Project

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B1vHPxfPUzNpbE5YWTA5TlQxNUk/edit

Students’ fears, students’ self-confidence

Are teachers conscious about students’ fears speaking in a second language? How could teachers promote self-confidence in second language students’ participation?

Key words:

Students’ fears, students’ self-confidence

These questions came from my own experience. When I was in high school, it was very difficult to me participating actively in class, even when I had the answers to teachers’ questions or when I had prepared my oral presentations. At the moment of being stood in front of the classroom, all kind of sensations took possession of me because of the nervousness or the high level of anxiety: sweat, shaking, change in voice, absence of air and blushing. Spielberger (1983) “defines anxiety as the subjective feeling of tension, apprehension, nervousness and worry associated with the arousal of the nervous system” (as cited by Mahmoodzadeh, 2012). That definition could explain all those changes inside my organism before performing an oral participation. The anxiety could be associated to ordinary situations in someone’s life; however in second language acquisition is very common to find students refusing to participate because nervousness. Young (1992) describes that particularly anxiety as follows:

“Speaking can cause high anxiety level and the reason for this is that teachers often expect beginners to perform beyond their acquire competence. In early stages, the teacher force learners to break the silent period before they are ready and they have to use aspects of language that they have not yet subconsciously acquired. As a result, learners will show poor speaking performance because they are not competent in using the target language” (as cited by Abdullah and Rahman, 2010).

Analyzing the precedent paragraph, it is possible to affirm that the teacher described is not conscious about students’ fears and the teaching goal is just promoting speaking. It is not difficult to find that situation in our context; I have met teachers forcing students’ participation before encouraging students’ self-confidence. On the other hand, there are other teachers conscious about students’ emotions who have demonstrated that self-confidence in students can be promoted. When a teacher is interested in knowing the students and creating a good environment in classroom before forcing speaking, students are more prepared to participate. In other words, it is necessary breaking the ice before.

Concluding, I think that it is important for a second language teacher, first at all identify nervous students and help them to break the ice. So, I agree with Aida (1994) who established that “they (teachers) should identify anxious learners and make interventions to help them overcome foreign language anxiety” (as cited Tsiplakides, 2009). Also, it is important “a supportive classroom atmosphere, in which language errors are considered as natural in the process of language acquisition” (Tsiplakides, 2009).  Finally, I agree with Tsiplakides who affirms that:

“Before employing strategies to help students overcome foreign language speaking anxiety, foster motivation, and increase foreign language performance, practitioners should get to know their students, their attitudes toward oral production, and to shed light into the reasons that underlie their low performance and their unwillingness to engage in speaking activities”.

References

-       Mahmoodzadeh, 2012. Investigating Foreign Language Speaking Anxiety within the EFL Learner's Interlanguage System: The Case of Iranian Learners.  Journal of Language Teaching and Research, Vol. 3, No. 3, pp. 466-476.

-       Abdullah, Khairi Izwan and Abdul Rahman, Nurul Lina (2010) A Study On Second Language Speaking Anxiety Among UTM Students. pp. 1-6. (Unpublished)        

-       Tsiplakides, 2009. Helping Students Overcome Foreign Language Speaking Anxiety in the English Classroom: Theoretical Issues and Practical Recommendations. International Education Studies. Pp. 39-44

Class activities and considerations

 

Conditions for literacy learning - Alejandro Cediel

-           

   Ecological factor: Conditions for learning

-   Ecological factor that support complex of teaching

-    Places where humans have particular behaviors: behavior settings: Church, bars, corners, home, school (classrooms, rest places, library, cafeteria, out of the school).

-          Components: Humans behaving ( playing, listening, buying). Physical objects. Routines of all participants.

-          Program that control the flow of event of each setting.

