Categoría: Blog

There seems to be a widely held belief that English, in common with the British who speak it, is a very formal language. In my experience, English does not seem any more or less formal than other languages.

All cultures seem to have concepts of formality, what can be confusing is that these concepts differ from culture to culture.

• What is appropriacy and how is it shown in English?
• Why is appropriacy important?
• What problems do learners have with appropriacy?
• How can we help learners develop a sensitivity to appropriacy?
• Conclusion

What is appropriacy and how is it shown in English?

Perhaps the first thing to clarify is that I prefer the word appropriacy to register. This is because the term register is used to describe lexis that is exclusive to a particular area of use, often professional, such as  medicine. I will, therefore, to avoid confusion, refer to whether language is appropriate. I also prefer this term since so much depends upon context and whether language is appropriate to that context. So what makes language appropriate for a context?

Basically appropriacy depends upon what you say and how you say it. In other words upon your choice of words and the way you then produce those words, which in spoken language is largely dependent on pronunciation and paralinguistics (body language).

What you say and how you say it will in turn be governed by the situation and who you are talking to. Bygate (1987) used the term ‘reciprocity conditions’ to describe how these features affect language production. An example might be the use of the exclamation «Shut up!». Most of us might tell a friend to «Shut up!» in a friendly informal way when chatting in a pub. We could mean «I don’t believe you.» and would probably be laughing and use high pitched falling intonation. If we were not smiling and used rising intonation the message would be very different and inappropriate. We would be less likely to use the same words in a friendly way to the same person at a formal dinner because the other people present might misinterpret our meaning and think we were being rude. We would not tell a stranger or someone we are not on very familiar terms with to «Shut up!» under any normal circumstances (we would of course if we positively wanted to be rude or perhaps if we thought their talking was rude).

This consideration for the listener is reflected in the three maxims Robin Lakoff (1973) put forward:

• Don’t impose
• Give options
• Make your receiver feel good

Why is appropriacy important?

Brown and Yule (1983) suggested that much language use aims at ‘interaction’, by which they mean using language to create, preserve and develop social relationships. If the speaker is not appropriate this aim will not be achieved. Rudeness, deliberate or not, causes social relationships to break down.

What problems do learners have with appropriacy?

What makes this so difficult for a learner of English is that so much of the necessary sensitivity to appropriacy is culturally specific and acquired in childhood. It is also always changing – some examples of what is considered appropriate language now (for example the use of «Shut up!» explored above) would have been thought completely inappropriate as little as 40 years ago, perhaps even more recently.

In addition, due to the subconscious manner in which this awareness of appropriacy is acquired, native speakers may not make allowances for its absence when non-native speakers speak or write. A good example is the case of intonation where a speaker may be misinterpreted as being rude or bored completely unfairly because their intonation is too flat.

Another cause of problems here can be employing what is acceptable in your L1 when speaking another language. In Spain it is uncommon to say «por favor» (please) when ordering a drink in a bar; so long as you smile, it is unnecessary. This is not the casein the UK. Similarly in Czech I could ask «Nemate chleb?» in a shop but if I directly translated this into «Don’t you have bread?» in Britain, I could be in trouble.

Finally to make things more complex there is the difference between appropriacy in spoken and written language. This distinction exists in most languages as far as I am aware but nevertheless adds further complications. The arrival of texting and email has blurred this distinction to some extent but at the same time has increased the amount of awareness necessary.

How can we help learners develop a sensitivity to appropriacy?

In this final section I will suggest a few ideas for helping students become more sensitive to appropriacy in English, both as producers of and receivers of language.

General strategies

• Teach functions

Most of the distinctions between what is and isn’t appropriate can be most easily demonstrated through teaching functional ‘social’ language (e.g. making requests). When teaching functions be sure to focus on the context in which you would use particular functions and with whom you would use them.

• Teach neutral exponents first

Most learners will be safe and able to function if they can use neutral language appropriately, so I teach this first. For example, «Can you tell me the time, please?» is more generally applicable than «Would you mind telling me the time, please?» or «What’s the time?».

