ELT at IPC

    ELT  Research  seminar is a subject that helps trainee teachers of English in the process of becoming researchers. It is well known that students of English at this university develop projects in different subjects, but not in English and that is why this seminar is very important, it gives the students the opportunity to put into practice the knowledge they have acquired during the career to understand the learning-teaching process, and produce something that can help them  improve their teaching.

   I had several expectations regarding this seminar: first of all, I thought it was going to be an easy subject and that I was going to get good grades. Obviously, I was wrong, but the problem was not the subject, the problem was me. This seminar required a lot of work which was something I did and also dedication which was something I lacked. Secondly, I thought I had to work on a simple research paper and it was not so, since we did work on a project. Now  that I handed it in, I feel very proud of myself  because I did a good job.

Abstract 

This paper was about effective strategies to develop reading skills in 4^th year students at Unidad Educativa Nacional Luis Ezpelosín, Caracas, Venezuela.This investigation  had four specific objectives:

(1) to determine whether the teachers of 4^th year at the “Unidad Educativa Luis Ezpelosín” provide strategies to students for developing reading skills

 (2) to describe the reading process within the cognitive and metacognitive theory

 (3) to describe the strategies used for teaching reading skills

 (4) to determine the effectiveness of the strategies and activities for teaching reading skills by applying a pretest and a posttest.

 The sample of this experimental research was a group of thirty  students of 4^th year. The instruments were a pretest and a posttest in which the results showed that strategies have a positive effect on reading comprehension.

 It is recommended to apply new strategies, such as previewing, predicting, scanning, skimming, etc to help learners improve their reading understanding of a text.

Migdalia Heredia.

CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT AND DISCIPLINE.

Author: Yenny Oropeza Mejias

                                                Tutor: Nahir Aparicio

     This paper deals with discipline may affect classroom management on 8^th grade at Santa Elena School, El Paraiso,Caracas. Despite the behavior code the institution has, the students’ behavior influence the teacher’s class. This investigation  had two specific objectives:

 (a) to identify the sources of indiscipline that affect in the classroom in the English class on 8^th grade at Santa Elena School  

(b) to propose classroom strategies and rules in order to improve discipline in the English class The results in this research indicate  that despite the students know the rules, there are some factors that affect classroom management such as lack of intrinsic motivation, they do not pay attention, the teacher does not control discipline, and  not use technology , the class and there are not specifics strategies in order to work with large group. It is recommended to apply new strategies to improve discipline in the classroom and create a good environment from the beginning of the academic year.

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ABSTRACT 

            Within the teaching and learning process there are tour basic skills that are essential inside and outside the classroom.  For this investigation the main objective is to provide teachers with a proposal of activities for improving listening skills in beginners students.  These activities were designed incorporating the computer as a didactic tool, specifically using audioblogs to develop the suggested activities given.  Learning is a process in which learners construct new ideas taking their previous knowledge as a reference to come with the new one.  In relation to the type of investigation, it can be said that this research is a feasible one since the main idea or purpose is to propose a series of activities for improving listening skills by the use of the computer as a didactic tool applying on-line diaries (audioblogs).  Due to the fact that this investigation is a proposal of suggested activities to be used by teachers when teaching a second language, some aspects are to be considered for them to be effective, like prepare the activities in advance taking into account students’ characteristics. 

Minerva Ontivero

By Emelynair Giannotty.

The present study will investigate, the use of digital material to help teachers to develop the reading skill in EFL students by providing them computerized learning environment to simulate reading conditions inside and outside the classroom that would help the transition from learned reading skills to authentic reading skills. This in turn would raise the students’ motivation in reading in English as a Foreign Language and can also create a different teacher-student relationship which changed the teacher’s as well as the student’s role in such an environment.

By Lisbeth Rivas 

This research tents to provide a viable solution to motivation problems in EFL Classrooms, and tries to encourage teachers to use and interact with new strategies such as ICT in their regular practice as a mean of recycling and reinforcing activity. Technology provides a new world of information and communication. Due to its importance, it is used by a great amount of people in almost all the everyday activities they do. Using technology as a factor to improve motivation can lead teachers to improve the student’s learning process and help them to be interested in learning English. Since, for students the use of internet and its tools are very attractive and motivating.

Research studies done in different educational systems than those of Latin-American sustain that there exist differences in the verbal ability and the scholar achievement performance in English related to gender that favor the female gender, increasing as students advance in the different educational levels.  The present study has the purpose of detecting if there exist the differences mentioned before related to gender in students of middle school and the first year of high school.  To do this study, students from both genders belonging to the last 10 groups of high school students that graduated from the Unidad Educativa “Academia Washington”, located in Caracas, Venezuela, where chosen.  Additionally, results (marks measure as percentiles) obtained in the verbal abilities test from the IOWA Test of Basic Skills (ITBS) where taken to investigate the variable verbal ability and the grades obtained by the students at the end of each school year in the traditional scale from 1 to 20 points to investigate the scholar achievement performance. The “t of student” test and the analysis of the variance of one factor to compare genders, simple regression techniques and analysis of simple linear correlation to determine the predictor power of one variable over the others were done using the SPSS statistical computerized package.  In general, significant differences were obtained favoring male students in verbal ability and favoring girls in scholar achievement performance.  Apparently, verbal ability does predict the scholar achievement performance in English in this specific school.  It is recommended that this same study be replicated in other institutions so as to observe if the differences are kept and as to enhance the information available with respect to the relations between gender, verbal ability and scholar achievement performance in English given that these type of studies seem pioneer in Venezuela.