Teacher Christian P. Hndez.: beginner

Showing posts with label beginner. Show all posts

Sunday, October 5, 2014

Simple Tenses

Paul goes to work at 9 every morning.

The simple tenses are used to talk about regular or repeated actions:

The simple tenses are also used to talk about permanent situations:

	The past and future simple can be used to talk about single events: but in the present we are in the middle of it, so we have to use the present progressive:
	The present simple simple is used to talk about general truths, such as scientific facts:
	The present simple simple is also used in book and film reviews, because books and films always tell the same story: We also use it for jokes and anecdotes, which always tell the same story, and in dramatic narrative: Finally, we use it in sports and concert commentaries: even though the events are taking place at the moment of speaking (it's a lot easier to comment live using the present simple, too).

Friday, March 30, 2012

Teacher Christian P. Hndez.: Guidelines for new (and not so new) teachers Part ...

Teacher Christian P. Hndez.: Guidelines for new (and not so new) teachers Part ...: One of the most significant things you can do to affect student conduct is to establish effective daily events in your classroom. Doing s...

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Guidelines for new (and not so new) teachers Part 1

One of the most significant things you can do to affect student conduct is to establish effective daily events in your classroom. Doing so will allow you to be organized and appear in control. It will also allow students to take responsibility for themselves because they will know what to do. Time is also used more effectively in classrooms with established daily procedures. The tips that follow offer suggestions that will help you establish effective daily procedures in your classroom.

What You Should Do:
Set up procedures for the following classroom activities:

Entering the classroom
Taking roll
Dealing with tardy students
Dealing with students who lack materials
Labeling student papers
Preparing to leave at the end of class

How To Do It:

Entering the Classroom

Begin each lesson with a brief warm-up or ice breaker activity such as a game, vocabulary review, etc, in the following link you can find many warm-ups or ice breaker activities to use in your classes:
Warm-ups and Icebreakers for classroom games and activities

Before students arrive, post the warm-up activity on the board and make a list of the materials needed for the lesson. If there is a new homework assignment, post it on the board, too. If necessary, remind students to sit in their assigned seats. It may be helpful (and even necessary) to attribute a small portion of a daily grade to these warm-up exercises, you can then include it as a participation grade, but being a fun, short and interactive activity, everyone would be delighted and eager to participate.

Taking Roll
Use a quick method of taking roll as students participate in the opening activity or as they turn in their homework. On the first day of school, set up a seating chart, which you can use to support the students in sitting in their assigned seats. Throughout the year, use the chart to take roll quickly. If students say someone is not absent, but the student is not in the room, simply state that to be considered present a person needs to be working or sitting down when the bell rings or when you enter the classroom.

Dealing with Tardy Students
Have a plan for dealing with tardy students. An alternative would be to allow a small interruption, quickly update your attendance sheet and move on. Be sure to point out to the tardy student the consequence of habitual tardiness. You may be able to prevent a majority of late students by holding them accountable for lateness. For example, you might dock a student's participation grade by half a point for every three times tardy.

Dealing with Students Who Lack Materials
If you are unable to get extra copies of your books, have students who arrive without their book share with classmates whom you designate. But not bringing the school materials should have a consequence; permitting students get by without the required materials might send the signal that it is okay to leave materials at home.

Labeling Student Papers
Ask students to write their name, the date, your name, the period number, and the assignment on every paper they turn in to you. You will probably need to remind students of this often. Don´t accept any unlabeled paper, returning it immediately to the student that turned it to you and asking him to write the proper information. Explain that if you cannot determine to whom a paper belongs or which assignment it might be, you cannot give credit for the work.

Preparing to Leave at the End of Class
Everything that has a beginning should have an end to be complete, have a signal for when students may prepare to wrap up the class. For most students, the bell means it is time to drop everything, stuff it all in their backpacks, and leave or wait for their next class, lunch, or home. You can ask students not to leave until you have signaled that class is over. Request that they not pick up their backpacks or other bags until they are dismissed. Allow time for closure and clarification of assignments. Then give your dismissal signal. Try always to include a game, a song, an activity which is fun, short and interactive as a wrap-up to leave them craving for more, but also that has something to do with the day´s lesson.

