SUPUESTOS PRÁCTICOS

1. Discuss the advantages of using the cooperative learning principles in the EFL
classroom.

The present essay aims to discuss the advantages of using the cooperative principles in the EFL
classroom. In order to do so I will first give a theroretica background about the cooperative
learning principles. Then I will point out its main advantages and finally I will give a concluding
remark centred about the importance of using cooperative learning principles and the foreign
language teaching.

What is cooperative learning? Cooperative learning, also known as collaborative learning, is a

body of concepts and techniques for helping to maximize the benefits of cooperation among
students.

There is not exists a generally accepted version of cooperative learning. However, various
principles could be distinguish. Let us analyse the main ones:

1 Heterogeneous Grouping. This principle means that the groups in which students do CK tasks
are mixed in a number of variables such as sex,ethnicity, social class, religion, personality,age,
language proficiency,etc. Heterogenous grouping have a number of benefits such as encouraing
peer tutoring, providing a variety of perspectives, fostering appreciaiton of the value of
diversity.

2 Collaborative skills. Collaborative skills are those needed to work with others. The language
involved in using the skills such as: checking that others understand, asking for and giving
reasons, disagreeing, responding to disagreement and encouraging others to participate.

3 Group Autonomy. This principle encourages students to look to themselves for resources
rather than relying solely on the teacher.

4 Simultaneous interaction, when group activities are used, one students per group is,
hopefully speaking. However, in a class of 40 divided into groups of four, 10 students are
speaking simultaneously, thus, thisCL principal is called simultaneous interaction. If the same
class is working in groups of two (pairs are also groups) we may have 20 students speaking
simultaneously.

5 Equal participation, CL offers many ways of promote equal participation in groups. Two of
these are the use of rotating roles in a group, such as facilitator, checker,questioner, praiser,
encourager and paraphraser and the use of multiple ability task.

6 Individual Accountability. Techniques for encouraging individual accountability seek to avoid

the problem of groups known variously as social loafing. These techniques include giving each
group member a designated turn to participate.

Finally I would like to point out that one of the best ways to promote cooperative learning
principles in the EFL classroom is firstly creating a comfortable atmosphere and developing a
good relationships between the students and teacher.
 2. How to develop our student´s intonation awareness though a meaningful activity

The present essay aims to study how to develop our student´s intonation awareness though a
meaningful activity. In order to do so I will first introduce a theoretical background about the
Intonation Awareness. In order to do so I will first provide a suitable activity by means of which
intonation can be worked and finally I will give a concluding remark about the importance of it
in the foreign language learning process.

As regards teaching and learning pronunciation, teacher must use activities such as songs and
rhymes, generally speaking. In the some way meaning and contextualized practice activities
involving repetition will be very useful. However it necessary to say that students must be
aware of the English pronunciation. Learners must acquiere some discriminatory skills in order
to develop their own internal criteria of what is and what is not. In order to achieve these
discrimanatory skills we will have to practice with som intonation exercises. Intonation could
be defines as a suprasegmental features refered to different levels of pith (tunes) which are
used in the pronunciation of sentences and that may express a wide range of meaning.
Intonation may perform a wide range of functions like: emotional,grammatical, information
structure,textual psychological and indexical.

Next, I will propose an Activity for Teaching Intonation Awareness to EFL Students:

Title. Could you do it better?

Time. 50´

Level 5th course of Primary Education

Command of English- Advantage.

Introduction. First of all we have to decide, which usage of intonation we want to teach and
practice: intonation that refers to mood/emotion or intonation which gives a message upon the
meaning e.g. tag questions when you expect a positive answer and so on.

1. Firts viewing (meaning). Learners watch the video for the first time. Teacher will help
them to concentrate and understand, if they have something specific to watch for. In
this case we address our student´s attention on the intonation of the actors/actresses.
They will have to concentrate on the emotions, the mimic, the body language in order
to identify the use of intonation.

2. Once the students have understood the content of the video, this will be play again.
Then, students will concentrate on specific suprasegmental features and the teacher
will use the freeze frame technique in order to explain and comment some scenes
which he considers relevance.

3. Teacher will give the scripts of the scene to the learners and will choose the students
to represent the different characetrs of the video. When learners have studied the
situation and the language, they will be ready to use the language themselves. In order
to do so we will play the film again, this time without sound and we will ask the
students to be the voice of the film.
 4. Finally, once students are confident and they have been practising different scenes of
the film it will be a good moment to invite the students to act the story with their
voice. At this point we should be realistic and ask our students to represent different
key intonation moments where they can practice intonation.

5. Before to conclude the exercise, teacher and students will have a feedback based on
the importance and relevance of the different suprasegmental features and intonation
espcially and we will extract some general conclusions.

The activity is highly motivating, interesting and humorous and it is a good opportunity our
students compare the non-native speech with the native one and identify differences in
intonation.

Finally I would like say that regular work in this area will help learners to develop their own
hypotheses and gut-feeling for Englihs pronunciation, something experts and researchers have
long emphasised as an essential skils of a good language learner.

3. Assesment of Young learners, propose some classroom assessment techniques.

The present essay aims to study the assessment of young learners. In order to do so I will first
give a theoretical background about the use of evaluation techniques in Primary Education
then I will purpose different assessment techniques could be used in the foreign language
classroom and finally I will give a concluding remark about the importance and relevance of
assessment of young learners.

Classroom Assessment is a method which can be used to collect feedback about how our
students are learning and how teacher is teaching. The purpose of classroom assessment is to
provide both students and teacher with the information needed in order to improve teaching
effectiveness and learning quality. Classroom Assessment is one of the best ways in order to
improve teaching and learning.

