An
Electronic Magazine by Omar Villarreal and Marina Kirac ©
Year
7
Number 159 February 27th 2006
9715 SHARERS are reading this issue of SHARE this week
__________________________________________________________
Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the
candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being SHARED
__________________________________________________________
Dear SHARERS,
The Ministry of Education of Provincia de Buenos
Aires have taken a small, but nonetheless important, step towards correcting
the anachronistic organization of teacher education in the province. In a few
days´time, we are promised, the Executive will send a proposal to the provincial
Congress to create the
If the project is implemented the way it has been
announced, the new University will only be a graduate school of Education,
since it will be basically geared towards affording present and future tertiary
education graduates (“Profesorado” graduates) the opportunity to obtain a
University degree in fields directly connected or somewhat allied to their area of specialization (rumours have
it no particular scheme for teachers of English has been considered so far).
This will perpetuate the unjust separation between teacher education at
post-secondary or tertiary level and a “proper” university education. If the
new provincial university is to decentralized, as the project claims, and the
“Profesorado” buildings are to be the seats of the University all across the
province, why don´t we just “upgrade” the status of those very “Profesorados”
to departments or sections of a big provincial university?
The same applies to the City of
Why don´t our Teacher´s Associations and trade
unions take a firm stand and help the provincial authorities to make wiser
decisions, to be bold about education for once and to go one necessary and
crucial step further?
Love
Omar and Marina
______________________________________________________________________
In SHARE 159
1.-
The Personal Curriculum: Where Does
It Lead Adult Learners?
2.- Engaging Students As Learners.
3.-
Crearán
4.- FAAPI
5.- URUTESOL National
Convention 2006.
6.- Terceras Jornadas Internacionales
Del Noroeste Argentino.
7.- Resourceful
Teaching and NLP for Education.
8.-
Maestría en Análisis del Discurso de
9.-
Jornadas de Práctica y Residencia Docente 2006.
10.- Nueva Maestría de
11.- News From E-Teaching Online.
12.- Mario
Rinvolucri in
13.- Online Courses for
Teachers of English.
14.- Erratum.
15.- New Examining Board in the Southern Cone.
16.- University Lecturers
needed in Perú.
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1.- THE PERSONAL CURRICULUM: WHERE DOES IT LEAD ADULT LEARNERS?
Our dear SHARER Ana María Rozzi de Bergel
has generously offered to SHARE her latest contribution to our field with all
of us:
The Personal Curriculum: Where Does It Lead Adult Learners?
By Ana María Rozzi de Bergel
The last twenty years have seen a trend in the teaching of English as a foreign language towards the adaptation of curricula and methods to the learners’ learning styles and language needs, placing the focus on the learner rather than on prescribed methodology. Informed eclecticism, the choice of practical implementations tailor-made for each learner or group, by a tutor who is well-grounded on theoretical knowledge and hands-on experience, seems to guarantee fully learner-centred teaching-learning processes. Within this framework, the analysis of learners’ needs, preferences and cognitive structure acquires a new dimension, as does the analysis of their interlanguage, a vital source of information about the system they are building, how they are building it, its end objective and underlying structure.
Selinker (1972) defined interlanguage as a developing system modelled partly on successfully acquired target language forms, partly on elements erroneously transferred from the native language and partly on self-originated rules and semantic content, which sooner or later reaches fossilisation: a point beyond which learners would keep their interlanguage unchanged, regardless of further instruction, input or personal efforts.
We will refer to learners starting to learn English as a foreign language after the age of eighteen, whose native language is Spanish, and to their language production within the teaching-learning situation, in the classroom, not in informal environments. We will attempt to define interlanguage as one of the observable manifestations of these learner’s personal curriculum, which is shaped up by a variety of social, psychological, biological and cultural factors, and fossilisation as its end performance objective, the point when learners consider, consciously or subconsciously, that they have completed their personal curricula, often different from the teacher’s or the course’s.
The concept of a personal curriculum expands on the idea of a “built-in syllabus”, (Pit Corder, 1974; Ellis, 1989) which acknowledges the existence of a personal order of acquisition of grammar items not necessarily matching the teaching curriculum. We prefer the name “personal” because the term “built-in” might suggest that this curriculum is innate, when it may have genetic components but it should have been mostly influenced by the individual’s life experience. On the other hand, we are not simply talking about a way of building up the grammar system, but also about learning hypotheses (Bergel, 2005) and the satisfaction of communicative needs, concepts which were incorporated into curriculum design long after the language learners’ “built-in syllabus” was detected and explored. We will refer to “curriculum” in the sense Nunan (1988) describes it: not just a list of items to be learnt but also the methods, procedures and activities deriving from an approach, based on a theory of learning and a theory of language, used to attain the curriculum’s goals.
We will refer to learners starting to learn English as a foreign language after the age of eighteen, whose native language is Spanish, and to their language production within the teaching-learning situation, in the classroom, not in informal environments.
The emergence of interlanguage has been attributed to the activation of a “latent psychological structure in the brain” (Selinker, ib.id) when a person tries to learn a second or a foreign language. The differences between a learner’s interlanguage and the language of native speakers are then visible by contrast, when both try to convey similar meaning through utterances which have obviously been constructed according to different linguistic systems. Interlanguage description and analysis would entail a comparative study of the learner’s utterance with reference to the same utterance in his native language and an equal or equivalent utterance by a native speaker of the target language.
This
interlanguage system is partly formed, according to the same source, by
accessing the “latent language structure” (Lenneberg, 1967), a kind of
in-built brain device which realizes the universal grammar into the grammar of
a particular language in first language acquisition. But Selinker (1975, Selinker et al., 1988) adds the
notion of a separate “latent psychological structure” accessed and
activated for the learning of a second or foreign language. This device is also
in the brain but it is considered less reliable, independent of the universal
grammar and generally overlapping with other learning areas. According to
Selinker (ib.id), 95% of foreign language learners have access to this second
device only, not to the latent language structure described by
Lenneberg, and therefore never achieve mastery of the new language.
By analysing the learners’ interlanguage, he suggests we can see the type
of psychological processes being used for language learning, in particular,
those related to fossilisation, special “linguistic items, rules, and
subsystems” that foreign language learners will “tend to keep in their
interlanguage relative to a particular target language no matter what the age
of the learner or amount of explanation and instruction in the target language
received” (Selinker, ib.id). Some changes to a fossilised language system may
still occur, through unconscious acquisition or formal correction . We will use
the terms language ceiling to refer to this fossilised stage, on the
model of Vygotsky’s (1992) related
concept regarding first language development.
Pit Corder (1981) also considered learners’ errors as components of a
systematic, regular and consistent system, probably built according to the
rules of a personal grammar. Interacting with the data they are exposed to,
learners create a personalised version of the system of the target language,
partly based on the structural properties of this language, partly on those of
their native language, and partly on their version of the target system. In
this view, the system is also liable to be modified, either by unconscious or
conscious processes.
Pit Coder (ib.id.) also points out that interlanguages have features in
common but show personal variations as well, depending on each learner’s
personality and situation and probably, the learning context. He explores the
order of development of interlanguage and holds that if there is a universal
grammar and there are universal properties of language, there should be
similarities between interlanguages, which he regards as processes of
transitional competence with a point of fossilisation.
