Noticing

I have never heard about the concept of "notocing", but I can understand that is the process of paying attention to meaning and form, during the learning process.

Analysing my learning experience, I can say that during all the school years I was focused on form, only form. My teachers only tought me grammar rules and structures. Because of that, I could never understand anything in English in those years. I was not focused on meaning.

When I decided to follow the English minor at University, I focused all my attention on meaning. Then I realised that my tecahers at school didn't give me the appropiate comprehensible input that I needed to understand the language.

A communicative teacher for Péter Medgyes

Péter Medgyes talks about the communicative approach and also about how a communicative teacher has to be and whay she has to do in her practice.

According to the first idea, it states that is really demanding for teachers because the learners are seen as individuals, and so have to be treated in a particular way.

Talking about the characteristics that a teacher must have, he says that she has to be erudite and versatile, learner-centered, ingenious, confident and with lots of skills that make her be a super teacher aware of everything.

Appart from that, she has to be able to produce real interaction between students, focus on meaning and form, listen carefully to her students, create the adequate conditions to see that learning is taking place and to withdraw form her students.

This is a summary of the main ideas, but a communicative teacher has to be this and even more!!

The Communicative Teacher

I completely agree with the article!

All the theorists state that the Communicative Approach is the best way to teach, and also the teachers. But a few of them put the theory into practice. That's because implementing the Communicative Approach inside the classroom is not easy for a teacher. As Medgyes says, this kind of teacher must be a superwoman, beacuse she has to consider many factors at the same time, and also to be a "perfect person". That's why, most of the times, teachers have the objective of the Communicative Approach, but they don't do it.

Also I like what the author says about the textbook. That it is the safety for those non-native teachers teaching in a non-English speaking country. It is difficult, but I agree that the textbook is not necessary for teaching English. You can do many other things, that will take more time for planning them, but the resuts will be successful, I think.

Teaching creativity

What really called my attention from the video and what I have the opportunity to experiment it every day, was the fact that children have an extraordinary capacity. It is easier for teachers to subestimate our students, because we don't need to plan challenging lessons, but we have to be aware of that creative capacity and give them the opportunities to grow from there. We must help their inteligences to develop in a creative way.