Analysis of the Plan Destinations UK

Relate plan with the different innovate approaches

The planning is developed using different approaches which make a mix while one is applying the plan, for instance using imagination to travel in their mind to X site, then using visual aids to reinforce the images they have previously as well the supporting material gives a clear idea about the place one is teaching or talking about. At the same time, using real facts according to the place as well some informal words used by some people in the place.

Analyze cross cultural perception

There is a cross cultural process because students are learning about the situations lived in the place one is teaching to.  This cross cultural also make students to understand and analyze the different point of view or situation live in places they are not accustomed to.

Analyze if there is implementation for change

One take into consideration that there are minimal changes for developing in this planning because the plan is complete with all the  requirements and sequence to develop a class since the warm up that is very interesting and innovative until the end because it enhances students in the information given. As some of the changes one can suggest are make the activities kind of active where they are able to interact with the information instead of being just completing item in the information given. 

What are its limitations?

The limitations of this plan could be the students level owe to according to the level the plan cannot be apply as it is, so it has to have a reorganization in the information related to the students level.

 What is its competence?

The plan is competent owe to make students to participate in all different activities and get involve during the whole plan activity. As well as, it are creative, innovative and make students participate in all the activities getting them important perception about the learning process.

Is communication oriented? Why?

Yes, because it is a method based upon natural language with intense user participation in order to describe what they imagine. The dictionary defines communication as, “The process or technology by which individuals connect, share, exchange and effectively express information, ideas, thoughts or feelings electronically or by speech, writing or behavior so that it is satisfactorily received and understood.” Most of us never taught to communicate in a way that produces results, so we continue to experience frustration, resistance or conflicts because we all listen and process information differently, so it is necessary to become sensitized to the other person´s style of communications in order to align it with our own. Accordingly, we must develop a strong foundation of essential communication skills.

Is it based on learner´s analytic capability? Why?

Yes, because learner´s analytic capability refers to their skills, applications and practices for continuous investigation, so it represents widely the intention of exploring new ideas related with the topic we are teaching. In other words, students can answer questions such as what happened, how was it, and what actions occur during the trip and what will happen that represents common life and interaction with others.

Do materials rely on change or modification? Why?

Yes, because the complexity of communications networks is increasing rapidly with the introduction of new functions and services, increased connectivity, the advent of new technology and criticality of information in schools. There is a growing need for a better understanding of the technology, but in this case there is something simple according with the economical status of the institution and the learners.

Are materials and activities content-based? Why?

Yes, because it is focused on teaching about a new culture and all the activities are related with that, especially with the unusual aspects such us slangs.

Is it focused on language form? Why?

Yes, because the plan tries to students learn not only the grammar or development of speaking skill. In addition, the plan tries to students to learn about English speaking countries, the culture, customs, geography, etc, and it is an important part when we want to learn a new language.

Does it develop favorable attitudes toward task-based teaching based on a solving problem model? Why?

The development of the program about destinations UK creates favorable attitudes toward task-based teaching. The reason is task-based language teaching focuses on analytic activities as well as material and it contributes to work with different groups. The students during the activate work with different types of materials, they related symbols, statistics, slangs   and mainly encourage the work in groups. This permitted analyze many points if view when we want to know about a country. On the other hand, it is based in a solving problem model. Remember the solving problem model reviews student strengths and weaknesses, monitoring student progress. In the expansion of the class teachers can realize the progress, the capacity of students.  Also, what can know their strengths and weaknesses

Is it affected by ethical and systematic constraint? Why

No, because in the ethical and systematic constraint is based on the facts, it consists in like a chain with its weakest link. However, teachers are compromise to help students, identify their necessities, and bring a good treatment. For that, system to attain any significant improvement, that constraint must be identified and the whole system must be managed with it in mind.

How many characteristics of a renewed and innovated pedagogical practice does it have?

Characteristics:

-       analyses of material

-       motivated and suggestion the students (mainly in the warm up)

-       learn about the culture of a country

-       develop the capacity about to know by infer 

Is it innovated?

