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Good morning everybody!

In today’s entry I’m going to mention the properties of learning and acquiring a language, as well as their regarding differences. Before we start I need to ask you a question.

-Do you have any knowledge about what is learning and what is acquiring a language?

Is quite important and interesting to know how people get knowledge, That’s why we are going to discuss a little about it. Firstly we need to know the definition of each term.

According to Mrs. Judie Haynes «Learning is the conscious process in which we are aware of the knowledge we are getting as a result of following the instruction in the rules of language.»

This means that in order to learn a language we must have certain previous knowledge about it. As well as it’s rules. Currently people who try to speak another language, besides their mother tongue, usually learn it.

«Acquiring a language Is the subconscious process during which you are unaware of grammatical rules.»
In order to acquire a language, the learner needs a source of natural communication, it means, one is focused only on the texts of the communication.

This is a more natural process, the reason for this is that is because since we are children we start acquiring a language(in this case, our mother tongue) and through the years we begin to be more proficient at using our language.

Obviously, now we can easily identify the difference between language learning and language acquisition.  Now let me ask you, based in what I just wrote about learning and acquisition…

-What do you think is better, learning or acquiring a language?

Please share your ideas and/or points of view with me by leaving a comment below this entry

Hope you all to have a great day and a fantastic weekend! 🙂 

Welcome everybody to this entry. Today we are going to talk about learning styles.

This is an intrinsic topic in terms of learning(as the topic name establishes). I will introduce you the topic and after that, you may be able to answer the following questions:

-Do you know how you learn best?

-Are you aware of your own learning style?

-What can you do to improve your learning abilities?

According to Curry Lynn’s book An organization of learning styles theory and constructs(1983) «Learning style refer to the general area of interest concerning individual differences in cognitive approach and process of learning.»

There are different learning styles that we use to comprehend a topic in an easy form, each and everyone possesses his/her own way of learning.

Next, I am going to introduce you the different learning styles and their features in a brief description.

Visual learners:

This type of learners prefer learning by visual forms such as pictures, charts, or other printed information. Another important thing about them is that they need to see the teacher’s body language and facial expression to fully understand the content of a lesson.

Auditory learners:

This specific type of learners rather learning by hearing and discussing given information instead of writing it down. They are also able to interpret the underlying meanings of speech through listening to tone of voice and speed, 

Last but not least, the Kinesthetic learners:

This particular type of learners enjoy learning by making full body movements and by using their Hands-on learning and actively exploring the physical world around them.

The main objective of this entry is to make yourself realize the different approaches we can use in order to have a proficient learning.

In the link below you can find a 20Q test in which you may realize how you learn best and the learning style you fit in.

http://www.educationplanner.org/students/self-assessments/learning-styles.shtml

With anything else to add, I hope you had enjoy this entry and understood what learning styles are and their relevance in they way that you use to get knowledge.

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How is it going people?

Today’s topic is Grammar

Days ago I started reading Scott Thornbury’s book  «How to teach grammar» and I must say that I’m completely amazed about the definition of grammar. In the world of English Language Teaching, grammar is taught in daily basis,however, many teachers and students are not aware of the meaning of this particular word and it’s essential for us teachers and students to know it. Let me give a good definition of what grammar is and what it consists.

Well, according to Scott Thornbury «Grammar is partly the study of what forms (or structures) are possible in a language. It is a description of the rutes that govern how a language sentences are formed.»

Nowadays there is not a complete and precise definition of it. But the thing I know for sure is that grammar is an intrinsical part of Linguistics that studies the formal and correct structure of a language and how can words fit together in order to make meaningful sentences.

It would be amazing if you share your thoughts about this with me. Please leave your comments below!

Greetings everyone!.

I hope you are having a good day

A couple of days ago I was asked about the meaning English language has for myself, and after reading texts about the topic I got to the conclusion that English is one of the most dominant languages in our globalized world. English is present in everything we look for and it has been evolving since the beginning of time. First of all, we need to know the meaning of language.

On dictionary.com it is defined as a set of words and structured systems that people from a same comunity, country or geographical area  uses commonly to communicate with each other.

Now we focus in English language and the effect it has in the world. Nowadays we can see that more and more people are learning English because of it’s expantion in many fields of study, as well as at working, education, the media, culture, Internet, time and displacement.

It means that it has been an impact in technology, the global economy and demography for our working lives. In terms of education, we can say that English shares history with european countries such as  Germany, France and Spain and currently it allows a rapid internationalism of higher education. Focusing in communication, English language has been evolving hand and hand with Internet, it means that technology has transformed the way people interact locally and globally.

This is my approach of the definition of English language.

Now, I encourage you to share with me.

What’s English for you?

Hey there, these days I’ve been browsing for interesting blogs that may be helpful for teachers and students, and doing this I found certain blogs and pages that we can use as tools in our study and work environment as well.

A blog I read and highly recommend is Mr. Jeremy Harmer’s blog. There you can find helpful information related to English Language Teaching(ELT) http://jeremyharmer.wordpress.com

And also in the following link you can find Slideshows about ELT that could be easier tocomprehend.

http://es.slideshare.net/Maria_Fernanda/how-to-teach-english-by-jeremy-harmer

That would be all for my part on this week’s post

Comments and/or suggestions will be welcomed and well received

In our lives all of us have had a teacher that we consider as the best. Not  only because of his personality, but also because he gets our attention and makes us want to learn more and more in every lesson.

When I was first advanced course at UAS Language Center, I met my best teacher so far, I had a great time learning a lot of things from him, he was always encouraging my classmates and me to participate, his lessons were pretty balanced because we learned about several topics, and at the same time, we had our time for laughter.

He taught us how to introduce ourselves propperly, how to make good and effective presentations, told us phrases like «Do not take everything for granted» that were kind of an inspiration for us to try to do our best every day in everything we do in order to accomplish our goals and fulfill our dreams.

He guided and helped me with a smile on his face when I told him that I wanted to become a teacher, I borrowed some of his books to prepare myself for my IELTS test.

He decided to leave his retirement and remain as a teacher for the brand new BA in ELT program.

Nowadays, he teaches me Introduction to Linguistics in the BA in ELT and Hopefully, I ‘ll be learning more things from him besides the ones that I have learned so far. Not only he is an amazing and extremely capable teacher, but also a great person.

In this blog I will share some ideas for teaching and learning purposes. Using this blog as a guide/tool in order to know how to learn English propperly with easy excersises and activities . I invite all of you to stop by and give it a read if you have the chance.