Final Project
Facultad de Filosofía, Letras y Ciencias
Escuela de Lenguas y Lingüística
Class of 2012 – American Literature
Who we are?
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We are Alisson, Jessica, Priscilla and Tamara, students of 5th course English-French. We met three years ago at the University of Guayaquil and since that moment, we are very good friends. Through all these years, we have learned a lot about each other, about working in groups and valuable things like: responsibility, patient and compromise. We all agree that those values are going to help us not only in our life as students but as professionals and as people who want to serve to the society. We are so happy now because in few weeks we are going to finish our 5th course in order to get our degree. We are so grateful to God because he has given us life and all the qualities we need to reach our dreams. We are also grateful to our parents because they have supported us in many ways to accomplish our goals. We also have to say that we are grateful to our teachers, especially to Miss Glenda Morales because she has taught us, not only Literature and Linguistics, but she has provided us with all the tools needed to become brilliant teachers.
My name is Alisson Tomalá Alvarado and
I'm 22. I am almost achieving one of my goals, which is finishing my career. So
the next step is to work on my educational project to get my bachelor's degree.
I've always dreamt about teaching at a public institution to lead a human group
in which share my knowledge, experiences and values. Thus, one of my greatest
objectives is to bring up students in order to become integral people having a
collaborative spirit to serve one's society. .
My name is Jessica
Ramírez, I'm 26 years old. I feel so happy because I'm about to finish my
5th course!!! I have many things in mind about my future. For example, I
have to work in my educational project in order to get my degree in Bachelor of
Arts in Education, after that I would like to apply for a scholarship in order
to specialize me in teaching. I've wanted to be an English teacher
since I was in High School and I feel so proud now because I'm about to achieve
my goal.
My name is Priscilla Montoya Guachambo and I am very
proud to have chosen this career since my major desire is to be a teacher.
That’s why I would like to work as a teacher and the most important goal that I
have is to find the correct strategies to help students to develop their
strengths and weaknesses. Although I want to finish this career and continue studying
to obtain my master degree in education and if it is possible; I would like to
get my PhD too.
 My name is Tamara Alvarado and I’m 24. I’m currently studying in the University of Guayaquil, Bachelor of Arts in Education with a Major in English language and linguistics, and this is my last year. After finishing my career, one of my goals is to work for sharing my knowledge and apply all the teaching methods and techniques learnt. Some years later, I’d like to found an elementary school; especially for children without economic resources and help them get a high level of education in the English Language. |
My country/City.
Sightseeing places
CUENCA-ECUADOR
Cuenca is one of the most beautiful cities in Ecuador. It's the capital of the Azuay province and it's located in the highlands. The foundation of the city was commissioned by Viceroy of Peru who ordered that the city was named as his home town of Cuenca, Spain. It was founded decades after other major Spanish settlements; on November 3, 1820 the city achieved its independence. Cuenca is called "The Atenas of Ecuador" because of its majestic architecture, its cultural diversity, and its contributions to the science, arts and for being the birth place of many distinguished people of the Ecuadorian society. The center of the city is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Trust site because of its many historical buildings such as; museums and churches like the New Cathedral which is considered as one of the biggest in America. Day by day the city gets importance for its touristic attractions which have been possible that many retired people from the United States, Canada and Europe want to live in it because of its high quality of life.
My classes
(501 – Fifth Course)
During this scholar year, our dear teacher encouraged and led us to study the different authors of the American Literature. The purpose of this class is to provide us a general culture and to enrich our vocabulary to use and handle academy words which could help us at the moment of sustaining our educational research. So we focus on several literary mouvements and important authors such as Edgar Allan Poe, Emily Dickinson, Benjamin Franklin, Abraham Lincoln and some others. Some of them were performed in the Open House of our career.
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This is Jennifer Ordoñez,
playing with great effect the role of Emily Dickinson |
Objective
Our objective in this course we survey selected American authors representing the major authors, literary movements and fragments of the most significant works of literature produced in the U.S. since its beginnings to the present date. It also helps future teachers to improve their reading, communicative and critical thinking skills, letting them express judgments and comments about some chapters and creating a greater cultural awareness when exposed to essays, poetry, literary or film adaptations of the fragments.
