Fifteen first form students are sitting in front of the board. It is a language class in which the teacher wants to work on “The neighbourhood” and the different shops that can be found there. During the first part of the lesson, Silvia, the teacher, brings different flashcards to activate the vocabulary and she encourages students to describe the shops. However, the children do not seem to be familiar with the vocabulary. Some of her students start drawing on the table, others start talking and standing up. The teacher asks for silence repeatedly. She invites the students who usually participate actively to do so, and they can give some answers. After describing all the pictures, she invites the children to predict which shops are going to appear in the video she is going to show them. They provide some of the vocabulary items they described in the previous activity but none of those words are mentioned in the video. The teacher then asks the students to draw their own neighbourhood. If they do not remember what it is like, they are allowed to draw an imaginary one. During the last 20 minutes, students are encouraged to show and describe their productions. Even though they drew enthusiastically during the first part of the task, they have difficulties in describing their pictures in front of the class. In contrast, students participated more actively in previous lessons I had observed. The activities were similar to the ones in this lesson, which proves that students are familiar with the type of tasks provided by the teacher. All the lessons observed were planned following Task-Based Learning.
Cameron, L. (2001). Teaching languages to young learners . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Outline Purpose: To summarize the most important points to bear in mind while planning units of work for young learners. Thesis statement: When planning a unit of work, EFL teachers should have a student-centered approach towards learning, accompanied by a communicative perspective on language, to make their teaching more effective. Audience: EFL teachers I. Preface II. Presentation of learning and language acquisition theories A. Piaget's active learner B. Vygotsky's zone of proximal development C. Bruner's scaffold D. Language acquisition theories III. Task-based learning IV. Meaning in language learning V. Learning words A. Connected networks B. Recycling of words VI. Learning grammar VII. Learning literacy skills...
Teachers as observers, then observers as researchers!
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