Materials Development

 Together with María, we prepared a very interesting an appealing worksheet for the Industrial Hygiene and Security track of the UTN University. As I can not attached the real document with the activities, I leave the report we wrote explaining the decisions made and the theory used to develop the material.

Report on ESP Materials Development: Industrial Hygiene and Security

Introduction

            In the following paper, we will report the perceived rationale of the tasks designed for an ESP reading comprehension course. First, we will state the objectives of the task. Then, we will describe the context in which the task sheets will be used. After that, we will describe the text selection, the design of the activities and we will provide the theoretical background that supports the principles for materials development on foreign language acquisition. Finally, we will reflect on the learning outcomes of this activity.       

Objectives

            The objectives of the task were:

·         Presentation of the reading strategy: scanning.

·         Presentation of a verb tense form for recognition/ interpretation.

·         Focus on logical connectors: presentation of one or two frequently used in texts from that subject specialism, with a focus on the logical relationship expressed.

Context

            As regards the context, the task involved the preparation of material for an ESP reading comprehension course delivered in Spanish for the students of the Industrial Hygiene and Security field in the UTN (the National Technological University). The students were in the fourth year of their course of studies and they were false beginners in the L2 but proficient L1 readers. According to Dudley Evans and Saint John, students’ L1 efficiency allows the ESP teacher “to draw on students’ knowledge of the content” and “generate genuine communication in the classroom” (1998:13). In fact, students’ expertise in the field would help them activate their background knowledge and use it in the comprehension of academics texts.

 Text Selection

            Concerning the process of text selection, we had to consider the objectives of the course, students’ needs, and their expertise in the field, the authenticity of the text and the presence of suitable carrier content for the real content. Furthermore, we followed Ian McGrath criteria for the selection of authentic texts (2002: 106) since “good texts (...) contain interesting content (...)[and] are multiple exploitable because they lend themselves readily to the task.” (2002: 107) Moreover, as said by McGrath “authenticity is important because it gives learners a taste of the real world, an opportunity to rehearse in a sheltered environment.” (2002: 105) Therefore, in order to select a text that would be relevant for the students’ course of studies; we looked for the syllabus of the Industrial Hygiene and Security track. Since we could not find a description of the different subjects they had but only the list of subjects, we talked to Industrial Hygiene and Security students who could tell us the main topics of their studies. In so doing, we discovered that mining was a very important topic since it was present all along their studies and it was intrinsically related to other topics like ergonomics, hygiene 1, 2 and 3 among others. Thus, the starting point for our worksheet was the exploration of good carrier content.

In our case, we had to find a text suitable for presenting a verb tense form and logical connectors. After reading many texts about Industrial Hygiene and Security, we found a journal called Mining Environmental Management published in December 2008 which was relatively updated and provided new information. According to Tomlinson, “materials should achieve impact” that is to say, the text should be up-dated, original and it should provide new information (Tomlinson “in Lauria 2006”). Hence, we checked that the text selected was relevant and appropriate to the objectives and students’ needs, that it “contain[ed] examples of the [specific] language features” (McGrath 2002: 107) we needed to present and that it added novelty to the reading task. Moreover, as the text was long we had to select only the first part of it but we neither changed it nor edited it.

            It is worth mentioning that we followed the TAVI approach to texts, that is, we considered the Text as a Vehicle of Information since authentic material was selected, and much more importance was given to the strategy of scanning and to the preparatory and follow-up activities, as well as to the links between meaning and form. This was done in an appealing and achievable way to make learners feel comfortable not only during the class but also outside the class. What is more, we had focused on the content of the text and its originality.

In addition, we took into account Grabe and Stoller’s keys for successful readings, since we considered that students’ motivation should be enhanced and kept while performing reading activities through the selection of a good text which “complement[ed] students’ intellectual levels and [was] at appropriate levels of difficulty.” (2002:2012)

Materials Design

            Dudley Evans and Saint John stated “when the real content and carrier content are matched, the next stage is to draft activities” (1998:177). They referred to the importance of adjusting the materials to the specific objectives. We designed activities which were appropriate for the context. We also considered learners’ prior knowledge of their field of specialization and existing learning strategies as way of enhancing the process of reading in a foreign language. The main aim for the creation of this reading task was developing effective reading strategies. The worksheet contained a text along with the presentation of a reading strategy, pre-, while-, and post-reading activities, as well as the teaching of grammar items such as logical connectors and a verb tense. 

