UNIT 10 - EXPOSURE AND FOCUS ON FORM

UNIT 10 – EXPOSURE AND FOCUS ON FORM

What exposure and focus on the form means? First, it is necessary to define what is exposure and what is form in language acquisition. British Council (2019) suggests that exposure refers to the student's contact with the language, people pick up the language automatically.  Aarts (2015), explains that form refers to the structure people use to build grammar blocks.

Exposure is one way to learn a foreign language. People can acquire a new language by hearing or reading while the language is being learned unconsciously. This process is known as the silent period. Bligh (2012) says that the silent period refers to a specific moment when a person acquires a language unconsciously by listening or reading. However, exposure is not enough to learn the target language; it is necessary to focus on the form of a foreign language. The form focus on vocabulary, pronunciation, and grammar. Interaction is also needed to learn a language.  In addition, to learn a new language, it needs to have a lot of exposure and be surrounded by the language to acquire it. It is important to use the language to communicate with others and notice if they understand the message to have an effective interaction. To pay attention to the meaning of language and the features of it is important to pick up the foreign language.

As conclusion, I could learn that exposure is being in contact with the language you are learning and form is the structure people use for building grammar. Something interesting is that exposure is not enough to acquire a language because it is necessary to focus on the form and interaction of the language. These aspects are important to pick up a foreign language.

The teacher can expose students in the language and focus on the form if they apply these activities.

-          The teacher shows students videos about conversations of real situations such as interviews, speeches, conversations with friends, among others; where students can learn to differentiate between different accents and speed of delivery.

-          The teacher can teach common phrases or expressions to use in a real situation. For instance, when students want to buy something, when they travel abroad, when they want to greet someone and when they want to talk between them in the target language. It is a useful activity to practice interaction in the classroom and in real life.

References

Aarts, B. (11 de 9 de 2015). GRAMMARIANISM. Obtenido de https://grammarianism.wordpress.com/2015/09/11/form-and-function/

Bligh, C. A. (2012, 10 20). Retrieved from http://eprints.leedsbeckett.ac.uk/755/1/Dr_Caroline%20Bligh_Bilingual%20Learners%20in%20the%20EYs.pdf

Council, B. (2019). Exposure. Obtenido de https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/exposure

Spratt, M., Pulverness, A., & Williams, M. (2011). The TKT Course Modules 1, 2 and 3 (Second). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

University, C. (s.f.). Cambridge Dictionary. Obtenido de https://dictionary.cambridge.org/es/diccionario/ingles/exposure

UNIT 9 - MOTIVATION

UNIT 9 – MOTIVATION

There are several points of view about what is motivation. Spratt, M., Pulverness, A., and Williams, M. (2011), motivation is thoughts and feelings which make students want to do something. It turns students’ wishes into practice or action. Dörnyei, Z., and Ushioda, E. (2001), explain that motivation is related to the energy or initiative that moves people to do something automatically or by nature.

Motivation has some influences, for example, the reason why people want to do something, how long they keep achieving it, the way they work to achieve it. Furthermore, Williams, M., and Burden, R. L. (1997), differentiated that motivation has two aspects. The first aspect refers to the reasons for doing something or deciding to do something. The second aspect is being able to maintain motivation, it means, striving to persist doing something. Also, it is necessary to emphasize the importance of motivation when people study a target language because it is a key factor that makes language learning success. Different factors influence motivation, for instance, knowing the language well, becoming part of the target language culture, feeling the confidence to learn, being encouragement from others and developing communication. Dörnyei, Z., and Csizer K. suggested that there are some areas in which the teacher can help students’ motivation. The areas are teacher behavior, clear instruction in tasks, create a pleasant classroom atmosphere, treat each student as an individual to create rapport, give positive feedback to develop self- confidence, among others.

