teis2
TRANSCRIPT
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Vol. 1 Nº 2
From the Chair Dear ARTESOLERS,
We are glad to issue our second TEIS
newsletter this year with articles from colleagues from different parts of the world.
The 7th Southern Cone TESOl Covention
held in Buenos Aires this year helped us
promote our Teacher Education Interest Section (TEIS) and network with many teachers who
visited our booth and also contributed with their ideas and articles for this second e-newsletter.
We’d like to thank all the teachers who got in contact with us during and after the ARTESOL
convention and who are willing to actively participate in order to make the teaching of
English as a foreign language a respected profession.
We look forward to hearing from you and your experiences in the classroom.
Alicia Artusi Cecilia Chiacchio
TEIS Chair Chair elect [email protected]
CONTENT
Page 1 Welcome message from the TEIS leadership
team
Page 2 From the editors
Page 3 -21 1Dealing With Difficulties In Large Classes. Dr Luke
Prodomou
2 Are We Champions? Why? What For?
Julia Franca De Lima And Solange Fish Braga
From the TEIS leadership team
Network!
Do you have something to say about an article in
the previous or current issue of TEIS Newsletter? This is YOUR Newsletter and we would like to
hear from you.
E-mail us and the authors of the articles. They expect to get in contact with you to exchange
ideas and concerns.
Survey from the TEIS team What kind of information would you like to
read in this newsletter?
TEIS Leadership Team 2007-2008 Contact us!
Chair:AliciaArtusi [email protected]
Chair-elect:CeciliaChaicchio [email protected]
Senior editor: Marcela Jalo [email protected]
Editor: Eladia Castellani
[email protected] Academic Consulting Editor: Mabel Gallo
Secretary: Amalia Marcovesky
3 “Enter Sandman” Intercultural Explorations In The
Classroom. Maria Del Pilar Martinez.
4 English In The High School Curriculum. Graciela
Baum.
5 A Didactic Sequence Based On A Holistic Approach
To Language Teaching. Marcela Jalo.
6 Writing And Strategies: From What There Is To
What It Should Be. Sandra Bayona.
7 Integration of Skills and Multiple Intelligences
Through Video Clips. Ethel Rosenberg.
TEIS NEWSLETTER
www.tesol.org.ar
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8 Tips for Writing Essays at University. Silvia
Enriquez.
Page 22 Join our member community
From the Editors
A first look at this second TEIS issue reveals that we have a mix of contributions and practical ideas to be implemented in the classroom and a wide range of topics such as how to work with video clips or how to teach writing strategies at higher university courses. In times in which disruption and misbehaviour may easily find their way into any class, Dr. Luke Prodromou, provides some insights and practical classroom solutions to manage large or disruptive classes. Júlia França de Lima and Solange Fish Braga from Brazil show us how they could use a topic so close to Brazilian identity such as football in their English classes to reflect on cultural issues. Adolescents seem to get to lyrics more readily than to written text, so Maria del Pilar Martinez provides her students with the tunes to get them interested in the lyrics. Read her article, “Enter Sandman”: Intercultural explorations in the classroom”, to see how she develops a topic by using a song by Metallica. Graciela Baum reflects upon the place English holds -or is assigned- in high school curricula and the ways in which teachers tackle and target its didactic transposition. Marcela Jalo believes that the most effective conditions for language learning come about when students engage in meaningful tasks on a personal level. She compares two views of language learning, and designs a series of activities based on a movie ‘Billy Elliot’ to be used in the classroom. Video clips- a combination of poetry, music and images reflecting culture- can be used as a springboard for integrating the four skills and developing multiple intelligences.
Read Ethel Rosemberg’s Integration of Skills and Multiple Intelligences through video clips. Writing strategies seem to be an issue among university students so Sandra Bayona presents her ideas to guide students into academic writing. In the first TEIS Newsletter issue, Silvia Enriquez, suggested Tips for approaching the writing of an essay. As a continuation of her article she concentrates on the actual moment of producing the written work, and suggests university students ways to communicate their ideas effectively. We hope you enjoy this second TEIS issue. Marcela Jalo Eladia Castellani [email protected] [email protected]
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1 DEALING WITH DIFFICULTIES IN
LARGE CLASSES. Dr. Luke Prodromou. United Kingdom One of the most chronic problems faced by teachers is large noisy classes or even small noisy classes. But even quiet classes may not be paying attention, even if the students are looking in your direction; the mind may be miles away. Another bugbear for teachers is how to organise pair and group work. These problems apply to young, adolescent and adult learners. In this article I describe techniques for managing large classes, re-organising them and getting the attention of students in the crucial early moments of a class. Large Classes and Classroom Management To be a successful teacher, the sense of time, of pace, the use of space and the ability to energise a group of people brought together on a random basis, are essential, if elusive, skills in the classroom. We should encourage teachers to focus on the following aspects of managing large classes: * Managing large numbers It is easy to lose control, or at least the feeling of control, with large classes of kinaesthetic kids, restless adolescents and indifferent adults. * Starting right Opening strategies and warm-ups are essential for getting a lesson off to a flying start and may save valuable time later. * Handling latecomers Responding to and integrating learners who arrive late may salvage the coherence and smooth development of your lesson. * Engaging students with the material Making the textbook and any handouts you use appealing and relevant to learners will help keep the class focused. * Moving students around Communicating with others frequently involves interaction and getting students out of their seats; it is important to ensure smooth and orderly movement around the class. * Drilling Teaching large restless classes involves making the most of every trick in
the methodologist’s book – including controlled practice. * Speaking This basic skill is often neglected due to negative experiences at classroom management. * Finishing right A good class, like a good performance, ends on a high note or on a note of calm reflection, whereas most classes end with an abrupt, relieved and messy ‘that’s it for today’. Activities for Dealing with Diversity A. Starting right Entry music Level Any Aim To build rapport and create an “English classroom” space Duration 2 minutes at the beginning of class Materials A recording of “theme music” to begin the class, a CD/tape player. Skills/language None Preparation Get to class five minutes before your students and cue up the music you would like them to hear as they arrive. Procedure Set the mood for the English class by having music playing as students come in. Greet the students, but don’t make a big thing of the music. It should be “background music”. Leave the music on as students get settled. When you turn the music off it will provide a break, at which point it is easier to get everyone’s attention and begin the class. Note You can have different music for different kinds of day:
o a bouncy pop song for a sunny day (especially if it is the first sunny day in ages)
o a heavy piece of classical music (Beethoven or Wagner) for a test
o light classical music (Vivaldi or Bach) for a normal day
o topical songs for times of the year (e.g. Christmas, Halloween, Valentine’s Day)
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o music by a certain artist if that person has been in the news.
