Repositorio Institucional de Documentos

Master Degree in Education: English as a Foreign Language --- Modalidad A --- Liliana Morejón Cabañas (536328) Directora: María José Rodríguez-Maimón Master Dissertation: The Profession of Teaching English. 2013 - 2014 Liliana Morejón Cabañas (536328) 1 Table of Contents: 1. - Introduction …………………………………………………………………………………2 2. - Why to design a learning unit and propose the introduction of peer-assessment in the Obligatory Secondary Education? ……………………………………………………………...…………………6 2.1. - A learning unit design …………………………………………………...……………………………7 2.2. - Innovation proposal …………………………………………………...……………………………11 3. - Critical reflection: relation between the learning unit and the assessment proposal. …………………………………………………...……………………………15 4. - Conclusions and proposals to the future …………………………………………………...……………………………20 5. - Works and webs cited …………………………………………………...……………………………24 Annexes …………………………………………………...……………………………28 Master Dissertation: The Profession of Teaching English. 2013 - 2014 Liliana Morejón Cabañas (536328) 2 1. - Introduction. Experience is what man obtains from life, and the knowledge provided by this experience is what humans have transmitted to the descendants, centuries after centuries and decades after decades. This service of guidance is what has allowed our species to develop all its wisdom, progress and life improvement. All along the centuries, this vocation has obtained prestige and respect, considering that knowledge is what makes humans different from the rest of the living beings, and so more powerful and clever enough to change some natural rules for their own benefit. Three hundred years before Christ, the Greek philosopher Aristotle understood experience as the main source for humans’ acquisition of knowledge. He observed that men and women obtained information through the senses, and so, with perception and memorization humans developed their learning process. Nowadays, authors like Pavel Gregorić and Filip Grgić 1 (2009: 30) add rationality to experience, in order to explain our more complex process of obtaining information from the world that surrounds us. These facts only come to demonstrate the long life of this profession; at the same time that mankind has always been interested in knowing more about the world and more about the self process of obtaining information from that world. Teachers, linguists, philosophers and psychologists have worked together in the procedure of the analysis and examination of how humans’ brain works. Our history records a series of methods and techniques that have been carried out in the effort of finding the best way of teaching, in order to provide the learner a more pleasurable and effective experience when obtaining knowledge and developing new skills. That is the reason why still nowadays, at the height of the 21st century, scientists and educators keep investigating, proposing new strategies and procedures, and testing the results, so that teachers can adapt to the changes that society undergoes. I, as a future EFL 2 teacher, know that my profession is not just to transmit the knowledge I have obtained during previous years, but more than that, I will continue training myself, learning even more when guiding my students in their learning process. Along this course of preparation as a teacher of English, in the Máster Universitario en Profesorado de Educación Secundaria Obligatoria, Bachillerato, Formación Profesional y Enseñanzas de Idiomas, Artísticas y Deportivas in the University of Zaragoza, I have learnt that students are the most important figure in class, and if teachers 1 Information taken from http://pavel-gregoric.info/wp-admin/uploads/2009/04/gregoricgrgicon-empeiria.pdf. 2 Acronym of English as a Foreign Language. Master Dissertation: The Profession of Teaching English. 2013 - 2014 Liliana Morejón Cabañas (536328) 3 want learners to acquire knowledge, teachers may adapt materials and contents of the subject, always thinking in the best way in which learners could see themselves as the protagonists, at the same time that they enjoy and understand the subject matter. The educator as an untouchable and quasi-omniscient figure does not function anymore in this new century. The new Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) provide anyone, even our students, all kinds of data and educational tools that place the educator in a new level. Teachers become guides, sometimes advisors, and their main function is to be “a facilitator” who is “constantly trying out different alternatives” in the students’ process of “learning through doing” (Richards, 2006: 26). As the role of the teacher has been evolving until becoming an adept that needs to reflect on his or her own professional performance, at the same time that he or she needs to adapt to the reality of his or her class, I understood that in my case, as an EFL teacher: An approach to language pedagogy is not just a set of static principles “set in stone.” It is, in fact, a dynamic composite of energies within a teacher that changes (or should change, if one is a growing teacher) with continued experience in learning and teaching. There is far too much that we do not know collectively about this process, and there are far too many new research findings pouring in, to assume that a teacher can confidently assert that he or she knows everything that needs to be known about language and language learning. (Brown, 2002: 11). The author makes it clearer when he refers to a good teacher as a “growing teacher”; someone who does not stop learning at the same time that helps others to learn. For example, as I mentioned before the ICTs, it is really difficult to find nowadays an illiterate teacher in terms of technologies, at least in the use of the computer basic tools of searching and sharing information. However, it is also true that in this case I am referring to those teachers that live in countries without restrictions on the use of internet, and thus, teachers that have free access to computers and online networks. That is to say, as the new technologies emerged, teachers have had to assimilate how to make use of these machines, and they also have had to adapt this use to their subjects, with the intention of motivating and bringing new kinds or up-to-date challenges to their students. Teachers also have to be familiarized with some terms like “intrinsic motivation”, “method”, “psychological” or “pedagogical perspectives”, between others, because good teachers also need to be informed of the new discoveries and theories that expect to bring improvements to the teaching- Master Dissertation: The Profession of Teaching English. 