Each activity was designed with clear rubrics in the L1 so that students could easily follow what they had to do. Besides this, well-stated rubrics allow autonomous learning since students can complete the activities on their own if they miss a class. As Dudley-Evans and Saint John expressed, “for self-study and reference, materials need to be complete, well laid out and self explanatory” (1998:172). For this, rubrics addressed students in a polite way by using the Spanish form “usted,” since it is widely used in reading comprehension materials; as it can be appropriate for students of different ages, as it is the case of university students. Our material was appealing to learners so that they were engaged in the completion of tasks because “materials should achieve impact” (Tomlinson: 1998). It presented colourful explanations and examples in L1. We had also included lots of white spaces and some illustrations in order “to help students feel at ease” ( Tomlinson: 1998).

            Our pre-reading task aimed at providing students with certain information that could prepare them to approach the text. By identifying the title, the author and the source, they could predict what the text was going to be about and build their own expectations. Regarding the while-reading task, the true or false exercise served as a guidance to read and make sense of the text. It favoured, what Grabe and Stoller (213) call purposeful and strategic reading. For instance, students can approach the text with a clear objective in mind and the exercise will draw students´ attention to some important information. The exercise on logical connectors helps learners become acquainted with complex structures of two logical connectors that might hinder their comprehension of the selected text or future ones. In addition, the context determined the teaching of the present perfect tense because students might have already learnt the other present tenses. Finally, the post-reading task gives readers the possibility of putting into practice what they had learnt about the detrimental consequences of mining. In this case, “post-reading instruction extend[ed] ideas and information from the text while ensuring that the major ideas (...) [were] well understood” (Grabe and Stoller 2001:213). This was done by comparing the main ideas from the text to mining activities in Argentina. This gradual approach to the text was suitable, not only because of the level of difficulty, but also because it helped students to gradually get involved with the text without feeling overwhelmed or confused.

            In respect of the models of reading applied by the students in performing the activities, we may affirm that the activities proposed required that students process the text through the combination of two models of reading. When looking for specific or detailed information from the text, a top-down model of reading is suitable, for example, during the pre-, while- and post reading stages; when having to reflect upon the logical connectors and the present perfect form, a bottom-up model should be used. These different types of exercises brought variety to the material and made the tasks more challenging and avoided mechanical activities.

Conclusion

“If the heart of learning to read is the act of reading itself, then the heart of reading instruction is the set of tasks that students engage in to achieve learning goals” (Grabe and Stoller 2001:213)

                To conclude, we would like to reflect on our learning outcome after the process of designing a set of activities for a reading comprehension course in English. First, the selection of an appropriate authentic text that could suit the learners’ level and the language items we needed to present was not an easy task and it was fundamental in the success of the activities. Second, the layout of this material demanded a lot of time from us delving into the theory of ESP, gathering together, discussing, creating and editing activities. This task has been very significant to our training as future teachers since it has given as an insight into materials development. Even though it is a challenging task, teachers should be creative and provide learners with interesting activities that engage them in reading in a foreign language autonomously to find information which is useful and enlightening for academic purposes.

Final reflection

FINAL REFLECTION

      At the beginning of the year I was asked to write an initial reflection describing my strengths and weaknesses as a prospective English teacher. Now the end of this year has arrived and I am supposed to write my final reflection based on the initial one. Therefore, in the following reflection, I will describe my growth as a prospective teacher and as a student, the partial improvements of my weaknesses and how taking this subject has broadened my horizons as an English teacher.