B Managing large numbers The attention-getter Level Any Aim To organise the class Duration 10 minutes Materials None Skills/language Understanding instructions; speaking practice Preparation Decide and prepare what your attention-getter signal is going to be. Procedure Tell the class that in pair- or group work there will often be a lot of noise. It is important for students to know what they have to do and when to stop. To ensure this, sometimes you will need all their attention. Explain that for this you will show a signal. When they see, or hear, the signal they should stop the activity and look towards you. Explain that for the next activity you are going to practise the signal with them. Write on the board:
Work in groups of three or four maximum. Let the class organise themselves into groups. When the noise level begins to rise, give the signal. Praise the class once they stop and look towards you. Write on the board:
Tell each other three TRUE things about yourself and one LIE. When most students have completed the task, give the signal, and praise them again once they pay attention to you. Write on the board:
Guess which of the four facts you heard was a LIE. Repeat the same process again. Follow-up
Use the attention-getter signal regularly in class. Note I recommend against using a shouted “OK!” or “RIGHT!” as the signal. Students might not hear this and repeatedly shouting and straining is bad for your voice. The Attention-getter:
o Raising a hand or both hands in the air
o Ringing a bell o Clicking the lights on and off o Holding up and waving some
kind of distinctive object (a colourful feather or a flag)
o Showing a blank transparency on the overhead projector
o Moving to a specific part of the room and making a signal
o Tapping lightly on the microphone, if you are using one
C Engaging students with the material Listen and stand Level Any Aim To get the attention of a large
class; introduce a ‘difficult’ listening or reading text kinaesthetically
Duration 10-15 minutes Materials An extract from a course book; pieces of paper Skills/language Listening or reading Preparation Scan your listening or reading text for the words you want to focus on – if possible, choose words which are repeated in the text. If you want to add your own repetition of a word, change the text by replacing the original words with the words you wish to focus on. Write the chosen words on pieces of paper. Procedure Give the slips of paper with the chosen words to different groups of students before they read or listen to the text.
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Tell the class you are going to read a text to them. Every time they hear the word written on their paper (or any derivative of it) they have to stand up and sit down again. After reading the text aloud, ask the class to recall which words each group stood up to. Then, ask them to tell you what the text said exactly? The students read or listen to the original text and the lesson proceeds as ‘normal’.
Note
This activity is based on an idea by Ken Wilson. It is ideal for a large class as:
o It always manages to raise a laugh.
o It gets the whole class´ attention o It eases the students gently into
what might be a difficult text. o It gives them a sense of
‘ownership’ of the text: standing up when they hear ‘their’ word makes the text more familiar, friendlier. When they listen or read the original text, they are driven forward by the knowledge that their words are buried in the text.
D. Finishing on a lighter note Split jokes Level From intermediate onwards Aim To get students’ attention; create relaxed atmosphere Duration 10 minutes Materials Slips of paper (or cards) with half a joke on them Skills/language Speaking and listening Preparation Copy half a dozen jokes onto slips of paper, in halves. For example,
Waiter, will the pancakes be
long?
No, sir, round.
Procedure As the students arrive, give them each a card with the first or second half of a joke and ask them to memorise it. Ask any student with the first half of a joke to call it out. The student with the other half calls it out.
Student 1: Waiter, waiter, what’s this fly doing in my soup? Student 2: Swimming, sir!
Students should be allowed to consult their card if they need support. When all the jokes have been heard, ask the students to recall and write down as many jokes as they can. Remember: this is not a test but a rapport-building task! Variations � The students memorise their words and
circulate, saying their half of the joke to partners till they find their ‘other half’. If you want to change the seating arrangements, they can then sit with that person.
� Instead of using jokes, you could use well-known English proverbs (e.g. Too many cooks / spoil the broth). At the end of the activity ask students for similar proverbs in their language.
Dr. Luke Prodromou has published numerous articles in ELT journals and has written over twenty textbooks, including the Star Series (Macmillan) and FCE Grammar and Vocabulary (Pearson). He has just completed a new course for young learners: Smash (Macmillan). He obtained his Ph.D from the University of Nottingham, UK. He also has degrees from Bristol, Birmingham and Leeds Universities. Luke is a Visiting Fellow of Leeds University (Metropolitan), UK. The ideas in this article are based on material from a new handbook for teachers Dealing with Difficulties (DELTA Publishing) which Luke wrote with Lindsay Clandfield.
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2 ARE WE CHAMPIONS? WHY?
WHAT FOR? Júlia França de Lima and Solange Fish Braga Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Brazil is considered the country of football and this has an undeniable importance in the construction of Brazilian national identity. Here, football is a kind of sport that involves contrasting emotions: no other sport activity joins sorrow and joy, hate and passion as football does. During the 2006 Football World Cup, we, English teachers, and our 5th, 6th and 7th grade students from a private school, Colégio Santa Teresa de Jesus, in Rio de Janeiro, started a process of reflection that was later expressed in a poster entitled “Are we champions? What for? Why?”
This poster was presented by the students, first, at our school during a special week called “Open Space for Education and Culture”. A month later, in November 2006, it was shown at the “8th Exploratory Practice Annual Event”, at PUC-Rio, Pontifícia Universidade Católica, in Rio de Janeiro. Finally, we showed the poster at the “7th Southern Cone Conference” hosted by ARTESOL, on July 14, 2007 and it could be appreciated by teachers and students present at the event.
World events used in the classroom
Being English teachers, both of us and our students worked to understand the puzzles that emerged in our English language classes during the month of the 2006 Football World Cup. As Exploratory Practice (EP) teachers, we believe that life in the classroom is dynamic and that a never-ending process of observation and collegial reflection can help us understand the puzzles that we – teachers and learners – are interested in understanding. Football, competition, national identity had a considerable impact on the school life during the World Cup and the English classes
became a forum to welcome this dynamic process, a place to share and reflect on different feelings and contrasting expectations.
Profiting from a popular event: The World Cup.
In this process, students and teachers read American, British and Australian online frontline headlines and their interest and motivation led them to engage themselves in many different activities. Fifth 5th grade students (aged 10) wrote their comments on the World Cup and emailed them to the newspapers. They also prepared a picture dictionary about football words contrasting international English language and Portuguese cognates. The sixth 6th grade classes (aged 11) did a research on flags and uniforms and drew players for each participating country. After that, these students created soccer board games with questions and answers about soccer rules and had fun playing together. The seventh grade (aged 12) students, in pairs, researched the official language, currency, population, area and continent of each participant country. They drew flags and wrote a summary of the respective country research. All classes sang the song by the English band Queen, “We are the champions” and we reflected on the message and the ideas in it.
