THE PURPOSE AND PROCESSES OF EVALUATION

        When we talk about evaluation, it is common to think in grades. Most students are focus on grades more than learning but that´s not our reality. Evaluation is used to get grades as well as to promote learning.

        In learner-centered teaching, the purpose of evaluation is to have a balance between grades and learning to promote learning by themselves.

        The processes of evaluation need to be developed through self- and peer assessment skills involving students in their own learning.

        It will be explained three beliefs about links between grades and learning:

1. It is assumed that grades show the learning that students have, but this is a complicated process. For that reason, the skills we should develop are critical thinking, analyzing, and others.
2. It is necessary to know that grades are not part of an objective measure of learning.
3. Grades are important because are thes tudents’ motivation to figure out how to obtain the best.

          According to Nikos (2016), teachers must recognize the students’ needs and they must be able to create a lesson planning based on learner-centered and motivating students.

Promoting learning

        First, it is necessary to know that there are two main principles into evaluation:        

•  Evaluation improves the students' potential and promotes learning.
•  Students have the opportunity to develop their own assessments.

      According to Sarros and Densten (1989), students believe evaluation is the worst part of their scholar life and it causes a kind of stress. For that reason, teachers must achieve to reduce that situation and to manage evaluations according to the students’ needs through applying motivation in the class.

        To evaluate students is necessary to know some aspects of them. Motivation is the most important part of this process because it provides confidence, and it allows us to achieve our goals in a better way.

        As conclusion, it is necessary to understand that the grades system will not change but teachers should provide comfort and security to apply the changes that are proposed. I think it was important to know about the purpose and processes of evaluation to reflect that our educational system has failed due to students believe a grade is more important than their knowledge. Based on all the explanations I would apply this tools to motivate my students to learn more than just getting a good grade because it is more important the knowledge that they acquired in the process.

 

References 

Weimer, M. (2013). Learner-centered teaching: Five key changes to practice. ProQuest Ebook

            Central https://ebookcentral.proquest.com

Nikos, A. (12 de 10 de 2016). efrontlearning. Retrieved from Know your Audience! A

smart guide for analyzing your learners’ needs: https://www.efrontlearning.com/

blog/2016/10/guide-learners-needsanalysis.html

Sarros, J. C., and Densten, I. L. “Undergraduate Student Stress and Coping Strategies.”

Higher Education Research and Development, 1989, 8(1), 1–13.

 

 

PART TWO: THE FIVE KEY CHANGES TO PRACTICE

Learner-centered teaching

THE ROLE OF THE TEACHER

        Teachers and students have a different role in the class: Teacher is the active person and students are the passive part where they observe what the teacher is doing.

        In learner-centered teaching, teachers work hard to facilitate and to support students to work in learning-related tasks and to develop the students´ efforts.

    Here teachers have a facilitative and monitor role which improve the student´s independence and responsibility for their learning.

         It will be explored an aspect of teaching when teachers develop learner-centered: the role of the teacher.

Defining the role

        In learner-centered teaching, teachers are a guide to facilitate learning.

          The role will be described metaphorically:

        According to Fox (1983), a teacher who facilitates learning is like a gardener, because gardeners are who make flowers accomplish their goal.

        Hill (1980, p.48) states that facilitative teachers are like guides because they advise students and give them tools in order to obtain the best of themselves.

         Barr and Tagg (1995, p.24) say that facilitative teachers are compared with coaches because a coach is a person who designs the game like a teacher that designs the way of learning of each class and not only instructs.

 

Using the role

         The main use of this role is to allow students to focus more on learning tasks and to give them an easy acquisition of content by allowing them to develop their critical thinking.

Role difficulties

         The role requires a deep interaction of students’ skills. So, it is difficult to know if they want to adequate their learning into the role. For example, if a teacher teaches a concept and asks for an example the teacher must keep into account that this role depends on motivation, persistence, tenacity and, patience because it is possible the teacher will not have a correct answer.

Principles of the implementation of the teacher role

      According to Weimer (2013), the teacher role in learner-centered teaching follows general principles that are used to execute the role:

Principle 1

      Teachers need to let of doing learning tasks and to allow students to do more of them like organizing the content, asking questions, summarizing, and others in order to discover their own content.

Principle 2

     Teachers always are telling what they are doing and what things are developing in the class, and students are not able to figure out by themselves the class. So, teachers must allow students to discover the content they have developed.

Principle 3

   Activities and assignments developed by teachers are the most important part of learner-centered environments because they are the vehicles where learning occurs, and it creates significant learning experiences.

Principle 4

     Teachers need to feel empathy towards their students doing legitimate learning in the class and applying new things.

Principle 5

      It is important to develop collaborative work in students and teachers are who encourage this action by developing cooperative skills.

Principle 6

     To create a good class environment and orientation into the class is one of the principal goals in the learning-teaching process, for that reason, teachers and students must work together to develop them and to get a peaceful environment.

Principle 7

      Grading is considered an important part of learning environments, but teachers should pay more attention to focus students on improving their skills and knowledge than just the grade which does not fully reflect their development in the class.

Applying the teaching role

     The best way to apply these principles is by using the approach Task-Based Learning which encourages independent activities to develop the student’s language.

Intervention

      To let students to discover and to get knowledge by themselves based on their own experiences and mistakes can make learning a powerful tool in the class.

      Learning demands intervention of teachers in the process, so they ask students as many questions as they can in order to emerge the level of practice when they give ambiguous descriptions which are helpful in implementing actions.

