Análisis y diseño de materiales para la clase de E/LE con herramientas de la web 2.0

Autor: María Laura Mecías (Argentina)

Programa: Master en Formación de Profesores de Español como Lengua Extranjera – Universidad de León

Las tecnologías de la información han permitido a la humanidad abrir horizontes y nuevas perspectivas en torno a la enseñanza – aprendizaje, en esta oportunidad las herramientas de la web 2.0 han sido retomadas para ser aplicadas en clases de español como lengua extranjera, para grupos conformados por adultos que buscan realizar un curso de español en un contexto de inmersión.

El blog www.auladelsurdospuntocero.blogspot.com, diseñado por la autora,  contiene los materiales diseñados como complemento del material Aula Sur* que nacieron de la profunda revisión y comprensión de la teoría del aprendizaje para la era digital, conocida como conectivismo y también surgieron del análisis de Cuaderno Mayor**. Cada actividad sugerida para la unidad temática es trabajada por los aprendientes y el maestro de con diferentes herramientas educativas: es el caso de las redes sociales (Facebook), del sitio web SlideShare, también se propone la realización de una entrevista.

Mecías busca fomentar entre el profesorado, el uso de nuevas herramientas didácticas para abordar temas del currículo educativo en las aulas y unir el binomio estudiante/docente en un contexto real de aprendizaje.

* Aula del Sur 1 es un manual de Editorial Difusión y Voces del Sur adaptado para el Cono Sur.

** Ezeiza, J., 2007 (a). Analizar y comprender los materiales de enseñanza de lenguas en perspectiva de síntesis. Aplicación a los manuales para la enseñanza de E/LE a adultos. Tesis Doctoral. Madrid: Universidad Antonio de Nebrija.

Para citar el texto:

Mecías, Maria Laura. (2010). Análisis y diseño de materiales para la clase de E/LE con herramientas de la web 2.0. Ciudad de Buenos Aires, Argentina.

María Laura Mecías
mlmecias[@]gmail.com
www.eleargentina.wordpress.com

Descargar Tesis Completa
Tesis con Licencia Creative Commons (by)

La alumna María Laura Mecías, estudió gracias al patrocinio de la Fundación Universitaria Iberoamericana – FUNIBER. Si deseas saber más sobre los programas que patrocinamos, clic aquí.

eLearningeuropa: Transforming education through technology

Elearningeuropa presents this month’s innovations in the elearning world:   

The outcome of the Media & Learning 2011 Conference.
The European Distance and E-learning Network – EDEN organises its 2012 EDEN Annual Conference on 6-9 June in Porto (Portugal). The event will approach the key questions of learning methodology and technology focusing on the “Open learning generations”, the contexts of socially significant target groups: junior and senior e-learners. Address one of the youngest keynote speakers in the history of EDEN, Dale J. Stephens with questions here online before his speech in June. Read more.

ICALT 2012 – International Conference on Advanced Learning Technologies.
The technical program will feature keynote addresses, workshops, and tutorials, panels in addition to presentations of standard full and short papers, posters and doctoral consortium’s contributions. The novelty of the 12th edition is the introduction of two new tracks: an ‘Industrial track’ and a ‘European project’ track. Read more.

The Future of Education.
The second edition of “The Future of Education” conference has the aim to promote transnational cooperation and share good practice in the field of innovation for Education, being also an excellent opportunity for the presentation of previous and current educational projects. Read more.

New competition in informal learning.
After leading a successful competition for social media use in formal language teaching contexts, the EU-funded network ‘Language Learning and Social Media – 6 Key Dialogues’ (LS6 network) is pleased to announce the launch of another competition: Social media in informal language learning and use. This competition aims to document how a language learner in the Web 2.0 era uses social media for language learning outside formal learning contexts, and to award the individual who shares his or her best practice. Read more.