Let us go on pointing out seven principles for a good assessment practice:

1. Encourages contact between students and teachers.

2. Develops reciprocity and cooperation among students.

3. Encourages active learning.

4. Gives feedback on performance.

5. Emphasizes time on task.

6. Communicates high expectations.

7. Respects diverse talents and ways of learning.

Next I wil propose some classroom assessment techniques we can use in the foreign language
classroom:

1. Minute paper, during the last few minutes of the class,ask students to answer on a
sheet paper: what is the most important point you learned today? And, what point
remains least clear to you?. The purpose is to elicit data about student´s
comprehension of a particular class session.

2. One sentence summary students summarize knowledge of a topic by constructing a

single sentence that answers the questions who does what to whom, when, where,
how and why? The purpose is to require students to select only the defining features of
an idea. The main aim of this technique is evaluate that students have identified the
essential concepts of the topic.

3. Memory matrix. Students fill in cells of a diagram for which instructor has provided
labels. Students enter the information demonstrating their ability to remember and
classify concepts.

4. What´s the principle? After students figure out what type of problem they are dealing
with, they often must then decide what principle to apply in order to solve the
problem. This technique focuses on this step in problem solving. It provides students
with a few problems an asks them to state the principle that best applies to each
problem.

5. Muddiest point, the technique consists of asking students to jot down a quick response
to one question, what was the muddiest point in? The focus of this technique might be
a lecture, a discussion, a homework assignment, a play or a film.

Finally I will conclude this essay saying that the central purpose of Classroom Assessment is to
promote both teachers and students to improve the quality of learning in the classroom.

4. Criteria for selecting story books for Primary Education

The present essay aims to discuss the adequate criteria for selecting story books for Primary
Education. In order to do so I will present some theoretical background about the use of story
books in Primary Education. After it I will purpose a guideline for selecting works of literature
and finally I will give a concluding remark.

First, we will bear in mind our student´s needs and abilities, first, texts should always be
appropiate to the age, interests and goals of our pupils. In this way, it is important the reading
speed of students, at least 200 words per minute. This ability is crucial to student´s
understanding of the text overall.

Criteria for selecting story books:

- Content, subject matter, in the story relevant, interesting, amusing, memorable for
students?
 - Visuals: use of illustrations, are they attractive, clourful? Are their size adequate to be
used as flashcards? Are English-speaking countries cultural aspects shown?

- Encourage participation: repetition, prediction, develop memory and build confidence.

- Motivating is the story related to student´s experiences?

- Arouse curiosity: will the story make them want to find out more about the target
language, culture and language learning.

- Create positive attitudes, will students respond positively to the story and develop
positive attitudes towards the target language, culture and language learning?

Also, teacher should bear in mind the linguistic and stylistic level of his pupils. As far as the
linguistic level is concerned, it is essential to bear in mind the following aspects a) the
vocabulary and syntax of the text should be within the student´s grasp. Students should be able
to infer the meaning of most of the unknown words from the context, b) idiomatic language
should be kept at a minimum.

I will continue examing the stylistic level. The use of unusual word order or divergent
vocabulary will produce instances of foregrounding that cannot be appreciated if a
solidknowledge of what constituttes the linguistic norm is present. In addition, it is useless to
choose texts of great stylistic complexity for the early stages of language learning, stylistic
effect in classic children´s literature will be lost.

For concluding this essay I will brifly mentioning that the general aim of the teaching of
literature is to let students derive the benefits of communicative activities for language
improvement withing the contexts of suitable works of literature. In this way, making a good
selection of activities an presenting them with confidents, students will be nearer to
communicative competence.

5. Define role-playing. Weigh pros and cons of using role playing activities in Primary
Education. Do you think role-playing must be a controlled activity or three in room
for improvisation?

The aim of this essay is discuss the usefulness of role-plays activities in Primary Education. In
order to do so I will present some theoretical background about role-play activity in which I will
try to answer the questions what is role play? And what are its main pros and cons? After that I
will give my opinion about whether roleplay is a controlled activity or there is room for
improvisation.

Role plays are small dialogues for practising a particular structure/function, it is the practice of
asituational speech, role-play es any speaking activity when you either put yourself into
somebody else´s shoes, or when you stay in your own shoes but put yourself into an imaginary
situation.

Let as distinguish its main pros and cons:

ADVANTAGES:

- The focus attention is on the message/content and not on the matery of language.

- There is genuine communication even though the situations are sometimes artificial.

- Though roleplays teacher will have the opportunity to see if pupils can or cannot use
the language.

- Activities concentrate in meaning more than on correctnes. Formal mistakes don´t

really matter too much unless it means your pupils can´t be understood. Fluency is
more important than accuracy.

- Teacher control is minimal during this activity.

- There is often a game element in his activity.

- It´s fun and motivating.

- It provides a good opportunity to include the outside world in our classrooms.

DISADVANTAGES

- There are limitations because of students lack of actual language

- We don´t know what they want to say

- Our student´s bashfulness

- Role-play activities are not real situations

- The atmosphere should be informal and not competitive

- Non linguistic devices such as intonation, tone of voice, body language,etc, are
extremely important.

Working with role-plays is a useful way to bridge the gap betweem guided practice and freer
activities. Controlled role-plays can easily develop into free work when the pupils are ready for
it. Working role-plays with young children we should go from the structure to the more open
type of activity. Beginners of all ages can start on role-play dialogues by learning a simple one
off by heart and then acting out in pairs.

With the five to seven years old you can give them a model first by acting out the dialogue with
Teddy and getting the pupils repeat the sentences after me. With the older children we can act
it out with one of the cleverer pupils.

Finally I would like to underline the fact that sucess developing of role-plays in our classrooms
it will give our pupils the opportunity to practice a wide range of skills and sub-skills,
consequently they will improve their communicative competence, main goal of foreign
language teaching.
 6. Accuracy-fluency. Explain these terms, their application in the teaching methodology
and their relevance for the third cycle.

