Group 7- Fifth Course -American Literature - Class of 2012 - School of
Languages
FINAL PROJECT
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS Y CIENCIAS -
ESCUELA DE LENGUAS Y LINGÜÍSTICA
CLASS OF 2012 - AMERICAN
LITERATURE
1. WHO WE ARE:
We are Yomayra, Gina, Marcia and Liliana; we are
English students from the University of Guayaquil, at the School of Languages
and we know each other since we are in 1st course and we became friends because
we share the same goals to become English teachers. Although we have different
personalities, we totally agree that if we want to become a good teacher, we
must work hard and also enjoy all we do.
Mi name is Gina Guaranda, I love learning English because I am planning to teach in the future. As a student of this language, I have realized that all English teachers must be in constant learning, for that reason I am always practicing all I'm learning in order to apply it in my career as an English teacher.
My goals are to work in the English field which is
what I love the most and to travel to another country.
I am Liliana Lucas and I am a person with a high sense
of responsibility, very organized and with the ability to work in group. I
enjoy the challenging and innovative work.
My goals are to become an effective teacher and in the
future I would like to work for the Minister of education because there
are many benefits that can come with it.
I plan to continue preparing in English language in
order to reach all my goals.
My name is Marcia Trujillo, I'm a responsible girl. I decided
studying English because in our country there is a lack of well prepared
teachers in this field of the education, for that reason i have constantly been
preparing as a future English teacher.
My goal is to find a job as an English or French
teacher in a public school in order to share my knowledge and experience.
I am Yomayra Martinez, I'm a devoted and hardworking
student who thinks that if a person wants to be happy in the life, has to take
advantage of all he or she does.
I am studying this career because I love this
language and I want to share my knowledge with all the people who desire to
learn this important language.
My plan is to keep on learning and put it in practice
in during my lifework.
2. MY CITY/COUNTRY. SIGHTSEEING PLACES.
http://www.dreamkapture.com/sightseing.htm
Duplicating
old Guayaquil, the historical park is a must see spot for those who visit Guayaquil.
It is a place where you can go through a forest and walk through a wooden path
that goes through it.
Located in Entre Ríos, on the
Guayaquil-Samborondón road, it looks to recreate the way of life of yesteryear
with
three zones: wildlife, urban – architectural and traditions and expositions. This area of 8 hectares is surrounded by all sorts of trees, like the “platanillo” that grows naturally from the Daule River.
There are 28 species of animals in captivity, among them: the white tail deer, raccoons, “lavador” bears, and crocodiles. There are 90 kinds of birds, like the parakeet and the “arpía” eagle.
At the park, you can also appreciate structures that represent the traditions of the coast and it recreates two blocks from early 20th century Guayaquil that represent the old town and have been declared of cultural patrimony.
Tourist information: other points of interest, maps, brochures, city transports and others.
3. MY CLASSES:
a. American Literature (501- Fifth course)
In this course we survey selected American authors
representing the major authors, literary movements and fragments of the
most significant works of literature produced in the U.S. since its beginnings
to the present date. It also helps future teachers to improve their reading,
communicative and critical thinking skills, letting them express judgments and
comments about some chapters and creating a greater cultural awareness
when exposed to essays, poetry, literary or film adaptations of the fragments.
b. Activity during the semester
The Harlem Renaissance is a cultural movement of
the 1920’s. It occurred from the end from the World War I through the middle of
the depression. A black community, mostly new comers from the south, situated
in New York City, were creating their own renaissance there and producing a
body of literature with an explosion of music, particularly jazz, spirituals
and blues.
Langston Hughes emerged from this movement, he was
the most prolific and successful African American writer in the country.
In his poetry he expressed pride in his heritage
and voiced displeasure with the oppression he witnessed.
Although Hughes is best known for his powerful
poetry, he also wrote plays, fictin, autobiographical sketches and screenplays.
(source: Notebook Americ.Lit. MSc.g. Morales)
Our classmate Glenda
Mendoza is presenting Langston Hughes’ biography.
Our teacher
Glenda Morales is listening to our classmate who is talking about Langston
Hughes’ literary work.
This presentation was made by our partners Glenda Mendoza and Jeenifer Ordoñez
c. Reflective Learning.
One of the great purposes of this activity was to make us work in group because the team working helped us to identify our own strengths and weaknesse. Being part of this team also helped us develop our interpersonal skills such as speaking and listening as well as team working skills such as leadership, motivating others, etc.
We are sure that all of these skills are useful throughout our academic career and lifework.
In this case the use of technology , has served to increase our creativity because we could found many academic information. and we also conbined everything with our creativity.
“Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is
success.”
Working in a team it's really hard and has its pros and cons, but we could go beyond our expectatives because at the beginning we had many different opinions but at the end we could organized very well and this is the result of our effort. We also realized that this kind of work needs important values such as responsibility and tolerance.
