Communicative Language Teaching (CLT): According to Jack C

Richards, “Communicative language teaching can be understood as a

set of principles about the goals of language teaching, how learners
learn a language, the kinds of classroom activities that best facilitate
learning, and the roles of teachers and learners in the classroom”.

The communicative approach has been adapted to the elementary,

middle, secondary and post secondary levels, and the underlying
philosophy has spawned different teaching methods konwn under a
varity of names, including notional functional, teaching for proficiency,
proficiency based instructions and Comminicative Language Teaching.

This approach (CLT) makes use of real life situations that need
communication. The teacher sets up a situation that the students are
likely to encounter in real life. Unlike the audiolongual method of
language teaching which relies on repetitions and drills, the
communicative approach can leave students in suspense as to the
outcome of a class exercise, which will vary according to the reactions
and responses. The real life situations changes from day to day.
Students’ motivation to learn comes from their desire to communicate
in meaningful ways about meningful topics.

Margie S Berns, an expert in the fild of Communicative Language

Teaching, writes in explaining first view that “language is interaction; it
is an interpersonal activity and has a clear relationship with society. In
this light, language study has to look at the use (function) of language
in context (what is uttered before and after a given piece of discourse),
and its social or situational context (who is speaking, what the social
roles are, why they have come together to speak)” (Berns, 1984, p5).

The Communicative Language Teaching Approach makes use of all

the activities that engage students in real communication and
functional communicative activities are very useful in this case
(remember that you studied about this in the previous unit of the
course). Teachers in communicative classrooms will find themselves
talking less and listening more, becoming active facilitators of their
students’ learning (Larsen Freeman, 1986). The teacher sets up the
exercise, but because students’ performance is the goal, the teacher
must step back and observe, sometimes acting as referee or monitor.
The students do most of the speaking and frequently the scene of a
classroom during a communicative exercise is active, with the students
leaving their sits to complete a task.

Total Physical Response (TPR): This is a method based on the way

children learn the mother tongue by analyzing their parents’ body
language. Kids receive instructions by watching their parents modeling
a command and then, they respond physically. It is like when the
mother says to the baby “come here” or “drink some wáter” and he
does the action. These are the first “conversations” parents and babies
have before their kids start to communicate orally. TPR tries to
produce the same effect in the classroom when teaching a language.

If the teacher in the classroom says the verb “walk”, he must

demonstrate his students by acting it. In this specific case the teacher
should walk around the classroom. Now, if he says "open your
notebooks" he must take a notebook and show the students how to do
it. If the teacher says "stand up from your chairs", he must be sit down
to show his students how to stand up. This method is about showing
students what to do or how to do it by modeling an action.

After modeling the action a few times the teacher can ask his students
to repeat the word or phrase while doing the action. When students
have learnt a new word or command, they can interact among them to
make a reinforent. This kind of activities in the classroom are more
effective if students are standing in a circle around the teacher. Also,
the teacher can encourage his students to walk around while doing the
action.

There are different ways for modeling TPR in the classroom:

 The teacher says a word and student try to act it.

 The teacher acts and students say the word.
  The teacher tries to confuse students by saying a word but acting
a different one in order students can guess the new word.

Finally, let’s look at some examples about using TPR in the classroom:

 Actions: the teacher acts or uses a gesture to show the action.

 Objects: the teacher says a word and point a specific object to
show students what he means.
 Body parts: The teacher says a word and uses his own body to
show students the body part that he is teaching.
 Colors: the teacher says a color and show something in the
classroom that has this color.

The Silent Way Teaching Method: it is a method focused on students

autonomy and based on the hypothesis that teachers should not talk,
while students should be encouraged to produce language. This
method makes emphasis on pronunciation since the beginning and it is
increasing lesson by lesson.

Learning vocabulary is quite important because the new words are

selected for each class in order to students can use them in a
functional way. Translation is not allowed and language is used or
practiced in meaningful contexts that show students how and when to
use the expressions.

In the Silent Way Teaching Method, formal evaluation never takes

place but students are observed for evaluating the process. Students
learning process’ consists of trial and error, experimentation, and
revising conclusions and it is relevant that the teacher focuses the
attention on the way his students learn.

In Silent Way classrooms the teacher’s key is not to talk and peer
correction is extensively used. The Silent way uses specialized
teaching materials such as the sound color chart, word charts and Fidel
charts.