Game Based Learning on Education and Action Training.
The Project GREAT has the purpose to provide a methodology and a way to use Game-Based Learning by Training Companies/Organizations (focusing on SMEs and on the Social Economy) and VET organizations (including Higher Education) through the knowledge producers and distributors: Trainers and Teachers. Read more.

Elena Caixal

Coordinadora del Área de Idiomas

Tutora del Área de Formación del Profesorado

Diseño de un unidad didáctica para enseñar español como LE a través de temas de Ciudadanía y Derechos Humanos a alumnos de una escuela inglesa de Chipre.

Tema: Diseño de un unidad didáctica para enseñar español como LE  a través de temas de Ciudadanía y Derechos Humanos a alumnos de una escuela inglesa de Chipre… un país todavía dividido.

Autor: Maria Virginia Rengel-Kefala.

Programa: Máster en Formación de profesores de Español como Lengua Extranjera. – Universidad de León.

En Chipre conviven las identidades chipriotas y turcochipriotas, que se ven como antagónicas debido a su procedencia cultural, por tanto, “Existe el compromiso de respetar los principios democráticos, los derechos humanos y las libertades fundamentales, así como la identidad cultural, religiosa, política, social y lingüística de cada parte”. A partir del escenario mencionado, en la  escuela inglesa donde trabaja María por el año 2010 introducirían al currículo la materia de Ciudadanía, por lo cual se interesó en participar de los entrenamientos y propuso una unidad didáctica creada en idioma español para ser aplicada por estudiantes con edades comprendidas entre 11 y 13 años.

Así como ciudadana de la “Isla de Afrodita” (Chipre), entrega bases de formación que permiten a los estudiantes conocer su identidad y reconocer que existen diferencias; el objetivo no es más que el de permitir a los educandos interesarse por la diversidad cultural y  aprender a respetarla, en palabras de la autora  “En esta unidad didáctica presento un material para enseñar español como lengua extranjera de una manera divertida y al mismo tiempo para promover el entendimiento de los derechos humanos que tienen y deben conocer todos los niños del mundo. La idea es, mientras aprenden español, promover empatía hacia otros que pueden ser o sentirse diferentes, aumentar la sensibilización y el conocimiento sobre la desigualdad de oportunidades en la sociedad y fomentar el entendimiento de las posibles consecuencias de pertenecer a grupos minoritarios.”
Continuar leyendo

BUILDING BLOGS AS LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS

PROMOTING AUTONOMY UNDER CALL ENVIRONMENT

By Patricia Irma Varela Piñon

Divina Margarita Gómez Alvarenga

Denizia Cecilia Rocha Pinto

INTRODUCTION
Traditional language teaching has faced new challenges in order to develop more flexible learning approaches. At present, the learner-centered approach in English teaching has replaced the traditional teacher-centered one. As a result, the approach of leaner autonomy in learning EFL has gained more attention.
As with the seminal studies on self-access some articles emphasize the importance of the integration of self-study into any language program, while repeating again that it has often been argued that the classroom setting poses various obstacles to the development of learner autonomy and that these obstacles are closely related to the lack of opportunities allowing the learner to make decisions regarding the learning process Levy’s (2000) thorough investigation suggests that CALL (computer-assisted language learning) research has often focused on the effectiveness of technological resources, such as CALL tasks. Levy and Stockwell (2006) include CALL tasks under the umbrella of CALL materials, which they define as “the wide range of CALL artifacts or products that language teachers and designers create using technological resources” (Levy and Stockwell, 2006, p. 3).
Nevertheless, CALL artifacts can focus more on providing an abundance of learning material and technological support for the user rather than on actually providing guidance for learners to manage and direct their learning process so that they might eventually reach a certain or full degree of autonomy.

Learning to learn material
For most individuals certain knowledge about learning strategies would be required in order for them to understand how they can learn a language on their own. Barnett and Jordan (1991: 307) make a distinction between cognitive strategies and metacognitive strategies that is quite relevant to our concerns here. The former provide learners with the skills necessary to work with learning material and thus enable learning to take place, and the latter aid learners in planning, monitoring and evaluating their learning process.