All these different activities were taking place while Brazil was being eliminated from the competition. The passion, enthusiasm, joy, creativity, all turned into sadness, frustration, and despair. Involved by this blue atmosphere, a group of students remembered the song and its lyrics triggered discussion on topics such as these:
Are we champions? Champions of what? What for? Why?
Working and reflecting
Those were some of the puzzles that promoted rich collegial reflection on this
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famous passion and devotion for football and the feelings of sadness due to the country’s defeat. The group’s work for understanding was organized into Potentially Exploitable Pedagogic Activities (PEPAs). These are common classroom activities that offer opportunities for integrating pedagogy and reflection on issues that puzzle learners and teachers.
In the table below, we relate the students’ puzzles, the activities, the language teaching/learning points and the understandings.
Puzzles PEPAs
Are we the
champions?
� reading of online
newspapers
� research on flags and
uniforms
� preparation of picture
dictionary
� creation of board games
Champions of what? � listening, reading and
singing the song
Why do we like being a champion?
� creation of video-clips
using movie maker
What is it to be a champion?
� creation of video-clips
using movie maker
Opportunities for language teaching /
learning
Understandings
�international words
�cognates
�nationalities
�colors
�countries
�soccer rules
Sometimes we are the
champions.
Sometimes we are not.
It all depends on our goals
�nouns related to
feelings and emotions
We like to be Soccer
Champions
�comparative forms of
adjectives
We like to be champions of
football but we would like to
be champions in our lives
�simple present:
questions/answers
Is it to overcome difficulties?
Students discussed and reflected on the feelings that dominated them and the whole country before, during and after the Brazilian games. Some of them wrote: � “I think being a champion is much more than winning a game, it is to overcome limits imposed by life.” � “We aren’t champions because we must reach a lot of goals to get a better world. We want to be champions of peace,
health and education because we are looking forward to that better world.” � “We are champions because every day we wake up and we are able to survive in the world we live nowadays.” � “We want to be champions of solidarity to help others and to build a better nation.”
During the 8th EP Annual Event at PUC-Rio, Professor Dick Allwright, the intellectual mentor of the Rio EP Group, answered the students’ question about what is to be a champion: “To be a champion is to be the best you can be, without making that more difficult for other people.”
Follow- up activities
The students’ understandings of why the victory or defeat of the Brazilian football team affected their lives inspired them to create video-clips about these feelings in the
school computer lab. We worked a lot. The students’ excitement was contagious.
Integrating normal classroom activities to the work for understanding what was going on in our students’ and in our lives as teachers, both inside and outside the classroom, made our work more productive and pleasant.
References Allwright, D. (2003). Exploratory Practice: Rethinking practitioner research in language teaching. Language Teaching Research, 7,2, pp. 113-141.
Solange Fish teaches English in municipal and private schools in Rio de Janeiro. She is an EP practitioner and has been presenting posters and workshops together with her students at teacher events.
Júlia França de Lima is a teacher of English in Rio de Janeiro public and private schools. She works with Exploratory Practice and has been presenting posters and workshops with students at events.
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3 “ENTER SANDMAN”:
INTERCULTURAL EXPLORATIONS
IN THE CLASSROOM
María del Pilar Martínez Pergamino, Buenos Aires, Argentina
Language and culture “Language is bound up with culture in multiple ways” (Kramsch, p.3). Because of this when teachers teach English they should bear in mind how important it is to build a sphere of interculturality between the linguistic forms to be taught and the social structure those forms come from. In order to understand a foreign culture, learners should relate the culture of the target language with their own. One way of achieving this is to resort to Literature, the most precious tool that makes language and culture converge. It is in song lyrics that Literature finds its widest expression. There is an undeniable fact about music: its universality. Music provides the scenario and lyrics the vehicle through which expression finds its way. Through listening to the word and through further reading the word, people interpret song lyrics and adequate them to their own cultural social reality, they fill in the gaps of indeterminacy (Rossenblatt, 1978) that there exist in the lyrics with their own stories / histories and so they go back into their past, visualize their present and get forwards into a projection of their future. Sometimes it does happen that the culture the lyrics reflect does not resemble the culture of the people who listen to it. Here is when interculturalism comes into play.
Adolescents do get to lyrics more readily than to written texts, they start by first feeling identified with the tunes to then become interested in the lyrics. Taking advantage of this is the job of teachers. This means, taking advantage of the pleasure music awakens in students and profiting from the learners’ curiosity for knowing what the lyrics mean. Bringing songs to class may assure success in the sense that students experience appropriation of some songs or lyrics because of the added value that English has in the Argentine culture. Thus, teachers should use this added value in
order to make students reflect on the native and on the foreign culture, and to promote multiple responses.
Using song lyrics during the first week of classes The following is an account of a whole topic unit and of how an intercultural approach was implemented in a state school in Buenos Aires Province in Argentina.
It was the first day of the academic year and the students, who up to that moment, had been always taught English under a traditional grammar-oriented method that focused mainly on the testing of how much grammatical knowledge had been acquired, were now introduced into a somewhat different proposal. They were going to follow a syllabus that had been organized into topic-units. The first one, the one this article is about, was called “Fears”, no textbook was going to be used, the material designed for the whole year had to do with song lyrics, and the evaluation centered on portfolios and oral presentations. The first class started with the teacher writing the name of the first unit “Fears” on the blackboard and followed with the presentation of these lines: “Say your prayers little one Don’t forget, my son To include everyone.”
