3rd Journal Entry

Hans Humberto Oviedo Gómez

Reflective Teaching Course

M. A. Edgar Alirio Insuasty

Neiva, September 29^th, 2015

Reflecting upon my Lesson Plan Intervention # 3

This third lesson is the last of the three sessions proposed for developing the workshop. As you know, this workshop was designed to be developed in three different but continuum sessions, moving from general concepts and vocabulary related to the topic to the possibility to perform, state positions and argue by giving supports.

Planning supports and arguments

The main goals proposed in the objectives for the third session were to state a position (agree or disagree) according to a statement given and, to assume a role to support a position in favor or against abortion by giving arguments and defending it. These objectives should be accomplished in sequence to the previous ones (last two lessons) to guarantee good and significant results in terms of reflective thinking.

Debate guidelines - Workshop

In this session, the instructions were also clear and students did what they were asked to do. There was a chance for a missing group from the previous session to perform and it did not affect the time and activities proposed for the current session. The language used was clear for the students and they were very active at participating and giving their ideas by supporting them. The activities were challenging but not difficult. They had to take a role in a debate by supporting their arguments and they did it in a good way.

At the beginning of the third session students were also shy. But in this opportunity, they faced this fact easily and broke the ice quickly. This could be seen because students were in a process in which the topic was known and they were already in contact with the vocabulary. One of the things that could be improved is the pacing of the Debate in last session. Maybe, there were some misunderstandings about what a debate is although they have the definition and instructions included on the workshop. As a consequence, I would be more specific in the role participants and leaders have in a debate in the third session. This is done to improve and enrich the debate session into a more enjoyable and challenging activity.

Debate session

The application of this workshop during these three sessions allowed me to be clear in the importance of Learning Strategies for language learning since they are, as stated by Oxford (1998), tools that foster active, self-directed involvement, which in turn is fundamental to develop communicative competence and language learning. This could be evidenced when you are being explicit about the awareness, use, application and internalization of Learning Strategies along the workshop. What I consider relevant about my intervention was the initial idea of developing content-based instruction towards controversial topics (critical thinking) by targeting the communicative skills. Although there are some things and features to improve as mentioned above, this one was a good attempt, the objectives proposed were achieved and students were involved into the activities proposed.

References

Oxford, R. (1998). Language Learning-Strategies: What every teacher should know. Boston: Heinle & Heinle Publishers.