Learner autonomy and the Use of Tic´s

Learner Autonomy is a need we want to cover, it is a knowledge we want to achieve, and it is the best way to have success in the learning process. Successful Students get autonomy in a long term by discovering for themselves. The autonomous student learns reading, listening and sharing experiences with other students or professors.

As teachers, we are guides and models in English classroom so we must introduce the idea of autonomy in our classroom in all levels we teach; we can provide students the tools to express themselves in an individual way.  Otherwise, we have to create a learner-centered environment in order to have students responsible in their learning encourage them to have initiative in any task we could give them. Teachers must look for the approach that could have success in learner training.

Teachers can give students on-line resources with the proper feedback and plan for their learning so we are implementing autonomy and to provide them useful tools for facing the language.

According to Marc Prensky, “our students have changed radically. Today´s students are no longer the people our educational system was designed to teach”. So we have to adapt our way of teaching, to their way of learning. But, how can we do that? Taking in consideration several factors, such as:

* the students’ background: Our students today are all “native speakers” of the digital language of computers, video games and the Internet. (Prensky, 2001).
* According to Healey & Johnson (1998), the following aspects:

a) Who are the users you are targeting?
b) What are the goals of the students you are targeting?
c) What setting will the software be used in: independent study lab with no teacher available, lab associated with a class, a teacher-led class with one or a few computers?
d) How much do the teachers/lab assistants who will work with the students know?

e) What do you have now in the way of hardware and technical assistance?

So, having in consideration the aspects mentioned above, some of the tools, that I can suggest, based on my teaching experience at university level, are:

* blogger.com (the use of blogs in education)
* quizstar (to create online exams, free tool)
* animoto
* youtube.com
* google circles
* the use of platforms such as moodle, e-ducativa, blackboard, etc.
* mp3 audios
* different applications in cellular phones, such as dictionaries, etc.
* voki
* twitter, facebook, etc.
* virtual portfolios of evidences
* etc.

Teachers and students roles in developing autonomy in the classroom

When talking about developing autonomy in the classroom we cannot forget to mention the teacher and students roles.

Both the teacher and the students have an important role in teaching and learning process. They have to be aware of their responsibilities in order to raise the motivation for what they are doing in the classroom and to promote best results and be more autonomous.

Additionally, the world is becoming more and more competitive and to follow it’s pace and the development of the new technologies we need to become more autonomous and independent.  The most autonomous and independent we become the better results will get. We need to pay attention in ourselves and try to figure out which is the best way for us to learn, be creative and up to date. In this world where people have a greater access to computers and Internet we need to develop strategies to fulfill our goals.

What role does a teacher play on developing autonomy in the classroom?

-The teachers have to be a guide and a facilitator and encourage the students to take charge of their learning by giving them the opportunity to evaluate the learning process.

Besides that as facilitators, teachers have to work with the students to get to know their preferences and ask them for suggestions, so that they raise the motivation in the classroom. Furthermore the activities made in the classroom have to promote critical thinking and decision making in the students.
What role does a student play on developing autonomy in the classroom?
Having in account the so called “learner centered learning”, the students play a very important role in the classroom. They have a greater responsibility in their learning, especially if the goal is to develop lifelong learning skills.
In this sense, the students have to learn how to learn and together with the teacher find the learning strategy that works best with their learning styles.

There are a lot more that teachers and students can do to develop autonomy in the classroom. For that to happen it’s needed a positive relationship between both teacher and student based on communication, collaboration, confidence and responsibility.

Factors that influence on learners development of autonomous learning abilities trhough CALL activities

1.- Opportunities for the development of metacognition.

Students need to analyze the world by the interpretation of the accessed information according to their knowledge. Those CALL activities are useful in the development and improvement of different skills by an increased of the students’ metacognitive awareness such as being more self aware, planning and goal setting, being able to reflect and self-acces.

2.- Opportunities to become self-reliant.

