Discipline

I believe most of us have a very unkind concept of discipline, we hear that word and think of solders, punishment, feeling afraid. And this should not be like that, after reading I can tell that making students fell confortable, secure and understood, a teacher does not imposes discipline, a teacher creates self-discipline on the kids.

I work at a school, not with kids but in the office and some weeks ago I witnessed a teacher arguing with a 5th grade student, this is what happened:

The teacher told the student to stop playing, the boy asked why, teacher said it was inappropriate, the student asked why again, the teacher said because she said so, the boy replied saying that was not a reason, the teacher said that there was no reason then, and the boy said that if there was not reason, then he would continue playing and he did!! The teacher did and said nothing and let him continue playing. While all this happened the other students were just playing attention to the ones back talking.

I believe that with this entire situation, the teacher just showed off. This situation could have been different if the teacher has closed her mouth the first time the boy replied, she asked him to do something he should not have been doing at that time, and he knew why, he was just threatening the teacher and he was successful.

To the question: Who has or exercises discipline? I think one self, having a group controlled because they are afraid is not discipline. But having a group that know how to work, that know they count on the teacher, that feel free to ask when they have doubts, and that react the way the teacher expects because they feel like doing it, that is a disciplined group.

As far as why would there be breaches of discipline? My answer is, because it is about psychology, and psychology has many branches that could help in all points of view, as a teacher, as a student, as a parent.

And as Dr. Fred Jones said: “It takes one fool to backtalk. It takes two fools to make a conversation out of it.”

Classified lesson according to the Bloom´s Taxonomy

Learning vocabulary from the unit (Means of transport) and grammar (would as an auxiliary verb for questions and to express opinion): low intermediate level 5th grade students.

1.- Knowledge: Students will identify a new set of words by looking, hearing and repeating the new words on the flash cards the teacher presents.

2.- Comprehension: On a worksheet, students will match the picture to the sentence that talks about each mean of transportation.

3.- Application: In partners, students will practice using the new new vocabulary talking about if they have traveled by any of the means of transportation mentioned before and how was it like.

4.- Analysis: After explaining the ”would structure” for questions and expressing opinion, students will have the following question-answer:

Student 1: What mean of transportation would you use if you were going to…?

Student 2: I would use …

They will  survey eight classmates around the classroom and write down their answers.

5.- Synthesis: Students will compose a short paragraph using their classmates´ answers, and what is the mean of transportation most of them would use.

6.- Evaluation: We will divide the class into four groups, each group will discuss about what is the best mean of transportation to use from home to school, and will make a recommendation to the other groups, and say why it is the best.

What I think of the Bloom´s Taxonomy

I find the Bloom’s Taxonomy very interesting; it is putting graphically the learning objectives by categorizing them in levels. As a new teacher I find it very useful, it gives me a great overview on what I can do and where to start and what students will be able to do. I believe all teachers should have a copy of the bloom´s taxonomy when planning a lesson.

Before applying the Bloom´s Taxonomy, the teacher must know if the students have prior knowledge on the subject to be covered, if so, it is not necessary to begging with the first level(knowledge), depending on how much students know, students could “apply” (Level III) or “analyze” (Level IV).

Personally now that I know the Bloom´s Taxonomy I will use it for sure on my classes, and also for myself.
Here I am sharing a PDF document I found while making research on the internet, it gives great advices on how to utilize the Bloom´s Taxonomy in the classroom, I really liked it. It is from Dr. Barry Ziff, from California State University Los Angeles.

Utilizing Bloom’s Taxonomy in Your Classroom

VENN DIAGRAM

Here I am sharing my Venn Diagram comparing an EFL class video I saw on YouTube.com with a class I would give.

VENN DIAGRAM

It was a little difficult for me, because thinking what I would do, compared to how a class really is, is difficult, I wanted to put on my side everything I liked from the other teacher class!! and I promise that when I have my own group I will try to implement all the motivational strategies I liked from the sample class.

VOKI

Well, Voki is a very interesting application that lets you not only create an avatar, but add voice to it by recording your own voice, typing a word or sentence and choose from various voices, or insert an audio file. I find this very helpful because is a fun way that students can use to practice pronunciation and listening skills and also grammar.

I thought of an activity for a lesson in my book called “A rock star zoo” on this lesson we will learn the comparative and superlative form of adjectives such as: slow, happy, small, intelligent, angry, thin, big, tall and fat;

What are we going to do? After introducing Voki to the students in a previous class, having created an account, and after completing the lesson on the book, we are going to form groups and have each group pick an adjective from the list.

Then, they will have 10 minutes to create 3 Vokis per team according to the adjective they chose. They can make it look as their adjective, and add a sentence using their own voice. The first one, a sentence containing the adjective on its simple form, the second one a sentence using the comparative form of the adjective, and the third one a sentence using the superlative form of the adjective. They have to use the volume and the tone of voice needed to make it more fun.

Here is an example of what they are going to do. Please click on the following words:

Happy

Happier

Happiest

To asses my students I would check on their grammar and pronunciation.

HOMEWORK!!

Hello TKT classmates!!

As I will not be able to assist to class this saturday I am sharing with you my matrix, here is the link if you want to check it out. Comparison Matrix of CEFR and ALTE

Here are also three graphic organizers I liked:

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And finally I want to share something frightening that happened to my today when I finished my homework. I closed my document thinking that I had save it on my computer, but when I looked for it to post it here, I did not find it anywhere!!! I was shocked, I spent more that two hours working on it and did not have time to do it all over again!! Then I remember something Ellen said about technology being very frustrating sometimes, gosh she is definitely right!! Well I thought that maybe going to recent documents I could rescue mine, but did not see it, just then when I was about to cry I see this text at the bottom right hand corner of the page that says «Recuperar documentos sin guardar» I swear I love that Word has this thing!!! I was able to save my work and share it with you!!! I hope you never go through something like this, but if you do, now you know what to do.

Learning vocabulary

Personally, I learn vocabulary more efficiently by studying  a few words at a time. I used quizlet.com. In this page by creating an account you can create your own set of words and play several games to learn them. Also when you input a word, you have the option to write your own definition but also the page gives you some to choose from. Here I share my set of words http://quizlet.com/_sywf5, ready to create yours?

GRAMMAR AND MUSIC

I think it is very important for everyone who wants to either learn or teach English to work on their grammar. However a teacher must always make an effort to have the best level possible. Students always come to their teachers to solve questions regarding the language and although it is impossible to know it all getting prepared constantly is the best. Music is a great way to learn grammar; everyone likes music, so why not using it to learn? And taking advantage of one of the best tools we have, the internet, here are some sites I found very interesting:

http://www.isabelperez.com/songs.htm Is a web page where you can find lyrics of popular and old songs, and then they give you some related exercises to work on. It is worth it to have a look at this page and give your students a fun and enriching time.

For the little ones, http://www.anglomaniacy.pl/ is a site that has songs, vocabulary, expressions,  games and much more. Among all the things this site offers, you can hear the songs, have the lyrics and also facts about the history behind the song while you listen to it, isn’t it great to teach and learn at the same time?

I hope you can take the time to look at these web pages and if I can get more suggestions from you it would be wonderful!!

Let´s begin!

I am very exited to begin this course!!!

I really want to become a good teacher and find the best way to pass on my knowledge to my future students and sure keep on learning everything I can to improve as a person and as a teacher. I know we will work very well as a group and something I will do for sure is help you if I it is on my hands.