Lift Off!

And so, the end of this amazing journey is here. It has been amusing, surprising, exhausting, overwhelming, but most of all, FUN!

Looking back at the beginning, I find that my goals hasn’t changed that much, may be it’s because I am familiarized with most of the teaching concepts, because of my parents being teachers; however what really grew in me was the awareness of the globalization of the information and how what anything we write in our blogs can be read by anyone, anywhere on the world!

Another one of the concepts that really hit me is the use of technology as one of the most fun, engaging and amusing techniques/tools for learning, and I’m not talking just about students’ learning, but our own learning as teachers. Every time somebody said “technology “ my mind would always go right away to computers, TV, DVD, CD player and that was it, but learning how to use blogging, glogging, twitting, voicetreading and all the other amazing tools just blow my mind away!

Also, watching the videos played by Ellen in the class made me realize that we can and should aspire for the biggest goal, is like they say “Shoot for the moon and even though you fail, you’ll land among the stars”. Speaking for myself, my plans were to take this course, do the TKT exam and get a job in a school (either private or public) and save the money; nevertheless, why don’t aim to get a job overseas? Why limit ourselves to work here in Michoacan, even in Mexico?

Just remember one thing, in order to keep being a good teacher you should never stop learning, keep updating yourself, keep reading and keep on going! And always keep in mind that the “end” of one journey is the opportunity to start a new one!

I’d like to finish this post with two of my favorite quotations:

“Rather than being a well that has the knowledge deep inside, be a fountain which sprinkles drops of wisdom”

“A human being will never be perfect, but he will always be perfectible”



3, 2, 1... Lift off!

Getting Used to Bloom's Taxonomy

Talking about Bloom’s Taxonomy, and all the other different concepts of teaching, I have realized that the main thing is to help your own way of learning first, in order to help your students’.

As we all know by now Bloom’s Taxonomy is divided into three different “domains” which are: Cognitive, Affective & Psychomotor[1]. And the main goal is to create an alternative from of education more emphasized on importance of the “whole” instead of each of the parts that compose it.

The Activity:

Remembering:
Students will brainstorm any musical instruments the can remember

Understanding:
Students will classify the instruments recalled onto different categories (brass, percussion, etc.)

Applying:
Ask the students which ones of the instruments do they think are the most common in the world and why

Analyzing:
Ask the students which instruments they would use in a group or band and why

Evaluating:
Let the students debate about their favorite music gender and why it’s better than other gender.

Creating:
Each student recommend a band/gender and explain how it could be related to other genders


Thanks for reading.




1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloom%27s_taxonomy
Image taken from Wikipedia.org

My Multiple Intelligences

Hello there!

It has been really interesting learning about the different intelligences and the way we learn. I have heard about these before, since I come from a family of teachers, but seeing it in a more deep way and learning by my own experience, it is completely different.

I must say that I found working with glogster pretty amusing, and since it is my first time, I ask you to be patient.

And finally, here it is the glogster of my multiple intelligences

Literacy Circles & Graphic Organizers

Literacy circles are an interesting way to get your students talking. To be honest I did not know that.
To begin with, literacy circles are small groups of students who get together to give their opinions of a whole book or text or a fragment of it in a more deep way. By give the students the control of the activity you engage them to make critical thinking and reflection by having them read and discuss the book/text.

They are a really complete activity since they use the four skills as they read the book/text assigned, they write to fill in graphic organizers (which by the way are a great complement for literacy circles) with their ideas, speak as they explain their own ideas and listen to the ideas and opinions of the other members of the circle.


Talking about graphic organizers, they are a similar activity to pre-writing; and the students can put their ideas in order, identify main ideas and express their reflections about the material read, make the student feel more relaxed and put the boredom aside.


Here are some good sites to get ideas for graphic organizers:

North Central Regional Educational Laboratory: Where you can find "Sequence" Graphic Organizers


Worksheet Library: Where you can find "Relational" Graphic Organizers

University of North Alabama: Where you can find "Compare-Contrast" Graphic Organizers

And finally a PBWiki space from a user named "ged578" where you can find "Category/Classification" Graphic Organizers among other types.

What do you think?




Image taken from The New York Public Library Digital Galery webpage

Image Title: Hamilton Fish Park Branch, "Typical scene: Roof reading room," 1910
Author: Hine, Lewis Wickes, 1874-1940 -- Photographer

Learning vocabulary can be fun!

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

Update Yourself

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

Does the end justifies the means?

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.