Seminar 3rd Stage

During the first two parts of this seminar, we have been seeing how San Juan Evangelista curriculum is. Having brought up a great number of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats we could realize the curricula's structure. In our last stage of seminar we used the SWOT system of analysis for identifying all the recently mentioned characteristics present in a curriculum. After that analysis, we encountered one main weakness that called our attention greatly: Library or facilities in general. In this last stage we will write a proposal with possible and feasible solutions to this weakness. One of the main reasons we had to focus on this weakness is that they do affect students learning and opportunities for learning. Therefore, we will focus on giving solutions regarding this setback for improving the teaching and learning of English in the school. The school we are analyzing in this seminar is San Juan Evangelista in Las Condes.

We will begin by introducing the weakness and later on giving our proposal and the possible benefits to be taken out of this process.

Weakness

·Library or facilities in general

If parents pay almost $200.000 pesos per student every month, they will expect some standard materials for students or at least accessibility and availability of the present resources. Due to the fact that we know the school, we can say that the amount of money the school receives does not show, for example in the technological aspects, facilities or infrastructure. The amount of computers is definitely not enough for the amount of students. To have the opportunity to use a projector you need to have patience since you will have to confirm availability or wait until some other teacher is done. (There is only one laptop to move around with the projector).

In terms of technological aspects, we believe that the school must have an improvement in the number of computers students have to work in. It is true that computers can be a multifunctional tool that can provide several facilities, but it is not the unique resource to improve language learning.

Another aspect in which the school facility is deficient is in the library. Those books that are the base of knowledge to consult are not enough for subjects and students' needs. A final aspect is the accessibility of the materials. Recently an order came from the head of the school: teachers could not print in the teachers’ room printer anymore. Instead they had to ask the head of the department for permission which limits the possibilities of having access to material from the internet. The first day of this second semester we presented a project of updating the self access room. We asked for different materials: cardboard, markers, tape, etc. and after a few weeks we received some of them. The accessibility is definitely affecting the school progress.

Proposal

Students are the most important part of our job as teachers. So we need to concentrate on all those elements that are going to help us to teach them a language the best way possible. We believe we need to start by understanding our class from a constructivist point of view. According to Penny Ur, constructivists state that all human beings construct their own reality and therefore, their knowledge. Also, Slavin argues the important role of teachers because they are the ones who facilitate this process of learning by making information meaningful and relevant to students. If we understand learning from this perspective, we need to see the importance of having all the necessary elements to nurture students' learning: resources and materials which promote a good learning environment.

Create a positive climate

The first element that we need to set in the classroom is rapport. This relationship that you establish with your students will help them to feel capable and comfortable while learning a second/foreign language. This rapport can be accomplished by showing interest in the students, working with them as a team and developing genuine sense of happiness. Then, the second element is establishing a balance between praise and criticism. Learning is a difficult process and everybody inside the classroom needs to be willing to try and practice. The appropriate feedback — praise or criticism — being genuine will allow students to learn from their mistakes, classmates' feedback and their own self-evaluation about their performance. Finally, the third element is to generate energy in terms of reaction. Students and teachers need to react to each other in order to create a good interaction among them.

With a better distribution of resources we can improve our students learning.

As we have seen in this seminar, students’ learning is at stake in this school because of many different reasons. One of the most important reasons is the lack of resources variety. This has been causing a great deal of problems for teachers and students because in class they simply work with the textbook, many times because they do not have more resources. We have already presented the tuition parents pay for each of them; therefore, it is shocking to say that the school does not have resources when parents pay $200.000 each month for each student. If that is the case, there are many modifications in order to have more accessibility when using the resources. In this part of the seminar, we will suggest different resources that are sort of inexpensive and accessible. We will also refer to the present resources and how to manage them in a better way.

There are several resources we can use in order to teach our students in the best possible way. As seen in the chapter “What can we teach with?” by Tessa Woodward, there is a multiplicity of resources we can use in our classes.

The first resource mentioned is the dictionary. We think that the accessibility and availability of resources are present because there are dictionaries in the library. However, it is also well-known that teachers cannot carry dictionaries to every room. Therefore, as part of our proposal, dictionaries should be in the classrooms. Students have questions in the process of learning; consequently, dictionaries should be available for students to use them right in the moment.

The board is the second resource mentioned by Tessa Woodward. However every class has a whiteboard, we can observe that teachers do not make excellent use of it. We can improve the usage of the board by dividing it into little spaces for different categories to have its place. For example, we can have one side of the board for new vocabulary, or the menu. This will eventually lead to better practices and students more enriching learning processes. It would also be ideal to have a space on the walls to put some posters with extremely useful information for students to be aware of, or with different written production they have made and with many other things so that every resource contributes to creating the climate and perfect environment for learning.

Magazines are a very useful resource especially in the language classroom. There are innumerable activities we can develop using and image or an advertisement from a magazine. By using images from magazines or even newspapers, we bring realia to the classroom which is another essential in effective language teaching. With images we can develop skills and teach vocabulary and grammar. Magazines are also very accessible and they can even cost nothing. If you are organized, you can ask your own students to bring 2 or 3 old magazines or newspapers. This way, the teachers will have a stock of magazines and newspaper to choose images from. This initiative can definitely be transferred to other subjects.