The aim of this essay is to try to explain the terms of accuracy and fluency. In order to do so I
will firstly give a definition for both, accuracy and fluency concepts. After it I will explain their
application in the teaching methodology and finally their relevance for the third cycle of
Primary Education.

What does fluency means? It means the ability to generate and communicate one´s ideas
intelligibly and with relative ease but not neccesarily with accuracy. The fluency exercises invite
you to take the arts of different characters when role-playing and to continue a dialogue in
your own way. On the other hand, what does accuracy means? We can sat that accuracy is the
ability to generate and communicate ideas in a correct way. From the point of view of accuracy
it affords numerous opportunities to train you to say things correctly and to understand the
underlying grammar which will enable you to do this. The accuracy exercises encourage a
thouhtful use of language and the information is intended to help you to understand how
English works. In short, while accuracy pays attention on the rules and mastery of the language
while fluency underline the importance to get the message across.

However, accuracy does not mean 100% error-free, an impossible achievement, but during the
controlled and semicontrolled language practice periods for beginners a high degree of
accuracy should be required. Not only are the students encouraged to make as few errors as
possible, but they are expected to manipulate the language system as spontaneously and
flexibly as possible.

Of course, fluency in language learning goes for beyond that, soon after the students have
mastered the language forms, they ought to be given intensive fluency practice, then, as
control is withdrawn, students can use the language more freely. At this stage, errors should be
tolerated and the teacher should emphasize that error-making is not at all disgraceful but a
natural and common practice. Teacher assess the students´performances at the end of each
fluency practice so that the students are aware of their weaknesses and become more and
more conscious of their errors.

What´s the relationship between accuracy and fluency? Accuracy is the basis of fluency,
without accuracy there is no fluency to speak. So accuracy in the prerequisite for the
communicative competence and fluency, only a solid foundation of linguistic competence and
accuracy can make it possible for the students to develop communicative competence and
fluency.

Finally I would like to underline the fact that today we can say that the matery of
communication is the main objective and the grammar necessary for this is the by-product. In
other words,grammar is the support system for communication not and end in itself.
 7. Design a didactic unit on the topic my body for the second cycle of Primary Education

Contents

Concepts

- Topic: the body and its parts.Actions with the body.

- Functions and use of language, tell the parts of the body and write them correctly.

- Vocabulary, parts of the body, basic actions with them.

- Phonetics. Correct pronunciation of each part of the body.

Procedures

- (L) Active listening to a song

- (S) Sing a song with the correct pronunciation. Interact with members of a group.

- (R) Reading of messages and short texts in order to identify information.

- (W) Write words from previously introduced models

Attitudes

- Get involved in communicative tasks.

- Importance of paying attention to their own oral production.

- Demonstrate on understanding and use of basic expressions necessary for social

interaction in specific communicative situations.

Activities

Our activities are based in the song “Head and shoulders”. We will listen to the song firstly as a
warming activity. After it we are going to concentrate on the meaning and the sound of the
words first. We will do it with flashcards with drilling exercises. We can do that showing
pictures of the parts of the body with the words clearly written beneath and we will say the
words while pointing to the words. We will teach how to do the actions of the song. After it,
students will listen to the song and will do the actions.

Later, we will give out pictures of the parts of the body and separate pieces of paper with the
words on which children must match. This can be done in groups of two or three. If the group
is bigger some children may not actually participate and be left out.

Later we will make the children to draw a person (themselves for example) and to label the
body with the words they have learnt. They may know some other parts of the body that they
can add you may have to help with spelling.

After it, we will play a to practice the vocabulary. We will divide the class into teams of nine.
We will choose a confident and outgoing child from each team to stand or sit at the front of the
class and be THE BODY. Other members of the team each get a sticker with a word of a part of
the body written on it. Each team stands behind a line away from the front of the class. One at
a time a team member has to run to the front and put the sticker on the appropiate part of THE
BODY, it is a race and the first team to correctly label their BODY are the winners.

Another good way to practice the vocabulary is to do a picture dictation. So we will do it. For
example I say this is a monster. He has two heads and four eyes. Children have to draw the
monster according to the teacher´s description. We have to ensure to use only vocabulary the
children have come across before, this can include numbers,colours, sizes and shapes. The
monster has four small, blue, triangular ears.

And finally, going back to the song, children with a larger vocabulary for parts of the body can
be encouraged to write a new verse for the song using other parts of the body and then
perform them to each other using the correct actions.

8. Design a fifty minute class where the main objective is to develop receptive skills

The aim of this essay is to design a fifty minute class in order to develop receptive skills. In
order to do so I will firstly present some theoretical background about the importance of
receptive skills in the language learning process. After that I will present the lesson and finally I
will give a concluding remark.

Receptive skills, listening and reading are an essential part of language instruction at every
level because they support language learning process. They provide the input that serves as
the basis for language acquisition and enables learners to interact in spoken communication.

This lesson is designed for the first and second cycle of Primary Education 6-10 years old the
main aims of this lesson will be: listening for detail, the language of shops and shopping and to
relate speech to pictures. The materials we will need will be some examples of food and some
pictures of shopping baskets.

1. In the class we will tell the children we are going to tell them the story of a boy called
Timmy who went shopping, first we will ask our students some questions like Do you
ever go shopping? In order to contextualize the story.

2. After this we will show them the food (or pictures) and we will ask them in which shop
they buy what. We will teach the English names of the shops.

3. Next We will ask the children if they have a list of things to buy when they go shopping
(we will draw one on the board) and we will ask the children to suggest things we
could buy.

4. Now, we will tell the story.

5. When we finish we will ask the children to tell you what was on Timmy´s shopping list
and which shops he went.

6. After this we will tell the story again.

 7. Finally we will ask the children to act out the story. In order to do so they can read the
text from the papers. Other activity could be our pupils by small groups change the end
of the story.

