Midterm self- and peer reflections (FS19)

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Permalink Reply by melinda vargas on October 28, 2019 at 12:43pm

The subject of the lesson is, “El Día de los Muertos”. This lesson is a reading comprehension. For the presentation I showed a video accompanied by four questions to test their listening comprehension and introduce students to the topic. By presenting the video the lesson is able to cover Howard Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences through its music in the target language throughout the film when words are being presented such as altares, difuntos, cemeterío, bebídas, calavera dulce, velas, pan de muerto, frutas etc. the focus is zoomed into the item as if the movie is pointing on the item.  This technique also lowers the risk of misunderstanding and increases focus on the item as to make it memorable. In addition, the vibrant colors target the spatial intelligence. The aspect that went well in the lesson was the video because the video has a length of less than three minutes of vibrant colors, music using simple terminology with cine techniques which bring life and understanding to vocabulary. I think students walked away with the song stuck in their heads but most importantly a better understanding of what is the day of the day and the items they have seen in popular movies such as “the book of life”, “Coco” and “Día de los Muertos”. The unanticipated consequences for this lesson would be technical difficulties such as no internet, the projector not working or the visuals being fuzzy which would greatly impact the students comprehension if I use a substituted method such as playing the song on the computer or phone and presenting students with cutouts when the video would zoom into the item. During the presentation students are solely looking at the video. During the first practice in matching items, students are working individually but are verbally telling me the answer which provides students the opportunity to hear different variations of Spanish. During the second activity in the fill in the blanks students are working in pairs and those who did not speak before will present the answer. During the project students will work in a group to create a project board, video or PowerPoint on the differences and similarities spotted between the video presented in class and one of the three popular movies they may have seen.  The objective of the lesson was achieved. Students learned the word for drinks, candle, celebration and fruits in Spanish but most importantly students were able to understand that the day of the dead is not a day zombies come out, it’s a cultural celebration in which families are united with the opportunity to learn and appreciate their ancestors. For the following class the lesson should begin with the second activity of the practice which can be used as a recap before students begin to work on their project. Another way to teach this lesson could have been to show one of the popular films and have students do activity sheets using the movie and still maintaining the same production. (497)

References: 

Lee, J., & VanPatten, B. (2003). Making communicative language teaching happen, (2nd Ed). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

Kristina Robertson. Music and language learning,¡Colorín Colorado! https://www.colorincolorado.org/article/music-and-language-learning

Permalink Reply by Fazima Kausar on October 31, 2019 at 1:47pm

The instructional methods utilized in Melinda’s lesson plan were meticulously reasoned considering the Spanish level she intended to teach as well as the content of reading comprehension. Melinda made great use of binding, every vocabulary word was accompanied with a visual as opposed to providing a traditional bilingual list, this exemplifies the idea of binding. As Terrell mentions “the concept of binding is what language teachers refer to when they insist that a new word ultimately be associated with its meaning and not with a translation” (Terrell, 1986).

However, I do recommend, one little addition that may assist with a better apprehension of the song played during the video in the Presentation segment of the lesson. I would recommend providing students with the lyrics of the song. This way they can easily identify the verbs or any vocabulary they had previously learned while also hearing it put in context. As Lee and VanPatten declare “…comprehensible, meaning-bearing input is crucial for all domains of language: syntax, verbal morphology, nominal morphology, pronunciation, and semantics, in addition to vocabulary” (2003, p.  46).

I would also recommend dedicating some time to allowing students compare El día de los muertos to any festivity that they are familiar with or even participate in themselves. A very obvious example here in the US would be Halloween. You can have students discuss any familial traditions they practice on this day and how it can be compared to El día de los muertos. This can students develop cultural sensitivity, “learning about one’s own cultural values and making them salient is a good first step to take before beginning to look at other cultures” (Lee and VanPatten, 2003, p.  213). (280 words)

References: 

Lee, J., & VanPatten, B. (2003). Making communicative language teaching happen, (2nd Ed). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

Permalink Reply by Evelyn Salazar on October 28, 2019 at 10:59pm

  The teaching slide that I presented for the class is based on reading comprehension. The topic of my lesson is “El dia de los muertos”. The objective of the students is to obtain information about this Mexican tradition while they learn and practice the target language.

One of the good elements about my lesson was the hook, I presented a video with some information about the tradition. In the video students are expected to use their visual and auditory styles. In the video students were able to hear the lyrics of the spanish song repetitive and slowly providing time for students to understand the message and acknowledge the information.

The main focus is to provide cultural information about Mexican tradition, allowing students to use the new vocabulary and grammar to create a short passage about their personal tradition. This lesson can encourage students to build interest about other cultures, compare similarities, and be able to express themselves with short sentences in spanish in class and outside the classroom.

The topic that I choose was based in the interest of the students, people in the United States know about Halloween and some of them celebrate this tradition every year. Is important and motivational for students to learn about similar topics of their own culture and show them that learning in the classroom can be connected to their own desires. According to Tomlinson (2001) “ two powerful and related motivators for engagement are students interest and student choice. If a student has a spark of curiosity about a topic, learning is more likely for that student” (p. 52).

One of the possible obstacles that may occur in the classroom is technology, the internet can fail, projetor broken or the video is no longer in the website. Teacher needs to be prepared to improvise and use other material or different teaching methods. The key for the teacher is to always engaged with the student and have a second plan. As we know, not all students learn the same way and not all teachers use the same style but sometimes as teachers we need to modify the lesson, simplified techniques and be ready to adapt to students needs and the different situations that can occur in the classroom.