Responsibility: in our group the responsibility was an essential element since each of us had their personal activities to perform and organize our time.
Source: http://www.ehow.com/list_6805708_roles-responsibilities-effective-teamwork.html
Tolerance: we learnt to tolerate the differents opinions and ideas in spite of our personalities since it was very hard to rise a consensus.
http://www.abs.uci.edu/model_for_sustaining_admin_improvement/2-6.html
Use Cooperative Learning to
Teach ESL Students
In order to successfully assist ESOL students in overcoming the language barrier through the affective filter, teachers must implement a variety of teaching strategies.
By
on Dec 5, 2008
Teachers should strive to
incorporate student-centered learning strategies in the secondary school
language arts classroom. Research shows that three effective teaching
strategies accommodate the needs of diverse learners, including ESOL students
in the mainstream classroom. The three strategies, which can be integrated simultaneously,
are visual aids, hands-on activities, and cooperative learning. The latter will
be the focus of this article.
Goals of Cooperative Learning
Cooperative learning, also referred to as collaborative learning, has
historically been a popular method to share knowledge and has proven beneficial
to all of its participants; in fact, it was not until the 20th century, when
class size increased, that the lecture format became the norm (Ovando &
Collier, 1998). Teachers are revisiting the flexible and easily adaptable
method of students working together and assisting each other in groups and are
finding that even large classes of students thrive in this environment of
interdependence.
Although cooperative learning strategies must be clearly structured and
specify tangible goals, they should also be designed to promote critical thinking skills and
student creativity as well as offer varying levels of involvement in order to
accommodate students with diverse levels of language ability. This strategy
also encourages teacher’s creativity and experimentation to supercede the
inclination of adhering to worn-out, conventional methods of teacher-centered
learning, such as the lecture format.
Cooperative learning is a broad and multifaceted concept which can be
applied to a variety of different formats and “generally refers to many varied
ways to structure a class in small, heterogeneous student groups (usually of two
to six members, with four an ideal size) to accomplish individual or group
goals for learning that require cooperation and positive interdependence”
(Ovando & Collier, 1998).
Sample Activities for Cooperative Learning
Some examples of different activities which utilize the cooperative
learning structure to improve student learning include
“Numbered Heads Together,” Jigsaw, Think-Pair-Share, completing Venn diagrams,
Group Investigation and Co-op Co-op. In each of these activities, individual
competition is eliminated and is replaced with a sense of mutual goals and
“expressive, probing, problem solving” which calls for interdependence and an
understanding that students are responsible for their own learning and the
learning of their classmates (Ovando & Collier, 1998). In this way,
cooperative grouping fosters discovery learning and a student-centered
environment where students feel actively involved in their own education.
Benefits of Cooperative Learning
There are many benefits to utilizing cooperative learning in the
secondary school classroom. In order to feel vested in their education, ESOL
students, as well as mainstream students, need to be proactive in the learning process.
In Bilingual and ESL Classrooms, a vigorous, inquiry-based learning style is
recommended as an effective method for students to become “actively engaged in
solving a problem, discovering new ways of perceiving their world, intensely
applying learning strategies to the next task, developing family-like community
among classmates, sharing the excitement of a special discovery” (Ovando &
Collier, 1998). This pro-active, student-centered approach to learning can be
easily developed by consistently including cooperative learning strategies.
Cooperative Learning Enhances Student Motivation
In cooperative learning groups, students develop a sense of trust among
their peers as they share in the responsibility of their own and each other’s
learning. Teachers naturally adopt the role of facilitator and encourage
discovery learning. Often, the most intense and exciting learning experiences
are spawned by spontaneous discussion initiated by students.
Conversely, in a teacher-centered classroom, a teacher might feel
inclined to discourage excited outbursts which may contain brilliant
perspectives but do not coordinate with the teacher’s lesson. Because student
enthusiasm is key to maintaining a high level of motivation, particularly with
ESOL students, teachers must not only learn to adapt to a student-centered
format, but also allow for flexibility in the progression of curriculum
coverage.
Cooperative learning is beneficial to all students. When a student is
developing English language skills, however, this type of learning is
particularly useful. For teachers who are looking for a way to more actively
integrate their ESOL students into their mainstream classroom, cooperative
learning is clearly a top choice.
d. International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination21 March
"Racism and Conflict"The International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination is observed annually on 21 March. On that day, in 1960, police opened fire and killed 69 people at a peaceful demonstration in Sharpeville, South Africa, against the apartheid "pass laws". Proclaiming the Day in 1966, the General Assembly called on the international community to redouble its efforts to eliminate all forms of racial discrimination (resolution 2142 (XXI)).
Ecuador approves and decrees the application of the national plan plurinational to eliminate racial discrimination, and ethnic and cultural exclusion in the country.
