In the classroom we have different activities for doing with our students, but some time these activities are always the same … our task as a future teacher is to change and use new activities in our lessons.
Today Claudio presented about role plays and how to use it in lessons…. Sometimes is important that we learn using new thing such us role plays where students are able to assume a role and develop a character using obviously English… role plays is a good tool for improving speaking in our students.

What is Role-Playing?

In most role-playing exercises, each student takes the role of a person affected by an issue and studies the impacts of the issues on human life and/or the effects of human activities on the world around us from the perspective of that person. More rarely, students take on the roles of some phenomena, such as part of an ecosystem, to demonstrate the lesson in an interesting and immediate manner.

Why Use Role-Playing?

Role-playing is simultaneously interesting and useful to students because it emphasizes the "real-world" side of science. It challenges them to deal with complex problems with no single "right" answer and to use a variety of skills beyond those employed in a typical research project. In particular, role-playing presents the student a valuable opportunity to learn not just the course content, but other perspectives on it.

How to Teach Using Role-Playing?

The instructor needs to decide the context for the exercise and the role(s) that the students will play. If the students are taking human roles, the context is generally a specific problem such as global warming or dealing with an active volcano. Lessons need to be carefully explained and supervised in order to involve the students and to enable them to learn as much as possible from the experience. However, a well-done scenario never runs the same way twice, teaches people things they might not ordinarily have learned, and tends to be fun for all involved.

Communication betwen PAreNtS AnD cHiLdReN

One important topic was presented today by Pedro. He talked about communication and its important elements, but specially how parents communicate with their childre...
I agree with pedro abpout the importance of communicate correctly with children, specially because we are future teachers and also we will be father or mother in the future, fot these reason we have to know how to communicate with our future students and future children...

Pedro in his presentantion gave us different tips about communication, for this reason I was searching for information about this topic and the result was this web page from U.K.... Please read it !!!

http://www.everychildmatters.gov.uk/deliveringservices/commoncore/communication/

Today there was a very good presentation which is related to STRESS.

This is something that affects everybody sometime in their life.

Here there is some information for you to take into account:

Stress affects us all. If you can spot the symptoms, you can manage them.

General causes
Threat
A perceived threat will lead a person to feel stressed. This can include physical threats, social threats, financial threat, and so on. In particular it will be worse when the person feels they have no response that can reduce the threat, as this affects the need for a sense of control.
Generally speaking, any threat to needs is likely to lead to stress being experienced.
Fear
Threat can lead to fear, which again leads to stress. Fear leads to imagined outcomes, which are the real source of stress.
Uncertainty
When we are not certain, we are unable to predict, and hence feel we are not in control, and hence may feel fear or feel threatened by that which is causing the uncertainty.
Cognitive dissonance
When there is a gap between what we do and what we think, then we experience cognitive dissonance, which is felt as stress. Thus, if I think I am a nice person then do something that hurts someone else, I will experience dissonance and stress.
Dissonance also occurs when we cannot meet our commitments. We believe we are honest and committed, but when circumstances prevent us from meeting our promises we are faced with the possibility of being perceived as dishonest or incapable (ie. a social threat).
Life causes
There are many causes of stress in life including:
Death: of spouse, family, friend
Health: injury, illness, pregnancy
Crime: Sexual molestation, mugging, burglary, pick-pocketed
Self-abuse: drug abuse, alcoholism, self-harm
Family change: separation, divorce, new baby, marriage
Sexual problems: getting partner, with partner
Argument: with spouse, family, friends, co-workers, boss
Physical changes: lack of sleep, new work hours
New location: vacation, moving house
Money: lack of it, owing it, investing it
Environment change: in school, job, house, town, jail
Responsibility increase: new dependent, new job
Stress at work
The UK's Health and Safety Executive lists six key stress factors:
The demands of the job
The control staff have over how they do their work
The support they receive from colleagues and superiors
Their relationships with colleagues
Whether they understand their roles and responsibilities
How far the company consults staff over workplace changes.
Other stress indicators at work include:
Sickness absence
High staff turnover
Poor communication between teams
Bullying
Lack of feedback on performance
Value and contribution
Technological change
Lack of clarity of roles and responsibilities
Dissatisfaction with non-monetary benefits
Working long hours
Boring and mundane work
One-off incidents
Uncomfortable workplace
Lack of training

