¿Futuro profesor de español?

Are a future teacher of Spanish or a Foreign Language?

Comienza aquí...Start here...

Hay un montón de información y material que deberías empezar a coleccionar para tu futura profesión. Te daré algunas cosillas para que empiezes a pensar aún más seriamente en esta profesión, seleccionada como la #1 de la Vía Láctea...Sin embargo, como estamos en EEUU, el material tiene que estar en inglés, aunque le pongo mucho español...lo importante es que haya más profesores de español y de otras lenguas, ¿no?

Libros

The future of Foreign Language Education at Community, Technical and Junior Colleges, Edited by Diane U. Eisenberg, AACC, Washington, D.C., 1992

The Coming of Age of the Profession, Issues and Emerging Ideas for the Teaching of Foreign Languages, Edited by Jane Harper, Madeleine Lively, Mary Williams, Heinle & Heinle, Boston, MA, 1998

Escasez de maestros (Shortage of teachers) - good article about why we need Language teachers.

Estados Unidos está pasando por una escasez de maestros. Esto se debe a que la mayoría de los que están ahora en las aulas se están jubilando. La situación se empeora cada día más porque no contamos con personas calificadas para reemplazarlos.
¿Por qué será que muchos de los estudiantes que se están graduando de las universidades no están interesados en el magisterio? Hay varias razones y podríamos enumerarlas así: Primero, los salarios son muy bajos. Sin embargo, en el mundo de los negocios les pagan muchísimo más. Reciben otros beneficios como bonos a fin de año. Segundo, en muchos casos los nuevos maestros no cuentan con el apoyo de sus superiores. Ellos necesitan que los guíen para poder adaptarse a su nuevo ambiente. Tercero, hay veces en que existe la falta de recursos como textos y cuadernos. Cuarto, el trabajo de un maestro nunca se limita a ocho horas. La faena continúa al llegar a su casa. Tiene que planificar lecciones, corregir pruebas y crear cosas para motivar a los alumnos.
La escasez de maestros también nos está afectando en el área de idiomas extranjeros. No hay muchos profesores de español y portugués disponibles para abastecer la demanda. Muchos de ellos no llenan los requsitos.
¿Qué podemos hacer para remediar esta alarmante situación? Los profesores de escuela secundaria deben animar a los estudiantes más avanzados a que consideren la enseñanza de la lengua española o portuguesa. Son ellos los que van a enseñar a las futuras generaciones. Al nivel universitario, hay que enseñar la literatura pero también tenemos que proveerles las destrezas necesarias para que puedan cumplir con los requisitos establecidos a nivel local y estatal.
¿Qué papel puede desempeñar la AATSP ante esta escasez de maestros? Ya hemos empezado a bregar con este problema. La AATSP se ha unido a otras organizaciones nacionales para desarrollar estrategias que pue dan aliviar esta situación. También hemos publicado libros que tienen que ver con el desarroIlo profesional de maestros.
Para continuar con nuestra misión, necesitamos la ayuda de todos ustedes. Si usted tiene una idea o estrategia para ayudar a resolver este dilema que afecta nuestra profesión, déjenosla saber. Estamos dispuestos a escuchar cualquier sugerencia que usted tenga. Recuerde, la AATSP es su asociación.
Felipe Mercado, AATSP president, Hispania, Sept. 2001

Visita este sitio -- visit this site

www.calteach.com

http:/www.calteach.com

http://www.courtinfo.ca.gov/programs/courtinterpreters/faq1.htm

California Court Interpreters Program
http://www.ctc.ca.gov
Teaching Careers in California
http://www.state.gov/p/io/rls/fs/2001/1138.htm
Employment Opportunities with the United Nations and Other International Organizations
www.careers.state.gov
US Department of State Careers
http://www.worldstudy.gov/

Worldstudy.gov

When Teaching Becomes Second Calling

Gabriela Mistral es una poetisa que me encanta y hasta uso unos de sus poemas en mis clases. Era chilena y creo que la única hispana ganadora del Premio Nobel de Literatura. Un día que andaba leyendo el Boletín de CVFLA, me encontré esto. Ojalá les guste también a Uds. Ella está hablando de cómo ser un buen maestro.

