Impressions of the language learning

Through the process of this course we have been working on the four basic skills to reinforce the

knowledge about the English language. In this paper we are going to focus on the most important

issues we have faced on this learning process which are related to the following items:

First, the improvement of pronunciation and the recognizing of the phonetic symbols allow us to

keep the communication ability in progress because it gets awareus of the right way to say the

words and how to differentiate minimal pairs in a real spoken situation. The tutor has

implemented a good set of methods and strategies which have helped us to realize about the

correct pronunciation and intonation of every single word and statement. The types of activities

he applied in the classroom are: rehearsal, listen to native speakers’ pronunciation and

explanation of each phonetic symbol in different groups of words; for example: where /wər/

were /wɜr/.

Secondly, the clarification of some grammatical issues such as the different phrasal verbs groups,

rejoinders, conditionals and passive voice. It can be said that these topics were worked throughout

some oral and interactive activities like asking for information, giving opinions, talking about

hypothetical situations and speaking about great people’s inventions and the latest news in mass

media. The tutor guided us with some speaking activities where everybody had to find someone

who was involved in any of those situations, then we compared the results and similarities found

among the class and report the information. Something which really called our attention was the

strategy used by the teacher to teach us the conditionals where everybody was asked to give the

response of a possible situation that she/he could live but it is important to say that these

situations were extremely funny because we had to offer positive answers to the Murphy’s Law

and negative situations which could happen to our lives.

in addition, we can express that the course was based on a cooperative learning approach where

every student had the opportunity to share his/her knowledge with his/her colleague checking the

answers, looking up the pronunciation of some words, giving advises to others and working on

small groups with monitors to clarify some doubts in terms of grammar and vocabulary. Through

these kinds of activities we recognizedthat peer interaction makes the students feel self-confident

while learning a second language because they can participate freely and without the pressure of

being judge by the teacher in from of the classmates.

Finally we could express that the tutor encouraged each student to improve their weakness by

giving the exact feedback after each activity and also by developing a good classroom atmosphere

where everybody was eager to participate. Even though the English level of the student was

uneven, the teacher did not use the mother tongue in any of his classes. He was able to

communicate, to give orders and even explain some methodological features about the accurate

way of teaching English as a second language where he stated that English classes must be

contextualized, in fact he did it in the course we have had this week.