Teaching Stategies

                                          Freepikpro

Traditional Teaching 

This involves a classroom aligned in the traditional manner with the teacher at the front, in front of a black or whiteboard or a slide projector screen.  The teacher is the only person speaking and explains the class matter content to the students, who are all facing him/her.  This has the disadvantage of being potentially boring, in which case the students will quickly lose interest and so concentration span, in the end not listening to the teacher or learning.

Participative Traditional Teaching

This is the previously mentioned traditional method, but involving the students to a far greater degree, requiring that they participate actively by means of answering questions previously prepared and formulated by the teacher. This method promotes learning by comprehension, creating the necessity to continue learning, and creates an environment of individual and cooperative work amongst the students and requires that the students take responsibility and protagonism in their learning.

Cooperative Learning

Cooperative learning is a method which organises activities within the classroom and converts them into a social and academic learning process.  The students are divided into small groups, for which the classroom is set out in a series of groups of circles of usually 4 tables and the activities are carried out collectively by the group.

This method depends upon the exchange of information amongst the members of the group, so also promoting social skills. The members are motived by individual achievements and those of the group. The groups should be as heterogeneous as possible and develop a group identity by mutual help, valuing each individual and creating synergy.  This promotes positive interdependence and the results of the group will finally be the consecuences of the individual investigation of the members. Once completed, the task is presented publically to the rest of the class.

Advantages include motivation, initiative, and implication, understanding the what, how and why of the task, increase in volume and quality of work, command of concepts, development of critical thinking, discussion strategies and developing social skills. Examples of Cooperative Learning are:

1. Learning based on Problem solving

Problem Based Learning (PBL) is an active learning method centred around the student, in which a group of students are given a real or fictitious problem or problematic situation to solve. This acts as a guide to the investigation and knowledge acquisition and allows the students to develop hypotheses to explain and identify the learning needs which will permit him/her to understand the problem and achieve the learning objectives set forth.

The objectives of this method of learning are to help students develop cognitive skills, such as analysis, argumentation, and interpersonal social skills such as communication and cooperation.

It is necessary for the teacher to be a tutor/guide in promoting collaboration in the group. The objective is not to solve the problem set forth, this is simply the medium by which the student acquires the objectives of the PBL teaching method.

2. Teaching by Projects

Project Based Learning (PBL) is a learning method which requires the students, divided into small groups, to plan, create and evaluate a project based on the needs of a particular situation in real life beyond the classroom. It requires interdisciplinary activities and bases learning on the student in the long term and not on short isolated classes.

There is not just one method of teaching by projects and on the whole, the method is far more interesting for students, who find the projects to be challenging and motivating because they form an active role in the complete process of choosing, planning and execution.

Constructivism considers learning to be the result of mental constructions, that is, children learn by constructing new ideas or concepts based on their present and previous knowledge.

Words, Dictionaries, Thesarus, Word Cloud

Dictionaries:-

I searched for the word "Economy":-

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, (OED):- The state of a country or region in terms of the production and consumption of goods and services and the supply of money.

According to Merriam-Webster:- the structure or conditions of economic life in a country, area, or period.

In Word Reference:- Economía

Word Reference is purely a translation dictionary, in this case between English and Spanish. Merriam-Webster gives a definition in the English language. OED gives the definition in a chosen language from amongst many languages.  My preference is that of the OED, not only because of the greater choices of language, but because fo the more formal definition.

In the Learner's Dictionary:- The process or system by which goods and services are produced, sold, and bought in a country or region.

The latter is a simpler definition, which would be of better use to students.

The Thesarus does not provide a definition for the word searched, but synonyms or antonyms.  Many options are offered and in order to chose the right ioption, I would suggest cross checking each one with a dictionary, so that we make sure we are using a word with the correct meaning or in the correct context.

In Corpora I searched the phrase "The world at large". Linguee not only offers uses of the phrase, but also the translation into Spanish, whereas the British National Corpus simply offers the use of the phrase in English examples.

All I consider to be of useful help.

Lingustic Exchanges in the Teaching of Initiation into Business and Entrepreneurial Culture in English as a Foreign Language

I have chosen the level of first to third grade of ESO (obligatory secondary education) and more specifically the third grade.  According to the levels of linguistic exchange specified I think that it will first be necessary to introduce concepts to the students.  I'm sure many of the terms will be familiar to them, however it is more than  probable that they will not be fully aware of the correct meaning of the terms, especially in the first grade, although they should be aware of most of them by third grade, but not to the level of the glossary prepared in the first task.

