Identity

The way an individual understands the relationship between him or herself and the world, and how he or she constructs this relationship in time and space. It integrates the learner and the learning context. It also concerns the structures related to day-by-day social interactions.

It is important for teachers to understand the identity and the reality of the students in order to be able to make the subject content suitable for the learner to absorb the most of it.

ESL readers: Cultural identity makes difference - http://www.gettingboystoread.com/content/esl-readers-cultural-identity-makes-difference

Negotiation of Student Identity Inside and Outside of the ESL Classroom - http://www.ed.psu.edu/englishpds/inquiry/projects/papers08/Harpster.pdf

PARK, S. A feminist approach to understanding ESL identity development: a case study of Korean women in U.S. universities. 2009. 204 f. Tese (Doutorado em Language, Literacy and Sociocultural Studies) – University of New México, Albuquerque, 2009. Disponível em: https://repository.unm.edu/dspace/bitstream/1928/10341/1/Seonsook%20Park%20Final%20Manuscript%2008%2013%202009.pdf. Acesso em: 24 jun. 2010

MILLER, J. Audible difference: ESL and social identity in schools. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters, 2003.

NORTON, B. Identity and language learning: Gender, ethnicity and educational change. Harlow: Longman/Pearson Education, 2000.

Grammar Translation Method

Foreign language teaching method that first started in Prussia, at the end of the 18th century and was the most used in the 19th century, but it is still used nowadays for teaching dead languages, such as Latin and Ancient Greek. In this method, vocabulary is taught through bilingual lists of words. Reading and writing are the main focus, with little or no attention given to speaking or listening. Besides that, the classes are taught in mother tongue.

The main problem of the grammar translation method is that, as the learners don’t practice speaking and listening, they will never become autonomous speakers of the target language.

Macmillan English Dictionary for ELT Terms -
http://www.macmillandictionaries.com/glossaries/definitions/g-j.htm

Grammar Translation Method - http://www.slideshare.net/vacoka/grammar-translation-method-presentation

Grammar translation Method or GTM - http://www.shvoong.com/books/1760532-grammar-translation-method-gtm/



NORLAND, D.; PRUETT-SAID, T. A kaleidoscope of models and strategies for teaching English to speakers of other languages. Westport: Teacher Idea Press, 2006

NAGARAJ, G. English Language Teaching: Approaches Methods Techniques. Andhra Pradesh: Orient Longman, 2003.

Drill

A number of sentences which contain new structures that the students repeat in order to memorize them. They can be individual drills (students repeat the sentences one at a time), choral drills (the whole class repeats the sentences together), substitution drill (some key words of the sentences are changed by the teacher) and question and answer (Q&A) drills (the teacher ask the same question to different students and they answer differently but using the same structure).

Drills can be very useful to help learners memorize the structures, but the teacher has to be very careful in order to avoid turning the classes into boring endless repetition cycles.

Macmillan English Dictionary for ELT Terms - http://www.macmillandictionaries.com/glossaries/definitions/d-f.htm

Tips and ideas for using drilling in the classroom - http://www.onestopenglish.com/section.asp?docid=146558

RUSSELL, A. Drilling - Judicious Use of Brute Force in the ESL Classroom. UsingEnglish.com. Disponível em: http://www.usingenglish.com/weblog/archives/000414.html. Acesso em: 24 jun. 2010

MUMFORD, S. Drilling can be fun. The internet TESL Journal, v. 8, n. 7, jul. 2002. Disponível em: http://iteslj.org/Techniques/Mumford-Drilling.html. Acesso em: 24 jun. 2010.

Communities of Practice

Groups composed of people that make efforts in order to learn together. They share an interest in common and interact with the objective of doing or learning how to do it in a better way.

I think it is very interesting to learn together as a group. It is proves that we learn from our mistakes and we also learn from our peers mistakes. Besides that, as Vygotsky has demonstrated, our intellectual development occurs through Instructional scaffolding.

Communities of practice - http://www.ewenger.com/theory

Community of practice at Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_of_practice

KIMBLE, C.; HILDRETH, P.; BOURDON, I. Communities of Practice: Creating Learning Environments for Educators. Charlotte: Information Age Publishing, abr. 2008. Disponível em: http://www.chris-kimble.com/CLEE/ToC.html Acesso em 24 jun. 2010

HILDRETH, P.; KIMBLE, C. Knowledge Networks: Innovation through Communities of Practice. Hershey: IGI Publishing, 2004. Disponível em: http://www.chris-kimble.com/KNICOP/Chapters/Introduction.html

Affordances

The actions that an individual can make interacting with the society and the world that surrounds it. They were first studied by biologists, specially in the ecological field. Under a learning-teaching perspective, affordances are opportunities for learning that are perceived by the students in the environment, such as the classroom.

In my opinion, it is very important that the teacher is aware that the affordances are different from a student to another, and he or she should be able to analyze which affordances are available and suitable for each unique student.

ESL students’ computer-mediated communication practices: context configuration

http://llt.msu.edu/vol10num3/shin/default.html

Possible uses of Second Life in ESL/EFL

http://www.slideshare.net/olga_kozar/esl-efl-and-second-life

MENEZES, V. Propiciamento (affordance) e autonomia na aprendizagem de língua inglesa In: LIMA, Diógens Cândido. Aprendizagem de língua inglesa: histórias refletidas. Vitória da Conquista: Edições UESB, 2010. Disponível em: http://www.veramenezes.com/affordance.pdf. Acesso em: 24 jun. 2010.

COTTERALL, S. & MURRAY, G. Enhancing Metacognitive Knowledge: Structure, Affordances andSelf. System: An International Journal of Educational Technology and Applied Linguistics, v. 37, n. 1, p. 34-45, 2009.

MENEZES, V. AFFORDANCES BEYOND THE CLASSROOM. Disponível em: http://www.veramenezes.com/beyond.pdf. Acesso em: 24 jun. 2010.