In this sense, the teacher’s role is minimized (Sullivan and Pratt, 1996). The ability of making decisions about learning is promoted.

3.- The learning context is extended.

It incorporates activities that include the outside world into the learning environment.

TABLE 1: Dependent and autonomous learners adapted from Mynard ans Sorflaten (2003)

CONCLUSIONS
There are important factors that promote learner autonomy with the use of CALL. Students are provided with opportunities to develop important abilities focused on taking control of their own learning such decision making planning and self-regulation. With the use and application of CALL activities “individual learners are given the opportunity to move out of their individual comfort zones in order to participate productively and effectively in the learning process” (Hoven, 1999, p.157)

REFERENCES

Barnett, L. and Jordan, G. 1991. “Self-access facilities: what are they for?”.
ELT Journal, 45 (4): 305-12

Healey, D. & Johnson, N. (1998): “A place to start in selecting software”. CAELL Journal, 8/1, Winter.
Levy, M. (2000). Scope, goals and methods in CALL research: questions of coherence and autonomy. ReCALL 12(2), 170-195.
Levy, M., & Stockwell, G. (2006). CALL dimensions: Options and issues in computer assisted language learning. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Mynaed, J & Sorflaten R. (2003) Learner independence in your classroom. Teachers a, Learners and Curriculum 1(1) 34-38

Prensky, Marc. (2001): “Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants”. On the Horizon, MCB University Press, Vol. 9 No. 5, October 2001.

Sullivan, N. & PrattE. (1996) Acomparative study of  two ESL weiting environments: A computer-assisted classroom and a traditional oral classroom. System 29(4) 491-501

BIBLIOGRAFIA

Education and Culture.Key Competences for Lifelong Learning. Official Journal of the European Union on 30 December 2006. from http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/education_culture/publ/pdf/ll-learning/keycomp_en.pdf

Funiber study material. Autonomy

Montoro, C., & Hampel, R., (2011). Investigating language learning activity using a CALL task in the self-access centre. Studies in Self-Access Learning Journal, 2(3), 119-135. SiSAL Journal. Studies in Self-Access Learning from http://sisaljournal.org/archives/sep11/montoro_hampel/

Tesol Technology. CALL and Autonomy.  from https://sites.google.com/site/technologyintesol/ma-in-tesol-reflections/call-and-autonomy

TTV: a video-training site for teachers by ELTons 2010 awarded writer Russell Stannard.

By Nicolás Dantaz Rico, María Cecilia Bonavetti and Ana María Larramendy

Introduction

The English Teaching profession is one where change and innovation have been present all throughout its history. No wonder why we teachers are always looking for new — and better — ways to help our students learn. In this constant quest, we have an all-present ally: technology.

If there is one thing English and technology have in common is this: they bring together people from around the globe. Both of them are means people have to be in touch, to share, to entertain themselves, to learn.

We should take full advantage of the tools technology is offering us.  And, what is more, we should take advantage of the very useful tips and suggestions that Russell Stannard has put in one place: TTV.

About the author

Russell Stannard is an EFL teacher with more than 20 years of experience in the field. His main area of interest is ICTs. He is a professor at Warwick University in the UK, where he teaches Information Computer Technology at the MA in ELT with emphasis on ICTs and at the general MA in ELT. He is also an IATEFL member and writer for the Voices newsletter, having his own columns to update IATEFL members on new developments. He is also a regular columnist for the English Teaching Professional, the Modern English Teacher journals and the TESOL Spain quarterly.

An overview of the site

Teachertrainingvideos.com is not only aimed at providing teachers with access to the many gateways available online to facilitate the implementation of ICTs in their classrooms, but also to assist them in the understanding of how to use each and every site linked.

Teachertrainingvideos.com is a very user-friendly website with clean layout, little advertising and information suitably classified in categories such as “Videos for learning ICTs”, “Top 20 videos”, “Videos for other languages”, etc. The listing under each category comes along with a brief but illustrative description of the websites and, as you click on the links, you are immediately faced with the tutorial videos especially made by Stannard himself.