                To begin with, as the year unfolded I realized that as a student there were some aspects that needed to be polished like my grammar in the writing of the reports and the use of indirect questions. Therefore, I tried to improve these aspects as the year went by. I believe that by the end of this year, I did a little bit better. Moreover, I have learnt a lot from my teachers, classmates and from the theory read in class. First, I realized that setting a warm and relaxed atmosphere is key to develop learning. This I learnt it from my teachers who are very nice and friendly to us. Secondly, my array of possibilities and activities to apply in the classrooms grew significantly from the experience of my classmates and the theory read. For example, I learnt a lot about new ICTs, among other things. Moreover, I experienced team-teaching and delivering presentations. Thirdly, through the theory read in class, I learnt to carry out a needs analysis and to develop Industrial Security and Hygiene material which was a really demanding and nice experience.

                As regards the weaknesses highlighted at the beginning of the year, I believe I tried to improve them and did so since I incorporated strategies for improving the delivering of the classes and found the contents studied very enriching. What is more, I tried to work on being more calm and relaxed. In my view, I have improved a little bit but I know it isn’t something I can change in a year so I will keep on working on that.

                Throughout this year, I discovered that there is a wide spectrum for English teachers to work on. For example, I had the opportunity to observe a class on intercomprehension in Germanic languages which was really nice and challenging.  Furthermore, I learnt that many teachers teach from the comfort of their houses using the computer thus I became familiar with new technologies and new ways of improving lessons.

                All in all, I believe this has been a very fruitful year and I have grown as a prospective teacher, I have tried to improve my weakness and also spotted new ones. 

ESP observation reports

 We had to do some observations for Pat too. My first ESP obervation was done at Law School at 9 pm and it lasted 2 hours. Luckily, I went with Virginia and the teacher was incredibly awesome. She kept her class very active and engaged in the tasks, I was motivated too. I really enjoyed her class because I learnt that as ESP teachers we need to have a good command of the L2 and L1 too. Besides, we need to make classes enjoyable and pleasant if not students will fall asleep. I left that classroom with the idea of becoming an ESP teacher :)

ESP OBSERVATION REPORT 1

            I carried out my first ESP observation at the Law School (Universidad Nacional de Derecho y Ciencias Sociales[MSOFFICE1] ). The ESP practitioner in charged[MSOFFICE2]  was Stefanía Tomasisni and there were approximately 25 students in the class. This was a reading and comprehension course.

            To begin the class, the ESP practitioner wrote on the left side of the board the topics covered the previous class and the topics for that class. She began by making a brief but very concise and useful revision of the previous class. She did that by asking students to explain in their own words the specificities of the present simple and the genitive case, students seemed to have a good command of the two structures. Consequently, they started checking homework. They had to read a text and find examples of nouns and adjectives and classified them according to their suffixes and they had also to detect the verbs, their subjects and translate them. The ESP practitioner wrote the words under the correct suffix on the board and checked understanding through pedagogical questions like “¿Qué va a ser si termina en -al? ¿cuál es la raiz? ¿Para qué sirven los sufijos?” among others. When they finished checking homework, the ESP practitioner explained the differences between a lawyer, a solicitor, an attorney, a barrister and a counsel and asked students to give possible translations for each term. This activity and the explanations were very useful for the activity that followed. Students had to read about the requirements for being a solicitor and a barrister and to establish the difference between both. Once students were familiar with the new terminology, she wrote some markers sentences [MSOFFICE3] of anaphoric reference on the board “they work at a law firm,” “his decision is controversial.” She explained in a very organized and clear way the referential elements “they” and “his” and their uses. It is important to mention that explanations were in Spanish and that the ESP practitioner always resorted to examples in Spanish to establish a contrast between L1 and L2. I believe that contrasting both languages was a very effective strategy because students got the chance to see how referential items work in both languages and their differences. This was followed by a chart completion of other referential items like possessive adjectives and subject pronouns. After that, they worked on an example they had in the book which was very enlightening because the ESP practitioner could see that students understood the topic through their thoughtful answers. After this, the practitioner asked students to read a text but only the title and subtitles first in order to make predictions on what it was about (it was on solicitors and barristers) and what possible vocabulary item they could find. Students had to read in English but complete the chart in Spanish. After that they checked the activity on the board.