To conclude, the knowledge that I have learned were that motivation is the thoughts and feelings of a natural process that drives people to do something. Motivation involves different things like the reasons, time and effort to achieve something. Besides, motivation is a key factor that makes language learning success. Finally, the teacher can help students; motivation if they have a natural behavior, create a good atmosphere in the classroom, give clear instruction in the tasks or give positive feedback.

As motivation is an important aspect of language acquisition, teachers can teach and motivate their students if they apply these activities.

•          The teacher can teach students grammar or vocabulary with things they like. For example, the teacher can bring a music video or a small portion of a popular movie or series to teach students a specific grammar or vocabulary. Students will be motivated to see that they can learn something new while having fun listening to or watching a video or a small portion of a movie or series.

•          The teacher can create an interactive class where all students can participate. The teacher can teach about a specific topic and ask each student's opinion about the topic, in this way, each student will better understand the class. This will help students have the confidence to communicate. At the end of each student intervention, the teacher can give positive feedback to encourage him to continue striving to learn.

References

Dörnyei, Z. &. (2001). Teaching and researching motivation. New York, NY.: Longman.

Spratt, M., Pulverness, A., & Williams, M. (2011). The TKT Course Modules 1, 2 and 3 (Second). Cambridge : Cambridge University Press.

Williams, M., & Burden, R. L. (1997). Psychology for Language Teachers: A social constructivist approach. Cambridge: Cambrige Univesity Press.

UNIT 8 - SPEAKING

UNIT 8 – SPEAKING

Speaking is how people communicate with others to achieve certain goals such as expressing their opinions, intentions, and points of view, according to Torky (2016). “The TKT Course Modules 1, 2 and 3” (2011, p. 48), explains that speaking implies using speech to communicate meanings to others. Speaking involves producing a language and it is a productive skill.

Speaking has skills that are fluency, pronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary, but speaking also has subskills that help people to communicate with each other. The speaking’s subskills are making use of grammar, vocabulary, and functions, making use of register, using connected speech, using body language, producing different text types, among others. Also, speaking has interactive strategies that are body language, functions, and turn-taking. Patel (2014), body language is a method of communication-based on body movements or gestures. This is also called nonverbal communication. Functions are the reason why people communicate. Turn-taking is the ability to understand when a conversation begins and ends. It is a tool that helps the organization in a spoken speech. Furthermore, speaking has text types and some examples are telling stories, telephone conversations, debates, among others.

As a conclusion, I realized that speaking is divided into skills and subskills. The skills help people to have effective fluency, pronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary when people have a conversation. Subskills provides people to improve their speaking skills. Speaking has interactive strategies that are body language, functions and turn-taking which are important to have proper communication with others.

Teachers know that speaking is a very necessary skill because it is the base of communication, for that reason, there are some activities to develop speaking activities here.

-          The teacher gives each student 4 words on a specific topic. The teacher asks the students to make a little story using those words. Then, each student reads their story aloud and the best story wins a point.

-          The teacher asks the students to bring a picture of the person they admire. Then, the teacher tells the students that they describe the person they admire and why they admire that person. Students must use a grammar structure that they have been learning at that level.

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References

Patel, D. S. (2014). Body Language: An Effective. Retrieved from https://static1.squarespace.com/static/56fb450bf8baf30bc33df806/t/58d1d7d7440243e31b9513e8/1490147288845/Body+Language-+An+Effective+Communication+Tool.pdf

Spratt, M., Pulverness, A., & Williams, M. (2011). The TKT Course Modules 1, 2 and 3. Cambirdge: Cambridge University Press.

Torky, S. (2016). The Effectiveness of a Task- Based Instruction program in Developing the English Language Speaking Skills. Retrieved from https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED523922.pdf

UNIT 7 - LISTENING

UNIT 7 – LISTENING

Listening is a receptive skill that has several definitions, for instance, according to Nordquist (2019),  listening is the process of understanding, receiving and responding to spoken messages. “The TKT Course Modules 1, 2 and 3”  (2011, p. 43), listening involves making sense of meaningful sounds of language.