The theory of a universal grammar and its associated concept of a natural
order of acquisition of both the native and the foreign language seem
contradictory with Selinker’s idea of a latent psychological structure
which sometimes works independently from the latent language structure
and therefore, from universal grammar. If universal grammar may only
occasionally be accessed in foreign language learning, how is it that
interlanguages show similarities in the order of acquisition of language items?
Is there a universal grammar of interlanguage? There may be, and this would not
necessarily deny the existence of a latent psychological structure but
point to psychological universals within it, causing certain items to
appear before others. These psychological universals might be the basic
communicative elements of human interaction which, according to life experience
and socialisation, human beings regard as essential. They are realised in the
system of a particular foreign language according to an order of priorities
determined by what communication needs seem to be universally necessary,
drawing from the foreign language only those elements which appear to satisfy
the communicators’ needs more readily. When these elements are not available or
are difficult to access, parts of the system are creatively devised by the
language user and parts are modelled on the native language, but the
communicative need is never ignored, set aside, or placed in a different slot
in the order of acquisition. Thus, learners will be permanently selecting
language elements from the course curriculum or other input which match their
needs, and discarding those which appear superfluous at a certain stage and
teachers may not know enough about these processes to even realise they are
taking place.
Nemser, W.
(1971) describes interlanguage as a succession of approximative systems,
directed to the goal of attaining command of the target language. This view is
similar to
All these theories seem to consider that learners master a language and address their efforts at mastering another, but this assumption may need further consideration. In the first place, we should define “mastery” of a language. We might conceive of it as the almost perfect command of an ideally correct system of grammatical, phonological, pragmatic and semantic rules, effectively used for socialising and communicating within a community where these rules are generally accepted and applied; that is, a relevant communication system for the attainment of personal and social goals. We should also accept that this description fits the system developed by all the native speakers of a language.
However, the native speaker’s “mastery” will necessarily have heavy idiolectal components, as Pit Corder himself acknowledged, because each person’s perception of mastery will vary according to life experience, education, personality, goals in life and other factors. It will also vary in degrees of approximation to the ideally correct system, which in turn makes it necessary to further define the concept of “native speaker command of a language” within a spectrum, in different degrees of linguistic and communicative competence. We may assume that comparing the systems of two languages will not shed enough light on the interlanguage between them; rather, what we should compare is the learner’s personal mastery of the native language to a similar level of performance in the foreign language, assuming that this is the goal he will set for his learning, as this is the level of communication within which he attains his personal and social goals.
Learners may not be trying to master an abstraction called “the foreign language”, but a concrete, personal representation of this language, which they have mentally described, measured and assessed according to their hypotheses of how much they should learn, what for and how they should learn it. Their interlanguage will approximate this self-originated goal more than the actual system of the foreign language; in other words, the learner will have a personal curriculum modelled on his communicative needs, logical structuring of his native language, compensation and communication strategies, culture and personal history, to mention the most important factors. Interlanguage analysis and description, instead of marking a point between the native and the foreign language, should shed light on the personal curriculum and its distance from the ideally complete and correct system of the target language. The degree to which the end performance in the learner’s curriculum resembles mastery of the foreign language of native speakers with similar communication needs and goals and at almost the same level of linguistic and communicative competence might determine the real height of the person’s language ceiling with reference to an ideal “mastery” of language, as suggested by Bialystok & Hakuda (1994).
Theories of learning and theories of language, approaches, methods and curriculum content are not the expert’s exclusive domain. Each learner has a personal conception of language and a logical system for structuring it, a cognitive structure which determines his learning hypotheses and therefore could be called a theory of learning. The learner intuitively knows what he needs to learn in terms of lexis, grammar and function or genres, depending on his communicative needs, and his problem-solving style will result in certain compensation strategies, defined as the resources he uses to communicate messages his level of mastery does not yet enable him to produce. The personal curriculum thus defined relates to Selinker’s idea of a latent psychological structure in the brain and might account for the existence of a universal grammar of interlanguage, with basic features belonging to a truly universal system, elements common to a particular social group and completely personal elements determined by the individual’s construction of reality. Learners may not be unable to access the latent language structure altogether, but they may well limit this access to universal, almost instinctively needed features of language, and use the latent psychological structure for the rest, the reason being that their construction of language and mental representation of its uses has been affected and transformed by life experience and they can no longer resort solely to a universal grammar to build up the system of a particular language, as was the case with their mother tongue.
The meagre 5% of learners mentioned by Selinker as having recourse to the latent language structure might well be individuals whose life experience has enabled them to keep this access relatively intact. The key to this bridge between foreign language learning and the latent language structure may be the possession of language awareness, defined as conscious knowledge and appreciation of the linguistic system, its functions, registers and possibilities for the expression of ideas, the apprehension and creation of knowledge and its manifestations in literature of various genres. We are not talking about grammar, vocabulary and functions only, but also about conscious handling and understanding of humour, satyr, beauty, rhythm, metaphor, symbols and more subtle aspects of language, including its tactical, aesthetic and artistic possibilities. This type of awareness includes appreciation and understanding of foreign languages and the openness to communicate with other cultures from an appreciation and awareness of one’s own. It is both explicit and intuitive, sometimes because the intuitive has become explicit through instruction; sometimes because conscious knowledge and reflection on language and its role in human life and society has increased and sharpened intuitive processes.
The personal curriculum is not linear but spiralled, as Bruner (1966, 1990) has proposed, developing in plateaux. towards the end performance, When this final goal is attained the learner reaches his language ceiling. Changes still take place, but only in certain areas. Rather than a mere process of fossilisation, we will consider it a sub-conscious refusal or impossibility to move forward.
Refusal occurs when the learner has achieved to the measure of his needs and expectations or has completed the system he attributes to the foreign language, according to his cognitive structure and learning hypotheses. In these cases, learners experience a sense of completion of the personal curriculum, sometimes, fairly early in the learning process, but do not seem disturbed by their lack of progress, which is only evident to the teacher or other observers. This form of refusal might be associated with the transient state of fossilisation already described and the structure of the learners’ interlanguage might be modified if motivation is improved.
The impossibility to move forward becomes apparent when learners reach their language ceiling even while striving to go beyond it, with the subsequent feeling of frustration. This may be related to biological explanations of permanent fossilisation. In these cases, motivation and need do not seem to help; rather, the desperate attempt to move forward creates more obstacles. In these cases, the content of the personal curriculum has not been learnt and the satisfaction of communicative needs has not been attained, because the method and learning hypotheses in the personal curriculum were not appropriate and, if already lodged in the brain, this curriculum cannot be significantly altered.
