International Colombian School

International Colombian School 

Our school is a high stratum, in which you can find cultural diversity not just for the student who are here but the immersion of native teachers, and the  teaching of English as a L2 and Chinese and French as a third language. Our school is worry about the needs of our students and that is why we always try to apply some new alternatives in which they can learn easily, and they can apply their knowledge in a real context. 

General objective:

•   To provide a well-rounded program of instruction using the best educational practices appropriate to the cultural, intellectual and social needs of the students.

Specific Objectives:

•    To prepare students to be independent thinkers, skillful communicators, and lifelong learners and global citizens.
•       To make our students develop their language skills in English and Chinese.

Mission:

Our students are in environments that allow them to improve their skills, learning English, French and Chinese through interchanges and academic clubs helping them to learn not just the language but the culture, respecting and recognizing the other students’ values.

Vision:

Our students are able to interact with representative languages, getting an international certification in English, having the option to get the third language (Chinese or French in A2 level.

Philosophy:

Our school thinks that every child has something unique and special to bring to the world that is why we always try to develop their abilities in some different activities in which they can express their opinions and they can realize how they learn and how is the best way to do it.

We believe, teaching provides an opportunity for continual learning and growth, that is the reason to look for well prepare teacher not just in content / language but values because more that teaching, our school understand that every single person has a different way to learn, has some different abilities and some different behaviors.

 Here, you can see a native chinese teacher who teach us some of the personal information expressions that we commoly use. 

Some of the material we wanted to use in our class of chinese new expressions !! 

Good morning :zǎo shàng hǎo 

How are You ?: nǐhǎo ma?

I´m fine: wǒ hěn hǎo

Thanks you :xiexie

Good evening: wǎn shang hǎo !

What is your name: nǐ jiào shén me ?

My name is: wǒ jiào ____________

Lesson plan at the restaurant.

Lesson title:   At the restaurant	Time required: 60 minutes
Subject: English	Grade:   5th
Expectations: Students will identify the vocabulary to ask food in a restaurant, also they will understand the use of CAN and May through a role play.	References: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXwlWJm6-rE
Background Knowledge: How much, kind of food..
Introductory activity: We are going to play “hangman” they say the letter and say a word (nouns, adjective.) which start with that letter (just to gain vocabulary) then, when they found the word there they will have the topic. 8 minutes
Lesson description:   Doing the introductory activity they will know what is the topic to talk about, so teacher will ask some questions related to restaurant such as: what`s your favorite restaurant?, what`s your favorite dish?, what restaurant do you recommend ?, what was the last restaurant you went  to ?And so on..  5 to 8 minutes. Then, teacher will introduce some important vocabulary through elicit, students going to guess what is the images relates to. That vocabulary must be written on the board. Teacher is going to clarify what the correct word is ( in case that students won`t say the word ) 10 minutes After that, teacher will explain the use of CAN and MAY, and give them some expressions using those concepts focusing on restaurant, giving some examples such as:  Can you bring me the ketchup, please? Or May we sit at this table, Can I have more French fries instead of salad? Beside, teacher will teach through some examples negative and interrogative way to use those words.  15 minutes Once teacher have taught the grammar part, students will do a role play in couples, of course, in a restaurant, trying to use the vocabulary and the explanation already given.  10 minutes Finally, they will watch a video, while the watch it they should write in a piece of paper some expressions which appears in the video with CAN and MAY, and may be they can identify familiar words. 5 minutes To close the session teacher will do a short review about what they already taught, asking questions.

Learning Styles and learning strategies.

Andrea Lozano - 1010910865 

Didactics of English

Learning Styles and learning strategies

Most of people say that you learn better when information is Presented according to the students learning Styles taking into account their likes, beliefs and so on....because as human Beings we are really different, some of us learn practicing, through experience, reading, memorizing, writing and another people learn visually and here is where strategies has an important role, and it is the hardest part to teachers for teaching. someone will not learn if they feel uncomfortable, that is why teachers should try to focus their  classes to involved students to learn and enjoy the session, however, motivated and created and environment of learning is necessary to handle multiple strategies such as: the use of images, flashcards, audio clips, games, reading text and oral activities. To do that, teachers needs to take into account the context, the age and of course identify the way their students learn easily.

Personally, in this text I want to show my preference about the use of visually activities such the ones I named before. Because visual strategies let the students think by interpreting what they see with they own prior knowledge and they real life, of course in education every strategy a teacher can use to improve learning is important.

To add, as most of Teachers known teaching and learning process are extremely related with self steam, motivation, realia, creativity, flexibility and constantly evaluation and feedback. Those aspects make the process enjoyable and meaningful.

Didactics of english, reflective essay.

Andrea Lozano  - 1010910865

Didactics of English

Effectiveness in teaching - learning process

First at all, I consider the relation between teacher and students is the most important part in the learning process, because it affects the motivation, attitude and of course the learning of the students.  When I started teaching, I had an experience; there was a student who hates English, he felt he can not learn, he was not motivated, that situation is so difficult when it is your first time teaching, you feel unmotivated, but at the same time it makes you stronger.

When I understood  what happened with that student,  I realize I was so rude with him, I changed my attitude,  I started to be more lovely, funny, I showed him I wanted him to learn. Besides, I used a lot of visual strategies such as: Images, pictures, videos and also body language. In that way, he started to learn and loving to learn English.

According to that experience and what effective learning and teaching is, teachers should try to understand what are the feelings which affect the students learning and take into account that we are human beings and we have different learning styles. That is the hardest part of teaching because teachers must include many strategies in one session in order to get the students attention so they can get a meaningful learning process and make them learn something useful for their life.

In my personal opinion, I try to use a lot of strategies in my classes, but I recommend to read some teaching theories such as: (Piaget) theory and their states for learning, or( Ausbel) and their meaningful learning and why not (Skinner)and their behaviorism  or being more contemporaneous (Sandra Rief, 2005) she has a book called “ visual strategies to teach children with attention deficit” I think those authors  involved some of the most important aspects that a teacher should  know to teach: motivation, strategies, learning style, process and how can they include their knowledge in a real context.

Juan Camilo Martinez Marquez

1010921448

Didactics of English

Mutual Motivation As Teaching-Learning Process.

My teaching practice was made with kids between 8 and 10 years old, at the beginning I was little scared, but with the time and with the help of the main teacher I began to feel more comfortable in classes, since I had to performed a lot of activities with them, they seemed to like it and the kids showed me their interest in learning.

I remembered one day that I arrived early to the school and three kids where there, they said to me ¨what are we going to do today?¨. In that moment I realized that what kids like the most is to play, and I have to develop many activities involving games so the students can get better time in the class.

Since I taught in a basic level, the idea was to use flashcards so the students can get a better idea of the vocabulary, also the idea of using flashcards was helped by Budden (2004) who suggests in her article ¨Using flash cards with young learners¨ that the flashcards may be accompanied with many types of activities like memory activities, drilling activities, identification activities, TPR activities and so on. All those kinds of activities encourage the students to be more motivated of learning English.

All that experience I had with those kids encourage me to do more research on didactics and the use of flashcards, and also as they were learning from me, I was learning many things from them. This make me think that if all the teachers are motivated with their students, all the students will be motivated with their teachers, and this motivation will help the teacher and the students to get a better teaching-learning process.