Bloom’s Taxonomy

Some days ago, weeks to be more exact, in my class of  “Comprension Auditiva y Expresión Oral”, as they call it, I implemented some aspects of Bloom’s Taxonomy without knowing it.

After reading those articles about this learning process I was able to recognize the six steps and could apply them better in my next exposition.

Here you have the comparison between  our (because it was a team work) two presentations.

In the first presentation we asked our classmates to do some exercises, the incomplete taxonomy was as follows.

We talked about Lazaro Cardenas’ life and at the end we had a chatting club in which I asked my classmates some questions  about the biography.

REMEMBERING: We asked our classmates to say the names of Cardenas’ relatives.

ANALISYNG: We asked them the following question about Cardenas’ marriage: What was the problem of marrying a soldier?

EVALUATING: There was another question about the private life of Cardenas and his wife. We asked them what would they have done if a daughter of theirs wanted to marry a soldier.

CREATING: The last relevant question we asked was about some reforms in education that Cardenas did. We asked them What would have happened with education in Mexico if Lazaro Cardenas had not created the IPN?

Some days ago, and after reading and understanding the Bloom’s Taxonomy, my team gave the last presentation of the course. As usual we assessed our classmates through the conversation club. This time with Bloom’s Taxonomy in mind.

We talked about senses.

REMEMBERING: We asked our classmates to recall the five senses.

UNDERSTANDING: The activity here was to explain in their own words about one of the five senses.

APPLYING: We asked them to tell us a situation where senses can be affected because of pollution.

ANALYSING: Students had to think about some other alternatives to prevent blindness.

EVALUATING: We presented some cases of senses which are more developed than the others. We asked our classmates to tell us some pros and cons of those cases.

CREATING: We asked them to create an ad campaign to take care of our senses.

That’s all for the Bloom’s Taxonomy.

My Learning Phylosophy.

Here is the link to my glogster “My learning Phylosophy” I hope you enjoy it. If you want to leave a comment leave it here.

http://mocshire.glogster.com/my-learning-phylosophy/

Collaborative Work

Collaborative work rules today. Since we have become more dependent on technology, we do some things through internet.

Working in a collaborative way is one of the most common activities we do via internet and all technology that supports it.

For me, collaborative work through internet is new. That is why I felt myself a little unuseful. I am used to work personally and to direct all my colleagues, but this time I had no opportunity to keep on telling them to do their tasks. I could not feel myself as a leader and I was lost in the project we were asked to present.

Besides this experience was a little uncomfortable in the beginning, now I am applying this method and using  this platform in my other school. And believe it or not, leadership has returned to me, now through internet.

image from http://grupoeducativa.blogspot.com/2011/01/educando-ninos-lideres.html

We have to what? Talk?

After I have visited the site http://tefltecher.wordpress.com/2011/02/18/tesol-spain-thingy/, I have been thinking about what some “teachers” have said about other “teachers”.

One day, one of those teachers said that we, as future teachers, must learn to speak, and that grammar doesn’t matter when teaching another language. Personally I think that both, speaking and grammar, are important. And people who say things like that should not be called teachers.

Well, now I should say that the most difficult skill  that students have to learn, is to speak. There are many different causes. It doesn’t matter what the cause is, teachers should pay as much attention to this point of the learning process as they do to with the grammar thing.

Another memory (from high school) I have is a good teacher of mine, who really taught me grammar, and made me speak in English. This teacher, whose last name is Tzintzun, used to ask us to record a tale as if it were an audio book for the end-of-semester project. He used to form groups and assigned us a tale. All the students must participate at least during two effective minutes. This way all students got involved into the work and helped each other by the time they had fun recording the tale.

Now that technology is more accessible for more people, there are much more options to take advantage of.

I would use VoiceThread http://voicethread.com/ with my IMCED classmates (the majority of them do not speak English). Using VoiceThread I am able to help them talk in English and teach them English grammar. The advantage of using this tool is that it allows users to have conversations around media such as images, videos, documents or presentations.

Literacy Circles

What is a Literacy circle?

The answer is not essay, but in general, it is a technique to read texts. It is developed in groups, so the reading is less boring and more active. Each member of the group is asked to read a portion of the text, so the group covers the text faster.