Finally, I would like to underline the importance of both, listening and reading skills. They
provide the input from which our pupils will begn to create language. It will depend of the
quality and quantity of our input the quality and quantity of their output. The success of our
lesson will depend of our capacity to get the message across so one of our main tasks will be
the use of plenty of gestures, mime and pictures to help the children understand.

9. Design a storytelling session. Give precise information on cycle, age, student´s

motivation and command of English

The aim of this essay is to design a storytelling session. In order to do so firstly I will present
some information about the title, cycle, age, command of English, aims of this lesson, materials
and time needed. Secondly, I will develop the storytelling session and finally I will give a
concluding remark about the use of storytelling in primary education.

- Cycle 1st cycle

- Age group: 6-8 years old

- Time: 50 minutes

- Aims: introduce new vocabulary and motivate our students towards listen stories in
English,

- Command of English: Basic

- Materials. Flashcards and storysheets.

- Title The old women who lived in a bottle.

WARM UP. Whe we arrive our classroom we will ask our students: Do you know the story about
the old women who lived in a bottle? I will show a flashcard with the old women in the bottle. I
will continue saying Oh, you do not know the story, How is that possible? It is a very famous
and interesting story! Do you want I telling you? In this way I will create expectations and
arouse our pupil´s interest, 3,4´

PRE-LISTENING. I will introduce the new vocabulary: fairy, old women, house, bottle, place,
castle and I will work the marker structure. I do not want to I want to, I will do this showing
different flashcards and asking the students. Do you want to live in a palace? Yes I want to, Do
you want to live in a bottle? No, I don´t want to.

WHILE-LISTENING, 1º part. We will telling the story. As this story has a repetitive structure we
will invite our pupils take part and participate in it. This can be done telling them them to
accompany us repeating the vocabulary and the markers sentence we have introduced before.
2º part: we will divide the students by groups of 4/5. We will give each group different sheets
containing different drawings about the story. We will tel our students that we are going to
telling the story again and they have to put in order the different sheets according with the plot
of the story.

POST-LISTENING (15´) At this stage the students will asked to colour the drawings of the
different sheets of the story. Then we will sticj them in the walls of our class. Also, we can ask
our students to write down the new vocabulary and give them the opportunity to complete
some sentences with the marker structure we have worked in the story.

Finally I would like to underline the importance to introduce storytelling in our English lessons.
Storytelling get fully involved while listening to a story and they also feel joy and satisfaction.
Using storytelling in class children develop a constructive and creative comprehension.

10. Dictation in the English clasroom. Propose specific tasks to develop in a fifty minute
session for the sixth course of Primary Education

The aim of this essay is to try to show some tasks related with dictation for developing them in
a fifty minute session for the sixth course of Primary Education. In order to do so firstly I will
present some theoretical background about dictation in which I will explain the importance of
using dictation in the English classroom. After that I will propose some ways in which dictation
could be developed and finally I will give a concluding remark.

Dictation has been seen by many teachers and students as somewhat old-fashioned. For them,
it brings back unhappy memories of those difficult lessons where the focus was on the
accuracy of language. However dictation can be an extremely versatile activity. It practices
listening and writing skills but also other types of micro or sub-skills as: letter,
formation,spelling, punctuation. It gives practice in almost everything.

Next I will purpose some fun and enjoyable ways to develop dictation in our classroom:

The first activity consists on what is called running dictation. We take a short text that is
appropiate to the level, rich in vocabulary and/or illustratve of a grammar point we are working
on. Stick the text on the board or on the wall in a way that the students cannot read them.
Divide the students into groups and ask each group to nominate a messenger. It is then the
task of the messenger to run to the text, read it and memorise a chunk of it. He then returns to
his group and dictates the chunk,the others write it down. The messenger then repeats this
process until the whole text has been written down. The first group get to complet the whole
dictation will be the winner. It would be a good idea that the messenger would be changing.

The second activity consists on what is called dictogloss, in this activity teacher will ask the
students not to write anything as he read the dictation. Teacher will read the sentence twice,
even three times. Then he will ask them to write. In this activity it is important not that they
replicate the original sentence word by word but that they produce a piece of English that
closely reflects the sense of the original.
The last activity I would like to purpose is jumbled story dictation. In this activity each person in
the group gets a sentence to the next of the group and the group then has to decide on the
correct order for the sentences.

Finally, I will say that for doing these activities we have to control very good the instructions
that we are going to tell them, they have to be clear and concise. These activities can be fun for
pupils but it depends also on their interests and we have to choose a good moment for doing
them.

11. DISCIPLINE

This is an extermely contentious area and you will probably find as many different opinions as
to how to discipline students as there are teachers in the world. Ultimately you will have to
decide on your own disciplinary rules for your classes. There are many different reasons why
we experience discipline problems in our classrooms. The following is a basic guide for
classroom management, detecting problems and applying remedies.

Classroom management.

1 Noise. Primary school students do not work in silence. It is normal for children to laugh and
talk to each other while they are doing an activity. They want to know what their partner has
done and especially, who has finished first. Rather than trying to prevent them from
communicating normally with each other, promp them to speak in English. Provide them with
the language they need for this comunication.

2 Movement, children need to move around. The school day is long and we cannot reasonably
expect them to sit at desks all day. Try to include at least one moving activity in each lesson. Let
them stand up or clap and act to songs and rhymes.

3 Flexibility, be prepared to change the order of your activities in your lesson plan to take into
account the mood of your students. If they seem unruly a the beginning of the lesson, start off
with a physical activity. If they get restless halfway through the lesson, stop what you are doing
and get them moving.

4 Consistency, be consistent, if your students know what you expect of them it will be easier
for them to behave appropiately, this can be hard beacause as teachers we also have our good
days and bad days, do not expect students to be good always. Those of us who have children of
our own know that their behaviour varies from day to day.