2013 - 2014 Liliana Morejón Cabañas (536328) 4 learning experience. In this Master we paid a remarkable attention to motivation, and I can see now, that it is important the students’ motivation, as well as the “teachers’ enthusiasm” (Dörnyei, 2001) to do their work properly. When reading Brown (2002: 12), we understand the importance of “intrinsic” or internal, more than the “extrinsic” motivation (motivation that comes from external rewards). Brown says that “when behaviour stems from needs, wants, or desires within oneself, the behaviour itself has the potential to be selfrewarding […, and] administered rewards are [then] unnecessary.” If we, as teachers, love our profession, and work hard to make a good job, it is highly probable that we will obtain positive responses and better outcomes from our students. When we speak about a “method”, in order to mention other important term related to education, it is important to pay a close attention to its “psychological perspective”, as well as to its “pedagogical perspective” 3 . Paraphrasing what the document Pautas para la elaboración de la programación didáctica en la etapa de educación secundaria obligatoria (2013: 84) says, teachers may select or adapt methods, paying close attention to their students’ level, at the same time that they are provided with meaningful and constructive knowledge that favours communication and autonomous apprenticeship. Instructors should also encourage an affective atmosphere in class, and they have to adapt their procedures to the different abilities and learning skills. For the purpose of making proper adaptations, teachers should adopt a routine of reflective teaching, term that we could read in a Bailey, Curtis and Nunan’s article (2001: 37). They claim that there is “a key distinction […] between reflection-in-action (during our teaching) and reflection-on-action (before or after our teaching).” So, when the teacher is designing his or her lesson, he or she is reflecting on several aspects like the timing and sequence of activities, the appealing aspect of the topics, or the most appropriate materials that he or she may use in order to achieve the main purposes and objectives. This is reflectionon-action, and the other kind of reflection is not less important, as it is the kind of reflection that is adopted during years and years of work. The skill to answer to unexpected questions or improvise when the occasion requires it shows when a teacher is well trained, as he or she also dominates his or her subject. In these days, when we are living a “period of awakening”, according to Kumaravadivelu (2006: 59), many English teachers need to readjust their 3 Taken from Pautas para la elaboración de la programación didáctica en la etapa de educación secundaria obligatoria. (2013: 84). Master Dissertation: The Profession of Teaching English. 2013 - 2014 Liliana Morejón Cabañas (536328) 5 procedure of limiting their work to give their students grammatical rules and bilingual lists of vocabulary, seeing the coursebook contents as the main aim, when these contents are really no more than means to achieve the objectives and devices to develop the basic competences. 4 Brown (2002: 15) says it better when he declares that: Second language “treatments” may be thought of as […] sets of learning experiences, designed to target learner needs […]. For such treatments, the profession offers an extraordinarily large number of options. […], ranging from controlled (drills, dialogues, reading aloud, display questions/answers, etc.) […] to free (role-plays, problem solving, interviews, discussions, etc.) Consider as well an abundance of whole-class, group-work, and pair-work activities at our disposal. […]. It is the teacher’s task to carefully and deliberately choose among […] many options to formulate a pedagogical sequence of techniques in the classroom. Then, it is obvious that language learners need to develop the communicative competence through practical, realistic and useful activities, which will be supported by the promotion of a cooperative type of learning. In addition, “it is only by understanding the histories and lived experiences of language learners that the language teacher can create conditions that will facilitate social interaction both in the classroom and in the wider community, and help learners claim the right to speak. (Norton, 2000: 142).” 5 At this point, I summarize the following stages of my Master dissertation, which will focus on the attainments and shortcomings I experimented during my teaching practice periods in María Auxiliadora School. At the same time I will analyse the learning unit I planned to teach to secondary education students, reflecting on those aspects I accomplished favourably, and proposing new alternatives to the factors that we cannot consider as propitious for a well-structured English class. On the other hand, I would like to mention and inspect closely my proposal to introduce peerassessment in secondary education, defending the idea that when students are asked to assess partners, they are encouraged to reflect on their own process of learning, and it perhaps is a valuable step to students’ ultimate goal of learning to learn. In the end I will explain the direct connection that exists between that learning unit and the assessment proposal, since the first one precisely comes from the evaluation criteria established in our regional regulations (the 4 Translated from Pautas para la elaboración de la programación didáctica en la etapa de educación secundaria obligatoria. (2013: 2). 5 From Kumaravadivelu (2006: 71). Master Dissertation: The Profession of Teaching English. 2013 - 2014 Liliana Morejón Cabañas (536328) 6 Aragonese Curriculum 6 ), whereas the second one reflects on how successful the teaching-learning sequence was, drawing the circular movement of teaching, which starts and ends in the evaluation patterns. 