According to Ur there are two more important materials to consider for language classes: overhead projectors and computers and video equipment. The first gadget is very useful for purpose of motivation. The use of these devices allows teachers to have a catchy class in which students receive a different type of input, creating a more vivid and dynamic class. For instance, having a projector will allow the teacher to bring different material and save money from not using worksheets. You can always scan certain elements out of a book or something else to be presented in the classroom for visual or written purposes. Plus we need to acknowledge the importance of having a computer with full access to internet and video and audio devices. The second resource – video equipment — allow teachers to bring authentic material into the classroom. This is fundamental in order to expose our students to many different native accents. It is also very flexible because you can plan many classes including the same type of TV program, movie, series, and so on having in mind that you have the possibility to stop, rewind and keep playing it again.

As a final proposal, we think that managing our own classrooms is the best solution for organizing our resources and taking more advantage out of them. According to Douglas Brown, classroom management includes the design of the room, position of the desks, acoustics, neatness and cleanness, whiteboard or chalkboard and equipment. Besides all these devices, teachers have an important role in classroom management. Some of the teachers’ characteristics that affect classroom management are: voice projection, articulation, body posture and language, facial and hand gestures, body movement and eye contact. Ideally, all these factors can be managed by teachers, but how can we do it if we have to be moving from one room to the next?

We must encourage the dean of our school to see classroom management as an extraordinary tool with which we can take the best out of our students and also develop their learning processes more easily and effectively. As Richards and Renandya express, “Classroom management refers to the ways in which teachers manage a class in order to make it maximally productive for language learning” (28). Therefore, it is highly necessary that we start implementing our own classrooms. Thus, we will be able to arrange it in the best manner so that we can achieve the expected learning.

The teacher as Resource

According to Brown, teachers are also a resource inside the classroom. They need to be available for advice and questions when students seek them. If we consider the classroom as a place where learning takes place, every single object and person should be considered as a resource to learn: you can learn from books, images, and so on, but also from your classmates and the teacher. Obviously, there must be a balance between the way teachers plan and manage their class and the development of students' autonomy. Our principal goal should be to equip our students with a sense of successful learning: this means we should tell them what successful learners do and how to accomplish this in order to provide them with certain skills to develop autonomy. Again, we have to bear in mind that teachers are models and facilitators of learning, therefore we present to our students different strategies and techniques to improve their learning process.

Conclusions

It is of the great importance to bear in mind that students learning and possibilities are the main issues inside of the school. We, as teachers, need to provide several elements that can positively affect students’ performance, not only inside the classroom, but in their lives. The school role should be as the supplier of facilities, but what happens when the school does not have enough materials or resources students can work with? Clearly, it will be very difficult for them to construct and create their own knowledge. It is essential to have students interested and motivated during all their learning process that is the main reason explaining why San Juan Evangelista should consider and work with this lack of resources.

Having in mind all the arrangements we have proposed to improve students’ learning and autonomy through English classes, we can say that the main goal San Juan Evangelista should have is to consider the money investment that parents make and provide their pupils with the best quality of education. In this final stage of our seminar; we stated that creating a positive climate allows students' confidence with the teachers and among themselves. Naturally, it helps to respect each other and it allows different opinions and suggestions to improve the class. Without diminishing the importance of this issue in the school, we truly believe that San Juan Evangelista needs to improve in the distribution of resources to accomplish the main goal. If the school is looking for better understanding and improvement of students' learning, the school and teachers must think about how they are using their resources. As we mentioned before, the appropriate use of dictionaries, the board, magazines and those more technological resources such as computers, videos and TVs will be an easy and quick solution to improve students' learning. Perhaps teachers are not taught to use these elements inside their classes. Probably, universities and colleges take for granted the use of them. But, they do not really know how difficult it is. Therefore, the school could implement a training course to fulfill this area of teaching practice, if teachers are not working well in it.

This is the final purpose of our seminar, to find aspects in which we as students and future teachers, can improve and help this school and any other to incorporate new ideas and deal with issues that are important according to the culture and community in which we will be accepted. By saying this, we accept the role of teachers inside the schools based on the idea of becoming an actor which can transform and change the reality with help of students and colleagues. If the school accepts the teacher as another resource the roles inside the classroom will be richer, because autonomy is practiced in this type of environment. If the whole school community assumes that we learn from each other, the autonomy and the roles of everyone will increase the outcomes of our learning. Throughout English classes students can understand these concepts. Obviously, the ideal project is practicing it in all the subjects, but in English we need to work with different materials and resources because we are talking about language learning, which is focused on communicating our ideas.

Bibliography

• Brown, H. Douglas. Principles of Language Learning and Teaching. New York: Pearson Education. 2000
• Brown, H. Douglas. Teaching by Principles: An interactive Approach to Language Pedagogy. New York: Pearson Education. 2001
• Richards, Jack, Renandya, Willy. Methodology in Language Teaching: An Anthology of Current Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002.
• Slavin, Robert E. Educational Psychology. New York: Pearson Education Company. 2003
• Ur, Penny. A course in Language Teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.1996