Unit 2: Task 1- Students' Needs

The teaching material that is going to be analysed is “Over to you Student’s book Bachillerato 1” edited by Bess Bradfield and published by Oxford. The unit that I have selected for this work is “Unit 4: Read it, watch it” which goes from page 41 to 53. The unit starts with a section where it is introduced some vocabulary related to films and costumes. Then, it continues with a reading about the film “Slumdog Millionaire”. Grammar is the following point in the unit where is explained defining and non-defining relative clauses. Succeeding, the unit emphases on vocabulary and listening, Wordbuilding, writing and speaking. Finally, the unit ends up with a section of extra vocabulary which also includes a dictionary skill focused on pronunciation.


 Goals are set and explicitly stated. They are at the beginning of the page on the up-right corner. It can be observed that there are some objectives more obvious than other ones. The simplest one for students can be: vocabulary (films and books), grammar (relative clauses) and writing (a review). In Word-building (phrasal verbs), speaking (Collaboration 1), in my opinion, objective is more hidden, and the information provided is insufficient because I do know what students can interpret reading “Collaboration 1” without further information. Moreover, the objectives of the unit are not specified at the top of each section of the unit.


 On the one hand, this unit introduces to the students a specific topic which is films. Apart of it includes some subtopics such as genres, costumes, or given your opinion of a book or a film. There are some sections as “over to you” at the end of each page of the unit which promotes students to give their opinions or having a critical though because it considers student’s background and different job’s motivation/aspiration according to their skills or personalities. Nevertheless, I contemplate that knowing about costumes is not what most interest people of first of bachillerato. In relation of films, I would focus on short stories, gossips, special effects, etc. Despite this fact the unit follows a conductive tread during the whole unit. On the other hand, exercises are not classified by levels as in mosaic are. So, I consider that they are not divided according to student’s needs in terms of academic evaluation.


As I mentioned before, I consider that some subtopics developed in the unit are not interesting for teenagers. They could be more interesting for students if they are introduced in a different way. For instance, the fact of presenting costumes randomly instead of those one that interest them. Also, I would like to add that the film selected in the reading section “Slumdog Millionaire” is quite old-fashioned because I remember that I watched it when I was 13 or 14. The fact of have not watched the film or not to be familiar with some subtopics can demotivate students in their work. The only section which involves students as a person is “over to you” which also encourages students to be more confident when they express their opinions and it invites them to be more open-minded with other cultures.


The unit proposes different kind of activities. From my point of view the section, over to
you as I have mentioned before provides the most creative ones. In the grammar section the activities are more mechanical, the students have to order the sentences according to the grammar explanation, but there is only one activity that allows students to be original and to think is they have really learnt in this section. Moreover, I would like to mention that grammar is introduced in the reading deductive: box about direct speech (language focus). However, reported speech will not be introduced until three units later. So, it can be confused for the students. Regarding reading comprehension, there are pre-reading and pre- writing activities located in the section over to you. Such as: Do you think that Ram will answer the next
question correctly? Why? Why not? One of the best points of this unit is that provides a context and a reason for do the exercises. For instance, on page 41 listening an interview to know vocabulary. It is not provided only a list of vocabulary, on the contrary students are encouraged to work with them. I would like to mention, there are some activities which allows teacher to practice writingspeaking as activity 5 of page 41 because is not defined if it is oral or written.


 The unit that is being analysed provides some self-evaluation activities. They are in the grammar section in which students need to go to grammar bank section at the end of the book and check their answers as an excuse to look the entire grammar explanation. There is another activity which encourages competition asking such as in page 44 activity 3b: Who gets the most correct answers? But, I think that it may is unnecessary since students of this level have other concerns.


 Most of the activities are individual, and interaction between students is only allowed in
Over to you section. In my opinion, communication is the main goal of language, and not letting students to work in a cooperative way, can make difficult the learning process. Except for workbook activities, there are not support material allowing for the work to continue after class.


The grammar section of the unit is defining and non- defining relative clauses. Although, as I have mentioned before there are sections in which other grammar explanations are included, but superficially. Grammar is not in the unit. The explanation is in the grammar bank at the end of the book. There are two orange boxes used as excuse to think about what defining and non-defining relative clauses are. Grammar activities, as I have mentioned before are controlled. Some of them mix up grammar and vocabulary, which I firmly believe is positive for students and helps them to consolidate what they have learnt progressively. The unit works with writing, reading, listening and speaking skills. All the activities related with language skills introduce some warm activities before the main task. Every language skill is presented within a framework and follow the topics that I mentioned before. The common thread that unifies writing, listening, speaking and reading skills is “cinema”.
 More context information must have been required. Considering that Slumdog Millionaire was produced by Bollywood one of the biggest cinematographic industries, it will be interesting to explain to students what and how important it is. There is a pre-reading strategy in a small box with information and a tiny context is provided, but I consider it is incomplete, because it mentions that the prize is winning a million rupees. But do students know what is a rupee? A section promoting inter- cultural awareness and providing an India cultural background would encourage them to know about other cultures, which from my point of view, is essential for everybody’s life.

