1. Reflection Coursebook Evaluation
Using Littlewood’s Communicative Methodological Framework we
had to evaluate a coursebook, selecting, adapting or rejecting activities
according to what we thought it was suitable for our students. I learnt to classify
the activities according to quasi-communicative, functional communication
social interaction or structural activities. While using this framework I realized
that not every activity on the coursebook was well-prepared or according to
what we wanted to teach to the students. We had to adapt the majority of the
activities so they become good activities.
I realized that we have to check in advance the activities that appear
on a textbook, to know which to use or not. In my opinion, we do not have to
trust one hundred percent on coursebooks because they are not always
accurate enough. We need to analyze the activities carefully so we can improve
the activities or if that impossible reject them.
I also learnt that we have to focus the aim of the activities and task
on our students, so they get to understand what we want them to learn about.
To know the difference between authentic and not authentic text is remarkable,
because it allow us to comprehend how to choose texts, dialogues, etc. In my
opinion we should use authentic texts, so our students are exposed to real
discourse and they understand that real texts are different from the ones
presented in a coursebook.
2. Reflection Professional development
Professional development is a very important issue for everyone who
believes that professional development is important throughout the life of being
a teacher. Autonomy, commitment and innovation, in my opinion, are the key of
professional development, since these characteristics enable us to keep fresh
and happy in order to update our techniques of teaching, to know new
approaches, etc. It seems to me that professionals should look for the
opportunities of innovate and become experts in what they do.
I understood that we have to reflect on what we do, do research,
evaluate other professionals’ performance and learn from them, learn from our
mistakes. It is absolutely necessary to reflect on how we teach, in the case of
teachers, because sometimes we think we are doing it right but that is not
always the case.
We have to do research in order to comprehend what happens inside
the classroom, understand our students, and find the ways that they get more
engaged with what we teach. Since English is a difficult subject we have to
study the ways that our learners like to learn English.
We have to work with other to reach our goals, believe in group work,
peer work, couching, innovation, commitment and autonomy.
3. Learning Strategies
In this Unit I learnt how to use and teach learning strategies
according to different authors. The main differences between teaching and
learning.
We had to create a Language learner profile which enabled me to
put in practice the systems of the language; we had to interview the selected
students and find his or her mistake and then, evaluate the performance of this
student. Afterwards we had to assess this student preparing a lesson based on
other author as Chamot’s lessons, so he or she could work and improve his or
her mistakes.
Interestingly to me, the thing that I really learnt was that in order to
get a good mark, we had to complete and do all the activities, but also we have
to have clear instructions to know what to do with the corresponding points of
each task. Hopefully in future assignment I will take this into consideration to
perform better.