Many of my classmates have already talked about how to learn, and make your students to learn new vocabulary with music, and I agree, in fact that was the only idea in my mind and I was having a hard time trying to do this post.
I think that an excellent idea would be to make the students more interested in the learning process by not calling it that way; the “learning” term will make them feel obligated to do something, and they will lose interest right away.
I actually have learned a lot of vocabulary, idioms and even slang from the music that I like to listen, deducing the meaning of the word by the context. I think that Daniela's exercise is a great idea to make students have fun learning new vocabulary.
However I found this video from the user “ajhoge” on youtube and I think it is really interesting the way he makes the learner relate the new vocabulary to body and face expressions so it would be remembered subconsciously.
Check it out and let me know what you think about it.
Image by VictoriaR444 @ deviantart.com http://browse.deviantart.com/photography/?q=dictionary#/d1ale13
Is it really that big of a deal to keep an updated teaching portfolio? Of course it is, is like keeping the antivirus of your computer updated, but in this case the virus is the expiry date of the knowledge.
Many teachers, either kind of teacher, in Mexico and more precisely in Michoacan teach with very old textbooks that have not been updated since the 90’s, no wonder why the state is the last place in education in the country; and it astonishes me how the supposed educators demonstrate themselves by blocking the main street of this city (Morelia), by not going to work and not letting other people get to work.
Getting back to the main topic, it is important to keep updated not only your portfolio, but your whole knowledge too. There is always some new to learn, furthermore in languages as either language is in constant change with new words, phrasal verbs, idioms or the restructuration of grammar rules.
So keeping a blog online as your personal portfolio is twice as useful because you will find the latest information in blogs similar to yours and moreover you will keep updated those who follow your work, which will create a domino-effect; a win-win situation, don’t you think?
Image by Barastol @ Deviantart
http://browse.deviantart.com/photography/?qh=§ion=&q=searching+knowledge#/dg96kg
My name is Marcel; I am a 23-year-old aspiring photographer, music lover and languages enthusiast. I was born in Maravatio, Michoacan on February 6, 1988. Both of my parents are teachers, so I grew up in an environment always related to teach an the different ways of it.
About my English learning history, I think it all started when I was 10 years old as my dad was practicing his English, he was going to Boston for the first time because of his work. The book he was reading was the “Oxford University Press English/Spanish Picture Dictionary” by E.C. Parnwell, it was full of colorful drawings and that was what draw my attention.
Since that time I have been very interested in the language, but unfortunately I was not able to learn it at school until I entered to secondary school, where I studied the language for three years. When I graduated from the school, I stop learning English for four years, until I sign up at the Language Department where I took a classification exam and ended up in fourth semester.
After finishing the 9th semester I was decided to take the TKT course so I can get a job teaching the language that I like so I can gather money to study what I feel passion for; photography. My goal is to someday work overseas in a magazine as a photographer, so this course will take me one step closer to my goal.
