TASK 1A. DEFINING CONCEPTS

CONCEPT OF LANGUAGE 
Language is the human ability to acquire and use a complex set of symbols which is developed spontaneously, without much effort or specific instruction given to a child or a person who deals with first language that is used for communication in a specific culture, obtained by all people in the same way, being vocal or visual in its use.

CONCEPT OF LEARNING  
Learning is the process of acquiring or getting knowledge of a subject or skill by study, experience or instruction, producing changes in a person through experience. It involves other concepts as perception, long and short term memory systems, recall, motivation, conscious and subconscious learning styles and strategies, and a reinforcement program.

CONCEPT OF TEACHING 
Teaching is guiding and facilitating learning, enabling the learner to learn, setting the conditions for learning. Teaching styles, approach, methods and classroom techniques will be developed based on how learners learn, that will match the content of subject with the learner´s need. The theory of teaching will be the theory of learning.

TASK 1B. UNDERSTANDING LANGUAGE

Constructivism as a school of thought

This paradigm appeared at the end of the twentieth century, supported by Jean Piaget and Lev Vygotsky. It integrates the linguistic, psychological and sociological paradigms studied before. with a special development on social interaction and construction of meaning.

Constructivism is viewed in two different branches:

·         The cognitive branch, which makes emphasis on the idea of learners making their own construction of reality. This means that learners are responsible for their individual learning as they discover and transform complex information. According to Piaget learning must deal with changes, self-generation, and construction supported by the knowledge learners had experience before.

·         The social branch develops the cognitive and emotional images of reality, based on a collaborative learning process. Vygotsky argues that children´s learning is built upon their social interaction with the environment. He highlighted the idea of a zone of proximal development seen in every learner´s actual development compared to what he can learn as he experience proper stimuli. Thus the ZPD becomes relevant to social constructivism, as it describes tasks which will enable learners to produce better results as they work in groups rather than working individually.

Vygotsky sets stages for learning based on the readiness of learners, very useful in the learning of a second language. He assured that social interaction is fundamental for cognitive development.

 Classroom examples

·         The teacher presents a classroom problem, and asks students to discuss their ideas based on their previous knowledge, finding a solution.

·         Ask students to read and discuss different view of a history and then allow them to make their own conclusions.

·         The teacher asks students to work in collaborative groups as they develop certain topics, with the use of ITC, in which they will present individual and group participations.

·         The teacher asks students to make journals where they can practice writing skills receiving feedback from the teacher.

 Comparing my personal learning to Vygotsky’s theory, it was only experienced during my ten and eleven grade by my English teacher as she organized the class in small groups where students were allowed to interact with one another based on the materials given by the teacher. Currently, at the UNAD´s virtual classroom we develop the cognitive and social branch studied in this theory, giving learners the opportunity to be responsible for their individual learning, as they interact with their companions in the collaborative groups building learning upon their social interaction.

TASK 1A and 1B

TASK 1A: DEFINING CONCEPTS DEFINITION OF LEARNING

Humans are curious and that curiosity encourages us to acquire new knowledge, which we acquired through learning.

Learning a second language helps us to know new cultures and to become into gregarious humans, that can interact with people from different cultures around the world and helps to enrich knowledge.

DEFINITION OF LANGUAGE

Language is a resource for communication that allows us to communicate with our environment, when we teach a second language we are facing a challenge of how to be understandable to the language receptor, that is why the teacher must be able to handle situations in which it committed to the teaching of the second language (pronunciation, knowledge of concepts), but not only commit to the different concepts of what communication is, as well as our environment get on to the language and that is why we not only need words to communicate, as is in the case of non-verbal and body language, this being a very extensive and important in acquiring a second language subject.

DEFINITION OF TEACHING

As future teachers we must face many challenges when we are teaching a foreign language, we must awaken student interest, knowing their characteristics, their linguistic factors, using reliable tools for strategizing, with instructional variables and motivate students in the importance of learning a new language.

Who teaches and instructs us can gives us the guide to acquire knowledge, skills, retention, and practice of what we will learn using methods and techniques that facilitate this process.