· I Ama. Si no puedes amar mucho, no enseñes a niños.
· II Simplifica. Saber es simplificar sin restar importancia.
· III Insiste. Repite como la naturaleza repite las especies hasta alcanzar la perfección.
· IV Enseña con intención de hermosura, porque la hermosura es madre.
· V Maestro. Sé fervoroso. Para encender las lámparas has de llevar fuego en tu corazón.
· VI Vivifica tu clase. Cada lección ha de ser viva como un ser.
· VII Cultívate. Para dar.
· VIII Acuérdate de que tu oficio no es mercancía, sino que servicio divino.
· IX Antes de dictar tu lección cotidiana mira tu corazón y ve si está puro.
· X Piensa en que Dios te ha puesto a crear el mundo de mañana.
CVFLA Newsletter, 2001

Here is a good video for teachers

For your students,
For your colleagues,
For your community! from Northeast Conference Media

A Class Act on Videocassette

A Class Act is not a video about languages. It is a video about teachers and foreign language teaching as a career with special opportunities that are intrinsic to our profession.
Its message is aimed at recruiting foreign language teachers for the future. It is for use with foreign language students at secondary or collegiate levels to interest them in considering a career in foreign language teaching. It is also useful with adults in the community to demonstrate the commitment we make as foreign language teachers and to interest those investigating career changes to look at foreign language teaching.
Professionally filmed with practicing teachers and former teachers in the work place. A Class Act will help you illustrate some of the motivations behind successful foreign language teachers. It offers a special way to reach your promising students or to show your community why foreign language teaching is A Class Act. Contact Northeast Confennce Media P.O. Box 623 -- Middlebury, VT 05753, Telephone: 802-388-9017.

Teaching tips and Activities

Some do's and don't's for the teaching of culture

DO
- Use a contrastive approach underscoring similarities and differences
-Teach students to look for explanations for differences
- Present the typical, not merely the authentic
- Explore romantic clichés and common misconceptions
- Show the changing character of culture
- Emphasize the contemporary
- Concentrate on what interests young people
- Personalize their knowledge through role playing or firsthand experiences
- Prepare students for special cultural experiences
- Capitalize on school activities, seasons, world events, etc.
- Use large, clear, authentic visuals
- Integrate culture lessons into your total program
- Plan for training in all four skills in conjunction with culture study
- Include cultural material in your tests
DON'T
- Generalize from too little data
- Make judgments about the superiority of one culture or the other
- Stress the bizarre, the quaint, the old
- Confirm students' prejudices or reinforce their misconceptions
- Give the impression the target culture consists of mere U.S. equivalents
- Repeat what other teachers have taught
- Make culture lessons mere "fun"
- Present only the great achievements
- Make the study of anything (especially monuments) dry
AT HOME
- Collect reading material for yourself and your students
- Collect foreign language speaking people such as exchange students, Amity Aides, staff and students at local colleges and universities, residents of the community. Invite them to dinner; invite them to class. In the latter case prepare them and your students, especially in the area of vocabulary
- Get the help of your colleagues: art, home economics, music teachers, librarian, audio-visual director. - Get individual or group exchanges of letters and tapes going.
- Use one of the addresses available from your professional organization; make arrangements through a foreign friend; send a letter to a teacher in a foreign town of your choice asking if his Students would be interested
- Get a foreign calendar
- Ask a bank to get small sums of foreign money for you
- Subscribe to foreign newspapers and magazines for your classroom and/or subscribe to student publications
- Fill your classroom with posters, maps, flags, realia
- Purchase slides showing the fundamental -
Make slides with a copy camera from books, magazines, guide books, realia etc.
- Don't miss the treasures that may be hidden in your own textbook