• Practise transformation

Practise transforming language from formal to neutral to informal etc. My students find this fun and interesting and it is a good way of raising awareness of different possibilities within the same context.

Strategies to raise sensitivity to recognition

• Listening for inference

I often ask students to listen and decide «What is the relationship between the speakers?» or «Where are they speaking?» etc. as a first listening task as it makes them aware of the importance of these considerations.

• Exploiting tapescripts

As a post-listening activity, I ask learners to search through tapescripts looking for language that shows the appropriacy of the text.

• Video

I use video with the sound off to raise awareness of paralinguistics clues.

Strategies to help with appropriate production

• Drilling

Pronunciation is central to appropriacy and so I try to drill good models with differing intonation and stress.

• Practising in a variety of contexts

Very little language is context specific (we don’t only use the 2nd conditional to talk about winning the lottery – when we use it at all) so I give my learners practice using structures / functions / lexis in lots of different situations.

• Including degrees of appropriacy in spoken practice

In spoken practice activities I sometimes add on an aspect of different degrees of appropriacy. For example, I give students roles such as ‘teacher’ or ‘older stranger’ or ‘best friend’, which means they will have to use different language depending on who they are talking to.

• Writing dialogues

For a variety of reasons I often ask students to write spoken language. One task I use is to ask groups to write the same dialogue (e.g. asking for directions) but assign a different degree of appropriacy to each group. The groups then perform their dialogues for the class and the listeners have to guess how appropriate they are being.

SOURCE:

https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/register-degrees-formality

Publicado por: AVANCE | tuavance.com

¿Alguna vez han dejado actividades que tienen que realizar para “mañana”, siguiente semana, el próximo mes o el próximo año? ¿Cual fue la razón? ¿El hecho de hacerlo puede afectar o tener alguna incidencia en el éxito o fracaso de nuestros propósitos u objetivos? La respuesta es sí, ya que aplazar el hacer o realizar algo puede repercutir desde nuestra salud, al sentirnos más presionados a cumplir con una tarea causándonos más estrés por realizarla en menos tiempo, hasta nuestro trabajo, causando una productividad más baja y el no alcanzar las metas y/u objetivos propuestos.

¿Pero que es realmente procrastinar? Es un hábito de postergar o retrasar, sin ninguna justificación válida, actividades, compromisos, trabajo, estudios que tarde o temprano si tienen que ser realizadas. ¿Por qué hacemos eso? De acuerdo a muchos estudios e investigaciones realizadas respecto al tema, como por ejemplo de un grupo de investigación de la famosa Universidad de Harvard en Estados Unidos que publicó en 2016 un interesante informe sobre la procrastinación, sus repercusiones en el éxito estudiantil y profesional (https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/287477), lo hacemos porque simplemente hay “una lucha entre el cerebro emocional y el cerebro racional y cuando la voluntad de nuestra razón cede a los caprichos del instinto”, porque “la razón de procrastinar está en nuestro subconsciente ya que evitamos hacer algo que pueda tener alguna sensación negativa, por desidia, falta de motivación, entre otros”.  

Pero como todo hay una solución para poder evitar o eliminar definitivamente este hábito. Algunas de las estrategias o tips que se pueden aplicar son:

• Crear estrategias de trabajo, programando las actividades de tal manera que nos lleven a cumplir de manera organizada y continua nuestros objetivos.
• La motivación es extremadamente importante, ya sea impulsada por nosotros mismos o por otras personas alrededor de nosotros, como amigos, familiares, siempre de forma positiva.
• Visualiza los detalles y como alcanzar tu meta.
• Evita todo lo que pueda distraerte y enfócate.
• Un buen consejo es transforma tus actividades o tareas en un juego.
• Otórgate premios como motivación y elógiate.
• Utiliza y distribuye de la mejor forma tu energía, con una buena alimentación, haz ejercicio, duerme bien.
• Date una pausa, al realizar tareas de menos importancia y mas agradables, antes de terminar la tarea principal.
• Transforma y utiliza tu pasión como tu vocación.
• Ten compromiso.

No dejes lo que puedes hacer hoy para mañana. Siempre cumple tus metas, alcanza tus objetivos y nuevas puertas se abrirán con nuevas oportunidades y retos.