The students were asked to discuss in groups and then answer the following: 1. Who is saying this? Who to? 2. What personal experience/s do these
lines remind you of? 3. Where do these lines come from? 4. What time is it? How do you know? All the students answered the first question by saying that the speaker was a woman talking to her son / daughter, none of them thought it could have been a man; an answer very coherent with the culture these students are immersed in, a culture that positions women as the ones that are in charge of their children’s religious education. As for the other questions they
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said that the lines reminded them of their childhood, and some said of their grandmothers. Question 3 had different answers: “these lines are from a letter… a religious book ... a prayer … a note someone wrote… etc.” As for question 4 all the answers were coincidental: “bed time because people pray at night.” This answer provided the basis for the next set of questions: 1. Do you pray at night? 2. Did you use to pray at night? 3. Do old people pray at night? Why? All the students were able to give an answer to these set of questions, even the ones who never prayed or had different religions or no religion at all. At this point the students were told that the lines came from a song by Metallica called “Enter Sandman”; most of them knew the song but they did not know what the song was about. On the following lesson they listened to the song while reading the lyrics and they answered the following: 1. What’s this song about? 2. What is the Sandman? 3. Who or what is the beast? At this point, the work started to be much more personalized, the students themselves decided to leave their groups, for it was very difficult to reach an agreement as regards the answers, though they were rather similar, each of them wanted to talk about their very own mental representations, that is their own memories. However, the interesting part was, in fact, when they had to answer the question about the Sandman, in Spanish “el hombre de arena”, literally “the man made of sand”; which did not make any sense to them. They could not fill in the gap that this word provided, for their native culture did not give them the necessary elements to apply their schemata to the meaning of the new word; so they just had context of the song to rely on. Some said the Sandman was a kind of hero, others a monster, others said it was a bad character that frightened little children. Then, they were given the answer:
“The sandman, in folklore, is a figure who brings good sleep and dreams by sprinkling magic sand onto sleeping children. The sandman is also a symbol of the passage of time to death; he is sometimes depicted as the grim reaper holding an hourglass and scythe.” (www.wikipedia.org)
At this point they were asked to associate the Sandman with other characters they knew from their childhood to see whether there were any similarities. They mentioned characters such as: “el hombre de la bolsa” (the man with the bag: a man who carries a bag and puts little children who misbehave in it); “el viejo” (the old man: an old man who scares children who misbehave); “la llorona”(ghost of a woman said to roam the streets wailing); “el cuco” ( the bogey man: an evil spirit who scares children); but they found no coincidence between these legendary characters and the Sandman. The next set of questions had to do with their own fears when they were little children, and then, they wrote twelve words they associated with the word nightmare as an assignment for the next lesson. On the next lesson they were asked to read aloud the words they had chosen and they were told that they had to borrow words – 5 words – from their mates’ lists in order to enlarge their own. After that, they were asked to classify the words in groups under headings. The next activity was to write a poem or a text using the words chosen. After writing the poems, and for a coming lesson, the students answered these questions: 1. What’s your most terrifying dream? 2. Do you have recurrent dreams? 3. How do you fight back nightmares? 4. Do you daydream? 5. Which is your most cherished dream?
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6. If you could write a message on a wall for the whole world to see about your most cherished dream, what would you write?
For a last activity each group brought posters about the Sandman and a collage that represented their dreams. Each group had to talk about the meaning/s hidden in their productions. They also brought songs that talked about their dreams. “Imagine” by J. Lennon was the song everybody said was the best choice for this activity because these lyrics promote equality and understanding through cultures. When the unit finished, they were given questions to rate these activities in terms of complexity, personal involvement and what they had learnt. Conclusion Learning a language implies learning about different ways of thinking and seeing the world. Interpreting texts means interpreting cultures and understanding differences by finding meanings in intertextual relations. All the activities mentioned above position students as producers of meanings that stem from the transfer: their own culture and take the meaning/s of the target culture, transform them, adapt them and appropriate them, so as to allow students to construct their own personal understanding. Only by being challenged to make sense of the L2 text will the students widen their horizons. Bibliography
o Kramsch, Claire. (1994) Context and Culture in Language Teaching. Oxford. OUP.
o Enter Sandman by Metallica, The Black Album, 1991.
BIODATA
María del Pilar Martínez is a teacher at primary and tertiary levels in Pergamino, Buenos Aires, she is a teacher trainer for the Buenos Aires province and has lectured about Teaching English as a foreign language on many occasions. At present she is attending a master Degree at
Universidad de Río Cuarto in Anglo-American Literature.
4 ENGLISH IN THE HIGH SCHOOL
CURRICULUM Graciela Baum La Plata, Buenos Aires, Argentina [email protected] English in high school appears to be undervalued –and therefore its acquisition process overlooked- by curriculum designers. Eighty minutes a week? A hundred and twenty minutes a week? Not to mention preliminary organizational instances which take some ten minutes off net class-time. And that is what we, teachers, are left with. Needless to say not enough. But that is what we have for the moment being, and we had better make good use of it. The question is how to. A valuable sociological construct which can be easily extrapolated to analyse high school as a pedagogical setting is the “system of activity” coined by Engeström (1993). Its parts are: the subject; the instruments used, mainly the semiotic ones; the object to be acquired or objective that regulates the activity; the reference community in which the subject and object are inserted; the norms or behaviour rules which regulate the social relations of that community; and the rules that regulate the division of tasks within the activity. These elements –defined by their relative and reciprocal position- though indefinitely and dynamically articulated with other elements- bear a relationship of inclusive separation among themselves. What’s the heuristic value of this relation? That the parts of the system can be separately analysed with the single aim of understanding the relationship that holds them together as a system. Thus, let us start by the subject, the student, our student. An adolescent whose general
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phenotypical traits we know. Roughly, teenagehood equals identity search through confusable role assumptions, sexual maturity and ambivalence, instances of mourning due to losses from childhood, overidentification and overcohesiveness with peers, and moral reciprocity, among other aspects. An adolescent whose curricular and particularly extra-school contact with English –our object- is mostly rich and personally significant. Why? Because he most probably understands and uses the language of virtuality and technology, most probably ciphered in English. He most probably enjoys foreign music, movies, TV series and cartoons, most probably scripted in English. He is most surely interested in getting updated data whose access is technologically mediated and referenced in English. He no doubt chats –or would like to- with peers from other countries and cultures, doubtlessly speakers of English. And he buys goods whose operation he decodes through English; and he dresses in T-shirts printed with slogans in English... So, from this perspective, is he far from English, or is school distancing him –our subject- from English –our object? Or, should we relativize the question and restate it as: What is our object? Our pedagogical object, that we strive to didactically transpose. Or, self-referentially and reflectively, should we again reformulate the question into: How do we teach our student? How should we teach our student? Declaratively, procedurally, both ways? This psychological subject –our student- constructs himself in interaction with the physical and socio-cultural environment. The latter, a postmodern world and society with a strong existential dictum: “I am what I have now…and as effortlessly as possible” Hedonism prevails. However, school –our reference community- is still a modern institution, inspired by and in Illuminist principles –our norms?- of rigidity, dogmatism, atomism, and the search of knowledge for its own sake. Principles which no longer apply to understand and explain our, his contemporary world.
Mind you. Our postmodern teenage student will learn significantly and procedurally, or he won’t. He will relate to English as a tool to operate upon reality empirically, cognitively, socio-affectively, aesthetically, or he will not at all. Not as an end in itself. Not for its own sake. He will find in English a means to other learnings, a passport to other cultures and possible worlds. He will gain an intellectual instrument to interpret and reinterpret, to construct and reconstruct the globalized, multicultural, multilingual, hypermediated, and highly provisional world in which he lives. This is the object, the knowledge of English we as teachers can and should offer him. Because this knowledge stems from a committed and conscientious search into his position in the world today. This is the knowledge which would bridge the gap between real and display learning, between ephimeral and life-long education.
