Week 3 - Weekly Reflection

In The past two weeks I have been reading a lot, understanding people’s views, meeting new colleagues, making points, keeping myself busy in trying to resolve tasks and assignments. This new learning experience is amazing and rewarding because I have started to change my mind from a static traditional state into a more dynamic updated teaching-learning stratum.

During this short period of time I have learned new things and concepts about using interactive web (still a bit unknown to me by now but which will be learnt shortly after). I have learnt, for example, that a very important language skill, listening, had been relegated in the past to a secondary position in the English language-teaching classroom; perhaps, due to so much research  conducted into the other three language skills .i.e. speaking, reading, and writing, and nothing of interest towards listening.

Academicians and teachers appear to have emphasized their attention on speaking for maintaining that it is more valuable than listening, which has been assumed that it can be picked up; P. Strevens, 1983, has referred to it as natural acquisition. But such acquisition (in the case of English) can be reached when the learner is exposed to that medium constantly.

A great thing that has occurred on me is that coincidental feeling respect to using authentic materials brought by L. Miller. I did not realize that I had been going on that direction with reading. With listening, I always asked my students to do listening from English teaching prepared materials. I know I must change behavior on that direction. Moreover, speaking too, must be viewed that way. For instance, when my learners translate sentences from Spanish into English wanting to express feelings, needs, etc. in a genuine situation is more meaningful than producing well constructed sentences which may not go along with reality.

Another important aspect that I have learned is the one concerned with the A.B.C.D. method which enhances writing objectives. This morning, for instance, one group of students at Centro de Idiomas (A) took a test; I wrote the instructions on the white board (C), including the phrase “80% accuracy  is required (D), the students amazingly took care of it (B) and obtained better results than ever before. I will be grateful on any E-participant´s comment, that would be another way to improve what might sound wrong.

Holguer