5 Fairness, do not label children as difficult just because they, or their brothers and sisters,
above a history of disruptive behaviour, try to show them that you have no preconceived ideas
about them, if you allow children to think that you expect them to be naughty, you will, almost
certainly, not be disappointed.

6 Positive reinforcement, always emphasise and reinforce the good things that students do.
Children love public encouragement, so make sure that the other students hear you praising
and appreciating someone´s work or coduct. Remember that all students hear you praising and
appreciating someone´s work or conduct. Remember that all students need this praise, even
the ones who do not always demand your approval. Never humiliate or use your advantages of
age and experience to belittle a student no matter what they have done. Serious violations of
the rules shoulds always be dealt with privately.

12. Accuracy-fluency. Explain these terms, their application in the teaching methodology
and their relevance for the third cycle.

The aim of this essay is try to explain the terms of accuracy and fluency. In order to do so I will
firstly give a definition for both, accuracy and fluency concepts. After it I will explain their
applicaiton in the teaching methodology and finally their relevance for the third cycle of
primary education.

What does fluency means? It means the ability to generate and communicate onés ideas
intelligibly and with relative ease but not necessarily with accuracy.

The fluency exercises invite you to take the arts of different characters when role-playing and
to continue a dialogue in your own way. On the other hand what does accuracy means? We
can say that accuracy is the ability to generate and communicate ideas in a correct way.

From the point of view of accuracy it affords numerous opportunities to train you to say things
correctly and to understand the underlying grammar which will enable you to do this.

The accuracy exercises encourage a thoughtful use of language and the information is intended
to help you to understand how English works.

However accuracy does not mean 100% error-free an impossible achievement. But during the
controlled and semicontrolled language practice periods for beginners a high degree of
accuracy should be required. Not only are the students encouraged to make as a few errors as
possible, but they are expected to manipulate the language system as spontaneously and
flexibly as possible.

Of course, fluency in language learning goes far beyond that. Soon after the students have
mastered the language forms, they ought to be given intensive fluency practice, then, as
control is withdrawn, students can use the language more freely. At this stage, errors should be
tolerated and the teacher should emphasize that error making is not all disgraceful but a
natural and common practice. Teachers assess the student´s performances at the end of each
fluency practice so that the students are aware of their weaknesses and become more and
more conscious of their errors.

What´s the relationship between accuracy and fluency? Accuracy is the basis of fluency,
without accuracy there is no fluency to speak. So accuracy is the prerequisite for the
communicative competence and fluency. Only a solid foundation of linguistic competence and
accuracy can make it possible for the students to develop communicative competence and
fluency.
Finally I would like to underline the fact thaat today we can say that the matery at
communication is the main objective and the grammar necessary for this is the by-product.

13. How could you use the new technology (video, TV, newspapers, tapes, CD,
internet,etc, to motivate your students? Give examples for the first
cycle,CD,TV,reason your answer.

The aim of this essay is an attempt to try to outline somo ideas about the use of new
technology to motivate our first cycle students, firsly I will present a theoretical background
about the topic, then I will present different activities for using them in the first cycle classroom
and finally I will give a concluding remark.

Motivation is an important element in the teaching-learning process, and sometimes it is

difficult how to introudce it in our activities. In this sense new technologies can help us to
motivate our students, essentialy because students love all things related with them. Apart
from this, students are nowadays in the mass-media society, so introducing new technologies
in the classroom is an important part of our teachings, I will try to explain some activities that
can be useful for motivating them.

I am going to present three activities with different kinds of new technologies:

- The first will be use the Internet as a research resource. We will divide the class into
groups of 4 and we tell them to search some basic information about famous people

- Internet name, place and date of birth, why is he/she famous, a photo of him/her, then
each group will present this information to the rest of the class.

- This activity can be very motivating for them, because they can get information,
pictures,etc, about their idols, in this way the will learning English though in and
enjoable and interesting way for them.

- Next activity consists on the use of the digital camera in the class, if the school has one
students can take some photographs.

- The third activity is to watch part of a Walt Disney film in English. In this kind of films
we often have easy songs,text, dialogues. Also the topic and characters of them are
very related with children´s neccesities and needs.

Finally, I want to emphasise that new technologies are every day getting more and more
important in education, so we have to take them into account, because in the future will be
even more usual in the schools. But for doing all these activities we have to be in a school with
all these technological materials and also teachers must know about new technologies.
 14. Discuss the importance of discipline in the English classroom

The aim of this essay is to discuss the importance of discipline in the English classroom. In
order to dos so I will firstly present some theoretical background about discipline problems we
can find withing our classrooms. At the same time I will purpose different ways we can use in
order to avoid them and finally I will give a concluding remark.

We should bear in mind that non of us teachers work in a vacuum. Different students with
different abilities come to our class making a very heterogeneous group of people. To this, we
should add that the school and its aims has not usually been the favourite place for children.

In the whole cases the solution will be different, in relation with this topic there are not magic
solutions. However I will give some orientations teachers should bear in mind, firstly, when we
find any kind of discipline problems we should identify the Cause, knowing the cause of the
problem it will be easier to solution it.

Secondly, identifying the ringleader. Locate our problematic student in order to know towards
who/whose we should address our attention, also, knowing the causer of the problem we will
have mor information about what kind of measures we have to put in practice.

Thirdly, once we have identify the source of our trouble we could give him/her some variety in
his/her work. At the same time we should increase his/her motivation and try to catch his/her
attention. In order to do this one of the best ways to do it is having a high expectations about
his/her. In this way he/she will feel obligated to respond that expectations.

Finally, I would like to say that it will depend of the ability and experience of the teacher to
create a good atmosphere and good relationships with his/her pupils.