Mounted on some of the ideas outlined above, here goes a sample third generation task (Nunan, 2001) to start reorienting pedagogical practices in high school.
Sample class
Task title: “Wearing Love, Peace and Care” Objectives: Linguistic: incidental recycling of imperatives, though no explicit linguistic or structural focus is likely to occur. Lexical: vocabulary linked with the topic emerging from the title. Polar lexis is likely to appear and worked with. Functional: opinionating, agreeing, disagreeing, persuading. Strategic: use of cognitive strategies to synthesise ideas; social strategies for whole-class and collaborative groupwork interaction and negotiation; metacognitive strategies to revise, edit and control processes and products involved; aesthetic strategies for outcome. Pedagogical: on-going reflection, critical thinking, verbalization, awareness-raising
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and symbolic operation upon the values approached. Estimated time: 60-70 minutes. Stages and Procedures a.Pre-task and whole-class ice-breaker (estimated time 20’) Title exploitation. What does the title suggest to you? Can you wear Love, Peace and Care? Contextualization and Instructions rubrics.You are visiting the USA and decide to go shopping. You stop in front of a store called Wearing Love, Peace and Care. Look at its window! It’s full of T-shirts. Which are you going to buy? Why? Choose two.
(These are supposed to be the T-shirts on the window)
T mediates turns in class discussion and scaffolds lexis on demand. b. Task cycle and collaborative group work (estimated time: 30 minutes) SS are assigned letters A-B-C-D-E and grouped accordingly. Task proper. Contextualization and instructions rubrics. You look great in your new T-shirt but now you want to create your own slogan for the empty T-shirt. In groups, discuss your ideas for two new slogans. Write your slogans. Present them on the blackboard. T monitors and assesses collaborative group dynamics and facilitates task completion. Once all slogans are on the BB, SS vote secretely for their favourite. T counts votes
with class and the winning slogan for the empty T-shirt remains highlighted on BB. c. Whole-class discussion. Why is this slogan the class favourite? (estimated time: 15) d. Outcome. Each group makes a cardboard T-shirt or uses a real plain one with the winning slogan and an image drawn or painted that matches it. They present it to the class and pin it up on the classroom wall. Homework instructions rubrics. In groups. Make a cardboard T-shirt or use a real plain one. Write the winning slogan on it. Draw or paint an image. Be ready to present it to the class! Bibliography Engeström, Y. 1993. “Developmental Studies on Work as a testbench of activity theory” in S. Chaiklin y J. Lave (ed), Understanding Practice: Perspectives on Activity and Context. New York: CUP. Nunan, D. 2004. Task-based Language Teaching. Cambridge: CUP.
Biodata Graduate Teacher of English (UNLP). Diplomada en Constructivismo y Educación (FLACSO – Argentina). Especialista en Constructivismo y Educación (FLACSO – Argentina). Teacher Trainer (UNLP). Teacher at Escuela de Lenguas (UNLP). Staff Teacher at Liceo V. Mercante (UNLP). [email protected]
5. A DIDACTIC SEQUENCE BASED ON
A HOLISTIC APPROACH TO
LANGUAGE TEACHING. MarcelaL.Jalo La Plata, Buenos Aires, Argentina [email protected] I once read about two different ways of learning a foreign language and these two ways were represented by two images. The
Make love, not war
Be green
Give peace a chance
Save the planet
Why war?
CREATE
YOUR
OWN
SLOGAN
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first picture is a large oak tree growing in a green field; the second is a large jigsaw puzzle of a tree which is partly completed. The image of oak and jigsaw represent different ways of looking at language learning. For many people, learning a language is like doing a jigsaw: the language is broken up into lots of little bits and they are pieced together, one by one, until the whole picture is built up. The other view compares language learning to the oak. It is natural, growing and changing. In this view of language learning, learners learn by doing, by using the language in contexts that interest them. The oak and the jigsaw also help us with the problem of what to deal with in a class. When a jigsaw is complete nothing can be added to it. An oak is never complete- it grows and changes throughout its life. We should enable students to grow and develop at their own pace, acknowledging that learning English is something that continues and is not confined to the classroom. At the heart of my classes is the belief that the most effective conditions for language learning come about when students engage in 'meaningful tasks' on a personal level. Personalised, authentic tasks challenge and engage students and this encourages linguistic 'risk taking'. Language as communication involves the active use of grammar and vocabulary to listen and read effectively and to speak with and write to other people. In a world that is increasingly intermeshed economically, environmentally, and electronically, the ability to communicate effectively is crucial. It is only through language that we can communicate with each other, share our ideas, tell people what we have experienced, express our wishes and desires, solve complex problems by drawing on information we read or hear, and, above all communicate with people from other cultures. The following is the presentation of a class designed as a series of tasks to deal with the topic of plans and ambitions using the film ‘Billy Elliot’, which is about a boy who becomes fascinated by the magic of ballet and decides to have ballet lessons secretly
and against his father’s will. Billy shows his extraordinary talent and in the end becomes a successful ballet dancer. This film which is full of values helps us teachers deal with the issue of the importance of having personal dreams in life and fight for what we really believe in. Sample class Material: Film “Billy Elliot” Objectives: To promote cultural understanding/ to improve language proficiency/ to provide lively and enjoyable material. Task 1 . Warming up. Students do a questionnaire on the topic of dance to express their personal reactions. Aim: To introduce students to the topic and tasks. Task 2. Read the following paragraph which is a summary of the conflict presented in the film and answer these questions: 1) What is the problem? 2) What do you think will happen?
Billy’s mother is dead. His father and brother are miners and they are on strike. Billy’s father wants his son to learn to box, like he did and his own father had done before him, but Billy becomes fascinated by the magic of ballet. In secret, Billy starts having ballet lessons every Saturday.
Task 3 Viewing. Watch the following scene from the film: Billy’s father comes to watch him boxing but instead finds him in a ballet class. Then discuss the following questions in pairs. 1. Who do you sympathize with, Billy or his
dad? Give reasons for your answer. 2. What can Billy do to make his father
accept his decision? Then students read the transcript of the scene they have just watched and put the lines of a summary from the scene in the correct order. Task 4 Problem solving task. A. Writing. Imagine you are Billy’s friend. Billy has written to you about the conflict he
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has with his father. Reply to him saying what you think he should do to solve the problem.
I’ve made up my mind: I want to become a ballet dancer so I’m going to take dancing lessons. I want to get a place at the Royal School of Ballet in London. I’m going to take an audition there. But the problem is my father. He thinks ballet is for girls not for boys. Boys should play football, or do wrestling or boxing. He doesn’t understand. How can I explain I really want to dance and that I don’t want to take boxing lessons anymore? Why can’t he see dancing can help me have a better life? I don’t want to be a miner. I want to become a ballet dancer. What can I do to make him accept my decision?
