What is it happening in USA ?

The following video podcast was created for students from 9th grade of a Chilean high school.

Activity

1-Identify Present Continuous structure in each sentence of the video.
For example, They are playing Hockey at the moment.
They = Subject
are = verb TO BE
playing = verb -ing

2-Distinguish common expressions used in Present Continuous tense.
For example, They are playing Hockey at the moment. Identify two more common expressions in other sentences.

3- According to the video, can you see some differences between American and Chilean Culture?
Discuss them with your parter.

4-Search on Internet and look for information about American culture; for example, music, food, sport, customs, etc. Then, find cuttings related to the information and describe them using Present Continuous as I did in the video. Afterwards, do the same thing about Chilean culture.

5-In a group of five people you are going to discuss some differences between Chilean and American culture. Find out why they are important (good things).
In a poster stick all your cuttings with their descriptions using Present Continuous (as I did in the video). Then, with your group talk to the rest of the class about what you have found. Besides, explain the importance of these two cultures.

Everything has a reason

1-Intended Students

My video podcast was created for 9th graders from public High schools of Chile . These students belong to a low social class.
I decided to choose this kind of students since the level of English is really bad in public schools. We have to know that they are the worst schools in Chile because they always get bad results in every subject in national test called Simce; one of the reasons is that the size of classes is very large, around 45 students per classroom. Moreover, English is taught from 5th grade to 12th grade. Apart from that, teachers use teacher-centered model;so students do not have an active role in class. Even more worrying, teachers only teach grammar; so they do not put topics in context. For this reason , students are not allowed to develop a good level of English.
That is why, this podcast will be very useful to teach them an important aspect of grammar “Present Continuous” trough content.

2-Description of language and content objectives

My Video Podcast is called What is it happening in USA? because it is related to Present Continuous. For this reason, I am going to present a video which contains scenes about some experiences that I have lived in this country .The scenes contain actions that occur at the moment. Besides, every scene has a sentence about a description of it and some of them have common expressions that English speakers use in in Present Continuous; for example, at the moment, right now, and now.
The idea of this video podcast is that students can realize one of the functions of Present Continuous, the structure of it , and learn some common expressions used in it.

Language objectives

Students will be able to write sentences about the use of Present Continuous.
Students will be able to speak since they have to share ideas with their classmates and make a presentation in front of the class.
Students will be able to read because they have to find information about American and Chilean culture.
Students will be able to listen since they have to pay attention to their classmates while they are speaking.

Content Objectives

Trough a video related to experiences lived in USA , students will be able to recognize the structure of Present Continuous, identify common expressions used in it, and learn new vocabulary. Besides, they will be able to know about the differences between American and Chilean culture and their importance.

After showing this video podcast I would like to create a series of videos related to all meanings of Present Continuous very similar to the first video. One example of it is that I am going to make a video to teach Present Continuous in order to talk about temporary situations .For example, in one scene there is a teacher who is is going to work to a school ;so, the title of the scene is called “He is teaching Spanish in a school”. Besides, I would like to teach that every job is important.

Language Objectives

Students will be able to write short texts using Present Continuous.
Students will be able to improve speaking because they make dialogues using Present Continuous.
Students will be able to improve listenig comprehension since they have to listen songs and conversations related to Present Continuous.
Students will be able to read short texts where Present Continuous is used.

Content Objectives

Trough a series of different videos related to jobs, experiences lived in USA, future plans, etc., students will be able to know every use of Present Continuous, identify common words used in it, acquire new vocabulary related to these topics. Moreover, they will able to know about different topics; for example, cultures, jobs, etc.

3-Descriptions of the elements that make video podcast comprehensible
Each scene has a sentence with a clear and short description of it. For this reason, when students read the sentences, they are going to make associations between the scene and its sentence ; so, that is why I decided not use oral English language. Besides, almost every scene has Spanish speakers talking about what is happening at that moment; so , students are allowed to get the meaning of the video easily. Another important thing is the time of each scene, it is really short; as a result, students are not going to get bored , so they will be very interested in putting attention to the video .
In summary , the elements that make this video podcast comprehensible are:
Clear and short sentences describing each scene.
Use of Spanish language.
Short time of each scene.

4-Descriptions of the strategies that we have covered that have informed the choices that you have made with the podcast.