Listening implies understanding spoken language. Spoken language is a language produced spontaneously, most of the meaning of spoken language is in context. To understand spoken language, it is indispensable to understand the context, the text types like conversations, stories or lectures and the accents and speeds. Listening has different speeds and accents and these are part of the connected speech. Blackwell (2015), explains connected speech can allow modification, deletion, addition or change in pronunciation. It has features like liking sounds, contractions or word and sentence stress. Listening has several subskills that depend on the reason for listening. For instance, listening for gist, specific information, infer attitude and intensive and expensive listening. To practice listening activities is important to follow this pattern: introductory activities, main activities, and post-task activities.

In conclusion, I realized that listening implies making sense of meaningful sounds of language. Listening entails understanding spoken language which is a sign to understand the meaning of the context. Speeds and accents are parts of listening skills. These are related to connected speech that may modify, eliminate and change the pronunciation. Finally, listening has subskills that depend on the reasons for listening.

As English teachers, we know listening is important for communication so there are activities to develop the listening skill.

-          The teacher asks students to work in pairs. The teacher gives each pair a secret phrase and asks them to do a short dialogue and to present it in front of the class. While the dialogue is presented, the rest of the students listen carefully to the dialogue of their classmates and try to guess the secret phrase of that dialogue. The pair who guesses the secret phrase earns a point.

-          The teacher asks a student to sit in a chair in front of his classmates. The teacher gives him a flashcard with a picture of a famous person. The teacher asks the rest of the students to describe the famous person. The student who is sitting in the chair must listen carefully to the description that his classmates give him about his famous character and he has to guess who his famous character is.

References

Blackwell, W. (2015). The Handbook of English Pronunciation. Copyright. Retrieved from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/9781118346952.ch9

Nordquist, R. (2019, 1 6). ThoughtCo. Retrieved from https://www.thoughtco.com/listening-communication-term-1691247

Spratt, M., Pulverness, A., & Williams, M. (2011). The TKT Course Modules 1, 2 and 3. Cambirdge: Cambridge University Press.

UNIT 6 - WRITING

UNIT 6 – WRITING

Writing is the process of using letters of the alphabet, words or sentences to communicate thoughts and ideas. Spratt, M., Pulverness, A., and Williams, M. (2011), says writing involves producing a language, a written language. It involves communication. It is a productive skill. When you write is need to be able to form letters, words, sentences or paragraphs.

Writing takes into account text type when someone writes.  Text types imply different kinds of writing with different characteristics such as letters, essays, emails, text messages, among others. Also, National Literacy Trust (2012), explains that three genres of writing are Narrative (mystery, adventure, fables), Non- fiction (recounts, instructional texts) and poetry (free verse, visual poems, structured poems).  Writing involves using subskills and some are related to accuracy and communicating. Accuracy is the correct use of language. It has some subskills like spelling, legibility, punctuation, grammar or vocabulary. Communicating includes appropriate use of style and register, the use of features, the way words and sentences are joining with using appropriate functions to show the meaning.

Furthermore, Alves (2018), expresses that writing is composed of stages. The first is planning where writers organize their ideas. The second is drafting where writers create the first version. The third is editing that is improving the content of a text. The fourth is proofreading which refers to check mistakes. The last is re-drafting where writers write the final version.

To conclude, I could learn a lot of facts about writing, for instance, I learned that text type is considered when a person writes because it is all kinds of writings with different characteristics. In addition, writing has some subskills related to accuracy and communicating. Writing is also composed of stages that writers apply in the writing process such as planning or editing.

Teachers can teach writing their students with the following activities have been taken from DDEUBEL (2019).

-          The teacher writes a sentence on a piece of paper on a specific topic and makes a paper ball with the sheet. Then, the teacher throws the paper ball to a student so that he or she writes a new sentence. The paper ball is thrown at the other students and they do write their sentences. After that, the teacher writes all the sentences on the board. In the end, a student goes to the board to put all the ideas together in a paragraph.