Vigil & Oller (1976) outlined a model of fossilisation which took extrinsic feedback (Selinker & Lamendella, 1979) as the determining factor. In their view, positive cognitive feedback combined with negative affective feedback favoured fossilisation, whereas negative cognitive feedback combined with positive cognitive feedback would cause learners to modify their linguistic knowledge and move forward in their learning. The model has several weak points, however, as already discussed by Selinker & Lamendella (ib.id) who argue that the beginning of fossilisation is controlled by internal factors, although extrinsic feedback plays a role in reinforcing certain parts of the learner’s interlanguage; the lower bound of fossilisation is set by the learner’s communicative needs; reinforcement of communicative competence is not necessarily combined with reinforcement of grammatical correctness and finally, there is no fossilisation in the native language. The latter argument is, however, a moot point. At any social event, we will be surrounded by native speakers who display different degrees of mastery of their native language, depending on their background and personality. Their language ceilings are not at the same height and it is not clear if they might be raised.
We would also need to characterise “positive” and “negative” feedback, both cognitive and affective, and find a way to describe the participation of affect in cognitive processes, to outline the boundaries of each type of feedback. Besides, there is no feedback which can be objectively classed as “positive” or “negative”, as this would ultimately depend on the subject’s perception of the nature of feedback – something which the subject himself may find impossible to define or classify. We would not know, either, how much feedback of each type a learner would need to avoid fossilisation or fall into it. If we were talking about feedback in a limited way, similar to the notions of positive or negative reinforcement (Skinner, 1978), it should be relatively easy to answer all these questions, but in the broader context of communication and interpersonal relations, feedback may take so many forms and it may be interpreted in so many ways that its categorisation appears quite elusive.
However, the influence of extrinsic factors on the height of a person’s ceiling is undeniable, as man is a social being and many mental processes originate in the environment and affect the mind, but measuring and assessing this influence is only possible if we are satisfied with describing models of “positive” and “negative” feedback in the classroom in order to correlate their use with observable features of the learners’ interlanguage. We might then be able to see the correspondence between types of feedback thus classed and the learners’ production, but not to make generalisations about their affective impact.
Tollefson & Firn (1983) also stressed the role played in the appearance of fossilisation by negative cognitive feedback combined with an overemphasis on communicative tasks in the classroom, placing interaction at the core of the phenomenon. They also discussed the role of acculturation, holding that fossilisation occurs when the learner’s acculturation to the target language ceases.
If we refer to acculturation as the desire to shed some elements of one’s own culture to adopt a new one, it is undeniable that it will work as an aid to learning a language, because the learner will be seeking to become a good member of an adopted culture and to merge with its individuals. We very much doubt this is the case with foreign language learners or that it is a desirable goal to pursue in a classroom. We will prefer to talk about acculturation in foreign language learning as the learner’s acceptance and understanding, of cultural features of the foreign language speech communities, without losing awareness of his cultural identity, but rather, enriching it through this contact.
We should note
that the acculturation agents in a language course are not the real members of
the foreign community, as would be the case with second language acquisition,
but the teacher, the school and the materials. Fossilisation would appear when
the acculturation process has reached its feasible limits, when it cannot
continue because of insufficient input – for example, for not being in contact
with a foreign community – or when the learner rejects further acculturation.
Besides, English as a lingua
franca is so widely used nowadays that the teacher or the school would be hard
put to decide which English-speaking community their learners should
acculturate in; perhaps, they would prefer to concentrate on teaching a fairly
universal, culturally unmarked variety of English which might be understood by
other non-native speakers. The issue is extremely relevant for the
consideration of language ceiling, as acculturation involves power struggles,
idiologies, supremacy, resistance and survival as well as tolerance, personal
enrichment and maturity, depending on how both parties approach the issue, and
the language teacher’s and the learners’ positions may not match. As with
contrastive analysis, we might expect to shed some light on the problem by a
contrastive acculturation analysis. Learners who have not properly apprehended
their own culture may either refuse the target language culture or be
particularly willing to change a cultural background they have not fully
developed. In the first case, we might find a person who does not have cultural
roots and awareness and will not include these components in his personal
curriculum; in the second case, the learner may find a foreign culture very
attractive because he does not know, value or care for his own. The idea of
analysing native and foreign language cultural apprehension contrastively and
determining their influence on the hight of a learner’s ceiling is an
interesting line of research to pursue in future studies.
Studies in the field of neurolinguistics have disclosed the probable existence of permanent fossilisation brought about by biological factors, mostly genetic and age-related, and transient fossilisation produced by acculturation limits or other socio-affective influences on the learning process. (Lamendella, 1977; Selinker & Lamendella, 1978; Tollefson & Firn, ib.id) and more recent experiments, using the event-related potentials (ERP) method to brain scanning seem to support this theory. Vos et al (2001) used ERP techniques to research how individuals process language input and achieve comprehension and found that the subjects of the experiment possessing a high working memory capacity were more accurate in their interpretation of words and sentences and were more efficient in their processing of concurrent information. These experiments have explored comprehension rather than production, and at a very limited level, but they are indicative that biological factors play a crucial role in setting the height of a person’s language ceiling.
The assumption that age brings about the loss of an executive component of the capacity to adapt existing systems or construct new systems (Lamendella, ib.id) has been seriously challenged by electrophysiological investigation, which has pointed out that the brain performs its executive functions at any age, so fossilisation should be attributed to other factors: processing efficiency, for example, rather than executive capacity, or the location in the brain of native language and foreign language systems. If they are separated in the brain, the former should be language-specific and the latter might be of a different nature. (Gunter et al, 1997) The distinction may support the theory of a latent language structure and a latent psychological structure (Selinker, ib.id).
The efficiency to process information and to form associations and systems has been pointed out by Purdy (2001) as brain capacities potentially traceable through ERP techniques. A working hypothesis might be that the processing of fossilised syntactic forms of a foreign language shares the same characteristics as the processing of native language forms and their representations are collocated together, whereas non-fossilised forms are found in the brain in another area and are not easily accessible under communication constraints, when the fossilised forms tend to prevail. The difference here is that we are not talking about fossilised errors, but about fossilised forms constituting a solid system, such as the first language system, either correct or incorrect. An important factor to consider in these biological or genetic explanations is that the neurosciences do not ignore the role of motivation and social stimuli in shaping up neural maturation, so the limits between genetic and developmental or extrinsic factors remain unclear when attempting to explore the causes of language ceiling.
As we can see, research into the factors which determine the height of a person’s ceiling would call for collaborative, multi-disciplinary efforts, as they may be psychological, social, physiological and even economic or political and probably originating in several of these domains simultaneously. It is even unclear whether the causes might be identified at all, as research ought to be, necessarily, ex-post facto: once learners have reached their ceiling, we should explore the whole of their previous life experience in depth to find traces of possible influences which determined the height of their ceilings. The data would be extremely ambiguous, incomplete and subjective, when not impossible to obtain.
It seems more feasible to explore the
manifestations of the learners’ personal curricula: their expectations, needs,
background, learning hypotheses and communication styles before they join a
language programme, then follow up their linguistic performance during lessons,
particularly at ceiling level, and use the information to adapt teaching to
these curricula, while exploring new possibilities for raising their language
ceiling.
References
Bergel, AMR de (2005) Adaptación del diseño de materiales a las hipótesis de aprendizaje de los alumnos de idiomas extranjeros. M.A. Thesis, Universidad CAECE (Unpublished)
Bruner, J.