Yes it is innovated!! Mainly in the part of learn about slangs, symbols, food, etc. it is important to teach not only the grammar, the culture of a country is important too.

The importance of innovation

It is difficult  for many people to be creative but it is more difficult for a teacher  to worry about being innovating in  the form  he manage the class in order to concrete a meaningful teaching.  According  to David Hargreaves, a UK´s leaders in educational innovation of performance, “The most simple definition ... is that innovation or knowledge creation means that practitioners learn to do things differently in order to do them better.”( 2003, p. 27). Probably his thinking is more representative for educators but it may refer to incremental, emergent or radical and revolutionary changes in thinking, products, processes, or organizations. Innovation can be seen as a change in the thought process for doing something, or the useful application of inventions or discoveries. According to this, teachers who use these attributes of innovative education can produce powerful learning activities that can include three of the most important attributes for the process of learning a new language such us high expectations for achievement, learners pleasure in learning and feedback is encouraged.

There are many myths surrounding about learn a new language. For example, it is common to hear that children learn more easily than adults. This expresses an idea that memory as a body loses power over time and we do not consider this to be a function and as such does not age. However, people can learn a new language with high expectations too. Everybody can learn anything if they have the motivations and the correct tools. For that reason, the innovations used in the class are important. The key idea related to educational innovation is the activity and student participation.

It is common to experience different emotions when people are learning a language. There is the case of the most motivated and confident students that express a joy when they learn and make mistakes. Moreover, other students feel insecure and show anger or frustration. Those situations are very familiar, but if teachers use creative, new and innovative activities to help them feel comfortable, they can make the process of learning a pleasure. Consequently, it will not to be an awful experience. 

In addition, Feedback helps students to know how their performance and how they can improve in the future. For that  reason, teachers can say that it is an effective tool to learn the way about how others perceive the actions, knowledge, words and work of the individual concerned and it allows you to make known to others their perceptions.

In sort, teaching and learning form a balance between teacher and student, in which the former becomes an instrument to bolster the development of the learner. In that sense, innovation would be determined by the activity of the student, so that it becomes the main protagonist of their own learning, shifting the policy work that has always been given to the teacher, who, from an education located on innovative parameters, would be limited to lead and guide the learner in those areas should do so as well as to the extent necessary in relation to each case.

Teachers’ Attitude

Throughout time people have been interested in giving definition to all things humans being developed, found or create during live. As well the word attitude had not been an exception. The word attitude is defined as a subjective or mental preparation for action. Attitude means the individual's prevailing tendency to respond favorably or unfavorably to an object (person or group of people, institutions or events). As we have learned the teacher’s role is very important in the learning process, the teacher has to catch the learners’ attention, but not all the teachers are being successful in this because all depends on the teacher’s attitude. Attitudes determine what each individual will see, hear, think and do. If the teacher has a positive attitude he or she will believe and act as if all students will be successful in class. If a professor has a positive attitude there are no losers in the classroom. Students will live up to the teacher´s expectations. There are many factors to consider in order becoming a good teacher, but the most effectives are when teachers demonstrate caring and kindness, share responsibility and encourage creativity.

After working aall day in different subjects, students will find it hard to concentrate learning a new language in the English class, so they need passionate teachers to make things fun demonstrating care and kindness. Those are the kind of teachers students love and still remember from school until now. The effective teachers who shared emotions and feelings such us enthusiasm, affection, patience, sadness or disapproval as well as a sincere interest and care about their students are the successful ones and last in students mine forever. ....., those teachers are the ones who now that they can obtain the results they really want from their students.

 In like manner, sharing responsibility focuses on the ability of the teacher to establish a shared environment.The teacher candidates emphasized that an effective teacher must not be overly possessive or need complete control of the children and environment. It is important to allow students both responsibility and freedom within the classroom community. Comments were also shared that both the teachers and students need to contribute to the learning environment for a relationship of looseness and acceptance to develop. That is why communication is also valuable in the process and feelings can be openly expressed by both the children and teachers.