Conclusion

        As conclusion, teachers need to connect students to the class by being a guide and to facilitate learning when teaching English. I think it is important to learn this role and to know how to apply it using the different aspects which were developed in the text. On the other hand, as a personal situation, I could apply the 7 principles through a grammatical structure where students will organize the content by asking questions or summarizing and making students create significant learning experiences.

References

Fox, D. “Personal Theories of Teaching.” Studies in Higher Education, 1983, 8(2), 151–163

 Hill, N. K. “Scaling the Heights: The Teacher as Mountaineer.” Chronicle of Higher Education,

June 16, 1980, p. 48.

 Barr, R. B., and Tagg, J. “From Teaching to Learning—A New Paradigm for Undergraduate

Education.” Change, Nov.-Dec. 1995, pp. 13–25.

Weimer, M. (2013). Learner-centered teaching: Five key changes to practice. ProQuest Ebook

Central https://ebookcentral.proquest.com

 

 

UNIT 8: SPEAKING

Unit 8 focuses on speaking skill. Speaking is one of the four language skills. It is a productive skill because it produces language. Speaking can be defined as the use of speech to communicate meaning to other people.

THINGS WE OFTEN DO WHEN SPEAKING

Pronunciation of words	Give certain information
Answer different questions	Correct use of grammar and vocabulary
Using intonation (Level of a speaker’s voice)	Using words and sentences stress (part  louder and longer)
Asking for clarification (Clarify something)	Speaking when another person stops
Monitor ourselves (Noting errors)	Tell some stories
Participate in discussions	Use accuracy
Using appropriate register (formal or informal language)	Paraphrasing
Participate in conversations	Smile
When we greet people	When one person interrupts another person
Planning the things that we will say	Hesitate

Speaking is divided into the following subskills:

• ·         Use of grammar, vocabulary, and functions (reason why we use language)
• ·         Speak appropriately and using registers
• ·         Apply Connected Speech Features
• ·         Use of body language
• ·         Use different types of texts
• ·    Speak fluently (speak with a normal and understandable speed) self-correction (checking for our mistakes)
• ·       Using interaction strategies (different ways to attract people's attention)

Certain factors also play an important role in communication, such as fluency (helps people listen to us without getting bored), accuracy (To do something without mistakes) and appropriacy (Correct use of language in some situation). We also use registers in the correct way to treat our listeners with formality or informality depending on the situation.

The activities of an oral lesson can follow the following steps:

Ø  Lead-in: Introduction of the topic to be discussed

Ø  Practice activities: Students could do free activities depending on the learning context.

Ø  Post-task activities: Students do free communication activities where they work in the language they use in the tasks.

As a conclusion, the ability to speak can be developed in the specific characteristics of speech. There are activities that help practice communication and improve interaction as well as accuracy and fluency. As teachers it is necessary to give additional help to students such as expanding their vocabulary, developing their ability to organize the ideas that they want to say and how they are going to say it. The ability to speak is a process that involves expressing ideas with clarity and coherence so that others can understand the message or the information that you want to convey.

REFERENCES 

Spratt, M., Pulverness, A., & Williams, M. (2011). The TKT Course Modules 1, 2 and 3 (Second). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139062398.003

THE FOUR SPEAKING SKILLS. (2018, October 11). https://english.binus.ac.id/2018/10/11/the-four-speaking-skills/.

 

UNIT 7: LISTENING

 

UNIT 6: WRITING

 

 

UNIT5: READING

 

 

Unit 4: FUNCTION

The TKT book states that function is the reason why people communicate. Also, it describes some examples such: as requesting, inviting, explaining, requesting, apologizing, agreeing, and so on. Functions refer to the way that we use a language and its meaning to people in context. According to Thompson, S. & Couper E. (2014) the language used to express function is named exponent. For example, the exponent is " Do you want to go to the cinema?'' when inviting someone to the cinema. There, the function is ''inviting', but the rest is the text is the topic of function in a defined situation.

 

However, exponents can express more than one function, that depends on the situation. Another feature to consider is the person, or people addressed. That is because a speaker should be appropriate with the level of formality when talking to someone. For example, if a student who is talking to his professor should use different registers of formal or neutral language to communicate student’s ideas. If not, the student will be inappropriate and not respectful of the professor. That is not the situation when the same student talks to some friends. In that case, the student sounds informal or colloquial.

O'Regan, L. (2020) states that the human brain is able to choose the correct register of language according to the situation, purpose, and level of studies. Sometimes, people use very formal or less informal language to express their bad mood about other people. That is a way to avoid them. For example, girls are sarcastic to show their anger to their boyfriends.

To sum up this information, it is important to ask ourselves what did we learn in this unit?

We understood that function is the purpose of why people communicate. There, lexis, grammar, and phonology join together; to play an essential role. The right combination of those features makes people understand what is said. Additionally, the level of formality should be appropriate in each context to avoid some issues. That is because the way we say something makes people like or hate us.

Also, as teachers, we should take into consideration some points to improve our oral lesson so, there are some suggestion we can apply like:

Ø  We should teach functions and grammar for an oral or a writing lesson. In this way students will not get loose learning new vocabulary or structures. For example, students will identify which are the exponents to use for apoligazing.

 

Bibliography:

O'Regan, L. (2020). Lateralisation of language functions in the brain: Effects of handedness.

Spratt, M., Pulverness, A., &Williams, M. (2011). The TKT Course Modules 1,2 and 3 (Second) Cambridge: Cambridge Univertity Press. https://doig,org/10.1017/CBO9781139062398.003

Thompson, S. & Couper E. (2014). Language function. 10.1017/CBO9781139342872.008.