As preparation for the beginning of these reflections, I resorted to some fundamentals I was lacking. In Aural and Oral Skills, Peter McKenzie-Brown states: "aural" is what we hear, whereas "oral" is what we say.
Still according to him, the maxim
"we are given two ears and one mouth so we can listen twice as much as we talk"
should serve as a reminder for teachers when planning lessons, especially when it comes to teaching beginners.
My challenge this week is to keep an eye (or, better, both ears) on my Teacher Talking Time
and consider:
"The best classroom activities cross skill boundaries"
I'm curious to know what you guys have been doing to cross skill boundaries!
Helô
Hi again :) ,
ReplyDeleteI like the article by Peter McKenzie-Brown that you put here and agree completely with its content (which I emphasised also in one of my discussion threads). Wonderful thing, great job.
Eldin
Hi Helo,
ReplyDeleteNot much I'm afraid, because this whole week was holiday in my country. I'm just trying to figure it out how to balance the use of the coursebook, (which is compulsory at Secondary schools in my country)with CALL in a meaningful way to my students and at the same time fulfilling the time requirements.
The first thing I have to do to cross skill boundaries, as you said, is to recognize my weakness at the moment of teaching my students strategies to develop their oral skills, so this is something I have to start with right now.
Thanks for your post, sometimes we can't see what it is so obvious until another person make us think about it.
Mariángel
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteDear Helô,
ReplyDeleteLet me join you and start to pay more attention (this is me) to my TTT.
I also agree that often times we take just so much for granted, it's scary.
Some return to basics is always fruitful and that's my main goal now.
Thank you for the opportunity to reflect.
See you...
Gilmar