FOUR SECTIONS EXAM

Instituto Tecnológico de Morelia

Methods II Final evaluation Answers

I. Answer the following questions

1. The first model, the “old model” thinks of language learning as a product of transmission. Teacher transmits knowledge, learner is a recipient.

The second model, “the new model” thinks that language learning is a process of discovery. Learner develops ability to use the language for specific communication purposes.

Differences between the two models:

A) In the old model students adapt to the teacher and to the class, in the new model teacher adapt the class to the students.

B) In the old model teacher transmits knowledge and students just listen and memorize, in the new model students participate and use language, teacher just monitors the class.

C) in the old model the time of planning is less because usually the teacher improvise, in the new model it is required a longer time for planning and preparing more material.

2. Reflective practice the process in which the teacher observes and analyzes the methods, materials and everything that uses during class and thinks about how it is working, how things can be improved and which methods are working better.

3. Frequency: which words are more commonly used

Context: the different uses of a word to express different ideas.

Collocation: which words are often used together?

Grammatical patterns: how words and grammar combine to form patterns

Strategic vocabulary: Which words and expressions are used to organize and manage discourse?

4. It is important to teach pronunciation to students because learning a language is with the purpose of communication and most of the communication is spoken so, if students are supposed to be able to communicate, they must learn how words are pronounced so they can be understood and they can understand what other people is talking about.

5. Yes, it is important to teach grammar but not as in the old model. We need to teach it in an indirect way: using grammar in real life situations and teaching it by examples.

6. Input skills are reading and listening; output skills are writing and speaking. The difference between them is that input skills refer to how students receive information and output refers to how students produce information.

7. A communicative activity must have:

a) True problem solving/ real life situation context

b) A goal or a purpose

c) No intervention from the teacher.

8. Feedback is the process in error correction where the teacher points out the mistakes (by explicit correction, recasting the sentence, clarification request, etc) so students can realize about that mistake and correct it, and avoid it in the future.

9. The four types of errors are:

Lexical error: errors in use of vocabulary

Phonological error: mistakes on pronunciation

Syntactic error: regarding to grammar

Pragmatic error: regarding to word order, or common rules of discourse

II. Explain the following categories of mistakes.

Slips: the student knows the error and he can correct it

Errors: the student knows the error but he doesn’t remember so he can’t correct it

Try out: the student doesn’t know the topic yet but he tries, he doesn’t know the error and he can’t correct it.

III. Mention some of the criteria you use to correct spoken errors

Some of the criteria you can use to know if you should correct or not spoken errors are:

-Does the mistake affect communication? Only if it affects, you correct

-At the moment you are concentrating on accuracy? If yes, correct.

-why did the student make the error?

-if the student usually make a mistake correct him, if he doesn’t you can continue without correcting

-How often the student participates during class?

-Could the student react badly to the teacher’s correction?

Etc.

IV. What is the difference between fluency and accuracy?

Fluency refers to the flow of the language while speaking, and it’s the ability to use a language quickly and smoothly and communicate ideas effectively, while accuracy is about correctness of grammar, sentence structure and word choice.

V. How can you improve discipline in the classroom?

It is important for any teacher to set a number of rules since the beginning of the course, so students will know what they can and what they cannot do.

The consequences of the rules must be for anyone and they must be constant

All the rules that the teacher set up, have to be clear, understandable and students must know what the consequence is if the rule is broken.

VI. Give some examples of challenging students you can find in a classroom.

Some of the challenging students we can find in a classroom are:

-Bullying students

-hyperactive students

-students with attention disorders

-racist students

VII. Explain

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