In terms of language the students are expected to be able to recognise the terminolgy specific to the subject and their school grade and use it correctly in written and oral activities and on a personal, academic, social or professional level.  However, this does not correspond with the A1 level of the foreign language used as the vehicle to teach the subject content. 

The advantage I can see with this subject asnd as I'm sure occurs in science based subjects, many of the terms are very similar, for example:
Economy - Economía
Salary - salario
Interest rate - tipo de interés

Of which there are many more examples, I'm sure we shall have the opportunity to experience more of these terms in following blogs.

Abracadabra and for my second entry .....!

The blogs we have been asked to visit are all related to education, languages, and ICT related to both the previous.

The first, http://ictsilviaartero.blogspot.com/, is used to establish the objectives for the use of English in infant education and how to use blogs and other ICT tools in the process. I find the outlay, practical and easy to follow.

The second, and actually my favorite of the 4, https://oupeltglobalblog.com/, Fun with Phonics by Charlotte Rance is set out more along the lines of a newspaper, with more technical content than the other blogs and aims to aide the teaching of English to secondary education students with practical teaching ideas and advice in the peculiarities of teaching English as a foreign language.

The third blog, http://clilforsuccess.blogspot.com/ explains bilingual teaching in schools and the blog itself is based on the use of videos. 

Finally, http://bibliopoemes.blogspot.com/ approaches poetry in teaching infants, and although I don´t think it would be directly useful for me, I think it would be for infant school teachers.  The layout of the blog is also more infantile in its design.

Here are 3 other examples of blogs that explain what a blog is:-

https://firstsiteguide.com/what-is-blog/

https://www.lifewire.com/what-is-a-blog-3476707

https://www.thebalancesmb.com/blogging-what-is-it-1794405

In my opinion, from previous experience and from the aforementioned material we have been asked to view, I think blogs can be a useful tool in teaching in many ways.  They can be used, as in the case of this course, for the handing in of coursework, for receiving feedback and to monitor the progress of a student in the given subject and at the same time in the use of ICT and perhaps more importantly, for encouraging student participation, which is often slow forthcoming in the classroom. As the contents of the blog are on public view, this can also encourage the student to maintain a standard of quality of publications.  Although at the same time, the whole process of learning to blog can be very time consuming and I think it is only fair that the students receive previous tuition in the classroom on the setup, design and other tools available, so as minimize the time they have to invest in the practicalities and can focus on the content to be published.  Another important point to be taken into consideration, especially when concerning secondary school students, is that set forth in the example of blogging policy in open lesson TS3 'Project Work Through Blogging' from Teaching Guidelines in the European Project LTE: Guidelines and Lesson Plans. This in itself can be used to teach and guide adolescents in communication in general in private and public media. 

Lets Get Started!

A brief introduction of myself, why I'm here and what I´d like to achieve.

I´m Janet, born and bred in the UK and have lived in Calp for longer then the Peñon d'Ifac can remember.

About 15 years ago now, I decided to return to further education completing Access to University for over 25´s and a degree in Economics at this, the University of Alicante. I have also, almost completed a Master´s course in Applied Economics, for which I still have to formulate the final dissertation.

Why did I choose to study Economics?  Well, basically I felt it was an area I knew very little about and because I wanted to know who the world "works".

Do I like it? Economics I love it, but as to how the world works, to tell you the truth, ..... not quite as much!

Why am I studying this particular course?  Because it's a requisite to teach in secondary education in this, the Valencian Community of Spain, which is what I would like to do.

Why would I like to teach?  The truth is I have some 30 years work experience, I am qualified, but I am also a woman and 55 years old.  Unfortunately, my job applications go virtually ignored, mainly, I believe, because of my age and so I feel pursuing work in the public sector is the best option for me.  Teaching, because I love the subject of economics, business, the entrepreneurial world and all that related and I think that the population lack information and education about the economy in general, something that governs a large part of our lives and so maybe I can contribute my grain of sand for youngsters to understand it a little better and be more prepared in the future for making their own  decisions throughout their adult life, financially and politically.

Like a large part of the population, I embrace new technologies and would find it hard to live without them.  I have a laptop computer, a tablet, and a smartphone.  I use the smartphone more and more in detriment of the use of the tablet, which I don´t touch anymore and the laptop I use mainly for tasks like this one.  I started using computers in 1990 when I did my first course, which then was in Msdos. I have had a computer at home since the year 2000, a tablet since approximately 2008 and my current smartphone for a year.  I do not have any knowledge of programming and would classify my IT abilities as good user level.  It is rare the day I do not use my smartphone for reading the press, emails, banking, and social media.

Thank you for your time.