(1966). Toward a Theory of Instruction.
Bruner, J.
(1990). Actos de significado: más allá de la revolución cognitiva.
Madrid: Alianza.
Ellis, R.
(1989). Are classroom and naturalistic acquisition the
same? A study of the classroom acquisition of German word order rules. Studies
in Second Language Acquisition, 11, 305-328.
Nemser, W. (1971), 'Approximative systems
of foreign language learners', International Review of Applied Linguistics,
9, 115-123. Reprinted in Richards (1974).
Nunan, D.
(1988) Curriculum Design.
Piaget, J. (1960) The Psychology of
Intelligence.
Pit Corder, S. (1974) The Significance of Learner's Errors. En Error
Analysis, Richards, J. (Ed.) Londres: Longman Group Ltd.
Skinner, B.F. (1978) Verbal Behaviour. The
Vygotsky, L. (1992) Thought and Language.
Translation by Alex Kozulin.
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2.- ENGAGING STUDENTS AS
LEARNERS
Our dear SHARERS from the English Teaching
Professional have generously sent us this article to SHARE with all of you.
Engaging Students As Learners
by Jeremy Harmer
Many teachers will be familiar with the
following story reconstruction activity: six groups of students are each given
a different picture to study.
The teacher takes the pictures away and
makes new groups of six (one student from each of the original groups).
The students, in their new groups, share
the information from their different pictures and work out what story is told
by all the pictures together.
We ask students to do activities like this
because it gives them a chance to try out all the language they know. We
believe that the act of retrieving and using language has great benefits for
language learners. We also believe that this kind of group interaction is good
for building a cooperative environment in the classroom. And, lastly, we do
things like this because we think students will be engaged by them - that is,
they will be in some way emotionally as well as intellectually involved.
Engagement, for me, is a state of
openness, a state of emotional and intellectual arousal, the presence of eager
anticipation and interest. If students are engaged, they are much more likely
to learn effectively than if they are not.
Sustaining engagement
Most teachers know how to engage students,
and we all have our own favourite activities and techniques for doing this.
Imagine, for example, that the students are going to read a text and have to
identify, from a set of illustrations, which animals, birds, etc are mentioned
in it. It isn't difficult to think of ways of engaging them as they approach
this task. We could put pictures of all the animals on flash cards (or on the
computer) and show them quickly as a memory test (pairs of students have to see
how many animals they can remember). With most classes this would get the
students engaged with the learning sequence even before they start to read the
text.
What is much more difficult, however, is
sustaining motivation over any length of time. Will students be equally engaged
at the end of a lesson as at the beginning? Will they still be engaged at the
end of a week or at the end of ten weeks? That seems to me to be a bigger
challenge than merely getting students involved for a few minutes.
I believe that there are four crucial
factors in sustaining engagement. Firstly, students need to enjoy the lessons,
insofar as this is possible. Secondly, they need to feel involved, rather than
just sitting there as passive recipients of fullfrontal teaching. Thirdly, they need to be able to
discern both the short- and longterm outcomes of what they are doing; this
means that they should be able to see some kind of end to the activities we
involve them in and should have an idea of what the destination is for a
lesson, a week, a semester or a year. But lastly, and this is the factor I wish
to concentrate on here, I believe students' motivation is far more likely to
endure if they are given some kind of agency.
Agency
Agency1, a concept taken from the social
sciences, is in its broadest sense, as Taylor puts it, 'responsibility for
self'. Harry Frankfurt goes further and suggests that the difference between
humans and animals lies in the structure of a person's will; that we are
'capable of wanting to be different ...
no animal other than man appears to have the capacity for reflective
self-evaluation'. Others have tried to
work out the role of agency in culture or looked at how it works in IT
environments (where sometimes, according to Belz, 'learner agency appearsto
override institutional pressures').
Agency, for me, is best defined by the
metaphor of the agent in, say, passive sentences. Here, the agent is what
Michael Swan calls 'the person orthing that does the action', and I want to suggest
that when we allow students at least some power to 'do the action', when we
hand over some of the task of learning to them, rather than making it all a
one-way production (teacher) and reception (student) process, students are
likely to be more engaged than if they don't have any responsibility for their
own actions.
Handing over agency
A few examples show this concept in
action. Lesley Painter, for instance, found that homework was unsuccessful
until she allowed her students to suggest what kind of homework they thought
would be useful. Mario Rinvolucri recommends that students should be allowed to
choose whether or not they wish to be corrected during a fluency activity, eg
by putting out cards either showing a teacher (= I want to be corrected when I
make a mistake) or a teacher crossed out (= I don't want to be corrected even
when I make mistakes). Many teachers discuss codes of conduct with their
students at the beginning of the year, ensuring that some of the rules the
class will live by come from the students themselves. Finally, as Day and
Bamford (amongst many others) remind us, almost the best way for students to
improve their English is for them to read and read and read - and students
should choose to do this themselves, deciding what books they wish to read,
with the encouragement and help of the teacher, of course, but essentially of
their own volition.
In all these cases, students are taking
responsibility for their own actions: they are the doers. In short, they are
becoming more and more autonomous as language learners, not as language
'teachees'. It's a little like going to an orchestral concert. Which would you
rather do, play in the concert or listen to it? It's the players that are the
doers, and this too might be a metaphor for what we are aiming at - a metaphor
we will return to below.
As a teacher, I want to try to get
students to have agency. And as a coursebook writer, I want to try to provide
material that will encourage them to take responsibility for their own
learning. There are several ways to do this.
Offering involvement
Firstly, we need to give students a chance
to be involved. Imagine, for example, that we want them to be able to ask after
people's progress and empathise with the replies they get. We might get them to
try to put the following lines in order so as to create a dialogue:
?1 How was the exam?
? You didn't have to do it!
? It was terrible.
? Oh, come on! I'm sure it wasn't that
bad.
? Why? What happened?
? I couldn't answer one of the questions.
I made a real mess of it.
Afterwards, we might let them discuss
exactly what expressions like 'it wasn't too bad', 'it could have been worse',
etc really mean. They could then study words and expressions for reacting to
news ('Oh you poor thing', 'I'm so pleased to hear it', etc). And we could stop
there. But of course we don't. We let students make their own dialogues about
similar things (interviews, auditions, etc) using whichever language items they
have studied seem appropriate. We encourage this kind of practice in the hope
that it will help students to make the language their own - the first step
towards agency.
This policy of letting the students take
over the language (or the activity) can
be carried out with almost anything we do in class. In pronunciation activities
(for example, where the teacher reads out incomplete football scores and the
students have to guess, from the intonation, what the second team's score is),
we can get students to do the same activity in pairs rather than just listening
to the teacher or a recording. When students are studying for exams, we can get
them to write their own test items. In all these cases, we are encouraging them
to get involved and to make the language their own.
Offering power
We can go further, however, and offer
students more than just involvement. We can get them to choose, allow them to
have agency. For example, instead of telling students what genres of writing
they should concentrate on, we could offer the following exercise:
Which of the following do you/will you
write in English? Choose your top five and complete the 'Type of writing'
column in the table in order of priority, where 1 = most important, 2 = next
most important, etc.
diary • emails • essays
faxes • forms • instructions
letters • lists • memos
poems • postcards • reports
stories • study notes
When the students have chosen their five
(theirs, not the teacher's), they can then be sent to find examples in their
coursebook so that they can analyse them.