– “La mejor manera posible de prepararte para el mañana es concentrarte con toda tu inteligencia, con todo tu entusiasmo, haciendo el trabajo de hoy magníficamente. Esa es la única manera posible de prepararte para el futuro”-   (Dale Carnegie)

–       “La procrastinación es como una tarjeta de crédito: es muy divertida hasta que te llega el estado de cuenta” – (Christopher Parker)

AVANCE | tuavance.com

Vocabulary is the knowledge of words and their meanings. Because vocabulary knowledge is critical to reading comprehension, it is essential that those working with young readers implement effective vocabulary teaching strategies so that their students can develop an extensive word bank.

Instruction of vocabulary means more than just looking up words and their definitions, it requires indirect exposure to words as well as intentional word strategies. Here are a few motivational activities to help increase your students’ writing, speaking, listening, and reading vocabularies.

Teaching Strategies: Inventive Vocabulary

One of the most effective ways to teach young students new vocabulary words is to teach them unfamiliar words. For this activity, make a list of words that you know are unknown to your students. Then, every day, choose one word from the list and write that word in a sentence on the front board, remembering to underline the unknown word. Instruct students to read the sentence on the board and try to think of what the underlined word means.

Next, instruct students to draw a picture to show what they think the word means. Encourage each child to show off their illustrations and explain what they think the underlined word means. Once everyone has had a turn, together as a class look up the real definition in the dictionary. Here are a few example sentences to get you started.

The Discovery Box

This daily activity will be sure to increase your students’ vocabulary in no time. For each student, create a blank book. You can easily do this by stapling 26 blank pages of paper between two pieces of colorful cardstock. Instruct students to label each page in their booklet in alphabetical order. Each night (or a few times a week), have students search at home for a new or interesting word. Instruct students to cut this word out (it can be from a cereal box, the newspaper, an old magazine) and glue it to an index card. Then, the following day, students bring in their cards and place it into the “Discovery Box.” At some point in the day, randomly call upon a student to choose one card from the box and write the word and its definition on the front board for his/her classmates to write into their booklets. Continue this process throughout the school year.

Word Awareness

Increase your students’ word awareness by having them create a word collage. Supply students with a variety of different materials to get their words from, like magazines, newspapers, old workbooks or textbooks, etc. Challenge them to find 20 new and interesting words that really stand out to them. These words should be of different colors, sizes, and shapes. Once they find their 20 words, instruct them to glue the words (anyway that they please) onto a white piece of cardstock or construction paper. Once the collages are completed, have students show them off to their classmates and tell them their favorite word on the collage. Then, display their fantastic work outside of your classroom for all to see!

Words and Literature

A great way to enrich your students’ vocabularies is to have fun with words through literature. Ruth Heller is a wonderful author who has written a collection of children’s books that are great for extending language, books such as “A Cache of Jewels and Other Collectible Nouns,” “Many Luscious Lollipops: A Book About Adjectives,” and “Fantastic! Wow! and Unreal!: A Book About Interjections and Conjunctions.” These are just three of her many books that are filled with language opportunities to enrich your students’ vocabularies. Another great book collection is the Ameila Bedelia series by Peggy Parish. Ameila’s outrageous literal interpretations of words will have your students in squeals of delight.

Effective vocabulary learning means you must provide students with multiple exposures to words and their meanings. If you can get students to be interested in playing with words now then, you have won half the battle of creating students who love words throughout their lifetime.

SOURCE:

http://www.teachhub.com/teaching-strategies-vocabulary-expansion

As an English teacher at an outstanding primary, Anna Warren is often asked for inspiration. Here she shares her favourite approaches for creative English lessons

As a creative school, with a track record in fantastic English results, we are often asked what our specific approach is: how do we teach through the arts yet manage to maintain such high expectations from all our pupils? I’d like to share some of these approaches with you:

Immersion activities

How can children access stories, poems and other texts if their minds and imaginations not fully engaged? We have found that immersing children in a range of creative activities before reading the text means that they are fully prepared, and excited, about the reading journey ahead of them. Through painting, music composition, a film project, in role drama or sculpture, the kids have had a chance to share vocabulary, ideas and concepts which gives their reading fresh meaning and purpose.

