suitable tool for the students, how teachers can enhance the autonomous learning of the students when they have the freedom of choosing their own tools, it mentions 3 positions which have different perspective (the determinist position, instrumental position, and the critical position.)  about the effectiveness of the learning of the students regarding their environment, results, among other factors in the students.

Moreover, the text left us a reminder that this challenge is not from this years and it started at least 20 years or more before. The text encourages us to not see the technology with fear and we as teachers adapt us to the technology with the methodologies that have been developed through the years. This text is an important fundament of our classes latest classes in the university

Antipoetry class

Poems

Signs

In case of fire
Do not use elevators
Use stairways
unless otherwise instructed

No smoking
No littering
No shitting
No radio playing
unless otherwise instructed
Please Flush Toilet
After Each Use
Except When Train
Is Standing At Station
Be thoughtful
Of The Next Passenger
Onward Christian Soldiers
Workers of the World unite
We have nothing to loose [sic]
but our life Glory to the Father
& to the Son & to the Holy Ghost
unless otherwise instructed
By the way
We also hold these truths to be
self evident
That all man [sic] are created
That they have been endowed
by their creator
With certain inalienable rights
That among these are: Life
Liberty & the pursuit of happiness
& last but not least
that 2 + 2 makes 4
unless otherwise instructed.
Nicanor Parra.                                                  translated by Miller Williams 

The last toast

Whether we like it or not,
We have only three choices:
Yesterday, today and tomorrow.

And not even three
Because as the philosopher says
Yesterday is yesterday
It belongs to us only in memory:
From the rose already plucked
No more petals can be drawn.

The cards to play
Are only two:
The present and the future.

And there aren't even two
Because it's a known fact
The present doesn't exist
Except as it edges past
And is consumed...,
like youth.

In the end
We are only left with tomorrow.
I raise my glass
To the day that never arrives.

But that is all
we have at our disposal.

Reflection

Workshop’s reflection “Creating an app”.

The workshop was a great experience as my first experience creating an app for a cellphone. When I came to the classroom and saw that just a child was teaching how to arrange the settings of an app that we were going to create, I felt astonished because he wasn’t only saying what we had to do, he was so confident, and he felt so sure about what we had to do that he could help us without shame, fear or something similar. Then, when his older classmate appeared and explain us how apply these changes in the settings of the app creator the cellphone became a useful tool to enhance the learning process of the studehmts'. However, according to the use of this app creator I think that this is a great opportunity to create apps that enhance the learning of our students. Although it is a great challenge that requires time and preparation, it may produce a huge difference in terms of the learning process of the students and we can even teach how to create apps to our own students, so maybe in this way the students will be able to apply their knowledge and this took would be very helpful in the classrooms of nowadays.

Lesson plan! Countries, cultures and customs

Activity 1  Unit 2: Countries, cultures and customs.  

Grade: 8th. 

Age Range / class: 13 – 14 years old. English level: Medium.  Skill to be developed: Listening, speaking, reading, writing. Objectives:  - The students will analyze 6 murals that in different parts of the worlds.  - The students will support their ideas about their interpretations. - The students will discuss the cultural value of these murals. 

 Overview: The students will discuss about different aspects of cultures through muralism in different countries. Previous knowledge: Present Simple and adjectives 

Materials: Data, notebook, and speakers.  Introduction: The teacher will greet the students, then the teacher will ask if the students have travelled to another country, if they know about its culture, and if they know people from other cultures. After these questions the teacher will present the new content. 

Development: The teacher will present 6 murals with a data, then he will ask if they like the murals, what they feel and if they have questions about the murals (10min). Then, the teacher will ask to the students to make groups of 3 and write arguments about the mural that they have chosen, then give an interpretation to the other murals and answer 2 question if all the murals can be accepted as culture and if they consider murals as art (10min). Then, the students will make a circle an expose orally to the students what they have written about the different murals and meanings, and they previous questions.  (10min) 

Closing: Finally, the students will say comments about the exposure (tone/rhythm/fluency, etc.) and the teacher will end the activity with a brief summary of each group in a collaborative way (asking the students) and what they’ve seen so far in the class.    

Murals