Post your proposals for the next two activities

As you know, the teacher asked us to come with ideas for the course so that we can determine the direction it will take. After class ended some students, myself included, approached Rúben and told him our proposals.

I will not talk about what my classmates proposed as I think their words would better explain what come to their own mind. But I will share my proposal: A microteaching in which we have the possibility to deliver an English class to the rest of the group. This would help us to get a grasp on what we could do in the classroom and that is something very important when it comes to our career.

Remember what the professor said in class and what we have said also in other courses: We are the ones that must find a way to help our students learn, we should find the tactics to motivate them. I think that developing strategies for teaching is something hard and there is also the fact that these strategies are born through experience only.

Asking someone who does not know you to pay attention in your class is very hard, so I though practicing with our fellow classmates would be a very nice proposal to start getting on stage, and let us not forget that since the people we are teaching to are our peers they could deliver very rich feedback after we finish the practice. Maybe not everyone in the class will be concentrated, but as we gain experience, the number of people that will pay attention in our classes may increase. We can also compliment the website with our experience when the activity is done and we could also say how our teaching philosophy changed after the experience.

After I said most of that, and my classmates gave some feedback on the idea, Rúben replied to me with something: How about if, instead of doing a microteaching with our classmates, we go to one of the courses he is teaching in and do the practice there. He said the people in these courses are very active and receptive…

  I do not have the right to say ¨Hey you are right, that is better¨ or ¨Nah, mine is better¨. The final decision should be taken by the group. I am not saying mine is the ultimate activity to do. This post includes just two possible resolutions. If you have one idea then you are welcome to post it in the comment section, the more ideas we have, the easier it will be to find something productive and interesting. You can also show your agreement or disagreement with a proposal you read or compliment it to make it more interesting.

Last but not least and as the title heavily implies: This not only goes to the observation activity. The podcast is included in this discussion.

Student's reflections

I was using social media and I found a friend’s post and the comments about it. Immediately it attracts my attention with regard to the discussion about evaluation. I think this post glimpses students are aware that they are being evaluated, so, in what we fail?

Finding this question I see an educational institution and a government with the need to evaluate the education of hundreds and thousands students, then they use a score system. Does the teacher have all the weight of the evaluation? Given the circumstances I would say yes.

Weigle (2002) talks about writing evaluation, she explains the pothole there is when writing is evaluated in a test, even in texts with short time of realization, and present the portfolio assessment which is an evidence of the writing process and the progress in it; also allows the student to reflect and return to his/her owns texts in many times, evidencing more accurately the student's writing process, and at the same time providing permanent support for progress in the writing process.

What do you think? Does time play an important role in a more objective and clear assessment? How can we work on this?

(Natalia Arcila)

THE EVALUATION PROCESS IN THE FOREIGN LANGUAGE CURRICULUM

In this apart, it is necessary to reflect and pose a critical point of view about the evaluation process. Issue that is presented in The Foreign Language Curriculum Guidelines and other articles in this regard (Hargreaves et al (2001), Chapter 3 Haynes & Zacarian (2010), Chapter 7 Dawes, Hubbard, & Smith (in Grugeon, et al., 2005, Chapter 8) Nation (2009), Chapters 6 and 10 Nation & Newton (2009), Chapter 10 Weigle (2002), Chapters 8 and 9); in which topics such as evaluation, assessment, achievement indicators, competences, strategies, methodologies, feedback, teaching and learning are addressed, with the purpose to provide teachers information enabling them to enhance their teaching practices, the students’ learning process and the way in which teachers design, carry out and reflect about evaluation.

Though, some of the content about evaluation presented for the aforementioned authors seems ideal, it is still far from what really happens at the educational institutions. 

• Would you consider, according to your experiences that evaluation processes at educational institutions are more interested in high-scores at the results than in the quality, property and effectiveness of teaching and learning processes?

ASSESSING CURRICULUM EFFECTIVENESS

Ever since the concept of formal schooling took place, there has been an extensive deliberation about the curriculum and the role of the teacher - student in its development and delivery. The extreme positions have been a curriculum designed by the teacher and the learners, to one that has been designed by high level authorities – many times without the proper expertise to do this - who decide what students should learn. This dialogue has often been linked to the aims of education. There were those who argued for a “child-centered” curriculum, others opposed this approach on the grounds that it was insufficient for the education of students. However, it was undeniable that the nature of the students must have a place in the curriculum. 

This time, our blog debate will consider the following questions, to what extent the curriculum:

• Incorporates the culture of the environment, so that knowledge is gained by meaningful learning?
• Supports individual development and learning achievement while giving consideration to national development?
• Is sensitive to social inequities - gender, socio-economic status, thus providing the variety of learning opportunities that will support achievement for all?
• Prepares children for lifelong learning?
• Prepares children for a productive adult life and for meeting the challenges of a changing world or being able to shape their own destinies?

van den Akker, J., & Boersma, K. (1993).