Universidad Catlica Del Maule Facultad de Ciencias de la Educacin Departamento de Ingls Escuela de Pedagoga en Ingls

Name: Yesly Sobarzo Module: Teoras y aplicacin de mtodos y enfoques en la enseanza del Ingls II Professors name: Rodrigo Santos Iturra Date: July, 20th 2012

Introduction

Nowadays, English language has become in one of the most important languages used in the world, as a result of globalization, business and technological advances. In Chile, as in other countries, the teaching of English as foreign language increased as a necessity to grow up in the competitive world. In Chile the Ministry of Education restructured the English Sector Curriculum in the year 2009, which promote the use of English language as a tool which lets students to have entrance to a variety of information and give the opportunity to apply these knowledge in simple communication either orally and written. So, they established as main purpose provide to all the students the necessary skills to learn this new language. This new Curriculum also proposes the teaching of English based on the real life of the students and in connection with the fundamental and transversal objectives. Unfortunately, our current educational reality is quite different in most of public schools, the teaching and learning of English as a foreign language is not seen as a important matter, leaving aside important pedagogical factors such as lesson delivery, classroom management, suitable teaching materials, among others, which all contribute to the process of teaching and learning of the English language, and to the good development of an English lesson. In the following proposal of improvement, I am going to give a brief description of the target group; then, I am going to recognize some pedagogical problems in the classroom; later, I am going to elaborate an improvement proposal based on the use of some theories, including Gardners Multiple Intelligences Theory, and giving some possible solutions to deal with these issues, taking into account the use of technological resources; and finally, I will reflect on my future as English teacher.

Description of the school During this fifth practicum period, I had to go to a primary school called Colegio Nueva Holanda, which is a government subsidized school with students from kindergarten to eighth grade level, located in Talca; the class I worked with was a eighth grade class consisting of 35 students, where the average age was between 12 to 16 years old. The class I had to attend, the eighth year A, was working on the first unit Cultural elements of the English textbook called Travelers 8 bsico in, which was mainly focused on the development of receptive skills (reading and listening comprehension), laying aside the production skills (writing and speaking). The teacher gave most of the lessons following the requirements of the preceding MINEDUC School Program, using English textbook provided by MINEDUC, as well as some handouts, emphasizing the learning of vocabulary and short sentences through repetition, explaining the contents in a deductive way, using as teaching materials the whiteboard, the English textbook, and giving the lessons using just Spanish.

Identification of the most important pedagogical problems During the period I was observing and working with this class, I could notice some serious pedagogical issues within the classroom, which have been causing lots of problems in terms of language level, classroom management (misbehavior), seating arrangement, and the inclusion. The language level of the students was not the expected one for eighth graders. The teacher always planned her lessons based on the requirements of the MINEDUC school programs, but giving the lessons using just Spanish in the whole class, working on the activities that she create and delivering handouts; so, as to assess the contents seen during the class; nevertheless, the students did not response to the

teachers methodology, being disruptive and not paying attention to the teacher. When they have to read aloud the pronunciation is not properly, for the reason that they did not receive input. As a consequence, the students performance was not good enough for their current grade level. The classroom management that the teacher had with her student was another important aspect that I found; there is not discipline inside the classroom; since the arrival of the student to the classroom, following the beginning and its development, until the end of the lesson. The teacher was unable to control her students behavior; students did not respect her for the main reason that she laugh sometimes with the students jocks and when she felt angry did not talk to them just shouted instead talking. Another form to control the student was sending them out of the class, but it was not enough, because there are not much rules in the school to avoid misbehavior. As a consequence, the students did not care that treatment and continued chatting, laughing, jumping and fighting among themselves. The seating arrangement was the traditional straight-row arrangement, which has impeded that these students can work in groups and interact among each other, promoting chatting and misbehavior inside the classroom. For instance, when I worked with these students, I realized some changes in the arrangement to try controlling their behavior. But was not easy to do for the main reason that their current classroom itself was very small, considering that they were 35 students. Last but not least, the inclusion, in these school they implemented an inclusion program, in which the accept a variety of students, some of them had cognitive development problems and they participate in the same class but they need an special treatment and the school did not provide special teachers into the class to help them.