One of the most profound tools a teacher
can equip students with is the ability, and eagerness, to use a good
monolingual learner's dictionary (MLD). Modern MLDs are beautifully designed,
easy to use and contain a wealth of information about word use, collocation, language variety, pronunciation,
grammatical behaviour, etc. Yet even when students buy dictionaries, they often
fail to use them effectively, if they use them at all. However, if we are
genuinely enthusiastic about dictionary use, if we train students how to use
them, and if, finally, we incorporate dictionary use into our lessons, then we
have equipped them to be good MLD users. We have given them the most fantastic
power over the language: they can find out language facts and study on their
own without the need for a teacher to hold their hand.
This power can be encouraged by what we do
in class. We can offer learner training. We can make sure that when students
are studying vocabulary, for example, we don't just tell them what words mean
or how they work. Instead, we get them to look for the information themselves,
perhaps using dictionaries, computer concordances or search engines such as
Google. When students do it for themselves, then they have agency.
Horses and orchestras
There is one problem with giving students
power and offering them agency, best summed up by the old saying 'You can lead
a horse to the water,but you can't make it drink'. Some students are eager to
have agency, but others are not. It is possible, too, that the idea of agency I
have been describing is so culturally loaded that it won't suit some learning
environments as well as others. Perhaps, then, the orchestra metaphor I offered
earlier is not as useful as it seemed at first: not everyone wants to be a
player after all. Some would be happier to listen, and it would be foolish to
suggest that they were in some way poorer as a result. In other words, it is
possible that trying to insist on agency is a form of sociocultural imposition
and we have no right to do it.
Participation
Yet, while it may be wrong of us to impose
autonomy on learners, it is surely not wrong to try to get students to have
agency or, at the very least, to participate fully instead of being passive and
disengaged. William Littlewood describes those who offer little or no
participation in groupwork as 'social loafers', and he proposes various
techniques to counter this. One of these is to ask the students to number each
other without telling the teacher; when the teacher asks a 'number' for
feedback, the choice is random, all students run the same risk of being asked,
and 'loafing' is, therefore, less attractive.
Story circle
I am persuaded by activities that seem to
ensure mandatory participation. In a story circle, for example, students in
groups all start with a piece or paper on which the first line of a story is
written (or dictated by the teacher). They then, after some encouragement from
the teacher, write the second sentence of the story before passing the paper to
the person next to them. That person writes the next sentence, and then the
papers are passed on again. Finally, when the students get their original piece
of paper back, they write the conclusion. The stories are sometimes funny,
usually a bit disjointed and often have mistakes to be worked on later. But the
point of the activity is that everyone, even the would-be loafers, has had to
take part.
Jigsaw reading
In the same way, jigsaw reading (where
three students read three different texts and have to share information about
what they have read in order to get the 'whole story') provokes mandatory
participation. And such participation is the beginning of agency.
A coursebook cannot, of course, give
students agency, nor can it create autonomous students. Only the teacher and
the students working together (with the book) can do that. But, as I hope I
have shown, we can devise activities (from dialogues, through to reflection and
dictionary training) which help to provoke student agency. However, we must
never forget that it is, in the end, up to the students to decide how much
responsibility they want to take. We cannot impose autonomy on them. We need
not be depressed, though! Many students do, increasingly, take more and more
responsibility for how they learn, and even those who don't, can't or won't can
be involved in activities that ensure their participation so that they are, at
least, engaged, rather than just loafing around!
This article is in the current issue of
English Teaching Professional Magazine, the world´s leading publication for English Teachers (ETp, issue 42, January
2006). To subscribe tap into www.modernenglishteaching.com or to ask for information send an
e-mail to mep@wallaceconsulting.com.ar
© ETp 2006
------------------------------------------------------------------------
3.- CREARÁN
Diario Hoy de
Crean
En marzo, el Ejecutivo enviará el proyecto a
La provincia de Buenos Aires creará su propia Universidad Pedagógica. Con este
proyecto, que ingresará en marzo a
El secretario de
Educación Superior bonaerense, Luciano Sanguinetti, detalló a Hoy en exclusiva
cómo es el proyecto para crear una nueva Universidad provincial. Esta casa de
altos estudios ofrecerá diferentes carreras para el magisterio. En marzo de
2007 comenzará a funcionar con una inversión inicial del tesoro provincial del
orden de los 20 millones de pesos, según las estimaciones.
"Esa universidad desarrollará carreras de grado, especializaciones,
otorgará post-títulos, maestrías y doctorados, porque queremos jerarquizar la
formación de los docentes", indicó Sanguinetti.
El rectorado funcionará en Florencio Varela, en un predio que pertenece a
Para implementar esa modalidad "descentralizada",
El Ejecutivo enviará el proyecto a
Las autoridades trabajan aún en el prediseño de la propuesta académica. Entre
los cursos que dictaría
"La formación docente debe abrirse a nuevos campos y nuevas problemáticas
académicas y pedagógicas", concluyó Sanguinetti.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
4.- FAAPI
Our
dear SHARER and friend Nora Séculi, President of AprIR proudly announces:
Federación Argentina de Asociaciones de Profesores de
Inglés
Asociación de Profesores de Inglés de Rosario
2006 FAAPI
Conference in
Multiple
Literacies - Beyond the Four Skills
APrIR invites you to attend and participate in the
remarkable professional experience afforded by the XXXI FAAPI Conference to be
held in Rosario on 21, 22 & 23 September, 2006.
Call For
Papers : Find all relevant info at the APrIR Website: www.aprir.org.ar
Guidelines
for Submitting Proposals, Theme and Thematic Areas, Type of Presentation and
Presenter's Form. Submission Deadline:
May 15th, 2006
Those
of you who feel the need to participate more fully, to share experiences,
ideas
and the results of research, are strongly encouraged to respond
to
the Conference Call for Papers. Write a paper, prepare a presentation ...
different possibilities are open. Consult the corresponding guidelines and set
to work !!
The
APrIR Office:
Phone/Fax:
(0054 341) 447 5636
E-mail:
APrIR@ciudad.com.ar / aprir@aprir.org.ar - Website: www.aprir.org.ar
------------------------------------------------------------------------
5.- URUTESOL NATIONAL CONVENTION 2006
Our dear SHARERS from URUTESOL have sent us this announcement:
The
Board of URUTESOL is pleased to announce the URUTESOL NATIONAL Convention to be
held in
Proposals
are invited for papers , poster sessions,
workshops and colloquia in topics related to the development of the
teaching of English as a foreign language
Deadline
for the presentation of proposals: March 31st , 2006
Proposals
should include the following:
The
Proposal Submission form including all the information requested in it
A
400- word description of their presentation to be assessed by the URUTESOL
Presentation Committee.
A
50-word biographical statement to be included in the program book.
A
50-word description of the presentation
to be included in the program book.