The training videos are very detailed. They are divided in sections such as “Introduction” and then the most important aspects of the sites and a conclusion. The videos include both voice and visual explanations. One of the highlights of these clips is that they are made to cater for different learning styles. As the author explains a certain feature of a website, you can see how it works in his own screen.

Fig. 1: a screen capture of TTV

Other sections in the site are “Russell’s podcasts”, where teachers can find varied interviews and recordings of lectures, “My sources”, the author’s blogroll, or “Russell’s Feedback Research”, which provides a selection of journal papers, interviews, articles and even TV appearances about Video Feedback.

Outstanding features

Apart from the characteristics mentioned above, we also like that the author shows teachers how to make their own videos. This is particularly interesting in case they would like to do some distant teaching and to us such type of resource. Another major feature is that  people can be updated on Strannard’s research for free via RSS. Worth mentioning is the section called “Videos to recommend to students”, where useful tools for students’ practice and review are listed.

Conclusion

To put it in a nutshell, it is only fair from us to say that Russell Stannard’s website is a must-see for those teachers who wish to bring change and innovation to their practice. Our recommendation is based on a two-fold reason. On the one hand, Teachertrainingvideos.com  fosters professional development for teachers while, on the other hand, it also provides students with the opportunity to work autonomously to grow in their development as language learners due to the careful selection of materials available the author presents.

TECHNOLOGY IN SCHOOLS

Posted by Erika Room and Yovana Lázaro

In recent years, schools have invested heavily in putting technology—especially computers and their associated infrastructure—in the hands of students, teachers, and administrators. Many people involved in education, from legislators to teachers to parents, as well as the general public, want  to know what technology exists in schools and how that technology is being used. These are a few  of the questions that are typically asked:

❚How can technology support the educational vision ?

❚What are our technology needs?

❚Are our technology goals right for our needs?

❚Reasons For Bringing Technology Into Schools

The teachers and administrators at our case study sites expressed different reasons for bringing technology into their schools.

Support Thinking Processes

Many teachers at case study schools cited a belief that computer-based technologies could provide support for thinking processes.

In fact, teachers can undergo different situations in class. In more that one opportunity online dictionaries and encyclopedias have been very useful for me when an unexpected word appeared in texts of different styles and even if the context helped you getting the idea, it was definitely better to know the exact definition of the term.

Stimulate Motivation and Self-Esteem

A second frequently cited rationale for introducing technology was to stimulate motivation and self-esteem. Through either personal experience or a review of the literature, many innovators perceived the dramatic effects that technology can have on students’ interest in class activities and their sense of their own capabilities.

Promote Equity

In the case of ShareNet, the districts recognized the wide disparity in the resources available to them and felt that a unifying network could promote a more equitable use of those resources.

In the case of several schools serving students from low-income homes, technology innovators stressed the importance of giving these students the technology tools that would equip them to compete with children coming from more affluent homes where technology is commonplace.

Prepare Students for the Future

Students in our country don’t have an egalitarian access to education. This means that the same happens when we talk about reaching technology opportunities. Thus, one of our missions is to be well prepared to teach students effectively not only to learn with technology but to use it skillfully .

Support Changes in School Structure

Researchers have argued that technology has the potential to dramatically change the way in which our schools are structured–providing pressure to do away with the division of instructional time into small blocks and discrete disciplines and to rethink the way we use physical classrooms and teaching resources (Collins, 1990; Newman, 1990). A number of our sites reported consciously deciding to use technology in order to support changes in school structure. Several district administrators expected technology to free up teacher time by taking over or supporting administrative and routine teaching tasks. The administrators setting up ShareNet expected it to lower boundaries between schools, districts, and even states.

Explore Technology Capabilities

Finally, in several cases, there were individuals who were simply intrigued by new technologies and wanted to explore what they could do. Not surprisingly, the desire to explore technology capabilities was most likely to be a factor in cases where there was an external partner involved in the design, manufacture, or selling of technology products. Although we felt that technology push was one motivation for some implementations, in no case was it the sole motivation.

