Week 3

Talking about the language skills Burely Allen gives them a percentage of using them in a classroom, Listening 40 %, speaking 35 %, Reading 16 % and writing 9 %.  I think that the percentage given to listening is almost right because based in my experience I can say that to listening corresponds at least 50 %.  In an hour of class generally the teachers speak most of the time English and the students have to listen to them all of the time that is why I consider and I agree that the most part of the time in an English class is dedicated to listening. 

However, I must emphasize that even though this skill takes place much time, Ecuadorian students cannot understand very well the language when they are in a country in which English is spoken as the first language, this is because in  high schools or in universities they just listening to the foreign language during the time class and after that they continue with the native language, in this case Spanish.

With the listening activities that a teacher can do, I will present an example with the Pre- while- and post listening. Let´s see:

Pre Listening: To ask for the students to give a concept about love, good feelings, England culture, marriage.

While Listening:  Make the students watch a part of the movie PRIDE AND PREJUDICE and  stop it in a particular scene.

Post Listening:  To ask the students to try to finish the scene with critical thinking, by saying what do they think will it come later, positive and negative aspects.

We can do the same with some movies.

On the other hand if I am talking about listening activities and resources I cannot omit to “the radio” because it is the cheapest way to get an accurate lesson of listening, however it is necessary to indicate that the culture of my students doesn´t let them to use it a lot, because they prefer to work on line by means of the social networks such as “facebook”.

Besides I can say that the learners enjoy a lot with computers. So in that case I can work with them by means of a video conference, in this step the example is as follows:

Pre.  To invite them to participate in a video conference, may be in Wiziq

While.  During the conference they have to listen to the rules and post their opinions while they are listening the topic or in the moment they consider they have to ask something for a feedback.

Post.  To comment the positive and negative points about the topic.

In week 3 I learned a lot, such as CALL (Computer Assisted Language Learning) that is a useful application for teachers and learners, how to post bookmarks in delicious.com, and how to elaborate a project in the next step.

I can affirm that I am taking great steps to the knowledge.

Maggie.