Proposal solutions for the problem Methodology With the objective of giving possible solutions to these pedagogical problems founded in this class, I designed the following improvement proposal taking into account Gardners Multiple Intelligences theory, which establishes that each person has different type of intelligences. So, the purpose of implement these method is facilitated teacher methodology and to help to students know how they learn better. According to this author there are seven main intelligences in human beings. Those intelligences are developed at different level in every person, as a clear example why some learns better in one form than others do, and it make us different. As social human beings, people need from these seven intelligences to understand each other and, at the same time, to live our everyday lives. Consequently, future English teachers must attend to all intelligences, not just the most common ones, the Linguistic and the Logical-Mathematical, with the purpose of forming and developing a better lesson, certifying the needs of each student. So, in that way, educators facilitate the process of teaching and learning of English language. Also, understanding involves taking knowledge gained from one setting and using it into another one, in this matter, students will have many opportunities to work on different contents and topics. However, our Chilean educational system does not allow making these changes, being incapable to cover all these seven intelligences and ensure students different requirements; the main problems that teacher have to face are, the excessive amount of students per group, the size of each classroom, the structured school programs, planned lesson units, controlled activities and exercises, the shortage of educational resources, the students misbehavior and social background,

and students have to deal with not appropriate teachers methodology and classroom management,. As consequence, all these factors contribute to hold back the implementation of new ways to deal with the integration of these seven intelligences to the current school programs and lesson plans. Therefore, in order to deliver a lesson applying all these intelligences, first of all, future English teachers, must be able to create a good classroom environment, developing a variety of activities where the students can feel comfortable while they are learning, and where the teacher plays an important role during the whole process, helping his or her students by taking into account all their intelligences, and expecting that they learn as much as possible by responding positively to his or her teaching method.

Theoretical background put in place In the actual Chilean society, some teachers are developing different teaching methods that allow them to reach more students. Since our schools have classrooms where there are students from a variety of backgrounds, it is important to recognize diversity in learning styles; so, teachers who are able to recognize multiple intelligences in their students can become more successful educators. In order to establish a good relationship with our students, which will be based on trust and mutual respect, we have to create that moment, so as to set up that teacher-student relationship, as well as a student-student relationship. For that reason, it is very important include in our lesson more than one or two intelligences, to create a meaningful lesson, in which students felt as an individual person an in that way the expected learning objectives will be accomplished. Combine English with mathematics is not an easy task, but students need to develop their logical mathematic intelligence. A way of implementing Gardners viewpoints would be through the use of

computers with an educational software and/or Internet access to educational web pages. For instance, if you want to teach how to add, subtract, multiply and divide numbers in English. Teachers will be developing this intelligence through the use of logical and mathematical games. In order to introduce the spatial intelligence in the classroom would be help students to develop their visual learning by introducing class displays such as posters or word walls. Even though, these displays could be used a learning tool; for instance, if you put up your students' works, they will increase their motivation. A way of incorporating the third intelligence called linguistic in a new manner to your lesson plan would be by telling and listening to stories; you could build linguistic skills by using word games, making crossword puzzles. So, try to have a wide variety of books in your classroom and make an effort to assign a specific time everyday for all students to look at books. Also, it is a good idea to act out stories, or listen to stories on record. The best form of develop kinesthetic intelligence into the classroom would be through interaction between the teacher and his or her students, also among the students. Create the opportunities to the students learn a new content, doing something special. A class in which they can move around is something completes different and the same time meaningful as example the implementation of games or TPR classes. This way of teaching is really helpful. Some English approaches consider the music as part of the lesson. Gardener consider music as part of the musical intelligence so, in order to develop this teacher should try to put some music during their lesson. A good piece of music can change in positive aspect the classroom atmosphere. Music could be inspiring for many kinds of activities. Some students successfully respond by listening to music in a low level while they are working.