This method promotes cooperative learning among students but in

some cases it becomes hard for some learners to understand due to
the autonomous effort each student has to do to acquire knowledge
through the use of this method. In the Silent Way the teacher plays the
role of a neutral observer while learners are responsible for their own
learning process by self correction and cooperative work.

Community Language Learning (CLL): this method was designed

for monolingual classes where the teacher could communicate by
using the learners' mother tongue. The goal of this method is to gain
near native mastery of a foreign language. This is a learner focused
method that makes emphasis on oral communication.

In the CLL, students play a role of collaborative learners because they

are part of a community that has an specific goal: to acquire a foreign
language. The learning process is carried out by counseling among
teachers, students and classmates. Learners listen to what the teacher
or another student says, repeat sentences using the target language,
help among themselves as a community that is learning collaboratively,
and play the role of counselors for helping their peers.

This method compare language learning process with human growth

levels. In the first level, the student is like a baby that needs to repeat
utterances and listen to other people interacting. In the second one, the
student has acquired some independence so he can produce some
sentences by himself. In the third level, the student starts to understand
messages in the target language. In the fourth level, the student is like
a teenager, so he starts asking for corrections. In the fifth and last
level, the student is independent so he improves his understanding,
knowing how to build utterances correctly (grammar usage) and makes
use of expressions to communicate naturally.
The teacher roles in the Community Language Learning are: It is a
counselor that provides translations in the target language and monitor
learners utterances, it is a person that helps students to understand the
language by providing a safe environment and it is a person that
intervenes directly to correct his students errors and grammar usage.

The following are the steps to develop an English class using this
method:

1. The teacher lets students to know the goals of the class.

2. It is presented a conversation in the target language.

3. Students analyze the conversation and are asked to express how

they felt while doing the activity.

4. The teacher takes out some sentences or expressions from the

recording and write them on the board in order to discuss about
specific grammatical aspects.

5. Students are asked to write down on their notebooks the grammar

aspects and expressions that were previously explained on the board.

The Natural Approach places communication as the primary

language function; that is the reason why it focuses on teaching
communicative abilities. According to Krashen and Terrell "acquisition
can take place only when people understand messages in the target
language (Krashen and Terrell 1983: 19). It is not a secret that
language is the medium that human beings use to transmit messages
or communicate meanings.

Second language acquisition should be a natural process like learnig

mother tongue, where the word "acquisition" refers to an unconscious
process for learning a foreign language by its comprehension and
through language usage for meaningful communication. In the Natural
Approach, the teacher speaks only in the target language (the foreign
language that is being studied) and provides students input for
acquisition. On the other hand, students are free to use their mother
tongue or the target language to interact in the classroom.

The teacher does not correct his students oral communication errors,
but correct grammar mistakes through the development of grammar
exercises workshops. The main goal of a Natural Approach classroom
is that students can use the foreign language that are acquiring to
express ideas, develop tasks and solve problems. Stephen Krashen
states that “language acquisition does not require extensive use of
conscious grammatical rules, and does not require tedious drill. That is
why this method prefers that students can produce orally in the
classroom in order to develop the speaking ability in a natural way as
same as they acquired their mother tongue.

Finally, don't forget that in the Natural Approach the students’ role is
focused on meaningful and vocabulary while the teacher must provide
comprehensible input for his students.

Suggestopedia: this method was created with the purpose to

accelerate the learning process in a subliminal form by using positive
suggestion. In the classes, the teacher makes use of soothing music to
create an emotionally comforting environment in order to facilitate
students learning. The Suggestopedia Method has four main stages:
presentation, first or active concert, second concert or passive review
and practice.

In the first stage, the teacher is in charge to help his students to get
relax by having a positive mind and thinking that the learning will be an
easy and fun process where they will acquire knowledge. In the active
concert (second stage), the teacher presents to the students the
material that will be studied that could be the reading of a text
accompanied by classical music at the background.
 In the passive review (second concert), students will listen to their
teacher reading to a text while listening classical music at the
background. The function of the music is to prepare learners with an
optimun mental state to acquire knowledge easily. The final stage is to
review and reinforce the learning through the use of puzzles, games or
any other activity that could contribute with the purpose.

Among the learning goals of the method, we find that suggestopedia

aims to promote the acquisition of an advanced conversational
proficiency quickly and to be able to understand the foreign language
through the teacher's gestures and intonation..