            In this particular class, the rationale was made explicit since the ESP practitioner wrote on the board the topics they were going to deal with during the class. Therefore, I believe that the rationale of this class was to introduce and practice anaphoric reference, to work on vocabulary items, which would be very helpful for students in the future, and to reinforce previous topics. What is more, it is my opinion that the practitioner’s purposes were to give students some strategies for text comprehension since she did not only explained [MSOFFICE4] the topics but also helped them realized [MSOFFICE5] through pedagogical questions what the reference of a particular word was or what its root was in order to get the meaning and its function in the sentence.

            As an observer, I have learnt a lot from this class since I did not have the opportunity to watch nor to give an ESP class. [MSOFFICE6] I think that ESP practitioners need to have some level of expertise about the ESP course they are in charge of [MSOFFICE7] but at the same time they need to explain new vocabulary and structures in a simple way. In this case, Tomasini’s explanations were very enlightening and concise and she always added a touch of humour in order to keep a warm and friendly atmosphere. Additionally, humour and her dynamic way of teaching kept students awake and focused on the activities. I mention this because the class started at 9 pm and finished at 11 pm so she really needed to keep the class motivated and alert to the examples, explanations, and particularities of the different tasks. Furthermore, there was an exchange of meaning[MSOFFICE8]  between the practitioner and the students since the students sometimes explained some topics to her because they are experts on the field. Therefore, there was genuine communication in the classroom. At the same time, the ESP practitioner acted as a teacher since she provided the necessary structures and vocabulary students needed to understand the material. In some cases, she also acted as a facilitator and in some others she was more a provider of meaning and explanation. I really believe that the practitioner should focus on the students’ needs when selecting and designing material because it should be based on what students need to know and acquire and what students already handle.

Strengths of the report

•   Good use of language, in general, although there are some basic mistakes.
• Same comment as to metalanguage. Check the items marked on the text
• Deep reflection : ability to link theory and practice
• Task completion

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 [MSOFFICE1]revise

 [MSOFFICE2]revise

 [MSOFFICE3]check

 [MSOFFICE4]check

 [MSOFFICE5]check

 [MSOFFICE6]?? Not clear what you mean by this.

 [MSOFFICE7]Not clear

 [MSOFFICE8]Check this expression

The second ESP report was carried out at Dentistry University. I also observed the class with Virginia. The teacher had a completely different methodology from the previous obsrvation. But I learnt a lot form it too.

ESP OBSERVATION REPORT  2

            I carried out my second ESP observation at Dentistry University. The ESP teacher in charge was Luis Ortiz and there were approximately 15 students in the class. This was a two-hour reading and comprehension course.

            The ESP teacher started the class by reading a text about infected teeth in English and he asked students to translate orally into Spanish sentence by sentence. Students also had to find the verbs, transparent and unknown words in each sentence before translating them. On the while-reading stage, the ESP teacher briefly explained the simple present 3rd person singular, interrogative and affirmative forms with some marker sentences on the board. He explained the importance of the “s” added to the verb and called students’ attention to the difference between English and Spanish structures in the present tense. The medium of instruction was Spanish. Furthermore, the ESP teacher explained different vocabulary items like the different ways of saying “ganar” in English and its collocations “earn money, win a game, gain experience. At this point of the class, the ESP teacher suggested the creation of a glossary to keep record of the different words and their translations so that it would be easier and faster for them to find those words when they sit for the exam. It is important to mention here that there was exchange of meaning between students and the teacher throughout the class since in many instances the teacher asked students questions about a technical term or a particular procedure, for example, he asked “¿alguien sabe cuáles son los canales?” and they answered with their knowledge on the field. Therefore, there was a genuine communication between them and their collaborative role and their role as active builders of their knowledge were appreciated. Once they had finished working with the first text, they moved to a second one and, in this case, the ESP teacher fostered reading by asking different students to read and to find the verbs, unknown or transparent words. By doing this, he engaged students in the process of reading and also in paying more attention to the task.

