Project work with teenagers

Project work is becoming an increasingly popular feature within the ELT classroom. Common projects are class magazines, group wall displays about students' countries and designs for cities of the future.

A project involves students in deciding together what they want to do to complete a project whilst the teacher plays a more supporting role.

• Some advantages

• Planning the project

• Some possible drawbacks

• Example projects

• References

Some advantages of project work are:

• Increased motivation - learners become personally involved in the project.

• All four skills, reading, writing, listening and speaking are integrated.

• Autonomous learning is promoted as learners become more responsible for their own learning.

• There are learning outcomes -learners have an end product.

• Authentic tasks and therefore the language input are more authentic.

• Interpersonal relations are developed through working as a group.

• Content and methodology can be decided between the learners and the teacher and within the group themselves so it is more learner centred.

• Learners often get help from parents for project work thus involving the parent more in the child's learning. If the project is also displayed parents can see it at open days or when they pick the child up from the school.

• A break from routine and the chance to do something different.

• A context is established which balances the need for fluency and accuracy. Haines (1989)

TBL and PBL: Two learner-centred approaches

Many newly qualified or inexperienced teachers tend to base their lesson planning on the traditional PPP approach (Presentation, Practice, Production) because it is reliable and it is a valid framework around which to base a series of classroom activities. It is also usually the best way of covering all the lexical areas and grammar points in the course book or syllabus.

All good and well. The problem is that PPP serves the teacher’s needs but it is debatable whether or not it fulfills the needs of the learner.

The language presented and practiced does not take into account the particular needs of each learner; the language content is almost always dictated by the coursebook and/or syllabus. For this reason, many teachers, having experimented with the PPP approach turn to more learner-centred approaches where the needs of the learner are central to the lesson content. Two such approaches are TBL (Task-Based Learning) and PBL (Project-Based Learning).

Why Pragmatics is called a wastebasket of linguistics?

Sincronizar marcadores en Google Chrome

Una manera sencilla de controlar los marcadores y mucho más

Hace ya un tiempo que Google Chrome viene ofreciendo la posibilidad de sincronizar los marcadores a través de una cuenta de Google. Ahora con su última actualización amplia esta sincronización a muchos más aspectos del navegador, como extensiones, preferencias y temas.

Sincronizar chrome a una cuenta de Google está pensado para aquellos que disponen de más de un ordenador y quieren tener en todos la misma configuración, de manera que: si en uno añaden una página a favoritos, se instala una nueva extensión, se cambia el tema o la página de inicio...automáticamente aparezca en todos.

Ejemplo práctico:

En casa tienes un ordenador de sobremesa y un portátil. Navegas en ambos con Google Chrome. Si sincronizas los marcadores a tu cuenta de Google ambos ordenadores, dentro del navegador Google Chrome, dispondrán de los mismos marcadores. Pero no solo eso, sino que si añades un marcador nuevo en uno de los ordenadores, Google guarda esa información en tu cuenta y automáticamente se añadirá dicho marcador nuevo en todos los ordenadores sincronizados a esa cuenta. Lo mismo ocurre al borrar el marcador.
Esta función de Google Chrome es muy interesante para las aulas del proyecto Escuela 2.0. ya que nos permitirá (disponiendo de una cuenta de Google para la clase) proponer enlaces y controlar los marcadores de todos los equipos del alumnado de manera directa y sin la necesidad de entrar a una dirección web para acceder a los mismos.

Además nos permite no partir de cero en una instalación nueva de chrome, incorporando las preferencias, extensiones, temas...

Learning strategies for learners

We’ve all heard about learning strategies and what to do to teach them to our students. The problem which arises is how you can understand this tough puzzle: 
 
DIRECT STRATEGIES 

o I. Memory

1. Creating mental linkages
2. Applying images and sounds
3. Reviewing well 
4. Employing action

o II.Cognitive 

1. Practising
2. Receiving and sending messages strategies
3. Analysing and reasoning
4. Creating structure for input and output

o III. Compensation strategies 

1. Guessing intelligently
2. Overcoming limitations in speaking and writing    

  

 INDIRECT STRATEGIES

o I. Metacognitive Strategies    

1. Centering your learning
2. Arranging and planning your learning
3. Evaluating your learning

 o II. Affective Strategies   

1. Lowering your anxiety
2. Encouraging yourself
3. Taking your emotional temperature 

o III. Social Strategies   

1. Asking questions
2. Cooperating with others
3. Empathising with others

Seven Ways of Looking at Grammar by Scott Thornbury

Brown's 12 Principles - An Interactive Approach to Learning Pedagogy

#1 – Automaticity

• Efficient 2nd language learning involves a timely movement of the control of a few language forms into the automatic processing of a relatively unlimited number of language forms.
• Automaticity – the road to fluency

#2 – Meaningful Learning

• Meaningful learning will lead toward better long-term retention than rote learning.
• Appeals to student interests
• Connects new info to old info (good schemata building)

Meaningful Learning – Don’ts

• Too much grammar explanation
• Abstract principles and theories
• Too many drills and memories
• Activities with unclear purposes
• Extraneous activities
• Distractions that take the focus off of meaning

Dr. Stephen Krashen at the 5th Annual Extensive Reading Seminar in Nagoya, Japan.

Krashen's Theory of Second Language Acquisition by Vivian Cook

Acquisition	Learning
implicit, subconscious	explicit, conscious
informal situations	formal situations
uses grammatical 'feel'	uses grammatical rules
depends on attitude	depends on aptitude
stable order of acquisition	simple to complex order of learning