Learning proceeds from the whole part
Students are allowed to learn when they start with a main idea of the topic. In this case , they are starting learning Present Continuous from a very simple and general video, where they can find a series of scenes with a clear and short sentences about them. Afterwards, we have to challenge them with an activity more difficult .

Lessons should be learner-centered
I created this video podcast thinking about my students' interests since they would like to know about American culture; for example , sport, customs, etc. Besides, they are allowed to learn because they have to construct their knowledge; in other words, they have to realize the use of Present Continuous, recognize common expressions used often in it, and find out differences between American and Chilean culture. In this case the teacher is just a guide in the process of learning ,who is responsible to look for an activity in order to have in mind the students' opinions to build knowledge.

Lessons should have meaning and purpose for students now
Present Continuous is teaching trough Content , in this opportunity it is about some experiences lived in USA. For this reason, students can see a purpose on it. They can apply what they are learning to some scenes of real life.

Lessons should engage students in social interaction
The video podcast gives students the opportunity to interact with other people because they can share ideas about the use of Present Continuous and what they think about American and Chilean culture. It facilitates learning since students learn faster when they work in groups and every student has an active role .

Lessons should develop both oral and written language.
It is clear the the video provides and activity that allows students to develop speaking , writing, reading, and listening from the beginning. Speaking because they have to discuss some ideas with their classmates; writing since they have to write sentences related to pictures of American and Chilean culture; reading due to they have to read sentences about Present Continuous; and listening since they have to pay attention to what their classmates are saying.

Lessons should support students' first languages and cultures
This video provides the support of the first language because it contains a scene of a couple dancing Cueca. It makes the students to feel very well since these people are not forgetting that they are Chilean despite the fact that they have been living many years in the United States. Besides, Chilean people appear in every scene on the video .For this reason, when students feel that their culture is also important , they will be very motivated to learn a new language .

Lessons should show faith in the learner to expand student's potential
I create this video podcast thinking that my students are very capable of learning everything. I know that despite the fact that they do not know very much about English, they will feel motivated to learn it . It only depends on me since I have to create an interesting activity for them; so , this video is a good way to do it.

A case of effective language teaching

The class starts when the teacher says “good morning class!”; then, the students answer “good morning teacher!”. Afterward, she asks them about the date of the day ; for this reason , she uses different posters that contain the days of the week and the months of the year. So, she says “Is it Monday?” ; the children reply “no!”; then, she asks “Is it Tuesday?”; they say “yes!!”. The next question is about the month; so, the teacher asks one students to identify it on the poster , the student does it very well. The final question is about the number of the day, she uses a board that contains the days of the moth ; so, she says “yesterday was 24th ,so today is 25th !” ; she writes the number on the board. To finish the calendar routine ,she writes the whole sentence on the board and reads it “Today is Tuesday , November 25th !”; then, the students have to say the sentence too. She says “very good!”. Subsequently, the teacher asks “How is the weather today?”; she has another poster , which contains pictures of different kinds of weather. The students answer by themselves saying “cold and sunny” . For this reason, she writes the complete sentence on the board and reads it “the weather today is cold and sunny” ; then, they have to say the sentence. Afterward, the teacher asks them to sing the song of the ABC s ; so, she has another poster with the whole alphabet. Then, the students star singing“A, B, C, D...”; they do it really well. Finally, the whole group move to another side of the classroom to practice maths. The teacher has a big chart that contains the number from 1 to 144. So, she start asking the group to sing the numbers “1, 2, 3, 4, 5...”. Then, she asks one student to count by 5s; consequently , another children count by 10s but backwards. The whole group do it excellent.

Before I say why this English instruction was effective, we have to consider some points. First of all, the group have around 6 students; so, it was a small group. Second, all the students were non English Speakers; for this reason, it was really difficult for them to follow instructions since they know a little bit of English. Finally, this routine had been done more than 8 times by these students; so, they knew how to answer.

The class was really effective because each student was able to answer when the teacher asked something, every student learned all the topics that the teacher taught ; for example, how to say the date of the days , ABC s, maths,etc.

She used the communicative approach because the purpose of the activities is that the students are allowed to communicate with other people; for this reason, the teacher makes them to speak a lot. She used games, music and rhythm, repetition, and planned the lesson very well in order to get it. Besides, in other lessons I could observe that the students are not only allowed to speak, but also to read and write , which is very important since these skills have to be taught from the beginning too. Last, I could appreciate that the teachers in general teach important things about the American culture; for instance, Halloween , Thanksgiving, etc. For theses reasons, I have to say that this lesson and my teachers are really effective.