We as teachers know that technology has become a powerful and useful tool to facilitate our students’ learning not only that but it also has many advantages as well , that is why we consider very important to be updated and do not stop searching about the new tendencies in technology for schools and make our students aware of the new tools too so that they feel more comfortable and secure.

http://www2.ed.gov/pubs/EdReformStudies/EdTech/reasons.html

HARD OR SOFT SKILLS

Posted by Yessica Elizabeth Garcia Sanchez

First up, we will talk about teaching matters and how to teach and how to learn, in our blog we would like to give you some ideas on teaching and reflecting, above all what to do in Summer if you are preparing for the classes again.

This is the season for a nice long break from school or university, and, for some kids, teens, that means too much playing video games, watching TV, spending time on social nets and moaning, “I’m bored”. When they will have to start their duties on school or university soon, they come or seem blind to the school every year. This has been a challenging task for us all.

However, they get excited when they do a good job, they enhance and encourage each other, and, they feel their work is rewarding. We have been talking about skills, but you know what about skills mean. A well-balanced education includes more than just the basic “core” subjects, such as reading, science, computing, foreign languages and math.

It includes social skills – the knowledge and practice of appropriate conduct, manners, and group interaction. In fact, according to several studies by prestigious educational research institutions, up to 85% of a child’s future success depends on these “soft skills.”

Soft skills are people’s abilities to communicate with each other and work well together. Meanwhile, hard skills are people’s skills set and ability to perform a certain type of task or activity. Briefly, soft skills are interpersonal and broadly applicable.

What will ‘soft skill or hard skill’  be more suitable?

Soft skill teacher “To develop needs based on curriculum, it is a new concept for government schools”.

http://searchcio.techtarget.com/definition/soft-skills

We have lost these skills in the past decades however, they have been recognized as vital in order to become good, productive citizens; and as teachers we need to ensure the future success of the children we are accountable for.

While most educational institutions today are very focused on academic performance, not many are proactively including social skills and character development in their lesson plans.

Schools and government are spending billions of dollars every year trying to deal with the effects and consequences of bullying and harassment, and recent reports indicate that one out of four kids will be a victim of a significant violent incident before they reach high school.

It is important to recognize that the lack of civility in the classroom (and beyond) is a systemic problem, so we to addresses this problem from all angles: in the classroom, with peers, in the home, and through the community. There is a need to support educators and parents in their efforts to develop socially adept and considerate children.

Why teach them?

Soft skills include concepts such as problem solving, team work and adaptability to change and they are simple to include in many lessons. These skills are not necessarily graded in a traditional sense but might be assessed with analytical rubrics. These skills may already be present in lessons and may only need to have a slight emphasis added so students see the skills’ importance.

Problem solving

Problem solving goes beyond math skills. It is the higher order thinking necessary to find an answer. This can take the form of questions such as, “draw what you will look like when you are an adult” to “write a new ending to the given story.” In both cases students need to think critically about what they already know and then draw a conclusion before producing the requested result.

Team work

Team work is the ability to effectively solve a problem or work within a diverse group. It requires good communication skills and the ability to both support and compromise with others. This requires students to learn to work with different people of differing skill sets while trying to successfully solve a problem.

Adaptability

Being able to adapt to changes in technology and the workplace itself is critical in today’s businesses. Ways to include adaptability in the classroom are diverse, flexibility to accept new ideas and the ability to simultaneously work on multiple projects.

http://schoolofeducators.com/2009/02/importance-of-soft-skills-development-in-education/

MAKING OUR STUDENTS BECOME CRITICAL THINKERS IN EFL CLASSES

Are your students still passive learners? Do you want to develop their critical thinking during the English class? Are your students able to assess their own learning?

