Cultural awareness worksheets to enhance oral communication skills

124 páginas : ilustraciones, gráficos, fotografías.This qualitative action research study attempts to show how 'cycle three" students enhanced their oral communication skills based on cultural awareness, using materials centered on Colombian culture and on some micro skills such as communicative functions and use of body language. This research study was conducted in a public institution, with nine fifth, sixth, and seventh grade students by applying cooperative learning as the methodology for the development of the worksheets. The instruments to collect data were students' artifacts, teacher's field notes, and a video recording. The findings suggested that the worksheets based on cultural awareness enhanced students' oral communication skills, since they felt more confident and motivated to speak about their own culture and their reality facilitating their communication process. However, during this process, participants had to face some difficulties such as lack of linguistic resources, knowledge of cultural aspects, and communicative functions, which meant making a bigger effort to develop their oral communication skills.Esta investigación acción cualitativa intenta mostrar cómo los estudiantes del "ciclo tres" mejoraron sus habilidades de comunicación oral basadas en la conciencia cultural, utilizando materiales centrados en la cultura colombiana y en algunas micro habilidades como las funciones comunicativas y el uso del lenguaje corporal. Esta investigación se realizó en una institución pública, con nueve estudiantes de quinto, sexto y séptimo grado aplicando el aprendizaje cooperativo como metodología para el desarrollo de los talleres. Los instrumentos para recopilar datos fueron talleres, notas de campo del docente y una grabación de video. Los hallazgos sugieren que los talleres basados en la conciencia cultural mejoraron las habilidades de comunicación oral de los estudiantes, ya que se sintieron más seguros y motivados para hablar sobre su propia cultura y su realidad facilitando su proceso de comunicación. Sin embargo, durante este proceso, los participantes tuvieron que enfrentar dificultades tales como la falta de recursos lingüísticos, el conocimiento de los aspectos culturales y las funciones comunicativas, lo que significó un mayor esfuerzo para desarrollar sus habilidades de comunicación oral.MaestríaMagíster en Evaluación y Aseguramiento de la Calidad de la Educació

Researching young people's sexuality and learning about sex: experience, need, and sex and relationship education

This paper describes findings from an in-depth case study of young people's sexuality and learning about sex. Focus groups and unstructured interviews were conducted with young women and young men aged 15-16 years in a school in the north of England. Analysis focused on disjunctions between reported sexual behaviour in a park and in a bedsitting room, and the content of school sex and relationship education. Tensions between the accounts are considered for their impact on learning about sex, sexual negotiation, subjectivity and inter-generational understanding. Despite some negative experiences in sex education, the young people interviewed desired the affirmation and support of adults, and recommend sex and relationship education as the most appropriate vehicle for providing this. The value added outcomes of participation in the study, including consciousness and awareness raising, and the opportunity for reflection and debate and selves as 'experts', enhanced young people's view that non-judgemental and meaningful advice and guidance are possible in formal learning contexts. Implications for future forms of sex and relationship education are discussed.</p

Teaching programme for 1º de Bachillerato: English as a foreign language

Máster Universitario en Formación del Profesorado de ESO, Bachillerato, Formación Profesional y Enseñanza de Idiomas. Especialidad en Inglés (M086

Break up with the monotony. Implementing multisensory learning in EFL classes for secondary school students

En la actualidad, existen numerosas metodologías y enfoques aplicados a la enseñanza de idiomas. En el máster de profesorado de secundaria, más concretamente en la especialidad de inglés, se ha dado especial relevancia al aprendizaje de idiomas basado en tareas llamado tal y como indican sus siglas en inglés TBLT (Task Based Language Teaching). Así mismo, también se le ha dado importancia al enfoque comunicativo para enseñar inglés como lengua extranjera. Durante el máster ambos sistemas han sido implementados por el alumnado en sus unidades didácticas, tareas o lecciones que han ido desarrollando a lo lardo del curso. Sin embargo, durante el periodo de prácticas se ha podido observar que el alumnado de secundaria era enseñado principalmente con metodologías más tradicionales, donde no se le daba suficiente importancia al enfoque comunicativo. Además, la posibilidad de interactuar utilizando el inglés como lengua vehicular entre los compañeros y compañeras de clase era mermada, debido a la tendencia a realizar actividades individuales. Tanto más por cuanto, en las clases del máster de la especialidad de inglés, se comentó en múltiples ocasiones el paupérrimo interés y la baja participación que mostraba el alumnado de secundaria en las clases de inglés como lengua extranjera. Por ello, el presente trabajo pretende examinar una serie de teorías del aprendizaje y la enseñanza e integrarlos en una propuesta didáctica. El principal objetivo de la propuesta didáctica es promover la comunicación, cooperación e interés entre el alumnado. Para ello, teorías como las mencionadas previamente, enfoque comunicativo y TBLT, serán utilizadas para elaborar la unidad didáctica del trabajo. Además, el aprendizaje multisensorial y aprendizaje cooperativo serán integrados en la propuesta didáctica con el propósito de enlazar las actividades y fomentar el interés, la participación y situaciones comunicativas entre el alumnado. Así mismo, se pretende ofrecer al alumnado una experiencia única, rompiendo la rutina en la clase de inglés, a través de estimular al alumnado con experiencias sensoriales. <br /

EFL teaching through english-practice work stations (EPWS) to enhance participation and interaction in english for third grade learners

Tesis (Pedagogía en Inglés)Teachers all over the world are constantly searching for new activities, new strategies and methodologies that can help them make their lessons more satisfying for their learners and making it possible to enhance their learning process as well as their results. This has become a titanic effort for those teachers who do not count on the amount of time necessary for their lesson planning and to design their activities. But there are numerous Internet websites or teachers on social networks that are willing to give and share ideas. While doing the previous research for this thesis the authors came across with Debbie Diller’s book “Literacy Work Stations: Making Centers Work” (2003), where she explains how Literacy Work Stations (henceforth, LWS) work. After reading vast information about this method, there are several aspects presented that are very similar to the one seen at pre-elementary school by two of the authors were this methodology consisted of working in stations during short periods and rotating between them, so learners can work on different subjects. The researchers think that this kind of methodology is the one that generated faster and deeper development of the four skills of the English language for the two of them. And so the main purpose of this research is to foresee its usefulness and to propose an innovative strategy to enhance participation and interaction, not only in Spanish but mainly in English, inside an English as a Foreign Language (henceforth, EFL) lesson. The topic of this research is related to the implementation of a different strategy in elementary grades called English-Practice Work Stations to enhance participation and interaction during EFL lessons

A Proposed Reading Program for Secondary School Students

This proposed program presents a background of reading competencies, application of consistent methodological standards and technology-assisted programs. Several researches have quoted the arising complication in the education of high school students, especially in the learning of reading as part of the English subject because of the advancement of technology. Clearly, well-educated programs established a decade ago are no longer effective nowadays. Moreover, it focuses specifically on teaching reading to fourth year high school students with the assistance of multimedia. Some researches on the use of multimedia digital technologies to enhance reading instruction are in its infancy. This reflects the fact that the technological capabilities that appear to have the most potential in aiding children learn how to read, such as computer speech recognition, have only recently become sufficiently affordable and available for widespread use. In addition, this reading program is intended to provide background information that will encourage reading specialists, education technology specialists, classroom teachers, and special education teachers to work together to understand, evaluate and implement effective uses of technology in teaching reading to students. It brings together the research-based guidelines for teaching students to read with information about the potential uses of multimedia digital technology to enhance reading instruction