Week 6

From Speaking to Writing/ teaching the Spoken Language

The importance of practicing spoken language is crucial and sometimes overlooked by many teachers of languages. I can say from experience that in Puerto Rico, students learn the see and read English and hardly ever learn to listen or speak the language. Opportunities, as well as tasks and strategies to do so are not given the proper importance.
Another factor is the contextual aspect of teaching. Some teachers make the learning more difficult and superficial as Kramsh mentions, because he/she looses the vision of the importance of teaching cognitively and the importance of making the lesson relevant and in a context in which the learner sees that he/she will be able to use this new information being learned, that it is for a purpose.

As a teacher I am more aware now and try to make the context of culture and the intertextual aspects of the discourse of my students more explicit. To try to make us all more aware of our position in the context.

The Peregogy/Boyle article adds to my enlightenment by showing the importance of teacher/student talk. As an educator I create hands on activities for my students that for my understanding are perfect and fun for a specific topic to be covered, but I must admit that sometimes I do not take the context of my student's realities into consideration, making it harder for them to understand and practice the necessary skills for a particular lesson.
Taking in consideration the students' prior knowledge should be one of the first aspects a teacher considers; specially in a foreign language classroom. This might mean a change in the way my colleagues and I teach English in PR, But I believe it's worth a try.