            As regards the rationale of the activities in this class, I believe the teacher wanted to provide students with useful strategies for reading a text in English and also to further develop them. I think that by making students indentify different elements in a sentence and analyze them he was enlarging students’ reading skills and vocabulary. As a matter of fact, he encouraged students to create a glossary which, in my view, was another tool for learning lists of vocabulary in an unconscious way. What I mean is that by building a glossary they are already rereading words which will no longer be unfamiliar. The teacher also highlighted the different collocations of a word and their occurrence in a sentence. This was very important because he helped students understand that although some words may have the same meaning they don’t always collocate with certain words. Furthermore, the teacher fostered students to find L2 equivalents of some particular lexical items. In doing so, he was activating students’ schemata of the topic and allowing them to establish a connection between the text in English and their knowledge of the topic. Therefore, there was an exchange of meaning between the teacher and the students. Taking into account everything I have mentioned, we could say the teacher also encouraged students to scan the text, that is to say, to pay particular attention to the elements in a sentence in order not only to understand it but also to translate it.

As an observer, I could learn a lot of things related to ESP during my observations. First, as I discovered during the previous observation, I realized how important it is to be very competent in the ESP field. In the case of Dentistry, I could notice that some words are transparent for the students and, therefore, easy to understand. Second, I have also realized how important it is for students taking the reading course to be in the last years of their course of studies since they are already familiar with many technicalities of that particular domain and also they can apply their specialized knowledge in the reading they are carrying out. Last but not least, as these are reading and comprehension courses it is very important as teachers of English to train students in the development of reading skill so they can develop different strategies to understand the texts and be able to cope with any unfamiliar word or structure they may find. Furthermore, teaching important grammar structures that are relevant for a particular reading is also vital for the understanding of the text in English like the formation of questions in the present simple or the “s” added to the verb in the present simple 3^rd person singular. As these grammatical structures are uncommon in Spanish, they should be explained so that students are aware of them, their meaning and form.

Comments:

Strengths of the report

•   Very good use of language and metalanguage.
• Deep reflection: the link between theory and practice was improved in this second version.
• Task Completion.

Well done!

The third and last report was on an Intercomprehension class in Germanic Language. I really enjoyed observing this class and found very useful.

ESP Observation Report 3

                On September, 25th I observed an intercomprehension class in Germanic languages at Departamento Cultural. There were more or less 15 students in the classroom and the class was team taught in Spanish by the teachers of English and German. This report consists of two parts. The first is a description of the most relevant instances of the class; the second is a reflection on the class aimed at describing the perceived rationale for the activities observed, and my own learning outcome.

                The English teacher started the class by handing out the units they were going to work with and by checking homework. Students had to look for examples of negative statements in a text. The teacher checked the homework through checking comprehension questions like “¿qué palabras se agregan para negar en alemán?" or "¿cómo se forma la negación en neerlandés?" [I3] After that they started working with the new unit. As a pre-reading activity, the teacher asked some questions to activate students'  schemata, for example, "¿qué conocen a cerca del origen del jean? ¿dónde y cuándo se creó?"  and asked students to write down some ideas about their knowledge of the history of jeans in groups. Once they had finished[I6] , they all mentioned their ideas.  Then the teacher drew students’ attention to a picture they had in their worksheets and asked them "¿qué ven en la foto?"  By activating the students’ background knowledge, the teacher anticipated possible information students would find in the texts they were going to read. Therefore, when they had to read the three titles and predict the content of each text, students didn’t find any difficulties since more or less they had already anticipated possible topics. During the while-reading stage students had to scan the three texts (English- German- Dutch) and identified the common ideas present in the texts. The teacher checked this exercise by asking students to say the answers and show her the evidence from the text. Following this exercise, students had to carry out a more specific search of the word “gold” in the three texts and then match those words with their definitions. It’s important to mention that the teacher asked students to read the rubrics and that every time they checked an exercise she made them reflect on the word formation, on topics they had already seen and on the justification of their answers. The exercise was checked by eliciting the answers from the students and by showing the answers on the wall since the teachers projected the answers of each activity once they had done it orally. I believe this was done to support students who may have been lost and also to make sure that everyone had got the correct answers. Importance to the different pronunciation was also given, there were two exercises in which students had to read the rules and complete them with a word. In order to complete the rules, one of the teachers would read the words out loud. Since it is an intercomprehension course students are not expected to say the words or to produce sentences, they need to become aware of the similarities and differences between the languages, of the word formations in order to understand texts in the three languages. Hence the following exercises were mainly on vocabulary. Students had to look for a particular word in the text and provide the equivalent in Spanish. The numbers of the lines were given to help students find  the words in the texts. Students were expected to provide the equivalent to support their answers with evidence from the texts.