Further
information: jalarrin@adinet.com.uy
and urutesol@hotmail.com
-----------------------------------------------------------
6.- TERCERAS
JORNADAS INTERNACIONALES DEL NOROESTE ARGENTINO
Our dear
SHARER Estela Caramutti from Instituto de Enseñanza
Estamos orgullosos de
anunciar las Terceras Jornadas Internacionales del NOA para
Profesores de Inglés que se realizarán en la ciudad de San Miguel
del Tucumán los días 8, 9 y 10 de junio de 2006. El objetivo de estas jornadas
es ofrecer 3 días de actividades de perfeccionamiento docente orientadas a
la enseñanza del Inglés.
Estas jornadas pueden ser una buena oportunidad para
compartir experiencias y
conocimientos con nuestros
colegas.
Los interesados en participar deberán enviar previamente
un resumen del trabajo, el que será sometido a un comité de lectura ad-hoc, que
determinará su aceptación, corrección o no aceptación. Esta invitación está
abierta a todos los profesionales en el campo de ELT que estén deseosos de
presentar conferencias, talleres o
ponencias.
Se recibirán propuestas para los siguientes ejes
temáticos:
* Evaluación.
* Investigación.
* Cultura y Literatura (como contenidos transversales)
Criterios de Selección de los trabajos:
El Comité de
lectura evaluará todos los resúmenes y
seleccionará aquellos que:
a. sean originales.
b. tengan
relación directa con los ejes temáticos.
c. tengan una organización clara y precisa.
d. garanticen al Comité que el disertante tiene
experiencia en el tema propuesto.
e. no se usen,
promuevan o vendan productos o servicios del disertante u otros sin
previo acuerdo con las autoridades del I.E.S. "Lola Mora.
Resúmenes
En el resumen se incluirán los datos que se
especifican a continuación:
* Título del trabajo (en mayúscula y centrado)
* Alineados a la izquierda:
* Autor/es.
* Título Profesional
* Institución a la que pertenece.
* Eje temático del trabajo propuesto.
* Palabras clave
* Dirección postal y electrónica.
El cuerpo del resumen deberá ser suficientemente
informativo como para ser juzgado críticamente y contendrá párrafos concisos
sobre:
a) Definición del tema que se aborda y objetivos del
trabajo.
b) Método de abordaje
c) Conclusiones.
d) Extensión: de
e) En Procesador Word para Windows o en formato RTF.
f) Tipo de letra: Arial, tamaño 12.
g) Interlineado 1,5.
h) Con espacio interpárrafo
Presentaciones
Las conferencias tendrán una duración de 60 minutos
seguidos de 5 minutos para discusión.
Los talleres tendrán un duración de 90 minutos.
Las ponencias tendrán una duración de 20 minutos
seguidos de 10 minutos para preguntas.
Las conferencias y ponencias deberán estar
principalmente centradas en el expositor. Sin embargo, se sugiere a los expositores incluir e
involucrar activamente a los participantes, mientras presenta el tema
propuesto.
Por esta razón desalentamos la lectura de las
propuestas.
Condiciones de los trabajos completos una vez
aceptados:
* Título del trabajo centrado y datos personales e
institucionales alineados a la izquierda (como en el resumen).
* Extensión máxima de 8 páginas, sin incluir notas y
bibliografía, las que se colocarán al final.
* Formato de la hoja tipo A 4.
* Interlineado 1,5.
* Tipo de letra Arial tamaño 12.
* Procesador Word para Windows o en formato RTF.
* No numerar las páginas,
* Evitar macros
* Dirección electrónica.
* Incluir handouts.
Antes de someter su propuesta, por favor lea las notas
que siguen:
* Si su propuesta es aceptada deberá ser presentarla
en las Jornadas, caso contrario no se emitirá ninguna certificación.
* Si el
disertante pertenece a alguna organización o promueve programas, productos o
servicios, deberá acordar con las autoridades del Instituto de Enseñanza
Superior "Lola Mora" los términos de su presentación.
* Una vez aceptada la propuesta ésta no podrá ser
modificada significativamente.
* El Comité de Organización no puede garantizar un
mínimo/ máximo de participantes registrados en cualquier presentación, ni puede limitar el número de participantes
en cualquier disertación.
* Una vez aceptada la propuesta, los disertantes
tendrán que presentar un handout de actividades.
* Los handouts deberán incluir sólo actividades
prácticas o información que los participantes deban tener en la presentación
(no la teoría ) y con 5 (cinco) páginas como máximo.
* El IES "Lola Mora" podrá modificar la
fecha del evento por razones técnicas o de fuerza mayor.
* Todos los
disertantes deberán enviar un Formulario de
inscripción antes del 31 de marzo de 2006
* El IES "Lola Mora" no abona honorarios ni
reembolsa gastos.
Aranceles
Hasta el 31/03/06 A partir del 03/04/06
Expositores:
$ 70.- $ 100.-
Asistentes: $
70.- $ 100.-
Estudiantes-asistentes: $ 40.- $
50.-
Cabe aclarar que el arancel es por participante e
incluye el material.
------------------------------------------------------------
7.- RESOURCEFUL
TEACHING AND NLP FOR EDUCATION
Our dear SHARER
Jamie Duncan has sent us this message:
RT
Resourceful Teaching 2006
Laura
Szmuch and Jamie Duncan as Resourceful Teaching (RT) have been training
teachers in Neuro Linguistic Programming since 1998. Based in
We
also offer a wide range of other trainings which include the intensive RT Week
of workshops in February to the famous Spa for the Soul. We have a wide range of workshops for teachers and students, the
titles of which can be found in our website, and we also provide
consultancy services. In 2004, we held our first on-line course for
teachers at the Net-Learning campus and have continued to run courses since
then. In these eight years, in our
courses in
We
are proud to see how teachers in general are becoming increasingly aware of the
need to reach the 'whole' student and every member of the class and that the
courses we offer is one means of equipping teachers with the skills to do
this. It is gratifying to know that the
teachers who have attended our courses have taken their learning back to their
classrooms, schools, institutes and universities and have used and adapted
their resources and knowledge to make their lessons and environment more
successful in so many different ways. We
also notice how they and other teachers are becoming increasingly interested in
learning about how the brain and the mind work, how people communicate and what
motivates students to learn so that they can be more effective in reaching all
their students. This has led them to search for more information on the area we
work in and we have responded to this with an increasing array of
material. Some of this can be found in
the form of articles on our website: www.resourcefulteaching.com.ar We also issue a regular free e-magazine
called RT News which contains articles about teaching resourcefully, the use of
NLP techniques and reviews of books and materials. Another area we have focused on has been in
writing books on issues relating to smarter learning and teaching. Our books,
Aprendiendo inglés y disfrutando el proceso and Passionfruit both give ideas of
what NLP can offer the learning process in the form of tips and advice for
students and teachers and lesson ideas for teachers which show how the RT
approach can reap rewards in the classroom.
This
year we will be continuing to develop with workshops and materials in Spanish
and we are looking forward to producing more publications later in the
year. We also plan to expand our online
profile in the near future. Do drop by and see our comprehensive website and if
you would like any further information, please feel free to contact us at rtcourses@resourcefulteaching.com.ar
Hope
to see you at one of our workshops or courses.
