TKT & More!

Thanks Billie.

Greetings Bloggers!. I have been offline for a while and Now I am back.

To begin with, we are in Module 3! ,this Intensive Course is almost coming to an end.

This Module is called, Classroom Management.

Would you be able to keep your learners on the road?.. There are several videos that show us, how was the Classroom Management 40 years ago.. ”Find the difference”. Young learners seem to behave the same way, through ages.

Secondly, there is always, a learner who can make your life a nightmare in the classroom, or the nerdy learner who is always participating and been bullied by the others. I think this is an stereotyped version of a Classroom.

I would like to share with you, my actual classroom in my degree. It’s a  small group, due to it is a private school.  We are 12 Learners, more or    less with the same age. And breaking the habit, there’s no Student  ”Leader”.  We always gather up and share our concerns and find a great    solution for any issue, that isn’t right. There’s a Girl, who is always  complaining about everything, however, we don’t let her take control of  our classroom.

Furthermore, as private school dictates, we could — ”Take control of our Teachers”–. Yes, at least in Mexico, this is possible and totally real. According to a ” Teacher’s Test”, we can actually, make a teacher leave the University. It’s a powerful weapon, I know you are thinking about it, but there are certain rules we have to follow also, sometimes, we can’t even complain about little technical problems. But well..

I’m the ”Judge”, in a group of students who like politics. There’s a President and a Vice-President also.  I’ve been learning how to manage, student’s needs and University rules.

I don’t have real experience but, I’m learning a LOT in this course, I would like to Thank my Teacher Ellen, for her awesome work and her incredible Anthology. These are our Sword & Shield.

If you like to share anything with me, please fell free to reply. Thanks for reading !

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To start with, I would like to express my opinion about this Theories that ” Define” our Intelligences or our Ways of Learning.

I disagree with those Theories, who try to rate yourself. Because of their vague results.

For example, my Glogster tells me that I’m Visual & Kinaesthetic, and I have weak Auditory Skills, but the main problem here is that in my Second test of Multiple Intelligences, my results are surprisingly Different.

This test, showed me a different result. That’s why I don’t really trust this types of ” Tests”.

• How can knowing your learning styles and intelligences help you as a teacher?
• How important is it to know the learning styles and needs of your learners?

It strikes me that, knowing your learning styles and/or your intelligences is a great tool, for Feedback. Due to their different categories and several methods of learning. I would like to make this kind of test, at the beginning of my course. This will show me the way ” Students Learn – Think – Behave”. It’s a great opportunity to adapt to them, On the other hand, this test would help me to plan my lessons. Yes, I will change them, I will try new methods and Strategies, stop using the same examples or the same exercises always or the boring activities in Student’s books.

If my Students need, more visual approaching. I would be glad to design new Powerpoints or Videos . One of my favourite activities is Singing!, yes. Who doesn’t like to hear an Unplugged song in their classroom?.

To summarize, I don’t believe in the precision of this test, but I know that there’re many different Learning strategies and as a Student you can use or leave them behind if you don’t feel comfortable with them and this would be a great method to KNOW your students.

Why don’t you try’em !

http://www.glogster.com/ <————- Glogster

http://www.bgfl.org/bgfl/custom/resources_ftp/client_ftp/ks3/ict/multiple_int/index.htm <—Multiple Intelligence

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Greetings Teachers! I’m back for more.

I was wondering if you can post your thoughts in my blog and debate about these Theorists we’re learning.

I want you to choose, which one of this Theories, would you use in your Classroom for teaching your students?.

Skinner – Behaviourism
Bandura – Social learning Theory
Bruner – Constructivist (Discovering Theory)
Maslow – Theory for Education

Please, Include your opinion and reasons.

Now, in addition to these theories, I’m going to introduce you ” Aprendizaje por Competencias”, I beg you pardon because it is in Spanish, it’s a great & brand new Theory. I can’t define who’s the creator because of the huge mount of Teachers who had participated within. Dr. Philippe Perrenoud is a Theorist who leads the way of this theory.

But.. How does it works?

I have to apologize again, It’s NOT in English, In Mexico this theory is new & revolutionary!

Nowadays, higher levels of education are required to participate in society and solve problems in easy ways. It says that our Basic Education ( Primary School) must include in their programs, How to use ”Thinking Tools” like, Language, Technology, Symbols and Knowledge, to be capable of creating groups and have Autonomous Learning.

I will explain how this Diagram works.

The Blue bubble, talks about ” CONTENTS”.  It’s a Synonym of Knowledge.

The Green bubble, talks about ” APTITUDES”. It’s a synonym of Qualities & Skills.

The Yellow bubble, talks about ” ATTITUDES”. It’s a synonym of Motivation & Imagination.

Are you getting it? .

The grey bubble is ” MEANINGFUL LEARNING”. To know how to use Knowledge and Produce something as Reflexion, Arguments, Creation, Application, Problem Solving. …

”APRENDIZAJE POR COMPETENCIAS” includes this Important Points.

-Learn how to Learn

-Learn how to Produce something

-Learn how to Live in Society

All in all, this is the Theory I’m going to choose for this question .

This is a great Theory for me and many other Teacher from America and it’s starting to develop in Europe!.

If you like me to explain it better, feel free to ask me. I’ll be pleased to help you.

