Classroom Observation

In this classroom observation I analyzed the presence of teaching and learning behaviors and activities during a lesson, also the quality of teaching and what aspects can be improved to make the teaching and learning process more effective. I got astonished with the results because I really spected a lot more from this teacher and specially because I did my observation at a very prestigious highschool. There are lots of aspects that must be analyzed and also some others that can be improved, the teacher also talked a little bit about her experience teaching english.

First of all we are going to mention the pros and the cons of this specific teacher, she is an experienced teacher because se has been teaching for more than twenty years so what i first thought is that se was an incredibly good teacher, however, I was not thinking alike at the end of the lesson. I personally think that she did a lot of wrong things, first of all she does not explain her instructions, she only writes them on the whiteboard and when a student asks something she just tells them that everything is on the board, in second place she distracts a lot her students, when they are doing their practices she starts asking them a lot of things about several different non-related topics and that have nothing to do with the lesson, for example about their families and what they did the days before, but the most concerning thing that i noticed is that she didnt speak english, not even once in the whole lesson, if this is an english lesson so why the english teacher doesnt speak english? why the students are not requested to speak english? this can not be possible at an english class and MEP doesnt even get to know how are things being done at highschools. MEP should take care and ensure that things are going to be well done and the way it is meant to be at public high schools!

In life not everything is bad, we can always try to extract the positive side of all bad aspects that we already reviewed, well in the particular case of this teacher we can mention some things that are good, even though she doesnt use english orally she uses it in a written way and she really knows how to write and explain correctly what she wants, also she is very polite with her students so this way students feel comfortable at her classes, she motivates students telling them to research at home and if they dont know something she asks them to write it down so at the end of the class they can ask their doubts and what I really thing that is very positive is that she uses an appropiate level for her respective students. she is a good teacher but she needs to correct some things that are being done in a wrong way.

Are there any possible solutions for all those problems that were mentioned before? of course there are and they are obvious, first of all the teacher needs to change her attitude, she must start using english and talking to her students in english, also she must give better explanations and clarify doubts so that way it will be better for students, she needs to assess a little bit more her class but this is not only her job, also MEP should start taking part in these flaws that the Costa Rican educational system has, they should investigate if things are being done the way they are ment to be so that way they can find flaws and do something about them.

Here we have the interview realized to this specific teacher of Colegio San Luis Gonzaga which is one of the most famous highschools in Costa Rica
interview.mp3

After listening to the interview we all noticed that this teacher doesnt have a very good pronunciation, obviously this has a lot to do with what we already mentioned, maybe she has the knowledge but if she doesnt speak she will "rust" as we always say in class.
I like her way of thinking when she says that she likes to be a teacher because she can also teach values to her students and that she can give them some advice, this is a very important part of being teachers!
I think that she is not really clear about the communicative approach however she is not totally lost, she didnt use it when I was doing the observation but, however, she says that she uses it for some levels.

By Gustavo Lizano

Have you used internet websites to teach a language to your students? If you havent you should reconsider it. around the world wide web there are thousands of differente English websites that can be used to support and assess or even to improve the teaching/learning process. Obviously there are different type of websites, mainly they are focused on the basic English skills and areas such as reading, listening, pronunciaton, vocabulary and grammar. I found some different good ones that i want to share with all of you!

This website http://www.fonetiks.org/engsou6.html focuses the pronunciation aspects and skills, this is a nice website because it is colorful and nice to the eye view of users, in this page you can find lots of examples of different sounds that might be hard to pronounce and also it has the souds of each phonetic symbol, this site can be used to practice either at home or in class by reapeating the sounds and also by listening different sounds that could be difficult to pronounce for students or even for teachers that are not sure how to articulate one specific sound, I think that it can be used by begginers and by intermediate students.

Then we have this vocabulary site http://www.englishvocabularyexercises.com/all-adjectives-page.htm which I find really interesting because it is not very attractive to users but it is really really easy to use and here we can find lots of excercises for vocabulary practicing, it can be used in class taking examples of practices that can be found here or ever at home for personal use and development of English vocabulary.

For the grammatical part we have this awesome website http://www.grammarbook.com/english_rules.asp. This website is really interesting because here we can if not all then almost all the grammar rules for english writing and speaking, it is very important to know them in order to have the best skills that we can adquire, this web page is easy to use and it can be use to give examples during classes or even to study at home, i hardly recommend this site!

http://www.world-english.org/improve_reading_skills.htm is an excelent reading website, it is very good because it has lectures for all kind of english students when thinking about the level that they have and also a lot of topics for reading, it is easy to use and there are some hiperlinks that include practices for the page users, teachers can take good stories from this page or also students can read at home to expand their vocabulary and reading skills.