A topic in language education that I want to know more about

My students belong to an elementary school and all of them are non English Speakers; for this reason,they need to receive extra help from the teachers . My role is to help the teachers to teach them basic but important things; for example, reading, writing, maths, etc. The teachers use three ways to do it: Pull out, Inclusion, and a mixture of them. Pull out is referred to put the students outside the classroom to teach them; in contrast, Inclusion allowes students to stay in the classroom receiving extra help from another teacher.

Most of my students belong to the Pull out program, around five or six children per group. Their teachers do many entertaining activities in order they can feel motivated and willing to learn. In fact, they are so happy and really interested in participating. However, the teachers have to force some students to speak because they do not understand anything due to the fact that they are not paying attention to the them.

On the other hand, some students belong to the Inclusion program. One of them is a fifth grader, she was very ashamed of getting out of the classroom in order to receive help from a teacher; so, she had to be changed to the Inclusion program. Then, she felt ashamed of receiving help in front of her classmates since she wants to be in an equal level.

For this reason , I am very interesting in knowing more about the advantages and disadvantages of these two ways of teaching, which of these models is preferred by students , and what way is the most effective.

According to this website, the advantages and disadvantages of pull out and Inclusion are:

http://www.txsha.org/Convention/pdf/Stephen,%20Lynly-Pull%20Out%20vs%20Inclusion.pdf

Pull out Advantages
There is a smaller student radio, more one-on-one instruction, ability to drill on particular skills, and it is what we as a profession are comfortable with.

Pull out Disadvantages
There is a removal from general education classroom, teachers do not have the opportunities to see learning in progress,and there is an artificial environment.

Inclusion Advantages
Learning is placed in a meaningful and natural manner, it facilitates communicative competence, there is a least restrictive environment, there is no distinction between general education and special education students, and students are allowed to collaborate with the teachers.

Inclusion Disadvantages
There is a larger student ratio, students need cooperation from classroom teachers, and it is not conducive to drill.

The following website helped me to find out which of these two ways are preferred by the students.

http://epicpolicy.org/publication/inclusion-or-pull-out-which-do-students-prefer

A study showed that students with and without learning disabilities who had participated in both models during two or three years said that most of them were very confident that Inclusion was meeting their academic and social needs; for this reason , they preferred this kind of program.

Now, the most important question , Which is the most effective model? To find out it , please go to the next websites.

http://www.txsha.org/Convention/pdf/Stephen,%20Lynly-Pull%20Out%20vs%20Inclusion.pdf
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Should_Special_Education_be_self_contained_pull-out_program_or_inclusive

Both models can be effective if the teachers know how to plan the classes. Besides, it depends on the child , if he do not have behavior problems; in other words, if he can be in a class with other kids without interrupting them , inclusion will be fine. On the other hand, if the child is violent , he need to be removed from the regular class. It also depends on the size of the students ; if we have a large class, it is more convenient that the children stay in a inclusion model; however, if the size is small , it would be better stay in a pull out program.

If only he knew…

One of my teachers does not know that she is making a big mistake in teaching reading to children who do not speak English. The problem is that some students even do not know the letters of the alphabet ; for this reason they are not allowed to read yet. However, this situation is not the most complicated, but the strategy that the teacher uses to start teaching how to read. The purpose is that the children have to repeat the sentences related to the school many times trough singing in order to memorize and understand them ; then, they have to make a picture about each sentence; for example, I read books and write words in school. Despite the fact that the students feel very proud because they can write , they do not understand anything about what they were reading because they can not associate the sentences with the pictures that they made; in fact, some pictures did not have any relation with the sentences.

My teacher does not understand that according to the Comprehensible Input Hypothesis belongs to Krashen , the students are allowed to acquire a language only if they can understand it but what they are doing is just repeating a sentence with knowing what they are saying. Besides, teachers have to find ways to make information more comprehensible to the learner by using strategies ; for instance, connecting new information to prior knowledge , using gestures, drawing, etc. The teacher uses gestures and drawing to explain the sentences ; nevertheless, the students do not understand them.

