P2P

Este tipo de red permite compartir y descargar distinto tipo de material, entre los que se destaca: vídeos, audio, archivos…

Los programas utilizados para intercambiar archivos mediante redes P2P son realmente populares entre los usuarios. Cada PC que se conecte a la misma es llamado nodo o Peer, aportando el ancho de banda y la capacidad de almacenamiento permite el tráfico de información.

No obstante, y basándonos en lo dicho anteriormente ¿no estamos cometiendo un hecho delictivo? Ya que la mayoría de contenido que se comparte está sujeto a copyright. Como futuros docentes no podemos incentivar el uso de estas redes para descargar películas, música, software… ya que incurrimos en un delito, al menos en España. Tal y como ya he escrito anteriormente es importante educar a los niños en valores de respeto hacia la “propiedad”.

Algunas de las redes P2P más populares son Ares y Napster, entre otras. A continuación os adjunto un vídeo sobre las redes P2P:

THE IMPORTANCE OF ICT

We can’t encourage and promote the use of ICT, when even the teachers themselves do not use new technologies. Many teachers find them really difficult, so they are not able to integrate ICT in the classes’ dynamics.

Teacher training in ICT is crucial for teaching the foreign language. That´s why, teachers require basic knowledge through which guide students. They must be able to answer questions, technical problems presented during the development of classes, to respond to questions from children about the use of new technologies.

Honestly, I think that the main responsibility of a teacher is to learn the ropes, in this case, using new technologies in order to teach children the advantages and management of these tools. Some years ago people refer to information technologies when they refer to:

-          Hardware and software that allowed to access, save, organize, manipulate... information with electronic media.

Nowadays transmitting information using different devices: telephones, satellites, ...

WHAT DOES COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY MEAN?

•    Term used to refer to the devices that are necessary to connect to the internet.

ICT DEFINITION:

Use of “computers” that control. Everything monitored by a key board or a similar device.

•           Hardware (scanner, Hi-Fi, printer…), including an internet connection.
•           Software (using the appropriate software).
• 
  

ADVANTAGES OF USING THE IWB

Using this powerful way of teaching can be extremely useful for our students.

We all know the power of attraction of TV sets.

In general, we could say that:

•         Movement and sounds are motivating.

•         They are easy to use, freeze, rewind,...

If students and teachers create their own materials, adapted to their needs and interests, these devices can be highly motivating. They can play roles, investigate, discuss about the final product.

A NEW AGE: THE INTERACTIVE WHITE BOARD

Las pizarras digitales, la nueva herramienta de los docentes de las clases del siglo XXI. En los últimos años hemos podido ver como estas pizarras están sustituyendo progresivamente a las tradicionales en muchas escuelas.

• Resolución de pantalla: ajustar la resolución de la pantalla según las posibilidades y necesidades de la tarea. Cabe destacar que a mayor resolución mayor es el espacio de trabajo, lo que se traduce en una nitidez de los pixeles más clara.
• La velocidad en hercios: consiste en el parpadeo de la imagen en la pantalla, cuando el número de hercios es alto, el parpadeo es menos evidente. La pantalla debe ser calibrada para que sea precisa y reaccione ante la presión.
• Notbook: es el programa que emplean las pizarras digitales. Estas son táctiles, las de última generación reaccionan tanto con los punteros (con forma de bolígrafos y disponibles en distintos colores) como al tacto, es decir, con la mano directamente. Esto último puede ser una actividad muy entretenida ya que los niños encuentran una mayor concentración y diversión a la hora de intervenir ellos mismos. Además los más pequeños están deseando participar en este tipo de prácticas en las que pueden tocar, borrar, escribir, marcar…
• El uso de archivos Flash con la extensión “.swf”

AIMS AND GOALS

Before setting up the curricular objectives an analysis of the students’ needs should be undertaken to avoid a serious mismatch between the English class and the students’ expectations.

·         The participants: age, command of the language, etc.

