Bloom's Taxonomy

This framework for categorizing educational goals was developed in 1995 by Benjamin Bloom and collaborators. In order to promote higher forms of thinking in education, such as analyzing and evaluating  processes, concepts,  principles,  and procedures, rather than just remembering facts (rote learning). It is most often used when designing educational, training, and learning processes.

This Taxonomy Of Educational Objective as well known as Bloom's Taxonomy consist in some major categories such us:

Knowledge

Comprehension

 Application

 Analysis

 Synthesis

 Evaluation

All of these categories refer to the different abilities or competences putting in practice.

Bloom's Taxonomy

This framework for categorizing educational goals was developed in 1995 by Benjamin Bloom and collaborators. In order to promote higher forms of thinking in education, such as analyzing and evaluating  processes, concepts,  principles,  and procedures, rather than just remembering facts (rote learning). It is most often used when designing educational, training, and learning processes.

This Taxonomy Of Educational Objective as well known as Bloom's Taxonomy consist in some major categories such us:

Knowledge

Comprehension

 Application

 Analysis

 Synthesis

 Evaluation

All of these categories refer to the different abilities or competences putting in practice.

Speaking – Unit 8

In this unit we will analyze the productive skill, speaking. This skill is based on producing the language instead of receiving it. It reflects our knowledge about a language but in practice.

Every time, when we speak we do not realize how much we do with this ability to convey a meaning. I mean when we speak we pronounce words, make sounds, use intonations, ask questions, express feelings, hesitate and more.

In order to manage a fluent speaking we can consider to manage the following sub skills such as the right use of grammar, vocabulary, functions. Also use of register to speak appropriately, use body language and know the different type text.

To sum up, teaching how to speak is very complicated, but as a teacher I should find an appropriate way to do it. Thinking in what my students need and how I can response to their needs.

This video can help you to improve you skill.

Reference

Mary Spratt, A. P. (2011). The TKT Course. United Kingdom: Cambridge.

Nordquist, R. (23 de December de 2015). About Education. Obtenido de About Education: http://grammar.about.com/od/il/g/lexisterm.htm

Listening – Unit 7

This chapter refers to another receptive skill which is listening. It involves making sounds of language meaningful. Listening is one of the most useful skill, it help student in many ways. While student listen to they can learn more vocabulary, improve their intonation and pronunciation.

In order to understand what we hear, it is necessary to be able to deal with all the characteristics of spoken language. I mean, in spoken language we do not use what exactly we find on books. For example in a typical conversation we can hear incomplete sentences, utterances, hesitations, and others.

Something really important that I could learn in this chapter, is the listening subskills students need to be able to handle. If we give our students a listening text, we may ask them to listen for the main idea or for general understanding. Besides, they can also look for specific details such as numbers, names or dates.

After all, I can sum up that a teacher has to look for the best way to improve not just students’ listening skill, thus the other skill too. Encouraging students to talk and listen to way they really like, it can be a good way to keep them motivated.

Here I leave a video which help you to improve you skill.

Referencias

Mary Spratt, A. P. (2011). The TKT Course. United Kingdom: Cambridge.

Harmer, J. (2007). How To Teach English. Harlow: Pearson Education.

Writing – Unit 6

Writing is one of the four main language skills, it is a productive skill. The act of writing involves communication through sing or figures placed in a page. When we want to write something we need to have an idea about what this text can be for example, a letter, essay, email or story. All of them are part of text types or genre.

According to whom we are going to write we have to be focus on the different degree of formality, layouts and ways of ordering information. In order to write something we can follow the following stages which are part of the writing process:

·         Get ideas

·         Drafting

·         Editing

·         Proofreading

·         Re-drafting

It is clear, that writing I not an easy activity for ones, but it can be amazing for other. However, this be easy or not we have to practice, make it us. Encourage student can be hard, but a teacher should be active, dynamic and creative to teach and learn too.

extras: 

A video to improve your writing

Referencias

Mary Spratt, A. P. (2011). The TKT Course. United Kingdom: Cambridge.

Harmer, J. (2007). How To Teach English. Harlow: Pearson Education.

Reading – Unit 5

It is a receptive skill, then to read it is necessary to make sense of the text.

Some times to understand what we are reading additionally to understand the text at word level, sentence level, or whole text level, is necessary  link the main idea of the text to our knowledge of the world. This procedure is called discourse.  Reading involves understanding these connections.

I leave a video with a practical way to master this skill:

Some times when reading, we need to know the context where the dialog takes place to get extra information about the subject. Additionally, readings need to be coherent and cohesive for a clear understanding.  What is coherence? Coherence is how we link the meaning of sentences in written or spoken language. On the other hand, cohesion is the way we link ideas linguistically. As teachers is really necessary to teach learners to be aware of those characteristics, to get the real idea of the text.

Reference

Mary Spratt, A. P. (2011). The TKT Course. United Kingdom: Cambridge.

Gower, R., Philips, D., & Walters, S. (2008). Teaching Practice: A handbook for teachers in training. Macmillan Publishers Ltd.

Functions – Unit 4

This chapter will be focus in the reasons why we communicate, functions. When people speak or write, they do it for a reason. Each reason has a purpose or function; there are many such us refusing, greeting, advising or inviting.