To be continued………………………

If you have any comments or more ideas on this topics, please share your insights and knowledge!

Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Who took the cookie?.... Teaching tips (chant used in the Rassias workshop).

Song: "Who took the cookie?"

Here´s a fun way to sing and play this chant!

Chant used in the Rassias workshop!

Sunday, March 25, 2012

Técnicas para mejorar tu comprensión lectora en otro idioma.

Cursar un programa académico en un idioma no nativo, representa un verdadero reto para el que no todos se sienten preparados, sin importar la cantidad de cursos del idioma que hayan realizado anteriormente. Por ello, es importante que sepas que al igual que todo lo que conlleva el emigrar como estudiante, la comprensión lectora en otro idioma supone también un proceso de adaptación.

Y aunque muchos estudiantes extranjeros se quejan de no ser capaces de leer, absorber y tomar notas, todo al mismo tiempo, sí existen varias herramientas y técnicas, que debes tomar en cuenta para evitar sentirte desmotivado al iniciar tus estudios en el extranjero y lograr el éxito académico.

En primer lugar, debes saber que la principal manera para mejorar tu compresión en la lectura es precisamente leyendo más. Revisa todo el material que encuentres a la mano, no sólo el de tu curso, sino también revistas y libros; en este paso Internet juega un papel muy importante, pues en la red encontrarás un sin número de materiales de lectura en diferentes idiomas que te servirán para tu práctica diaria.

Lo más recomendable es que ingreses a páginas cuyos contenidos sean confiables, por ejemplo, portales informativos internacionales de renombre (como la BBC, el New York Times, CNN, entre muchos otros), además de buscar e-books de autores reconocidos. Para hacerte más fácil el hábito de lectura, puedes iniciar seleccionando noticias, artículos y textos sobre temas que despierten tu interés, como tecnología, arte, cultura o lo que se te ocurra.

Prepara el ambiente

Al momento de realizar una lectura es recomendable que evites cualquier distracción, por esto se sugiere que apagues tu teléfono celular, escojas un área con buena iluminación y tengas a la mano una libreta donde tomar algunos apuntes, además de un pequeño refrigerio o una botella de agua mineral para evitar detener tu lectura.

Para mejorar la comprensión del contenido debes:

1. Leer silenciosamente, el hacerlo en voz alta requiere mayor concentración y esfuerzo para pronunciar perfectamente las palabras, a menos que el motivo de tu lectura sea mejorar la pronunciación, lo más recomendable es hacerlo silenciosamente.

2. Realizar primero una lectura exploratoria del contenido, así tendrás una idea global de la misma y sabrás qué frases o palabras desconocidas puedes encontrar.

3. No te detengas para buscar en el diccionario al ver una palabra que no entiendes, intenta darle significado por el contexto.

4. Lo más importante es comprender y retener las ideas y significados principales, sin detenerte en cada detalle.

5. Subraya sólo las ideas más importantes. Al finalizar toma notas de las ideas principales, para esto puedes valerte de palabras claves, esquemas, mapas mentales, etcétera.

6. Varía los temas, géneros y la complejidad de los textos. Aunque es bueno iniciar con temas que te parezcan interesantes, es recomendable enfrentarse a distintos tópicos, de esta forma ampliarás tu conocimientos generales y podrías descubrir nuevos intereses.

7. Haz pausas periódicas para reflexionar sobre lo que has leído hasta el momento y asegurarte de que has entendido.

8. Comparte lo que has aprendido de la lectura con tus profesores y compañeros de curso, de esta forma reforzaras el conocimiento y ganaras soltura en el idioma.

