July 1st, 2010

What

have

learned

today

is

that

July 2nd, 2010

teaching

Today we discussed about what kind of pronunciation

pronunciation it is more challenging for teachers than

we should teach to our students; our conclusion was

teaching grammar or lexis because sometimes they do

that it depends on the institution and what the

not how to do it; however, once they give a try, they

student's needs are. For example, if we study at

discover that pronunciation activities are really useful

BRITANICO we will learn a British pronunciation, but

and important for students learning. There are many

if we decide to study at ICPNA we will learn an

activities to achieve this; for example, by modeling

American

intonation, by recognizing the feeling, by using

pronunciation that you want and we as teachers just

dialogues, etc.

have to adapt to cover our student's requirements.

pronunciation.

So,

you

will

learn

the

July 5th, 2010

Our class was very interesting today, we discussed
Today, we talked about the meaning of elision,
assimilation and linking.

about what our realistic pronunciation goals should be,

what we are supposed to expect of our students.
There are two aims: Perfection and Intelligibility.

Elision occurs when one ore more sounds are

omitted when a person talk.
Assimilation is a linguistic process by which a
sound becomes similar to an adjacent sound.
Linking is important in English. It helps us to
understand and be understood better because
some words have different meanings when they
are together.

- Perfection occurs when a person can speak

naturally like a native (good fluency, grammar,
pronunciation, etc).
- Intelligibility occurs when a person, even tough,
do not have a perfect knowledge of the
language, can be understood.
Our aim as teachers should be that our Ss achieve

I think that these three points are important because

intelligibility, but as educator we need perfection

of them we can improve and have a good pronunciation.

because we are their guides.

July 6th, 2010

July 7th, 2010

July 8th, 2010

As teachers we have to integrate phonemic work into

Prominence is the stress of a sentence That is

all our teachings. We can create different activities in

something that I have learned today. Also, we need to

order to make our students practice; for example,

have in mind how important stress is; for instance, if

anagrams, phoneme bingo, category words, etc. We can

we change the stress of a word or a sentence, we

work with phonemes: by making Ss listen and

could change the complete meaning. Students are

distinguish words like sound similar, by showing them

always comparing English and Spanish that is why it is

how to use the dictionary, so on.

difficult for them to learn pronunciation.

Also, I learned that word stress is important because

Not only that, we talked about the schwa which is the

we need

only sound that have its own name. It is the sound of a

to have a good pronunciation to be

understood, if we dont know how to pronunce some

words we could have many problems.

weak vowel and its very popular.

July 9th, 2010

July 12th, 2010

Punctuation is like a traffic light English is a

Errors and Corrections Errors are the proof that

musical language, but you have to play the music.

Ss are learning because they are experimenting with

Intonation is really important and it has a big effect

in the meaning of a word or sentence; furthermore, we
can get a lot of information through it; for example,
what the attitude of the person who is talking is, if he
is angry, happy, sad, etc.
It is a little difficult for teachers to teach intonation
because there are many people that just are not good
listeners. So it is important for Ss to improve their
intonation, in order to do not have problems in future.

the language, taking risk, and making progress.

However, we need to be careful when we correct to
our Ss, because if we dont have techniques to do that,
they will get scared. There are some techniques to
make

corrections:

Echoing,

peer

correction,

reformulation, facial expression, finger correction,

gestures combined with facial expression, etc.
So, there is no an excuse to do not be empathic with
them.

July 13th, 2010

July 14th, 2010

When to correct We need to be sure when the
right moment to correct someone is, that depends a
lot of in the aim of our activity. For example, if our
aim is fluency, it is not a good idea to correct
students in the moment that they made a mistake
because they will feel insecure and their performance
instead of improve will be a disaster, so it is better to
do the correction when the activity is over. However,
if our aim is accuracy, the correction has to be made
in that moment because they are learning grammar
and they need to have all their doubts resolved.

Testing Tests are good in order to know how much

students are learning. There are different kinds of
tests:
- Progress Test: To know what the progress of
the Ss is.
- Proficiency Test: To know what the level of a
person is (international exam, etc).
There are 3 criteria that a good test shoul have:
Reliability There is no variation in the answers.
Validity The content of the exam is what Ss
have studied during the month.
Practicability There are not problems in the
correction.

July 15th, 2010

July 16th, 2010

When we prepare an exam we need to have criteria, it

Today I learned that sometimes is necessary to use

is not just to write some questions and then put a

learners first language, especially when you teach

grade, it is more that than. Our exams should be made

basic. There are some teachers that just avoid the

carefully and always thinking in our students. There

use of Learners1L because they consider it bad; they

are many activities that we can use to prepare an

believe that if Ss are trying to learn a new language

exam in order to know what they can do what they

they dont have to say a word in their language. I think

can performance; for example:

is ok that Ss should be inmerse in the new language,

- Gap-fill (single sentence,cloze,multiple choice,

using given words)

following a given instruction)

(rearranging

contruction
words,

L1 that can help Ss learning, Honestly, It is the first

time that I read aboutit and actually I find this idea

- Sentence Transformation (using given words,

- Sentence

but there are moments and activities that required Ss

and

findind

very interesting, activities like try to summarize an

article in your language or being a translator for a

reconstruction
and

mistakes, situational)
- Matching (pictures and words, etc)

correcting

turist are good.

July 19th, 2010

July 20th, 2010

Mediation This occur when we help someone that

Cuisenaire rods these are small coloures blocks

doesnt speak the local language to communicate, we

(white, red, orange, etc) that are use to performance

act like mediators.

activities, they are usually use in a table and according

Also, we can use this as an activity in order to make

students practice. Not only that, there are different
activities

and

games;

for

example,

the

broken

to the book they are very helpful to teach grammar

and pronunciation. In my oppinion, I dont like them
very much I prefer to work with pictures.

telephone that help Ss to improve their language. I

Dictionaries These are important for Ss for learn

remember once when I went to travel with my friends

lexis and solve doubts. But there is a problem; as you

I help them to talk with some tourists, It was a nice

know; one word can have different meanings depending

experience, I was in intermediate.

on the context, so we as teachers have to help them

by teaching them how to use a dictionary, the
alphabetical order, phonemic scripts, etc.

July 21st, 2010

Today we talked about timelines which are tools that

help teachers to explain better verb tenses because
the timelines have the three times (past, present,
future), so Students see better the differences that
have each tense. I think that this tool is very
important and helpful; I can say that because I have
learned grammar using them.