You can find the book "Teaching by Principles" using the following link at slideshare:
http://www.slideshare.net/igotamnesia/teaching-by-principles-brown
Wednesday, August 14, 2013
UNACHI - FOURTH YEAR STUDENTS - TASK 3. Read the article about teaching styles, find 5 key terms, describe the types of teaching styles, and identify your type after completing the quiz on teaching styles.
What is Your Teaching Style?
Just as people have individual learning styles, teachers have teaching styles that works best for them. It is important to be aware of your preferences when creating and delivering instruction.
One way in which teaching styles can be categorized is as:
Formal Authority
Teachers who have a formal authority teaching style tend to focus on content. This style is generally teacher-centered, where the teacher feels responsible for providing and controlling the flow of the content and the student is expected to receive the content.
One type of statement made by an instructor with this teaching style is "I am the flashlight for my students; I illuminate the content and materials so that my students can see the importance of the material and appreciate the discipline."
Teachers with this teaching style are not as concerned with building relationships with their students nor is it as important that their students form relationships with other students. This type of teacher doesn't usually require much student participation in class. "Sage on the stage" model.
Demonstrator or Personal Model
Teachers who have a demonstrator or personal model teaching style tend to run teacher-centered classes with an emphasis on demonstration and modeling. This type of teacher acts as a role model by demonstrating skills and processes and then as a coach/guide in helping students develop and apply these skills and knowledge.
A teacher with this type of teaching style might comment: "I show my students how to properly do a task or work through a problem and then I'll help them master the task or problem solution. It's important that my students can independently solve similar problems by using and adapting demonstrated methods."
Instructors with this teaching style are interested in encouraging student participation and adapting their presentation to include various learning styles. Students are expected to take some responsibility for learning what they need to know and for asking for help when they don't understand something.
Facilitator
Teachers who have a facilitator model teaching style tend to focus on activities. This teaching style emphasizes student-centered learning and there is much more responsibility placed on the students to take the initiative for meeting the demands of various learning tasks.
This type of teaching style works best for students who are comfortable with independent learning and who can actively participate and collaborate with other students.
Teachers typically design group activities which necessitate active learning, student-to-student collaboration and problem solving. This type of teacher will often try to design learning situations and activities that require student processing and application of course content in creative and original ways.
Delegator
Teachers who have a delegator teaching style tend to place much control and responsibility for learning on individuals or groups of students.
This type of teacher will often give students a choice designing and implementing their own complex learning projects and will act in a consultative role.
Students are often asked to work independently or in groups and must be able to maintain motivation and focus for complex projects. Students working in this type of setting learn more than just course specific topics as they also must be able to effectively work in group situations and manage various interpersonal roles.
Do you know what type you are?
To get an indication of what your main teaching style is, take our teaching styles quiz.
Source:
Sunday, August 11, 2013
UNACHI - Fourth Year Students - Article Critique Sample - from 700 to 800 words
TEXTBOOKS: HELP OR HINDRANCE IN TEACHING?
By J.C. Richards
ARTICLE CRITIQUE
I-
Rationale for the article:
Even though elements such as the teacher and the
learners have been the focus of several researches during the last decades,
less attention has been given to textbooks used in teaching and learning. But are textbooks really important in
language learning? What is the role of textbooks in the classroom? Do they have
any influence on teachers, learners, and the curriculum itself? Maybe not so
many teachers and language teaching researchers have thought about the
tremendous role played by textbooks but textbooks could be actually considered
as the corner stone of many ESL courses and they could even be the basis of a
great amount of course curricula in different places around the world. And this
is exactly what Richards tries to explain through this article about the role
of textbooks in the classroom and their influence on teachers and learners.
This interesting article is intended to provide an objective
view of the characteristics of textbooks used in the past and at the same time,
compare textbooks used then with the textbooks used now. Another important
aspect discussed here is the responsibility of textbook authors and publishers
toward the learners and teachers and how commercial textbooks could influence
them.
II-
Statements that produced more impact and why. (Write
statements that called your attention and make comments on them)
There are plenty of ideas that called my attention
when I was reading this interesting article but some of the thoughts that
really made me think are listed below:
“Textbooks and
other commercial materials in many situations represent the hidden curriculum
of many language courses”. This statement is true for many teaching
situation in our country. Teachers based their lessons on specific textbooks
without enriching the course with other resources. But what is worse is that
most of the textbooks used are not adapted to the social and cultural
environment we live in
“If teachers
were not allowed to use textbooks, they would need additional training in the
preparation of material”. Nowadays textbooks help teachers save time,
money, and effort when planning lessons. Not all of the teachers are enable
with the qualities needed to create their own material. Thus, teachers who are
asked to avoid the use of textbooks in their classroom should receive a special
training to produce their own resources. In addition to this, producing
resources requires a lot of teacher’s extra time and money, something that does
not exist in many cases.