Si pones en práctica estas recomendaciones tendrás un gran éxito en tus estudios, notarás como se incrementa tu comprensión lectora en el nuevo idioma, leerás más rápido y será más sencillo entender en clases a tus profesores, a la vez que tomas notas.

De igual forma, puedes buscar orientación en tu universidad , la mayoría de las instituciones cuentan con servicios de asesoría académica para estudiantes internacionales, donde ofrecen diversos cursos para perfeccionar el idioma y mejorar la comprensión lectora.

Thursday, October 13, 2011

Behavior Management

I want to share with you some behavior management strategies and techniques, put them to practice and hope they work for you!

Behavior management

For even the most experienced teacher using their favourite lesson, there are several factors they fear could mess up their well laid plans once they actually get in class. One is lack of knowledge about the class (especially new classes) which means they can’t predict very well what might happen. Another is that having mixed abilities in the class makes it impossible to predict when all the students will be able to use the language, possibly leading to boredom in some and frustration in others as you try to fit it all into the standard lesson time. This could be one reason for the third and possibly greatest fear - that bad behaviour by the students could mean there is no hope of getting through the lesson plan at all. This article aims to show you to some ways to predict, understand, reduce and react to bad behaviour in the class.

The signs of bad behaviour
As what is considered bad behaviour can vary a lot by age, culture, teacher, type of school etc., let’s first look at what you consider to be serious bad behaviour, not so serious and not bad at all. This will also help us decide what is appropriate to do when we decide how to deal with bad behaviour of those various levels.
Picture just one of the classes you teach every week and for that class mark the behaviour below with points from 5 (totally unacceptable, deserves serious punishment) down to 0 (not bad behaviour at all, maybe even a good thing).

List of ‘bad behaviour’ Points for seriousness (0 to 5)

Laughing at inappropriate moments
Not standing up or sitting up straight
Adopting sullen, rebellious expressions
Practical jokes
Staring out of the window
Wearing inappropriate clothes or jewellery
Making noise with classroom objects, e.g. rocking chairs
Speaking L1 when they should be speaking English
Not following instructions
Speaking when they should be quiet
Making rude noises
Deliberately going slow
Refusing to do what the teacher asks
Doing the opposite of what the teacher asks
Culturally inappropriate or rude behaviour- e.g. picking their noses
Not listening
Cheating in games
Doodling in/ on their notebooks or textbooks
Not using polite language when they ask for things etc.
Not completing homework
Bad remarks, e.g. hurtful comments
Fighting
Cheating in tests
Bad words, e.g. swearing
Vandalism (or threats of) to school resources or other students’ possessions
Threats or violence to teacher or students

The list above is in the order I would put the behaviour for a class of nine and ten year olds I have once a week in a private language school, but would be quite different for my home lessons, lessons in primary schools etc.
If you found the ranking task quite difficult, it was deliberately so - and is a true reflection on how difficult it can be to judge how bad something is in the class. First of all, are any of these ‘bad’ all the time? When you teach two year olds you soon realise that not joining in could be because of all sorts of reasons, and is rarely from a simple desire to make things difficult for people. Also, is the student who is defending him- or herself in a fight behaving badly? Are the students not following instructions because they simply don’t understand? Most of all, hurting someone deliberately is very different from doing so accidentally.

Dealing with bad behaviour
One solution to this inability to know for sure what is really bad is to make sure students (and their parents) know what you consider good and bad behaviour to be before the class even starts. Another is for the basic ‘punishments’ in your class to actually be things that you would do even if it wasn’t your fault or you didn’t mean to do it, e.g. say sorry, give a sweet from the teacher to the person who was hurt, same something nice, join the victim’s team etc. Of course, these might not make much difference to the child who is deliberately and maliciously misbehaving.Below is a list of some other ‘weapons’ that might be a bit more effective. Read through the list and mark each one for severity and effectiveness in your classes (1= not strict or effective, 5= very).