Our objective in this course we survey selected American authors representing the major authors, literary movements and fragments of the most significant works of literature produced in the U.S. since its beginnings to the present date. It also helps future teachers to improve their reading, communicative and critical thinking skills, letting them express judgments and comments about some chapters and creating a greater cultural awareness when exposed to essays, poetry, literary or film adaptations of the fragments.
Activity during the semester:
Since we began classes, we have had different activities which have contributed to improve our skills and reinforce our weakness. We have worked with compositions, poems and oral presentations about the authors of the American Literature including the study of the different literary movements which they were part of.
Literary Movement
Among the studied movements, we find REGIONALISM which consists in writing about specific geographical areas. Authors are focused on specific, unique features of a certain region including dialect, customs, tradition, topography, history, and characters. Regionalism rose as a reaction to Romanticism. Mark twain and Kate Chopín are two of the best representation of this literary movement which is also called LOCAL-COLOR.
Since we began classes, we have had different activities which have contributed to improve our skills and reinforce our weakness. We have worked with compositions, poems and oral presentations about the authors of the American Literature including the study of the different literary movements which they were part of.
Literary Movement
Among the studied movements, we find REGIONALISM which consists in writing about specific geographical areas. Authors are focused on specific, unique features of a certain region including dialect, customs, tradition, topography, history, and characters. Regionalism rose as a reaction to Romanticism. Mark twain and Kate Chopín are two of the best representation of this literary movement which is also called LOCAL-COLOR.
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Kate Chopin
An icon of this literary genre is Kate Chopin who was born in St. Louis, Missouri, USA, on February 8, 1850. She spoke French and English. Most of her poetry and stories are about the culture, religion and history of Louisiana and her best-known works focuses on the lives of sensitive, intelligent women. She wrote "The Story of an hour" which is about a woman who died of joy because she knew that her husband had died. Kate was linked with the ideals of women's liberation mouvement and she was criticized for being an independent woman, walking unaccompanied and her smoking habit.http://lsaw.lib.lehigh.edu/index.php/williams/article/view/35/21 (source: Notebook Americ.Lit. MSc.g.Morales 2012) KATE CHOPIN QUOTE:
When the doctors came they said she
had died of heart disease - of the joy that kills.
"Free! Body and soul free"! She kept whispering
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Kate Chopin
Heart disease serves as a metaphor for an affliction of the soul because Mrs. Mallard had a history of heart troubles and the narrator describes her physical condition in much detail throughout the story of an hour. But the joy of seeing her “dead” husband alive was the real reason of her dead and the irony that involves the story shows at the end what were her real feeling for her husband.
Heart disease serves as a metaphor for an affliction of the soul because Mrs. Mallard had a history of heart troubles and the narrator describes her physical condition in much detail throughout the story of an hour. But the joy of seeing her “dead” husband alive was the real reason of her dead and the irony that involves the story shows at the end what were her real feeling for her husband.
Kate Chopin Presentation
This presentation was made by our classmates Gina Guaranda and Jennifer Hernandez.
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Reflective Learning
Reflective learning is the process of internally examining and exploring an issue of concern, triggered by an experience, which creates and clarifies meaning in terms of self, and which results in a changed conceptual perspective.
Reflective learning can help us to develop critical and analytical thinking. The person is involved in a reflective process. Besides, it can also help us to realize what to need to be changed or done differently, how a person needs to develop their behavior or practice or how a theory can be applied in practice.
http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/hlst/resources/a-zdirectory/reflectivelearning
Focusing in this project, we can say that the theory we applied to make it was Constructivism. We think it is a very useful methodology to build our knowledge, because it helps us to have an active learning and to be active individuals in the teaching-learning process.
For backing up or supporting this theory, let us give you a brief explanation about what constructivism is.
Focusing in this project, we can say that the theory we applied to make it was Constructivism. We think it is a very useful methodology to build our knowledge, because it helps us to have an active learning and to be active individuals in the teaching-learning process.
For backing up or supporting this theory, let us give you a brief explanation about what constructivism is.