“Materials
as seen as an essential component of instructional design and are often viewed
as a way of influencing the quality of classroom interaction and language use”.
I agree with this statement since good and well-based textbooks and resources
can affect teaching in a positive way. Nowadays, there is a wide variety of
textbooks based on the latest methodologies that can be used in order to
improve teaching and help learners get better results in their courses.
III- Negative
aspects of the article (if any). Support your answer.
Even though this article is very interesting and most
of the ideas presented are valuable and reliable, I found a points that I don’t agree with. First of all,
the idea that most of the teachers use textbooks as their primary source of
teaching ideas and materials for their courses is not totally true. There are
many teachers who still start planning their lessons from an analysis of their
students’ needs and expectations and who get ideas from their cultural
surroundings.
IV-
Positive aspects of the article. Support your answer.
This article provides teachers with a good opportunity
to reflect on the textbooks being used in the classroom and how these textbooks
affect their teaching environment. It also lets us know the advantages of
today’s textbooks and gives us an idea on how authors and publishers work to
produce effective textbooks.
V-
Application of the principals or examples given in the
article in your classroom setting.
Every language teacher should be responsible of
selecting just those books that can be adapted to the necessities of the
learners without paying attention to shallow aspects of the textbooks such as,
presentation and extension, but to those aspects that are closely related to
learners’ needs and reality. In addition to this, teachers should try to
determine if the methodology they are using in their classroom is in accordance
to the one used in their textbooks in order to find a balance and get better results
in their courses.
Saturday, August 10, 2013
UNACHI - Fourth Year Students - Task 1. Read the article below and post your comments about it. Include the following information: five key terms and definitions, five important characteristics of a great teacher mentioned, how you can become a great teacher.
The Art of Being a Better ESL Teacher
ESL Teaching Methodology
Quotes by my students made about other teachers:
“Most teachers are douches!”
“My teacher doesn’t live in reality.”
“My teacher can’t answer a question without the teacher book.”
Let’s face it. Not everyone is cut out to be a teacher. It required lots of planning, gets minimal compensation, endless bureaucracy and the teacher meetings make it a rather thankless job, not only that but generally our roles are under-appreciated by everyone in society. So the obvious question is: why do we become teachers?However, for the rest of us the answer should be self-evident. (And no, it’s not because we hate money, either!) We teach because we can’t do anything else, or simply don’t want to.
For whatever assumptions we may have for why we started, and for whatever other reasons we continue to do so – there are a few things we should consider, for our sakes, the sake of society and our students. Let’s face it, study after study has proven that the quality an education a student gets is specifically based upon one thing: the quality of teacher in front of the class.
So… what does it mean to be ‘The Best Teacher’? The obvious top-8 list below is just that. Obvious. However, without an understanding of the foundation needed to make the transformation from good to great! We can’t answer our own question without understanding what good teachers do.
- a good teacher is always prepared.
- a good teacher knows exactly where they’re taking the class – both on that day and globally.
- a good teacher challenges their students to look at opposing and/or challenging viewpoints.
- a good teacher forms strong relationships with their students, and sees them as more than a paycheck.
- a good teacher knows their materials, their subject and how to present it in an interesting way.
- a good teacher talks with their students to see how they’re doing as individuals and as a group.
- a good teacher challenges their students to become better.
- a good teacher never shouts at their students.
“The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires.” ~William Arthur Ward
Barry Stevens writes about an incident when her husband was in charge of a pediatric ward in a New York hospital in the twenties. “There was an infant whom none of the doctors could find anything wrong with, but all of them agreed the infant was dying. My husband spoke privately to a young nurse who loved babies. He swore her to secrecy before telling her what he wanted her to do. The secret was, ‘Take care of this baby as if it were your own. Just love it.’ At that time love was nonsense even to psychologists . . . .The baby took hold and survived. All the doctors agreed on that”.
