Suggestopedia and presentations

 Hi and welcome back to a new entry.

Today I’m happy to share what I learned on February 20^th and February 22^nd.

First, on February 20^th we listened to a recap about the Total Physical Response method( TPR) and we learned that this method works better with young learners and very young learners, additionally, in this method is easy to use some “chunks” such as: Clapping hands, jumping, shaking hands, greetings, etc., also it is good to teach greetings(hi, bye), short commandments(open the door, close the window, etc.).

When it comes to SWOT analysis, we learned the following:

S: Good for young learners, breaks the ice.

W: Lots of distractions, difficult for shy people.

O: Good to reach vocabulary and easy to learn.

T: Too noisy, difficult to coordinate.

On the other hand, we learned the Desuggestopedia or Suggestopedia method. This method is about teaching languages through relaxation and a positive environment, in that way, students feel comfortable learning new things; For example, in the classroom teacher Orlando played two songs and while we were listening, we wrote the first thing that came to our mind, later we drew whatever we had in mind. This method was suggested in 1970 and its ideas come from yoga and psychology.

From my group’s perspective the SWOT analysis is the following:

S: Students get relaxed,

W: Extroverted students can get distracted.

O: stimulates creativity.

T:  Students could get bored

On February 22^nd we had an entertaining class because of our presentations about all the methods we had learned at that point.

Nathaly’s group talked about the Grammar translation method and their activity was a matching test on the board and they had volunteers to do it.

Andrea’s group explained the direct method, after that, they played a song and we tried to figure out the message of the song in English, then they gave us a page with the lyrics, and we had to fill out the blank spaces while we were listening to the song “Take on me” and for those who participated they had candies.

Celeste’s group talked about the audiolingual and I volunteered to participate in their activity which was about touching one part of our body when Celeste told us what part, but it was easy to get confused because we had to touch the part that she said, not the part she was touching.

💓

My group acted the Silent way and due to the topic, we decided to dress as mimes and say no words. The whole information was in our presentation, and we only acted as mimes, so all students had to pay attention and we gave jellies to those who participated.

Xochilt’s group explained the suggestopedia method and they gave us a fragment of a text and we had to fill out the blank spaces with the information that Xochilt read, they also played classic music while we were doing the activity.

This was a long week, but very entertaining.

Thanks so much for reading, see you!👋

Week 4- The silent way

Hi, I’m to have you on my blog again.

Today´s blog will discuss what we learned on February 13^th and 15^th.

On February 13^th we started learning more about some other drills that teachers can use when teaching languages, for example, teacher Orlando o brought a dice and asked the question “How do you feel today?” to some students and they had to answer based on their feelings and using the the face of the dice, so students answered “I feel happy/nervous/scared today”. After that, we made some translations in groups; teacher Orlando gave us the lyrics of a song (El breve espacio donde no estas by Pablo Milanes) in Spanish and a fragment of text from the book “Desiderata”.

On the other hand, we learned about “The Silent Way” which and has its origins in the early 1987. This method was created under three ideas: Discover rather than teaching, problem-solving in the target language, the use of physical tools; in order to understand those ideas, teacher Orlando told us about the technique of sound color chart, in simple words, it is about assigning a meaning to a color( number, a noun, or anything we want to teach),  and with that idea in mind, students can relate colors with sounds, but first, students have to get familiar with sounds, then students can remember words or rules by seeing a color.

On February 15^th, we practiced the silent way method, basically teacher Orlando gave us some rods so we could create a story with them, and at the same time we had to create a shape with the rod, in that way, we could associate colors with words. With my group, we tried to create the shape of a maquilishuat tree and an Izote flower, and our story was the following:

“Once upon a time there were 2 kids, Valentina and Jorguito, who were friends, their favorite activity was to play around a maquilishuat tree, one day Jorguito discovered he had a crush on Valentina, he started to write poems below the maquilishuat tree, to expresses his feelings for Valentina. When he had one hundred poems, he gave it to her in a beautiful book and their love bloomed like the Izote flower that was planted in their garden”.