A well-known fact is that students during their school years do not achieve sufficient language skills to understand lectures, comprehend texts books, participate in class discussions or generate an accurate written work. The development of metacognitive strategies can help them organize, plan and make decisions about their own learning. This development is, of course, teachers´ responsibility to get acquired by the use of new strategies, so students will be expected to think, to communicate and to continue their learning by themselves in and outside the classroom.

Who are critical thinkers?

They are learners who develop a mental and communicative process about grammar, discourse, strategic (negotiation of meaning), and social-cultural competence in order to reach the target language.

Numan (1984, p 45) states critical thinkers interact to use the language target progress more rapidly through habitual practices and oral interaction as much as possible.

What is Critical Thinking?

“Critical thinking is the identification and evaluation of evidence to guide decision making. A critical thinker uses broad in-depth analysis of evidence to make decisions and communicate his/her beliefs clearly and accurately.”

According to Edward Glaser (1941) “the ability to think critically involves: a) an attitude of being disposed to consider in a thoughtful way the problems and subjects that come within the range of one´s experiences; b) the knowledge of the methods of logical inquiry and reasoning; c) some skill in applying those methods.

Which skills are developed through critical thinking?
Among the skills of critical thinking we can mention:

-Analyzing

-Reasoning

-Evaluating

-Problem solving

-Decision Making

Through the use of critical activities students can also learn how to reach to conclusions, and self- assess their performance in class.

Interactive classes could be the major factor for the development of critical thinking. Based on Bruffee (1984) ideas, people who think well must first have the ability to communicate well and reason within a learning community. Therefore, group work, pair work and project work are the processes that enable our students becoming critical thinkers. As well they also develop collaborative strategies that give them the opportunity to participate effectively and listen or accept others´ ideas.

Which are critical thinkers competences?

Critical thinking calls for the ability to:
•Recognize problems, to find means for meeting those problems.

•Understand the importance of prioritization in problem solving.

•Gather pertinent and relevant information.

•Recognize unstated assumptions and values.

•Comprehend and use language with accuracy, clarity, and discernment.

•Interpret data and evaluate arguments.

•Recognize the existence of logical relationships between propositions.

•Draw conclusions and generalizations.

•Put to test the conclusions and generalizations at which one arrives

•Reconstruct one’s patterns of beliefs on the basis of wider experience

•Render accurate judgments about specific things and qualities in everyday life.

Strategies for integrating the four skills in the development of critical thinkers.

Critical thinkers focus on developing integrated skills engage to use the language to communicate in order to achieve at outcome other than that of learning a specified feature of the L2. Their skills are wider because students have the opportunities to express their ideas and solving problems in writing and spoken activities. Besides, these activities/tasks are judged by themselves in the real life because they can negotiate meaning, solve a particular problem or maintain social relationship and friendship.

The main point to be established is the need of integrating all the skills in every class/hour. They should not be practiced separately if teachers want to teach and develop authentic communication. To fulfill with the integration of the four skills teachers need to re-design their programs and adapt real life problems to the environment of the class to be solved through the use of the language.

Secondly, a feedback system could be established for all the skills; this feedback emphasizes what students did well and what they need to improve, of course this should be determined individually in an oral way, so in this way students will realize about the amount of responsibility they have in their own learning and how they can help themselves. They can also have a real communicative practice with the teacher.

Working with journals encourages students to use meta-cognitive learning strategies; they will feel motivated to make positive changes in their behavior as well as in their learning process. Furthermore, they identify their own problem and find out possible solutions to it. The process may have statements as:

- I have learned:

- I didn´t understand:

- I like knowing about:

- I don´t care about:

- My strengthens in this topic are:

- My difficulties are:

- I need help in:

Finally, a peer review activity enables students help to each other, discuss their difficulties and achievements, know how to receive positive critiques and reach the goal of becoming independent learners.

Diagram of a Model of critical thinking:

Critical thinking in learning:
To become a skilled learner is to become a self-directed, self-disciplined, self-monitored, and self-corrective thinker, who has given assent to rigorous standards of thought and mindful command of their use. Skilled learning of a discipline requires that one respect the power of it, as well as its, and one’s own, historical and human limitations.