References: http://scholar.google.com.mx/scholar?q=Aprendizaje+por+competencias&hl=es&as_sdt=0&as_vis=1&oi=scholart

A Dictionary: Diccionario de Ciencias de la Educación – Santillana

You can fin a Nice Description in Wikipedia if you want: http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Competencia_(aprendizaje)

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Welcome Again Bloggers & Teachers!

-Reading, trains intelligence as Exercise workouts the body.- Myself.

Have you ever had a terrible experience with your Reading Exercises?. It’s always boring for students who doesn’t fancy reading. As a matter of fact, I am one of those hehe . Reading exercises must become a wonderful and enjoyable activities!

Literacy Circles, give us a hand with that problem.

- How can we define ”Literacy Circles”?.

It’s a group that is integrated by any age students, they must choose the same book/magazine/comic or etc.                           Secondly, Every student will choose a Role or Task.

Literature Circles Structure: First Grade Vicki Yousoofian St. Joseph School, Seattle, Washington

And now, every group of people should include a Moderator. The teacher could be the Moderator if the students cannot deal with the Role.

There’re several ways to develop a Literacy Circle, reading per turns, sentences or even dialogues.

This option for Reading Exercises is one of the best ways to deal with, without having a Typical student who is sleeping over the book, or all over their eyes.

Due to the active participation of students, they won’t get sleepy or bored. TKT doesn’t support the idea of creating Literacy Circles, but this Knowledge is important in every Teacher’s course.

I want to write you about, Cohesion and Coherence in Writing.

-”This is the distinction between the ”meaning relations” which hold between

items in a text and the explicit expression of those ” meaning relations” within a text.

( Brown & Yule, 1983.)

Cohesion, is a really hard term, due to it’s relation with Coherence of texts. The best way to tare them apart would be like.. Cohesion is the structure of a text, which give us a ” sequence” when we are reading it. For example, Linking Devices we use to write an Essay.

Coherence, now we can define it easily like, we assume coherence and so make sense of cohesion. When we are defining strictly this word we will find it as : in linguistics is what makes a text semantically meaningful, using correct grammar structures, as … Noun + Verb + Noun.

Hard words right?. Cohesion is the result of Coherence.

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To start with, I will show you my ”Best way to create a Graphic Organizer” even for Grown-ups.

Brainstorming!, Yes.

In my Opinion, this type of GO ( Graphic Organizer), is the best option to create  a Warm-up in your Classroom. For example, today in Ellen’s class, I was looking for a Reading Activity and I found a Text about Stonehenge. The pre-activity I would use in this type of activity is Brainstorming! about any other Strange Places the students know.

Make the students to infer about this subject. That’s how they’d LEARN!

I love this kind of GO, It strikes me that this meaningful activity, makes students to Infer, predict and build up their confidence in/out the Classroom, due to their Active Participation.

Secondly, I’d like to comment a little bit about this type of GO.

The FISH! , yes. As far as I know, this type of GO is related to PROBLEM SOLVING. Actually, I saw it in an Admin. Conference. It’s one of the best Graphics for Problem solving.

I’d use this GO, after discussing some TV program, or even in the News. Besides that, It leads to a conclusion, you can work in other smaller problems, and learn how to solve them all.

It isn’t Great ?

At last but not least, my 3rd Best type of GO!

I love this GO!  I used to work on it when I was in Elementary School. It’s extremely useful for Kids and Youngsters,  they are not only using their Ideas, but also their Creativity!. It’s great for Kinaesthetic Students and Visual students like me. I’d love to use this GO all the way long in my Teaching schedule .

All in all, it’s extremely important to know,

” Which is the Best GO type for your students, which one they’d enjoy more. ! Kids love making this type of GO because they are drawing and learning through images at the same time!

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Greetings Bloggers, I’m back for more.. I’ll talk about my 2nd TKT Class.

I’ve been studying Spanish Semantics in my University, that is pretty much of what we are going to learn in this couple of Units, there’s a huge amount of information in order to learn English Semantics.

During the class, Ellen showed us ” The use of Prepositions”, What a mess .. Isn’t it Awesome, how many words can be transformed into prepositions?. Think About it. Also we reviewed the Parts Of Speech, which are pretty similar with Spanish Structures. This is going to be, as far as I know, a good Challenge for us, not only the Theoretical Information but also .. How are WE going to teach it.

This course is great! I’m loving it!.

Héctor Cadena

Best regards.

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Welcome to my Blog!

My name is Hector Cadena. I’m from Mexico and I’m studying Foreign Languages.

Actually this is my first blog ever, I’m going to be wondering how to use it since Today.

This Blog has been created for TKT SUMMER COURSE 2011 mainly, but I’m going to use it as a Personal Growth Blog since now.

I’m studying Foreign Languages as my Major, I’m studying English, French, German and Chinese, Pedagogy and Translation-Interpretation of Texts.

Here, I will share my knowledge with anyone who visit this Blog, I’m not a Teacher right now, but I’m taking this TKT Course to learn more about Teaching Techniques.

I’ll love to share TKT related Information or many other things with everyone, due to this I’m going to Upload any new knowledge I get.

If you have any comments, please feel free to post them here, so I can Improve my blog or together we can Improve our Knowledge .

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