Clear purpose

What’s the point of reading and writing anything if you don’t know why you’re doing it? We aim to provide children with a clear purpose to all reading, and especially writing tasks. Whether it’s an invitation to the headteacher to attend a class assembly, an email to an author or an article for a school newspaper, our children know why the quality of their writing matters: because there will be a real audience for their published work.

Professional publishing

One effective way of valuing children’s work as well as providing a real incentive, is to plan for a range of ways to publish their writing. Recent examples include a whole school bookmaking project. Following a whole school Inset on bookbinding techniques, every class published their own shared book; one example being an anthology of short spooky stories composed by year 6. Their stories were mounted on handmade paper, accompanied with each child’s art work (lino cut style prints on metallic paper) with a dramatic paper cut out front cover. The effort the children put into their work was immense, and the results were stunning as a result. The anthology has been enjoyed by parents and other pupils and the children’s pride in their work is clear to see.

Meaningful planning

Where possible, learning in English is linked with subjects within the creative curriculum we follow: the international primary curriculum (IPC). Well in advance of teaching, teachers collaborate and share their ideas for planning through a mind mapping process. Meaningful, creative activities are planned for, ensuring that all staff members know exactly what the children will be learning and why.

Focused on strategies

The teaching of reading is not easy. As children’s fluency in reading increases, it’s hard to know what reading skills need to be taught, and when. We ensure that specific reading strategies are modelled explicitly to the class; this provides children with a holistic bank of skills to draw upon. This could include scanning a text, making an inference, predicting or creating a mental image. Our teachers use ‘think aloud’ statements to model to the children how these skills are used, and how they can help them become better readers. These strategies are then shared as a class, and then assessed in follow up guided reading activities.

Inspirational learning environment

Take a trip to our school and you’ll find classroom environments that inspire adults and children alike. Not only is the children’s work displayed creatively, but there is a range of learning prompts to inspire and support all pupils. We want to encourage our children to discover new texts, genres and authors, so our reading areas are inviting, well resourced and highly organised. Pupils can choose from an exciting array of reading material: newspapers, classic texts, reference books as well as the children’s own published stories are just some examples of what book corners might offer.

Drama to engage and inspire

The use of drama is such a powerful tool. Taking the lead from our drama specialist, all teaching staff use a range of techniques to promote the exploration of characters, situations and historical events. This process expands the pupils’ imaginations, and provides them with the ideas they need to give their writing that extra spark and flair.

Rigorous teaching of spelling and phonics

In the infants, phonics is streamed, so all children can benefit from tailored teaching, making maximum progress as a result. All phonics and spelling activities are fun, multi sensory and as physical possible, the aim being to meet all learning styles in the class. In the juniors, we try to make homework lists as personalised to the child as possible to ensure that the spelling patterns stick in a meaningful way.

Grammar concepts taught creatively

Grammar cannot be taught as a stand alone activity. What’s the point of that? Children begin to understand grammar concepts, and start to apply them in their own writing, when they start to read with a writer’s mind. Punctuation rules and techniques are drawn from shared texts; texts which the children have already been immersed in and have a good understanding of. Exploring these, and embedding them creatively is how the learning takes place.

Peer and self assessment

What child doesn’t love marking somebody else’s work? With a clear marking key, success criteria and purpose in mind, children set about assessing either their own, or a partner’s piece of writing. Modelled through the teacher’s own formative marking, pupils know what the expectations are. They are well trained in searching for successful examples of the learning intention, articulating their responses to the work, checking the writing matches any targets and giving constructive feedback. Seeing the children learn from each other in this way is hugely positive; you know you’ve done your job well.

SOURCE:

https://www.theguardian.com/teacher-network/teacher-blog/2013/feb/14/teaching-english-creatively-outstanding-results

Whether you teach elementary ESL or work with adults, spelling will be a part of your curriculum.

When you are looking for a fun way to use or review these spelling words in class, try one of the following games with your students.