Constructivism
The constructivism is an active, constructive process in which learners construct new ideas or concepts based upon their current or past knowledge or even based on personal experiences. The learner brings past experiences and cultural factors to a situation, selects and transforms information, constructs hypotheses, and makes decisions, relying on a cognitive structure to do so.
http://www.instructionaldesign.org/theories/constructivist.html
- Why Constructivism?
By doing this project we used constructivism because we constructed our knowledge through the experiences of all the activities we made and all the information we acquired during the semester, getting good results. Miss Glenda Morales was our guide in the process and we worked hard to do our best.
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| Putting in order our information and giving ideas to work on our proyect. |
We should be emphasized that the
purpose of this project was to show the importance of the study of American
Literature for the English learning as ESL students, in addition to the
American culture, and finally to create a professional development tool to record
the activities we worked on during the semester.
In addition, the techniques we used to construct our knowledge are:
- Brainstorming
We could say that this is the first step to elaborate any project. In our case, we met as a group and we started to think about and generate new ideas about the American Literature project. Each one of us gave his or her idea and the details about how we could make it and after we wrote them down.
Click here for more information about what a brainstorming is…http://www.brainstorming.co.uk/tutorials/whatisbrainstorming.html
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| Writing the ideas about how the project was going to be done. |
- Collaborative work
To get good results and reach the goal of our project we had to work all together, participating actively. It created an environment of trust between us and let us to share the knowledge. Besides, by doing this we felt motivated to work with responsibility. It helped us to develop our abilities, to be organized and be communicative with our classmates.
Read 6 ways to make collaboration work..
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| We kept working together the whole time. All of us contributed with ideas and information |
- Technology in Education
We know Technology is a useful tool and it helps us in many ways in our life, especially in Education in which it is essential because students can get a lot of information and use it in the teaching-learning process. Our group has used technology to do this project by looking for information which helped us to create this blog. Besides, we used resources like: laptops, PCs, online dictionaries, Internet browsers, cameras, etc..
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| We use Interenet to work on our Literature and Linguistic Proyect. On this picture, we were looking for information to add to our blog. |
- Values
By doing this project we especially applied two values: Respect and Responsibility.
Why Respect?
We applied this value because in our group, each one of us listened to others carefully while she or he was talking to. Besides, all of us respected the ideas of our classmates without critizing.
Why Responsibility?
Each member of our group showed responsibility by doing this project. Before doing this work, each topic was assigned to a person. We should emphasize that everyone fulfilled with his or her respective work and role.
International Event that commemorates Kate Chopin’s works
http://www.katechopin.org/quotes.shtml
http://www.oscholars.com/TO/Society/Society.htm
http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/5132.Kate_Chopin
http://www.oscholars.com/TO/Society/Society.htm
http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/5132.Kate_Chopin
Objective
The objective of this Linguistic task is to help students improve their pronunciation and learn creative ways to reinforce language.
Activity during the semester
A mini-class using
TONGUE TWISTERS
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Yomaira
giving an explanation about tongue twisters.
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Geomara and Jessica presenting the
mini-class.
they applied musical intelligence in their tongue twister. They told it with the sound of the Old Mc Donald song. |
One of the most significant activities
we did during the semester was to present a mini-class using TONGUE TWISTERS.
We consider it was an interesting task because we used our creativity and
imagination to make a funny and innovating class. Our teacher encouraged us to look
for the most available methods to perform it. Besides, through this activity we
could demonstrate our attitudes and abilities as future English teachers. What
we liked the most about doing this task was the fact we could plan our own
class by ourselves, applying a new theory which is “The theory of Multiple
Intelligences”. The purpose of this work was to help our students to improve
their pronunciation by mean of tongue twisters. So, by pairs we had to choose a
tongue twister among hundreds of them. Then we have to think about what kind of
multiple intelligences we could apply to teach using this resource. The next
step was to make a poster of our tongue twister. Thus, each group used
different techniques to present an amazing class in front of our classmates who
played the role of our students. We were motivated because this was an original
activity that let us discover our talents and trust on ourselves, making us
realize we have the most important quality to be teachers: “Vocation”.