·         Purpose domain: what the FL is needed for.

·         Setting, where the activity will be carried out.

·         Interaction: potential participants in the interactive process.

·         Instrumentally: skills needed.

·         Communicative events: prediction of communicative situations.

·         Communicative situations and tasks that the students wish to learn English for.

·         Learning activities preferred by students (grammar, pronunciation, vocabulary, textbook, tasks,…?)

·         Most important skills for students (speaking, listening, writing, reading?)

·         The kind of group work preferred (small groups, working in pairs, individual work, etc.?)

Aims and objectives for primary education:

Once teachers have obtained information about their students’ possible needs they can establish the goals to be achieved. Planning:

·         Appreciating the communicative value of the foreign language.

·         Understanding oral texts related to familiar situations.

·         Relating the spelling, pronunciation and meaning of words.

·         Using the foreign language for communication with the teacher and the other students.

·         Using non-verbal communication (paralanguage): gestures, body language.

·         Understanding and using the basic communicative functions.

·         Learning authentic and prefabricated/block language through rhymes, songs, jokes.

·         Comprehensive reading texts (adapted to the student’s profiency level)

·         Writing texts (e.g. written messages, postcards, letters, etc.)

·         Using the student’s cognitive development, knowledge and previous experiences with the L1.

·    Improving the students’ general and basic education by introducing cross-curricular contents and activities through the FL syllabus.

SCREENSHOTS AND SCREENCAST

SCREENSHOT: It is a an image taken by the computer to record the visible items displayed on the monitor, television, or another visual output device.

You can record the whole screen or part of it.

The image is converted and saved to an image file such as JP(E)G o PNG format.

SCREENCAST: It is a digital recording of a computer screen output, also known as a video screen capture, often containing audio narration.

The term screencast compared with the related term screenshot.

Whereas screenshot is a picture of a computer screen, a screencast is essentially a movie of the changes over time that a user sees on a computer screen; enhanced with audio narration.

SOFTWARE:

Here I list some examples that will help you to make your classes more interesting and participative.

• CAMSTUDIO
• JING:
• WINK:
• BB FLASHBACK EXPRESS: 
• WEB BASED SCREENCASTS
• SCREENR:
• SCREENCAST-O-MATIC:
• NIMBUS

TEACHING THE FOREIGN LANGUAGE

The LOMCE defines the curriculum as the regulation of the elements that manage the teaching and learning processes for each of the educational stages.
The new curriculum will be integrated by:
a) The objectives of the foreign language area; they’re the reference models related to the outcomes that the students must achieve at the end of the educational process.
b) The competences of capacities to activate and apply the contents in an integrated way, with the aim of achieving the appropriate fulfilment of activities and the effective solving of complex problems.
c) The contents, or set of knowledge, abilities, skills and attitudes that contribute to the achievement of the objectives and the acquisition of the competences.
d) Evaluation criteria: they’re the specific referent models to evaluate students’ learning. They describe what must be assessed and students must achieve.
e) The didactic methodology that includes a description of teaching practices, as well as the organisation of teachers’ work. It is a set of strategies, procedures and organized actions.

f) Evaluative learning standards: They are the specification of the evaluation criteria that allow to define the learning results and that specify what the students must know, understand and know how to do in English. They must be observable, measurable and gradable.

TAKE A LOOK TO HOW IT WORKS...

Para que los docentes puedan utilizar las TIC deben poder contar con una serie de recursos como: ordenadores, portátiles, tablets… Los ordenadores personales, es decir, el instrumento del que se vale el profesorado ha ido evolucionando de manera imparable a lo largo de los años. Los nuevos modelos incorporan nuevas y mejores facilidades.

En un principio, los ordenadores eran excesivamente caros, muy lentos y con pocas aplicaciones. Era una herramienta que muy pocos se podían permitir. No obstante, en la actualidad es relativamente sencillo adquirir uno de estos aparatos.

