Mr. Maker (Fake cake)

I wrote the URL where you can find my activitie about the fake cake.

http://masaes97.blogspot.mx/2015/04/fake-cake.html

Sub-skills

The language skills of speaking, listening, writing and reading are often divided into sub-skills, which are specific behaviours that language users do in order to be effective in each of the skills.

Those skills are really important because you can improve your sub-skills and you can speak, and understand like a native speaker, it is so hard but is possible. You have to work hard and you can create your own materials in order to practice them.

The language skills of speaking, listening, writing and reading are often divided into sub-skills, wich are specific behaviours that language users do in order to be effective in each of the skills, 

Example: 

Learners developing the skill of listening need to have the sub-skills to being able to recognize contracted forms in connected speech. In the classroom learners spend time developing a wide range of sub-skills as they build each of the four skills. Amongst the sub-skills focussed on are scanning and skimming in reading, organizational and editing skills in writing, recognition of connected speech and understanding in listening, pronuntiation and intonation in speaking. 

Listening Sub-skills 

*Listening for gist. This is when we listen to something to get a general idea of what it’s about, of what’s being said. We don’t want or need to understand every word. 

*Listening for specific information. This is when we listen to something because we want to discover a particular piece of information. We know in advance what we’re hoping to find out. We can ignore other information which doesn’t interest us.

*Listening in detail. This is when we listen we listen very closely, paying attention to all the words and trying to understand as much information as possible. 

Harmer, J., (2007) How to Teach English (new edition), Pearson-Longman, – chapter 10

Speaking sub-skills 

Depending on the level and ability of your students, in the sphere of speaking there are several sub-skills worth looking at:

*Pronunciation

*Stress, rhythm and intonation

*Using the correct form of words 

*Word order

*Using appropiate vocavulary 

*Language register 

*Building an argument 

Writing sub-skills 

* Know Orthography

*Know the system of the second language 

*Word order

*Use good standar grammar 

*Know how to express a particular meaning using different grammatical forms

*Use of synonyms and antonyms 

*Writing strategies

*Be able to structure a text into paragraphs 

Reading sub-skills

*Comprehension

*Understanding the plan of the text

*Making predictions 

*Guessing the meaning of unfamiliar words

*Skimming and scanning 

*Understanding the organization of the text

*Note-making

CLT (conceptual maps)

These are my conceptual maps about CLT. I wait for your comments.

Skill theory (Summary)

 A Skill is the base of this unit. Skill development is analyzed in terms of a set of skill structures together with a set of transformation rules and they are related to each other. Skills change trough a series of cognitive levels with particular steps.

A skill is an organized ability, it’s composed of one o more components, and these components can be sensorimotor actions, representations, or abstractions. In using a skill, a person controls sources of variation. These sources are determined jointly by the person’s actions and the environment. Because of this reason, skills must be relatively specific. Environment dictates that children master particular skills. This theory of skill is different from a Piagetian scheme which assumed to have a high degree of generality resulting from a structure d’ ensemble. It characterizes a person as being at a particular developmental stage, and a skill as at a particular level.
Changes in the environmental context of skills produce changes in the skills, and therefore skills in different domains seldom show precise synchrony in developmental level.

Different people show behaviors that look the same but involve different skills. Behavior is ambiguous. The “same” act can be carried out via a number of different strategies and therefore via different skills. These different skills involve different developmental levels.

A straightforward rule proves to be useful in moving beyond the ambiguity of behavior, find the simplest possible skill that could produce a particular behavior, where the investigator designs the simplest task for testing each step in a predicted developmental sequence. This assumption will allow us to predict earliest possible level at which that behavior can appear.

Different skill will be at different levels in the same child at the same time. Even if analysis is limited to one area, such as language, children will not show the same level of performance across skills. Skill theory explains these shifts trough the construct of optimal level.

The child has an upper limit to her abilities – a highest level beyond which she cannot go. Consequently the skills that she practices frequently will be at this highest level, but other skills will not. Optimal level increases with age, and the population of language. The increase in optimal level does not seem to be constant, however: it seems to show cyclical periods of relatively faster change and slower change and so in sense. These changes in speed mean that children at a given level should be able to master more complex steps within level but should have difficulty even the simplest step at the next level.

Optimal level thus accounts for the broad course of development in al skills, including language skills. There are ten levels which a person develops from infancy to adulthood. They increase in difficult and complexity. The existence of these levels has been supported by other investigators for the period of infancy.

The progression of skills show a repetitive cycle suck that the structures of levels. Each of the cycles, called a tier. Specifies skills of different types. But the four levels have similar structures. Levels 1, 4, and 7 involve single units. At levels 2, 5, and 8, the characteristic structure is a mapping, in which variations in one component are systematically related to variation in a second.

In this system, the ability to relate several distinct aspects of each component allows the child to understand complex relations between the components. Levels 4. 7. And 10 are the culmination of development within each tier.
However major statistical shifts in population of skills do occur, both within and across children.

Skill theory explains these shifts through the construct of optimal level.

Optimal level increase with age, of course, and the population of language skills gradually shifts upward in a statistical fashion as the child develops a higher optimal level.

The ten developmental levels described by skill theory.

Sensorimotor

-Single sensorimotor action.
-Sensorimotor mapping
-Sensorimotor system

Representational

- System of sensorimotor systems
- Representational mapping
- Representational system
- System of representational systems

Abstract
- Abstract mapping
- Abstract system
-System of abstract system.

Communicative lenguage teaching.

This is my video that I recorded with my team.
Our names are:
Gema Lopez
July Medel
Julián Bautista
Introduction.
Communicative lenguage teaching (CLT)

It is an aproach to teach a language, CLT emphasizes interaction as both the means and the target language. I mean, it is based on communicative competences. CLT also emphasizes "humanism", which focuses on students need and individual affective. It was developed in the UK in the 1960 and 1970 and then it was popularized in America. Learners can communicate orally and in writing with native speakers in a appropriate way.
Some characteristics are:
- Focus on negotiation of meaning and meaningful communication.
- Learners collaboration is so important to interact (active learning and active learners)
- Teacher as facilitator.
- Tolerance for errors.

CLT is focus on the four skills not just in face-to-face oral communication. Other principles inside of the CLT are reading and writing, that’s why teacher need to have portfolio assessment which include some information from the students and this an evidence of the student´s develop. This kind of collection may include the following aspects:

- Essay writing.

- Class presentations.

- Poems.

- Reports.

- Stories.

- Videotapes.

- Similar projects.

 As we can see, the CLT is really important to our own life, because we can adapt some main points about the approach just to apply them into the real world, and by this way achieve all the objectives proposed by ourselves.

Constructivism and Behaviorism

This is my video that I recorded with my team.

Their names are:

Myrna Daniela Leonardo

Rafael

Julián Bautista Gracia

Introduction.

What is constructivism?

It is a theory that argues that humans can learn or generate knowledge and meaning from their actions between their experiences. Include disciplines like psychology, sociology, and education. This theory examine the interaction between human experiences and their reflexes. Piaget called these systems "schemata".

What is behaviorism?

According to B.F. Skinner, behaviorism is the philosophy behind the science of behavior. Skinner was influential in defining radical behaviorism, a philosophy codifying the basis of his school of research.