May 31st, 2012
Information on the
observed class:
Course: Lectocomprensión -
Business
Teacher: Julia Mariano
Date: Wed 25 April. 11.00 to 13.00
Brief narrative of the class
The
class started with a revision of specific vocabulary. For about thirty five
minutes, the teacher went through the handout and read different noun phrases
and expressions aloud for different students to translate into Spanish. During
this revision, the teacher reminded students to pay attention to endings that
would indicate, for example, whether a word was plural.
Next,
the teacher checked homework. She read the assigned English sentences aloud and
different students translated them into Spanish orally. The teacher took the
opportunity (whenever the chance arose) to help students revise vocabulary
other than the one contained in the homework. For example, a sentence that
referred to "prices going up" came up, and the teacher capitalized on
this to help students go over different verbs that indicate increase and
decrease.
Then,
a reading-for-specific-information task was carried out and the teacher also
revised linking words and expressions (such as "like",
"furthermore", and "that is"). A vocabulary activity came
next and two more reading comprehension activities followed. In one of these
the students had to identify whether some texts referred to the Wall Street
Crash or not; the other one required answers to questions about a text.
The
last activity was related to reference. The teacher made students highlight
reference words and she helped them find the referent for the first of them.
The rest of the reference words were assigned as homework.
Reflection
This
time, I can claim the rationale to be “reading comprehension” itself, for I
realize now that the enhancement of reading skills underlies all types of
activities and methods. This seems obvious, but in my previous report I had
found other aspects which - only now I can see - stem from the “bigger”
rational of reading-skills enhancement. This is how much the target competence
governs course design, including materials and method.
On
the other hand, I should mention in this report too that advocacy for an active
learner who constructs knowledge and the use of Spanish to “level the playing
field” for students could be observed.
As
for my learning outcomes, I should mention the following. First, that because
of the course objective, even though some subtleties are observed, what matters
is for students to understand the overall meaning of what they read. That is, the
teacher is not picky; s/he is simply attentive to details that may help or
hinder comprehension. This is what is expected of students, as well: it does
not matter whether they translate a particular noun phrase into the correct
equivalent, as long as the translation carried out in their minds is good
enough for them to understand what they are reading. Second, it struck me how
much translation is used; it really seems to be the essential technique
to teach reading comprehension. Of course, many different tasks are carried out
during the ESP class, but translation permeates almost all of them. I was
surprised, too, at how much the students could understand English texts, having
only been in the course for less than three months.
Moving
on, I got to know a few more aspects of the English language that are taught in
reading-comprehension courses. In the first class, I could become aware of the
importance of teaching connectors and how to read an English noun phrase. With
this class, I could notice that the importance given to reference words is also
a feature of ESP.
Finally,
in this class I could really see how knowing about the subject area is useful
for the teacher. There was a part of the class in which the teacher asked
students what they would invest some assets in. When one student answered
something (I did not get what), the teacher understood what he was saying and
therefore could guide him to the expected type of answer by asking him what he
would invest in now. If the teacher new nothing about economy, she
probably would not have been able to do so.
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