B. Write a reply to Billy. Work in pairs. Take turns to read out your letters to the class. Together decide which group came up with the best solution. Task 5. Grammar focus. Aim: to reflect on language rules deductively after discussing the movie 1. Billy has a dream. His dream is to
become a ballet dancer. Look at Billy’s letter and underline what he says to refer to his dream.
2. To achieve that dream, he plans to do something. What does he plan to do?
Complete: We use .............. to talk about dreams. (Simple Present: want to) We use .............. to talk about plans. (Future: be going to) Task 6 a)Speaking. Opinion gap. Whole class discussion 1. What role can significant people play in
your life? 2. How can a parent or a teacher contribute
to build your identity and create a positive self-image?
3. In the film “Billy Elliot”, who do you think plays a significant role in Billy’s life?
b) Speaking and Writing. Students read the following saying and discuss about its meaning with a partner.
“Some people come into our lives and quickly go.
Some stay for a while and leave footprints on our hearts.
And we are never, ever the same” Source unknown
In the film, Mrs. Wilkinson, the ballet teacher, plays a significant role in Billy’s life. She sees Billy’s talent and encourages him to dance. Think of someone who has influenced your life in a positive way from your birth to the present. Write a description of what this person is/ was like and how he/ she changed the course of your life. Look at the following questions as a guide to write your description:
1. How old were you when you met this person?
2. What is/ was this person like? 3. Do you often see this person? 4. How did this person influence you? Take turns to read out your descriptions to
the group. Compare answers. Task 7 Listening. In the end Billy achieves his dream. He becomes a successful ballet dancer. Students listen to the song I Believe in the closing scene and explain in their own words the message. What lines best summarise the idea? Task 8 Project work. Students make a project page. They should include information about their interests, plans and dreams. Optional Follow up tasks: At home students watch the whole film with the purpose of doing these tasks: 1. Find some background information
relevant to the film. The miners’ strike of the 1980s.
2. How do you respond to the film of Billy Elliot? Did you find it funny, interesting, moving? Why?
Conclusion
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Basing lessons on well-selected pedagogic tasks means that recycling of common and typical language features will happen naturally inside the classroom, and that learners will be far better prepared for whatever English they meet and need to use outside the classroom. In today’s classrooms we probably see a lot of authentic listening and reading material being used and far fewer contrived texts designed to illustrate grammatical form or present items of vocabulary and with no attempt to communicate a meaningful message to the listener or reader. Perhaps the most enduring legacy of the communicative approach is that it has allowed teachers to incorporate motivating and purposeful communicative activities and principles into their teaching while simultaneously retaining the best elements of other methods and approaches rather than rejecting them wholesale.
References
Skehan, Peter. (1998). A Cognitive Approach to Language Learning. Oxford: OUP Nunan, D. 2004. Task-based Language Teaching. Cambridge: CUP. BIODATA
Marcela Jalo is a teacher at secondary and tertiary levels in La Plata, Buenos Aires and she is a teacher trainer for the Buenos Aires province and at Universidad Nacional de La Plata. She is also a Coordinator of Adult Courses at Escuela de Lenguas (UNLP). At present she is doing a Master in Linguistics at Universidad Nacional de La Plata. [email protected]
6. WRITING AND STRATEGIES:
FROM WHAT THERE IS TO WHAT
THERE SHOULD BE. Sandra Bayona Entre Ríos, Argentina [email protected]
In Language IX – subject of the first term of 5th course in both the ELT programme and the Translator programme at Universidad Adventista del Plata - the focus is on academic writing. It is essential that the students receive not only guidance as regards linguistic aspects, but also training in the strategies that they may apply to achieve a successful end. In previous courses, students have worked on different types of texts, and at this advance stage in their Language course, they probably master a variety of strategies to which they turn when they write. However, over-reliance on such an assumption may lead to misunderstanding; it is essential to determine what the students do in the process of writing, to decide what strategies should be presented to improve proficiency in academic writing.
Learning strategies are specific actions taken by the learners to make learning easier, faster, more enjoyable, more self-directed, more effective and more transferrable to new situations. (Oxford 1990).
During the five years of the ELT and the translator programmes at Universidad Adventista del Plata, students have worked with different text types, and they are likely to have developed ways to approach the task of producing a variety of texts.
By the end of the fifth course, in the subject Language IX, they have to face a new challenge: using the target language to produce academic pieces. As pointed out before, they probably possess the appropriate strategies to be, as Oxford (1990) puts it, more self-directed and effective in their learning. Yet, the question remains: are they competent in selecting and applying strategies that will help them accomplish the task of writing academically?
White and McGovern (1994) propose a survey to lead learners into reflecting on academic writing. In 2006 and again in 2007, this questionnaire was given to the learners to establish, among other points, their self-
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perceived obstacles in writing and the steps they take to overcome them (in other words, the strategies they apply). Though some differences could be observed, there was convergence as well.
As regards obstacles, the areas most commonly identified as “trouble spots” were the selection of the appropriate register and its consistent use throughout the written production, the correct organisation of the content into central ideas and supporting details, and how to reflect this hierarchy in their papers. Other problems mentioned were more related to the structure of the language (mainly spelling and grammar) and lack of specific vocabulary. Affective areas were included as well: insecurity when writing, lack of ideas, difficulties with the time available.
Regarding writing strategies to deal with those obstacles, learners pointed out that their most usual approach is to leave the writing aside for a while and come back to it. This seems to be done both while the writing is in progress and once it has finished, as the learners report that they usually produce more than one draft. Another strategy frequently used is to ask for help; learners ask a friend or their teacher for guidance. Other solutions include looking for similar texts, re reading and re organising their ideas. Curiously, only a small number of students (18%) consider it necessary to research a topic before actually setting to write. After the information was processed, it was noticeable that the learners made a limited use of what Oxford (1990) classifies as metacognitive strategies (in this case, they report using organising and self-monitoring/evaluating). Strategies such as activating relevant schemata, identifying the purpose of the task and planning prior to engaging in writing were not mentioned, even when they would actually help the students solve some of the difficulties they had identified.
It seems clear, then, that it is not advisable to rely blindly on the assumption that (advanced) students are aware of and actually apply the necessary strategies to
successfully complete a (written) task. Even with an extensive practice in writing, learners seem to be unaware of the fact that there are several useful strategies to turn to when writing. After these results, an emphasis on the use of a wider range of strategies seems necessary for the learners in their immediate situation and in their future professional life.
