Weeked News

viernes, 25 de junio de 2010

Survey results analysis

Universidad Latina de Costa Rica
Course LIN-03 Research Methods
Teachers’ Attitude

The following survey is from Universidad Latina de Costa Rica course research methods.
The objective is to know how teacher’s attitude and lacking of innovative methods affect students’ interest in learning English.
This survey is anonymous; all the information given by you it will be responsible treated. Thanks so much for your collaboration.

Please answer the following questions with precise and true information. If you consider not to provide certain information, please mark the option “no answer” N/A.

1. Age: ___________

2. Sex: _______ male ________ female

3. Nationally: ________________________ ( ) N/A

4. Do you think relationship student – teacher could affect the student’s interest?

( ) Yes ( ) No ( ) N/A

5. Do you create positive conditions for the learning process?

( ) Yes ( ) No ( ) N/A

6. Do you think teachers must be aware of the students´ problems, feelings and anxieties in order to cultivate students´ desire to learn?

( ) Yes ( ) No ( ) N/A

7. Do you establish a friendly relationship with your students in order to create confidence and a better communication?

( ) Yes ( ) No ( ) N/A

8. Are you enthusiastic in order to support your students´ interest in learning?

( ) Yes ( ) No ( ) N/A

9. Which of the following aspects do you consider, make English lessons boring?

Textbook Organization of curriculum
Students´ attitude Topics themselves
Teacher´s attitude Organization of the classroom
Lacks of creativity Pressure from authorities

10. Do you know some innovative approaches to language teaching?

( ) Yes ( ) No ( ) N/A

11. Do you attend to seminars, conferences or any kind of session for professional development, other than University lesson?

( ) Yes ( ) No ( ) N/A

12. Do you stir up and enroll effective motives in order to engage your students in activities that will be result in the desired learning?

( ) Yes ( ) No ( ) N/A

13. Do you know the reasons that motivate you to be an English teacher?

( ) Yes ( ) No ( ) N/A

14. How do you define the word innovations and in which theory is it based?

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Once the survey was applied these were the obtained results.
The survey was applied among 10 teachers of five different high schools in Guapiles surroundings with ages among 23 and 45 years on average, being 70% males and 30% females, all of them were Costa Ricans. To the fourth question “Do you think relationship student – teacher could affect the student’s interest?” 100% of them were agreed, which means they already know that teachers must construct a confident relationship with their students in order to gain their interest in the learning English. In the fifth question “Do you create positive conditions for the learning process?” 90% of them said yes, and just 10% said no, it is very difficult to understand is whether teachers know which these positive conditions are. In the sixth question “Do you think teachers must be aware of the students´ problems, feelings and anxieties in order to cultivate students´ desire to learn?” 100% said yes, but the question “Are they doing so?” arises because no many teachers used to know their students´ lives outside the classroom. In the seventh question “Do you establish a friendly relationship with your students in order to create confidence and a better communication?” again 100% said yes, which means there is something does not fit in, because it has been proved that many students do not feel confidence in the classroom and that is why they do not use the language learned in order to communicated in a spoken way. In the eighth question “Are you enthusiastic in order to support your students´ interest in learning?” 100% said yes, so it means they are motivated to their job, therefore they do their best. In the ninth question “Which of the following aspects do you consider, make English lessons boring?” they marked:
100% Textbook 90% Organization of curriculum
80% Students´ attitude 90% Topics themselves
20% Teacher’s attitude 80% Organization of the classroom
60% Lacks of creativity 100% Pressure from authorities

Something interesting is the fact that all of them agreed that pressure from authorities is narrowing the work in the classroom and the use of textbook is the worst teachers can do, but the MEP exam (graduation examination) is based just in the reading comprehension skill. In the tenth question “Do you know some innovative approaches to language teaching?” 80% of them answered yes and 20% said no. In the eleventh question “Do you attend to seminars, conferences or any kind of session for professional development, other than University lesson?” 100% was answered no, which means teachers are not updating their knowledge at all and teachers are required to be updating in this changing world everyday. In the twelfth question “Do you stir up and enroll effective motives in order to engage your students in activities that will be result in the desired learning?” 100% of the teachers answered yes, but it seems this is not reflected in the students´ motivation. In the thirteenth question “Do you know the reasons that motivate you to be an English teacher?” once again 100% of them answered yes, so they must enjoy, grow and serve in their job. And finally, to the question” How do you define the word innovations and in which theory is it based?” no one of them based his/her answer in a theory, but all of them agreed that innovations is the used of didactic and technological sources in a more creative and dynamic way.