-          A classroom as behavior settings:   Humans behaving (Teaching and learning). Physical objects (room, chairs, board, multimedia material, pedagogical material, uniforms), Routines of all participants (teaching and learning strategies, activities, exams, metrology of teaching). For me, these aspects are really interesting for doing an analysis on this course because we could think also in variable aspects and fixed aspects in three dimension of behavior setting (fixed: uniforms, classrooms , grades, activities. Variable: subjects, number of students, spaces, materials, thinking of students, context, and methodologies). Also, it is possible to analyze similitudes and differences between public schools and private schools.  For me, all events are different even when it occurs in the same place and with same elements) It is possible to elaborate a parallel of both aspects.            

-          Complex layers: 1. Least description of classroom as a behavior settings stables and dynamic and stable, three variables (Rules and routines for operating: programs teacher; Inanimate objects: paraphernalia; Humans: inhabitants). Teachers is the inhabitant empowered to manipulate two other variables and the other inhuman part, when and how use other variables to create learning. It proves that that it is difficult to produce autonomy in students when it is decide what they have to learn. Importance of expectation: to keep good environment in class (all the attitudes of teachers influence the response of students).  2. Opportunities to learn (episodes): basic units of teaching behavior. A class is a lineal sequence of episodes created by teachers. How can we analyze the other activities in our observations where learning is not taking place?    

General conclusion:

-          Learning and teaching do not occur always in classrooms. Sometimes, most meaningful learning takes place in other spaces. For me, meaningful learning occurs when a person, not a student, is engage with something at the point of being almost obsessed. Personal experience. When I wanted to assemble my bicycle because I wanted to learn to ride my bicycle with my friends (that was my satisfaction). When do you realize about the importance of learning subjects in the classrooms? What is the satisfaction of students when they learn them? How do they apply that learning for something interesting? For me, that occurs in our context in which persons are engage with, sometimes is not taught in classrooms.

-          In some context of Medellín what is interesting for students is to belong to social circles in which do not study is the common factor to belong in, be irreverent makes them popular. Sometimes out of classes in other behavior settings are more popular those persons that don’t study and who are rebels with teachers. Why I’m trying to say is that other behavior settings influence classroom settings.      

-          For our observations we can to identify and describe all this aspects mentioned by author. On the other hand, I think that it is necessary to recognize the other behavior setting of inhabitants in order to understand their behavior in classes and in order to design our classes.

Cambourne’s Model

Maybe for the application of our classes we have to try to design an episode taking into account the stage mentioned by author. However, it is difficult to do it in just one day, because for me expectation is more complicated when they have the other expectation “having another teacher” and recognizing his/her behavior or attitudes. As a consequence they could be more engage for discovering the other person that with the subject we will be trying to teach. 

“Eleven” by Sandra Cisneros. 