Now, we want to share our Linguistics Class.
-
2. Class of 2012- Linguistics
A. Objective
The purpose of this class is to give students the tools, tips and techniques to speak English clearly and accurately. The variety of activities, authentic audios, students´ presentations make learning innovative, fun and close to reality that they will handlein elementary and high school settings in Ecuador. This year we are using Focus on Pronunciation Nbr. 3, from Pearson, Longman, as well as several interactive links.
b. Activity during the semester
In the middle of semester we worked with Tongue Twisters.
In these tongue twisters we had to apply a multiple intelligence they could be Verbal/ linguistic, Visual/Spatial, Body/ Kinesthetic, Interpersonal, Logical/ Mathematical, Musical, Intrapersonal and Environmental.
The objective of this activity is that the students could get fluency in the speaking and a better pronunciation of English language.
Gina and Lili presented a mini-class using a tongue twister, they applied the Body/Kinesthetic by using the hands and themimicking each word of the tongue twister so that at the end the students could associate the movement with the word.
With this tongue twister the students reinforce the /t/ sound in English.
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Marcia and Yomayra are presenting their Tongue Twisters they applied Multiple Intelligences.
c. Reflecting learning.
During this semester we developed our abilities and discovered different ways to transmit our knowledge to children by doing interesting and funny activities.
The purpose of this activity was to learn how to pronounce properly sounds that the English language has since it is well known it’s really hard for ESL students to acquire the native pronunciation.
To help us to develop these skills our teacher uses in our class the constructivist method whose objective is to make the student to work individually and then this work would be complemented with the teacher’s guide.
Other resource we employ in class was the technology, since it helps us to develop our creativity and in that way we could get the attention of students.
Doing all these works we realized that there are several manners to get to students, by exploring and using innovating methods in order to avoid doing a boring class.
Finally it is important that every class have and interaction between the teacher
and the student.
How to be an effective Teacher
How to be an effective Teacher
By
eHow Contributor
Be
an Effective Teacher
To
be an effective teacher is to do more than just give information. It is to give
information in a way that promotes the very best learning. These easy
strategies will help to promote learning for any subject, any age group, and any
learning style, even for those who struggle with learning difficulties! They
will help you to be an effective teacher.
- 1
To
be an effective teacher, teach to every learning style (including auditory,
visual, tactile, and kinesthetic or hand-on).
Some
of us learn better when we hear things, others of us need to see things or
actually get up and move and do things. Everybody has a style that works best
for them. However, the best teaching will address every style.
A really good teaching technique to is say it (the information), show it in writing, show visuals of it, model it (for example demonstrating mapping an item or solving a problem), give opportunities for students to practice it in real life situations, and then check for understanding. The students will hear it, read it, say it, see pictures/visuals of it, write it, and practice it both on paper and in real life situations. For example, when teaching diameter, the student would solve for it on paper but would also actually find the diameter of objects in the home or classroom. For tactile opportunities, a young student might trace letters with finger paints but an older student might paint or make a visual representation of an atom.
A really good teaching technique to is say it (the information), show it in writing, show visuals of it, model it (for example demonstrating mapping an item or solving a problem), give opportunities for students to practice it in real life situations, and then check for understanding. The students will hear it, read it, say it, see pictures/visuals of it, write it, and practice it both on paper and in real life situations. For example, when teaching diameter, the student would solve for it on paper but would also actually find the diameter of objects in the home or classroom. For tactile opportunities, a young student might trace letters with finger paints but an older student might paint or make a visual representation of an atom.
- 2
Make
connections between what is being taught and prior knowledge and future use.
Understanding
requires that things are not presented in isolation. Learning will be increased
when critical connections are made. For example, when teaching fractions, be
sure to point out the concepts of division, sharing, etc. and how this relates
to real life -like knowing how to cut a pizza in the right number of slices so
they everyone gets an equal number. Better, yet, actually practice on a pizza
(like showing the 1/2, 2/4, and 4/8 are equal amounts) and then eat it as a
reward.
Improve
memory and attention with scientific brain games.
- 3
Teach in cycles.
Do
not teach one thing, and then move on to another and on and on. Every time you
teach something, constantly go back and review prior skills or knowledge. This
may only take a minute. For example "remember ..." Being presented
with information that is spaced out over time like this helps really plant it
into long-term memory. This is learning theory that is research based.
- 4
Do
not wear yourself out.
Focus
most of your energy on good teaching techniques and the rest will follow. Even
the best lesson plan may not be effective if it is not taught using good
teaching techniques. Always have a good lesson plan in place, but you do not
have to recreate the wheel. The internet is full of great lesson plans. I am
including a couple of helpful links below in the resources section.
Group # 7. Gina Guaranda, Marcia Trujillo,
Yomayra Martinez and Liliana Lucas.
