College of Arts and Letters
Department of Modern Languages
Master of Arts in Teaching Spanish
SPA 608
SPANISH TEACHING PRACTICUM
3 credits
Instructor: Dr. Yuly Asención
Office: Babbitt Academic Annex 202
e-mail:
Telephone: 523-9631
Office hours: [to be determined]
Description
The Spanish Teaching Practicum is a sequence of three-semester instruction. This course prepares Master of Arts in Teaching Spanish graduate students to teach Spanish 101 and 102, beginning and intermediate Spanish at the post-secondary college level. A variety of second language acquisition methodological and pedagogical practices are explored and discussed before they are used in the Spanish as a foreign language classroom. The course has been designed to prepare MAT in Spanish students to: create lesson plans, teaching activities, develop teaching materials, develop assessment instruments, incorporate technology in language instruction, and conduct research in the classroom. Students learn how to evaluate their own teaching practices in the Spanish language classroom.
Objectives
The following are the practical objectives of the course:
1. Development of teaching abilities in the Spanish classroom.
2. Development of class plans.
3. Creation of teaching materials for the Spanish classroom regarding:
- knowledge of Spanish grammar
- knowledge of Spanish vocabulary
- speaking abilities
- listening abilities
- reading abilities
- writing abilities
4. Development of evaluation instruments for the Spanish classroom.
5. Incorporate technology in language instruction by designing on-line activities.
6. Discussion of topics related to the teaching of a foreign language such as: use and input of first language, error correction, teaching styles, use of authentic materials, use of technology in the classroom, etc.
7. Develop skills to investigate about teaching and learning problems by formulating research questions, designing a research study, collecting and analyzing data, and presenting their findings.
Required Readings
Students learn the pedagogical foundations of second language teaching and research through a list of selected readings from the following bibliography:
Beatty, K. (2003). Teaching and researching computer assisted language learning. London: Longman – Pearson Education.
Brown, H. D. (2004). Language assessment. Principles and classroom practice. Londong: Longman.
Dörnyei, Z. (2001). Teaching and researching motivation. London: Longman – Pearson Education.
Grabe, W., & Stoller, F. (2002). Teaching and researching reading. London: Longman – Pearson Education.
Hall, K. (2002). Teaching and researching language and culture. London: Longman – Pearson Education.
Harper, J., Lively, M., &Williams, M. (1998) (Eds.). The coming of age of the profession. Issues and emerging ideas for the teaching of foreign languages. Boston, Mass.: Heinle & Heinle.
Hughes, R. (2003). Teaching and researching speaking. London: Longman – Pearson Education.
Hyland, K. (2002). Teaching and researching writing. London: Longman – Pearson Education.
Koike, D., & Klee, C. (2003). Lingüística aplicada. Adquisición del español como segunda lengua. New York: John Wiley & Sons.
Lafford, B., & Salaberry, R. (2003) (Eds.). Spanish language acquisition. State of the science. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.
Lee, J., & VanPatten, B. (2003). Making communicative language teaching happen (2nd ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.
Lightbown, P., & Spada, N. (1999). How languages are learned. (2nd ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
McNiff, J., Lomax, P., & Whitehead, J. (2003). You and your action reserach project. London, New York,: Routledge. 2nd edition. E-book at Cline library
Omaggio, A. (2001). Teaching language in context (3rd ed.). Boston, MA: Heinle & Heinle – Thomson Learning.
Ramírez, A. (1995). Creating contexts for second language acquisition. Theory and methods. New York: Longman.
Rost, M. (2002). Teaching and researching listening. Longman – Pearson Education.
Shrum, J., & Glisan, E. (2005). Teachers’ handbook. Contextualized language instruction (3rd ed.). Boston, MA: Thomson & Heinle.
Ur, P. (1991). A course in language teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Course requisites:
The course requires that the students do the following:
1. Engage in active participation in class and on-line discussions. Students contribute to on-line discussions whose topics focus on best teaching practices and classroom research problems. During class time students share their class plans, quizzes, classroom activities and research problems with one another. Class time focuses on the discussion of best teaching practices and action research to solve classroom problems.
2. Students must observe and analyze the teaching practices of Spanish instructors in the Department of Modern Languages. They also observe and evaluate each other as they teach Spanish 101 and Spanish 102. Students who do not teach SPA 101 and 102 need to observe those who do and comment on their teaching practices.
3. Students develop and present class plans, teaching activities (off and on-line), and assessment instruments that they will use or have used in their classrooms.
4. Students write a self-reflective journal. They are responsible for analyzing the strong and weak points of their teaching practices. The weekly journal entries also include ideas for improving weak points in teaching Spanish as a second language.
5. Students create a teaching portfolio. The components of the portfolio are the following:
a) An introductory essay to present and explain their general teaching philosophy. The essay must also explain their practical and theoretical approach to teaching a foreign language, and their own learning development as teachers.
b) A set of class plans based on the textbook in use.
c) A set of classroom activities whose focus is the development of each of the four language learning abilities.
d) A set of quizzes and other evaluation instruments developed for the Spanish classroom.
6. Students teaching practices are observed and evaluated at least twice during the semester by the course’s professor.
7. Students identify a teaching or learning issue in their Spanish classrooms and develop a plan to research the problem and find solutions to improve their teaching practice.
8. Students collect data to answer their research questions, analyze them, and present the results of their research projects.
Assessment of Student Learning Outcomes
Participation in discussions: 10%
Lesson plans, demos, activities, and assessment instruments: 30%
Observation and reflective journal: 10%
Portfolio: 20%
Research: 20%
Teaching performance: 10%
Course policy
All interaction, correspondences, and assignments will be conducted in Spanish. Students are expected to come to class prepared to ask questions, and participate in group activities and reading discussions. As in all learning situations, active participation in the classroom is vital in order for the exchange of ideas to be beneficial to all of us.
Students are expected to attend every class session and to make up all work missed because of legitimate excused absences. Excused absences must be documented before any make-up work is allowed. The only assignments you may make up due to an excused absence are exams,
Course outline
* First semester:
Teaching Spanish – lesson plans, activities, materials, assessment.
* Second semester:
Teaching Spanish – lesson plans, activities, materials, assessment. Technology in the language classroom
* Third semester:
Teaching Spanish – lesson plans, activities, materials, assessment. Research in the language classroom
Week / Content1: / Action research – Classroom research
2: / Research problems and research questions
3: / Review of literature – Turn in a list of references about research topic (10 mínimum)
4: / Research methods
5: / Research methods
6: / Design of instruments. Turn in a research progress report including research questions, an outline of the methodology, and IRB forms.
7: / Revision of instruments and preparation of materials.
8: / Data collection
9: / Data collection
10: / Data collection
11: / Data analysis
12: / Data analysis
13: / Data analysis
14: / Preparation of findings presentation
15: / Presentation of findings
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