The data collected proved a suitable means to the selection of strategies and type of strategy instruction. Once the strategies to be presented were identified, they became the focus during the course. At the end of the term, it could be noticed that the learners made use not only of the strategies they already applied at the beginning of the course, but others that also proved valuable for the completion of the task of academic writing; they were capable of selecting appropriate strategies as well.
After this experience, carried out for two consecutive years, it is clear that our students are proficient users of the target language; however, assuming they are fully competent in the selection and use of strategies may lead to misunderstanding. Checking what the students are actually capable of doing in the process of writing will serve as a guide towards what strategies should be presented to improve their mastery of the language, and specifically in writing academic pieces.
Bibliography White, R., McGovern, D. (1994). Writing. U.K.:Prentice Hall. Oxford, R. (1990). Language Learning Strategies. What every teacher should know. U.S.A.: Heinle and Heinle.
Biodata. Sandra Bayona (English teacher, Instituto de Enseñanza Superior; licenciada en Lenguas Modernas y Literatura, Universidad Nacional de Entre Ríos; MA TEFL, FUNIBER – Universidad de Jaén) teaches Language at Universidad Autónoma de Entre Ríos and Universidad Adventista del Plata. Her main interests include learning strategies and
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distance and on line education. [email protected]
7. INTEGRATION OF SKILLS AND
MULTIPLE INTELLIGENCES
THROUGH VIDEO CLIPS Ethel Rosenberg La Plata, Buenos Aires, Argentina
Introduction: Comparison and Contrast /
Using songs in the classroom? The idea of using songs and films in the language classroom is not a new one. As long as languages have been taught, they have played an important role in the learning process, as manifestations of culture and of the human need to communicate that is inextricably associated with language. However, video clips have not always been that popular, which is unfortunate, since they are likely to be used successfully with any age group or level of students, for the activities can be adjusted to them. Both songs and video clips give us the possibility of working on the lyrics, the message, the syntactic and the semantic content. Both films and video clips give us the possibility of working on images, on what the characters say, on how they say it, and in what circumstances. But, whereas songs can be illustrated with a static picture, video clips offer dynamic images, and whereas in films the words are closely related to the images, this is not the case of video clips, in which the images are rarely connected –at least at first sight- with what the words say. Therefore, most of the activities described below can be done not only with video clips, films and songs, but also with poems, stories videos and DVDs. 1. Activities: Integration of Skills The four skills –listening, speaking, reading and writing- are integrated throughout the following pre-, while- and post- viewing activities.
A. Pre-viewing activities • Anticipation: title.
In pairs or small groups, students discuss what the title might mean, what they expect to see and hear, and imagine an appropriate context of situation (who would say it to whom, when, where, how and why). They use language of probability and speculation.
• Prediction: sound without image Students listen to the introduction of the song and analize what kind of music it is. They listen to a few words from the beginning and try to figure out what kind of images will appear. This can be done by asking them to close their eyes and resort to visualization. B. While-viewing activities
• Jigsaw Viewing Students work in pairs, sitting opposite each other, with only one of them facing the screen. These talk about what they can see using present continuous and language of description. The others listen and ask questions if they need to. Then they change places.
• Dubbing: image without sound Students speak at the same time as the characters on the screen, interpreting what they might be saying. The language of dialogue or direct speech is practised in this way, and reported speech can be used afterwards to report -what they think- was said. C. Post-viewing activities
• Inference From what they have seen and heard, students speculate about the content of the song. After describing what they have seen –using present perfect, past simple and past continuous- they are asked to make predictions, and depending on what these are based –evidence or opinion- they use be going to or simple future. -Discussion Students confirm or modify the contexts of situation provided at the beginning, considering the images, music and words they have now.
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• Visual impact -Students try to find the relationship between the images of the video clip and its song. -Students choose the image that best represents the video clip. They support their choice using language of explanation.
• Form and Meaning -In the printed version of the song: -There are blanks. Students can be asked to: -predict what the missing words are, paying attention to syntax and semantics -fill in the blanks choosing words from a list -provide the words according to definitions, synonyms or antonyms -There are wrong or extra words. Students listen and correct them or cross them out. -There are multiple choices. Students listen and choose what they can hear. 2. Follow-up: Multiple Intelligences Though the activities mentioned above imply the use of some of the multiple intelligences, here are some ideas to exploit each and all of them:
• Linguistic intelligence: students make a similar poem or song, a letter from the addressee to the singer, a speech or an essay on the topic of the video clip. In every case there is a preliminary stage of written preparation and a final one of oral presentation.
• Logical-mathematical intelligence: students formulate a hypothesis containing the idea expressed in the video clip, or use their critical thinking to explain what made the composer write such a song, and what determined the choice of the type of music.
• Musical intelligence: students sing the song, clapping their hands, stamping their feet, tapping their desks or playing an instrument along. They show rhythm, pace, speed. The pause button can be used to play a part, stop and let them continue singing without it.
• Spatial intelligence: students draw a picture or make a poster which
summarizes the content of the video clip, or look for paintings or photographs that do so, or devise an image which might represent the meaning of the title, independently from the content of the video clip in particular.
• Body-kinetic intelligence students dance to the music of the video clip, imitating what they can see on the screen or recreating it, improvise a dialogue between the composer and the addressee (role-play) or imagine themselves in a similar situation (simulation), miming and/or acting it out.
• Interpersonal intelligence: students share experiences telling one another about similar situations in their lives, identifying themselves with both or one of the characters, describing their feelings, sensations and reactions.
• Intrapersonal intelligence: students write and/or talk about themselves explaining what they have said/done and how they have felt in similar situations and what they would say/do and how they would feel in the future if they went through an experience like that.
Conclusion Video clips are readily available for us teachers and immediately motivational to our students. They can be immensely valuable for developing certain capacities, if we exploit them creatively to bridge the gap between the pleasurable experience of listening/watching and the communicative use of language. They are a useful tool which we can exploit to animate and facilitate language learning and acquisition. It is up to us how much and in what ways we take advantage of what video clips have to offer.
Bibliography Bassnet, Susan and Grundy, Peter (1993) Language Through Literature. Longman Murphy, Tim.(1992). Music and Song. Oxford University Press, England.
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BIODATA Ethel Rosenberg is a UNLP English teacher and Public Translator. She works as a teacher and as an assistant to the Direction of Studies at Instituto Cultural Argentino Británico de La Plata where she also formed part of an educational consultant team. She was an assistant teacher to Language I and Curso de Consolidación at the Facultad de Humanidades and taught Spanish in the USA. . [email protected]
8. TIPS FOR WRITING ESSAYS AT
UNIVERSITY Part Two: When You Write
Silvia C. Enríquez La Plata, Buenos Aires, Argentina [email protected] Although having clear aims and elaborating ideas previously are also essential, the actual moment of writing is always considered the most difficult part of the process of writing a text. Here is some advice to make this part of the process more fruitful.
