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.