Segundo Caderno-algumas atividades

2º Caderno
p.142,143 : Itens comentados.

Categorizing Techiniques
In this part of the text we find some techniques for teachers try in their classroom in a way to improve student’s learning and motivation. These techniques can be taught by different ways: it can be highly manipulative (it means the teacher must control the technique and is required from the student a predicted response), it also can be very communicative (students’ response are unpredictable and teachers have less control in the activity).
Sorting these techniques we find the nomenclature as:
· Controlled
· Semi controlled
· Free
Controlled techniques:
1. Warm- up: it intends to get the students stimulated, relaxed, motivated, engaged or attentive in the lesson that will be given. It’s controlled because the teachers will say what to do, and how to do it, the students have to follow the rules.
E.g. dance, songs, play, games, etc.

2. Settings: it intends to get the students more focused in the topic lesson. It is controlled because teachers must conduct the students’ attention to the upcoming topic, the teacher cannot let the students focus in another subject.
E.g. Giving the students the location of the things that will be studied.

3. Organizational: it is about to manage the lesson plan and activities by organizing what and how the content will be passed. It is controlled because is something that generally belongs only to teacher, he/she is the one who has the access about that, it is difficult see students participating in the organizational activity.

4. Content Explanation: as the name says it is the explanation about the content (grammatical, lexical, phonologic, etc.). It is controlled because the teacher will decide what will be studied or not.

5. Role-play demonstration: It is an activity to produce artificial situations where the learner can practice his/her knowledge and also get more confident if he/she needs it. Pretending that students are in an airport and make the dialogues probably they will have there is an example of this kind of activity. The learner response must be predicted by the teacher and other students, otherwise, if the whole situation changes the student probably will not know what to do and the activity will lost its focus.

6/7. Dialogue/ Narrative presentation: it is very close to the role play activity because it consists in reciting a previously know test. This activity represents a passive reception because there is no implication of the students’ production or identification with the task.

8. Reading aloud: it is an exercise where the students just have to read a text (generally it is not made from him/her) using outside voice, in order to practice reading and phonologic skills. The student cannot change the text, he/she has to read it in the way it appears.

9. Checking: using this activity the teacher is allowed to give a feedback for his/her student and it can be given individually and the students’ specific questions and learning difficulties can be solved individually which makes a good situation for shy students.

10. Question-answer, display: This activity remember a little bit the role-play activity but instead to read and decorate a know text and play it, here, the student will just make previewed questions and also give known answers. Questioners and answerers have a very limited set of expectations and possibilities, which provides a very low level of students’ freedom.

11. Drill: Communicative exercise which mixes the role-play and questions-answer activities, it involver fixed patterns of suggestions and tenses in a certain order that students have to say in fact , they usually have to repeat. Here the repetition, substitution and other mechanical techniques are used. And as they are mechanic, rarely the students will try to change it, having a controlled text and activity.

12.Translation: It is generally used in order to improve vocabulary skills, get familiar with the language and improve writing skills, in this exercise the student must change a text, some phrases or words from language 2 to mother language or vice versa.

13. Dictation: The student should write down what was orally presented by the teacher, it is an activity which tries to connect oral and written language, but generally it involves a lot of problems because they are present as parts of one thing, when they are two different things and have different rules and evolution.

14. Coping: The student should write down a presented text. An attempt to let the students more familiar with the written language.

15. Identification: Students should identificate form, it can be a vocabulary form, a grammatical form, a definition of something, by marking these forms (the mark can be made by picking up, drawing a circle around what the students notice and recognized as something that was asked to be explicated in a text/phrase.

16. Recognition: Similar to identification exercise, the student should recognize forms, vocabulary or anything else.

17. Review: A summary of the studied subject, it is made after a certain period of time.

18. Testing: A formal test to evaluate the students’ progress, generally it is difficult to see EVERYTHING the student had learn just using a test, then teachers must be careful when use them.
19. Meaningful drill: In this kind of drill the responses will have meaningful choices, in a way to provide different situations and in formations, distinguished from regulated form of phrases.


Semi-controlled techniques

20. Brainstorming: A way that students can be motivated with the lesson’s preparation, it is made in groups, and it intends to generate multiple associations without make them related a formal analysis. The knowledge will be constructed using the basis knowledge of different students, making them construct their own knowledge about something using and thinking about the other point of view or opinion.