2. - Why to design a learning unit and propose the introduction of peer-assessment in the Obligatory Secondary Education? In the University of Zaragoza, a Master has been designed in order to instruct and show how to teach more appropriately during this new information and knowledge society. The Master, which is taught during one course year, has a series of teachers and subjects that are thought to provide future teachers with a set of strategies that will be helpful and which will show to these future teachers the right authors to consult and the best approaches to follow when facing the constant challenges that go hand-in-hand with the education charge. Now that I am finishing this course, I cast my mind back to the first semester and I can gather some important authors like Bernal (2006), and his clear explanations of the official documents, published in Spain, with national and regional regulations. These documents are published to establish an order and unity between the multiple educative centres which are spread all along the Spanish geography. The author helps teachers to understand how schools should be structured and organized, and what the main aims are when elaborating the particular projects of a certain school. Teachers like David Gimeno Lanuza and Marta Gil Lacruz explained the importance of an active dialogue with our students, based on mutual respect and patience. It is also impossible to forget Pilar Teruel Melero and her recommended readings about important aspects like “flexibility”, “clarity” when explaining any point to our students, and the significance of positive feelings in class, between others. Some of the authors she showed us were Bisquerra (2012), Gardner (1983) and Rojas Marcos (2005). Other teachers were Javier Sarsa Garrido and Loreto Martín Ortega, who discussed themes like 6 ORDEN de 9 de mayo de 2007, del Departamento de Educación, Cultura y Deporte, por la que se aprueba el currículo de la Educación secundaria obligatoria y se autoriza su aplicación en los centros docentes de la Comunidad Autónoma de Aragón. (BOA 1/06/2007). Master Dissertation: The Profession of Teaching English. 2013 - 2014 Liliana Morejón Cabañas (536328) 7 “motivation”, “classroom climate” or the “Pygmalion Effect” 7 . And finally, in that first semester, Violeta Delgado Crespo was the responsible for introducing us to all the theory and history that surrounds the world of Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL). Our second semester focused completely on our specialty, which is English language. This period has moved around the main goals that were the study and the development of several skills and strategies to plan and design a learning unit; a unit that was implemented during the second teaching practice period. We also could observe the importance of evaluation and assessment procedure in the education process. Those are the main reasons why I have chosen the unit plan I designed for 3rd grade ESO students, and also my proposal to introduce peer-assessment when correcting writing assignments. I prefer to explain these two works in details, because they are the most useful pieces of the whole Master, in the sense that I have learnt much more with them, since they were the basis for my “learning through doing” 8 experience. In that way, perhaps these two works will help me in my future professional career, because it will consist precisely in the design and adaptation of the lessons I will teach. And, as I could see the importance of peer-assessment or self-assessment to promote students reflection on the most important aspects of the subject, learners may pay closer attention; and this kind of evaluation may bring about an improvement in the task of teaching learners how to study in a more appropriate way. In the following sections of my dissertation, then, I will describe the learning unit I conceived, and also the design of the assessment tools that appear in my evaluation proposal. 2.1. - A learning unit design: In our second semester, we, Master students, had to go to a school, and we had to teach a learning unit designed with our own ideas, trying to be original and enthusiast to generate an atmosphere of constant communication in class, and of course, communication in English. The vast majority of my colleagues could 7 Pygmalion Effect is a phenomenon described by Rosenthal and Jacobson (1968) which shows that “teacher expectations influence student performance. Positive expectations influence performance positively, and negative expectations influence performance negatively. ” (Taken from http://www.duq.edu/about/centers-and-institutes/center-for-teaching-excellence/teachingand-learning/pygmalion ): Seen in June 17th, 2014. 8 Expression taken from Richards (2006: 26). Master Dissertation: The Profession of Teaching English. 2013 - 2014 Liliana Morejón Cabañas (536328) 8 see that it is not so easy to make students speak English, and even more when they are not accustomed to a series of activities which promote speaking tasks and collaborative work. When I decided to start planning my learning unit, I got in contact with my mentor there in the school. Her name is Ana Mar Caballero, and the institute is María Auxiliadora School, a centre which is located in San José neighbourhood, in downtown Zaragoza. I, then, met her in order to know the contents I had to teach, and she gave me the coursebook she used to employ in her classes with students of 3rd grade of secondary education. In our Master classes, we were alerted not to use textbooks to the extent possible, because of the importance of looking for authentic materials that bring students closer to “real” English, and do not continue with the simplified contents of their books; simplified at least in its listening and reading exercises. However, I, as an inexperienced teacher, needed to take some contents from the students’ book 9 (Annexes 3 and 4), combined with materials and ideas I spotted in the worldwide network (Annexes 5 and 6). The importance of an ESL 10 teacher being able to make his or her own lessons is supported by Bailey (Bailey and Nunan, 1996) 11 justifications which are: 1. [To] serve the common good [: …] an issue raised by an individual student was thought to be worth pursuing because it would benefit the whole class. 2. Teach to the moment [: …] the teacher […] pursues an issue likely to be of particular interest to students at that moment. 3. Accommodate students’ learning styles [: …] the teacher decides to incorporate […] explicit grammar instruction[s] since the learners have a preference for this mode of grammar learning. 4. Promote students’ involvement [: …] the teacher […] gives students more time to work on an activity that they have shown a high degree of interest in. 5. Distribute the wealth [: …] the teacher keeps one student from dominating the class time to enable the whole class to benefit from a learning opportunity. 9 Howarth, P. and Reilly P. (2011) Interface 3. Student’s Book. Ed. Macmillan (Unit 9). 10 Understood as English as a Second Language. 11 From Richards, J. C. and Bohlke, D. (2011) Creating Effective Language Lessons. New York: Cambridge University Press. pp. 3-40. Master Dissertation: The Profession of Teaching English. 2013 - 2014 Liliana Morejón Cabañas (536328) 15 As we could not implement this proposal in our assigned schools due to timing factors and we had to carry it out with only two learners, we cannot assure that it would be effective within a classroom with many students. Unfortunately, this is the situation which we may encounter in a future. The fact that not only peer correction but also the assessment tools which have to be used were new for students, made this practise to be time consuming. Therefore, we believe it is a long process to be done efficiently. 