List of possible ‘punishments’ Severity (1 to 5) Effectiveness (1 to 5)

Give them a disapproving look
Count down from 5, then punish if they don’t stop by that time
Take time off their time limit for the next round of the game
Take points off the team
Call out the name of the student misbehaving (most)
Divide students from their friends
Sit them elsewhere, e.g. boys next to girls or at the front
Disqualify their team from the game
Mime shooting the student/ wringing their neck etc. (comically)
Write down the student’s name (on the board or in a special book)
Leave them out of the next activity
Make them complete their homework while the others play a game
Give them written work while others are playing games
Give them something special to hold for speaking L1 etc. This is passed to next person when they are caught
Make them tidy up the classroom
Make them stand up when everyone else is sitting down
Make the student(s) stand in corner
Make them put faces on arms on desks and be quiet for 1 min
Stop the game half way through and start bookwork
Talk to them individually after the class
Put black marks on a special wall chart
Put a black mark on the student’s book
Make them stand up with hands on their head
Send them out of class for 5 minutes
Send them out for the rest of the class
Tell their home room teacher
Tell their parents
Put it on their report card/ permanent record

The punishments are listed in ascending order of strictness for a class of seven year olds I taught twice a week in a private primary school in Bangkok, but judging effectiveness is perhaps easier. The biggest factor in making a punishment effective is how much it involves peer pressure - if you take points off their team, the team will soon make sure that it doesn’t happen again! Using team and other peer pressure doesn’t have to be just negative, as giving points can be at least as effective as taking them away. Here are some other ‘rewards’ you can use for behaviour management, to make a ‘carrot and stick’ approach when combined with the punishments above.

List of ‘rewards’
•    Give the teams not misbehaving extra points
•    Keep students in the same teams for several lessons and give a prize to the month’s winning team
•    Let students who finished the bookwork quickly join the next game as they finish
•    Put stickers on their written work for good work
•    Put stickers on a wall chart for good behaviour/ good work
•    Praise good work
•    Smile
•    Point out the best student or team
•    Give a round of applause
•    Use positive gestures - raised arms for victory, thumbs up etc.
•    Have class monitors and team captains
•    Have badges for the students with best pronunciation, spelling etc. each lesson
•    Have a favourite game to play as a reward for when the class is good
•    Give sweets or small toys
•    Write personal positive comments next to their written work

Again, it is difficult to decide which are the biggest and most effective rewards for each class, but it is important to have at least a vague mental ranking before you go into class. This is because of the most important of the top twelve behaviour management tips below - be consistent. More than anything else, if students start to think that you are showing favouritism or picking on one student or group of students, all your efforts at behaviour management are likely to come to nothing. Below are all the top twelve tips, in no particular order.

Top twelve behaviour management tips
1.    Be consistent
2.    Make sure students (and their parents) know what you consider good and bad behaviour to be
3.    Start from a blank slate
4.    Do yourself what you expect the students to do
5.    Teach good behaviour as a classroom topic
6.    Have a clear set of phrases and gestures for things you want them to do
7.    Play games where good behaviour results naturally in winning the game
8.    Be aware of energy and concentration levels
9.    Make sure the lesson is fun
10.    Bond
11.    Plan your classroom management
12.    Think about why they are misbehaving and change that