Try These 10 Fun Spelling Games with Your ESL Class

Scrabble Slam

With no preparation and a small financial investment, Scrabble Slam is a fun way for your students to practice spelling words in English. The game consists of a simple set of playing cards with one letter printed on the front and back of each card. Starting with any four letter word, students add one letter at a time on top of one of the original four letters to create a new word. Modify the rules slightly and take turns going around the table to see if each person can create a new word with each of his turns.

Free Form Scrabble

If your students are working with a specific spelling or vocabulary list, challenge them to fit all of their spelling words on a Scrabble game board. Each word must connect with one of the other words, and students only have the letter tiles which came in the game. Students may find it easier as well as more fun if they create their spelling word grid with a partner.

Unscrambled Eggs

Another activity you can do with a given set of vocabulary words requires two sets of plastic eggs. For each egg, put the letters to spell a vocabulary word (use letter tiles, plastic letters or whatever you have on hand) and shake to mix. Make one egg for each spelling word for each team. Two teams then race relay style, each person opening one egg and putting the letters in the right order to make a vocabulary word. The first team to unscramble all their eggs is the winner.

Spelling Pong

For a fun, rainy day activity, set up a grid of cups on a table in your classroom. Each cup should have a letter written on the bottom of it. Students then take turns bouncing a ping-pong ball into the cups. Whatever cup the ball lands in, the player has that letter to use as he tries to spell a word. Students take turns until each person is able to spell a word from the letters he has collected. Either race to see who can spell a word first, or challenge students to make as many words as possible from the letters they earn. Make sure your students spell words with at least three or four letters as you play.

Spelling Bee

A Spelling Bee is a classic spelling game which will help your students spell and review words from their vocabulary lists. Divide your class into two teams and have each team stand along an opposite wall of the classroom. Give one word at a time to each student, alternating teams. If the student spells the word correctly, she goes to the end of the line until her turn comes up again. If she spells the word incorrectly, she sits down. The last team standing wins. This game is a great way to review vocabulary or spelling words before a comprehensive test.

Find the Vowels

Make a set of go fish cards using spelling words. For each spelling word, write the word on one card minus the vowels in the word (for example “H—D”). On another card, write the vowels which complete that word (for example, -EA-“). Students play the card game go fish style by matching the spelling word with the vowels it needs to complete the word. You can add cards to the set as you add spelling words throughout the year.

Invisible Man

For a team spelling game, draw two stick figures on the board. Each figure should have the same number of parts. The goal is to make your team’s stick man invisible before the other team does. Give each team a word to spell. If they spell it correctly, erase one piece of the stick figure. If they do not spell the word correctly, leave the stick figure unchanged. Then repeat with two new words. The first team to make his man invisible wins!

Magnetic Letters

Using a magnetic board and a few sets of magnetic letters (available in most stores), see which player can create the most words in a set amount of time, around five minutes, from his set of letters. After the five minutes is up, check the words and explain any unfamiliar vocabulary. The person with the highest number of words wins the game.

Word Search

A word search is a fun way for students to review spelling words. Give each person a sheet of graph paper and have him write the spelling words in the grid before filling in the remaining boxes. Have students exchange their word searches and see who can find all the vocabulary words first.

Spell Hopscotch

For an outside spelling game, have students draw a hopscotch board on the playground.

Give each person a word to spell as she jumps through the boxes. If she spells the word wrong, she must repeat that word on her next turn. The first person to get through the entire board wins.

SOURCE:

https://busyteacher.org/11555-10-fun-spelling-games-for-your-esl-class.html

Reading work in translation is vital. Would Ode on a Grecian Urn exist if Keats had never looked into Chapman’s Homer?

Is there any purpose in translating poetry? This question was posed last weekend in the Guardian Review by James Buchan, reviewing a new Paul Celan selection, Snowpart/Schneepart, with English translations by Ian Fairley. He adds that, after all, «a poem does not contain information of importance, like a signpost or a warning notice».

