3rd unit reflection
The student found writing a comparative essay on reading with a classmate to be very challenging, as they had never done this type of writing before and found it difficult to agree on opinions and produce the text jointly. However, the student acknowledges it was a good opportunity to apply what was learned in other courses, such as communicative competence. The student also learned from the viewpoints of Brown and Harmer that an ESL teacher needs to consider students' experience and prior knowledge when developing lessons, and provide suitable, meaningful texts to motivate students and help them understand what they are reading. Overall, the student found this unit helpful because receptive skills like reading are an important first step in language acquisition, and teachers must put effort into developing these
3rd unit reflection
- 1. The comparative essay on reading was a challenging task, not only because I had never done this type of writing before, but also because I consider that it is especially difficult to produce a text with a classmate. I tend to enjoy pair and group work but in this case, it was very difficult to get to an agreement on both opinions and to actually produce the text. Despite the problems that appeared when writing the essay, I have to admit that it was a great opportunity to put into practice what we have been learning in other courses such as communicative competence. The different viewpoints of Brown (2000) and Harmer (2001) taught me that we as ESL teachers should be aware that the experience and previous knowledge of our students are highly important in the moment of developing second language learning. Moreover, if we truly want to our students to understand what they are reading, we have to provide them with suitable texts that are both meaningful and attractive in order to get their attention and give them the motivation that is missing. I consider that this unit was very helpful for I consider that the receptive skills are the first step in the process of language acquisition; hence, we need to put a lot of effort in this area in order to help our student to develop an L2. Camila Cuevas A.