Didactics Essay

Didactics is a subject in the English Teaching Training course. During the first semester of
2020 I took this course in a particular way: remote or online classes. Due to the current
pandemic, Sars Coronavirus 2, all courses in almost all over the world needed to be
executed in this way, but teaching and learning were always present. In this essay, I will
present my personal path on learning the units of Special Didactics, concerning topics,
methods, time and material given for each unit.

The first unit was an introduction to the subject. It is necessary to state the concepts that
we will be using among all our pedagogical learning process. The two most important
aspects of this unit were: Second Language Acquisition distinguishes in different types of
Second Language and the three phases in L1 and L2 learning. The most inspiring part was
analyzing Montessori’s method. Introducing Second Language Acquisition by Muriel
Saville-Troike was the most important source. I personally think that the rest of the topics
are necessary to be exposed, but not as relevant as the ones I mentioned before.

Concerning units two and three, both were focused on the young learner. These units
were presented in a more dynamic way, which made them more understandable and
easier. Having knowledge that the topics were reduced, what we learn about
characteristics of learners and some difficulties in learning process was really inspiring and
enough to make a philosophical thinking about our role as teachers and that we can make
a difference with our attitudes, type of activities and selecting our method. The material
was vast enough, videos and the Primary Methodology Handbook for unit 3 and even 5
were useful, but Jeremy Harmer’s book and The Primary English Teachers Guide were not
very well used by me. Probably I did not receive a guidance to use those books.

Regards unit four, it was helped by Práctica Docente subject and we could take some
concepts from the material given for other units. However, since it was almost June and
we did not have enough time to complete every unit, we did not learn this unit properly,
and I could not read everything about this unit.
Unit five was really interesting and engaging. The material is a lot, nevertheless, we had a
group activity to make it easier. I enjoyed learning about different approaches and
methods I could use in my career, and to see the characteristics of old approaches that are
not completely useful nowadays, such as Situational-Structural Approach. Also, it was
interesting to learn about blended learning, which have been very convenient this year
and it will be developed even more in the following years.

Learning unit six was really fast but practical. I completely enjoyed it and the material was
straight to the point. Learning about what to teach in a classroom and implementing
techniques are topics of my interest and the dynamic that our lecturer used to present
them made the learning process an enjoyable part of this course. Also, the activity in
which we had to think of activities implementing these techniques was stimulating.

Finally, I would like to refer to remote learning. This way has advantages and
disadvantages for this course. The positive aspects were practicality, easy and fast access
to the material, no need to commute, no dependence of place and time. And the negative
aspects were, lack of opportunities to exchange opinion and knowledge, worse quality of
information, meetings and explanations, less active learning and more passive and
extensive hours of use of computers and increase of stress and anxiety. Nevertheless, I
would like to highlight our WhatsApp group, in which we could ask for information or
explanations and our lecturer could give some sudden messages. Also, the use of Google
Classroom was useful to post all the material, instructions and important messages.

To sum up, Special Didactics course was not easy due to the lack of time, meetings and
some moments of stress. But I can make sure that our lecturer and we, students, made a
great effort so as to learn the most important topics in a remote course. Anyways, what I
have learnt will absolutely be reflected on my teaching career in the future.

Mauro Nicolás Modica Posse

3rd B – PSLV Nº 6007