To do this activity, we were given the following links
by our teacher.
Reflective Learning
- What does Reflective Learning mean?
Reflective learning improves learners’ critical thinking and understanding of what they have learned (Park & Kastanis, 2009). Learners get benefits from reflective learning in terms of deep understanding of their strengths and weaknesses and identification of underlying values, possible insufficiencies, and areas for improvement (Henderson, Napan & Monteiro, 2004 ). In other words, reflective learning aims to reinforce deep learning and practice, not to focus on reflection itself.
Reflection brings about “growth of the individual – morally, personally, psychologically, and emotionally, as well as cognitively”.
Branch and Paranjape (2002)
Reflective practice is important to the development of lecturers as professionals as it enables us to learn from our experiences of teaching and facilitating student learning. Developing reflective practice means developing ways of reviewing our own teaching so that it becomes a routine and a process by which we might continuously develop.
John Dewey has stated, “We do not learn from experience…we learn from reflecting on experience.”
With these definitions of what reflective learning is, we could say that this is an important process we have developed at the end of our semester because we can analyze and thinking more deeply about those things we have learned during our Linguistic classes. So we can conclude by saying that once objectives have been accomplished, we must make a feedback about our weakness and strengths in order to reinforce our knowledge.
As part of our reflective learning, we realized that during this scholar year we have been applying the “Constructivist Theory”.
Why Constructivism?
Constructivist theory is based largely
on the idea that students construct new knowledge from their own experiences.
This theory supports the idea that learners are makers of meaning and
knowledge, meaning they need to be actively engaged in information and the
process of learning in order to develop knowledge.
Socrates
claimed that there are basic conditions for learning that are in the cognition
of the individual (Kanuka & Anderson, 1998).
Piaget's
theory of cognitive development proposes that “humans cannot be given
information, in which they immediately understand and use. Instead, learners
must construct their own knowledge. They build their knowledge through
experience.”
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| Here we are with our teacher Msc. Glenda Morales. She was always leading and giving us ideas to work better. |
A common misunderstanding regarding constructivism is that instructors should never tell students anything directly but, instead, should always allow them to construct knowledge for themselves.
Since we began classes, we were guided by our teacher. Thus, in the case of the tongue twister she just gave us the idea of the activity and some examples to better understand. She was always asking us about the progress of our task. She gave us confidence to ask any kind of doubt we had. She encouraged us by making feel important and capable of doing things the best. She was just the person who proposed to do the activities and once she explained us, the rest of the work depended on us.
- Technology, a great resource
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| Technology was present in every moment. We used cameras, cellphones and Internet. |
Technology is helping teachers to
expand beyond linear, text-based learning and to engage students who learn best
in other ways. Its role in schools has evolved from a contained “computer
class” into a versatile learning tool that could change how we demonstrate concepts,
assign projects and assess progress.
Nowadays technology is everywhere.
That is why during our classes, our teacher always talked about this necessary
tool for working in the educational area. In this century, it is very important
that we, as future teachers, handle technology and search for online activities
or activities in which technology is involved. During this semester, we were
assigned some on-line exercises in order to get use to include internet in our
career as teachers. We worked with on-line dictionaries and some links to
improve our pronunciation. This was of great advantage because we could get
more ideas about how to work on internet.
To work on our mini class, we were obligated to
work with technology because we had to get into a link (http://www.uebersetzung.at/twister/en.htm)
to choose the tongue
twister. Furthermore, we looked for resources such as pictures, music and
videos. We also had to enter to a link (http://esl.about.com/od/englishlistening/a/ttwister_master.htm)
to read about Tongue twisters and MULTIPLE INTELLIGENCES which is an excellent
theory to apply with tongue twisters in the teaching-learning process
Multiple Intelligences
The Multiple Intelligences concepts and learning styles models offer relatively simple and accessible methods to understand and explain people's preferred ways to learn and develop. Therefore, as with any methodology or tool, use Multiple Intelligences concepts and other learning styles ideas with care and interpretation according to the needs of the situation.
