Affective language teaching

Teaching and learning are based on communication and this involves much more tan the mere transmission and reception of a message. It implies connecting with the others through gestures, eye contact and body language as well as moving away form the self-centre to become aware there is much more than a student sitting in your class-there lies a human being, someone who has interests, needs, feelings and ideas to share with others. An affective language teaching approach generally produces an effective learning outcome basically because the teacher manages to go beyond the student and focuses on the human as a whole.
Knitting humanistic activities into the classroom allows teachers to create a relaxing and stress-free atmosphere. This is ideal for the teaching and learning process because it helps students to lower their affective filter and acquire language in a more relaxed way, since their self-confidence and self-esteem are enhanced in a non-threatening atmosphere. The flow of these positive emotions reduces anxiety and increases motivation and optimism.
Although nobody can deny the relevance of resorting to these activities from time to time, greater benefits will only be obtained if they were included in the annual plan. Some teachers are reluctant to include them in their classes due to lack of preparation time, the size of the classes or the lack of flexibility of their syllabi.
Whatever reason, a class will only become a teaching-learning community if members are educated and respected, decisions are shared and cooperation is favored over competition. Humanistic activities can only be carried out in non-threatening environments, where the concept of “team” outweighs that of “individual”. In these classes, communication flows naturally, values are respected and balance between reason and emotion are the stepping stones to reach a successful end.

The reading process

During my intensive training, I became interested in the reading skill and I read some books related to it such as: From Reader to Reading Teacher: Issues and strategies for second language classrooms by Aebersold ; Teaching Reading Skills in a Foreign Language by Nuttall and The transactional theory of reading and writing by Rosenblatt. Here´s a brief outline of what I´ve learnt in those books.

The study of the reading skill in the Teaching of English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) has undergone significant changes over the last century. In fact, the conceptual history of the reading skill can be traced back from its early role in the Grammar-Translation method to its current position in the latest approaches to TEFL. While in the past, the reading process was taken as a passive one, nowadays reading is considered to be inherently interactive.

Researchers in an attempt to describe the interaction between the reader and the text,have created models that account for what happens when people read. Three main models have been proposed: the bottom-up, the top-down and the interactive approach.

The bottom-up theory argues that the reader constructs the text from the smallest units i.e. from letters to words, from words to phrases. The top-down theory states that readers fit the text into the knowledge they already possess and that they check back when new or unexpected information appears. Finally, the interactive theory claims that both top-down and bottom-up processes occur, depending on the type of text as well as on the reader’s background knowledge, motivation and strategy used.

Not only did researchers create different models on reading comprehension, but they also attempted to identify the mental activities that readers use in order to construct meaning from a text. These activities are generally referred to as reading strategies.

Making sense of a text is facilitated not only by activating relevant schemata, but also by employing cognitive reading strategies which are determined by the type of text, the purpose for reading and the information that we need to obtain from the text.

From the teacher’s and learner’s point of view, the reading strategies proposed by
Harmer (1983) seem to be the most useful since he classifies them into two categories according to the students’ familiarity with a text.

Harmer classifies L2 comprehension skills into two types: Type 1 skills and Type 2 skills. Harmer stated that: “Type 1 skills are those operations that students perform when they tackle a text for the first time”. They include: predictive skills, skimming and scanning.

Type 2 skills imply detailed comprehension of a text and are used after students have performed Type 1 skills. They include extracting detailed information, recognizing functions and discourse patterns and deducing meaning from context.

British pubs

The pub is a place to for a convivial night out. You can meet people, enjoy good food and drink and even join in a game of darts or snooker, a game similar to billiards.

The word “pub” is a shortened of public house; at one time ale houses were private homes where the occupant brewed ale and sold it at the front door. Poles were topped with evergreen branches were hung outside public houses so customers could easily find them. These were the earliest pub signs. Today there is an amazing selection of pub names depicted on colorful signs. Some of them refer to historical events or local landmarks while others include references to animals, many with their origins in heraldry, such as the “White Hart” and the “Red Lion”.

Another popular pub name: “The Coach and Horses” reminds us that many pubs were once coaching inns where travelers would stop for refreshments, a night´s sleep and to rest or change the horses pulling their stage coach. There were many coaching inns in London, with stage coach services to villages and towns.

Although it is possible to buy most drinks in a pub, beer is the mainstay of the trade. Until the sixteenth century, the UK´s favourite drink was ale made with fermented malt from barley. Then hops, were introduced. Their dried flowers were used to flavor and preserve the ale and ale became beer, although the two names are used interchangeably today.

Over twenty seven million of pints of beer are sold in the UK every day. Although breweries are mainly run by big national groups, there are many microbreweries serving a smaller area and a few publicans still brew their beers.

Cutural background

Teaching English is not the same as teaching any other school subject since it is a second language. Thus, apart from teaching grammar, vocabulary, listening, reading, writing, speaking and pronunciation, we should also bear in mind the cultural aspect.

Different cultures have different manners and if we want to make a request in England we have to take into account than the British are much more polite than Latin American people.

The postcard on the top shows this in a very funny way. The man is about to drown but the gentleman only throws him the life belt when he asks for it in a polite way. In this website: /www.lgpcards.com/ you can find more postcards about how to be British.
Here are some useful tips that you could teach to your students about English customs:


* Visiting people in their houses:
When you are invited at someone's home it is nice to take a gift for the host and hostess. A bottle of wine, bunch of flowers or chocolates are all acceptable. Sending a thank you note is also considered appropriate.

* Say "Please" and "Thank you":
It is very good manners to say "please" and "thank you". It is considered rude if you don't.

* Say "Sorry":
If you accidentally bump into someone, say 'sorry'. They probably will too, even if it was your fault!

* Smile:
A smiling face is a welcoming face.

* Do not greet people with a kiss:
They only kiss people who are close friends and relatives. A handshake is the most common form of greeting among the English and British people and it is customary when you are introduced to somebody new.

* Avoid doing gestures such as backslapping and hugging:
This is only done among close friends.