3. – Critical reflection: relation between the learning unit and the assessment proposal. In my Master studies, I have seen a lot of new terms like “curriculum”, “syllabus”, “methodology”, “approach”, “learning strategies”, “intended learning outcomes”, “background knowledge”, “integrated skills” or “the monitor hypothesis” 16 , between many others. However, apart from taking most of them into account, there are a few which we consider as essential in any classroom, and more concretely in English classes. One of the ideas that I have kept as really important to learn English language, for example, is the promotion of what Kagan (1994) calls “cooperative learning” (CL). The reasons to use CL in EFL classes are as simple as it promotes communication between the participants. As Finney (2002: 69) states, “language is communication, and as teachers we must develop in our learners the ability to communicate effectively […]”. And she wonders: “But is it possible to teach a language within the four walls of a classroom?” I think the same as she does, it is not possible. That is the reason why we have to discover different alternatives which help students to learn how to learn, and we also have to awaken their curiosity to keep their thirst for keeping on learning. CL could give more opportunities of interaction, and in that way it helps to develop the so important communicative competence. My proposal of introducing peer-correction in secondary school classes follows Kagan’s ideas of making students more active figures in class. When we ask them to participate in the correction task, and we work to reach an agreement when setting students marks, they may feel more responsible when studying; and 16 The “monitor hypothesis” (Krashen 2013: 2) Master Dissertation: The Profession of Teaching English. 2013 - 2014 Liliana Morejón Cabañas (536328) 16 apart from that, they could see that as they study more and reflect on their mistakes, they will obtain much better results in their class-time outcomes, as well as in their exams. As in the peer-assessment method, the learning unit I designed for teaching in my practice period follows this cooperative dynamic of working in pairs, small groups or debating with the whole class (Annexe 13). Through some tasks I designed with communicative purposes, learners had to cooperate with others, and not just to work individually, filling gaps. The use of TBLT method in class is thought to make students to interact, through meaning exchange, to attain a goal 17 . As Kagan says, supported by Krashen’s ideas, this method reduces the affective filter, now that there is lower anxiety, students cooperate more, and do not compete, because there is more peer support and sense of belonging. Brown (2002: 16) advises the promotion of cooperative learning, and he impels: “Direct students to share their knowledge; play down competition among students; get your class to think of themselves as a team [and] do a considerable amount of small-group work.” He also relates the cooperative attitude with the assessment procedure: “[There is an] increased emphasis on ongoing assessment of students’ performance as a course progresses, or, what has commonly been called formative evaluation. With the advent of techniques for performance-based assessment, portfolio development, oral production inventories, cooperative student-student techniques, and other authentic testing rubrics, we are quickly developing the capacity to provide an ongoing program of assessment throughout a student’s course of study. (Brown, 2002: 17). When I recall the entire Master “journey”, I can see that when I started it, I had no idea of all the science that is hidden behind the profession of teaching. When I was a simple student, I thought teachers knew many things and they went to the class to repeat it all like a parrot. Now, at the end of the Master I can see that a good teacher is much more than a person who trains you in a particular ability. Behind teachers’ methods, there is a large group of investigators, psychologists and sociolinguists who want to analyse the complex teaching-learning-evaluation process, in order to innovate and bring as much progression as possible. I also remember that evaluation periods were seen as the worst part of the academic year, and still nowadays students do not see their mistakes as part of their learning system, as we have learned here in the Master. Richards (1984: 25) 18 states that: 17 Taken from http://coerll.utexas.edu/methods/modules/speaking/03/ : Seen in June 18th, 2014. 18 From Finney (2002). Master Dissertation: The Profession of Teaching English. 2013 - 2014 Liliana Morejón Cabañas (536328) 17 Our profession has evolved a considerable body of educational techniques […and] an approach may be crucial […] if we are to develop a more rigorous basis for our educational practices. I witnessed during my “practicum” sessions that there is still many aspects to improve in the English classes. The textbook and the workbook should be less used, because I consider that if we limit our possibilities to read a book and to fill the workbook, one never searches for new and better strategies. I support the idea that the textbook is useful sometimes, and some of its contents can serve as a basis for other kinds of activities. The teacher, in order to transmit passion and energy to his or her students, has to feel that love for the subjects he or she teaches, and he also must be an active and passionate worker if he or she wants learners to behave in that way. School teachers many times complain about the learners’ misbehaviour, but they are not aware of the fact that many times these behaviours are the result of our attitude towards pupils, and also a result of what we expect from them. That is the reason why we should be positive tutors, we have to trust our students, and they need to be given some opportunities of showing their own passions in class. Curriculums states several norms for us to follow, but at the same time they are so flexible and open, that they give instructors enough freedom to remodel contents and procedures, so that students can attain the expected knowledge. When I was in María Auxiliadora school teaching my lessons, I saw sometimes that students, instead of speaking English, prefer to speak almost all the time in their mother tongue, and I think that maybe they are not given enough opportunities to practice the target language. I listened, from other Master colleagues that their students were well prepared, and that their learners answered in English all the time. Thus, I could see the importance of being an active teacher, an up-to-date teacher, and an enthusiast professional, because the difference in learners’ attitude mainly depends on it. Third course secondary school students from one school and from the other have the same average capacities, but different teachers. It is our responsibility to build hard workers and successful future citizens. English is nowadays the most important global means of communication, now that it could be considered as the current lingua franca. Here, in Aragon, the legislative documents centre their attention in the role of the teacher when training students in order to provide them a series of competences to communicate with any person all on the world. Master Dissertation: The Profession of Teaching English. 