Make sure students (and their parents) know what you consider good and bad behaviour to be
There are many ways of achieving this, e.g. making a poster of class rules or a class contract, sending letters out to the parents etc.
Start from a blank slate
It needs to be possible for a student who has got into a pattern of bad behaviour to be able to start again from zero, e.g. only counting bad behaviour in the present class and trying to forget all preconceptions from previous classes, wiping points boards clean once a month etc.
Do yourself what you expect the students to do
If you don’t expect the students to shout, don’t shout to get their attention. If they aren’t allowed to use L1, don’t resort to it yourself however difficult something is to explain. If you expect them to say ‘please’, do the same yourself.
Teach good behaviour as a classroom topic
Lots of the language and topics of bad and good behaviour can be fun and useful in class, from story books about kids who wouldn’t go to bed to games where all the class mime bad behaviour with their fingers or finger puppets and the nominated ‘teacher’ has to tell them, ‘Don’t…’ to stop them all within a time limit.
Have a clear set of phrases and gestures for things you want them to do
For example, putting your finger on your lips for ‘be quiet’ and your hand behind your ear for ‘please speak’. If these are gestures that are used outside the students’ country, all the better. Again, bring this into class as a classroom activity/ game/ topic and be consistent with the gestures you use. Planning the gestures you will use before each class can also be useful.
Play games where good behaviour results naturally in winning the game
If you have a class that never listens, play a game where you whisper some of the words they need to react to. If they are too active, play a standing still game like ‘dead lions’ or ‘musical statues’. In both cases, they will also need a chance afterwards to use their natural noise and energy levels.
Be aware of their energy and concentration levels
However well you use the classroom management skills above, if your class can only usually concentrate for five minutes on one thing, there is little you can do to stretch that past tenminutes. If it’s not working, switch activities and maybe go back to it later. As you get to know a class well, you will be able to sense when they need an active physical activity to tire them out and when they need a quiet sitting down one to cool them down. Timing the bookwork so they are not restless but not too tired is also important.
Make sure the lesson is fun
Easier said than done, I know. Have a look at the Games section for some ideas.
Bond
If the students like, care about and are interested in you and the other students, and feel that you and the other students feel the same way, this is sure to stop them doing something that would disappoint the class. You can form a close connection to your students by learning and using their names and other personal information in class, e.g. their hobbies, birthdays and families. Friendly nicknames can also sometimes help. The students can bond with each other during activities where they work in teams and groups, both cooperatively and against other teams. Having activities where they give and ask for real personal information such as likes and dislikes is also useful, as is giving each student a chance to show off their particular skill in English class - be it music, drawing, football skills or using a yo-yo.
Plan your classroom management
All the things above could be brought into the lesson spontaneously, but are much easier to include if they are in your lesson plan. Having a lesson plan with flexible timings and ordering of activities helps. If classroom management is something you particularly want to work on, try having specific spaces on your lesson plan with this in mind. Examples include ‘classroom language’ that you want to include and/ or teach that day, a ‘seating plan’ to put particular people in particular places, ‘energy burner’ games, ‘cooling down’ activities and ‘reward games’.
Think about why they are misbehaving and change that
The one and only negative thing about having full command of the range of techniques above is that you might be managing the class so well that you are missing a much easier way of getting to the root of the matter. Often simply moving their chairs, turning on more lights and turning down the heating can make a huge difference. Below are some more reasons that should be possible to solve.

Reasons for bad behaviour

Physical and environmental
•    The classroom is too hot or dark (brighter and colder than a normal home helps concentration and learning)
•    Nothing in the classroom marks out where they should be, so they move around a lot.
•    They can’t move and feel restricted
•    People are too close to each other and feel claustrophobic and uncomfortable.
•    They can’t see the board, flashcards etc.
Expectations
•    The students don’t get what they expect in class
•    The students expect the class to be boring or a waste of time, and act accordingly without giving it a chance
Problems from outside the class
•    Diet, e.g. additives in drinks and sweets
•    The lesson before and after, e.g. sports that got them over excited or tired or a test
Personalities
•    Showing off to impress other students
•    It isn’t cool to be good at school
•    Personality clashes between teacher and student(s) or between students
•    They have personal or cultural reasons for reacting badly to one type of teacher, e.g. a female teacher
Understanding
•    What they should be doing isn’t clear
•    They can’t understand the rules of the game
•    They don’t understand why they are playing the game or learning that particular language
Level
•    The task/ language is too difficult/ easy
•    They feel like they have been put in the wrong level class and are resentful or nervous
Energy levels
•    They are over-excited
•    They have too much energy and need to burn it off
•    They are physically and/ or mentally tired
Motivation
•    They have personal or cultural reasons for not liking the English language
•    They are demotivated by losing games all the time
•    They are demotivated by past failure in language classes

Formats and Documents of Ingles Sinaloa

Hello my fellow teachers, I want to share with you the formats and documents that we´re going to be working with during the 2011-2012 school year!

http://www.mediafire.com/?khmu5pypq6y3t

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Starting to teach English in an Elementary or Primary school.

