Ricardo Pareja

COMMENTS. This 41 st International MEXTESOL conference in Puebla offered me the opportunity of acquiring new knowledge. The experience was excited for me because I learned new strategies to put in practice with my students in class.

THE BEST CONFERENCES This presentation was incredible, because the exponent got my attention when she explained the theories ´´Girls have better brain than men´´ or ´´ Girls process language differently from men.´´

FROM COMPETENCIES TO COMPETENCE Making classes more effective through mindful teaching.

Wanda Griffith explained that the teacher is the center of the class and so we need to change the way to teach if we want to be the key for students, knowing that everything we do has a consequence. The most important thing when you learn is feedback. First we have to show how to do things correctly for what we must use the correct vocabulary. Using correct stress in the words sometimes can be difficult and stressful. Mindful means being more creative.

ENCOURAGING LOVE FOR READING & WRITING THROUNGH ACTIVE PHONICS

In this presentation the exponent gave many strategies to work effectively reading and writing. It is very important to work with the correct material like picture cards for phonics, the ABC phonics are very important too. The sounds of phonics are the teacher’s responsibility, reason why we have to plan ahead the correct activities in class. If we want students to work slower or faster we have to have solution for any problem in signal language and use the correct exercise where they can put in practice the sounds in different words also in each letter.

INCREASING PARTICIPATION IN SPEAKING CLASSES This lecture explained how the teacher is responsible of students speaking English. Students have to speak about the reality with the teacher or their classmates. The teacher has to ask himself what am I going to do next but in different way to model the activity, first I have to put encourage to students to practice anywhere. We can put in practice focus lessons, guide practice, collaboration or independent work.

SPEAKING IN THE YOUNG ADULT MONOLINGUAL CLASSROOM

We can practice with different topics with students for oral expression for example: when was the last time that...? To answer this questions we can organize students in pairs, in groups or face to face. In order to develop oral production we have to model by writing some examples first or modeling with some students the activity. We can use videos and make questions after they watch them, we can also plan our lesson with many speaking activities if we want to get an excellent speaking class

OTHER STRATEGIES

CAN SPANISH BE USEFUL IN THE ELT CLASSROOM In this lecture, the exponent gave good strategies to put into practice everyday in class. As teachers we have to enhance formal English in students but we also have to identify informal speaking. We have to be careful with translations therefore we can fall in bad English or in Spanglish or make mistakes with cognates. In this case we have to teach the correct meaning and context when we translate a paragraph. We have to be pushing everyday to studying.

BRINGING REAL LANGUAGE INTO GRAMMAR INSTRUCTION Grammar is present anywhere and it is important to know the correct methods for teaching English like Audi lingual method/communicative. Students have to put in practice the language in real situations using the correct vocabulary and grammar for formal or informal speaking. Sometimes students will make mistakes but the important thing here is the practice. The correct grammar must be taught all the time.

VISUAL EXPERIENCE AS MOTIVATION This lecture was fascinating because the exponent showed to us how through images or videos we can work in a different way with students. The speaker explained that images project ideas that students can describe. Videos can have students express feelings and motivate them to question about the scenes or pictures. They can also work in pairs and write a paragraph about what they think about the images or the video. This presentation was full of strategies for working in class.

The visual experience starts with still images… What is the story behind the image? STUDENT: “Freedom is the perfect word to describe the music. All over the world the music is the only pacific method that change people minds.”

EXPLORING THE COMPLEXITIES OF TEACHER IDENTITY WHO ARE YOU? This lecture was interesting because the exponent described the teacher’s identity and made many interesting questions. Why are you a teacher? How do you became a teacher? How are you now? What do you do for the future? or Who will you be in the future?

These questions are good because you have to analyze who you really are and how you are working in a classroom with your students. If you plan your activities you have to study everyday to learn new things. We have to be a model for our students. If I want to be better tomorrow I have to be better each day and work very hard to help my students.

MINDFUL CORRECTIVE FEEDBACK

THE LIVES OF TEACHERS.