DIFFERENT LESSON PLANS

In order to fulfill students' needs, teachers should adapt their lesson plans, so students find great opportunities to learn according to their learning style. We can flexible our lesson plans in different ways:

Learning by pace: There are some students who learn really fast, while other students take a really long time to learn a new lesson. Therefore, when teachers assign an activity the time they assign can be different.

Learning by ability: Students have different abilities and competences, which we must consider at the time of choosing the activities we are going to include in our lesson. Despite being in the same level, students do not perform certain activities the same way. Also, students perform differently according to the area that is being evaluated.

Learners interests: Students have different motives to learn, and they are triggered by different factors to use the new language. So, teachers' lesson plans should be contextualized according to students' interests and experiences.

Learners' needs: Teachers face and have to deal with a variety of situations and cases: students with disabilities, students with emotional issues, etc. Teachers must always take into account their students´ needs, and adjust their lessons according to them.

Learning styles: students learn in a different way. This means we must include activities suitable for each learning style (visual, auditory or kinesthetic). Learning styles must also be considered when we think about the way we are going to deliver our classes, the room setting or design, and assessment alternatives. 

TEACHERS' STYLE OF DELIVERY

While there are different student's learning styles, teachers have also different teaching styles that portrait their beliefs about teaching a new language. There are different teaching styles:

Formal authority: this style is teacher-centered. And it has been predominant among teachers who provide all the knowledge to students who having a passive role, receive it.

Demonstrator: This teaching style is teacher-centered as well. In this case, the teacher demonstrate the steps to follow in order to develop a certain activity. Then students, having mastered certain skills, perform a task or solve a problem. 

Facilitator: This is a student-centered style. Teachers provide a wide variety of activities that require students to activily participate. This teaching style provides students with opportunities to develop their thinking skills and  collaborative learning.

Delegator: This style is student-centered. Teachers assigned more responsability to students, therefore, students develop independent work habits and cooperative learninig takes place.

I believe I am a facilitator and a delegator. I like to bring my students many activities that trigger them to participate and improve their skills. I also like to assing my students projects and assingments that develop their independent work habits.

CONVERGENT AND DIVERGENT QUESTIONS

"Questioning helps students develop critical thinking and regards reasoning as an active process," therefore, there are two different types of thinking respectively:

Convergent questioning: (also called closed questioning) involves recalling information, given materials or previous experience, thus limiting responses. Students do not necesary analize their answers; instead, students make inferences from previous experiences.

Examples of convergent questioning:

• Who is the writer of Goldengrove?
• What does CBL stand for?

Divergent questioning: There is not one "correct answer" for this type of questioning; and asnwers are more open. Students have to solve problems and analize deeply before answer a divergent question. As a matter of fact, divergent questions greatly develop students' thinking skills.

 Examples of divergent questioning:

•  How can CBL be implemented in a basic level class?
•  How would you change the end of Goldengrove?

CLASSROOM DESIGN

Classroom desings have experienced a so great change over the past 20 years. Just remember the time in which classes were teacher- centered and desks were arranged in rows; it is totally different now isn't it?

The first change is undoutedly the desks arrangement. Nowadays teachers can arrange the desks depending on the activity they are going to develop or the kind of classroom they work in; they can even go outside the classroom to use a variaty of innovating techniques that have revolutionized the world of teaching English.

The second and most significant change deals with the fact the instruction is changing from teacher- centered to student-centered; students are not passive recipients of information anymore, instead, students are involved in the class and have an active role because they can give their opinions on certain topics. So now, the instruction is student- centered.

COMPREHENSION

"Comprehension is the action to understand something." 

There are three types of comprehension in the learning process: LITERAL COMPREHENSION,  APPLIED COMPREHENSION, and IMPLIED COMPREHENSION.

Literal Comprehension is fact-based evidence. Teachers must provide students activities that involves all the senses. This kind of comprehension deals with kinesthetic students.

Applied Comprehension is a comparison and contrast comprehension. It resuts from students own experiences and the interactions with a text. It deals with visual students.