E-Learning as a new paradigm in education

In this second part of the third unit of our English Didacic Course you
will study about e-learning as a new paradigm in education. Before
starting, I want to make the introduction to Virtual Education.

Virtual Education is a methodology that has been implemented for

more than 80 years, but thanks to the new information and
communication technologies (ICT), it has gained strength in the last
two decades. The 90's marked in a great way the reality that we live
today. Since that time, youth discovered the web and e-mail. This
brought a technological revolution since more and more things could
be done on the internet, even to the point of colonizing education with
the birth of E-Learning.

Thanks to the boom of virtuality and ICT, many universities around the
world have included virtual education programs in their academic
options, so that people can professionalize without leaving their homes.
Like any innovation, virtual education or e-learning has brought
advantages and disadvantages, which we will see in details later. The
technological growth that the country has faced in the last decade, has
made that a global trend like virtual education, takes possession in
Colombia in a fast way.

In Colombia, Virtual education began in 1945 with the federal institute

of teaching. At that time, the country had to train more than 90,000
people, and virtual training was the methodology applied. On the other
hand, the pioneer institution of virtual higher education was the
National University of Colombia. Nowadays in Colombia, there are
many universities that offer 100% virtual education programs, but this
is only the beginning of a new paradigm in education that is growing
every day.

E-Learning: If your e-tutor asks you about the meaning of this concept,
your possible answer would be “It’s when people study by using a
laptop and the internet”. This is a base definition that most of people
have, but Which would be a complete and academic definition of e-
learning? As an e-tutor, my personal definition of e-learning is the
following: it’s an educational process mediated by the internet,
information and communication technologies (ICT), where through an
established learning instructional path and the guidance of a virtual
tutor, the student achieves learning goals.

According to an article published on internet by the Corporate training

and e-learning company (Allencomm) on August 18th 2018, e-learning
is training provided via computer or another digital device, allowing
technology to facilitate learning anytime, anywhere.

Like any new paradigm, e-learning or Virtual Education, has been

criticized hard for the teaching population sector. Surely, their negative
criticisms are not based on valid studies but on a simple desire to
discredit a pedagogical model with which they do not identify. Virtuality
seeks to meet the needs of people who want to be professionals and
because of being linked to a job, they cannot go to a physical
classroom. So, through e-learning and the ICT, people obtain their
academic goals without moving from their jobs or homes.

It has been proven that Virtual Educación has increased the number of
students around the world. This increase is due to several reasons
such as:

 The adaptability of the study to personal schedule

 Accommodation of personal work rhythms
 The role of the student in his/her own training process
 The diversity of materials and pedagogical mediators, etc.

E-Learning / Advantages and Disadvantages: previously, the only

way to obtain a professional degree was through face-to-face
education. There was no internet and people who wanted to study had
to go to a university. Now, the internet exists and people use it for
different things such as listening to music, watching movies or just to
upload pictures on the social networks. At the present time, and due to
the development of technology, education has greatly advanced letting
people study from anywhere through a device connected to the
internet. There is something called e-learning that let’s people
educate themself by using technology anytime, anywhere. Virtual
education uses many technological tools for teaching, however, it is
necessary to consider the pros and cons of this modality.

Personally, I consider that are more the advantages that this way of
education has brought to the society. Next, you will study about
the advantages and disadvantages of this new paradigm in
educaction.

There are many reasons why people love e-learning and there are
some others why people think that this new online learning method has
some disadvantages. Let’s look at some of them…
 E-Learning / Advantages E-Learning / Disadvantages
 Just in time learning  Requires computer access
 Standardized learning  Requires internet access
 Self paced learning  Requires basic computer
 Flexible means of assessment skills
 No travel costs  Does not suit all learners
 No classroom accommodation
 Cost effective

Let's make a reflection activity. There are many other reasons that
make e-learning a good option to study. In your personal case as a
virtual student you should have some reasons to say that virtual
education has changed your way to see a learning process. Look at the
following questions and give the answers from your own perspective or
experience.

Important: You don’t have to present or send this activity to your

virtual tutor because this is a self-learning activity for you to check your
progress.