15. What is the difference between intensive and extensive reading. Which one should
be developed at Primary level?

The aim of this essay is to study the differences between intensive and extensive reading and
discuss which one should be developed at Primary Level. In order to do I will first provide with
a brief theoretical background dealing with the main features of intensive and extensive
reading, establishing differences between both, second, I will explain which kind of reading
should be worked at Primary Levels and finally I will give a concluding remark.

Reading is an essential part of language learning. Is one of the four skills needed in order to be
communicative competente in a Language. Reading is an essential part of a language
instruction at every level because it supports learning in multiple ways. Reading is an
interactive process that goes on between the reader and the text, resulting in comprehension.

In order to learn a language our students will need some reading techniques. If we want our
pupils be efficiente readers in English we must give them enough practice in both intensive and
extensive reading.
In extensive reading the language is whithing the students capacity and they read for pleasure
and interest.

The passages can be long or short. Extensive listening can be used for two main purposes: a
first use is the representation of already known material in a new environment and letting our
pupils to read vocabulary items and structures which are as get unfamiliar to them.

Finally, intensive reading, students are asked to listen to a passage with the aim of collecting
and organising the information it contains. The types of passages used are different from that
used for extensive reading. Passages should be short and readed several times.

16. Listening skills. How would you use a song in Foreing Language Teaching

The aim of this essay is to try to show how we can use a song in Foreign Language Teaching. In
order to do I will firstly present some theoretical background about the importance of songs in
language learning process. After that I will deal with different ways in which we can exploit
songs in our lessons and finally I will give a concluding remark.

The use of songs has a wide range of advantages. Let us see some of the main ones: songs
provide variety to our lessons: they are a very useful way to practice language patterns such as
vocabulary and pronunciation: listening skills, attentio span and concentration are improved.
Pupils participation is encouraged, any distance between teacher and pupil can be reduced.
But the main and most important one is that children love songs.

Now I will propose some different ways of using songs in our English lessons:

Songs can be used to teach sounds, though songs we can teach individual sounds, sounds in
connected speech, different features of sounds, relating to stress, rhythm and intonation. E.g
most vowels and consonants in English provide pronunciation difficulties for Spanish speakers.

Other different way to use songs is to learn vocabulary. Though songs we can practice a wide
range of words, expressions.... like the days of the week, months, seasons, parts of the body.
Though the connection between the words of the song and the actions our students will
acquire vocabulary in an unestressing and motivating way.

But also, thought songs our students will have the opportunity to learn sociocultural aspects.
Doing so our students will improve their sociocultural competence and of course their
communicative competencw which is one of the main goals of our teaching.

Finally, I would like to underline the importance of using songs in our English lessons: firstly,
because songs take and active part in our children´s development of language, secondly, songs
replace the need of affective speech that pupils and adults do not receive and the third and
most important reason could be young learners love songs.
 17. Motivation at primary level, from theory to practice.

The aim of this essay is to discuss the importance of motivation at Primary level. In order to do
firstly I will present some theoretical background about motivation in which I will explain what
does it means and its relevance in language learning process. After that I will purpose some
waysin which we can improve our student´s motivation and finally I will give a concluding
remark.

What does motivation mean? Motivation is an attitude towards something. It is widely agreed
that motivation has a great effect on a student´s capacity to learn.

There are many things we can do in the classroom to increase the levels of extrinsic motivation.

USING PHOTOS. Using photos can really help to spark interest and generate a lot of language
topics,songs, stories, that use photos describing people, family, places, increase our student´s
motivation.

How much more engaging and interesting to describe a photo of their world children.

Vocabulary learning becomes much more memorable with attractive and meaningful
experiences.

MUSIC. Children love listening to music. Due to the fact that so much popular music is in
English it can be a source for hightly motivating activities.

Other ways to motivate our students are: establish a contact with native speakers, work with
authentic materials.

Finally, I would like to point out three attitudinal qualities that a teacher should have assist the
learning process:

- Empathy or the ability to see things from the student´s point of view.

- Authenticity or being yourself.

- Acceptance of student´s ideas and opinions.

18. Must the mother tongue be used in the English class?

The present essay aims try to discuss the use of the mother tongue in the English class. In
order to do so I will firstly present some theoretical background about the classroom language.
After it I will give some reasons to use L1/L2 in our classes and finally I´ll give a concluding
remark.

It is important to remember that, for many students, their only contact with the English
language will be through their teacher. If we feel comfortable using English freely in the
classroom do so, use natural language, speaking clearly and not too fast and pay particular
attention to our intonation and gestures.
The students will often capture the overal meaning of what teacher is saying by identifying
non-linguistic features, so teacher should be as visual as he can.

We often wonder about the amount of communication we should do in L1 in the classroom.

Not long ago, teachers were urged never to use L1 in the classroom, however, most of us now
realise that this is simply not practical.

There are times and situations where L1 in the fastest, most efficient and most appropiate form
of communication with our students. We should always use English in the classroom where this
is feasible vehicle for communication.

There are times when it is useful to use L1:

- In order to introduce a particular them, especially sociocultural themes.

- We will need to use L1 for serious discipling problems. If students are not used to
hearing us speaking too much L1 in the classroom, when you do want to get serious it
can be effective.

- In order to explain an activity to the class, but sometimes L1 may be necessary.

- We may find it useful to use a mixture of the two languages with oler/higher level
students to help them through explanations or difficult structures, but do not
encourage them to translate structures into or from their L1.

We should try to get used to speaking in English in the classroom even when we know the
students will not be able to understand us completely, pause at key words and point or use
gestures to give them the opportunity to follow what we are saying.

Finally, I will say that it is important to insist on students using language which they have
learned in class.

A good rule to establish in the classroom is always use English when you can. Initially this will
produce a sort of hybrid language, but they will gradually move towards more and more
English.