Unit 2: Task 6- Word Maps

Unit 2: Task 5 - Corpora

Corpora are compilations of oral and written texts that try to offer an accurate spectrum of the use of a language in a diversity of situations. In order words, they include words in an appropiate context in order to make us undertand their proper usage. 

Those are two examples of English Corpora with the expression "in summer". 

Unit 2: Task 5 -Theasurus

Writing in a foreign language can be difficult if you do not know the proper words or your vocabulary is limited. Using "Thesaurus" you can increase your vocabulary while you avoid repeating words in the same text.

In "Thesaurus" can be found synonyms, and they are organized according to their complexity, lenght and complexity, which is very helpful to adequate the words that you use to the type of text that you are writing. It is not suitable using informal words for formal context or vice versa.

"Thesaurus" is an essential tool to write in a foreign language, especially if your level or English is high. This  image illustrates how easy and practical is to use this webpage.

As it can be observed, if we choose the option of synonyms, it automatically provides synonyms and are classified from more formal to less formal (more orange, more formal) which facilitates the user the choice of terms. 

Unit 2: Task 3 - Comparision of Dictionaries

On the one hand, the word "play"  has been looked up in 3 different dictionaries: Oxford Dictionary, Merriam Webster and WordReference.

Firstly, the Oxford Dictionary offers me the definition of the word as a verb and as a noun. In addition, this dictionary includes different useful phrasal verbs which include "play" and their meanings, and it also includes some phrases that we can introduce in our daily life language. Moreover, Oxford Dictionary exemplifies each meaning with a sentence to make easier to the student the understanding of that word.

Secondly, Merriam Webster dictionary includes the definitions from the word "play" as a noun and as a verb, as well as sentences where this word is used, the pronunciation of the word, some examples and a novelty, it also includes the origin of the word and synonymous.

Thirdly, Wordreference offers definitions of the word but they are shorter than the definitions provided by other dictionaries. However, what makes it different from others dictionaries is the fact that includes etymology and collocations of the word.

On the other hand, the same word has been looked up in The Learners Dictionary. I consider it as a magnific tool for teaching English, specially for beginners. Information is well-structured and clear. Moreover, a lot of examples are provided, which facilitates user's comprehension. 

Dictionaries are wonderful tools to learn, I cannot say which one is better because I consider it really personal. For example,  I always use WordReference as a first option, because I like its double function as a dictionary and translator. However, since I have subjects as English in the law, sometimes I need more specialized dictionaries. So, as I have mentioned before, due to the huge variety of online dictionaries that we have nowadays it is important to know as much as we can about them. 

Unit 1: Task 5

I consider that this video is a simple way of understanding what ICT are. It is schematic and provides the viewers with several questions concerning the inclusion of ICT in society. Moreover, it is important to consider that this video highlights how ICT can be included in education because technologies are directly connected with society nowadays. So, even it does not mention English directly, this video can be really useful for beginners who want to learn and develop their ICT knowledge.

Unit 1: Task 4

Current society cannot be understood without the use of new technologies, and so it happens with education. They have become a fundamental piece to produce a methodological change leading to achieve a significant improvement in educational quality and results. Since digital competence has become a basic and cross-curricular element whose teaching needs to be included in every subject, it is vital for students to become familiar with new technologies and the internet, and to learn how to use them with total responsibility.   

Taking into account different web pages about blogs, a blog can be defined as a website in which information is displayed and posted on a regular basis. It usually follows a chronological order, frequently updated as a personal journal or diary. It also can include gadgets, such as images or external links.

Consequently, a blog is a good example of ICT tool because it guarantees accessibility, allowing teachers to personalize English education and adapt it to the needs of each student.

References:

https://blogbasics.com/what-is-a-blog/

https://problogger.com/what-is-a-blog/

http://www.dictionary.com/browse/blog

Unit 1: Task 3

Hi there! I am using WhatsA... I mean a blog.

My name is Julia Campello Parra. I am currently studying in Marburg. I am here as an Erasmus student finishing the Master's degree in English and Spanish for Specific Purposes. I graduated from the University of Alicante with a degree in English Studies ( 2017)  and with the Master's degree of    Secondary, Upper Secondary, Vocational and Language teachings (2018).

Last year I worked as an intern in the King's College of Alicante as a teacher assistant. I also worked in a Language Academy as a Spanish and English teacher for three years.

Regarding my English level, I have a C1 according to Cambridge certification exams.

Concerning my knowledge with computers, I took two subjects specialized in the field, during my years of at college: " Computational Linguistics" and "Research, innovation, and ICT in teaching English as a foreign language".  However,  I consider that sometimes my ability with computers is quite limited.

Even I use my smartphone and computer everyday for listening to music, reading the news and checking my friends' social network, I would like to learn more about computers and the immense tools that are offered by the internet nowadays. So, considering also that this is my first online course, I am looking forward to taking advantage of this course.