In literacy circles the four skills of communication are practiced. Readers have to read his part, analyze it and share they ideas, opinions and thoughts with their mates. They discuss the text and take notes. After all the main goal of literacy circles is to build knowledge in a collaborative way. In some cases it may be fun.

Regarding to the graphic organizers for a response to a story I would use the story map organizer.

How do we learn new vocabulary?

Hello People!

How many different ways to learn vocabulary words do you know?

I have learnt in different ways, some of them are memorizing, translating, making relation between words and images, listening to and using them in sentences.

Besides the fact that most people learn vocabulary by heart, nowadays, teachers are changing the way they teach new vocabulary to their students. For me, as a pedagogy student I have learnt that people acquire knowledge through senses.

There are people who learn by his eyes, they are called “visuals”. People who are visual tend to forget what they hear, but they are good learners when they can see what they are supposed to learn. For this people graphics and coloured letters and words are the best way to learn.

Another type is the auditory learner; they learn better when they hear. This type of learner, in my own point of view, has more difficulties to learn new vocabulary because they need to hear, and I do not know any tool to help them. The only way I know is that teachers read aloud the meaning of the word to the auditory student.

The other type is the kinaesthetic. You should know I am a kinaesthetic person. For this kind of people the best way to learn something new is to manipulate things as they learn by their sense of touch.

Summarizing, the best way to learn new vocabulary depends on the type of learner each person is. And, in my own experience the best way to learn vocabulary is when I can be in contact with the “new” words, it doesn’t matter if it is touching or using them when I speak.

P.S. I would like to share these internet sites where you can play and learn.

For basic level words http://www.vocabulary.co.il/foreign-language/english-word-recognition-game/

Idioms are vocabulary too.  http://www.vocabulary.co.il/idioms/idioms-game-slang-game/

The next link offers many activities to learn new vocabulary: http://www.syvum.com/squizzes/vocabulary/#s2

Enjoy your practice!!! And see you on Saturday!!!

Portfolios are good… having them online is better.

If you are the kind of person who thinks portfolios are trash or just don’t like them, stop reading. This post has been written to point out two positive aspects of having an updated portfolio online.

The first advantage you get when you have a portfolio online is you keep them available for people around the world. Every person who has access to internet can have a look at what you have done.

The other good reason is when you have your portfolio online as a blog people who read your papers are able to feedback you, and the benefits of having feedback helps you to improve your work.

Why and How I started studying English

Don’t you think it is typical that mexican mothers want her sons and daughters to study another language? Of course they want us, their  precious children, to study English, not only because it sounds nice and elegant, but because it is, nowadays, the most important language.

My mother is one of those typical moms who thinks that his son must study hard. When she noticed that I wasn’t doing well at college,she started to insist that I should study English as a second language and then become a teacher. Here is where my story begins.

It was 2005, I was talking about my future plans with my girlfriend, she used to say she wanted to study in a foreign country, she was crazy about the idea of getting a scholarship in London. I used to say it was a good idea and then say to myself that it was impossible because I didn’t want to study English! Later that day, my mother came to us and told us to sign up in the language department in the university, I as usual, started an argument with my mother.

Some days later, I don’t exactly know why, I told Pau I wanted to study English. She was very happy, in my personal opinion she was more surprised than happy, she knew I disliked English as much as children dislike Maths or broccoli. I was not sure about my decision, but at last I had made up my mind so I wouldn’t disappoint Pau.

The day arrived and we went to the language department, we were rookies, there was too many people there who had arrived the previous night (we arrived at 9:00 AM), we couldn’t register that day. For me it was a disaster, we were waiting in the line only to see how the woman who was receiving our papers closed the window and told us to come back next semester. I was furious and blamed the day I had decided to study English.

For the next six months I hated English, I didn’t want to hear a word in English. But when the registrations were closer my feelings of anger disappeared, probably because Pau’s comments about trying it again. She convinced me and we were there again. The second time we got there at seven sharp, the consequence: we didn’t get a registration paper, WORST than the previous experience!!!

Pau was determined to enter that semester, she made some calls and five minutes later we were in the principal’s office filling out the form. The director told us that we wouldn’t be in the same classroom. I wanted to reject the offer but I couldn’t. I thought I could do that.

The first semester ended and my dislike for English had gone away, since that day my interest in the language has grown everyday.