2013 - 2014 Liliana Morejón Cabañas (536328) 18 The Aragonese Curriculum (AC) 19 states that English teachers may establish a core idea of teaching this second language centring the attention on the communicative competence. Students should be English speakers; this is the main aim when learning any language. So, learners learn properly when they acquire the intuition to understand the language in the interactive context. This regional document divides four blocks of general competences, which are: the morphosyntactic competence, the pragmatic competence, the procedural and the intercultural ones. These competences follow the sociolinguist Hymes concept of communicative competence (1972), which at the same time follows the Communicative Approach method that conceives language as a mere tool to achieve many other goals, more than learning grammar or lists of vocabulary. Hymes’s summarized them into the linguistic skills, pragmatic and sociolinguistic skills. The Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) 20 also considers these skills as the most important aspects when learning, or better to say ‘acquiring’ a language. The concept of ‘acquisition’ of a language, instead of ‘learning’ came in the 1980s with the comprehension-based approach developed by Krashen, the linguist who was influenced by Chomsky’s theory of the humans’ innate ability to acquire the mother tongue. Krashen (2013) says that we learn language when studying its rules and grammar, but the most important aspect is the acquisition of it, although we are always based on a subconscious ‘monitor’ 21 or ‘editor’ that tells us if we make a mistake when exposing language either orally or when writing. The AC also insists in the use of several and different sources, in which Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) play an important role. The new technologies are tremendously useful to find authentic articles, interviews and a series of documents that surely will motivate our students; always the teacher uses them properly. They also allow us to speak with people from other countries, and then practice the language in real contexts of communication. The general competences could be acquired thanks to a set of contents that must be seen as a means to communicate and never as an end in them, as I 19 ORDEN de 9 de mayo de 2007, del Departamento de Educación, Cultura y Deporte, por la que se aprueba el currículo de la Educación secundaria obligatoria y se autoriza su aplicación en los centros docentes de la Comunidad Autónoma de Aragón. (BOA 1/06/2007). 20 CEFR is a document elaborated by the Language Division of the Council of Europe in 2001. 21 The “monitor hypothesis” (Krashen 2013: 2) Master Dissertation: The Profession of Teaching English. 2013 - 2014 Liliana Morejón Cabañas (536328) 19 mentioned previously. On the order hand, these contents will be determined by the objectives or purposes that the teacher follows. The teacher will design his or her contents and activities, expecting that students practice and acquire these basic competences that will help them in their development as autonomous learners. So, in the Master I have learned how to design a Year Plan, being clear about the main objectives of my subject and never losing sight of the most important skills we want the learners to develop. The AC also shows which topics could be related to the ethical education that any citizen may know in order to live respecting other people and the environment. That is what we call ‘cross-curricular’ characteristics of a good year plan of teaching. As we can read in the text that the University of Zaragoza created to prepare the future teachers (Pautas para la elaboración de la programación didáctica en la etapa de educación secundaria obligatoria), these topics are: the education for tolerance, for peace, coexistence, interculturality, same conditions for men and women, respect to the environment, education for health and sex, and education for respect in the road and how to consume responsibly. And all these aspects may be included in our activities in order to make our students to reflect in them, and to activate their questioning point of view, at the same time that we mediate in their discussions instilling respect to others’ opinions. Although teachers have to be flexible and be adapted to the circumstances and personal characteristics that exist in their classrooms, once we have helped our students to catch the knowledge, we have to evaluate them following some criteria that have to assess those objectives we had previously, which were the basis of the contents we taught in class. In the Orden de 26 de noviembre de 2007 sobre la evaluación en Educación Secundaria Obligatoria, these criteria are considered as the ‘trigger’ to those objectives we set out at the beginning. Therefore, from the very beginning, we need to bear in mind those precise aspects we will assess, because in that way we will act following them and the results will be more accurate and fair. Other of the most useful skills as a good English teacher I obtained during the Master course is the clear raising awareness of the necessity of adapting the class materials, more concretely the coursebook, and provide our students the same contents with more attractive lessons that motivate them to continue learning, to enjoy lessons, at the same time that they are more in contact with real English, through authentic materials, that, as I have said, nowadays are really easy to find on the internet. But, apart from speaking about Master Dissertation: The Profession of Teaching English. 