viernes, 18 de junio de 2010

Innovation and Teacher’s Attitude

It has been the line to develop new products and better standart of living. Is like describing a process. Its mean that innovation brings values to a community. A teacher is a person who is important to the development of the students, the future of any students depends of the attitude, qualities and dedication of the teacher.
Motivation is an important aspect of the learning process and it could affect depending of the situation. Those situation could be external factors like the social environment or it could be personal that sometimes affect the interests of the goal established by the teacher in class. Taking into account the situation, the teacher have to keep a nice environment in order to achieve the objectives already set up; teacher’s most try to get students attention. Teachers attitude affects students abilitites and motivation in the English class. Teachers will face situations like no interest in the English subject, but teachers have to look for the solution of the main problema to facilitate the process.
Teachers need to create favorable conditions for the learning process, engage boys and girls in activities that achieve the goals established. Teachers attitude in the classroom affects students motivation in lessons.
Always have to consider that to achieve the goal of learning a language it really depends on the teacher attitude. Doesn’t matter how much effort the teacher made to engage the students in the process but at the end the teacher is who make the decision to learn or not. To get to the main point teachers need to follow some steps, if isn’t complete, it could affect not noly the process, but also the social context and also could affect different situations. Students engage in an activity not only because they are interested in the activity itself, but performing it will help them to obtain something else that they want.
Teachers must create a nice conditions of the learning process. First, to catch the students attention. Students are looking on what why the teacher bahave so every reaction, expression or act will influence on the students perception about him/her. The teacher need to be flexible, to made students to express themselves as they want to give opinions when it is necessary. For that reason is why the teachers need to know each student very good. Otherwise, students will be always against the teacher and unwilling to be in the English class. The teacher have to be dinamic in order to reinforce the student interest and create a new interest in the learning process.

viernes, 11 de junio de 2010

Teacher - Mary Mc Leod Bethune (Biography)

Mary McLeod Bethune was born in Mayesville, South Carolina, the 15th of 17th children. In her early years, she picked cotton and attended a Methodist mission school.

In 1888, Mary McLeod Bethune received a scholarship to Scotia Seminary in North Carolina. After graduating in 1893, she enrolled at the Bible Institute in Chicago, to become a missionary to Africa. She discovered, that African Americans were not selected for such assignments.

Instead, Mary McLeod Bethune became a teacher in several Presbyterian schools in Georgia and South Carolina. She married Albertus Bethune in 1898, andtheir son was born in 1899.

Moving to Florida, and realizing that the workers being brought in for railway construction needed schools for their families, Mary McLeod Bethune opened the Daytona Normal and Industrial Institute in 1904, with only a few students. She raised funds, ran the school, taught the students, and the school grew.

Mary McLeod Bethune focused the school on educating girls, who had few other opportunities for education. First, the school focused on primary lessons and later on high school. While first stressing industrial training and religious instruction, gradually the school moved to more academic subjects.

The school was supported in part by whites,in 1911, after the school added nursing classes, Bethune also opened a hospital, because students could not be admitted to the local, whites-only, hospital. (The hospital closed in 1931.)

In the 1920s, Bethune arranged for the school's affiliation with the Methodist Episcopal Church, and in 1923. The school, which had begun with a handful of students, grew to a peak of 1,000 students and won full accreditation -- 1939 as a junior college and 1941 as a four-year college.

Mary McLeod Bethune served as President of the school from 1904 until 1942 but she was also involved in other organizations, extending her interest in opportunities for young African Americans.

Mary McLeod Bethune was active in the Methodist Episcopal Church. She was a delegate to be in the general conference held each four years. In 1924, Mary McLeod Bethune was elected president of the National Association of Colored Women (NACW).

During World War I, Bethune helped the American Red Cross during world war I she active different campaigns.