B2 Competencia digital para docentes.

Curso B2 Competencia digital para docentes del AVFP de la Junta de Andalucía.

Muy contenta de haber realizado este curso de actualización/acreditación de competencias digitales para docentes. He revisitado muchos aspectos del proceso de enseñanza-aprendizaje y de evaluación, que nunca está de más y he disfrutado usando nuevamente recursos que tenía un poco guardados en el cajón. El producto final del curso era un recurso educativo abierto que había que publicar en Procomún y que os dejo por aquí por si queréis echar un vistazo. Es un proyecto que vengo ya realizando dos cursos seguidos en 1º de bachillerato a principio de curso sobre la educación y cómo estudiar mejor, que creo es muy apropiado para el comienzo de la etapa y cubre casi todas las competencias específicas de la materia de inglés en un contexto de aprendizaje cooperativo.

Getting inspiration from Learning the ropes

Blog Learning the ropes

This is my last entry of this course which I have enjoyed so much, even in these special circumstances we are all going through. It is true that it has been a little stressful because we had so many things to do, regarding the online teaching, but it is also true that it has helped us develop our digital competence and undergo a guided process, so I want to thank you our teacher, for his great work and comprehension and my mates because they have done wonderful activities. Last, but not least, I want to thank María J  for her wonderful inspiration:

One of the great activities I have seen is this one called "About Arthur Miller: A Life on Stage". I like it because it has given me an idea of introducing Literature in the class, which is one of the issues I always try to do in my classes. My idea is to divide the big group in small groups of 3, maximum four students, and give them different literary ages or periods so that they have to investigate the most important authors and write a timeline with their most important works and the most important historic landmarks.

I hope you like this activity and I want to know if you enjoyed this part of my blog in English too.

Activity with a timeline

This is the activity I had thought about doing with my class. It has been a long time that I have not studied specific methodology for reading or any other skill, I have been Head of Studies of my high school and I did not have much time, but now that my familiar situation has changed and I have more time, I was very happy to take this course. I had no idea about intensive and extensive reading; it has been eye-opening for me. 

My students usually have to read a compulsory book, all of them the same. Now, I think this is a mistake. Since this year we still have this one you can see in the timeline, which has been created with Canva, a great tool, called Tales of the Macabre. I have worked a lot with Picktochart some time ago and I tried TimeToast, but for me is too oldish, not too intuitive and more difficult for me than Canva or Genially.

I have decided to create this timeline with the steps of the activity they have to do so that they are also provided with an example. I will show them the three tools that I have managed at a point or another so that they can decide which one they prefer and we will have a variety of students using different tools, which will build up their confidence and their digital competence. Also, it promotes their improvement in the comprehension of the texts they read because they have to work in their brains with the information they are getting.

MY FAVOURITE READING STRATEGY

Reading is a challenge in the English classes, especially because our students do not usually read a lot, not even in their native language. I have learnt in this module that extensive reader has got much more advantages than intensive reading, which is what I mostly do in my classes. I will try to improve the extensive reading part.

I work reading almost every day in class, we use it mainly to read the instructions of all the activities that we do and also most of the exercises we do, we read them aloud, but I reckon that this is not a reading that students or even I enjoy; it is just that it is easier to focus their attention if we are working with written rather than oral texts.

My favourite strategy is the use of the reading to work other skills, especially oral ones. I usually use this one especially with lower level groups; this year I am using it with 2nd FPB. It consists in the following: I tell them to read the text on their own and silently and underline five to six words that they do not know how to pronounce (maybe they know their meaning or maybe they do not, we focus on its pronunciation), then we listen to the text read aloud (by me or played on any device that we can make use of), they should focus on the pronunciation while they are listening and finally they read it aloud making the effort of reading the words they have chosen correctly, in this way, they focus on learning the pronunciation of some words of their choice, it helps them develop a better understanding of the text and of oral comprehension. If all the class does it well, they get a prize, that is, extra points, listening to a song in English of their choice, getting time to do homework in the class and so on, it depends on the day.

MY READING HABITS

Helsinki's Public Library

I have liked reading all my life, I can remember how the pages of books made me happy and made me stay up till late. My reading habits have changed, though. When I was younger I liked reading novels, especially long ones from the beginning of the 19th century, nowadays I read a lot of articles, I still read some novels and I am starting to appreciate good poem books. I usually read literature on paper and articles on electronic devices. And I still try to read as much as I can, in fact, my favourite places are libraries and bookshops. I like reading in the original language, but this is only possible in English, French and Spanish, and the choices are quite the same for the three languages.

In the images you have presented us, we find several readers' profiles: it is interesting that children seem not to have chosen their readers, the one who seems to be with her grandmother has a book on flowers and the kids in class are all reading the same book (at least the first one has an affective bound to the person who has probably chosen the text). Adults seem to have more freedom and therefore be happier with their choices.