The use of CoUrSe BoOkS

It is important to use course books in our lessons? … Today it was my presentation about the uses of course books and I gave you some advantages and disadvantages about this important tool inside the classroom…
I hope that you observe and take into account these advantages… pay attention!!!
¢ Teachers have a guide.
¢ It is safer.
¢ Good as a curricular resource.
¢ “Very” useful for new teachers.
¢ Teachers do not have to spent too much time planning.
¢ Books bring TIPS for teachers & students.
¢ The book’s topics can be used to engage students.
¢ Reliable source of exercises.
¢ Books bring extra resources.
¢ Activities are already done.

BrandS and Femicide

Katerinne today show us how some brands are using some social problems for increasing its business …. FES is a brand that is related to teenagers and they decided to use femicide in their advertisement…
Here we have a pictures related to this advertisement… I think that they are using this important problem negatively and promote violence against women. We have to think about it !!

TeeNager and SuiCiDe

Unfortunately suicide affects our society, but especially teenagers are been attracted by this problem…. Today Eduardo presented about suicide in teenagers, I reckon that this topic is completely relevant for us as a future teachers, because we have to be aware about teenagers’ problems especially problems that they can not assume alone…

I found this article surfing on internet.... Check it !!

SUICIDE IS A TEENAGE EPIDEMIC
By Brenda High

The statistics show that that suicide is the 3rd leading cause of death among those 15 to 25 years of age and the 6th leading cause of death among those 5 to 14 years of age. Can you believe that 5 year olds are killing themselves! Are these isolated incidents? No, its estimated that 500,000 teenagers try to kill themselves every year, and about 5000 succeed. That's right up there with cancer and homicide.
Many families who have experienced suicide try to hide what happened from their community, and sometimes try to deny what they experienced from each other. Sadly, rather than face suicide as a fact of how their loved one died, many victims (survivors) never talk about it in open conversation. As Jared's mom, I can testify that the subject of Jared's suicide was an uncomfortable subject to talk about the first few years after Jared died.
Who does the silence hurt, you might ask? First of all, the immediate family and acquaintances of the suicide victim. Because everyone needs to grieve at a loved ones death, lack of communication between friends and family can only hurt a healing heart. Humans have a strong desire to talk about and have deep discussions with others who understand the loss of a loved one. The greatest fear of anyone who has lost a child is that everyone will forget their loved one who has died, that their child's name will forever be excluded from conversation.
Some people think that by talking about suicide, the attention might encourage others to commit the act of suicide. Actually, the opposite is true. Open and honest discussion is the best prevention for suicide as well as any emotional, or even physical condition. How many people have been saved from Cancer because they shared a concern with someone who then helped them to seek help. Talking about suicide gives thought to the consequences and victims left behind. And with a little help and time, almost anyone can be helped with suicidal feelings. But it has to be talked about first!
Studies have shown that as many as fifty percent of the general public have seriously considered suicide as a solution to our problems. I would dare say that at some time in everyone's life, everyone has had, at least, a passing thought of the suicide option. The danger is when a person thinks about suicide while they have depression - when thoughts have a hard time escaping the entrapment of a clouded brain.

Adolescents and drugs.

Today there was a presentation related to adolescents and the drugs abuse.

I think it is a good topic to talk about because nobody knows if we, as teachers or parents, will have to face a problem like this.

For that reason I think it's interesting to know some tips about it and being aware.

Teenagers may be involved with legal or illegal drugs in various ways. Experimentation with drugs during adolescence is common. Unfortunately, teenagers often don’t see the link between their actions today and the consequences tomorrow. They also have a tendency to feel indestructible and immune to the problems that others experience.

Using alcohol and tobacco at a young age increases the risk of using other drugs later. Some teens will experiment and stop, or continue to use occasionally, without significant problems. Others will develop a dependency or addiction, often moving on to more dangerous drugs and causing significant harm to themselves and possibly others.

