Teaching Across proficiency levels

"Make students understand the class"

It is necessary to have the correct knowledge and materials when a teachers is going to give a second language class which for beginners can be a challenge since they do not know how to deal with a class or maybe they feel afraid. Moreover, when students have a previous knowledge about the language, it is pretty important that teachers know which skills they are going to apply because if you give a lot of vocabulary or brunches of concepts they may feel overwhelmed;so, teachers must be careful to use limited number of new words, phrases and sentences in order to make a class understandable; so, teachers do not get frustrated if students do not get things at the first time they are developing a topic.

The teacher's role for  students that are beginners, it is important because they are expecting a lot of the teacher since they want to acquire the second language, and teachers need to make activities in which students can be working in groups or in pairs;and then, they are going to have an idea when the teachers want them to share in the class; Moreover, teachers need to remember that students are focused on the things they are saying;so, it is pretty important that teachers use the secondo language clearly and also the vocabulary that they are going to use.

Furthermore, authenticity is important for teachers; they do not need to pretend with their students using log-terms that probably they are not going to understand, instead a teacher needs to use short phrases; for example, if they aregoing to give directions, teachers need to be pretty concise instead of going around the bushes.

Regarding intermediate levels teachers, they need to be constat with the proccess of acquiring a language; for example, make students keep automacity; this means, allow them the bits and pieces of the most important parts of the language. In addition, teachers must avoid to much teacher talking because learners are not going to be able to speak which is important for this leve; also, a teacher should use less the mothers tongue language but they are going to have cases in which the use of it, is important; for example, when a word is pretty difficult to explain or when a teacher has spent all the techniques in order to make students understand a word.

With advanced level, the way of learning is different for students because they are supposed to handle a situation in the target language; and also, let them to ask and to talk because at this level the things that they take into account is to communicate and keep on working on pronunciation and chunks.

Teaching Across Age Levels

It is important to know how to teach in differents age levels because there are many techniques that are useful  in order to make students understand better the second language. For example, adults can learn the target language momorizing a large number of vocabulary or using conceps while children learn the second language naturally but hey do not need abstract words to learn the language;so that, for children teachers do not need to explain grammar terms because they may not understand or maybe they can get bored because nothing of the things that teachers are explaining in the class is understandable for them;so, it is better for teachers make children understand through demostration and a little bit of repetition.

Another important technique is attetion span which consists in activities that can cal their attention; an example can be watching a cartoon that they like; and in that way, they are going to be focused on the activity; also, teachers must be enthusiastic and show energy because children are always hyperactive. Furthermore, senses must be stimalated; so, it is a need to keep in mind doing activities like role plays, science projects and hand-on activities; so that, children are going to be busy doing different kind of activities. In addition, Affective factors need to be taken into account because children are very sensitive, and if you say something in an appropiate way they may understand another thing; for example, if a children make a mistake answering a question make him or her laugh of that mistake but just remember that everything has a limit.

Regarding adults, they are able to handle abstract rules an concepts but teachers might be careful not to overwhelmed them because they can feel stressed or confused. Another important aspect is that teachers must not underestimate adults´ emotions because they may feel uncomfortable or angry; so that, teachers must respect their feelings or point of views. In addition, teachers cannot discipline adults as children; so it is important that teachers that see an attitude of disrecpect or disrupting class they should call their attention telling them that they can understand things better and and also that they are mature.

Teenagers are different because they are between childhood and adulthood;nevertheless, they are able to use abstrac concepts as adults bus this shoul be teach little by little because they are not mature as adults. So, it is important for teachers be careful not to create embarrassment to teenagers because next time they are not going to participate in the class or probably he or she will hate the teacher;for that reason teachers need to keep affirming each student talents and  strenghs in a possitive way. 

To sum up it is very important for all teachers to know how to manage age levels in order to elaborate lessons plans regarding every type of age.

The acquisition-learning hypothesis:

An experience of this hypothesis would be when I learn new vocabulary by using movies, songs or stories in the second language. For example, I tend to memorize vocabulary watching movies in the second language because I learn a lot of idiomatic expressions and new words; then, when I learn all of those new words, I put them into practice, and in that way, I take my apprendiceship subconciously

  

  The monitor hypothesis: In this hypothesis, we, the students, put into practice  all the vocabulary we have learned in the second language. I have had many experiences in which I do remember words that I have learned, and then I begin to formulate how to use this word and in which context I can use it but most of the time, I remember those words which I learn in classes.

The input hypothesis: This hypothesis refers when the learners can understand a little bit of other speakers of the second language; In my case, I have talk to native speakers of the English language but there are some words that are incomprenssible for me but I can understand about what they are talking by context.

The natural order hypothesis:  This is the most common way to acquire a second language because I have had many experiences; An example can be, when I am taking my English grammar class, because in that subject I am learning step by step all the grammatical parts and how to use them in context. Also, I can say that other subject would be composition because I am being submitted to an strict process of rules.

The affective filter hypothesis:  In this case, It depends on the mood I have during an specific class; for example, I can find myself really stress when I do not know how to do in some parts of the english grammar and for that reason, sometimes I get frustrated, and It does not let me to pay attention or to get focus on the class because I am thinking how to understand first the other parts that I did not get. Another situation would be, when I am sleepless; so that, it is pretty difficult to pay attention.

Direct Mehod's Principles

''The Direct Method''

What I do like about this method Is the way of the students apprendiceship because I think that, it is better to get accostume hearing the target language everyday without the use of our mother's tongue language; however, I consider that grammar rules should be connected hand to hand with pronunciation and listening comprehension in order to have a better idea of what are you going to say.

It is known that nowadays ''The Direct Method'' is using grammar rules in order to studens understand better, but the most importat skills for me are pronunciation and listening as the direct method propose because it does not matter if you know a lot of vocabulary if you cannot pronounce it in the correct way. Furthermore, the reformers movement decided to add other skills besides pronunciation and listening since Roger brown documented his point of view of the direc method.

''Speaking'' one of the most importat skills of
 ''The Direct Method''

Regarding the response from the ''Direct Method'' against ''The Grammar-Translation Method'', I think the direct method is better, why? Because the most important things of a target language is learn how to speak and communicate with others, furthermore, some people have the ability to develop the grammar part of a target language and some others are good in reading comprehension but pronunciation is going to be the most important skill in a target language.

 what I do not like about the direct method is when we do not have similarities between The Target Language and The Mother's Tongue Language because it is pretty difficult understand grammar pronunciation or grammar rules in a laguage in which exist a long difference in your mother's tongue language; we have the case of japanese language, I think is pretty rude starting a class speaking and writhing in that language if you do not know anything about it; so, there we have the contra part of the direc method because sometimes the mother's tongue language is needed in order to understand better.

What did you get about the topic?

what I did understand about the Silent Method is that students take a passive role, it means that they only receive the information that the teacher provides them and it is up to the students to investigate more. Regarding The Audio-lingual Method I understood that it develops pronunciation and listening comprehension through  dialogues and other skills, and it has similarities with the direct method in the skills they want to develop in a student.

This quote is the most important in my opinion because if we analyze it, and we go deeper in this quote, you can notice that professionals would'nt exist without teaching.

Nowadays teachers are being understimated by the society or by many people who don't understant the meaning of teaching; for that reason, people see teachers like a poor career, but they don't understand the teacher's labor which is really important since the very beginning of our apprenticeship. 
Here i have many quotes about the teacher's role in the society is pretty interesting.

So, for me it is important to recognize teacher's job , and also be thankful with them because there are lawyers,  architects,  engineers, and so many profession thank to the teacher's labor.