Likewise, encouraging creativity will combine perfectly on the most important aspects of teacher’s attitude in order to increase student´s self-esteem. This attitude stresses the importance of stimulating the students’ creativity. Teacher candidates talked about teachers who listened to their ideas and suggestions for lessons and activities. The effective teachers were open to students’ ways of being imaginative and also utilized many approaches of learning. The students appreciated and were personally motivated when teachers designed lessons that considered their interests, skills, and needs.

In addition, teachers must able to accept individuals as they are,  understand that students come from varying backgrounds that have much to do with who they are and how they behave. They do not judge and they are not constantly to exert oppression by how students behave. They seem to welcome diversity as a natural consequence of being human. Their objective is not so much to change students as it is to encourage students to comply with rules for their own good and the good of the class. The acceptance permits that teachers works individually with students, because they respect individual learning styles. They accept the student where he is and are able to offer help to for him to advance.

Finally, the motivation is one of the important aspects in the acquisition of a language. Motivation is a kind of desire for learning. It is very difficult to teach a language in a learning environment if the learner does not have a desire to learn a language. We are human beings and we will always have problems in our job, family, friends, etc. The real problem is bridging to the class and blow off steam with the students.

Reaction Paper Concerning Defining Educational Innovations

The meaning of innovation thus relates to renewal or improvement, with novelty being a consequence of this improvement. For an improvement to take place it is necessary for people to change the way they make decisions, or make choices outside of their norm.  A famous phrase said: “innovation changes the values onto which the system is based”. In others words when people change their value system, the old (economic) system will change to make room for the better one. For example one important tool for innovate in class is the technology. The advantage of incorporating technology into the school curriculum and the classroom is good because you can found a lot of information and different activities online, but the disadvantage is that not all the educative centers have access to this tool. However not only with the use of technology a teacher can innovate the class. Educational innovation is offer new ideas that we have to take into account to develop our class. The teacher has to be creative and in this way to make a success work with the materials that she or he has.

Nowadays, the field of English has an important tool in terms of innovations. The British Council is a center in which we can access and take some didactic plans, ideas, materials, links, etc. On the other hand, this organization develops projects about how to improve the English Language evaluations, teacher formations, and curriculum design, trying to implement those programs in underdeveloped countries. However, it is important take into account the socio-cultural aspect. Not all countries are equals, for that reason those programs are development different depending on the area, raze, customs. 

This approach was first developed in USA; it was a method of EFL teaching in that place. The natural approach meets the needs from beginner’s and intermediate language learners. It is precisely with Krashen’s theory that is about monitor.

There are five different hypotheses for monitor theory:

1.      The acquisition: This hypothesis suggests that through the stimulation of two different systems adults can acquired a second language, the first system is involving subconscious learning process and the second is about development formal consciousness knowledge.

2.       This is about how could be used the theory, it could be used just to monitor output. Having enough time, being focused on form and knowing the grammatical rule is so important to have a good result from this theory.

3.      This hypotheses is based on the learners input that learners acquired from sintax and vocabulary.

4.      This hypothesis suggests that exist an order or structure to develop the acquisition of the target language, this is natural and predictable.

5.      This states the different circumstances or mood that can obstruct the learning acquisition, for example: self-esteem, anxiety, social distance.

The natural approach recommends that (1) language classrooms should stimulate communication in the target language rather than focus on its structure.

The procedural syllabus

This syllabus began with an experimental English Language teaching project that was for primary and secondary schools because of unhappiness with the status in English subject.

There are three features in which the analytic approach was innovative. It was not linguistically based, students learn by communicating and avoiding focused activities in the classroom.

In additions, it is outstanding to analyze and know others aspect that influence in the process of innovation. This is the case of different types of syllabus. Such as the procedural syllabus is also called communicational syllabus and was and English language teaching project that start in southern India and last from 1979 to 1984. Also, it was known as the Bangalore Project and emerges as a discontent with the structural syllabus developed during that time, so the innovation was adapted into three aspects that will support the focus teaching gold. First, the syllabus content was not linguistically based, so it tried to use tasks instead of preselected language items. Second, the main idea was for students to learn language by communicating. Third, the idea to avoid corrections and apply games will reinforce the possibility to promote communication language.

