Random thoughts
Today I was going to do modals in the past. You know, could have, should have + participle focussing on regrets. I started off with a quick personal story and asked about what they understood as "regret". We elicited a few ideas and then they asked about how to use the word regret, and I found myself explaining verb patters instead of modal auxiliaries. Bad class management or one more example of how interraleted things are in English? of how hard it is to teach certain things in isolation regret as a grammar word with a certain pattern and regret as a human feeling and how to talk about past events you are not happy about?
of how easily we can divert focus onto sth else because you can't learn x outside/without y when learners can already speak English and have been exposed to a lot of English and acquired bad habits ?
Then, this same class (two mums and two childless women) steered into giving advice. Great! modals! One of the mums asked for advice about her eldest daughter. But what happened was that advice was given but not a single modal verb used, no woulds, shoulds, or coulds...
It's true that I've left it drift this way today, intentionally, aware of what I was doing but to me, this shows that even if you insist on the uses of modals, try to create fairly authentic conversations in which they should try to use the target language, natural communication prevails , more than the willingness to learn. Therefore, what I teach feels a bit theoretical, to be understood more than to be used when spoken to, when they read. It's hard to deconstruct, to break word by word ways translation in front of fluent students (as opposed to accurate ones).
Showing posts with label aprender. Show all posts
Showing posts with label aprender. Show all posts
Thursday, 10 March 2016
Wednesday, 8 August 2012
Teaching adults with
More and more I become aware of how teaching English is changing as we teachers become increasingly aware of how confusing English is for students. Ok, no news but over the past few yearsI have found myself trying to help students gain an awareness of the fact that words in English (or any other language for that matter, i'd dare to say) don't necessarily have a one word equivalent or meaning but rather one or more translations into another language. The way I see it, looking at words as concepts or metaphors should be encouraged when possible.
It is true, however, that not all words lend themselves to this sort of interpretation but many do. Traditionally schools gave a translation of a word, taken as its only meaning, to students and learners only to find themselves confronted to the word in another context and causing confusion. The last decade there's been an emphasis on collocations, great, that was an improvement, and a more real English as opposed to textbook English. Real English is not easy to acquire in places where English is a foreign language with no contribution from the "system" to actually learn it and use it but it's what should be taught.
I have noticed that just like i have been doing, teachers in online videos teach words and collocations and expressions. I think it's the way to go. It doesn't ensure they'll learn and remember all the translations but I hope this will contribute to a more open-minded approach to vocabulary and lexis learning little by little.
The example I often give them is the word meet translated into Spanish: quedar, encontrarse, ir a recojer, conocer (a alguien - primera vez), satisfacer, cumplir, entre otros. And the Catalan/Spanish word "deixar/dejar": leave, let, stop ing, lend, borrow.
There is also the fact that every single adult who studies English in Spain nowadays has studied English in the past, with little success in most cases. This means we don't have to go through teaching English as if they know nothing, our role is to tackle the very well-identified problem areas in their language if necessary and help them retain, activate and create new words. By creating I mean word formation, which luckily for them, just happens to be just like they do in Spanish. Adding prefixes and suffixes to roots. Most are unaware of the potential language they can understand and produce once they develop an understanding and an awareness of this fact.
Again, the example I usually provide in Spanish is acto, actuar, actuación, actor, actriz, activo/a, activamente, acción, accionar, etc. They all have the same root. We should aim at developing their intuition to learn to create adjectives, for examples with lots of input.
So let's all teach the differences but also the similarities...their prejudices, their prior knowledge, often weak but there, force us to have to teach them a different way of looking at language, and teach them based on what they know, which makes teaching English in Spain different from teaching a new language from scratch.
It is true, however, that not all words lend themselves to this sort of interpretation but many do. Traditionally schools gave a translation of a word, taken as its only meaning, to students and learners only to find themselves confronted to the word in another context and causing confusion. The last decade there's been an emphasis on collocations, great, that was an improvement, and a more real English as opposed to textbook English. Real English is not easy to acquire in places where English is a foreign language with no contribution from the "system" to actually learn it and use it but it's what should be taught.
I have noticed that just like i have been doing, teachers in online videos teach words and collocations and expressions. I think it's the way to go. It doesn't ensure they'll learn and remember all the translations but I hope this will contribute to a more open-minded approach to vocabulary and lexis learning little by little.
The example I often give them is the word meet translated into Spanish: quedar, encontrarse, ir a recojer, conocer (a alguien - primera vez), satisfacer, cumplir, entre otros. And the Catalan/Spanish word "deixar/dejar": leave, let, stop ing, lend, borrow.
There is also the fact that every single adult who studies English in Spain nowadays has studied English in the past, with little success in most cases. This means we don't have to go through teaching English as if they know nothing, our role is to tackle the very well-identified problem areas in their language if necessary and help them retain, activate and create new words. By creating I mean word formation, which luckily for them, just happens to be just like they do in Spanish. Adding prefixes and suffixes to roots. Most are unaware of the potential language they can understand and produce once they develop an understanding and an awareness of this fact.
Again, the example I usually provide in Spanish is acto, actuar, actuación, actor, actriz, activo/a, activamente, acción, accionar, etc. They all have the same root. We should aim at developing their intuition to learn to create adjectives, for examples with lots of input.
So let's all teach the differences but also the similarities...their prejudices, their prior knowledge, often weak but there, force us to have to teach them a different way of looking at language, and teach them based on what they know, which makes teaching English in Spain different from teaching a new language from scratch.
Thursday, 25 November 2010
està incompletoooo!