Un docente debe saber algunas nociones de los componentes y funcionamiento de los ordenadores y los dispositivos relacionados con los mismos. Julio nos comento hoy en clase que hay profesores que son incapaces de meter adecuadamente una clavija o enchufar el dispositivo adecuadamente. Lo que se traduce en la perdida de una clase completa, lo que es inaceptable.

Algunos de los componentes son:

Hardware: todas aquellas partes tangibles que componen un PC. La parte principal es la placa base. Formada a su vez por las conexiones, la CPU, la Memoria RAM, y las Tarjetas.

                                                                                                                 

Elementos de almacenamiento:

-       USB / Tarjetas.

-       Disco duro.

-       Disquetes.

-       Disco duro externo.

Elementos periféricos de entrada:

-       Ratón convencional.

-       Magic Mouse

-       Ratones configurables

-       Teclado

-       Escáner

-       Impresora + Escaner

También podemos incluir los elementos de almacenamiento virtuales como son la nube, dropbox…

PRODUCTIVE AND RECEPTIVE SKILLS

Oral Communication

·         Oral communication is, as Byrne says, a two way process between speaker and listener and involves the productive skill of speaking and the receptive (not passive) skill of listening.

·         Both speaker and listener have a positive function to perform:

-          The speaker has to encode the message he wishes to convey, while the listener has to decode the message.

·         Most people learning a foreign language spend more time listening than speaking.

·         The listening activity may range from the face to face understanding of several utterances spoken by one or more other persons, to listening to a speech on the radio when noise in the room or radio static may cause interference.

·         That’s why we should aim to provide our students with sufficient listening practice to enable them to understand with reasonable ease both native and non-native speakers of English when they speak at normal speed in unstructured situations.

Listening

Listening is key to all effective communication, without the ability to listen effectively messages are easily misunderstood – communication breaks down and the sender of the message can easily become frustrated.

Listening and speaking

·         It’s obvious that speaking often follows listening (…)

·         Often, but not necessarily, improvement in listening comprehension will bring with it an improvement in speaking.

·         A student will learn a great deal by listening to the teacher. The teacher is the most important model on which the student will base his/her own behavior.

·         It is important, therefore, that you speak English at a speed consistent with normal stress and rhythm and intonation patterns.

Reading and writing

The fact of writing it wasn’t very important, but nowadays, the writing is converting in something very common because of the social networks as it could be whatsapp, twitter, etc. Furthermore, we cannot consider reading and writing as reciprocal activities as if we were talking about listening and speaking.

As pupils become better and better in the foreign language, the printed word becomes the main source of expanding and strengthening the language.

Reading

·         Whether or not they have mastered the skill in their own language, will have an effect on the initial stages of teaching reading in English.

·         Reading aloud is not the same as reading silently. A teacher need to read aloud, with different exercises, to tell a story would be a good exercise for reading aloud.

Listening

·         It is simply not sufficient to expose the learners to those samples of spoken language which are, for example, the presentation of the unit. These samples are simplified to provide the students with models for oral production.

·         I.e. there are oral texts specified as a presentation of the unit, for specific practice, as reinforcement or even revision.

Reasons

·         We, as non-native speakers of English, need to understand more than we should be able to produce.

·         The samples of spoken language in all course-books do not contain a sufficiently high proportion of the features of natural speech; the learners will need much more than this if they are going to be able to cope with real-life language situations.

Listening/Speaking

·         When we speak we can make use of periphrasis, gestures, facial expressions..

·         When we listen, we don’t have control over the speaker. (in the flesh, the media..)

Listening: Teacher

Do you think that listening is about getting every word that is spoken?

·         To be able to listen well gives you confidence in communication.

·         You can only talk sensibly when you can understand what is said to you.

Reasons

·         Even though good listeners may be able to get every word that they hear, this is not their concern most of the time.

·         Specify your listening objectives when you carry out a listening activity.

·         As long as you achieve your objectives…..