Any purpose can be spoken or written in a language and it describes how we use language. It means through functions we use grammar and lexis in context (situation) using exponents (language we say or write). For example; as context we have: invite a friend to a party. The exponent: “would you like to go a party…..?”; and the function here is to inviting. Something characteristic of functions is that all of them have the end –ing form. When we talk about functions, we need to take in account the level of formality. It plays an important role here. Ff I say ‘Want more coffee’ as ‘Would you like to have some more coffee?’ is not the same. The first is informal and the second is formal respectively.

In classroom, it is very important to know what a function is, so it gives students a clear idea of what to do, and though chunks learning process can be easier.

Here a video with more examples:

Referencias

Mary Spratt, A. P. (2011). The TKT Course. United Kingdom: Cambridge.

Nordquist, R. (23 de December de 2015). About Education. Obtenido de About Education: http://grammar.about.com/od/il/g/lexisterm.htm

Kinsella, K. (2010, October). Hawaiʻi Teacher Standards Board.Retrieved from http://www.htsb.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Academic-Language-Functions-toolkit.pdf

Phonology - Unit 3

In this chapter, I will remind what phonology is, and some concepts related. Phonology is the branch which studies the different features which sounds have. Into this features we find phonemes, allophones, intonation and stress.

Phonemes are all sounds used in speech. Currently, there are an universal chart which includes almost all sounds that some languages have. This chart is divided in consonants (voiced and voiceless) e.g. /d/ ia voiced sound and /p/ is a voiceless one, vowels and dipthongs. At the same time, allophones are variants that a phoneme can has in a certain language.

The importance of stress is that it can influence hoe sentences or set of words are pronounced. This feature can display a different meaning depending where it is placed in a word. Intonation, this important feature helps people to convey meaning through tje variation on the level of their voice.

In conclusion, learn and teach another language can be hard, but not imposible.
Practice phonemes can make our learning process easier.

Lexis - Unit 2

In this chapter we analyze what LEXIS is; and how all its element are an important parts in a language. Lexis refers to any unit of vocabulary, it can be a word or set of words which be intelligible display a specific meaning. Words can have different meanings such us denotative meaning (literal meaning), connotative meaning( a word has another meaning or a figurative meaning) e.g. body has a denotative meaning as a person's whole physical self, but as a connotative meaning body can be friend or a dead person or animal. 

At the same time, a word can express a meaning in context and we can imagine just listening to the situation. Also, people can understand meanings according to the form of the word. this meaning comes from derivation and inflection of words. in this situation, it is used prefixes, suffixes or compounds which modifies a root or another word.for example: use means the act of using something; and if we add the suffix -ful getting useful, it now means helping to do or achieve something.

For more understanding:

Also in order to understand a language, it is important to know and learn what collocation and idioms are. Collocations are phrases where words often occur together and can vary like phrasal verbs e.g. pick up or depend on. And, idioms are expressions which cannot be changed  and have a figurative meaning. They are very cultural.

To sum up, any word or set of words that display any meaning or be intelligible from one to another human being can be consider parts of lexis in a language.

Reference

Mary Spratt, A. P. (2011). The TKT Course. United Kingdom: Cambridge.

Nordquist, R. (23 de December de 2015). About Education. Obtenido de About Education: http://grammar.about.com/od/il/g/lexisterm.htm

Grammar - Unit 1

In this chapter, I got the opportunity to analyze the different elements which are part of the system of rules, Grammar, which manage a language in terms of form and uses.

In this first unit I did not learn something new, but I could recall certain information about what grammar is and realize different terms which were not clear for me. It is going to be summarized in the following:

First, Grammar refers and how people uses the language through combinations its elements and forms when they speak and write. Any language has its own rules (grammar). Parts of speech, grammatical structures and affixation can show us clearly grammatical forms.

Parts of speech
Parts of speech	Functions
Nouns	Are used to name places, people, things, qualities, ideas, etc.
Verbs	Show an action.
Adjectives	Describe or give more information about the noun.
Adverbs	Say more about how, when and where.
Determiners	Make clear which noun is referred to
Prepositions	Link and show relationship between nouns or noun phrases
Pronouns	Replace a noun
conjunctions	Join words, sentences, etc.
Exclamations	Show feelings

Created by: Cristian Baño

Since a language exist, people who use it, they combine the different parts of speech and through affixation (change of form) grammatical structures appear. These help people to convey a meaning.  Each grammatical structure has its own function or use´; it means according to what we need to express we use the appropriate. For example, I will travel to London the next year. This example displays us a structure which is in future and the speaker probably make that travel after that period of time (use).

In conclusion, even when we write or speak any language, it is useful to know how or language is structured and how it works. It is normal to make some mistakes while we are learning a foreigner language. However, native sparkers also cannot use their own grammar well

Here a video to understand better Grammar.

. If you have something extra to add, let me know. And comment!

Reference

Mary Spratt, A. P. (2011). The TKT Course. United Kingdom: Cambridge.

Willis, D. (2015). British Council. Obtenido de British Council: http://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/en/english-grammar