2013 - 2014 Liliana Morejón Cabañas (536328) 20 what the best method is, whether it is more useful the Communicative Language Teaching (CLT), or a Task-Based Language Teaching (TBLT), we live nowadays in what Kumaravadivelu (2006) calls the “postmethod pedagogy”, giving more importance to what are known as “approaches”, and the design of proper syllabuses that focus on non-prescriptive and adaptable materials, being always centred on the students’ necessities and particular abilities to catch the information and to create their own schema of communication. When we investigated on peer-correction, one of the characteristics which make peer assessment or “assessment for learning” so attractive is the collaborative aspect of this procedure. Students, when reflecting on their own process of learning, know what those aspects that they need to strengthen are. Through the correction of their partners’ writing assignments, they are aware of their own mistakes, and thus they could learn strategies to learn or acquire the language in a better way. This also develops their capacity to evaluate and analyse, and thus they obtain a critical vision which will help them in any field of their lives. To finish, I could establish a connection between the unit plan and the proposal of “peer-correction” justifying that different types of evaluation are part of the units design. Integrating the diverse skills, at the same time that teachers combine several evaluation tools to obtain conclusive marks of the subject, could represent the result of a collaborative work between teachers and the whole class. 4. - Conclusions and proposals to the future. In order to conclude this Master last work, my dissertation, I can say that I have learnt many new theories and concepts I had no idea that existed. I decided to study the Máster Universitario en Profesorado de Educación Secundaria Obligatoria, Bachillerato, Formación Profesional y Enseñanzas de Idiomas, Artísticas y Deportivas in order to have more opportunities when searching for a work as a teacher, but I never thought it would teach me so many new conceptions of what the profession of teaching really is. All the authors we had to read during the year: Brown (2002), Ellis (2006), Finney (2002), Harmer (2003), Hymes (1972), Kagan (1994), Richards (2006), and Willis (1996), among many others, and those we had no time to see during the course, are philosophers of the profession of teaching, and more accurately in the labour of teaching English as a foreign language. Thanks to these investigators and my teachers, I can see now the importance of passion, respect and empathy in this profession, because of the constant direct contact we live day after day with our students. Precisely, those Master Dissertation: The Profession of Teaching English. 2013 - 2014 Liliana Morejón Cabañas (536328) 21 teachers I had during my pre-school, secondary school or during the university studies, who I admire, are the teachers that were well-organized, and those that had a pleasant and cheerful character. Those are the teachers I will always remember, and that is precisely the kind of teacher I would like to be. Apart from being “the change we wish to see in the world” 22 , and being an example of what new studies set as more positive and effective procedures of teaching, I also want to be able to transmit the contents in the way that students understand them better, at the same time that they do not feel the pressure of the exam, or the obligation of going to school. It may sound utopic, but I am optimist, and I could see that those teachers I had, who were “charismatic” people, were highly respected and loved by their students, although I have to acknowledge that they perhaps taught us some other aspects that were not directly related to their subjects. They preferred to teach some universal concepts of life, like the beauty of art, or the eternal hesitating feature that characterizes human beings. Maybe these teachers were more in line with my way of being and my curiosities. Good teachers should remodel their personalities and be able to adapt to different situations and different students, never putting aside their authentic being. I have heard many times, during the Master classes and during the practices period, that every person is different, that every group is different, and even every course year is different, and so to teach is to readapt our materials all the time, but I think that there is a common and special essence between us, and a good teacher knows how to win his or her students heart and attention. Not everything is written and discovered yet. Educators had to keep improving their ways of teaching and evaluation, with the purpose of obtaining better outcomes from learners. Teachers never stop learning and training themselves in the profession of instructing pupils. Besides, we never have to forget that the protagonists are always the students, and that we have to give them the opportunity to select the best of several ways to learn any point. Although I know that there are some teachers who do not like the new technologies so much, I, particularly like to use them for some purposes like elaborating an online glossary between all students, through a “Wikispaces” page, for example. Web-Quests are also really engaging for students. If we know how to use these tools, they could be absolutely effective to attract learners’ attention and to motivate them to accomplish some tasks. Carrying out diverse kinds of tasks and checking the learners’ responses, we can incite an 22 Famous Mahatma Ghandi’s quote. Master Dissertation: The Profession of Teaching English. 2013 - 2014 Liliana Morejón Cabañas (536328) 22 intrinsic motivation to go to school and to obtain good results during the courses. Reflection is a really important aspect that I learned during the Master, and I support the idea of making students to reflect too on their own process of learning, either through self-assessment tools or peer-correction procedures. Teachers have to reflect on what contents take from the coursebook, and others that are not necessary or that are poor for their students, for instance. There must be also a constant search of authentic and attractive materials, either on internet or on other books or magazines. Considering that the most important skills, in order to communicate in a foreign language, is to understand the interlocutor and to be understood. English teachers may give constant opportunities of listening and speaking English. In my consideration they should be the primary skills in class, carried out either under the CLT or the TBLT approaches, or both of them combined, or even under one’s own ideas of creating communication in class. It is essential to provide them with several occasions to practice the language. When I designed my learning unit, I had to confess that I did not have enough time to plan really original, attractive and completely based on communication lessons. So, that is one of the proposals I get for my future professional career. I really want to put all this theory into practice when working, and check the results; at the same time that I reformulate my planning for obtaining even better learners’ outcomes. Now I would like to add to my conclusions a self-assessment checklist that evaluates part on my achieved and not at all achieved goals during the Master experience. Important aims during the Master practices Fully achieved Partly achieved Not at all achieved Ability to integrate skills and competences in my Learning Unit Plan X I was able to present students with real communication situations X Creation of a large variety of tasks situations and texts during my learning unit implementation X Use of authentic materials (adequate for learner age) have been used X Master Dissertation: The Profession of Teaching English. 