That’s true enough. Modern lyric poetry, with its symbols and metaphors, its arcane allusions and teasing line breaks, is fairly bad at giving us the facts. We no longer live in an age in which the skills of beekeeping, say, are explained by the greatest verse-maker in the language, as Virgil does in The Georgics. Even those jolly mnemonics about the weather or the Greek alphabet are fading from consciousness. It’s a pity, as I often think I might get the gist of assembling a new piece of flatpack furniture quicker if the instructions were wittily rhymed.

So why translate? My first answer is that poetry in translation simply adds to the sum total of human pleasure obtainable through a single language. It opens up new language worlds within our own tongues, as every good poem does. It revitalises our daily, cliche-haunted vocabulary. It disturbs our assumptions, jolts us with rhythms flatter or stronger than we’re used to. It extends us in the way real travelling does, giving us new sounds, sights and smells. Every unique poetry village sharpens us to life.

Some people would disagree, saying poetry in translation is the wrong side of the tapestry – it just can’t be done. But they are talking about replication, not translation. It is perfectly true that you will never get a replica of the original – nor would you wish to. The way it works, when translator and original are in tune, is that a third poem is created. It is the child of two parents and simply couldn’t exist without them.

How poor modern Anglophone poetry would be without Edwin Morgan’s Mayakovsky, Anne Carson’s Sappho or Mark Musa’s Dante; without George Szirtes’s Hungarian poets or Ian and Jarmila Milner’s Czechs. What a loss to the itinerary if we didn’t have the journal Modern Poetry in Translation to transport our imaginations across the globe in 80 seconds.

Translation practice currently is a broad church, including what is a heresy to some – imitation. Some translators foreground their own reaction, and use the original as raw material only. Others live with a single poet for years in order to find a way of reflecting every nuance as truthfully as possible. As long as the translator is completely honest about the way in which he or she is using the original text, this is all to the good. One poem may generate all kinds of word villages.

For poets themselves, reading work in translation is an immense stimulus. It may be the means by which they find themselves. Would we have had the uniquely Keatsian Ode on a Grecian Urn if Keats had never looked into Chapman’s Homer?

James Buchan’s claim that readers who like The Whitsun Weddings won’t like Schneepart is wide of the mark. It implies you can’t admire utterly different poets (you can, and all real poetry lovers do). Besides, under Philip Larkin’s lucidity and Celan’s obscurity, lie two not dissimilar imaginations, both concerned with death. Larkin even has the occasional Celan-like compound-word – «almost-instinct», for example.

Buchan quotes a Celan poem he finds «extremely beautiful» – which partly answers his own question. Celan’s poems are often beautiful, sometimes ugly: sometimes they pierce us like icicles. This one was translated by Michael Hamburger:

You were my death: you I could hold when all fell away from me.        

That icicle of consolation is surely from a village not far from Larkin’s?

SOURCE:

https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2007/sep/28/translatingpoetryopensupne

Publicado por: AVANCE | tuavance.com

¡¿Escribir?! ¡¿Escribir en otro idioma?! ¿Que es lo primero que piensan al respecto? “Imposible, muy difícil, no es lo mío, nada interesante”. Escribir sobre algún tema es un reto en cualquier idioma, ya que requiere ciertas habilidades, una alta motivación, conocimiento sobre distintos temas y es ser capaz de llevar tu pensamiento abstracto a otro nivel. Nada imposible, que se puede lograr con un entrenamiento adecuado y constante y paciencia, ya que es una habilidad que desarrollamos desde temprana edad y la utilizamos constantemente en nuestras vidas. Lo importante es como la aprendemos y como la desarrollamos de una manera divertida, integral y real.

Pero para empezar vamos a entender que es escribir, la escritura es vista como una actividad humana con el propósito específico de comunicar algo a una audiencia general o en particular. Es una habilidad y competencia comunicativa muy importante y muy requerida actualmente, tanto en el ámbito laboral, como en el social. A diferencia de la habilidad hablada o el famoso “speaking”, la escritura tiene que ser planeada y estructurada en cuanto al uso de la gramática, vocabulario, organización de las ideas, ciertas articulaciones y cohesiones textuales, la coherencia y lógica de un escrito. Pero sin dejar de lado lo más importante, la creatividad y la inspiración.

