WEEK 5 – ARTICLE – Meeting individual needs.

Differentiation is said to be “an adaptive approach to teaching is responsive to individual differences among learners” in Peter Westwood and Wendy Arnold’s article, but I’d say after reading the article that it is something along these lines:

Differentiation is taking account of children’s background (abilities, knowledge, preferences, interests...).for the student’s success.

In this article we can find interesting differentiated resource materials, examples of some whole group and small group activities and how to make it part of your daily classroom life, and some projects related to computer-supported learning. Also, there’s a part where we can find out about multiple intelligences (MI) and learning styles and preferences.

To achieve a differentiated teaching, it is important to create a nice environment, surroundings and atmosphere, so the students are comfortable to work on their activities, and in their learning process; but not just that, we need support materials that can be useful no matter what are the predominant skills and abilities of our students, the option of our students becoming the main protagonist in the class developing an active and communicative role, etc.

Furthermore, we want our students to become autonomous in their work and in life, so differentiated instruction must provide them the possibility to develop this skill. This can only be achieved if we take into account that every child we have in class is different and has unique skills and needs that we have to work with.

As you may want to have a look at the article, I recommend you to follow this link:

http://203.72.145.166/ELT/files/58-4-7.pdf

Week 4 – Networked teacher.

Alex Couros, a professor of educational technology and media at the Faculty of Education, University of Regina, was the one to pass from this:

and this teaching community ideal:

To the actual PLN/PLE:

and developing it further to the PLCommunity

At some point, before a presentation in the Regina University, he decided to ask his colleagues what they think about “the Networked teacher” and here it is the result: AMAZING!

Here you can find Dr. Alec Couros interviewed by the author, professor and internet pioneer Howard Rheingold.

Also, as it’s mentioned in this video, I leave you the link to Dean Shareski blog entry about 'The Learning Project' (ideasandthoughts.org/2011/09/13/the-learning-project).
It may not be totally related, but it’s about transparent teaching and I truly recommend that you take a look.

Week 3 – Pronunciation in Primary School English Classes.

I have the feeling that this week I should write about the PLE and their relations to the PLN and the LMS, but after all, I don’t believe that I’m an expert and I do not want to lead you astray, so I decided to talk about pronunciation in primary school English classes.

With Carlos, Iris and Sara, I’ll do an oral presentation for our classmates in Terence’s Advanced English class.

First of all, I’d like to show you the presentation we will use.

(See? As I promised in the previous post, I’ve used another resource from the web to show you this ppt)

I’ll focus on “Why is pronunciation important?”

Well, everything seems really natural when we refer to the acquisition of a first language, but when are talking about another language – learnt in an artificial way and without any urgent need to communicate- the situation changes a lot.

In this artificial context, our pupils have to be able to understand spoken English and also must be able make themselves be understood when they speak English. This is where the teaching of good pronunciation from the beginning of the learning process gains importance.

Certainly, pronunciation is one of the most difficult aspects of the English language. The frustration caused when it comes to teaching pronunciation in class has been so overwhelming that sometimes it is avoided completely. Amongst the teaching community there is a conviction that, with time, the pupils will dominate English pronunciation, far overestimating the capability for imitation that their students have at that age. It is proven that the capability for imitation decreases considerably with time and varies a lot from one pupil to another.

Obviously, we have to take into account that there are different accents and that some words are pronounced differently depending on the country or region we are in.

A good way to achieve the teaching of pronunciation in class, in a fun and easier way than it is done now, is to use Jolly Phonics.

Jolly Phonics is a fun and child-centred approach to teaching literacy through synthetic phonics. With actions for each of the 42 letter sounds, the multi-sensory method is very motivating for children and teachers, who can see how their students are improving. The letter sounds are split into seven groups as shown below.

The sounds are not taught in any specific order (not alphabetically). This enables children to begin building words as early as possible.

Jolly phonics teaches children the five key skills for reading and writing (Learning the letter sound, Learning letter formation, Blending, Identifying the sounds in words [segmenting] and Tricky words)

Have a look at the slide where the Jolly songs are shown. They have nice melodies that are really catchy and work really well for teaching the sounds.

I hope that all the activities included in the slideshare are useful when you are in a class.

Week 2 – Day of the teacher / the Ballard of the Happy Teacher.

I have just discovered a couple of days early that Teacher’s Day, is recognised by the UN, and is the 5^th of October. That’s a bit of a shame as I always thought (and been told) that it was the 27^th of November. I think I’m going to stick to the date that I’ve always known it to be, as it makes me happier to have a double celebration on that date, my birthday and Teacher’s Day.

With that said, I would like to focus on this entry.

The conference about the Ballard of the Happy Teacher, from Ricard Garcia, was a success, all the information he gave us about new gadgets and applications we can find on the net was so interesting that I decided I had to try some of them in my Didactic Units. Of course, I’ll edit this entry to show you all the final result.

These kinds of activities are really catchy and engaging for students, no matter what kind of learning type they have, as it’s something new, and as they prefer to use visual and interactive apps related to ICT, I think we should use them as an incentive to keep them learning and not as a substitutive of the pen-and-paper activities.

Some apps that Ricard showed us are in this pyramid, others are not, and have been replaced with new ones. I’ve checked them all and some are better designed than others, or the usability appears easier than others, but even if we could only use the ones in this pyramid, that would be more than enough.

To be a 2.0 Teacher, we do not need to use all the apps in the internet, or know every single one that appears, as there are thousands, but it will be interesting to see whether the ones we use are effective for our pupils.

Hello there!

Hi, my name is Judit Aláez and I live in Castelldefels on the outskirts of Barcelona. I am studying Primary Education, with a specialisation in English (you never would have guessed!). I recently returned from an erasmus semester at Newman University College in Birmingham where I did my placement at Kitwell Primary School.

I really enjoy spending time in the UK, and spent a month in Devon last summer, as well as visiting Portsmouth a few times. During these trips I have also found time to see some other parts of the country, visiting Cardiff, London and Newcastle. In fact, I am planning to move to Portsmouth next year!