What they don't understand about birthdays and what they never tell you is that when you're eleven, you're also ten, and nine, and eight, and seven, and six, and five, and four, and three, and two, and one. And when you wake up on your eleventh birthday you expect to feel eleven, but you don't. You open your eyes and everything's just like yesterday, only it's today. And you don't feel eleven at all. You feel like you're still ten. And you are—underneath the year that makes you eleven. Like some days you might say something stupid, and that's the part of you that's still ten. Or maybe some days you might need to sit on your mama's lap because you're scared, and that's the part of you that's five. And maybe one day when you're all grown up maybe you will need to cry like if you're three, and that's okay. That's what I tell Mama when she's sad and needs to cry. Maybe she's feeling three. Because the way you grow old is kind of like an onion or like the rings inside a tree trunk or like my little wooden dolls that fit one inside the other, each year inside the next one. That's how being eleven years old is. You don't feel eleven. Not right away. It takes a few days, weeks even, sometimes even months before you say Eleven when they ask you. And you don't feel smart eleven, not until you're almost twelve. That's the way it is. Only today I wish I didn't have only eleven years rattling inside me like pennies in a tin Band-Aid box. Today I wish I was one hundred and two instead of eleven because if I was one hundred and two I'd have known what to say when Mrs. Price put the red sweater on my desk. I would've known how to tell her it wasn't mine instead of just sitting there with that look on my face and nothing coming out of my mouth. "Whose is this?" Mrs. Price says, and she holds the red sweater up in the air for all the class to see. "Whose? It's been sitting in the coatroom for a month." "Not mine," says everybody, "Not me." "It has to belong to somebody," Mrs. Price keeps saying, but nobody can remember. It's an ugly sweater with red plastic buttons and a collar and sleeves all stretched out like you could use it for a jump rope. It's maybe a thousand years old and even if it belonged to me I wouldn't say so. Maybe because I'm skinny, maybe because she doesn't like me, that stupid Sylvia Saldivar says, "I think it belongs to Rachel." An ugly sweater like that all raggedy and old, but Mrs. Price believes her. Mrs Price takes the sweater and puts it right on my desk, but when I open my mouth nothing comes out. "That's not, I don't, you're not . . . Not mine." I finally say in a little voice that was maybe
me when I was four. "Of course it's yours," Mrs. Price says. "I remember you wearing it once." Because she's older and the teacher, she's right and I'm not. Not mine, not mine, not mine, but Mrs. Price is already turning to page thirty-two, and math problem number four. I don't know why but all of a sudden I'm feeling sick inside, like the part of me that's three wants to come out of my eyes, only I squeeze them shut tight and bite down on my teeth real hard and try to remember today I am eleven, eleven. Mama is making a cake for me for tonight, and when Papa comes home everybody will sing Happy birthday, happy birthday to you. But when the sick feeling goes away and I open my eyes, the red sweater's still sitting there like a big red mountain. I move the red sweater to the corner of my desk with my ruler. I move my pencil and books and eraser as far from it as possible. I even move my chair a little to the right. Not mine, not mine, not mine. In my head I'm thinking how long till lunchtime, how long till I can take the red sweater and throw it over the schoolyard fence, or leave it hanging on a parking meter, or bunch it up into a little ball and toss it in the alley. Except when math period ends Mrs. Price says loud and in front of everybody, "Now, Rachel, that's enough," because she sees I've shoved the red sweater to the tippy-tip corner of my desk and it's hanging all over the edge like a waterfall, but I don't care. "Rachel," Mrs. Price says. She says it like she's getting mad. "You put that sweater on right now and no more nonsense." "But it's not—" "Now!" Mrs. Price says. This is when I wish I wasn't eleven because all the years inside of me—ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, and one—are pushing at the back of my eyes when I put one arm through one sleeve of the sweater that smells like cottage cheese, and then the other arm through the other and stand there with my arms apart like if the sweater hurts me and it does, all itchy and full of germs that aren't even mine. That's when everything I've been holding in since this morning, since when Mrs. Price put the sweater on my desk, finally lets go, and all of a sudden I'm crying in front of everybody. I wish I was invisible but I'm not. I'm eleven and it's my birthday today and I'm crying like I'm three in front of everybody. I put my head down on the desk and bury my face in my stupid clown-sweater arms. My face all hot and spit coming out of my mouth because I can't stop the little animal noises from coming out of me until there aren't any more tears left in my eyes, and it's just my body shaking like when you have the hiccups, and my whole head hurts like when you drink milk too fast.
But the worst part is right before the bell rings for lunch. That stupid Phyllis Lopez, who is even dumber than Sylvia Saldivar, says she remembers the red sweater is hers! I take it off right away and give it to her, only Mrs. Price pretends like everything's okay. Today I'm eleven. There's a cake Mama's making for tonight and when Papa comes home from work we'll eat it. There'll be candles and presents and everybody will sing Happy birthday, happy birthday to you, Rachel, only it's too late. I'm eleven today. I'm eleven, ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, and one, but I wish I was one hundred and two. I wish I was anything but eleven, because I want today to be far away already, far away like a runaway balloon, like a tiny o in the sky, so tiny tiny you have to close your eyes to see it.