21. Story-telling: A presentation of a story. It can be made by the teacher for the students in order to increase attention span, motivate, and work a planning or from students to teacher/other students in order to practice speaking abilities.

22. Question-answer: Differently the one which was given as controlled technique, this way to work the activity should involve prompting of responses by means of referential questions. The questioner could not know beforehand the answer that will be given and the answerer also could not know the question which will be made.

23. Dialog: the students should produce a dialogue without a preview preparation.

24. Information transfer: Application of one mode to another, for example: the application to a text a message from a picture, the application for a picture a message from an audio. Here the student has the space to show her/his interpretation and knowledge of something, the answer will have, in a part of it, the students’ point of view.

25. Information exchange: Group exercise where students should share information to achieve one goal, for example: make riddles.

26. Wrap-up: short summary of a learned theme.

27. Narration/exposition: presentation of a text, orally, sharing the critical point of view, a kind of oral dissertation.

28. Preparation: the student moment to study: check if he/she really got the content and if there are questions to be solved.

Free techniques

29. Role-play: Disguised from role-play demonstration the students have a free “text”, they just have specific roles for each student and they can create the scene, dialogues, story and so on.

30. Games: Usage of various kind of games (it can be with different goals) as : board games, crosswords, dice games, etc.

31. Report: The students should choose a theme and make a report of it.

32. Problem solving: The students should find a way to solve together a defined problem.

33. Drama: Plan a dramatic presentation.

34. Simulation: Simulate real life situations and the students should interact.

35. Interview: A simulation of an interview, it can be a job interview, a trainee interview, student admition interview and so on, the students can be also the interview and the interviewed.

36. Discussion:

37. Composition: free theme, as the report activity this activity will be executed almost the same way but instead of being oral it will be written.

38. A propos: Conversation or social interaction between students, teachers, visitors and so on.

These are all good ideas of activities to do in a ESL class, but the teacher should pay attention because the activities should be made with a pre-determined goal, with the focus of what, when, how it will be worked, focus in the students’ profile and their motivations, the reflection about good and bad effects of the activity, the reflection about how the evaluation will be done, how the difficulties will be studied and solved. Summarizing the teacher should pay attention in the class’ and students’ needs and particularities.

p. 195,196,197 e 198: Testes resolvidos e resultados comentados.

Learning Styles Check List

1. I don’t mind if people laugh at me when I speak – C
2. I like to try new words and structures that I am not complete sure of- B
3. I feel confident in my ability to succeed in learning this language- A
4. I want to learn this language because og what I can personally gain with it- A
5. I really enjoy working with other people in group-C
6. I like to “absorb” language and get general “gist” of what is said or written-B
7. If there is an abundance of language to master, I just try to take things just one step at a time- B
8. I am not overly conscious of myself when I speak- B
9. When I make mistakes I try to use them to learn something about the language-A
10. I find ways to continue learning the language outside of the classroom-A

In this test I found difficult to answer many questions, because my reaction depends on the day, I mean it depends on my humor, on my motivation, for example: number 2: I like to try new things even If I am not complete sure, but it depends on the situation. I wouldn’t like to try this in a job interview, but I would not mind to try with a teacher or a friend. Question number 5 is another example: I like to enjoy working with other people in group if I have affinities with them, otherwise I do not like it!. So I answered these questions thinking in general life situations, and the result of this test is not far away of my learning style, but I think it is not also that close.

Extroverstion/Introvertion Test

1. I usually like: mixing with people (a)
2. I’m more inclined to be: pretty easy to approach (b)
3. I’m happiest when I’m: with other people (b)
4. At a party I: interact with many, including strangers (a)
5. In my social contacts and groups, I usually: keep abreast what what’s happening with others (b)
6. I can usually do something better by: talking with others about it (b)
7. My usual pattern when I’m with other people is: to be open and frank and take risks (a)
8. When I make friends usually: someone else makes the first movement (a)
9. I would rather: Be at home on my on (a)
10. Interaction with people I don’t know: taxes my reserves(b)
11. In a group of people I usually: wait to be approached (a)
12. When I’m by myself I usually feel a sense of: solitude and peacefulness(a)
13. In a classroom situation I prefer: group work (a)
14. When I get into a quarrel of argument, I prefer t: “have it out” and settle the issue right then and there (a)
15. When I try to put deep or complex thoughts into words, I usually: have quite a hard time (a)