2013 - 2014 Liliana Morejón Cabañas (536328) 23 Selection & sequencing of contents is determined by communication needs in my Unit Plan X Learner reflection is promoted (through my proposal project) X Learner responsibility for own learning process is promoted (cooperative & collaborative work) X Evaluation is seen as a learning activity (through my proposal project) X Evaluation is conceived as requiring previous negotiation between tutor & learners (in my proposal project) X A global methodology is implemented to deal with subject matter as integrating several competences, a methodology that pays attention to the learning process, to diversity and fosters learner participation in the teaching & learning process X Summarizing, I recognize that during my time in this Master of the University of Zaragoza I have learned many aspects related to the world of education. I also discovered a great number of alternatives and original tools to improve English classes and methods of evaluation. I had the opportunity to meet many professionals who are deeply involved in the educational practice and investigation. I have learnt to improve my “mise-en-scene”, and step by step I started to be less shy when speaking in front of the class. I would like to express my gratitude to all of my classmates and teachers, and also to all the professionals I met in María Auxiliadora School. My main objective is to practice an endless learning experience during my role as a teacher, and I want to try to implement many of the innovative ideas I carry within me after this experience. I hope to bring to my students the opportunity to really acquire skills to speak and understand English, and also to afford them the nice experience of growing as authentic human beings. Master Dissertation: The Profession of Teaching English. 2013 - 2014 Liliana Morejón Cabañas (536328) 24 5. - Works and webpages cited. ๑ Books: Bailey, K. M. and Nunan, D. (1996) Voices from the language classroom. New York: Cambridge University Press. Bailey, K. M., Curtis, A., Nunan, D. (2001) “3. Reflective Teaching: Looking Closely”. Pursuing Professional Development: The Self as Source. HEINLE & HEINLE PUBL Incorporated. p. 37. Bernal Agudo, J. L. (2006) Comprender nuestros centros educativos. Perspectiva micropolítica. Zaragoza: Mira Editores, S. A. Bisquerra, R. (2012) Orientación, tutoría y educación emocional. Madrid: Síntesis. Brown, H. D. (2002) “English Language Teaching in the ‘Post-Method’ Era: Toward Better Diagnosis, Treatment, and Assessment.” In Richards, J. C. and Renandya, W. A. Methodology in Language Teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 11-17. Dörnyei, Z. (2001) Motivational strategies in the language classroom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ellis, R. (2006) “Current Issues in the Teaching of Grammar: An SLA Perspective.” TESOL Quarterly 40, pp. 80-107. Finney, D. (2002) “The ELT Curriculum: A Flexible Model for a Changing World”. In Richards, J. C. and Renandya, W. A. Methodology in Language Teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gardner, H. (1983) Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences. New York: Basic Books. Gregorić, P. and Grgić, F. (2006) “Aristotle’s Notion of Experience”. Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 88.1. Zagreb. p. 30. Harmer, J. (2003) How to Teach Writing. Harlow: Longman. Master Dissertation: The Profession of Teaching English. 2013 - 2014 Liliana Morejón Cabañas (536328) 31 ๑ Annexe 2: Master Dissertation: The Profession of Teaching English. 2013 - 2014 Liliana Morejón Cabañas (536328) 32 Learning objectives:  To deduce how and when building a passive structure when communicating in English.  To learn how to work cooperatively with their partners.  To know how to ask and answer questions.  To discriminate sounds in English and learn how to pronounce them. Activity: 2Grammar: A)Ask three students to come to the front of the class and give each of them a cardboard. All of them together form a whole active sentence. Student One has ‘MANY PEOPLE’ written on his cardboard; student Two has ‘WATCH’, and student Three has ‘YOUTUBE’. They are going to be arranged in this order, from left to right: S-V-O, letters that appear above the words. S (understood as ‘subject’) above ‘MANY PEOPLE’, V (verb) above ‘WATCH’ and O (object) above ‘YOUTUBE’. I ask one of the students of the rest of the class to read the sentence aloud. Then I say that it is a sentence in active voice, and I ask whether they know how to transform the sentence into a passive one or they do not. Once I check their previous knowledge I ask the students who are stood up facing the class, to turn the cardboards and show what is written on the back. Student One has ‘BY MANY PEOPLE’, student Two ‘IS WATCHED’ and student Three ‘YOUTUBE’ again, but they have to rearrange the sentence, Time: 20’ Procedure: - Teacher-Student interaction. - Class discussion. -Student-Student interaction. Materials: - Cardboards with the parts of the sentences. - Students’ notebooks, where they have to write the rules to construct passive sentences. - Blackboard. Master Dissertation: The Profession of Teaching English. 2013 - 2014 Liliana Morejón Cabañas (536328) 33 because ‘YOUTUBE’ has an S now, and ‘BY MANY PEOPLE’ goes to the end. B)Now I ask the students to work in pairs and try to write the rules to change an active sentence into a passive one. Meanwhile I write on the blackboard the sentences seen before: ‘Many people watch YouTube’ and ‘YouTube is watched by many people’, with the verbs underlined. We analyse together some of the rules they have written, and get the conclusions. C)Finally, I ask them to help me to write the negative forms and to construct questions for each of the sentences written on the board. So, they see how to negate and ask in passive too. Master Dissertation: The Profession of Teaching English. 