Read ELEVEN  by Sandra Cisneros.  You will find the copy attached in this message. Read it.  Enjoy it.  Think about songs, art pieces, objects, other stories and poems, web pages, performaces of any kind, dance, drama, theater pieces that you connect with this story.  Bring two or three to class.

DE AMOR SE VIVE una pellicula de Silvano Agosti, subtitulada al castellano

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmMSseXC4xg

 

13 Going on 30

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nHTJRCnndU

Pink Floyd - Another Brick in the Wall HD - Español / Inglés

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JjoLEXz8FkU

"When we grew up and went to school 
There were certain teachers who would 
Hurt the children any way they could 
By pouring their derision 
Upon anything we did 
And exposing every weakness 
However carefully hidden by the kids 
But in the town it was well known 
When they got home at night, their fat and 
Psychopathic wives would thrash them 
Within inches of their lives"


Participant observation:  


Creswell (2007) defines it as the process "...in which the researcher is immersed int the day-to-day lives of the people and observes and interviews the group of participants {and} study the meaning the behavior, the language, and the interaction among members of the culture-sharing group" (p. 68).  Following this idea, the task I am proposing for you to do this week is:                          -to take notes in one of the classes you attend taking into account the salient aspects of the interactions among the teacher and the students, the role of resources in class, the kind of teaching strategies that promote knowledge construction, the social aspects that are evident and influence the relationships in the classroom, your own role within the class,among other aspects you consider important reporting.                                       

            -to focus basically on describing, an after that read what you have and write a short reflection about the experience of doing the observation and about specific issues in that class.

Tuesday, October 2.

Hour: 16:00 – 17:30

Course: Didactics II

Teacher: Oscar Molina

The class has begun at 16:10 and at this moment eleven students have arrived. The teacher asks us if we had brought the assigned document to discuss in class. Six of us did not bring the document and the teacher gave the opportunity to copy them. Then one of the students collected the money and went to do the copies. After that, the teacher asks us for sitting forming a circle in order to follow the activity that we had not finished in the last class. It was about presenting big books; each student should present as a teacher a big book to the other partners who were acting as students. To continue the activity, the teacher gave the opportunity to star in a voluntary way, as nobody took the change; he decided to assign the order of presentations according to the contrary direction of clock’s hands. The first person to present the big book was me. What I remember of the presentation are the following aspects: I chose a big book called “A color of his own” at the beginning I was a little nervous because it was my first experience working with a big book as a teacher but soon I started to feel self-confidence and I developed the activity without problems because the teacher, acting as a student, started to do questions to encourage the other students’ participation. The aspects we had to take into account were introducing the story thought questions about the cover, creating hypothesis about the tittle and the images. Then we had to develop the story freely, proposing questions to check comprehension, allowing reading aloud by students, between others. At the end of the activity, teacher gave some recommendations and conclusions.  

Other four presentations were done during the class and all of them had similar a dynamic. The second one was about a big book called “A year in Colombia” it was a story created by one of the students. He presented his big book and received congratulations for his good work from the teacher and students. He concluded his explanation answering some questions: he explains that the objective of his big book was teaching all the mounts of the years to English student beginners and for that all the book is write in present tense. The third one was about the animals in the see. It was a big book that we read together and it was for English students in intermediate level. The fourth one was about seeds and their process of growing up. The presenter did a comparison between plants and humans beings. We shared our perceptions and reflections about humans develop. The last one presentation was a virtual big book called “I like me” we did the lecture together aloud and we discussed about some values mentioned or identified after the lecture.

During all presentations, the teacher has participated as a student, calling all presenters “teacher”, doing a lot of questions, answering the questions of each student presetting and also giving the opportunity the interaction between students.  

After presentations, it sounds two potato-bomb explosions and the teacher decided to finish the class at 17:30.

Reflection:

It was difficult to participate in the class and at same time doing the observation, maybe because this particular class had a lot of interaction and one of the objectives was to participate actively as students in the activities proposed by partners.