This simple grid diagram illustrates Howard Gardner's model of the seven Multiple Intelligences at a glance.
intelligence type
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capability and perception
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Linguistic
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words and language
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Logical-Mathematical
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logic and numbers
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Musical
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music, sound, rhythm
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Bodily-Kinesthetic
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body movement control
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Spatial-Visual
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images and space
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Interpersonal
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other people's feelings
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Intrapersonal
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self-awareness
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We think this theory is very useful at the moment to teach and learn because each person has a different kind of learning. That is why our instructor made us apply one of these multiple intelligences in the tongue twister. So all of us imagined our student’s behavior and according to this, we began to create the class. Some of us use Visual and Kinesthetic, some others interpersonal intelligence. It depended on the kind of imaginary students they wanted to help to improve their pronunciation.
- Motivation in the ESL/EFL Classroom
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| This is a proof that we were motivated during our presentations. |
In the context of second language learning, William Littlewood (Communicative Language Teaching) observes:
In second language learning as in
every other field of human learning, motivation is the critical force which
determines whether a learner embarks on a task at all, how much energy he
devotes to it, and how long he perseveres. It is a complex phenomenon and
includes many components: the individual’s drive, need for achievement and
success, curiosity, desire for stimulation and new experience, and so on. These
factors play a role in every kind of learning situation”.
“Student motivation is influenced by both internal and external factors that can start, sustain, intensify, or discourage behavior” (Reeve, 1996).
The teacher has to activate these motivational components in the students.
- “Team work” or “Group work”
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Working in group lets people keep hand
of friendship.
We had good and bad moments but we always respected everyone's opinion. |
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| We enjoyed working in group because we learned from each other and it was not too hard to accomplish our task. |
One of the successful ways, if the teacher is
resourceful and skillful enough, to motivate his/her students to participate in
the lesson is to use “pair work” or “Group work” appropriately.
Language is best learned through the close collaboration and communication among students. This type of collaboration results in benefits for all or both learners. In fact, learners can help each other while working on different types of tasks such as writing dialogues, interviews, drawing pictures and making comments about them, play roles, etc…
Researches on Second Language Acquisition have shown that learners have differences in mastering skills. While one student is good in drawing, another can be good in expressing ideas verbally; a third other student can be good at role play and imitation. Besides, some students find it less stressful, if not much comfortable to learn certain rules or usages of language from their pears and comrades than from their teacher.
Finally, communicative language teaching requires a sense of community and an environment of trust and mutual confidence which “pair work” or “Group work” can provide
Language is best learned through the close collaboration and communication among students. This type of collaboration results in benefits for all or both learners. In fact, learners can help each other while working on different types of tasks such as writing dialogues, interviews, drawing pictures and making comments about them, play roles, etc…
Researches on Second Language Acquisition have shown that learners have differences in mastering skills. While one student is good in drawing, another can be good in expressing ideas verbally; a third other student can be good at role play and imitation. Besides, some students find it less stressful, if not much comfortable to learn certain rules or usages of language from their pears and comrades than from their teacher.
Finally, communicative language teaching requires a sense of community and an environment of trust and mutual confidence which “pair work” or “Group work” can provide
- Values
Our teacher had the special role and opportunity to influence in all her students. She taught us values that will help us in the future as teachers because we are going to applied all that we learnt during classes.
As a group work we had an important role that was to value each member of the group and respect all unless we did not agree. Nevertheless, we found very important these values:
Respect. – Respect had great importance in our group work .Each member of the group showed respect all the time and in this case we tried to show honor and consideration because if we didn’t respect each opinion we will never have done this project together.
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| These are Janeth and Marcia presenting their mini-class. During our presentations, all of us listened respectfully to our classmates. |
Quote about respect
“Let every man be respected as an individual and no man idolized.”
Albert Einstein (1879-1955);
Theoretical Physicist, Philosopher, Nobel Prize Winner
Collaboration. - To could have an effective communication and collaboration in our group was primarily through dialogue and examining different perspectives that we had. Especially empathy because when we didn’t agree we tried to put in the other person’s position to understand the ideas. However collaboration help us to math important ideas that each one of us had.
Quote about collaboration
“In the long history of humankind (and animal kind, too) those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed”
Charles Darwin