Using good models Naturally, reading model essays can be very useful. From these texts we can learn by observation, and we will more or less unconsciously acquire the idea of what works and what does not work when we try to communicate ideas. In fact, we have been doing so ever since we began to read, and therefore we can use all our previous experience in reading to help us write better. But it must be made clear that observation does not mean copying formal features of good texts and trying to use them elsewhere. Therefore, if you want to learn from good writers, remember the following:
• Pay attention to the kind of vocabulary and grammar these authors use, but do not attempt to copy expressions or phrases that you find
useful to try and use them in your texts. This will work sometimes, but many others you will be, so to say, planting other people´s words in the wrong place, usually because there is lack of adjustment in style, register or, even worse, meaning. It goes without saying that if you borrow longer pieces from texts and use them as if they were your own, you would be committing plagiarism, a disloyal kind of behaviour that can never be tolerated and is punished by the law. Besides, of course, you would not be learning to write, and any trained teacher will surely notice what you are trying to do.
• Pay attention to the structure that authors give to their texts, yet do not copy that structure for your own use, but rather learn from it how to make your own organisation. Even though there are a few lineaments to follow for each text type, the actual organisation of each text is given in the first place by the ideas that the author wants to include in it. This means that each of us will have to create an organisation for each individual text that we write, on the basis of the general pattern of the text type. There is no such thing as a “safe structure that always works”, because it was useful before with another idea. If you try to use the same structure all the time, you will sooner or later discover that, in order to follow it, you have to clip or distort your ideas, or add irrelevant information.
All this must be remembered at the time of writing. Here is another list of various pieces of advice, some coming from common misconceptions. Address the reader Always consider the kind of reader you are writing for. As a consequence, do not include in your text information that is obvious to your readers because it is common knowledge or can reasonably be expected to form part of their cultural background or knowledge of the world. Do
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not try to extend your text with platitudes or irrelevant information. How to start and to finish your piece of writing Do not write an introduction about generalities as a first step to introduce your topic, unless you really need some previous information for your main idea to be clear. It is always advisable to do what is common practice: begin your text by stating your topic clearly. Writing more elaborate beginnings is only a good idea once you have mastered the basic skill of being clear and not misleading your readers with unessential information. When you have finished writing, check that you have concluded about the same topic that you announced you were going to deal with in the introduction. Make sure that you have not strayed from your topic, or drawn a conclusion about only a part of it or some secondary idea. Develop sound ideas Without sound ideas, writing makes no sense; ideas are the only reason why we write. No amount of correct grammar or attractive style can replace them. All formal aspects are subordinated to the need of putting our ideas across clearly, and therefore we can do nothing that will obscure or impoverish our point of view. This means that the language that you use must be, in the first place, accurate and clear. Style issues Highly ornamented language IS NOT “good language”. On the contrary, if you pay attention to the style of good writers you will notice that they tend to choose vocabulary and structures that are not more complicated than it is necessary to be clear. On the other hand, they use unusual or complex language if they need it, but not for its own sake. That is, their style is often simple, but not at all basic. As a consequence, it is never a good idea to try to use far-fetched vocabulary and structures thinking that they will “sound” better, or that you need to demonstrate to your teacher that you have learnt them. Actually, part of what you have to know is
when and where to use each structure or lexical item. Using them in the wrong place is also a mistake. Besides, when you try to find more high-sounding equivalents for the common words or expressions that you can first think of and you do it thinking about each word or phrase individually, you run the risk of constructing sentences, or even whole texts, made up of words that should not be used together because, for example, they do not collocate, or are different from the point of view of register. If you do this your text will sound, at the very least, unnatural and forced, but most probably the result will be even worse: you will be constructing a text that uses words from English, but is not really written in the English language. This is clearly a mistake.
• Do not lose too much time avoiding repetition. It is not true that repeating words is a mistake in itself. What is true is that we should avoid unnecessary repetition, but only when it is possible, and you have to learn how to do this. You can, of course, try to find a synonym, but this will not always be possible. In those cases you should try to change the syntactic structure, or use a pronoun instead, or find an expression with the same meaning. But when you do this you must avoid some possible mistakes:
- Never use a word with only a similar meaning, because this will distort your ideas.
- Make sure that the word you use to replace the word you do not want to repeat is not itself repeated too many times – this can very easily happen with pronouns – , because in this case you would only be repeating a different word.
- Never use language that will sound unnatural only to avoid repetition.
- Be very careful not to make a grammar mistake only because you are trying not to repeat a word.
• The truth is that many times there is no way of avoiding repetition: imagine, for example, writing a text about education and trying to avoid using the word
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education more than once. It would be impossible, as this is your topic. In those cases, the only option left to any writer is to repeat when there is no other sensible alternative. Look at several published texts to see how professional writers handle this.
The right length
• Do not control the length of your text, or of your paragraphs, when you are writing. Paragraphs do not need to have any particular length, and in fact it is better if they are not all similar because this gives variety to your text, and makes it more readable. The same applies to the length of sentences: some will naturally be long, and others short. In fact, this variation will help you avoid monotony and will therefore make reading easier. All you must be sure of is that you can handle long, complex sentences well, as this is an ability you should have acquired by this stage. In short, the best procedure is not to pay attention to the length of your constructions.
You ARE a good writer
• Most of all, try to develop your own, personal style of writing, and use it confidently. Never feel that good writers write in a way which is not allowed to you because you are a student. You can do anything that a professional writer does, once you have acquired the ability to do it well. Try more complex organisations and resources gradually, making sure that you are able to express your ideas clearly at all times.
It may seem difficult to put all this into practice, but consider that most of what has been said can be summarised in one simple piece of advice: use your common sense. This must be remembered at all times.
BIODATA Silvia C. Enriquez is a Graduate Teacher of English (UNLP). She specialized in History of the English Language at UNTucumán.
Since 1990 she has taught English Language III for the Translation and Teaching Courses at Facultad de Humanidades y Ciencias de la Educación (UNLP). At present she is Coordinator of Special Courses at Escuela
Photos from the 7th Southern Cone TESOL Convention – July 2007
ARTESOL Committee Members
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TEIS Members Alicia Artusi, Cecilia Chiacchio, and Eladia Castellani.
Special thanks to our Editor Marcela Jalo
and to our Secretary Amalia Marcovesky.
The 7th Southern Cone Tesol Convention
Opening Ceremony
Opening Ceremony
Join our member community
www.tesol.org.ar