Hi again!! After reading the text: In search of an Approach, we have reflected and discussed about it, concluding with the next ideas:
The approaches that may have had the most influence on our own ideas about teaching are the Humanistic approaches for mainly two reasons. The first one is that it emphasis on an integral development of the pupil taking into account their interests and needs. And the second reason is that this approach believes in the pupils’ active participation and cooperation developing the communicative skills.
We hope to be influenced on our future teaching by Howard Gardner's 'Theory of multiple intelligences' because it claims that children can be intelligent in different ways. In our opinion, teachers should be awared of this interesting theory as it helps to foster their own special talent, abilities…
We would also like to introduce in our lessons all the characteristics of the Constructivist approaches, because they might engage pupils not just emotionally but also cognitively in a continuous active learning while making guesses and theories to make sense of what they learn.
Constructivism Approach
When we develop an approach for Spanish children, some particularly important factors have to be considered.
In Spain we are not used to speak other languages; there is reluctance to speak English for fear of not getting it right. Perhaps because of the preponderance of an impractical teaching method focused on the translation.
English is not a Latin language, so their structures, vocabulary and phonics are quite different to Spanish.
Movies, TV shows, even people in the newscast are translated into Spanish.
Nor do we have a common history, unlike France or Portugal. Its lifestyle and customs are very different from ours, perhaps influenced by a wet and inhospitable weather, so different from the sunny Mediterranean one. In our collective subconscious, the Americans took away our colonies, so an anti-American sentiment is common.
In order to improve the Spanish pupils’ English level, there are plans as bilingual schools and CLIL that promote a different way to learn and to teach English. Furthermore, these approaches attempt to end the differences between the FL levels spoken by the working classes against the wealthy ones.
Nowadays, pupils are taught about the Anglo-Saxon culture, and this is so important to learn as well as language, because they are learning a different view of the world, and they can change their mind about the American and British civilization by walking in their shoes.
Actually, these types of programs and the scholarship to learn English in a foreign country help so much to change the current state of things.
Picture of a Child-Centered Educational Approach.
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