19. Teaching mixed ability classes

The present essay aims to study teaching mixed ability classes. In order to do I will first a five a
brief theoretical background about mixed classes in primary education. After this I will purpose
some useful ideas teaching mixed ability classes and finally I will give a concluding remark.

We may often be teaching a class which has students who are clearly of different levels.

They may have different starting levels of English or they may learn at very different speeds.

There are several strategies that a teacher can use to deal with this situation. Let us examine
some of the main ones:
Discussion and needs analysis. It is easy to get frustrated in a class of mixed ability. It is
probably best to state and structure the discussion:

 Need analysis, use a needs analysis to prompt the students to reflect upon their
learning style, learning strategies, language needs, learning enjoyment, motivation,
language strengths and weaknesses. Students compare their answers in pairs or
small groups. This will help to develop the sense of shared community in the class.

 Explain and discuss. Explain the mixed level situation to the students and give a list
of possible approaches to the teaching and learning. In pairs the students rank the
approaches/ideas according to their suitability for the situation.

 A student contract, developong with the students or perhaps writing it yourself a

contract of behaviour for activities is a useful device. I will help and support my
activity partner. I will participate in group work.

 Pair work, you can pair strong with strong, weak with weak or strong with weak.
Perhaps in a very controlled activity, the strong with weak will work well. Variety in
the parings is the key here and you should also be sensitive to the general
relationships between different students and learn to not who works well with
whom.

 Group work, these groups could be of mixed levels or similar ones. You may
consider dividing your class into groups by level for the whole lesson. Discussion of
this strategy with the class should help prevent stigmatisation.

 Whole class-mingles, a mingle activity involves students talking or interacting with

many different members of the class in a short period of time in order to achieve a
task.

Overall, variety in the types of working groups and an open discussion of the class situation will
help to deal with some of the difficulties that are present in mixed ability classes. The aim of
these strategies is to create a positive working environment, which is all part of ensuring better
learning.

Practical ideas

1. Range of tasks. This involves creating or providing different tasks for different
levels.

2. Extrawork/homework. It is straighforward to give different students different

homework. Give weaker students homework which really does consolidate the
class work and give the stronger students work that will widen their knowledge
or put it to the test a little more.

3. Student nomination. When asking for answers to questions, ask for particular
students rather than asking the class in a open fashion.
If you ask open questions, the same old strong students will provide the answers and this will
create a poor dynamic to the class. Ask them with variety.

For concluding this essay I would like to say that they key strategies for teaching mixed level
classes are probably developing a positive and collaborative working atmosphere and providing
a variety of work suitable for different levels. It probably doesn´t work to stick you head in the
sand and pretend the class is all of one homogeneous level, a situation which doesn´t exist
anywhere.

20. Set up a list of different techniques to exploit songs with pupils of ten years old.give
examples

The aim of this essay aims to study different techniques to exploit songs with pupils. In order
to do so firstly I will present some theoretical background about songs as a suitable activity to
use in our lessons. Songs can be an extremely versatile activity. It practices listening, speaking
and reading skills but also other types of micro or sub-skills as: letter formation,
spelling,punctuation. It gives practice in almost everything.

The main reason to introduce songs in our English lessons is because our students love songs
and therefore they can be a very motivating activity.

Let us go on showing different ways in which songs can be exploited:

- The cloze or gap fill: students should fill the different gaps they find in their sheets.

- A-B activities students match beginnings and endings.

- Mixed strips: the different parts of the songs are divided and put down.

- Composing: by groups students should invent endings for the songs.

- Vocabulary: matching song construction,miming verbs.

- Listening: social discrimination, different options to filling the gaps.

Finally, I would like to highlight that if teacher has the ability to know how to explit songs he
will find firstly he has a very good way though which he will be able to teach English and
secondly his students will find English as an enjoyable activity.

21. Discuss the ust of ICT in the EFL classroom

The aim of this essay is an attempt to try to outline some ideas about the use of new
technology, in order to do so firstly, i will present a theoretical background about the ICT.

Then I will present how ICT can be used in the EFL classroom. In this light I will purpose some
activities and finally I will give a concluding remark about the importance of using ICT in the EFL
classroom.
One of the most common ways of introducind the ICT in our EFL classroom is using the new as
a research resource. They take notes while working so, that next day we can have feedback.

Other good way of introducing the ICT in our EFL classroom is web site projects. Students may
write essays which should be related with the topic we a Apart from these practical ideals I
would like to mention that ICT is also a very good tool for teacher.

The internet has a lot to offer the teacher: there are authentic resources, materials lessons
plans, activities, worksheets, places where you can share your ideas and thoughts with other
teachers around the world.

Finally I want to emphasise that the use of ICT in the EFL classroom is one of the best ways to
motivate our students, essentially because they love all thing related with them.

22. The value of drama in Education. Weigh the pros and cons.

The present essay aims to study the value of drama considering the pros and cons of its use in
Primary Education. In order to do so I will first provide with a brief theoretical background
about the use of drama in the foreign language classroom. After this I will examine its main
advantages and disadvantages and finally I will give a concluding remark in which I will explain
why drama should be incorporated in our foreign language lessons.

Drama is a technique that can be used to develop certain language skills. Its use derives from
the recognised need to have some experience with language in a social context in order to
have social command of it.

In this way, drama can be used at any time in the classroom, using the same tools employed by
actors in the theatre.

Next I will examine its main advantages and disadvantages. As regards with the advantages it
could be point out the following ones:

- Enjoyable group activity. It can be used as an informal means of learning a language.

Moreover, it helps students acquire new vocabulary, structures and sociocultural
conventions in a fully integrated and contextualised manner.