In order to developing their interpersonal intelligence in the classroom teachers have to think about seating arrangement. The arrange of the desks and chairs must be different, so that they can form small groups or be in a circle shape; this way of seating arrangement would allow them to interact among each other and discuss their current work in groups of three of more students. And help to teacher to monitor their students and control their behavior. And the last but not less important is the interpersonal intelligence a way of integrate it would be by incorporating debates into the class schedule. This would involve the whole class sitting in two groups face to face discussing a specific topic. Teacher will have to encourage them to discuss about their feelings and opinions, and establish some rules such as taking turns, listening and treating each other with proper respect. As well as developing interpersonal intelligence, this activity will also build intrapersonal skills by helping the teacher and the students to explore their own feelings as well as those of others.

Technological Resources to be used The children of nowadays were born into a technological world, they are in contact with many devices in their everyday life in every place. The school is the place in which human are formed as social people, in the school their learn how to be insert into the society. So, new teacher need to consider the technology as part of the life of their students, for that reason they cannot let technology out of their lessons. Recent research establishes that the use of technological resources has been increasing considerably during the last ten years, being computers the most used ones, not only for teachers, but also for students as well, who are able to bring in their own laptops to the class. Another technological resource which has been being used progressively for many new teachers is the digital board, which has bring much

comfort to the teachers, especially to those ones who cannot write well on the blackboard or whiteboard. Nevertheless, for many teachers, just thinking of using a computer seems to be really difficult and unnecessary to deliver a lesson; some others think that the use of computers and other technologies inside the classroom would trigger misbehavior among the students, and promote the constant use of these technological resources, decreasing the traditional way of teaching by laying aside other valuable resources such as the whiteboard, the textbooks, notebooks, etc. In relation with the use of computers, this technological resource satisfies many types of learning preferences that one student and/or the entire class may embody. For instance, it can be used to teach and develop the four main skills of learning and teaching English: reading, writing, speaking and listening; you can have access to a variety of software and online programs you can use to prepare a lesson, teach a specific content, send additional material as homework, provide feedback when necessary, among others, and in each of them you will be working more than one kind of intelligence; in addition, you can complement it with the use of data, subwoofers, microphones, headphones, realia, and so on.

Reflection on my future teaching Throughout this work, I realized about different factors involved in the process of learning and teaching a second or foreign language such as seating arrangement, classroom management, and language level. During this fifth practicum period, I had to go to a primary school where the group I worked with, eighth graders, had lots of problems in terms of language level, classroom management (misbehavior), seating arrangement, and the inclusion, and so on. In order to improve all these pedagogical issues, I elaborated an improvement proposal taking into account Gardners Multiple Intelligences theory, how to apply the seven different kinds of intelligence in a real class situation, and how the use of technological resources such as computers, would facilitate the process of teaching and learning of English language by introducing these multiple intelligences and ensuring students needs. If we, as English teachers, as well as our students were given the opportunity to study and work this foreign language in unsuccessful environment, taking into account our social backgrounds, we will be more likely to go through the process of learning and teaching of English language. In addition, each students feelings and emotional can be improved by a positive school and classroom environment; so, we can do a lot to make our students environment a better one, not only for our current students, but also for other students and the students families as well. This means that, regardless teachers methodology, theoretical background, and technological resources utilized to facilitate the

learning and teaching of English language, we, as a future English teachers, have the choice and decide which contents and skills are the most suitable to teach and improve in our students, applying different ways of teaching a content, taking into account Gardners Multiple Intelligences Theory, with the purpose of ensuring our students needs; nevertheless, we must never leave aside our students social background, and being always concern of their learning process as well as their integral development as human beings.