Apart from that, Natural Order Hypothesis says that the acquisition of grammatical rules happens in a predictable order. Moreover, it is important for teachers to recognize that emphasis of certain grammatical structures may be beyond what a learner is linguistically ready to understand. For this reason, the teacher can not teach reading before the students know the letter of the alphabet and their pronunciations.

Websites:

http://www.angelfire.com/journal/fsulimelight/sla.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyMpMFzKDHk

Websites that might help

The students that I chose are a couple of brothers who are from an African country. Before they arrived in The United States, they did not know anything about English. In their current school there is not anybody who speak their language; for this reason, they do not receive any help to understand English. As a result, it is very hard for them to learn a new word.

They are willing to learn ; however, they have not showed any advance. They know all the letters of the alphabet and how to write them; still, they are struggling to learn basic things; for instance, colors and numbers. One example of this situation is when the teacher is explaining something to them , they repeat it many times; nevertheless, they forget it immediately. First, I thought it was a problem related to a learning disability; nonetheless, I realized that it is produced due to the fact that they are not understanding what the teachers say since they repeat the words without knowing what they are doing.

The children can understand basic instruction provided that the teachers showed them what to do through body language. Nevertheless, they need to learn more vocabulary and practice more speaking since they are in the silent period. So, I would suggest the following websites in order the students can learn more words and practice the pronunciation of them:

http://www.2flashgames.com/learning_english_games.htm

http://www.studyenglishtoday.net/educational-games-for-kids.html

http://www.learnenglish.org.uk/kids/phonics/index_obtree.html

http://www.gsc.amdsb.ca/kindergarten/kindergarten_main.htm

http://www.kiddonet.com/gb/flash/phonics/Intro.html

It would be very useful if the children use theses websites everyday because they contain entertaining games to learn English ; so they will never get bored and they will understand what the websites are teaching them owing to the fact that they are visual mainly. Another suggestion that I can make is that the children can play the games with their parents since they do not speak English too. So, they all will feel engaged , motivated , and interested in learning a new language; as a consequence the children will not desert the school.

Response to a question about English teaching

Question:
I recently received an ESL student in my 3rd grade classroom. The student can speak English pretty well, however they can not read it. I need some tips on how to teach this process.

Answer:
First of all you have to start introducing the American alphabet in order that he or she can learn the phonemes . Afterwards, you can use flashcards called three-letter words to children put the cards together in sets of three, so each correct matchup creates a picture from which they can learn how to spell a word.
Another thing that you could create is a kind of Bingo . You have to write some basic words on the chart ; for example, words about the classroom, body, animals, etc. When you say the word the students will have to find it in the chart ; then, they will be able to associate the spelling with its sound.
Subsequently, they will be ready for starting reading; in other words,when they can identify and associate the letters and the sounds you will have to use books which focus on the Emergent level for beginning learners. The books are very small and each picture has one sentence description.
Afterwards, you will be able to use books for advanced learners . One of the best books are the ESL Scott Foresman for accelerating English Language Learning. There are six levels and each book contains different topics; for example, family, body parts, colors and shapes, days and seasons , etc. Moreover, the books can give us a chart with the most frequent words used by children depending on their level of English.
I hope you can use these tips and good luck!!!!!!!!

I responded as I did because I could observe in my school (Roosevelt) that the teachers used these tips to teach students who are struggling in reading. They start teaching the alphabet which is really basic; then, they use books focus on the emergent level; finally, they start using books a little more complicated.
From my point of view, this method is very successful because the reading level may be adequate for the student's abilities. We can not force our students read something very hard for them since they will not understand anything. However, when they will be ready to learn something new , we have to choose challenging books.

Podcasting my way to mastery of English

http://en.yappr.com/welcome/VideoList.action

I have chosen this website because it is a good way to acquire more vocabulary , and improve my listening and reading skills.

This website is very easy to use . I can find the subtitles of each video next to them ; however I can try listening to the video without watching the subtitles to practice listening. In addition, the videos are very miscellaneous especially for every kind of people; for example, music, sports, celebrities, comedy, cartoons, news, nature, etc.

As a prospective teacher, I can say that we have to know a little bit about everything in order to teach our students and to make the classes more motivating for them because we have to have in mind that people have different interests and motivations for learning.

I really would like to use this website everyday since it is really useful for me owing to I can use it to learn English and to make my future classes.