journal317

Monday morning… and everyone seems so sleepy!
Class started when Harold displayed on the board some examples of the homework we were supposed to e- mail him. We were able to see different lesson plans´ goals, terminal and enabling objectives. The magic question about them was: Would proposal nº 1 (or 2, 3…) give you a heart attack? This question was given along an explanation of the context of each lesson plan. We were given a few minutes to think about it, and after a few of us gave one´s opinion about it, it was concluded that we were all going to die there… tip nº 61 was dictated: “Be coherent when writing up your objectives in lesson plans”. Teacher explained that the problem was that we were not relating goals, terminal and enabling objectives…

Then, we started to work on the subject of the class: The Audiolingual Method. We watched the recording of Andrés and Carolina´s microteaching, developing the method just mentioned. Personally, I think these classmates were loyal to the method: We were able to experience what is typical to it: “The starting point is a linguistic syllabus, which contains the key items of phonology, morphology, and syntax of the language arranged according to their order of presentation. (…) The language may be presented entirely orally at first; written representations are usually withheld from learners in early stages.” (Richards, 2001: 59) After the video, Harold helped us to confront the theory we previously studied about Audiolingual method against our partners micro-teaching, it was, to put it in terms of approach, design and procedure, and their respective sub-elements. It was not an easy task… but finally we did it all together.

To finish this session, and was we were told the class before, it was quiz time. We were given a little format with a question on it, about the theory we were supposed to read about the subject, and asked to answer it in groups of three people. In my personal case, I was asked to explain what “transformation” was and to give an example.