REFLECTIONS ON WEEK 4

 

One of the main things I have learnt this week is about integrating skills: reading, writing and vocabulary. They can go all together through the internet and be taught in such a way that students can easily understand the whole thing.

 
Skills are used according to the aim of the interaction that takes place. I mean  that in real communication skills are naturally integrated no matter which comes first. For example:
 

1-      It is impossible to take part in a conversation if you do not listen to what the other person is saying. The same goes for writing. People seldom write without reading (even to check what they have written).

Thus the same subject or experience leads to the use of different skills. 

It is fairly improbable that skills are used isolated in real life interaction. In order to replicate its mechanisms to make the teaching and learning processes more communicative teachers will try to think of different possibilities to make pupils feel that the foreign language they are learning is useful.

 

 On the other hand, in textbooks, for the sake of methodological organization, we generally find a pre-established pattern provided for integrating skills. Thus, the lesson opens with a text or dialogue to be listened to or read, followed by the practice of the oral skill through conversation or discussion and afterwards the written one.

 

 But on the internet the skills are integrated per se. We do not need a textbook to find the context, the context is there and the glorious thing about it is that we can share this context at any time. 

What the teacher desires is to see children do things with language. She wants them to perceive the usefulness of language and get to know the world and share their findings with others. She encourages reflection on values, cultural identity, teamwork, diversity, friendship, and so on. Language, then, is meant to be a tool for teachers to make students grow up, to explore the value of learning and to foster language development. In fact, learning a language becomes an educational project. 

But above all, teachers find that cross-curricula activities through the internet are possible and allows students to get knowledge not only in the language but also on the other areas (science, history, etc.) he is reading, writing or listening. Still, its acquisition has to be a natural process, not an unnatural and farfetched process.

As Claudia Ferradas Moi said:

“When we teach a language we do not aim only at the acquisition of the language system, we contribute to educating the whole person. With this educational objective in mind, we explore different topics and ideas helping pupils develop learner autonomy and critical thinking from a very early stage”

 

Elena Rivas