Following with the topic, it’s crucial to think about the changes in the content. At the beginning of the text emphasized in technological innovation, the use of internet, computers, etc. Moreover, it is important to analyze that also must change the content form as a way to innovate in the field of teachings. All changes and innovations are complicated, because interfering with the old methods that have been used. For example, in some societies like Islamic where they have strictest rules and customs and sometimes rejected the used of new technology as internet because they consider as corrupted manner for their society is very difficult the implementation of technology. In this case, is viable the change of content or teaching method. Not all people have the same perception of things.

As a conclusion,  a curricular innovation involve sort of situations which are linked each other since the beginning, the environment in which it is developed, the facilities it has for being implemented and understood; even if it is success or discarded by people in which it is used.  A person who decides to implement a new innovation in their place of working has to take into consideration or make some questions or think about it, for example: if it will work with students, when do I have to use it? What do I have to adopt? Will my students adopt or reject it? At the same time, while some students adopt some innovation others are not and vice versa. The classroom activities have to be so different from the ones many students know nowadays; the classroom activities must be an interaction among teacher and students in which learner and facilitator feel comfortable with all the situations happen around them. As well as, the knowledge acquired have to be constructed by the students where they interact with their classmates exchanging information and stimulate each other; at the same time, using different techniques that make students go over the traditional lesson and get strong in those areas they are weaken.  Also, the facilitator has to take into account many aspects such as the topics are going to be taught, the area where he is teaching and the syllabus he has for working on, as well as, the needs and facilities and negative aspects he has to handle while he is in the process of  teaching.

Friedrich Wilhem August Froebel

Background

Friedrich was a German educator who born in a small village in Turingia (Oberweissbach) on April 21,1782. He had an unhappy childhood because his mother died when he was just nine months after his birth. His father was a very strict orthodox Lutheran minister who remarried when Friedrich was four years old. It was difficult because his stepmother never feel affection for Friedrich. He attended to a girls´primary school because of his father´s insistence.  At the age of ten Friedrich went to live with his uncle Herr Hoffman, also a Lutheran minister, in a small town and attendes the local school. When Froebel was 15 years old, he start apprenticed to a forester and developed his appreciation for nature. At the age of 32 he married Henrietta Wilhelmine Hoffmeister who assisted him until her death.

Career

In 1799, Froebel took some courses such us mathematics, botany, philosophy and architecture at the University of Jena, Frankfurt, but never finished any of those. In 1801, he became a land surveyor and a clerk in the forestry department of the state of Bamburg. In 1805, after developing many occupations he becomes an educator in a secondary school called Musterschule. Froebel study languages and science at the University of Gottingen from 1810 to 1812. During that time, he worked with Johann Pestalozzi´s institute tutoring attending boys in Yverdon, Switzerland. For a short period he served in the army to oppose Napoleon. In 1814 he returned to the University of Berlin and got a position in the school´s mineralogical museum. The year of 1816 was transcendental in his life because Friedrich established the Universal German Educational Institute at Griesheim based on his own educational theories related with nature and some physical and mental aspects of the student´s growth and development. On Lake Sempach in Switzerland, Froebel founded an institute at Wartensee and then relocated the school to Willisau. At that time, he managed an orphanage and operated an school at Burgdorf. In 1837 he returned to Germany and established a new type of early childhood school, a kindergarten for three and four years old children. He used play, songs, stories, and activities in order to develop the appropriate environment for the development of the children education by their self activity. Friedrich reputation increase and kindergartens were established throughout the German states.  He rich the top of his career designing educational play materials known as Froebel Gifts and published many literary work. One of his famous publications were The Education of Man (1826). According to Friendrich Froebel, “Education consists in leading man, as thinking, intelligent being, growin into self-consciousness to a pure and unsullied, conscious and free representation of the inner law of Divine Unity, and in teaching him ways and means”.  In that book he expressed his philosophy about educational undertakings and the unity of all in God.