-          The teacher asks students to make a group report on the weather of the day they are in. Next, students have to exchange their weather reports with other groups and they have to correct the grammatical mistakes of their classmates' reports.

References

Alves, A. R. (2018, 7). Writing process. Retrieved from https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/Documents/college-artslaw/cels/essays/languageteaching/AReisAlvesProcessWritingLTM.pdf

Spratt, M., Pulverness, A., & Williams, M. (2011). The TKT Course Modules 1, 2 and 3 (Second). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Trust, N. L. (2012). A Guide to Text Types. Retrieved from https://www.thomastallisschool.com/uploads/2/2/8/7/2287089/guide_to_text_types_final-1.pdf

UNIT 5 - READING

UNIT 5 – READING

Reading is defined in some way and Henry (2013), explains that reading is a process that consists of word recognition, understanding, and motivation. It is one of the four skills. It is a receptive skill. Zakime (2017), reading is a cognitive process in which we decode symbols to obtain meaning from them.

Reading is found difficult when there are discourse, coherence, and cohesion. Nordquist (2019), discourse is a unit of language longer than a single sentence. It refers to the way a conversation flows. It analyzes the use of written or spoken language in context. Also, Kaur (2018), explains that coherence is defined as the understanding that exists between sentences. Cohesion, on the other hand, refers to the act of forming a complete unit by using grammatical links between sentences such as but, or and. Furthermore, reading has several subskills, for instance, there are scanning (read for specific information), skimming (read for gist), reading for detail (get the meaning of every word), inferring (get meaning for a context), deductive meaning from context (work out in the meaning of unknown words) and predicting (clues). Reading has two ways of reading. First, extensive reading is reading for pleasure. Second, intensive reading is to pay attention to how language is used.

As conclusion, I could understand that reading is a cognitive process that consists of word recognition and motivation. Reading is difficult to understand for the existence of discourse, coherence, and cohesion. There are several subskills in reading and some of them are scanning, skimming, inferring, predicting, among others. There are two ways of reading that are extensive and intensive reading.

Teachers can teach students to read with the following activities:

-          The teacher can put letters, words or phrases around the classroom. The teacher should try to label each object with their respective name, in this way, the students will learn without realizing it. The children will learn to associate the words with the objects they see and so they will learn to read little by little.

-          The teacher can read a story in front of the class slowly and respecting the breaks so that the children learn the pronunciation of each word and acquire new vocabulary. Afterward, the teacher can ask a child to read a story about the story, the teacher should guide him while the student is reading.

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References

Kaur, H. (1 de 4 de 2018). Lisa's study guides. Obtenido de https://www.vcestudyguides.com/blog/coherence-and-cohesion

Leipzig, D. H. (2013, 11 7). Teaching reading . Retrieved from https://www.readingrockets.org/article/what-reading

Nordquist, R. (2019, 10 7). ThoughtCo. - Discourse. Retrieved from https://www.thoughtco.com/discourse-language-term-1690464

Zakime, A. (2017, 9 15). What is reading? Retrieved from https://www.whatiselt.com/single-post/2017/09/15/What-is-Reading

UNIT 4 - FUNCTIONS

UNIT 4 – FUNCTIONS

What is a function? Spratt, M., Pulverness, A., and Williams, M. (2011), says that a function is a purpose why people communicate. Cambridge University  (2019), mentions that a function is a way that something works or operates.

There are several kinds of functions, according to Leech (1974). There are the informational functions, the expressive functional, the directive function of language, the aesthetic function and the phatic function. Some examples of functions are greetings, clarifying, interrupting, agreeing, among others. Besides, the exponent is part of the functions and it is the language we apply to express a function. The exponent can express different functions at the same moment and it depends on the context the functions are used in. An exponent can be shown in different functions because its functions rely on the context. The exponents also show different levels of formality. Formal, informal and neutral language is part of the levels of formality. Heaton (2018), says that formal language is used for writing with professional and interpersonal. Complete sentences are used in formal language. Informal language is used with friends or close people. This may include colloquialisms. Neutral language is used between formal and informal language.