If we take into account this singular account from the book Successful Psychotherapy: A Loving, Caring Relationship (1997). C. H. Patterson & S. C. Hidore, then we can apply this to classroom dynamics and update our list of what it means to be a good teacher, and so without further ado, this is what it means to be a great! teacher:
a great teacher puts themselves in the position of their student
- this means, the teacher needs to understand with empathy where each student is at – emotionally, physically, professionally and/or as a student. They can be proud and afraid of making mistakes or perhaps they’re lazy and need higher degrees of motivation. Each student has more than one subject (or has their job/family/children/sports/etc that make them who they are as people), and most probably they won’t remember everything every teacher ever taught them – but! they will remember the teachers who cared about them as students/people.
the teacher’s awareness of student-incongruence
- this means that every student has a good day, and a bad day – just like you as a teacher. A great teacher should be motivating their students to the best of their abilities – for who they are on that day. If a student just won $10,000 in a ERASMUS exchange scholarship they will react to you a bit different than if their grandma died or if they failed an important exam. Your job is to not negate the validity of those emotions – which would make your student inhuman – but to accept the emotions your students are going through and to tactfully bring them on topic so they can cope with their problems and develop their linguistic skills, which will help them in their lives. Step 2 is impossible without first being aware of the need to care about your students as human beings.
teacher genuineness
- students can spot a fake, 100 miles away. Even if you’re having an off-day as a teacher, which we can all admit can happen to all of us, it still doesn’t mean that your class will be a total disaster. First off, it should be ostensible that your class is not your therapist and you should never cross that professional border, however – you can still frame the disaster in a way that lets your students know that you care about them as individuals and that you’re there to help them. Teacher’s aren’t perfect, don’t know everything and make mistakes. Admitting this can help bring you closer to your class. Why? Because most teachers can’t admit to something like this – and everyone knows that it’s impossible for someone to be perfect. (AUTHOR’S NOTE: We’ve already talked about the points of what it means to be a good teacher, so failure to understand your materials doesn’t necessarily that making mistakes will make you a better teacher.)
unconditional positive regard
- the teacher accepts the student unconditionally for the person in front of you, understanding that that student needs your help to fulfill their dreams, ambitions, desires or wishes. It’s not our job as teachers to judge people as being right or wrong in their beliefs – but to help them develop as individuals and although we can challenge their beliefs for discussion’s sake – we should ultimately accept them as people similar to us. For universal emotions such as love, hate, fear, jealousy and ecstasy are shared by all of us. Finding out what those similarities are and developing the connection between each other is the first step to creating a positive relationship with anyone.
methodological pluralism
- Howard Garner speaks about multiple intelligences so often, he has a tendency to come up with a new one all the time. Yet, how does that really affect us in the classroom? To be honest, if you can’t have an unconditional positive regard for your student, then any methodology you use is a waste of time – regardless of whichintelligence you are trying to aim for. I would purport that the emotional charge that people come to study with is at least as important as multiple intelligences – if not more so. Why? For the simple plain fact that, if you can’t teach to the student sitting in front of you that day, with those emotions at that moment, and for the purposes that they’re searching for on the basis of common understanding that they are a person with dreams, feelings, emotions and ambitions but need understanding – then it doesn’t really matter how good your methodology is. Methodological pluralism is the idea that you are prepared for any emotional state that your students may be in, an ability to recognize those emotions as being real and valid, having a positive regard for them and being prepared to help them accomplish their linguistic goals. Not YOUR linguistic goals – theirs. That means you need to change your methodology to suit the student in front of you – for the person they are at that moment.
student perception
- student perception is a form of feedback for the teacher. A great teacher is highly empathetic and should be to such a degree that students know they care about them as people. As such, after following the first 5 steps – your students should then be able to open up, share more, work harder on their language and ultimately walk out of your classroom with a smile on their face saying “I feel great.” Doing so, will help them make more progress than trying to put a square peg (YOUR! lesson plan) in a round hole (their emotions).
Being a teacher ins’t a popularity contest, and your students aren’t there as your therapists. Ultimately, you should be able to guide your students in a direction which show that you admire them as people, give them the proper attention they need in a teacher-student relationship and the affirmations that they can and will succeed in their adventures learning whatever language you may be teaching.
I would love to hear what else you would put inside your list of being a great teacher and what you’re doing to become even greater!
Written by Josh - Pirate, Hero & ESL Activity Mastermind
when Josh isn't working on - well, let's just say working... - he plays with his Golden Retriever Mishka, learns another foreign language, rock climbs or enthusiastically does something to make himself even more interesting than he is today. :)
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