Letter to Alanis Morissette

Dear Alanis Morissette,

I like a lot your songs, I always read very carefully the lyrics and enjoy them all, but yesterday I paid special attention to one of your most famous hit songs (“Ironic”). I realized that the concept that you have of irony is very different from the concept I have. Let me explain it to you. I Know three types of Irony (verbal, dramatic, and situational), each one represent a very different kind of Irony. Verbal Irony has to do with a difference between what the speaker says and what the speaker means. Dramatic Irony is a difference between what a character in a story knows and what the reader or ausience knows, as in “Romeo and Juliet”. And finally, Situational Irony has relation to a difference between what someone meant to happen and what actually happened as a result of her actions. After that short explanation I would like to say that I just found one concrete example of Irony in your whole song, that fact does not mean that your song is bad or something like that, all the way around, it is great!! But, anyway it is wrong, and makes the people who is studying discourse misunderstand the real concept of what Irony means.

Oh! I forgot giving you the only one example of Irony I found in your song, this is in the third stanza:

“Well isn't this nice...”

This is a clear example of “verbal Irony” because this phrase is being used in a real moment, and when it should not be said. (His plane has crashed down!) A great example of Irony.

Alanis, I hope you do not get angry with me for being so sincere but I had to explain to you this.

I look forward to hearing from you...

Abbie.

Language through content

Activity Plan

-Coursebook: Test Bank for understanding and using English Grammar. 3rd Edition. Mark Wade Lieu.

-Content: Review of verb tenses.

-Grade: 12th grade


Activities

-Ask students to work in pairs with their coursebook.
-Ask them to build an interesting interview to apply it to an important member of the School Staff, using the cuestions in Chapter 1, page 1.
-Then, ask the students to apply the intervieew they made to an important membre of the School Staff.
-When they are done, ask them to notice which verb times the interviewed used to describe what they answered.
-Finally, ask the students to make a short report of what they learnt.


What does Language through content mean to you?

Language through content means to me the best way to teach a language, it is useful because with this way of teaching students can understand the real purpose of what they are doing. Besides, students can apply what the are learning in the classroom rightly outside it.

Am I smarter than any book?

Of course!! Although books have great ideas to teach, sometime they do not consider the context in which the students are immerse. Is there, when I can leave my imagination fly and be creative, it is that the time to get closer my students and consider their real interests and learning styles.

EFL/ESL Teaching

This is an Example of an Audiolingual method lesson, where most of the time is spent on repeating dialogues or doing drills.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5sR5W5h5qI

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

Social Distance

1. Social dominance

Dominant group: Native-English speakers in the U.S.,
Gina's first language: English
Target culture: Latina culture
Target Language: Spanish

2. Integration pattern

Most of students integrate themselves very well at tasks required by the target language teacher, but it almost always depends on the established rapport inside the classroom. Obviously, some students prefer doing things in isolation very apart of the mainstream, the main objective is so trying to integrate them the most we can to the language learning process through socialization with partners. In Gina's case, she will need to interact a lot with us in order to get a better understanding of our language and culture.

3. Enclosure

As Eastern Washington University has been doing conventions with a series of hispanic universities there is a great amount of spanish speakers on the campus with whom Gina may talk to and share with. In that way Gina will be able to practice her English and also she will know more about the culture of different hispanic peoples.

4. Size

Gina is alone trying to learn the language, she is trying to do it by herself. But there are lots of people on campus also learning Spanish, and whom she can go for help in case she needs it, too.

5. Cohesiveness

As I said in the previous answer, Gina is trying to learn the language on her own. There is no another group learning spanish with her. But Gina has a great advantage, she is immerse in a group of 15 Chileans students (future teachers of a language) what helps her a lot because she is able to listen to them most of the time, this helps her to develop more quickly a better listening comprehension, or at least her listening skills.

6. Cultural congruence

The home and target culture are kind of similar. Latina culture, in terms of customes and alimentary issues is very alike to the american culture. The principal difference Gina is going to find when studying and learning about the Latina culture will be that related to the status of latino countries. These countries are defined as "Developing countries" which makes them to be poorer countries in what refers to economy and tecnological developments. n the other hand, the USA are defined as a "Developed country". This may make a big struggle on the person who is learning the new culture, I mean a "Cultural Shock".

7. Attitude

The home and target groups have very good attitudes toward one another. The home group is very used to Latino speakers within their culture, and the target group wants Americans to know their culture and language in order to get more benefits and take more advantages from them. It is mainly a question of necessity. Both cultures need one another to survive.

