Ideas from chapters 5 and 6 and a couple of readings

I would like to comment briefly on new and doable ideas I found from these readings. Chapter 5 talks about using Media News in classrooms, and that was the way how I polished my listening skills back in college, although we didn't have access to the broadcasts so we had to be very skillful at taking good notes. I like the idea of switching languages when accessing some of these Media News, specially because as a teacher of English and Spanish, it facilitates the search process and gives me better comprehension at the same time.

The activity called "Discerning Editorial Slant" sounds challenging for teachers to create and students to perform. Nevertheless it is worthy to work on, and it could open students' ideas in regard to culture. Finally the mentioning of LexisNexis really caught my attention since accessing it would mean a closer use of authentic materials in future classes. I am looking forward to reading about it in chapter 8.

Chapter 6 provided more information to me than ideas to teach. I was recently thinking that I needed to make a list of technological terms I have heard in this CALL class, so I could begin incorporating them to my vocab. This chapter brought me to such list and even explained it for me. Now I can say what is the URL instead of the address, or show a student certain web site maybe not reliable because its domain is commercial. The integration of this new vocabulary will show my expertise in CALL among colleagues and students, something that makes me feel in a better position.  

Using DVD feature films in the EFL classroom. Jane King described the pros and cons of using dvds feature films in regard to showing the whole story or divide it, and using captions or not. I am not a fan of showing the two-hour videos, or some close time to it, since there is always too much to do and little time to accomplish it. According to her research there are more advantages in using captions than in not including them, therefore choosing a short part of a film and including its caption will work for intermediate students, and without captions for advance students. Any method will bring results but she reminds us of the importance of getting something out of the video, not just watching it with no terminal goal.

Using TV Commercials to Teach Listening and Critical Thinking. This was my favorite article for this week because teaching with commercials has been something I had thought about but didn't know exactly how to do it. Alfred Smith and Lee Ann Rawley present strong reasons why commercials fit EFL and ESL classrooms, besides promoting critical thinking, and the one I'm most interested in is the part of vocabulary development. Recurrency is a key feature in mastering vocabulary, and tv commercials are full of them, as well as culture, slang and what ultimately will be called pop culture. The three steps the authors described in this article indicate the potential this authentic material represents to the classroom, I am going to try one of them this semester to see how students react to it and the benefits they will bring to their learning, and I will blog to report findings.