Unit 12 DIFFERENCES BETWEEN L1 AND L2 LEARNING

DIFFERENCES BETWEEN L1 AND L2 LEARNING

          The L1 that is the first language is easier to learn than L2 for everyone because, the language is part of our natural enviroment, it is talked at home with our family and at school through academic writings, while the L2 is taught  at school, highschool and sometimes in the adulthood but this is esporadically. L1 is learned by exposure and we pick up the language uncounciously while L2 needs intructions from a teacher or tutor who can give us grammar structures in order to learn. Here is important the motivation that students have because with L1 they dont feel frustated because they can interact with people around them but in L2 they feel desmotivated because there are moments where they can not express what they want, so they feel stress.
          To overcome the difficulty of learning L2, teachers should expose students to the language as much as possible and pay attention on the form of grammar structures but reformulating what students say in a right way in order that they dont feel bad, so they are motivated and have confidence at the moment of producing the language. Teacher has to provide situations in the classroom where students feel comfortable and they are interested in, because they could produce an answer and a conversation. Students feel familiar with the topics and they talk more and develop their L2 as L1.


Read the following page in order to solve the Problem of L1 vs. L2 in the Immersion Classroom
Carla.acad.umn.edu,. (2014). Retrieved 26 November 2014, from http://www.carla.acad.umn.edu/immersion/acie/v

In this video you have some tips to reduce the use of L1 in the L2 class, so they have more opportunities to produce L2.

YouTube,. (2014). Reducing L1 in the L2 Classroom. Retrieved 26 November 2014, from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRg-LEIzw0w 

Unit 11 THE ROLE OF ERROR

THE ROLE OF ERROR

          As learners, we have a lot of mistakes at the moment of producing the language, but we need to recognize if they are errors (say something beyond our current level) or slips (we are aware of the grammar but we make mistakes because of the lack of language). I understood that errors can be produced when students are influenced by first language L1 on the L2, so they tend to have an interference between both languages within grammatical structures, sounds, lexis. Also students work out on the language but in a wrong way because they mix the grammatical rules from Spanish to English or they try to overgeneralized the rules given, as add -ed in all the verbs in past. Sometimes the errors get fossilised, and at this point is difficult to change it, but not impossible because teachers can correct them with class activities. Teachers should help students to overcome this erros through readings (if we are teaching verbs in past, we should start from irregular verbs and then regular verbs, so students dont get confused). While teachers promote interaction between classmates, they can give feedback on the form when students have errors, the teacher reformulate what they said in a right way but not directly, so students develop their confidence.

For example teacher writes a topic on the board, then asks students to share ideas with their classmates, teacher asks students what they share, so teacher pays attention to the errors and if they have errors, tutors reformulates what ss said and correct students in an incounciously way. Or if they have slip and dont affect the communication, teacher should ignore those mistakes       

To more information, please check this page in order to know how to deal with fossalized errors throught techniques.
Constantinides, V. (2011). How do you deal with fossilized errors and help students improve their accuracy? #ELTchat Summary 23/02/2011.ELTchat. Retrieved 26 November 2014, from 
http://eltchat.org/wordpress/summary/how-do-you-deal-with-fossilized-errors-and-help-students-improve-their-accuracy-eltchat-summary-23022011/


See this video to find a fun way to overcome errors:

YouTube,. (2014). Error Correction in Speaking - The Fun Way: Herbert Puchta (Teaching Teenagers Tip #4). Retrieved 26 November 2014, from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znswuO4goYg

            

                    

Unit 10 EXPOSURE AND FOCUS ON FORM

EXPOSURE AND FOCUS ON THE FORM

       There are several ways to learn the language, and one of them is through exposure, where students acquire the language by hearing and reading from their surrounding uncounciously way. We dont need to study the language, for children they just pick it up the language naturally but adults need more than that. Adults need to focus on form of the new language like (grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation written form, etc.) Into the classroom teachers should provide to the students a lot of interaction in order that they get the language without stress. Obviously, we have to give students a silent period where they have to work out the language internally and then they produce it loosely.

         In the process of acquiring the language, the exposure is the best way to teach in the classroom, because teachers can use role plays, where students interact between them and teacher can pay attention to the mistakes and provide feedback and make students notice grammatical forms, also teachers can bring to the class: magazines,  books, lyrics in order to learn from authentic material. So students learn in classes and outside it, they can read materials for graded readers or listen audios easy for them to understand. As example, teachers can present a movie, the students have to takes notes about the phrases that are new for them and then teacher explain them and finally students should use those phrases into a role play. 

For more information   about principles to to teach the sencond language through exposure see: 
Transparent.com,. (2014). The Five Principles of Effective Second Language Acquisition. Retrieved 26 November 2014, from http://www.transparent.com/about/second-language.html

Also you can review this video to get more familiar with focus on the form: 

YouTube,. (2014). Shaping the Way We Teach English: Module 02, Building Language Awareness. Retrieved 26 November 2014, from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-LkN-Pm_zA
          


            

   

Unit 9 MOTIVATION

MOTIVATION

Throught this unit, I have learned that motivation in the classroom is very important because if we have both kind of motivation intrinsically(personal motivation) and extrinsically (external motivation), students will have a reason to study.  

The second one is of our interests, because teachers will be who provide this external motivation, and so we will have appropriate enviroment for mutual learning, where both sides, students and teachers contribute ideas to the class because of their interest in the same.

 

Sometimes students are demotivated because the teacher does not show interest in what the student wants to learn or because maybe you need to use other strategies to help students. At this point teachers should use the motivation in their favor in classes for students to have confidence at what they do during the activities.

In orden to use motivation in the classroom first, we must take into account what are the interests of students depending on the class. If they are adults, they want to study in order to have a job or achieve their goals for the semester and there are other students who want to learn the target language through history, song lyrics, culture or movies. So once we have recognize what students wants, the teacher must thus be able to use this to draw the attention of students and have all their interest. We can use work in groups with similar topics, with individual works giving them independence and autonomy.

In the following link, you will find strategies to use motivations and diffrent kind of motivation. 

Peoplelearn.homestead.com,. (2014). Retrieved 26 November 2014, from http://peoplelearn.homestead.com/beduc/chapter_8

  Also you can see this video to motivate your students.

YouTube,. (2014). Motivational Video For Students. Retrieved 26 November 2014, from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mb-0qbq984