8. Intended length of residence

Let's ask Gina first!!


Psychological Distance

1. Motivation

Gina has a "Full-time" motivation, she always wants to get new words in the target language and she is always asking her Spanish students to teach her a litlle bit of it. This is a great chance to learn because the more motivates she is, the more Spenish she gets.

2. Attitude

Gina feels very comfortable staying in the target language group. She always shows eagerness for learning and the group try to help her the most that it is possible. She has just to ask more and more and try to get immerse more in the target language.

3. Cultural Shock

She has not experienced yet a cultural shock, as she has not been or stayed in a Latino country, but when she do it she will do it very well because she is very motivated and also because she is trying very hardly to learn everyday.

Influence on Academic Performance

When talking about the several factors that may influence our English Language Learners' academic performance we can think on a large amount of them. In Freeman & Freeman's book (2001), through a series of case studies, we can appreciate a great variety of factors that may influence academic performance upon English Learners either inside a school environment or outside of the school. It is very important to have an exhautive knowledge of several case studies in order to get a right understanding of the research and theories about second language acquisiton and culture, taking that knowledge into account will help us in our future lessons when teaching.

Detailed Description of Students:

School: Liceo “José Tomás de Urmeneta García”

“This is a public secondary school which imparts technical education at middle level. Most of the students who come here come from a middle or low socioeconomic status. In what concerns to the their descent, inspite some of the students' last names are indigenous, nobody has declared to be one, so there is no evidence of indigenous descent. The school has more than a thousand students which attends specialized classes, classes are of 40 to 45 students. There is not immigrants in the school. The level of motivation is very low, principally because there is no chances of better resourses in the school for us to give to ours students. Besides, teachers are aldo dismotivated because students misbehave and do not want to success.

The relationship among parents, school, and students is very little, almost nothing. Most of them come from families in which parents are separated and so they do not have enough time to come to the school to see and know how are doing their children at school.

My Good Language Learner

My good student is called David. He is a very organised boy, although he does not come from a very good family (because his older brother was in prision, and his father does not have a fulltime job) he is a very smart guy. He is very engaged with what happens in classes, and he ask everytime he does not understand anything, he puts all his efforts in trying to understand the language, that is why he has succeded in that way. Besides, his mother is always giving him all the support he needs to get a good self-steem.

School Visit to Bridgeport and Brewster

Going to those two rural schools was a great experience. I could note the existent differences between the USA and Chile in educational issues, and also I could realise of the different levels of achievement that have reached Bridgeport Elementary School as well as Brewster Elementary School, they both have tried to get a good level in their educational system, one of them have achieved on of its goals because it was recognised as "National Distiguished School 2005/2006" and it was a great prize for all the staff that works behind the Institution.

That was the nicest part of our visit to those Schools but, as in everything in the immense world, there is a more bitter part... and it was the deficient way that teachers at Brewster had in the treatment to children. The few of them whom we could observe did not have the right methodology for teaching students coming from houses where English is not their first language. We could realise that most of children felt frustrated in ESL classes because they did not feel the support of their teacher niether an enough amount of feedback. In general this was an amazing experience and it was very much useful for us (as future teachers) in this way we can learn a little bit more of what works in a school, or with our students, and what leaving aside.

Seattle... an unforgetable experience

My experience in Seattle was wonderfull, I enjoyed a lot everything! That city is amazing, there is art in every single street corner! I was so happy of having been there! Apart of that, we visited lots of places, we began our five hours trip at 9.30am. When we arrived we stayed at "Holliday Inn Express", the place was very comfortable. In the evening we went to "The old spaggetti factory" a restaurant where the food was pretty much tasty... absolutely delicious! I tried a vegetarian lasagna... mmm!! Next day we got up at 9am and went to visit the famous "Space Needle", we went up and the view was amazing, I took thousands of pictures of the city there. It was definitevely breath-taking! We also knew the "Public Market" in Pike's. It was kind of a traditional place, people there were very friendly. The same day we went to the "Seattle Acquarium". I had never been to one, so I felt very happy of being there, it was such a great time for me... I think I won't never forget it. "China Town"... That place was wonderfull, I might say that I felt like I was in that country, and the food... the food was great there, tasty, tasty!! Delicious actually. On the whole, this was a very meaningful experience for me. I learnt a lot, a enjoyed a lot, and most important I could share with my classmates a lot. I won't never forget it.