ABROAD
- Beg, steal, or save items such as tickets, programs, bills, bags, boxes, labels, brochures, menus, train and bus schedules, drivers' manuals, maps, ads, stamps, bottle caps, sugar cubes, coins, etc.
- Buy relatively inexpensive items such as school paper, newspapers, magazines, TV guides, textbooks, signs, toys, coloring books, postcards, posters, etc.
- Make tapes and slides of the fundamentals, especially of items treated in your book. Get people into your pictures.
- Get printed materials photographed, copy broadcasts on to tape. Tape interviews or let your tape recorder eavesdrop.
- Collect impressions at such places as parks, cafés, markets, intersections or on bus and subway trips, or at sporting events or religious services. Note who comes, when they arrive, how long they stay, how they are dressed, what they do.
- Collect data on the number and kinds of neighborhood shops, on prices, on television and radio programs, on menus,
- Try to contact the foreign people. Try summer institutes: travel second class; camp; picnic; join tours organized primarily for the foreigner.
- Prepare for activities and keep notes on them.

CULTURE GRAINS
In warmups, at the beginning of each class, try teaching basic materials, introduce bits and pieces such as: -HOW numbers are written
-Arrangement of the calendar
-24-hour system
-Weights and measures
-Floors and buildings
-Sports, such as, football
-Bread and other basic foods
-Wine in their different contexts
-Legal holidays
-Contrast the difference in drug stores

From SWCOLT Newsletter September 2000

Effective Foreign Language Instruction

There seems to be a consensus that the following are characteristics of effective foreign language instruction. These guidelines provide a basis for common understanding and communication among evaluators, observers, and practitioners in foreign language classrooms.
Is there anything else that you could add to this list? Let me know!

• The teacher uses the target language extensively and encourages the students to do so.
• The teacher provides opportunities to communicate in the tarnet language in meaningful and purposeful activities that simulate real-life situations.
• Skill-getting activities enable students to participate successfully in skill-using activities.
• Skill-using activities predominate.
• Time devoted to listening, speaking, reading and writing is appropriate to course objectives and to the language skills of students.
• Culture is systematically incorporated into instruction.
• The teacher uses a variety of student groupings.
• Most activities are student-centered.
• The teacher uses explicit error correction in activities that focus on accuracy and implicit or no error correction in activities which focus on communication.
• Assessment, both formal and informal, reflects the way students are taught.
• Student tasks and teacher questions reflect a range of thinking skills.
• Instruction addresses student learning styles.
• Students are explicitly taught foreign language learning strategies and are encouraged to assess their own progress.
• The teacher enables all students to be successful.
• The teacher establishes an affective climate in which the students feel comfortable taking risks.
• Students are enabled to develop positive attitudes toward cultural diversity.
• The physical environment reflects the target language and culture.
• The teacher uses the textbook as a tool, not as curriculum.
• The teacher uses a variety of print and non-print materials including authentic materials.
• The teacher engages in continued professional development in the areas of language skills,
  cultural knowledge, and current methodology
  Northeast Conference. Newsletter 36

Easy Ways to Make Learning a Second Language Difficult

These are things you should keep in mind as you prepare your daily classes. They are from various sources including my own.

• Conduct the class in English.
• Aim for early mastery of grammar rules.
• Explain grammar first and then give examples.
• Ensure that pronunciation rules are learned and used.
• Teach words, expressions, or grammatical structures one at a time, making sure each new item is learned before moving on.
• Make word-perfect repetition and reading the prime objectives.
• Insist upon accuracy. Discourage guessing; be sure students respond, read, and write carefully.
• Do not deviate from the textbook. Do not take time to find out what students are interested in learning or what they already know about the topic.
• Provide immediate feedback and correct students' errors so that incorrect forms are not learned.
• Insist upon individual responses and work. Structure lessons so that students do not rely on each other for assistance.
• Identify and give special attention to problem language learners immediately.
• Insist upon only the best possible spoken target language.

Printed from "The Polyglot, " November-December 1994 Newsletter issue of the Inland Empire Foreign Language Association, Apple Valley California.

How to be a Perfect Language Student

This list you should copy and hand to your students. It comes from several sources, and I have added more including some of my own. Share it with others since it will work for all languages, not just español.

You have probably seen these many times over, but I thoughr we might dust them of the shelf now for our brand nav school year to have our students be on the right foot.

Avoid heavy reliance on a dictionary

Be assertive by making and taking opportunities to use the language in natural communication both inside and outside of class.