Jamie
and Laura
NB Free talk!!! Saturday 18 March 2006, 10.00 -
12.00 Versalles, Capital Federal
Find
out more about Neuro Linguistic Programming, its application to education and
the Resourceful Teaching approach to teaching and learning. Get information about the Practitioner
Certificate in NLP for Education.
Please
register Laura Szmuch: Lauraszmuch@aol.com
,
or
Jamie Duncan jamie@resourcefulteaching.com.ar
or
rtcourses@resourcefulteaching.com.ar
Phone
enquiries to (011 4641-9068)
------------------------------------------------------------
8.- MAESTRÍA EN ANÁLISIS DEL DISCURSO
DE
BUENOS AIRES
El arte moderno como
sistema autopoiético, Sujetos de lenguas y discursividad en confrontación; El
ensayo latinoamericano en el siglo XX, Introducción a la intermedialidad: el
discurso de los medios en la literatura moderna, Introducción al Análisis del Discurso,
Léxico y Discurso, entre otros.
Informes al tel.
4432-0606 Int. 105/ 4433-5925.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
9.- JORNADAS DE PRÁCTICA Y RESIDENCIA
DOCENTE 2006
Our
dear SHARER Dora Buffano has sent us this invitation:
JORNADAS DE PRÁCTICA Y RESIDENCIA DOCENTE 2006
Fecha de realización: 18, 19 y 20 de mayo de 2006
Lugar: Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Pcia. de Córdoba
Organizan: los Institutos de Formación Docente de
Destinatarios: Profesores vinculados a propuestas de Prácticas y
Residencias de universidades y de institutos de formación docente.
Requisitos para la presentación de trabajos:
La presentación de los trabajos estará antecedida por un Abstract de 200
palabras como máximo, que deberá ser remitido hasta el 3 (tres) de Marzo de
2006.
Los Trabajos definitivos no podrán exceder las 10 hojas, incluyendo tanto
bibliografía como posibles esquemas, cuadros, imágenes, etc. El mismo será
sometido a la evaluación del Comité Académico para su aceptación, y deberá ser
remitido hasta el 3 (tres) de Abril de 2006.
Los Abstracts y trabajos deberán estar encabezados por: datos del autor
(nombre e institución que representa); comisión / eje temático donde desea
inscribir su trabajo (conforme a su contenido) y título del trabajo.
El formato a observar es el siguiente: Word 6.0/7.0 ó RTF, Times New Roman
12, interlineado 1,5, tamaño A4.
La presentación de ponencias aprobadas en el marco de las Jornadas
dispondrá de un tiempo límite de exposición de 15 minutos.
Los trabajos deberán ser remitidos por correo postal (dos copias impresas
de abstracts y ponencias, y diskette rotulado con nombre, apellido y título del
trabajo) a la siguiente dirección: Facultad de Filosofía y Humanidades, Escuela
de Ciencias de
Informes e inscripción: Escuela de Ciencias de
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
10.- NUEVA MAESTRÍA DE
Our dear
SHARER Mirta Castedo from UNLP has sent us this information:
Especialización y
Maestría en Escritura y Alfabetización
Universidad Nacional de
Facultad
Secretaría
Carreras de Especialización y Maestría Escritura y Alfabetización
Modalidad
semipresencial
Primera cohorte: 2006/2007
Informes y preinscripción: mailto:deptoce_posgrado@fahce.unlp.edu.ar"deptoce_posgrado@fahce.unlp.edu.ar
Títulos a otorgar
Especialista en Escritura y Alfabetización
Magíster en Escritura y Alfabetización
Inicio de actividades: marzo de 2006
Estructura curricular
Comparten los seminarios obligatorios y optativos.
tesis.
Especialización
Duración total: 27 meses
* 275 hs. de seminarios obligatorios y optativos.
* 125 hs. de trabajo de campo
* Trabajo final de integración
Maestría
Duración total: 30 meses.
* 400 hs. de seminarios obligatorios y optativos
* 190 hs. de seminario de metodología y taller de tesis
* Tesis
Coordinadora
Dra. Mirta Castedo
Comité Asesor
Dra. Graciela Goldchuk, Mg. Carina Kaplan, Dra. Myriam
Southwell, Mg. Alicia Villa, Lic.
María Dapino
Cuerpo de profesores
Seminarios obligatorios
Dra. Gloria Chicote, Argentina, Dra. Emilia Ferreiro, México, Dr. Bernard
Lahire, Francia , Lic. Delia Lerner, Argentina, Dra. Telma Weisz, Brasil,
Seminarios optativos,
talleres y seminario de tesis
Argentina
Lic. Diego Aguiar, Dra. Paula Carlino, Dra. Andrea Cucatto, Prof. Ruben
Cucuzza,
Dr. José Luis de Diego,
Lic. Guillermina D´Onofrio,Dra. Graciela Goldchuk, Dra. Luisa Granato, Mg.
Carina Kaplan, Lic. Ana Maria Kaufman, Mg. Maria del Carmen Malbrán,
Lic. Sandra Miguel, Prof. Claudia Molinari, Dr. Juan Ignacio Piovani ,Lic.
Maria Elena Rodríguez. Lic.
Cecilia Rozemblum,Dra. Myriam Southwell,Lic. Sebastián Varela
Mg. Alicia Villa,Lic. Miguel Wiñazki
España : Dra. Anna Camps
Brasil : Dr. Antonio Augusto Gomes Batista
Italia : Dra. Lilia Teruggi
México : Mg. Graciela Quinteros, Dra. Celia Zamudio
Tutoras: María Dapino, Cinthia Waingort
Moderadora: Mercedes Martín
Aranceles:
Especialización
Categoría A $ 3300, Categoría B $ 2700, Categoría C $ 1980
Maestría
Categoría A $ 4250, Categoría B $ 3400, Categoría C $ 2550
Adriana, si enviaste
mensaje a la facultad
(deptoce_posgrado@fahce.unlp.edu.ar), no recibiste respuesta porque,
efectivamente, están de vacaciones hasta febrero. Pero yo ando por acá y
te puedo responder lo que necesites, mientras. Podés escribirme a mi
mail mirror@netverk.com.ar . Gracias por tu interés.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
11.- NEWS FROM E-TEACHING ONLINE
Our
dear SHARER Alicia Lopez Oyhenart has sent us this invitation:
1.-
TRAIN FOR THE NEW GENERATION TOEFL(r)
IBT
A
two-hour workshop where:
* the characteristics of this new ETS exam
will be analysed,
* the new sections explored,
* samples
exhibited,
* ideas as to how to proceed discussed, and
* teaching material and resources available
shown.
Lecturer: Alicia López Oyhenart
An
ISP JVGonzález graduate, is an experienced teacher trainer with a post graduate
degree at
Apart
from other International exams, she has been teaching Toefl since 1982 and delivered
lectures on Toefl preparation and teaching since 1999 with constant audiences
all over the country.