Result: 4+4+2=10
9 to 12: moderately extroverted

I really think the result of the test is right, I think I am a moderately extroverted. Sometimes I feel shy and depending on the situation I can be very extroverted. In this test, the problem that I had in the last test happened again, in some questions the answer does not depend only on me. For example: At a party I usually interact with people, but if I arrive in a party with people I do not like I prefer to stay by myself, or if I am not enjoying the place, the music or is something bothering me, generally I prefer do not interact with people; the questions number 13 was also difficult because sometimes I like working in groups, but when I am in a classroom that I do not know people, or I do not feel comfortable with them , or even if I have too much different ideas of them and I notice the ideas can be discussed I prefer to work alone. I think my relationship with people always depend if I am excited or sad, if I am tired or not.

Right/Left Dominance Test

1. I remember faces- 4
2. I respond better to demonstrated, illustrated, symbolic instructions-4
3. I am intuitive/ I am intellectual- 3
4. I experiment randomly and with little restraint/ I experiment systematically and with control- 3
5. I prefer solving problems looking at the whole, the configurations, then approaching the problems through patterns using hunches- 4
6. I make objective judgments, extrinsic to person/ I make subjective judgments intrinsic person- 3
7. I am fluid and spontaneous/ I am planned and structured-3
8. I prefer established, certain information/ I prefer elusive uncertain information- 3
9. I am a synthesizing reader/ I am an analytical reader- 3
10. I rely primarily on images in thinking and remembering-4
11. I prefer drawing and manipulating objects-4
12. I can easily concentrate on reading a book in noisy or crowded places-4
13. I prefer studies/work that are opened ended/ I prefer studies/work that are carefully planned-3
14. I prefer participative authority structures-5
15. I control my feelings/ I am more free with my feelings- 3
16. I respond best to kinetic stimuli/ I respond best to auditory, visual stimuli-3
17. I am good at interpreting body languages-2
18. I frequently use metaphors and analogies-2
19. I favor logical problem solving/ I favor intuitive problem solving-3
20. I prefer opened ended questions- 5


Resultado: 68
Moderated right- brain oriented


Moderated right brain oriented teacher: As a teacher I can see the right brain dominance when I prefer to use hands-on activities over a lecture format. Generally I try to incorporate more art (manipulatives, visuals, music) into the classes. I also prefer a busy, active, noisy classroom environment than a quiet and calm one where the students are bored. In this case I think I have to be aware with the students that are left brain dominated because they probably will not identify theirselves with the lessons and the class, and I have to respect they way to learn and mix activities as much as possible for students that uses more the right side off the brain(as I am) and also the ones who use the left side.


Moderated right brain oriented student: As a student I really like to do art projects, I got involved with arts electives subjects in middle school, and graphic design. But as a moderated right brain oriented I also like to write papers and read,something that usually the highly right brain oriented people do not like to do, they would prefer to design and make a mobile rather than write a paper.



Comentário sobre um tema do Segundo caderno.

Communicative approach

As the language theories underlying the Audiolingual method and the Sitiuational Language Teaching method were questioned by prominent linguists like Chomsky during the 1960s, a new trend of language teaching paved its way into classrooms. Communicative Language Teaching . This theory is an approach to the teaching of second and foreign languages, emphasizing the interaction as both the means and the ultimate goal of learning a language. It is also referred to as “Communicative Approach”. Historically the approach or the Communicative Language Teaching has gained a considerable popularity.
One of the techniques presented by Douglas Brown is the Communicative approach. It is possible to say that the goal in this approach is a functional competence, it means, a person who can communicate in a social context, the language is vied as the product of a social context, and it is used just for communication (they do not see the language as part of an identity which carries a culture and an ideology),tthe focus are in how to produce an appropriate, natural end socially acceptable utterance in all context of communication.
The function of the teacher in this process is a “facilitador”, because he manage the students and promote the communication between them; the teacher should arrange tasks for communication and the students should interact with it. The students learn to communicate by negotiating meaning in an specific context (generally the context is proposed by the teacher in a false real life situation, the activities include information gap, choice and feedback).
This proposal wants the students feel motivated because they are learning a new language using the usefulness of language process, generally the language one is not used, the students should practice just the language 2 in way to develop the speaking and listening skills. The mistakes made by the students are not correct by the teachers, it just happens if the mistake disturbs the social context and if interfere in the communication which is been practicing