                As regards the perceived rationale behind the activities, some conclusions can be drawn. First, the pre-reading stages aimed at activating students’ schemata in order to help them relate their background knowledge with the information in the text and also help them make some predictions based on their knowledge of the content or type of text. These stages enabled students to develop efficient reading strategies helping them become more competent readers focusing their attention where they had to do it. In other words, according to Peter Doyé “teachers help[ed] the learners to develop their interpretation strategies on the basis of their prior knowledge[I9] .” The while-reading stages aimed at giving students a purpose to their reading and at enhancing their reading comprehension. Most of the activities done made students scan and skim the texts in search of key words that helped them solve the exercises. As regards the pronunciation exercises, these were the least developed because I think there are many differences in the phonic representation of each language and because as I mentioned before students are not expected to speak the languages. However, there are sound correspondences between the languages (Doyé 2005:28) and those were the ones exploited in the observed class. For example, the sequence >spik> (EN) and the >spijk> (Dutch) are pronounced similarly with the diphthong /ai/

                To conclude, everything in the class was done in a relaxed way, students seemed to be at ease and willing to participate, they also seemed to be satisfied with the methodology of the class. In fact, I believe students are challenged every class to retrieve what they have learnt in previous classes which keeps them alert and also shows them the improvements they made. Regarding my personal outcome, it was a really nice experience to observe an intercomprehension class since as a teacher it showed me another way of teaching and posed a challenge I would like to experience once in my career; as a student it made me want to take a course like this one and learn to understand three languages at the time.

                Comments on this report:

• Very good use of language and metalanguage
• Good reflection on the theory read , as realized in the practical context observed

            Task achievement: Good job!

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Presentations

I gave both of my presentation with María Cadenazzo. We had a good time preparing, rehearsing and delivering them. The first presentation was on the Brazilian ESP project and the second one on materials development which was on the material we prepared for Industrial Hygiene and Security course of studies. Here I leave the first slides of each presentations, the reflection done after each presentation and the feedback given.

Reflection on 1°Presentation.

                I gave my first presentation on June 5^th together with María Cadenazzo. We have talked about the Brazilian ESP Project. I will reflect, first, on our teamwork and then I will deal with my performance.

                To begin with, I should mention that working with María was a very nice experience. We have been able to work together in an efficient and collaborative way. I believe that the audience could see our teamwork reflected on our presentation and on our performances since we had rehearsed it individually and together. Therefore, it gave us confidence to stand in front of our classmates and teacher. Moreover, we were very supportive to each other which it was something that, in my opinion, made us feel comfortable while giving the presentation.

                As regards my individual development throughout the presentation, I must say that I was a little bit nervous at the beginning and when I feel like that I tend to speak very fast and sometimes make language and pronunciation mistakes. Hence taking that into account, I tried to speak slowly and to pause after each idea mentioned. However, I think that some mistakes slipped my tongue like the pronunciation of the word “project,” which was recurrently mentioned, but when I realized it I corrected myself. There were, of course, other mistakes like the pronunciation of the word “focus” which our teacher has pointed out. As a matter of fact, improving my pronunciation is something that I want to do.  Moreover, I tend to move my hands quite a lot when I speak so during the introduction of the presentation having my notes on my hands prevented me from doing so. Nevertheless, during the conclusion stage, it seemed that I relaxed and forgot about the position of my hands and arms and their position gave the impression of being defensive, something that I did not realize.