On the other hand, we learned a little bit about the method of physical response (TPR) which was first presented by James Asher. In simple words, this method is about associating one movement with meanings, for example, touching a part of the body and saying the name of that part out loud.

Thank you so much for reading, I’ll see you later.

  

 

Week 3- Audiolingual method

                                 

Hello again and welcome to the third entry of my blog 😃

Today you’ll read about what we did on February 6^th and  8^th

First of all, on Tuesday 6^th we watched a video about the Grammar translation method and direct method. In simple words, this video explained that the Grammar translation method involves different techniques such as translating texts, filling blank spaces, using words in sentences, using synonyms and antonyms, and reading questions. On the other hand, the direct method involves a teacher using pictures, contextualization, yes and no questions, and paragraph writing. Basically, the Direct Method is deductive, and the grammar-translation method is inductive.

In addition, we learned about the audiolingual method which is also called “Army method” and “Listening and repeat method”. This method focuses on listening and speaking, additionally, it is about repetition and the teacher is the main source of input.

On February 8^th we kept learning about the “Audiolingual method” which has its origins during World War II and we learned about some of its techniques, strengths, weaknesses and opportunities.

                                     

Techniques that may apply: Repetition drill, question and answer drill, transformation drill

Strengths: pronunciation matters, simple to use, listening and speaking skills improve, memory is addressed, and error correction is important.

Weakness: Reading and writing are not emphasized as much as listening and speaking, “flat” method (not diverse), students may be discouraged.

Opportunities: Bring to class relevant topics to use in the drills, a good way to teach pronunciation, get to know classmates.

Threats: If the tutor models incorrect pronunciation, students might internalize it that way, if the teacher doesn’t provide feedback emphasizing the positive side, students' effective filter may be damaged.

                                   
                                   

At the end of the class, we made some examples about drilling. First, we made a circle, then the teacher introduced himself after each student had to introduce themselves and tell the names of the previous students. The last example was hilarious because some students, including me, had to tell the name of the fruit we liked the most and everyone had to repeat it after saying it, but the funniest part was everyone saying “ *The student’s name* se lava *Its favorite fruit* todos los dias”; at the end, everyone was laughing 😂

WEEK 2- ASAPROSAR

 

Hi, welcome to my blog, I’m honored to have you back.

As you know I was a volunteer interpreter for the visual campaign at ASAPROSAR, that’s why I didn’t attend classes, with that being said, I’ll share a little bit of my experience at ASAPROSAR during January 30^th and February 1^st.

On January 30^th I didn’t feel nervous anymore because I got used to my role as a consecutive interpreter. We started our working day at 8:00 am and I was assigned to “Historial”, in simple words this assignment was about interviewing patients and collecting their information about medical records, the reason for visit, eye diseases, symptoms, etc., additionally, I had to be kind and patient because many patients were nervous and some of had long stories. Besides working in “Historial”, I didn’t have more assignments during that day. when I had a break, I took some pictures of my classmates. At the end of the day, I just wanted to sleep because I was very exhausted, but I was glad to help those people and doctors.

            

February 1^st was the last day of the visual campaign and Tom who was in charge of the volunteer group, let us decide on our assignments, so I decided to be the interpreter for a doctor named Amy, because I liked the way she treated patients, however at the beginning of my assignment, I helped Doctor Pauline first because Doctor Amy was assigned to OR. Long story short, we had a busy day and even though I ended up exhausted, I felt grateful for everything.

At night, we had a party at and everyone enjoyed dancing Rock an Roll, Cumbias, and Disco. To be honest I didn’t want to leave the party, because I was having a great time, unfortunately, we were told we had to go back to ASAPROSAR before 11 pm, otherwise, the security guard would not let us in.

 

Overall, I had a rewarding experience that I will never forget. I was so blessed and thankful for such an amazing experience which allowed me to learn new things, practice my interpreting skills, help people, meet new people, and share good moments with my classmates.