Listening practice

If you feel that your command……. (FALTAN COSAS, PPT no Subido)

Then… do something about it NOW before it is too late.

What you can do on your own beyond the classroom

·         TV: choose your favorite programs and make regular appointments with them.

·         Radio: you are free to do other things while listening- having breakfast, a shower, even jogging.

·         Watch news broadcasts (in English, of course) already watched on Spanish TV.

·         Good luck with your listening practice. It is not going to be easy, especially because the listening ability is hard to measure.

·         But if you keep practicing, you should find that you can gradually listen better.

·         Use the internet:

-          English listening: Explore, listen, understand: www.englishlistening.com

-          English online:  www.eleaston.com

-          www.listen-to.english.com

TEACHING VOCABULARY IN THE FOREIGN LANGUAGE

VOCABULARY

Mastery of vocabulary is a basic ingredient for communication. No matter how much we know about language, if words fail to come no message is conveyed. According Wilkins “Knowledge of a language demands mastery of its vocabulary as much as of its grammar”.
Types of words and vocabulary items
• Contents words: vocabulary items that refer to specific meanings:
• Single words
• Compound words
• Words with a prefix or a suffix added
• Phrasal verbs
• Collocations (phrases composed of words that occur for lexical rather than semantic reasons: fast train and not quick train) and idioms.

Active and passive vocabulary
Active: Vocabulary you can understand and recall and it is ready to use for comunication.
Passive: vocabulary that when heard or encountered cannot be used automatically, but it can be understood.
When teaching active vocabulary, a greater amount of practice must be given.

Steps in teaching vocabulary
Linguistic input is absolutely necessary for language acquisition and it’s the teacher’s role to provide his students with it in the most accessible way.
- The first step should be to help learners understand the meaning of new words.
- The second to facilitate the learning of the pronunciation.
- Third step: reading and writing words and finally to make easy for students memorize them.
-
Resources to teach meaning
1. - Linguistic resources:
- Definitions: teenager: a young boy or girl between 13 and 19 years old.
- Synonyms: clever= intelligent, large= big
- Antonyms/Opposites:  old/young, bad/good.
- Hyponyms (examples of a general concept for “super ordinates”) Animal= dog, cat, lion, etc.
2. - Visual, aural, kinesthetic and tactile aids
- Realia, mime, facial expressions and gestures.
- Flashcards, wall charts, photographs or simple drawings.
When to teach words
• Words connected with a particular function. When teaching we need to know how to perform the function: “nice to meet yo”.
• Lexical sets. They can be pre-taught before dealing with the topic they are related to. But once isolated words have been presented, they should be repeated in meaningful contexts.


Memorizing words
• By doing activities and exercises and playing games.
 Other things being equal, a color picture will be remembered longer than a black and white picture.
 A sentence spoken by skilled actress will make more of an impression than the same sentence read in the “now-listen-carefully” drone used by some teachers.
Study techniques
There are a few techniques that can help students memorize words.
• Say the word and try to see what it means in your mind. Use your senses: its smell, its taste, what it looks like, etc.
• Write the word while you say it and visualize it.
• Copy words and keep them in a vocabulary notebook. You can copy them in alphabetical order, in lexical fields.
• While you write words, say and try to visualize them in your mind.
• Prepare cards:
 Slide A – A picture of the meaning
 Slide B – Spelling + pronunciation + the word in context (in a sentence) + translation (?)
• Invent key words that will remind you of them: chest – Chester = bad for your chest.
• Revise the words and check if you remember them. For this you can use:
 Word cards
 Lists of words with their Spanish equivalents.
 Use a dictionary.
Vocabulary activities
Variety is a very important factor here, since children get enthusiastic easily but they also get tired and lose concentration fast.
 One of the activities that we can do is : Listen and do something type: listen and point, listen and colour, listen and draw, listen and circle, listen ad tick/cross, listen and order, listen and follow instructions, listen and identify, listen and label, and listen and raise your hand when you hear a specific word.
 Mixed types of techniques: classification, association, memorization…
Listen and say, listen and repeat, listen, point and name, listen and complete words, match words with definitions, match synonyms or opposites, find the odd one out, group words belonging to the same semantic fields, and brainstorming round a word. What we have to do are transferences from subjects using the network. Making transferences can be very productive.
 Games. Grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation and spelling. The English language is not a subject; English is something that is enjoyable if we introduce activities that children like. Catch the attention of the students by games. Cardboard games (bingo, noughts and crosses, happy families) memory games (Kim’s game, disappearing pictures…) guessing games (guess the person, riddles…) and miscellaneous games e.g. “Simon says” based on Asher’s total physical response method.