If there is an opportunity to teach this topic again, I will add more activities with more vocabulary and bring some physical elements to the class to make the class positive, fun and motivational. Adding another activity with more interaction among students, not only to work independently, and in pairs but also as a group. I will challenge students with prior knowledge about the tradition and the language, encourage  students to work creatively and analytic in the narration by giving them more specific details and asking specific questions. (words 461)

Tomlinson, C. A. (2001). How to Differentiate Instruction in Mixed-Ability Classrooms (2nd Edition). Reston, VA: ASCD. 

Permalink Reply by CAROLINA PUERTA on October 29, 2019 at 4:52pm

Evelyn,

I thought your teaching lesson was well organized. Your lesson is composed of all the hook and 3Ps elements. Your lesson is similar to mine, as far as culture is concerned, since you are teaching the culture of Mexico about the day of the dead and I am teaching about Colombia and Christmas. The hook as you say in your reflection seemed to me a very good way to start because the video details very well the explanation of what your lesson will be, and it is very interesting for the students since their visual part and audit are playing an important role in this.

In the production you used a story about two characters celebrating “el día de los muertos”, I thought it was good, it is not complex for students and culture, it is very interesting to learn how this celebration unites families and especially remember a loved one together with how it is celebrated and the typical things they do during this day. I believe that one of the activities that is vocabulary could use a more visual activity "visual representation of vocabulary to facilitate acquisition" "Binding can be facilitated during vocabulary acquisition by presenting vocabulary in meaningful groups (eg, physical descriptions, clothing, weather) , providing meaningful input in presenting vocabulary, using visuals and objects so that students can match the TL description to the concrete referents, and engaging students in demonstrating comprehension and acquisition of vocabulary before actually asking them to produce it orally or in written form "(Shrum & Glisan, pg 15). I think applying this would make the activity more motivating for students, but the rest of activities was nice organized and understandable.

The activity you used for the production seems to me to be very good, since students after learning about a "Mexican" culture can now have the opportunity to share a tradition of their different cultures and countries. (316 words)

Nice Job 

Shrum, J. L., & Glisan, E. W. (2000). Teacher's handbook: Contextualized language instruction. Boston, Mass: Heinle & Heinle.

Permalink Reply by Fazima Kausar on October 30, 2019 at 11:12am

For my teaching slice, I presented a Production activity based on the reading comprehension delivered earlier while also touching base on the students’ personal interests with hopes of maintaining student enthusiasm. As Tomlinson (2001) utter, “Three characteristics of students guide differentiation: readiness, interest, and learning profile…We know that students learn better if tasks are a close match for their skills and understanding of a topic (readiness), if tasks ignite curiosity or passion in a student (interest)…” (p.  45). While students were completing the activity, I quickly took note of the student engagement in the classroom, as they were also permitted to quietly discuss the questions amongst one another. I heard one group of students expressing their love for NYC street art, while others were talking about their favorite museums.

However, one aspect of my teaching slice that I would modify in the future for Production activities, is giving students a scenario. Scenarios allow students step out of their own shoes and put themselves in a certain situation, to make the activity more diverting as well as meaningful. Instead of having students simply imagine they are artists, I would make the activity more exhilarating by having students imagine they are writing a letter to the director a museum in which they wish to display their art. This would allow output processing, which research indicates is the way in which learners acquire the ability to make use of implicit knowledge, “for example, during conversational interactions or while making a presentation in class” (Lee & VanPatten, 2003, p.  18).

Although my lesson was based on reading comprehension, my intent for my lesson plan as a language teacher, was to incorporate all four skills of language learning as much as I possibly can, as declared by Lee and VanPatten (2003) “Comprehensible input is a factor related to the acquisition of a linguistic system—vocabulary, morphology, syntax, phonology, and other linguistic features” (p.  214). In the Presentation activity, students were required to speak in the TL and report what they had spoken about on paper. Then during the reading comprehension, I had participating students read the passage paragraph by paragraph while the rest followed along. Being that the reading comprehension paragraph consisted of four paragraphs, four students were able to volunteer to read the passage aloud. Two of these four students were native while the other two were not, this allowed non-Natives to detect any phonological sounds that may be new or unfamiliar to them, with hopes that they will then be encouraged to later imitate those sounds. As research suggests, “In the second language classroom, the Audiolingual method of instruction was developed to provide appropriate stimuli for learners to imitate and a context that fostered association formation. Learner errors were corrected immediately so as to prevent the formation of bad habits” (Geeslin & Long, p.  12). (472 words)

References:

Lee, J., & VanPatten, B. (2003). Making communicative language teaching happen, (2nd Ed). 

Tomlinson, C. A. (2001). How to Differentiate Instruction in Mixed-Ability Classrooms (2nd Edition). Reston, VA: ASCD.

Permalink Reply by melinda vargas on October 31, 2019 at 12:06pm

Section B:

Fiseema’s lesson was very well thought out in merging the topic of art and Pablo Picasso in the target language because students may have prior knowledge based on previous classes. By using this topic she is also providing students with the possibility of freely expressing themselves on what does art mean in our lives which sparks their interest and assists them with learning how to express themselves in the target language. The production activity allows students to be as basic or as advanced as they want to be. Consistent with Tomlinson (2001) “two powerful and related motivators for engagement are students interest and student choice.” (p. 52). Do you think that focusing on a Spanish speaking artist like Frida Kahlo, might work better next when conducting this lesson? Students who have watched Coco might be familiar with her as the crazy lady with the monkey and crazy artistic performance. However some students may not know who she really is which may give the opportunity to present more culture into the lesson. In addition, I agree that creating a more focused production activity for students would create a more focused output, do you think it would be a good idea to have them write a letter to you about where to display their art or where how to decorate the display? By doing this and actually doing some of their suggestions it will be meaningful to them and they will see it every time they come to school. (250 words)

References: 

Tomlinson, C. A. (2001). How to Differentiate Instruction in Mixed-Ability Classrooms (2nd Edition). Reston, VA: ASCD.

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