TASK 1B: UNDERSTAND LANGUAGE

The theory of Vygotsky is based primarily on the socio-cultural learning of each individual and the environment in which it develops, it highlights the importance of guided learning, his conception of learning is conceived as a complete experience, encouraging students to take up what they already know to discover themselves individual, transforming information and interacting with other students with the influence of mediators to help students develop their cognitive abilities. The teacher is a facilitator who must respect the strategies and knowledge of the student, accompanying him on the building of their own knowledge as the most important. Constructivism is not only the new knowledge itself, but is to acquire a new competition, that allows the student to apply what is known in a new situation.

The teacher is not only an expert who knows the subject, should also plan what content can be constructed by identifying prior knowledge of the student, which already built with the surrounding environment, this construction is done all the time, all days and in all contexts; in the learning process students construct personal interpretations of the world based on experiences and interactions giving great importance to the role of memory in learning, which lies in the creation of cognitive tools, since memory is always under construction, one does not learn to use a tool group following a list of rules, something appropriate and effective occurs when the student is confronted with the use of tools in a real situation.

Teaching is an activity that takes place in a sociocultural context, where students and teachers build a shared medium.

. In the classroom you must learn to build

. Knowledge includes the individual and society

. Students are able to be themselves, they engage actively and creatively

. Learning is for everyone.

Environments must be built to favour the union between knowledge know, know-how and knowledge to be, environments where the construction of knowledge is shared. 

Linda’s task 1b. Understanding language: restate Vygotsky’s philosophy in your own words and offer some classroom examples of his theories in action.

Hi tutor and peers.

I want to share Task 1b. Understanding language: restate Vygotsky’s philosophy in your own words and offer some classroom examples of his theories in action. 

According to the reading about the theory of Constructivism by Vigotsky, it can be defined as a very important school of thought, which means that, the students must be the center of the teaching process and the student’s role should be active.

This theory has two perspectives. The first, the cognitive, where the students build their mental representation of reality, transforming new information in new learning.  The second, is the social part, where students must learn trough cooperative strategies and construct not only cognitive images but also emotional ones of reality.

Some examples are:

1 for the case of learners constructing their own representation of reality: when I was studying at the university, my peers, teacher and I traveled to a Colombian city in order to acquire information about the different processes of making food, so I consider we made the mental representation and starting from there some concepts were learnt in a significate way.

2 For the social part, I can say that as a UNAD learner, I know how important is to take into account peers’ opinions, contributions and decisions to make a good job together.  It’s true students nets are needed to build knowledge because it is an interchange of information to achieve some common goals.

Other function this theory presents is that the students can’t do activities alone, so a teacher or adult can assist them to active their ZPD- Zone of proximal development.

From my point of view, I can say that as a teacher I have applied this strategy of appropriate stimuli and assistance for the students’ meaningful learning.   Most of the times students are afraid to speak in front of others and less in another language, so it’s useful to motivate them and make activities so they can feel they are able to do it and well.

Thanks.

Linda’s task 1a. Defining concepts of language, learning and teaching.

Hi tutor and peers.

I want to share task 1a. Defining concepts: write your own definition of language, learning and teaching in about 50 words for each one. 

From my point of view, language is the way to interchange information in order to understand each other no matter about what. Some languages can be listed like English, Spanish, French, among many others.  When it’s said that language is systematic, I agree because it is always in construction, people can enrich it by learning more symbols and meanings.

I consider learning is the process of acquiring knowledge in different fields and topics.  In this process is necessary people develop skills in different learning areas; for example if somebody is learning a language like English, the skills must be developed during that process are listening, reading, writing and speaking. What it seems to me more important is that learning transform the people’s way of thinking, acting and doing.

I have realized that teaching is the method a person or teacher uses to transmit specific information to someone else or a group of people. Teaching involves procedures, techniques, processes, didactics, methodologies and theories to take into account when planning, programming, developing and evaluating the classes.  Although there are a lot of theories about teaching, I consider the original print is given by the teacher’s teaching style; this approach must be evaluated by the teacher according to the type of students, level of education, age, among other factors.

Thanks.