Implied Comprehension is based on context or ilustrative material that involves oral, visual, tactil and kinesthetic activities.

Understanding the different kind of comprehension in our students gives us the opportunity to understand their different learning styles.

EFFECTIVE FEEDBACK

 "Feedback is the information communicated to a student in regard to their understanding of shared learning objectives of a given task against an agreed set of criteria. This information will include guidance on how to improve. Feedback is the information that is relayed to the student about their progress and can be based upon a variety of forms of evidence including: marked work, un-graded teacher checked worked, oral contribution, practical displays, draft work and re-drafted work; this information can be relayed to the student in a written comment or in a face to face discussion."
Giving feedback can turn into a problem when teachers do not know how to give it to students; furthermore, giving feedback requires students to have specific goals and teachers to give concrete and useful comments thus, "nice presentation" and " you made a mistake" are not good examples of feedback. Students will wonder what they exactly did good or wrong if teachers do not give specific information on what they did. 
Moreover, when giving feedback, it is also important to give good comments to students if something went wrong during the activity they develop because there will always be some things that students did well, so teachers should be careful and have a well structurated guideline to identify students weaknesses and strengths.
Effective feedback will in fact, give students the opportunity to improve and achieve their goals.





http://www.opencolleges.edu.au/informed/features/giving-student-feedback/

TEACHER'S CLASSROOM QUESTIONS

"Questioning serves dual purpose in helping a teacher meet course requirements and in developing subject mastery and progress; moreover, it is an essential tool for both teaching and learning; also, it is a significant feature of a lesson and is a great benefit to students’ learning."

Questioning allows students to develop critical and analitical thinking skills. The purpose of questioning is to explore students understanding of the topics as well as challenge them to think. Questioning can be used to introduce, develop or end a topic.

Well structurated questions can create a good environment in the classroom where interaction is promoted and all students are involved.

PURPOSE OF ASSESSMENT

Assessment is a good tool for teachers to understand how to help students in the areas they are having problems with, and at the same time, assessment helps teachers reflect on what they are doing either right or wrong in their classes.

Assesment is needed to make teachers aware of their performance in the classroom. For instance, teachers need to know what their students think about their job, so teachers feel challenged to create a good environmentt in which students feel comfortable enough to learn.

Indeed, assessment is quite important for teachers to improve their teaching methodologies and also to generate a good raport with students since students' opinions in their assessments are taking into account.
 

CREATING INDEPENDENT STUDENTS

Creating independent students is not an easy task. To achieve such goal, we need to have clear that our students will be independent after having been guided by teachers who give their students certain tools that will help students create independence.

The first tool is to assigned students homework that must trigger their critical and analytical thinking.

The second tool is to teach students techniques that help them do preparatory reading. This is extremely useful when students have lecture classes; lecture classes often require students to read a considerable amount of information, so teachers can have active students who are not simple receivers of knowledge.

Finally, teaching students how to research is an indispensable tool that teachers must provide to students if teachers want students to be able to do homework assignments effectively.

To create independent students should be a goal all teachers should have in order to have excellent students.

INNOVATING STRATEGIES TO CREATE A GOOD ENVIROMENT FOR STUDENTS

Innovation in our classrooms is a very important aspect for us and our students to have a successful learning-teaching experience; so, there are many strategies that will make our students feel challenged and motivated in every lesson.

1.    

   Talking: when we create activities designed to develop our students’ speaking skills, they feel challenged to convey their ideas in the second/foreign  language studied thus our students become more self-confidents.

2.    

   Reading: readings involve group work and class discussion. It promotes fellowship and represents a challenge for students when asking to find specific information in a reading.

3.     

  Participation: making our students participate in class makes them feel they are an important and essential part of the lesson. Students feel eager to participate because their comments are always listened.

4.   

    Games: students never forget lessons in which they had a good time. Games bring fun to the lessons and make students have expectations of what is going to happen next.

Undoubtedly, innovating and interesting strategies can make our classes wonderful experiences that our students won’t easily forget.