PHONETICS

SPELLING

Spelling is just one of the aspects of learning a word. It means knowing its shape: what is like and consequently, being able to read and write the word. English spelling is particularly difficult because there is not a direct relationship between sound and spelling.
Types of activities
• Two groups and many different types for each of them.
• At very early stages the aim will simply be for the students to copy words: Copy the word next to the picture, label pictures, order letters in a word, fill in the missing letters, and copy words in alphabetical order.
• Scott and Ytreberg (1990:71) suggest reading, remembering and copying words.
• “Delayed copying”: The teacher writes several familiar words on the blackboard and lets the children look at them for a few seconds, then (s)he erases the blackboard and asks pupils to write as many as they can remember.

PHONETICS

PRONUNCIATION

Pronunciation includes the knowledge of the sounds of a language, the ability to reproduce and combine them and also the adequate use and understanding of stress and intonation patterns.
Sounds
 Sounds are not to be taught individually BUT there are some of them which may require special attention. E.g. /S/ ʃ / t̬ʃ/

 Vowels, consonant sounds which do not exist in Spanish and consonant clusters.
 “… Teachers need to achieve a reasonable level of intelligibility”.  Intelligibility is an important concept in pronunciation teaching since its main goal is to ensure that speech is “good enough” to be understood by native speakers, even though there may be signs of a foreign accent” (Brewster, Ellis and Girard 200:80)
 The teacher should:
- Be a clear model
- Focus on problems
- Show students how sounds are made.
- Give help in articulation
- Suggest suitable practice activities.
To distinguish specific sounds, discrimination exercises and games:
- Minimal pairs exercises
- Exercises of “Listen and group words according to sound”. /g/ (egg, kangaroo, etc)
- Bingo: sounds and word stress.
Stress and rhythm.
• Vowels in stressed syllables, called strong syllables are pronounced clearly and intensely.
• Vowels in unstressed syllables (weak) lose quality and have a muffled quality.
• In connected speech, content words (nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs) are stressed and clearly perceived.
• Grammar words (pronouns, auxiliaries, prepositions, conjunctions…etc), on the other hand, are often carelessly said and dimly heard.

Activities
• Exercises of “Listen and underline the strong syllables”. “Listen and underline the stressed words”.
 Intonation
Intonation may express:
• A grammatical function.
• Statements, questions, meaning, emphasis, feelings and emotions.
Intonation patterns
The basic intonation patterns are:
• Falling tone.
• Rising tone.
• Rising-falling tone.
Falling intonation: The fall occurs in the last major stress in the sentence… It can be shown by an arrow. And it is used.
- In wh- questions: Where is…      Peter?
- Statements: My friend is…        here.
- Commands: Open your…   books
- Exclamations: Don’t be …      Silly!
Rising intonation:
- In Yes/No questions: have you got any …       Children
- To express surprise, disbelief:       really?
Rising-falling intonation:
- Questions with or: would you like       tea or    coffee
- Making a list: I need       sugar,       flour and      rice.
Activities
 Listen and do: Match body movements with intonation.
 Bend your knees for falling intonation.
 Raise your hand for rising intonation.
Is there a problem here?
He works on Sunday.
Do you work here?
When does he work?