Hay que dejar de estudiar y hablar palabra a palabra. Es mucho más rapido y a la vez parecereis más naturales si os aprendéis el vocabulario junto a otra/s palabras:
ejemplo: cuando aprendais que make significa hacer, aprendedlo con todo lo que podéis "make", make a call, make coffee, make a mistake, make a change, make a difference, make me do sth, I can't make it, etc
Otro ejemplo muy interesante es con el verbo meet. Yo lo que recomiendo que no os miréis las palabras como "una palabra, un significado" para los que no podéis evitar traducir. Una palabra se puede traducir de muchas maneras.
I first met him at a party a while ago but i started to get to know him better when we happened to be in the same English class. Now I have known Micheal for a few years and I can say that he’s a great guy to meet up with!
(First) meet somebody – se usa para describir la situacion en la que hablas con alguien por primera vez.
Get to know somebody – Start to become friends with someone, by speding time or doing things together, more personally.
Know someone – conoces (des del momento que os conocisteis/ hablastéis por primera vez a menudo). Sabes bastantes cosas de él, quizás hablais a menudo (no necesariamente), quizás soys compañeros de trabajo, amigos, ...)
Meet somebody – quedar con
I am meeting my friends for a drink at 7pm
I meet my friends on the weekend cos i work till late during weekdays
I first met Peter a few years ago. Since then, we've met a few times but we've never had the chance to get to know each other.
When i went to Romania, my friend met me at the station.
Know se traduce:.. (incompleto)
Know somebody- conocer
Know something- saber
Ojo! Meet tiene muchas traducciones segun lo que lleve detrás!
Tambien tenemos el meet sth, as oposed to meet somebody, como veíamos arriba.
Meet your deadlines, meet the need for... , meet the demand, meet my objectives, meet the target, meet the expectactions, meet the standards, etc....
Cumplir o satisfacer ....
Wednesday, 16 April 2008
feeding off companies
It's 8.30 am, I am already in the office checking out my emails. I am in early today because at 9 am we have this presentation skills workshop for the office staff, in the company I work for. Another training session! Again! Not that I am against whatsoever, but there are so many that it's becoming ridiculous.
Working has become a very competitive area of our lives. We compete for job places we'll complain about later which take long periods of recruitment processes. We compete with ourselves and other canditates to get this or that job and mantain it and be the best at it. The constant need to be brushing up and refreshing our skills in whatever job we are doing; learning new computer programmes which in theory speed things up has becoming a very energy and time demanding aspect of our daily lives if you really want to keep up with this constantly changing job market. But is this that cost- and time- effective? Does the time and effort we "put in" in this pay and actually improve our performance? Training courses which repeat the same old theories and communication strategies make it telling and retelling and rephrasing what we have been told and repeated a number of times in the past.
In a way, this so-called on-going education is part of this capitalist system we are in and can not scape from of creating jobs places and of companies feeding off other companies and feeding other companies at the same time, keeping the dynamics of economy moving and flowing. Recruitment agencies, training providers, experts in managing whatever area and/or problem you can stumble upon in an office, communication experts, stationary and serigraphers and a long list of jobs which very much depend on one another.
Yes, I am talking about office jobs. I am pretty sure that this also applies to a wide range of jobs from plumbers with new more ecofriendly central heatings and how to instal them and hairdressers and new techniques to dye or cut our hair and shop assistants to learn how to deal with difficult customers to managers and directors to learn how to cope with stress and all the new IT systems, the latest way to negociate and overcome culture clashes when dealing with say, foreing investors, etc.
That applied to teaching is basically down to the so-called teacher development courses to get new ideas, to welcome and embrace the use of technology, to learn from others' experiences, to overcome fears ...nothing new really, but now, lots of money flow with this.
We are all constantly learning how to operate new tools, items of technology from a simple DVD player to the latest more time efficient way of carrying out our tasks at work. It is the world we live in, constant taking in and some cashing in on it too.
Working has become a very competitive area of our lives. We compete for job places we'll complain about later which take long periods of recruitment processes. We compete with ourselves and other canditates to get this or that job and mantain it and be the best at it. The constant need to be brushing up and refreshing our skills in whatever job we are doing; learning new computer programmes which in theory speed things up has becoming a very energy and time demanding aspect of our daily lives if you really want to keep up with this constantly changing job market. But is this that cost- and time- effective? Does the time and effort we "put in" in this pay and actually improve our performance? Training courses which repeat the same old theories and communication strategies make it telling and retelling and rephrasing what we have been told and repeated a number of times in the past.
In a way, this so-called on-going education is part of this capitalist system we are in and can not scape from of creating jobs places and of companies feeding off other companies and feeding other companies at the same time, keeping the dynamics of economy moving and flowing. Recruitment agencies, training providers, experts in managing whatever area and/or problem you can stumble upon in an office, communication experts, stationary and serigraphers and a long list of jobs which very much depend on one another.
Yes, I am talking about office jobs. I am pretty sure that this also applies to a wide range of jobs from plumbers with new more ecofriendly central heatings and how to instal them and hairdressers and new techniques to dye or cut our hair and shop assistants to learn how to deal with difficult customers to managers and directors to learn how to cope with stress and all the new IT systems, the latest way to negociate and overcome culture clashes when dealing with say, foreing investors, etc.
That applied to teaching is basically down to the so-called teacher development courses to get new ideas, to welcome and embrace the use of technology, to learn from others' experiences, to overcome fears ...nothing new really, but now, lots of money flow with this.
We are all constantly learning how to operate new tools, items of technology from a simple DVD player to the latest more time efficient way of carrying out our tasks at work. It is the world we live in, constant taking in and some cashing in on it too.
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