                When I was summarizing the presentation, I considered going back to the slides where the different parts of the presentation were shown and it was something we discussed with María but we did not carry that out and it was something I realized after we had finished. Moreover, I strongly believe we should have gone back to that slide in order to show visual support to our audience and then go back to the legacies because they were necessary for the following task. In my view, our conclusion had some flaws but it was memorable. First of all, when I was giving the instructions for the activity of opening the box, María was making students take some object from it. At that moment, I thought that while they were taking their objects they were not listening to my instructions, that is why, I doubted for a second and made a pause but then continued talking. Thus a member of the audience asked us to explain again because it was not clear. So I believe that we should have organized that particular activity in a better way so that misunderstandings were avoided. However, it is my opinion, that the main important aspects of the BESPP were its legacies and through the opening of the box and the realia representing the legacies, they will remember them forever so it was a very nice activity.

                To conclude, we have enjoyed working together and being in front of our classmates. Moreover, we need to improve some important aspects as a team and individually for our upcoming presentations. 

Dear Florencia,

I have read the reflection you’ve written on the presentation very carefully. I see you have accounted for many of my comments in the feedback I wrote. You have also explored other issues regarding your work and the experience delivering your talk and done it in a very thorough way. I am convinced that the awareness you’ve gained by reflecting in this way will help you make radical improvements in the next presentations you deliver. I’d like to point out a few grammar mistakes in the reflection:  be careful especially about the use of present perfect (I’m enclosing the reflection with those items highlighted in yellow)

With this I’ll close  this first cycle of reflections  on the process of learning how to present orally in an effective way and proceed to tell you what mark I would give to your work, which naturally includes  the reflection that you wrote and sent in time: 9(nine). Very good job!

I look forward to reading comments / questions in a next email if you have any

With all good wishes,

Pat

On this report, I will reflect on the presentation given on materials development together with María Cadenazzo on October, 3^rd. First, I will deal with the delivery of the presentation based on the feedback given. Then I will consider the team-planning experience.

                To begin with, I believe that this second presentation has shown our improvement as regards presentations delivery since, in my opinion, we felt more confident and relaxed in the delivery and the organization of the presentation. However, when we had finished, I wrote down some of my weaknesses during the presentation. Most of the weaknesses are similar to the ones highlighted in the feedback given. Taking into account the structure of the presentation, we divided it in three parts but failed to make reference to them later on in the presentation. This could have been improved through the use of signposting language like “moving now to the third part of our presentation…” It is important to mention that we used signposting language effectively and we made eye contact with the audience. Nevertheless, as regards body language, I started the presentation with my arms crossed which was something mentioned in the previous feedback and I should have avoided. Once I realized it, I corrected it. Moreover, I spoke to the screen at times mainly when reading the examples. I realized that too at the end of the presentation. Another week point was the use of the language; I need to check the use of indirect questions since I am aware of this mistake. I rehearsed the presentation paying attention to the use of indirect questions but it seems that I have made some mistakes regarding this issue. Therefore, it is something I need to keep working on. Taking into account the visuals, we tried to make the presentation appealing and enjoyable to the audience. We should change some aspects like the font color in some slides to make them more readable.

                Team work was a very pleasant and a very fruitful experience since I learnt a lot from María’s comments and contributions during the whole process of materials development including planning and giving the presentation. At the beginning, I thought it was going to be hard to work together because we both had a very tight timetable but we managed to get together or worked online and the results were good. Furthermore, we complemented each other regarding knowledge and the use of technology to prepare the presentation. Actually, in my view, we worked well as a team since we supported each other and accepted productive observations.

                To conclude, I learnt a lot from the presentation planning and delivering it since this second time I had the chance to improve and also to put in practice what I learnt in a more confident way. I missed some important aspects but in general I think that my presentation skills enhanced.    Finally, I strongly believe, that despite the weaknesses mentioned before, we did a very good job in the delivery of our presentation because improvements could be seen.