Critical Thinking Classroom Exercises

Text analysis:
During this activity students need to organize pieces from a story in the correct order; they will make up a title for it as well as write a new ending. This exercise provides students the opportunity to think logically, to solve problems and relate the events to their own previous experiences.

Socratic thinking:
It is a process of questioning hypothetical problems so thinking would be triggered, the idea is to challenge students to answer questions analysis between facts and assumptions and get to the best possible solution according to the situation.

Think Out-of–the-box:Make students draw a specified number of dots and then tell them to join the dots making creative figures with a determined number of lines.

What if you were:
Make students imagine and characterize a person, who could be a famous are popular one. Give a student a hypothetical event and ask them to react as if they were that know person. These kind of activities will help students understand others reactions and think in different ways.

Conclusion
Students who develop awareness in their learning process and keep great expectations in their improvement of communicative skills are those who have developed a critical thinking; because of this they will feel confident during the acquiring of knowledge, be enthusiastic learners and achieve success in their studies.

Bibliography
* Oak M. ,”Developing Critical Thinking Skills”, Wikipedia, http://www.buzzle.com/articles/developing-critical-thinking-skills.htm

(read January 21st, 2012)

* Shaila M. and Trudell B., “From Passive Learners to Critical Thinkers: Preparing EFL Students for University Success”; English Teaching Forum #3, 2010.

* The Critical Thinking Community, “Defining Critical Thinking”,

http://www.criticalthinking.org/pages/defining-critical-thinking/766, (read

January 21st,2012)

* http://www.criticalthinking.com/company/articles/critical-thinking-definition.jsp

* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_thinking

* http://www.criticalthinking.org/pages/how-to-study-and-learn-part-one/513

* David, N(1999) Second Language Teaching & Learning, Boston, Massachusetts.

Extra Task CALL

Group 2

- Elba Margarita Mosquera.

- Lucía del Carmen Troya.

- María José Troya.

Practica conversacional en el salón de clases: Un acercamiento comunicativo a cuatro textos de estudio.

Tesis: Practica conversacional en el salón de clases: Un acercamiento comunicativo a cuatro textos de estudio.

Autor: María José Sola Ortega

Programa: Máster en lingüística aplicada a la enseñanza del Español como Lengua Extranjera.

María José Sola, de nacionalidad española, recibió el grado de Máster en Lingüística Aplicada a la Enseñanza del Español como Lengua Extranjera.

Bajo el título Práctica conversacional en el salón de clases: Un acercamiento comunicativo a cuatro textos de estudio, María José   pretende en su objetivo principal demostrar  a partir de una revisión de cuatro populares textos  de enseñanza de lenguas, que los contenidos de los libros  actuales no brindan  actividades de práctica conversacional que contextualicen a los estudiantes en situaciones reales de uso de la lengua.

Teniendo en cuenta las habilidades  que desarrollan los estudiantes  en el aprendizaje de lenguas extranjeras,  la práctica conversacional es considerada de gran relevancia ya que plantea  mayores problemas  para su aplicación fuera del  aula de clases, es decir en situaciones cotidianas que demandan un uso fluido de la lengua. Dada esta limitante y  enmarcada en un enfoque comunicativo  de la enseñanza de la lengua, donde  el intercambio de información y la interacción son elementos  fundamentales, María  asevera que en la mayoría de textos  utilizados  actualmente, el contenido de los mismos no  presta la importancia  que merece a actividades de practica conversacional que se adopten a los intereses y necesidades de los estudiantes. Por esta razón es que maestros de lenguas se han visto obligados a complementar o mejorar  los contenidos de los libros con actividades que se caractericen por  su autenticidad y actualidad, así como  por su carácter motivador y comprometedor y otro grupo de criterios  que sigan las directrices  establecidas por el  Marco Común  Europeo de Referencia para las Lenguas.
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