Teaching at primary level can cause many teachers, particularly those who have trained to teach adults, a variety of problems and generate a range of worries. Unfortunately, it is common for teachers to be asked by their institution to teach young learners even though they don't have specific training. Those first lessons with the class, which are quite probably in a different institution to your regular work, can seem daunting. In this article I provide some advice on how to deal with starting work with primary level students and I give ten top classroom management tips.

Before you begin to teach
- Find out who your pupils are
- Practicalities

Top ten classroom management tips for successful teaching

Before you begin to teach

Find out who your pupils are
- Talk to the class teacher and find out if the children are complete beginners in English or have already learnt a little.
- Are there any bilingual children in the class? If so, use them as your helpers.
- Do any of the children speak another language?
- You will find that the children will be highly motivated and excited about learning a foreign language. Your main aim is to maintain this initial motivation and sustain their curiosity and interest so that they develop a real desire to learn the language, even if you don't feel they are learning very fast. You need to be realistic and so do the children about how much they can learn in the relatively short time you will spend with them.
- It is quite normal for children to take some time before they actually start producing much language as they will need time to familiarise themselves with you - very probably the first speaker of English they have met - and assimilate the language before they feel ready and confident enough to produce any.
- Be patient and don't be afraid of repeating things again and again - children need and enjoy lots of opportunities to hear the language. Just remember to be natural.

Practicalities
- Get to know the class teacher and how they can help you.
- How many pupils in your class?
- What can you and can you not do in the classroom, for example, move furniture around?
- Will the class teacher stay with you during the English lesson.
- Find out about your school's etiquette?
- How long are your lessons? 45 minutes, one hour?
- Are you allowed to display children's work on the classroom walls?
- Can you create an English corner?
- What resources does the school have that you can use?
- How many photocopies are you allowed to make?
- Can you take the children into the playground?
- Can you use a computer?

Top ten classroom management tips for successful teaching

Plan what you are going to do in advance step by step and have clear aims so you and your pupils know exactly where you are going throughout a lesson. This is the only way you will be able to control up to 30 children in one class - and they will be the first to know if you haven't prepared and respond by becoming disruptive.

Start your year by being firm and be consistent in your own actions and behaviour - children expect a disciplined, structured classroom environment and respond well to routines. Check with the class teacher what is acceptable and unacceptable behaviour and make it clear to the pupils that you expect the same behaviour.

Learn your pupils' names and address them directly.

Be mobile and walk round the class.

Have a clear signal for stopping activities or when you want children to be quiet. Get silence and wait for their full attention before you start speaking and give clear instructions or demonstrations. Make sure children understand what they have to do.

Never underestimate children's abilities or intelligence. They may have very limited English but they still have the same interests and aspirations as any other child of their age. Keep them interested by providing stimulating content and meaningful activities.

Always ensure that children have some English 'to take away' with them at the end of a lesson. Children will feel proud and have a sense of achievement if they leave the classroom being able to ask, for example, a new question in English, say something about themselves, or sing a song. This means (see the first point above) that your aims will be clear to the children.

Avoid activities that over-excite - it is often difficult to return to a calm and controlled learning environment after a noisy game. Avoid activities that require a lot of movement as you will find that there is often very little space in a classroom for this type of activity. Also avoid activities that require a lot of cutting and pasting unless there is a clear linguistic outcome, as these can cut into valuable time, apart from creating a great deal of mess.

Make positive comments about the children's work and efforts and let them see that you value their work.

Have additional material prepared to cope with faster and slower pupils' needs and don't let activities go on too long.

Teacher Christian P. Hndez.