Presentation on Materials Development Date 2^nd October

CRITERIA DEFINING THE HOW (50%)	Student’s name: Florencia Barrionuevo
q  CLARITY OF PRESENTATION : STRUCTURE	Your delivery was very clear, you spoke independently from notes and addressed the audience in a confident and friendly manner. The talk was structured into 3 main points, which were not clearly referred to later on. A good thing would be to use ordinal numbers to announce / signal the different parts of the presentation as you move from one to the other . In that way structuring the talk and  previewing the points at the beginning actually serves the purpose of helping the audience to follow your talk and making the presentation more memorable The conclusion was effectively done, by taking turns between the presenters. Nice quote to finish the presentation
q  USE OF LANGUAGE q  USE OF SIGNPOSTING LANGUAGE	Very good use of language in general. -Check this sentence: “so as it is easy for them to...” - Careful with indirect questions Signposting language was effectively used. Good eye-contact with most of the audience Careful with arms crossed! There was reference to possible questions.
q  AWARENESS OF BODY LANGUAGE	You addressed the audience confidently, making eye contact with most of us. For some time you spoke to us with one arm crossed over the other one, in a closed, defensive gesture. Body language was not open and friendly until you realized that. You spoke to the screen at times.
q  VOICE PROJECTION	You have a sweet voice with adequate projection ( for a small audience). The pace of delivery was adequate as well.
q  VISUAL MATERIAL :	The Power Point presentation was simple and clear. In general it was well used. The slides which contained green font (2nd, 3rd, the one about the principles and the one with the quote) were difficult to read.
q  TIMING.	OK
WHAT  (50%)	Relevant content. Theory and practice were linked. You were able to communicate this quite clearly.
Final mark :	To be given after you send your reflection

Teaching Practice

A requirement for Obeservación y práctica is to tell a story to young learners. The chair offers two possible places where to tell your story. I was assigned Children I and II at Cultura Británica. The class was team-taught and my partner was Laura Cortés. We first observed the group and my first reaction was "how lovely! they have a good command of English and understand almost everything." We chose the story of "the Gruffalo" by Julia Donaldson. The kids were very much engaged in the story and participated in the activities. I really really enjoyed the experience but I won't tell much since you can read the reflection.

REFLECTION ON THE TEACHING PRACTICE

                I am going to reflect on the teaching practice delivered on the 17^th October together with María Laura Cortés at Cultura Británica. I am going to concentrate mainly on the planning of the class and on team work.

                To begin with, after María and I observed the courses we were assigned to, we had to think of a proper and engaging story to tell. Our first option was “the Gingerbread man” but as it is a well-known story we decided not to use it since students may have known it. Therefore, we chose “the Gruffalo” a really nice story by Julia Donaldson. The story is about a very smart mouse who invents a terrible creature, Gruffalo, to avoid being eaten by other animals. Finally, the creature exists but the mouse manages to escape. As a pre story telling activity, we decided to ask students questions about monsters like “do you think monsters exist? What are the characteristics of monsters? Are foxes afraid of monsters?” In so doing, we activated students’ schemata, introduced some vocabulary items and set the atmosphere for the story. In the while story telling stage, we planned to tell the story by making the different voices of the different characters thus we reproduced the dialogues with different voices for students to realize who was talking. In this particular stage, I believe we could have included some repetition patterns on the part of the students since the story had many repetitive patterns like “a gruffalo?, what’s a gruffalo?” However, students understood the story perfectly and were engaged and motivated too. We could prove this in the post story telling stage when students answered the checking comprehension questions successfully. At the beginning, the questions demanded more elaborated answers students weren’t confident enough to answer so we re-elaborated them and they could answer them perfectly. After that we divided the students in three groups: the foxes, the owls and the snakes and played a game. Students had to solve a jigsaw puzzle and say what it was. By doing this we were checking the vocabulary introduced in the story. The children liked the game and showed command of the language and the vocabulary taught.

                As regards team work, I felt comfortably working with María Laura. At first we didn’t know each other since we are not classmates but we got to work jointly in a really nice way. We complemented each other and divided the preparation of the activities without problems. We also managed to rehearse the story whenever we could since both have different timetables and October is a complicated month.  All in all, it was a very nice experience working with her since we’ve both learnt a lot from each other and from the experience.

                To conclude, the experience of telling a story was a very positive one and I felt really comfortable with the story, the students, the place, the partner and the performance. I’ve really enjoyed this experience since I love working with young learners, having fun with acting or making them have a good time.