Te compartimos algunos tips importantes que te ayudan a mejorar tu escritura en inglés:

• Haz que la escritura en inglés sea divertida.
• Muéstrales a tus alumnos el objetivo a alcanzar, cuál es el motivo para realizar el escrito.
• Enséñales a ser creativos, a utilizar ideas de diferentes fuentes (lluvia de ideas, revistas, entre otros).
• Proporcionales modelos a seguir o un start-up para que puedan comenzar a escribir.
• Muéstrales el proceso y el formato de un escrito.
• Utiliza una práctica constante de escritura sobre diferentes temas.  
• Enséñales a escribir más de un borrador.
• Incúlcales una costumbre de lectura constante en inglés sobre diferentes temas (fomenta el aumento de vocabulario entre otras habilidades).
• Evita la traducción.
• Enséñales todo lo relacionado a puntuación y sus reglas en un escrito.
• Sugiéreles encontrar el momento y el lugar ideal para escribir.

Recuerda que la practica hace al maestro, pero lo importante es hacerlo divertido. 

 – “No tenía idea de la cantidad de puertas que puede abrir el simple acto de escribir.” – Stephen King.

 – “La escritura no es producto de la magia, sino de la perseverancia”. – Richard North Patterson.

AVANCE | tuavance.com

¿Que es classroom management?

Publicado por: AVANCE | tuavance.com

Como maestros, nos ha pasado que estando al frente de un grupo, podemos encontrar muchos tipos de situaciones que llegan a distraer la atención del objetivo principal: nuestra lección y el aprendizaje de nuestros alumnos. Es precisamente donde entra en acción el manejo o la gestión de una clase (classroom management), que representa la característica más importante y clave en un proceso de enseñanza de calidad.

¿Pero como podemos definir el manejo o la gestión de una clase? Abarca las habilidades y técnicas que nosotros, los maestros, utilizamos en clase para organizar a los alumnos, mantener su atención y lograr la mayor y mejor realización de las tareas y actividades en un salón de clases, llegando a alcanzar un aprendizaje integral y productivo. Tenemos que considerar y poner en práctica algunos factores claves a fin de poder facilitar y mejorar el aprendizaje de nuestros alumnos, tales como:

• El comportamiento: una actitud positiva, frases motivadoras, entre otros.
• El ambiente de la clase: tener una atmósfera cálida de bienvenida, materiales adecuados y propicios al aprendizaje, entre otros.
• Expectativas: mostrarles y enseñarles que tipo de trabajos, tareas, proyectos etc. se espera de ellos, que tipo de actitudes tienen que tener hacia sus compañeros, entre otros.
• Materiales: todos los recursos que tenemos a fin de facilitarles el aprendizaje.
• Actividades: qué tipo de experiencias les proveemos a nuestros alumnos con el propósito de despertarles la curiosidad intelectual, sus intereses y pasiones.

Lo anterior mencionado, aplicado y utilizado adecuadamente, se traduce en tanto un buen manejo de clase, así como en lo que llamamos una buena enseñanza, “good teaching”, por lo tanto, un buen(a) maestro(a).

Dependiendo del propósito, alcance, por mencionar algunos factores a considerar en un buen manejo de clase, dentro de las técnicas a considerar son:

• Tener preparada y organizada una rutina de entrada.
• El hacer ahora.
• Técnica de transición corta.
• Señalamientos de asientos.
• La técnica de “felicitaciones”.
• Intervenciones no-verbales.
• La técnica de corrección positiva grupal.
• La técnica de realizarlo nuevamente.

¿Y tú has definido tu estilo de manejo de clase? ¿Cual consideras que es el más completo o cómo manejarlo de la mejor manera?

-Un maestro es una brújula que activa los imanes de la curiosidad, el conocimiento y la sabiduría en los alumnos. –

 -Enseñaras a volar, pero no volaran tu vuelo. Enseñaras a soñar, pero no soñaran tu sueño. Enseñaras a vivir, pero no vivirán tu vida. Sin embargo…en cada vuelo, en cada vida, en cada sueño, perdurará siempre la huella del camino enseñado. – Madre Teresa de Calcuta.

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