"Gina's social and psychological distance to Spanish language, culture and speakers"

Social Distance

1. Social Dominance. Whose social group is more dominant?
In this case I'd say that there no clear dominance between the groups, Gina knows the work of the teacher. We would work as equals in order to achieve the goals which is learning spanish.

2. Integration Pattern. How much do learners integrate, or do they do most things apart from the mainstream?
They can integrate the spanish speaking culture in a good way, nowadays spanish speaking culture is everywhere in the U.S. It also depends in the motivation of our students.

3. Enclosure. To what extent does learner's group have their own resources for interaction, such as church, publications, clubs?
Learners in this case have a close relation with Spanish speaking culture, U.S.A has a lot of spanish speakers and different parts of the culture are also accesible for learners (Music, Food and traditions) they can find opportunities to use the language in context in many places.

4. Size. How large is the group?
There is no information about the size of the group.

5. Cohesiveness. How much does the group "stick together"?
There is no information.

6. Cultural Congruence. How are the cultural patterns and customs of the home culture and the target culture alike or different?
There are similarities and differences but I think that the U.S is living a proccess of multiculturalism in which several cultures are living together so there's no barriers between different languages.

7. Attitude. What attitudes do the home and target cultural groups have toward one another?
I think there is a respectful attitude between cultures, understanding differences with tolerance.

8. Intended lenght of residence. How long does the learner intend to stay in the new country?
No information about this.

Psychological Distance

1. Motivation. Does the learner want to learn the new language?
She is eager to learn the language. Gina is always saying how much she wants to learn spanish. I don't know about the rest.

2. Attitude. How does the learner feel toward the target-culture group?
I think Gina has a positive attitude toward the spanish speaking culture.

3. Culture Shock. Is the learner suffering culture shock
There is no cultural schock for this group, they are all in their country. The relation with the target culture is limited.

LOco un poco nada mas

Bilingualism....homework

1) I need if you can give me a description of the students in your school, just a general description with some information about social status, the family structure, the relation between parents and the school. I just need a general view of how are the students in your school.

"This school is mainly middle class people oriented, but we have any kind of students, students with parents who are doctors, or lawyers and students who live in poverty. We try to teach anyone the same no matter the social background. In this school in particular, as a religious school all families are well built. Most of parents are involved in their children development and participate in the several activities that the school has"

2) I need a description of a bad english learner or a good english learner (as you want), some ideas of someone you know and the characteristics of this student

"I have a student who is always asking me questions, She always get good grades, She is always trying to get the best marks in the tests. She doesn't have any behaviour problem and participate a lot in class. As far as I know both of her parents are profesionals so she has her parents example. She is the kind of students you say, no matter the method She is going to learn anyway".

Analysis.

I think that the example the teacher gives is a typical situation, always in each room there's a student who is more advanced than others and who is willing to learn. Almost always their parents are people with certain cultural knowledge. This kind of students have been borned surrounded by a stimulating enviroment in their houses. This type of students can be a problem for the rest of the class, because they are always demanding more and have a faster pace than the rest, for us as teacher could result difficult to provide them challenging activities, but I think that we must be able to give our students the activities they need, with differentiated activities we can work with the entire group at different levels.

School visit to Bridgeport and Brewster.

"Really wonderful things are happening here for students achievement". Jim Smith, Superintendent of Bridgeport.



If i have to choose something to talk about this visit, I would talk about Bridgeport school, because I saw there so many interesting and positives things about how a school can improve their students performance. They seem to be worried about every little detail that can helps their kids to learn more.

The proud, the principal and the teachers show about the school was so big that I think that this was a trigger for the motivation of the students and for the success of this school. All this attitudes toward the learning in the school works as a Self-fulfilling prophecy in which students have been seen as capable people.



Questions.

What things that you see in these schools do you think can be implemented in the chilean context?

Mention one clear difference you see in these schools in comparison with the chilean education system

Do you think that it could be posible in our country to have college classes at high school?

ABOUT SEATTLE...

When I first knew that I was going to Seattle the first thing that came to my mind was "I´m going to the craddle of grunge". Latter I was going to see that the picture that I have made in my mind was a little different from reality.

Write some words about our experience in Seattle is as difficult as it was to try to visit all the interesting places in the city in just some hours. In spite of the few time we had the experience was amazing, the city presents to us as a big cosmopolitan city, full of culture, with different people everywhere. I don´t remember the exactly schedule we had there, but I can remember two things: I think I had never walked as much as I did there and the other is the places I saw.

For me the best places that I visited were the "Pike Market Place", The Aquarium and "China Town". The market reminded me "La feria" from my city, lots of colours mixed. The aquarium was an unique experience, being in the dome surrended by water and fishes was very exciting. Our visit to "China town" was something surreal, it was like visit another country without moving from the city.

At the end, Seattle was a lot more than I though it was. I really want to come back there.

ABOUT CHILEAN TEACHERS BELIEVES

1. What role do you think technology does take/can take in learning?

Technology can help us a lot to teach our students, mainly because students are more willing to learn than in an usual class, they show interest when they see a computer or any other kind of technology, and thus we can catch their interest and they will retain the information sooner and they will not forget what they learnt.

2. What role should the learner take in the classroom?

Students should always be active, which means they should look for information, if it is required; they should answer and ask questions; they should participate even if they don't understand.

3. What role should the teacher take in the classroom?

The teacher should guide students, and not give them the answers or activities, because they should manage to discover, to learn how to get the answer, how can they make a sentence, or any other thing.

4. What does good teaching look like?

I think that a good teacher looks like a very worried person not only for sts's marks but also for their personal problems, and that teacher is very active with their students, they do different things so sts can be willing to learn.

Activity demonstrations:
Written expression.
Level: Intermediate.
Activity: Photo novels project:
In groups students will create a story to be made in a photo novel format (photo novels are a genre of comics illustrated with photographs rather than drawings. They are popular in Spain and Latin America, where they are called fotonovelas, and have also gained popularity in France).to create the photo novels they have to take the necessary pictures for the story and with the help of the website chosen they will add the text to their photos.
Technologies used:
http://comiqs.com (This site allows students to create dialogue bubbles in photos)
Digital camera (To take the pictures that are part of our photo novel)

Aims: Development of a authentic piece of text.

I chose this web site because is very useful in the creation of the photo novel, and also because it is easy to use.
Step 1 Create an account. http://comiqs.com/accounts/register/
Step 2 Add the photos to the site (photos, upload)
Step 3 Add the text.

1. Interaction: The activity is made for students to interact, to share ideas, to work as a group with the help of the site creating the photo novel.

3. Meaningful Activities: I think that the opportunity to attach words to images is good, is use of language in context. The activity also gives to the students the opportunity to use language creatively

4. Exposure to/Creation of varied language: Each group will create a different text. The group can know about their classmates’ histories.

5. Right Amount of time/Feedback: It is very easy to use the site. It provides all the information we need to use it.

6. Appropriate for Styles, Personalities and Intelligences: I think that the resources used are very visual but the entire activity involves others things as to be creative or to write properly.

7. Motivating: I think that to create something original is always a motivating challenge for students.

8. Student-centered: Students will do all the work; teacher will give some advices only if he sees necessary.

9. Autonomy: As I said before once students learn how to use this web they can work on it whenever they want and of course they can increase difficulty

10. Multimodal: Written and visual clues, mainly.

11. Comfortable Environment: For the development of the activity the web site is very friendly for the user.