Be patient.

Be persistant

Buy a Spanish newspaper

Compensate for your lack of linguistic ability by occasionally using your mother tongue, asking for help (repeat, clarify, slow down, give examples, etc.), using mime and gesture, describing the concept for which you lack a word, using hesitation fillers when you need time to think.

Develop a positive attitude toward native speakers

Do homework immediately after class

Don't be afraid to make mistakes

Don't make excuses

Don't miss class

Don't pretend to understand when you really don't

Don't wait for teacher to evaluate your progress

Eavesdrop on people talking in Spanish

Enjoy your successes and reward them

Evaluate your own progress

Examine your language learning strategies

Fill your house with Post-its with the name of the object

Forget about your age or aptitude when learning a foreign language

Form a study group or study with a partner

Go to Spanish films

Go to a Spanish restaurant and order in Spanish

Go to the listening lab

Guess when in doubt

Hang in there; be persistent

Highlight your text

Hypothesize...before you read a gramma rule, try to formulate it yourself by analysing the examples.

If you don't understand, say so, in the target language

Just be persistant

Keep a language diary

Keep your expectations reasonable

Learn from the successes of your classmates

Limit your expectations to reasonable and attainable one.

Listen to Spanish radio

Make flashcards

Make review cards grouping verbs, nouns, etc.

Make study sheets

Memorize creatively using image, sound, rhyme, etc.

Name objects in Spanish

Negotiate with your teacher when you want errors corrected

Observe your classmates' learning strategies

Open your mind and develop a better attitude toward the native speakers and their culture

Paraphrase when necessary

Post this list nearby and refer to it daily

Persevere

Practice daily, where ever you may be with anything you may have or anyone you're with

Practice speaking Spanish with friends

Praise yourself

Quit making excuses. If you are not making improvements int he foreign language, before you blame your teacher or textbook, ask yourself if you are using the strategies of a good language learner

Read ahead

Record new vocabulary and grammar in a notebook

Relax before going to class, before studying and before doing homework

Repeat aloud

Review class notes

Reward your successes

Rewrite class notes

Sit up front in class

Speak to others in Spanish

Stay alert; don't "zone out" in class

Study with partners

Talk to yourself in Spanish

Teach children

Try not to translate in your head

Try not to use the dictionary so much

Try to speak spontaneously

Use cognates for association with English

Use mime and gesture

Use what you learn

Watch Spanish television

Write down words you don't know

Yesterday's and before yesterday's material should be reviewed systematically

Zzzz...wake up! Don't slee in class. Perform every class activity

Reprinted and adpted from Hispania. May I995. FLANC Newsletter

Foreign Language Week

While this is not a unique idea, nor is it something brand new, I include it here, as it has been included in many other newsletters, since it is extremely important, and is constantly needed. I recommend that it not just be used during Foreign Language Week (in March), but rather be placed on classroom builetin boards so that we can always be reminded to always sell languages, foreign or not..for languages!

Create a multi-language bulletin board with the words for peace on the map of the world.
Have upper level classes create crosswords and bingo games to be used in lower level classes.

Translate a fairy tale or write one. Video it to present on cable television.

Create a multi-language cookbook
Have a tongue twister contest.
Create a commercial for your next fund raiser.

Learn and teach a folk dance.
Have a foreign film festival for the community.

Hold a Trivia Contest between classes.

Have a Dance Recital.
Make foreign language T-shirts.

Have a culture kiosk in the cafeteria

Plan a one day "tour" of a capital city, and assign student tour guides.
Create a class yearbook with picture, captions, etc. for each student.
Hold a poetry writing contest.
Invite community members to speak about their native countries.
Select a song all levels can sing on a special day.

Construct buttons with the target language word for peace, and present one to everybody in the school.

Invite the whole school or the whole community to an international banquet.
Visit relevant historic sites, ethnic neighborhoods or international businesses.
Have an international bake sale (good publicity and a good way to I·aise funds).
Have a Slogan Contest or a Writing Contest.

Send articles about your celebration to the school or local newspaper.

FLANC Newsletter

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