TPD-Assignment 1-Questionnaire

1. Taller de Práctica Docente 2018
Student: Natalia Varesio
Assignment 1: Didactics Diagnosis Questionnaire
Deadline: 19th
March
Answer the following questions in about 75 words each.
1. From the previous Didactic courses you did, what teaching and
learning theories, and what approaches or methods support or will
support your teaching? Why? Why authors will consult during your
practicum?
Since language is for communication, I will support the
Communicative approach during my practicum period in which the
role of the teacher is to facilitate communication in the classroom,
acting as a guider, adviser and monitoring students’ performance.
Moreover, during the teaching-learning process we have to bear in
mind learners’ characteristics such as age, level, learning styles and
needs in order to plan our lessons effectively. The aim is that
students participate actively in the classroom and work
collaboratively by means of meaningful communicative activities
using authentic material that makes students feel engaged with the
task.

2. However, in the case of young learners, I will also apply the Natural
approach and Total Physical Response since little children need to
associate language with action and develop their listening skills
before production.
Regarding authors, during my practicum I will consult Jim Scrivener,
Davies & Pearse, Slattery & Willis and Piaget.
2. What is your perspective of lesson planning? From past experiences
in Didactics, what are your strengths and what are the aspects to
improve?
Lesson planning helps teachers to organize their classes and keep a
sequence during them. When planning we are predicting the lesson
before it happens. However, sometimes in class we have to deal
with unexpected situations or difficulties that require adapting and
changing what we have been planned. Therefore, we should not be
extremely rigid with our lesson plans, instead we have to pay
attention to what happens during the class.
From past experiences in Didactics, regarding my strengths, I think
that I am good at developing warm-up activities, presenting the
topic and selecting resources and materials to be used in class.
Nevertheless, the aspects to be improved are my pronunciation,
fluency and using the target language the whole class. I always keep
my pronunciation dictionary at hand in order to check difficult
words and watch videos to enhance my oral production.
3. What is your view of children and teenagers learning English at
school?
From my point of view children and teenagers do not enjoy English
lessons because they are not really motivated to learn it. In general,
they only use a booklet that they have to complete with grammar
and vocabulary exercises out of context. What is more, many
teachers use L1 instead of L2, so students are not sufficiently
exposed to the target language. As a result, they cannot

3. communicate in English. Furthermore, many institutions do not
have access to technological devices that allow teacher to offer
more appealing and innovative activities.
4. How much exposure to the L2 do you think it is necessary to include
in your classes? What are the sources of this exposure? Do you
favour an English-only perspective? Why?
From my perspective, I think it is essential to use L2 the whole
lesson since exposure to the new language will allow students to
familiarize with it and little by little they will acquire the language
allowing them to start developing their oral production. In first
place, the teacher is the main sourceof input for learners. However,
nowadays, we can find plenty of sources to expose students to L2
such as pictures, flashcards, videos, songs, radio programmes, etc.,
which help them develop their listening and speaking skills. We can
get plenty of material on the net selecting the most appropriate for
our learners.
As teachers, we should apply all the strategies we have so that
students can be exposed to the L2. However, we may use L1 as a
last resource when necessary.
5. What is the ultimate goal of teaching an L2 for you? What do we
teach the language for? What do learners need?
Personally, the ultimate goal of teaching an L2 is that students can
use the target language. We teach the language for students to
communicate in different social contexts. Learners need to be
exposed to the L2 as much as possible by means of meaningful
activities that promote interaction and communication. Besides,
they need to become autonomous learners and understand that
learning a language is a lifelong process. Last but not least, as
teachers, we have to create the right conditions for students to
enjoy learning the subject.

4. 6. What are teaching strategies? How acquainted are you with them?
Which ones do you usually or would you apply?
Teaching strategies refer to the procedures and techniques used by
the teacher during instruction in order to facilitate students’
learning process. When presenting a new language item, I would
apply different strategies such as, modeling, demonstrating,
showing, exemplifying, etc., that help learners to acquire the new
language. In addition, the use of visual aids is also very important
and serves as a great support when teaching something new.
Regarding error correction, I would apply some effective techniques
that encourage students to overcome their mistakes, for example,
elicitation, recasting, clarification request, and repetition.
7. What are classroom management strategies? How acquainted are
you with them? Which ones do you usually or would apply? Does
the seating arrangement contribute to effective classroom
management?
We use classroom management strategies to create the conditions
so that learning can take place. That is, we need some
organizational skills in order to develop our lessons as well as
possible. As Scrivener explains, classroom management has to do
with both decisions and actions. As a result, we make choices about
different classroom events in order to create different solutions.
Particularly, I would apply different techniques depending on
students’ characteristics, level and needs. For instance, seating
arrangement can help students interact with different people and
depending on the activity we can sit them in different ways (circle,
semi-circle, horseshoe, etc.). I think seating arrangement is an
effective strategy for classroom interaction. Another aspect to take
into account is to create a comfortable learning environment and
establish a good rapport with my students. In addition, using
gestures, body language, giving clear and concise instructions can

5. facilitate students’ comprehension. However, we should check that
students have understood the instruction. Needless to say that I
would set time limits for the activity and whole lesson.
8. From a motivational perspective, how innovative should your
lessons be? Why? What do you think about the pedagogical use of
ICT in and outside the classroom?
Nowadays, children and adolescents have a great command of the
technological devices, better than us, so I believe it is really
important to include the use of ICT in and outside the classroom.
Our lessons should offer a variety of activities that include the use
of technological tools so that students feel motivated and
interested in using it. In addition, we could select digital material
from the web so as learners keep working at home. They can play
games, watch videos, usePrezi, Glogster, Powerpoint, etc. to design
activities that we give them for homework.
9. Do you have any experience teaching EFL? In whatcontext? To what
ages?
I have limited experience teaching EFL. I have never worked with
young children but I work as a private teacher with some groups of
ten and elevenyearold children. Last year, I worked as a substitute
teacher at a secondary school with fourteen years old students for a
period of two months. I have to confess that it was a big challenge
for me to work with adolescents mainly because most of them did
not know English so it was difficult to speak only L2 the whole
lesson.
10.What is your opinion as regards observation? How can you benefit
from it? Have you ever been observed while teaching?
Since I do not have much experience teaching English at school, I
believe that observation is very important for me. At this stage of

6. our career we are putting into practice our knowledge and at the
same time we are learning to teach. By means of observation, we
will learn about the group’s characteristics. Moreover, we will get
familiar with students and establish an emotional bond with them.
In addition, we can observe some aspects about classroom
management such as seating arrangement, timing, giving
instructions, how the teacher deals with unexpected problems that
may arisein class, how she develops her lessons from the beginning
to the end and the different teaching techniques and strategies
used during the lesson. Last but not least, observation allows us to
know about the group’s interests, needs and level of the target
language. Therefore, we can benefit from observation a lot since it
allows us to take all these considerations into account in order to
plan our lessons with careful attention so that they are effective
and meaningful.
Finally, I have never been observed while teaching because I work
at home and I taught English at school only for two months.