In conclusion, I understood that functions are the purpose of why people communicate in a particular context with the use of exponents. In addition, I realized the exponents express the different levels of formality such as formal, informal and neutral language.

Teachers can apply functions with the students putting in practice many activities like:

-          The teacher can bring a dialogue to the class and read it out loud. Then the teacher divides the dialogue. The teacher talks about the intention of the speaker, that is, they talk about the function of the language in that dialogue. Then, the teacher asks the students to make sentences where they practice the function of there in the dialogue. Finally, the teacher asks students to create a role play where the dialogue function is practiced.

-          Another way to teach language functions is to teach grammar inductively or deductively and speaking of the language function that will be practiced in that grammar. For example, the teacher in teaching the present simple he or she should emphasize that this tense is used to talk about habits.

References

Heaton, S. (2018). WordPress. Retrieved from https://drsaraheaton.files.wordpress.com/2018/01/language-register.pdf

Leech, G. (1974). Retrieved from https://paper-due-now.com/essay-language-five-functions-language/

Press, C. U. (2019). Cambridge dictionary. Obtenido de https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/function

Spratt, M., Pulverness, A., & Williams, M. (2011). The TKT Course Modules 1, 2 and 3 (Second). . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

UNIT 3 - PHONOLOGY

UNIT 3 –  PHONOLOGY

Phonology is an indispensable part of the process to learn to speak and there are several definitions of phonology, for instance, phonology is the study of the way that sounds are organized and used in language. It includes the sound features and rules that specify how the sound should interact between them. Besides,  Spratt, M., Pulverness, A., and Williams, M., (2011), says phonology is the study of sounds features to communicate meaning. Also, Szczegielniak (2011), mentioned that phonology is the sound patterns of language and it tells us how sounds can be combined in words and explain why certain phonetic characteristics are important to recognize a word.

The phoneme is one feature of phonology because a phoneme is a small unit of speech that makes one-word sound distinguish from the others. It is represented by phonetic symbols. A phoneme is represented only with one phonetic symbol. The symbols also are used to indicate word stress. Word stress is the emphasis of words especially in a syllable of the word, claimed Heredia (2018). Furthermore, sentence stress has primary and secondary stress. Primary stress is a relevant part of a sentence that gives meaning to it. Secondary stress is not as strong as primary stress. In phonetic we have another important feature that is intonation. According to Nodal, intonation is the modulation of tone and voice level of a person to transmit information.

To conclude, I have learned that phonology has several features but in my point of view, the most important are phonemes that are represented by phonetic symbols and intonation that refer to the changes in our level voice. Also, I understood what is a word stress and sentence stress.

Teachers can teach phonology in a class in many ways but I am going to give ways to teach it:

-         The teacher can teach phonology if he first teaches students the alphabet and the sounds corresponding to each letter so that students can learn to pronounce the words correctly.

-          The teacher can make a list of a group of specific words and ask his/ her students to pronounce the words and empathize with the stress of each word.

References

Heredia, R. (2018, 8 3). What is Word Stress? Retrieved from https://www.whatiselt.com/single-post/2018/08/03/What-is-Word-Stress

Nolan, F. (n.d.). Intonation. Retrieved from http://www.ling.cam.ac.uk/francis/FN_inton_prepub.pdf

Spratt, M., Pulverness, A., & Williams, M. (2011). The TKT Course Module 1, 2, 3 (Second). Cambidge: Cambridge University Press.

Szczegielniak, A. (2011). Introduction to Linguistic Theory. Retrieved from https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/adam/files/phonology.ppt.pdf