Adolescence is a time for trying new things. Teens use drugs for many reasons, including curiosity, because it feels good, to reduce stress, to feel grown up, or to fit in. It is difficult to know which teens will experiment and stop and which will develop serious problems.

Teenagers at risk for developing serious alcohol and drug problems include those:
with a family history of substance abuse
who are depressed
who feel like they don’t fit in or are out of the mainstream

Also I would like to show you some extra information I found about this topic.

The following behaviors can be warning signs of problems related to alcohol or other drug use.

Physical
Fatigue
Repeated health complaints
Frequent flu-like episodes, chest pains, "allergy" symptoms, chronic cough
Red and glazed eyes
Impaired ability to fight off common infections and fatigue
Impaired short-term memory
Change in health or grooming
Emotional
Personality change
Sudden mood changes
Irritability, anger, hostility
Irresponsible behavior
Low self-esteem
Poor judgment
Feelings of loneliness, paranoia, or depression
Apathy or general lack of interest
Change in personal priorities
Family Relationships
Decreased interest in the family and family activities
Starting arguments
Negative attitude
Verbal (or physical) mistreatment of younger siblings
Breaking rules
Withdrawing from family
Secretiveness
Failure to provide specific answers to questions about activities
Personal time that is unaccounted for
Lying and dishonesty
Unexplained disappearance of possessions in the home
Increased money or poor justification of how money was spent
School Activities
Decreased interest
Negative attitude
Unexplained drop in grades
Irregular school attendance
Truancy
Discipline problems
Not returning home after school
Peer Relationships
Dropping old friends
New group of friends
Not bringing friends home
New friends who make poor decisions and are not interested in school or family activities
Changes to a different style in dress and music
Attending parties with no parental supervision
Some of the warning signs listed above can also be signs of other problems. Parents may recognize signs of trouble but should not be expected to make the diagnosis.

Consulting a physician to rule out physical causes of the warning signs is a good first step. This should often be followed or accompanied by a comprehensive evaluation by a mental health professional.

http://www.focusas.com/SubstanceAbuse-WarningSigns.html

If technology changes, Education must change!!!!

We are future teachers, and we are living in a world that change every day… we also have to change every day, it is necessary that we consider the technology in our lessons, because is possible that we update our knowledge and change our resources….
One of these technological changes is the board, now teacher we have a new resource for teaching and developing our lessons, this invention is the Smart Board, obviously is a board that it is connected to a PC using programs to make easier the pedagogical process for our students…. Our task now is to learn how to use it !!!!!

If you want to know more about this board visit this web page:http://www.globalmac.cl/productos.

TEACHERS VICTIMS OF BULLYING

TEACHERS VICTIMS OF BULLYING

One of the topics seen during classes with Mr. Litman was "Teachers victims of bullying".

This is a BIG problem teachers have to face everyday nowadays. It happens inside the classrooms where respect and values of the students have disapeared.

As a future teacher I think it is a very important topic that should be trat on schools and maybe this way, teacher would be better prepared to face these kinds of behaviours because all we can hear is:

" teachers have to be respectful"

"teachers should not punish students!

"Teachers should do this, teachers should do that..."

But What are student's duties in the classroom?

Do not they have to respect teachers too??

Yes... It should be don't you think??

Students are the untouchables but who protects teacher??

We need a teacher's hero hahahaha

Musica Sepúlveda V/S Mónica Jimenez

It is incredible how a called DIALOGUE can change from one second to other...

Today we talked about what hapopened with this student and the Ministry of Education...images say everything. I think everybody has the right to say what they thing and express what theu feel but it seems like this student did not remember what education was it self...unfortunately Mónica, who is the Ministry of Education, had to come across with this ashamed escenario.

I think it is a pity to have students that even studing do not learn anything about respect and rules...

I just have a question now..Where was her mother???

Wooow.. no I remember she was supporting her daughter.. there is a very used phrase... De tal palo tal astilla...

How can you say that in English??

Maybe Musica would say WATER!!

hahaha

Just write your comments.