- A drama project takes account of the socio-psychological aspects of learning. It involves

the whole person and students will learn in a group, helping them to develop co-
operation and socialisation skills.
- Drama provides cultural and language enrichment by revealing insights into the target
culture and presenting language contexts that make items memorable by placing them
in a realistic social and physical context.

- Drama can create in students a need to learn the language, a) by the use of creative
tension, b) by putting more responsibility on the learner, as opossed to the teacher.

- It is one of the best activities which integrate practice in the whole skills: reading,
 when they read the dialogues, speaking when they interpret the play, listening when
they practice with their mates and finally writing if they participate in the creation of
the play.

As regards as the drawbacks in the use of drama in the foreign language classroom we could
point out the next ones:

- They can be used effectively only with small groups of volunteer students. Student´s
bashfulness can not be forced to participate in it.
- Literary texts sometimes contain language forms that learners of a language find
difficult to understand. This could be overcome by simplifying them.
- Not all students will perceive it as being inherently useful, so it will fail in relation to
the high degree of motivational readiness essential for the success of such a drama
project.
- They are time-intensive requiring considerable planning and organisational skills from
the teacher, and dedication and loyalty from the students.
-
Finally I would like to conclude pointing out that drama is an activity that can only be done by
means of group work and provides a particularly satisfying experience for students. The full-
scale staging of a play in English is likely to increase student´s communicative competence.

23. The written skills in the English language, how and when it must be introduced.

The present essay aims to study how and when written skilss must be introduced. In order to
do so I will give some theoretical background about the process our children learn to write.

At this point I will purpose some suitable activities and finally I will give a concluding remark.

Writing consists of motor skills as well as language skills and younger children take longer to
perform a simple writing task because their hand co-ordination is not fully developed.

Written exercises usually follow a set pattern of development to avoid this problem. Teachers
must not try to rush the children in this development at early stages.

Writing practice must begin with guided writing at word-level. In order to do so they will need
a lot of space and time so don´t hurry them.

Some suitable exercises our students may do are: making list, making personal dictionaries,
completing crosswords, mathing labels to pictures, classifying words under headings. Once
they have acquired some practice in it we will begin with writing at sentence-level though
writing speech bubbles for cartons.

Finally if we want our pupils to write fluently they will have to learn how to write paragraphs.

This will be done by providing a model from which to work, what is known as parallel writing.
Next our students will begin with communicative writing activities that enable them to
progress towards free written production.
In order to do so Harmer purposes six types of communicative activities: relaying instructions,
exchanging letters, writing games, fluency writing, story constructions and writing reports and
advertisements. Little by little our students will acquire the written skills and they will feel
more confident making written tasks.

This is the last objective in developing writing skills: free writing activities. We should do not
expect that children will produce a piece of written work entirely on their own.

We should let them produce short pieces of work, making sure that we provide them with
most of the vocabulary and all of the structure models they need.

For concluding this essay I would to mention that writing is one of the four skills needed in
order to be Communicative Competence in a language.

24. Which kind of materials and resources will you consider the most useful in the
teaching-learning process of English?

The aim of this essay is discuss the suitable use of materials and resources in the classroom. In
order to do so firstly I will present a theoretical background about different types of resources
and materials.

Firstly I have to say that teacher is the first and most important resource in the teaching
learning process of English.

Secondly and in relation with materials I have to say that actually there are a wide range of
English teaching materials. For this reason teacher should hava a criteria to choose them,
bearing in mind: ) Who students are (age,sex…) b) what students bring to class (motivation and
knowledge of the world) and c) our student´s needs.

Third I ll explain the different types of resourcces and materials we can find.

- Beginning with English resources we can find the next ones:

- Methodological resources within we can distinguish: teaching should start from

students level of development: Language learning process should be maningful,
teacher should the student´s ability of learning to learn.

- Human resources. Teacher and students will be the most important and main ones so
we can take advance of this type of resources in our lessons.

- Environmental resources. Teacher can use all the facilities his surroundings offer him.

Finally, in relation with Material resources we could distinguish between:

Printed materials E.g flashcards

Audiovisual materials E.g. songs and videos

 25. Which sort of activities would you use to make students of the third cycle reproduce
and recognise characteristic phonemes in English?

The aim of this essay is to try to show some tasks that we can use to make third cycle students
aware of the characteristic phonemes in the English language. Firstly, I will present some
theoretical background about the topic to contextualise the activities that I will propose after
it, Finally I will give a concluding remark.

For learning a second language, one important thing is to know its phonemes in a proper way.
When learners can recognise and understand phonemic symbols they become more
autonomous, able to use dictionaries to find out for themselves how words are pronounced.

Many teachers however avoid using them in class. I will try to show a few ideas that could help
teachers as well as learners become more comfortable when working with phonemes.

These are the activities that I will propose for working with phonemes:

- The first activity that I am going to explain is a kind of Bingo. Before class I will prepare
a list of short words and check their phonemic spellings.

In class, I will ask everyone to dray a noughts and crosses grid. Each learner then chooses any 9
different phonemes and writes one into each of their grid boxes.

The learners must decide if this word contains any of their phonemes, If they have any they
should write the word under the appropiate symbols in their grid.

I will continue with more words. When someone thinks they have a line (horizontal, vertical or
diagonal) I will pause the game and get the whole class to check if the claim is correct or not.

Either way, I can still go on with the game and see if more people can get bingo.

Another good activity can be about mistakes. We can begin to use phonemes to write out
some long words on separate numbered cards, one word to a card.

In each word we will make one mistake substituting a wrong phoneme for a correct one.

Later, students will work in teams and get one card.

They must work out what the original word was and which phoneme is wrong. When they have
done this they pass the card on and get a new one. The winning team is the one with most
correct answers after 10 cards.

For finishing this essay, I have to say that reproduce and recognise the phonemes in English is
very important particularly in this cycle in which students are consolidating its language
abilities and beginning to produce more in English.