A class plan for "Bilingual Sestina"

Level	Number of students	Time	Objectives of the class
• Students from EFL teacher trainee literature courses from IPC.	25 students	1 1/2 hours	Approach the literary text “Bilingual Sestina” by Julia Álvarez. Use the four basic skills. Guide students through a biographical study of Bilingual Sestina. Compare the learning of a language between the students and Julia’s “Bilingual Sestina”.

For this class:

- Enough copies of the poem “Bilingual Sestina”.

- A picture of Julia Álvarez.

- Make a list of words and definitions that may be of trouble for the approaching of the poem: Column A-sestina, soothe, poke, frail, summon, slat and mist; Column B-the definition of each word but not in same order so they can match.

- Prepare material for the students with a short biography of Julia Alvarez and questions that ask about the relation between the author and the poem.

During the class:

- Talk about the students’ learning process of a foreign language: Here are some questions which could guide the conversation. Has it been easy to learn English as a foreign language? What problems have they encountered? What is the difference between acquiring and learning a language? Do you think that learning English would be easier in an English speaking country? Do you anyone who has learnt to speak English in an English speaking country? 15 min.

- The teacher presents the image of Julia Álvarez and asks where they think this person is from? What leads them to think she is from the country they think. 5 min.

- Have the students read the poem and discuss in pairs. 15 min.

- After reading, ask if it is possible that Julia be from the countries they thought. Why? What does the poem deal with? 5 min.

- The students willl be presented the material with the words and definitions and from the context they will match the meanings to the terms. Then the answers are checked. 10 min.

- The students, individually, will read a short biography of Julia Álvarez and associate the text to the author by means of the questions asked in the same sheet exemplifying from the poem. Following, answers are checked as a whole class. 20 min.

- The students will write a paragraph about how they relate this poem to their own experience as a language learner. 20 min.

A class plan for "Do you speak English?"

Level	Number of students	Time	Objectives of the class
• Students from EFL teacher trainee literature courses from IPC.	25 students	2 hours	Approach the literary text “Do you speak English?” by Simon Collings. Use the four basic skills. Guide students through a formalist approach to describe the text. Compare the social issues of the story to their own.

For this class:

- Enough copies for each student of the story “Do you speak English?”

- Find pictures that could possibly represent the physical features of the story and characters: a dirty bare foot boy in shorts, American tourists, a typical Brazilian, a dead fish, a dirty stream, squalid shacks, buildings and a rod.

- Prepare material for the students with basic terms and examples of plot, character, setting, point of view, imagery, metaphor, theme and society.

During the class:

- Talk about tourism in Venezuela. Here are some questions which could guide the conversation. Have you ever done tourism? Have you ever met a tourist? What opinion have they given about Venezuela? Where do most tourists in Venezuela come from? What touristic places do you know in Caracas/Venezuela? Why are they considered touristic places? What places aren’t considered touristic places? Do you imagine a tourist in a non-touristic area? 15 min.

- The teacher presents the images to the students and let them place the figures to order/form a scene. If they don’t come to an agreement, tell them to leave the figures as they are. 5 min.

- Have the students read the story and discuss in pairs. 15 min.

- Have them now arrange the figures according to what they read in the story. 5 min.

- The students shall be presented the material with the definitions and examples. 10 min.

- The students, in groups of 3, are to extract, from the text, an example for each term. 15 min.

- They then exchange there excerpts with another group to peer correct the examples. They then check any corrections made and clear doubts. The teacher will ask if these terms helped picture the story better. 10 min.

- The teacher asks the students about the story: What is the story about? Where does it take place? Who are in the story? Who is telling the story? How do they imagine the place? In what country do they think the story takes place? Why? What is the message behind the story? 20 min.

- The teacher then focuses on society. What features determine the society in the story? Can they relate it to any place in Caracas/Venezuela? 10 min.

- The students will write a paragraph saying how similar/dissimilar the society in the story is to their own. 15 min.

Class experience

The class I prepared as part of my Methodology class has helped me view EFL classes in a more analytical way and take into consideration the different aspects for a class to be communicative. All this was possible thanks to the feedback given by the teacher and classmates, and the theoretical classes which weren´t that clear until I reached the practical part of this subject. Definitely, I must say that managing unplanned situations, time, techniques, skills, functions, grammar and integrating them is not as easy as I expected. Having stated its difficulty, I also want to add that the aspects studied in the subject must be practised, therefore, this subject should be extended (given more time), in order to give students the chance to perfectionise their methodology and fulfil any fuurther needs.

Communicative Language Teaching

Language teaching has been seen from many different views. But the Communicative Language Teaching approach can be considered as the most assertive as it sees language from a functional way. Also, CLT allows the incorporation of other approaches, not like many of the others, reducing its weak points to a minimum. These last two last points can make a classroom more interesting for the participants because it means taking into account many aspects of real life communication and more variety. To sum up, it can be said that CLT is probably the most appropriate approach to be used in an English language classroom because of its adaptability.

Approaches

Surely, teaching is a career because it is supported on a theoretical base which is, undoubtly, the fruit of many years of research. These years of experience have helped compile a great deal of valuable information regarding the ways of teaching a language. In some way, it can be said that the Grammar Translation Method, Direct Method, Oral Approach and Situational Language Teaching, Audiolingual Method, Total Physical Response, The Silent Way, Community Language Teaching, Natural Approach, Suggestopedia and the Communicative Language Teaching are the language teacher’s theoretical base. However, it must be recognized that each approach or method has its deficiency or better said they can complement each other for a more “effective” class.

About me

My name is Johann Stoll and I am an English teacher student at the Caracas Pedagogical Institute, Venezuela. At this moment, I am finishing my fourth year in which I attend to an English methodology course (among others) which I expect will help improve my teaching skills.

Any comments will be appreciated

Those that want to add any comment or idea, ask questions or have doubts can leave their statement in the "comment space". It would be good to have you participate in this blogspot and share your knowledge with us.