Unit 2

This last unit, about Human Rights, was highly interesting. I must say that I really like the instance of making debates, for the reason that every student can participate and share their opinion to construct new points of viev of a certain controversial problem. The only part that I did not like it was that the debates we had proceed with the same patterns, I mean, they were not that real, they were prepared. However, the subsequent feedback enabled the genuine conversation and the opinion sharing.

Perhaps, if those topics were performed as a Socratic Seminar the whole class would participate more and with real arguments, because when we prepare a debate we are not always commited with the arguments we present. I mention this by the reason of I enjoyed the Reading Seminars we had this year, they were useful and meaningful unlike the last year's Reading Seminars.

I strongly believe that now English class is giving us, the future teachers, the opportunity to learn things we can teach to our students, I agree with the idea to provide knowledge about life more than focus on grammar or language, on account of the topics should be linked with the students' life, this subject must be useful for their lives.

Human Rights is a very significant topic in our career, for the reason that more than teaching language contents in our classrooms, as I just said, there are tools for life that we must be taught; as 'civic education' and to make the students know their rights, also learn important values like the respect. By teaching these topics we will allow them to criticize their world and to be autonomous.

furthermore, everybody should know its country's history, the facts that marked its culture, specially if there are terrible periods like the one we had here in Chile, the military dictatorship. From these kind of periods we must teach and tell the students what happened in a way to teach them values and obviously to prevent the rights violation. With Human Rights teaching we can also mention the common issue in schools': bullying, we must show the students the consequences of the violence, the humilliation, and the isolation that the victims suffer, in addition to teach them to maintain a respectful environment.

I would like to have activities, in the next language course, which give us tools and skills to perform as teachers; activities as seminars and more spaces to share my opinion.  From my personal view, I think I have improved this semester because the activities were useful than other semesters' tasks.

Unit 1

To begin with, I must say that the most useful topic for me was the metacognition and all those materials related with learning styles. 

The tests on learning styles helped me to realise and to be aware of my actual way to learn, of course they also helped me to find a suitable way to study. Those results were too many (My common strengths were Musical, Linguistic, Spatial and Visual), but all of them concluded that I am a visual learner. For this reason, now I study with mind-maps, videos, images and all the sources related to my style, and I can say that it really worked!

Something that caught my attention was one of the results (Linguistic) which shows that one of the typical roles related to this intelligence is the Teacher role; perhaps that is the reason why I love this career.

Furthermore, as a visual learner, I really enjoyed the videos that we watched on class, specifically one video about the brain, that explained its parts and its relation with how we learn, as well as the information about the amygdala and its work about our emotions and fears.

I trully believe that a teacher must manage this subjects, in a way to provide the certain material to his/ her students. Moreover, with this knowledge we can guide our students to learn how they learn, to include the self-reflection and self-assesment to teach them to be aware of their metacognition and, as I said before, and as this material worked for me; to guide their learning process.

1st entry

My previous learning experience.

Well, last year was a bit difficult for me. Regardless of the fact that last semester I was on Introduction to Linguistics course that it helped me a lot in IEL6, it was a bit hard for me to get a better or "flawless" English level as the teachers wanted.

I don't know why, but I think it is weird when someone evaluates you in a "fictitious" scenario like oral tests. Why am I saying that it's weird and ficticious? by the reason that I found this tests can't prove your level or your management of the language because that creates a complicated and nervous situation. You can't fail, you can't miss a word, it is hard to think in complex esturctures and so on.

On the other hand, when you are normally talking with a peer, or even a teacher, words come out easily and you express your ideas in a better and naturally way. In that case, I believe, that people are not nervous and if they make a mistake it won't be that terrible as if they were talking to someone else who is qualifying their language skills.

As I said in the first part of this entry, it was a bit difficult semester but that doesn't mean that the topics were boring or meaningless. As I mentioned, I was in Introduction to Linguistics course too and was very useful because I could practice more the topics seen in both classes, that were similar, and that helped me to understand and trully learn.

I hope this semester would be full of new things to learn (about English language and also different topics like the one we are covering now) but I don't want to feel the same I felt on the previous semester; for instance, when I made a mistake no one told me "on time" just when it's too late (when the marks are already put)