I have been reading Bloom’s taxonomy and truly believe
that it is the way students have to learn a second language. In our country we
teach English as a foreign language. This means that they have a different
environment that does not promote the use of English outside the class.
I am very worried as Supervisor that the job is done
well. I find many teachers that as Bloom says remain on the Remembering stage,
that is to say they simple feel that exercises like “filling the blanks” or
“matching” are elements that will make the students learn how to speak the
language. And that is not so.
I focus on the Communicative Approach and as such I
believe like Bloom that the first stage (Remembering) is the
beginning but that each student should go about each one of the stages and to
finally understand and speak a language.
As Widdowson
said I believe that a student learns by doing. If he can fill in a blank that
is Ok but it is the first step to learning. I hope the student gets to the
Creating Stage as the article on “Classifying Objectives” develops. I expect
students be able to change the ending of a story, invent a new beginning, pretend they police-officers in the street and be able
to give directions to a tourists, etc.
Of course this is a process and students should be
able to get to that stage after getting through the other stages in their
learning experience (understanding, applying, analyzing and evaluating and
creating).
The Psychomotor domain is present in the class too. I feel that students should
be taught the phonetics, the difference between the vowels in Spanish and in
English. They are taught the difference in the position of the tongue for “d”
and “t” and so on.
And finally but not least I teach the students the
Affective Domain which implies a respect to values and other cultures. This is
present in our Curriculum Design, a pedagogical basis for the teaching of any
subject at our schools in Argentina.
Teachers should place special interest to organize
groups to make the learning process a social one, that is to say, students
should socialize and learn through others when the teacher develops his or her
subject.
Teachers, too, should place special emphasis on culture.
As we have many immigrants from countries like Paraguay, Bolivia and Peru w are
supposed to integrate them to the other children, respecting their culture at
the same time.
ELENA
Hi, Elena.
ReplyDeleteOur reflective blogs are ways that we are observing each other as teachers and as learners. We are sharing our impressions about our works and comment to others.
Your reflections is so clear.
I was using Bloom's Taxonomy since 2008.I've learned about during Teacher Development Course by Madad Humanity Organization,in my country.I think
the ABCD approach can be very practical. The ABCD reflect the basic necessary ingredients of any objective. And the approach using the first four letters of the alphabet is indicative.Those components should be the basis of any lesson plan.
Hi Elena!!
ReplyDeleteYou’re absolutely right. English Language can be learnt by means of simple and easy exercises, as you mentioned in your blog (filling the blanks or matching). If you conduct conversation class (discussing various topics, translating English structures in your own language, debate competitions and so on) once a week for your students; it will help them effectively to speak English properly and fluently.
Regards,
Nazeer Ahmed
Sorry to tell you that is not what I meant Nazeer. I dont believe students can learn a language by grammar exercises. By filling in blanks students learn to fill in blanks but dont learn a language. What I said is that some of my teachers do it and I dont share their ideas,
ReplyDeleteLearning a language is not easy like you mention. In fact students have to rearrange the grammar structure due to their native language so as to learn another.
In Argentina we believe like Krashen that we learn a second language in the same way as we learn our first language. That is why English should in context. Students learn when they are able to reproduce the functions they have learnt in a complete different context.
that is why we say LEARN BY DOING, Widdowson. Teachers have to reproduce the settings that could be seen in socieety in our classes so that children have a direct access to see how the language is used in society.
Elena
Dear Elina,
ReplyDeleteI am quite impressed by your presentation of hierarchical objectives of Bloom's Taxonomy. I also equally agree with your assertion that reading doesn't promote speaking, rather it just lays the foundation stone to conceive cognition provided that the instructor deals with enough practices associating the activities,i.e. 'c' conditioning generally is natural to bulge out while the third stage activities are proceedings and learners are at the stage of free production.Good speaking demands involvement throughout those Bloom's taxonomic objectives-implementation since learners are not just seemingly using their psycho-motor faculty, but can beautify their performance by means of various cathartic exponents. Yet one cannot overlook the role of grammar in speaking in a variety of ways, rather than just using the very monotonous and dull formed habit.
The affective part of cultural aspect you speak is welcoming one. However, I think one has to associate it with the sense of creating feeling while learning activities.
Yubaraj Neupane
Kathmandu, Lalitpur
I completly agree with you.I think teachers should devote more time to productive skills that may help students in their future lifes later on. Elena
ReplyDelete