Date
: March 11 -9.30 am
Venue:
Contact:
4782- 2582 or eteachingonline@ciudad.com.ar to know more
2.-
E-teachingonline
Issue # 36 will be on the Internet in March with updated material:
-In
Movies find great activities on Pride and Prejudice,
-A
Sports Visual Dictionary serves as background
for a Teen activity.
-
"You´re Beautiful" and Grammy songs and activities for Adults and Teens.
-
Explore English learning podcasts. What is a podcast anyway?
-
Cool photocopiable material for teachers useful all year long.
-
Suitable resources in Book World: what´s brand new!
-
Tongue twisters, back2school icebreakers , web quests for computer work,
business logistics vocabulary and all the oodles of activities and lesson plans
for Pre school, Kids, Teens, Adults and Business students that teachers are
already familiar with.
Click
into www.e-teachingonline.com.ar and see it for yourself.
-----------------------------------------------------------
12.- MARIO
RINVOLUCRI IN ARGENTINA AND URUGUAY
Our dear
SHARER Betty Wolff announces the Humanistic Language Teaching Conference Tour which SHARE has the
pleasure to sponsor:
Humanistic
Language Teaching Conference Tour
May 2006
24/25 Neuquen
25/26 Buenos Aires
26/27 Mar del Plata
27/28
Organised
by www.eltevents.com.ar
In
May take a couple of days off teaching to analyse, understand,
reflect and make your teaching practice more humanistic! A time for
yourself, a time you deserve
Welcome
Mr Mario Rinvolucri!!!
An
unforgettable chance to meet...
One
of the most profuse writers for: OUP
- Pearson - CUP -Heinemann - and other publishers!. A regular key note speaker
at conferences all over the world
A
regular writer of articles in the most
renowned publications and websites :
And
more! In 1999 Mario became the founding editor of the Humanising Language Teaching, to be found
at www.pilgrims.co.uk/hlt and is a
frequent contributor to The Teacher Trainer , www.tttjournal.co.uk
Guest
speakers for the tour: Susan Hilliard - Laura Szhmuch- Jamie Duncan -Gustavo
Paz - Ricardo Cavallini - Jason West
Under
the auspices of :
Universidad Tecnológica Nacional- Licenciatura en Lengua Inglesa INSPT
UADE
UCEL
Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata
Universidad Nacional del Comahue
Dickens
Institute (
SHARE
e-magazine
An
incredible social programme promised!
For
more information :
http://www.eltevents.com.ar/docs/mario.htm TEL: (011) 4481 2555
Developed
by BEW NETWORK
Supported
by ECL Tests, OUP,English & Fun and Modern English Publishing
------------------------------------------------------------
13.- ONLINE COURSES FOR
TEACHERS OF ENGLISH
Our
dear SHARER Susana Trabaldo from Net-Learning announces their new
courses for the ELT professional:
Course:
From Creative Learning To Creative Teaching
Starting
date: March 14th - Duration: 6 weeks
Further
information: http://www.net-learning.com.ar/cursos/clct.htm
Fee:
AR$ 210 (
Discount
on early enrolment: 10% (till MARCH 7)
Certified By Asociación De Ex Alumnos Del Lenguas Vivas
Course:
Multisensory Teaching And Learning (VAK) with NLP
Tutors:
Jaime Duncan and Laura Szmuch
Starting
date: March 22nd - Duration: 5 weeks
Further
information: http://www.net-learning.com.ar/cursos/nlp-vak.htm
Fee:
AR$ 190 (
Discount
on early enrolment: 10% (till MARCH 15)
Certified By Asociación De Ex Alumnos Del Lenguas Vivas
------------------------------------------------------------------------
14.- ERRATUM
Our dear SHARER Bethina Viale writes to us with
reference to the article “El Origen de
Dear Omar,
Thanks a lot for including my e-mail in Share. I was really thrilled when I read it. However, I didn't write the article, it was sent to me by a dear friend, Claudia Saldaño, also a teacher of English.
Please, I don't want to take credit for something I only forwarded. Could you explain this in the next Share?
Lots of love,
Bethina
-------------------------------------------------------------
15- NEW EXAMINING BOARD IN THE SOUTHERN CONE
Our
dear SHARER Dr László Háry from the ECL Consortium has written to us:
Estimados Sharers:
Nos es grato presentarles al nuevo representante en Sud America del
European Consortium for the Certifícate of Attainment in Modern Languages
(ECL), el Sr. Fabian Alejandro Wallace quien a partir de ahora tendrá como
función la operatoria de nuestra institución en el cono sur.
Nuestra Organización , que en
2006 hace pie en los países de América del Sur, tiene como objetivos
primordiales la difusión y la estandarización de las lenguas oficiales de
En una primera fase,
designaremos centros Nacionales, Regionales y Preparatorios, como sede de los exámenes internacionales de
habilidades lingüísticas en los niveles A2-B1-B2-C1 del Common European
Framework en 10 lenguas de
Nuestro consorcio tiene su origen en los proyectos de Erasmus y Lingua-D,
de
Descontando Uds. entenderán la importancia de nuestra labor educativa y la
implicancia cultural que ella tiene para preservar la identidad de los pueblos,
los saluda muy atte,
László Háry PhD
Head
of the ECL Consortium
Tel.:
+36 72 501-500/2104 * Fax: +36 72 251-929
http://inyt.pte.hu * www.ecl-test.com
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16.- UNIVERSITY LECTURERS NEEDED IN PERÚ
Facultad De Educación
Especialidad de Idioma Extranjero - Inglés y Francés
Universidad de prestigio requiere
docentes con experiencia universitaria para formar parte del equipo de
profesionales de la nueva especialidad de Idioma extranjero.
DOCENTES UNIVERSITARIOS de Inglés y Francés para el dictado de los cursos
de:
1. Habilidades audio orales C1-HAO
2. Habilidades lecto escritas C2-HLE
3. Preparación para exámenes
internacionales C3-PEI
4. Gramática intermedia C4-GI
5. Gramática avanzada C5-GA
6. Taller de conversación C6-TC
LINGÜISTAS para el dictado de los cursos relacionados a las lenguas
extranjeras:
7. Fonética y fonología
Francesa C7-FFF
8. Semántica inglesa C8-SI
9. Morfsintaxis inglesa C9-MI
10. Lingüística aplicada C10-LA
11. Semántica Francesa C11-SF
12. Morfsintaxis Francesa C12-MF
REQUISITO:
Título profesional de entidad educativa de prestigio
Experiencia mínima de
Comprobada experiencia en la docencia universitaria
Indispensable manejo del idioma (native speaker or equivalent)
Estudios de postgrado
Personalidad de servicio y dinámica
creativa
Se ofrecen espacios de desarrollo
para proyectos educativos direccionados al idioma.
Presentar currículo vitae con foto hasta el 01 de marzo sólo al correo
facultadeducación-idiomas@universia.edu.pe indicando el código al cual postula y el
idioma.
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Today we
would like to finish this issue of SHARE with this “enlightening” quotation:
Life is a foreign language; all men mispronounce
it. -Christopher Morley,
writer (1890-1957)
HAVE A
WONDERFUL WEEK
Omar and
Marina.
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