2013 - 2014 Liliana Morejón Cabañas (536328) 34 ๑ Annexe 3: ๑ Reading activities taken out of the textbook 23 . The history of music players Today, digital music is everywhere. Most of your music is probably stored on your computer or on CDs. Before 2003, it was almost impossible to buy digital songs online. Now, it’s easy to download thousands of songs and create your own playlists. YouTube is used by millions of people every day to watch music videos. But how did people listen to songs before digital music? A.) The first method of recording and playing back sound was invented by Thomas Edison in 1877. He called it the phonograph. Edison became famous because of it and he even had to demonstrate his invention to the president of the USA. B.) Hi-fi is short for “high-fidelity” which means a very good quality recording and reproduction of music Hi-fi technology was most popular in the 1960s and 1970s. However, it began in the 1920s with the invention of microphones and other electronic machines. The reelto-reel player was an early hi-fi player. Record players came later. C.) LPs (long-playing records) were developed in the late 1940s. Records are made of vinyl, a type of plastic. Unlike CDs, they hold music on both sides. There are also singles with just one song on each side. Vinyl records became the most popular way of recording and listening to music in the 20th century. Records are still released today by some bands. D.) After records came cassettes, in 1979, the Sony Walkman changed the way people listened to music forever. The Walkman was the first portable personal stereo. For the first time, music fans could listen to their own music anywhere. It became extremely popular as people started to listen to their music while exercising or travelling. 23 Howarth, P. and Reilly P. (2011) Interface 3. Student’s Book. Ed. Macmillan (Unit 9). Master Dissertation: The Profession of Teaching English. 2013 - 2014 Liliana Morejón Cabañas (536328) 35 1) Read the text again and match headings 1-5 with paragraphs A-E. 1 Records become popular 2 The start of the digital era 3 Early hi-fi 4 The first recording 5 Music becomes portable 2) What do these numbers refer to in the text? 1 1940 2 1877 3 200 billion 4 1979 5 80 6 1982 3) Are the sentences true or false? Correct the false sentences. 1 It was easy to buy digital songs before 2003. 2 Before Edison invented the phonograph, you couldn’t record or play back music. 3 Hi-fi was invented in the 1960s. 4 The Sony Walkman played cassettes and it was easy to carry around. 5 Computers files are the most popular way of storing music nowadays. 4) Find words or phrases in the text that mean… 1 show (paragraph A) 2 an abbreviation of (paragraph B) 3 something you can carry (paragraph C) 4 hold (paragraph E) 5 all over the world (paragraph E) Master Dissertation: The Profession of Teaching English. 2013 - 2014 Liliana Morejón Cabañas (536328) 36 ๑ Annexe 4: ๑ Reading activity taken out of the textbook. -Underline the present simple passive verbs and circle the past simple passive ones. What’s on your mp3 player? Last year 95% of all song downloads weren’t paid for – they were downloaded illegally. A new survey has revealed that most teenagers and students have approximately 840 illegal music tracks on their mp3 players. The number of illegal downloads by 14-17 years-olds is higheraround 1,080. Some form of illegal copying is done by nearly 90% of teenagers aged 14-17. For example, 14% of the CDs that a teenager owns are copied. In addition, nearly 60% of young people often copy CDs from their friends, share music files by email or copy all of the music from a friend’s computer. In the survey, 80% of young people who regularly download music explained that they were happy to pay to download music from a library, but there wasn’t one that had enough music. Authorities were thinking of identifying people who download illegally through their ISP (internet service provider) but this is impractical and unnecessary. British Music Rights is trying to solve the problem of illegal downloads another way. The organization wants ISPs to add large collections of music to broadband services for a small extra cost. In France, the company Orange has agreed to provide downloads of more than a million songs for mobile phones and home computers for 12€ a month. Other providers will probably make similar agreements, so the problem of illegal downloads could soon be a thing of the past. Master Dissertation: The Profession of Teaching English. 2013 - 2014 Liliana Morejón Cabañas (536328) 37 ๑ Annexe 5: ๑ Activity designed from a YouTube video 24 . Listen to the interview, and put the following fragments in the correct order: ____ It was written by Simon Franglen and James Horner. ____ When I saw it, it was so excited. ____ There must be anything you want to achieve. ____ There’re few things, a lot of things actually. ____ Leona, lovely to meet you. ____ It must be fantastic to be part of what is arguably the biggest film in history. ____ Me and my brother are really really into movies. ____ Did you know anything about the film before you did the recording? ____ What about the writing and the recording? ____ I played it to James and he loved it. ๑ Annexe 6: ๑ Lexical contents adapted from a webpage 25 . 24 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yAgUnbMq5VU (Interview to the singer Leona Lewis): Seen in March 29th, 2014. Master Dissertation: The Profession of Teaching English. 2013 - 2014 Liliana Morejón Cabañas (536328) 38 Expressions for Agreeing and Disagreeing Stating an opinion  In my opinion...  The way I see it...  If you want my honest opinion....  According to Lisa...  If you ask me... Asking for an opinion  What's your idea?  What are your thoughts on all of this?  How do you feel about that?  Do you have anything to say about this?  What do you think?  Do you agree? Expressing agreement  I agree with you 100 percent.  I couldn't agree with you more.  That's so true.  That's for sure.  You're absolutely right.  Absolutely.  That's exactly how I feel.  Exactly.  I'm afraid I agree with James.  No doubt about it.  (agree with negative statement) Me neither.  (weak) I suppose so./I guess so. Expressing disagreement  I don't think so.  (strong) No way.  I'm afraid I disagree.  (strong) I totally disagree.  Not necessarily.  That's not always true.  No, I'm not so sure about that. Interruptions  Can I add something here?  If I might add something...  Sorry to interrupt, but... Settling an argument (sarcastic) Whatever you say./If you say so. 25 http://www.englishclub.com/speaking/agreeing-disagreeing-expressions.htm: Seen in April 4th, 2014. Master Dissertation: The Profession of Teaching English. 2013 - 2014 Liliana Morejón Cabañas (536328) 39 ๑ Annexe 7: Willis’ (1996) Task-Based Model 26 : 1.) Pre-task: introduction to the topic and task 2.) Task cycle . Task planning . Doing the task . Preparing to report on the task . Presenting the task report 3.) Language focusanalysis and practice 26 From Oxford, E. (2006). “Task-based language teaching and learning: An overview”. Asian EFL Journal, 8(3), 94-114. Master Dissertation: The Profession of Teaching English. 2013 - 2014 Liliana Morejón Cabañas (536328) 40 ๑ Annexe 8: