Below you will find the four proposals we sent in to participate in this year's FAAPI. Though my name's not listed, I'll be presenting with or supporting each of the teams. I'd like to say I'm proud of the response and enthusiasm shown by the Department members interested in taking part of this venture. You have also put in the necessary amount of work to finalize the requirements, such as writing papers, abstracts, and biodata, revising them endlessly, and meeting on several occasions to fine tune each project. I also appreciate the interest and contribution of those of you who, even when you won't be presenting, offered your material and expertise to support the effort of the project teams. Regardless of whether our proposals get accepted -and they'd be missing some great stuff if they don't!- your predisposition to further our professional stance is commendable.
Note: The rationale for the first workshop serves as theoretical foundation for the other three.
1. A Critical Approach to Selecting Cultural Content
Presented by Janine Cook, Adela Tineo
Abstract:
We will explore ways to promote our students' sense of self and community by sharing activities and projects that will help kids express their own meaning, and appreciate both the essential humanity in the universal values of L2 texts, and the cross-cultural differences from a critical viewpoint. Some of the activities revolve around podcasts, student-made radio programs, English language learner DJ, creative writing assignments, reading for pleasure techniques, songs, portfolios, class yearbooks, and self-disclosure activities.
Summary:
When we face the task of designing a course tailored to our students' needs and sociocultural context, we tend first to determine the level of proficiency of the students, and then select the textbook that will go along with it. With these two simple steps, most of our work seems to be done in terms of curriculum development. Some more enthusiastic teachers usually try to add readers and other 'extra' activities. This configuration is sound in terms of its consideration of the students' linguistic proficiency, the number of class hours in the program, and the appropriate sequence of linguistic development in all four skills, usually provided by the textbook. However, there's a whole dimension that goes largely ignored: What is the cultural content of our class and how is it to strengthen our students' knowledge foundation?
One of the basic tenets of teaching and learning a foreign language is to acquire an added perspective to our view of the world. Cultural awareness is paramount to the acquisition of other languages. However, when it comes to English, this simple statement takes on a kaleidoscopic dimension. As a lingua franca, English is nowadays the language of communication in the international community. Indeed more people speak English as a second or foreign language than the number of people who do so as their first language. It is also a second official language in a number of countries, such as Singapore and India, and the chosen language in the business and entertainment world. It is estimated that over 80% of what gets published on the Internet is in English. On a different level, English has also been the predominantly colonial language in the last two centuries. In addition, such long standing influence of English-speaking hegemonies has led to a quite intricate sociopolitical environment in each country of the periphery. Issues of power, identity, assimilation, imperialism, ownership, and international conflict, as it was our case with the Malvinas War, have determined the way citizens of countries in the periphery view and relate to this language. In this context, the English teacher can become a means to strengthen our subordination to the dominant culture or the facilitator in a nurturing process of our students' identity formation, critical thinking, and global awareness.
Podcasts, student-made radio programs, English language learner DJ, creative writing assignments, reading for pleasure techniques, literary circles, songs, production of expository and journalistic texts, portfolios, class yearbooks, self-disclosure activities are some of the material we expect to share.
This workshop will explore ways to promote our students' sense of self and community. We will share activities and projects that will help kids express their own meaning and appreciate both the essential humanity in the universal values of authentic texts of the target culture, and the cross-cultural differences that make us aware that their view of the world is not and need not be universally shared. Cultural diversity means there is no right or wrong, superior or inferior cultural perspective. This critical approach guides us to find a balance between contents that deal with the individual, the local culture, the Anglophone culture, and the global community. As a result, we can redefine the nature of English as an academic subject and our own role and relevance as English teachers in 21st century Argentina.
2. Acting, learning and Personal Growth
Presented by Alina Teran Griet, Elvira J. Llobeta, Silvia Granado
Abstract:
Our project includes the research of a variety of drama activities designed as bridge between language learning and personal growth. We are not only teaching the language and communication skills but providing strategies that will give students tools to relate to other members of the community, explore their own personalities, enhance their critical thinking and promote global awareness. “The power of arts can lead to a real passion for justice and courage to question.”
This presentation aims to explore the use of drama in the classroom as a source to promote learning on the cognitive, socio-cultural and psychological levels. When planning a class, it's important for teachers to consider the social environment that surrounds their students as well as the inter-relationships among them as these aspects are reflected on each individual performance as a learner. The choice of material should consider thematic units to be discussed in class that are connected and relevant to students' reality. This sometimes implies that teachers should adapt this material in order to cater for their students' needs. Through drama activities, students may develop a receptive mind that, as Mandell and Wolf state, can make students "participate enthusiastically, stop and think about what is going on, be a good audience, concentrate and stay focused, keep open to new ideas..."
Drama activities can help students to acquire the language almost unconsciously. As Burke and Sullivan explain, role-play and improvisation techniques are helpful to encourage students to use the language and use it effectively and in context. Furthermore, as regards phonetics and phonology, students who practise drama skills in the classroom seem to evidence more confidence and fluency in the language. Learners are exposed to language used in context, sometimes more complex than the one usually presented in textbooks: therefore, they undergo a process which implies not only the understanding and interpretation of a text, but also the challenge of finding suitable gestures and sounds to perform it, while exercising their memory skills. Thus, the text is internalized not only grammatically, but also phonologically, taking the vocabulary, rhythm and intonation necessary into account to perform the text properly.
Learners are motivated and they are not aware that they are exercising the language: they are carried away by the enjoyment of doing a pleasurable activity. As a byproduct, the class tends to become a less formal environment in which they can all walk around and interact with each other. Students have the opportunity to develop their own creativity even from the early stages of learning. Jan Mandell and Jennifer Wolf state that "when adolescents create and act in their own plays, something more than a production and performance results."
In our workshop, we intend to share our experience including the research and implementation of a variety of drama activities designed as bridge between language learning and personal growth. We have worked on long-term projects to produce a longer play and a musical, and have also incorporated drama related activities in other lesson plans not related to the longer projects. Adopting a novel or a short story from an English-speaking community as material for dramatization and role-play deepens the students' understanding of the characters' motivation and inner drive, characteristics that portray their culture. Furthermore, when adapting the plot to our own environment, students are encouraged to change any part of the original action to make it fit their local issues and their own personal interests and attitudes. This process makes them aware of cross-cultural differences and strengthens their sense of identity. We are therefore not only teaching the language and communication skills but providing strategies that will give students tools to relate to other members of the community, explore their own personalities, enhance their critical thinking and promote global awareness. "The power of arts can lead to a real passion for justice and courage to question." (Wolf & Mandell, 2003)
3. Video Production and Other eProjects Made Possible
Presented by Omar H. Reinoso, Alicia Prebisch
Abstract:
We will show how students of favourable as well as constrained English language learning contexts can make a video production in which they practice all four skills in a motivating learning environment. We will also share a variety of stimulating activities with a high level of student involvement that aim at using popular electronic gadgets, available to most students, to enhance their learning experience. The projects and activities stimulate students' intelligences, imagination and creativity, while promoting critical thinking and cultural awareness.
Summary:
The objective of this workshop is to present video production as a tool to allow our students to explore a variety of topics that interrelate the target culture with their own in a motivating entertaining environment for both students and teacher. This type of project encourages students to seek the improvement of their linguistic skills not just to get a passing mark but to improve the quality of the project outcome. On the other hand, teachers can assess their progress on different levels beyond the mere improvement of their English skills, such as the students' attitude, level of commitment and work ethic. In the process of adapting a target-culture text to video production, the teacher connects students with distant places and promotes greater awareness of their own identity in the process of discussing similarities and differences between the fictional characters of their L2 reading and the reality of their L1 culture.
Students need to communicate and work with each other and they also need to connect and interact with their community because they often have to search beyond the classroom for learning resources usually making use of new technologies. Many of our students find working with these technologies interesting and creative. A class-made video production is one way of adopting media that spur students' interest and enthusiasm. As a classroom project, it teaches study skills while enhancing the acquisition process. Students research the content for their videos and subsequently learn the information through script writing. The project taps on their creative reservoir to collaboratively determine scenes while visualizing the entire film. It also tends to favour improved self- esteem by providing youths with a recognized medium for broadcasting their views and ideas. As each student is part of a production crew and responsible for meeting the group's set goals, the project promotes cooperative learning. It also induces transparent learning because they enjoy themselves and it encourages process thinking because video production requires extensive planning.
Regarding the challenges of video production, it is time intensive, requires much planning, usually extra work, and, on top of that, it sometimes creates chaos in the classroom. However, the level of enthusiasm and motivation of the students far outweighs such constraints, especially when the outcome becomes the token of a most memorable experience they had in their English class. On a different note, video production in the classroom can be carried out not only in favourable language learning contexts such as bilingual or private schools, but also in constrained ones in which the teachers have few hours to teach a foreign language with students' limited literacy skills and equipment availability.
Language is an integral part of video production. Ideas need to be translated into words and images in the shape of written scripts then interpreted by spoken word and dramatization. Furthermore, it also allows for interdisciplinary projects with other areas of the curricula like Literature, Natural Science, Social Science and Arts. Students may film scenes of a novel or the whole of it, dramatize of short stories, poems, songs or films, also work on Reading Rainbow-style book reviews and oral presentations in science labs. Creative writing is encouraged and interpreted through video projects when they gather news about their own community, on local issues that present problem-solving challenges, and when they focus on cultural histories through the documentary genre.
4. WEBLOGGING our Way to Self-exploration and Global Awareness
Presented by Andrea C. Galvan, Alina Teran Griet
Abstract:
We do not need to become a tech whiz to create a blog. We’ll share different ways to incorporate blogs into our teaching. The focus will be on three uses: the teacher’s, class, and student’s blog. Examples from our personal experience will be the core of the presentation, including a slew of activities to foster linguistic development, cultural awareness, and critical thinking. The goal is the amelioration of authentic interaction, exploration of self and the larger community in a stimulating and fun virtual environment.
One of the limitations EFL teachers often face is their students' and their own lack of exposure to authentic material and interaction with native speakers in real situations. On a general basis, a curriculum mostly based on the use of a textbook poses further limitations on truly authentic communication.
One way to counteract this drawback is the introduction of pedagogic tools provided by the Internet. Collaborative learning, supported by the use of e-mail, chat exchanges and discussion forums - which represent the first-generation web tools - has proved to be efficient as a source of authentic material and interaction.
With the recent advent of weblogging in the world of web publishing and journalism, we propose its use for the students' development of reading and writing skills. More importantly, weblogs foster self-exploration, critical thinking, and fluid communication with the larger community. We have found this tool effective not only in the cognitive process, but also as a means to get students to reflect about themselves as individuals, and their place in the world.
What is a weblog?
It's a web-based writing space, similar to an online journal which is dynamic, chronological, and continually updated with the accumulation of writing and other content - such as comments from readers, pictures, movie clips, podcasts and links to other websites. Blogs can be personal or group production, kept in privacy or published to a wider audience with a common interest. Keeping a blog is a truly communicative activity, since the entries are not produced for the audience of a teacher, but published to be read by a community of peers and, if so desired, by the general public on a global scale.
This process fosters critical thinking and thoughtful writing, as well as extensive reading and research in the target language. As a result, reading comprehension, vocabulary expansion, and writing production improve considerably. The possibility of interaction with members of other communities broadens the individual's mind and enhances understanding, acceptance and appreciation of other cultures.
Blogs are easy to create. We do not need to become a tech whiz to use them. We'd like to share different ways in which blogs can be incorporated into our daily teaching. You'll be able see three uses of this technological device: the teacher's blog, the class blog, and the student's blog. Examples from our personal experience will be the core of the presentation, and will include a slew of activities to achieve the aims of linguistic development, cultural awareness, and critical thinking. Beyond the development of cognitive processes, the goal is the amelioration of authentic interaction, exploration of self, discussion of global issues, in a stimulating and fun virtual environment.
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