Finally we have a listening website, you can find it at http://www.5minuteenglish.com/listening.htm. I like this website because it is not just for listening but also for grammar and other englis areas, however, the english segment caught my attention because it looks really reliable and it has very interesting excersices in which the users have to listen to conversations or stories and then they have to answer some questions or do some practice excercises about the things that they listened before, I think that this website can be used at class by a teacher in a very easy and productive way, teachers can apply this type of excercises to their students and also students can practice at home with this kind of websites. You should take a look at it!

Generally speaking, english websites can be really useful but we must know how to select correct sites that will help us with the aspects that we want to improve or to study, we must be really careful when selecting those sites and also we must analyze them before providing them to our students, however, I have no doubts that in a coming soon future all the teachers and not only english teachers are going to be using this kind of educative websites to help assess their classes and their students.

Reaction Paper: Communicative Approach

Educational system in Costa Rica is one of the best rated systems all over the world. It is managed by the Ministerio de Educacion Publica also known as MEP. MEP is a state institution which belongs to the Costa Rican government and it is in charge of making education something mandatory and free in this country. When thinking about the methods that are applied by this people in order to teach or educate children in this beautiful and peaceful country obviously we have to discuss about the communicative approach and its use. The communicate approach is fundamental in Costa Rica because it is used practically by all public schools and high schools and also by a big part of private schools. It has a lot of benefits but also a lot of flaws but depending on the way of applying it, it can be useful or not.
The communicative approach is one of the many methodologies and approaches that are used to teach English as a foreign language. Its priority is to make students able to communicate and be effectively understood by English speakers in the shortest possible time. It also prioritizes communicative competence over accurate grammar, however, the main purpose is to make students communicate and after that work and build their accuracy. This method is commonly applied with adult learners, however, in Costa Rica the Ministerio de Educacion Publica uses this method to teach English to all students since they first go to school. Why is that? A possible answer for this question is that it is because this is an easy methodology to apply. Since teachers don’t have to work on grammar with the kids or students that are learning this way they are only interested in making their students able to understand and to be understood by English speakers. For example teachers in this case won’t start a class or a topic by telling his/her students that they are going to learn about a specific grammar structure like present prefect or so, instead of that teachers can tell their students that they will learn how to order food in a restaurant or things like that, that way students will be more interested on their topics and it will be easier for the professors to teach them.
The communicative approach has several different benefits so teachers can use those benefits in order to improve the learning process of their students. One excellent thing of this methodology is that the communicative competence is the desired goal. Teachers don't have to focus on grammar structures because this method tries to teach students how to be able to survive, converse and be understood in the language. At schools or high schools in Costa Rica most of the students that want to learn English have not that many reasons of learning it. Maybe they are interested on English just because they want to understand the music or TV shows that they watch and listen to. This might be an advantage because what is needed to do this is basically vocabulary. Another advantage of this approach is that the accuracy is built practically by itself when students practice. In our country in a lot of cases students are asked to do oral presentations or some oral activities. These activities are very useful because indirectly while students are performing them their accuracy is growing and growing and they don’t even notice it. In Costa Rica this can be very good because students are learning to communicate and that’s what they want. This method is a good way of teaching Costa Rican students.

As all the methods or approaches there is not perfection in the communicative approach or in any other one, but in this particular case this can affect students a lot. In Costa Rica the government cares more about trying to teach students how to understand and be understood than in teaching them how to be experts in the English language. so with the communicative approach students communicate but they might have a lot of mistakes. If Costa Rican students really want to learn English as a foreign language maybe this method is not the appropriate one. Some other methods can be applied in order to teach them how to be accurate when communicating. It might be harder for students to develop their accuracy if they already know how to communicate inaccurately. Teachers and also the MEP must consider the option of start teaching students the appropriate grammar structures within the communicative goals that they might have so that way students will be more likely to learn English in a more accurate way and also to improve more their English skills. MEP should consider letting teachers choose their own methods to teach and also studying the way that students learn.
The communicative approach actually is a really good method because it has several different benefits but it also has a lot of flaws as all the other methods and approaches, however, this fails may be covered or countered by different teaching strategies that professors can apply in order to improve their students teaching skills. This method has been working in our country for a lot of years and somehow it accomplishes with the MEP objectives but maybe they should consider using a variety of methods in order to improve the teaching of English as a foreign language.