The teacher’s role in Virtual Learning Environments: Some of

the Virtual Teachers’ Roles are to offer innovative and quality teaching,
encourage permanent education, and keep active the attention and
action around the educative goals. For that reason, it is necessary the
acquisition of certain skills such as technology mediator, educational
materials designer, and facilitator of the learning process. All of the
above, in order to influence the student through the tutor's action,
beyond the limits of the Virtual classroom, time and place.
On the other hand, it is quite important to know that in a virtual
constructivist learning environment, the good e-tutor motívate students
by analyzing their representations, giving advice, providing answers to
concerns, and making emphasize on the reflection and articulation of
what has been learned (Jonassen, 2000, p. 242).

The e-tutor must be in permanent contact with his/her students with the
purpose to provide help and guience. It is necessary to make the
students feel confortable and that they feel that even though is a virtual
course, they are not alone during the process.

In Virtual Learning Environments (VLE) the teacher’s role is

fundamental because he/she is the one in charge to guide and promote
students to the construction of knowledge in an individual and
cooperative way. In e-learning, the teacher becomes an assistant
because the student is in charge of his/her own learning process. In
addition to autonomous learning, e-learning promotes cooperative
learning, since it is a didactic technique of a social type, which seeks
for students, through teamwork, to build their learning process in a
cooperative way.

The main goal of cooperative learning is that students learn to work as

a team, and each member contributes fundamentally to achieve the
general objective of the activity which will be the group benefit. Kegan
(1994) says that "Cooperative learning refers to a series of instructional
strategies that includes cooperative interaction from student to student,
on some subject, as an integral part of the learning process."

Technology Mediator: About being a technological mediator, it is

essential to have basic computer skills. The management of ICT as
part of the teaching / learning process is something that facilitates the
tutorial work, as it allows students to be instructed in the use of
platforms and technological tools for the presentation of learning
evidence. The educational technological mediation responds to the
relationship given between the teacher, the students and the content,
under the use of information technologies and communication ICT.

Educational Material Designer: An important characteristic of the

virtual tutor is the ability to create educational digital material. The fact
of creating didactic materials for learning allows the virtual tutor to
design activities for purposes with the learning style of his students in
order to facilitate the knowledge acquisition. To create appropriate
virtual materials we have to take into account three questions: what are
you aiming for?, what might you need to consider? and how do you get
there? To dream, to design and to deliver are fundamental aspects to
have in mind when creating digital materials.

Dream is related to strategies, principles, types of learning and

visioning success. Design is about courses, modules, lessons, online
learning and assessment. And delivery has to deal with staff
development, students engagement, infrastructure, learning spaces,
administration and communities.

Learning Process Facilitator: About the teacher's role as facilitator

of the learning process, it is important to be quite interactive, since it is
essential to be attentive and to monitor students. Another important
aspects are constantly reviewing the platform in order to be aware of
the students' income, and contact them through the different
communication tools in order to provide them with the necessary help
to solve any inconvenience. To inform and remember the closing dates
of units, and motivate students through the different forums, are other
functions that a virtual tutor must perform.

According to Paulsen, the teacher must motivate students and create

the appropriate environment to facilitate the process in order to provide
an Autonomous Learning to build knowledge (Paulsen, 1992 en
Cabero, 2001, s/p). This same author establish four types of
tutorials that will be analyzed next

Motivational Guidelines: The e-tutor explains to the students the

activities and its learning goals. The purpose of the teacher is that
students undertand the importance of the activities in the virtual
learning process in order to create motivation for students develop the
tasks, so, they can get signifcant knowledge. The desire to learn is the
key and a necessary element for a successful learning process. If the
student does not wish to learn, or does not show appropriate
disposition, there will be no acquisition of knowledge. So, in this part is
when the e-tutor must be creative to motívate students to learn. Now,
the question is, how can I motívate my students to learn? Let’s look at
some tips:

 To look for specific things that impassion students. It could be a

topic, a learning method, etc.
 To use dynamic and innovative technological tools to present new
information to the students.
 Take into account the students’ learning style in order to present
relevant content that captures the attention and interest of the
learners.
 Give a pragmatic approach to the content. It is important to show
students how to put into practice what they have learned in order
to acquire meaningful learning.

Control and regulation of students' performance: In this part of the

teaching and learning process, the e-tutor has to analyze and control
the students’ competences through strategies that let them build
knowledge. The e-tutor must suggest routes and provide relevant extra
study material and of course to give the appropriate feedback and
guiance for having a susccesfull educative process.
Do not forget that the platform is not the only place where students can
get information to learn. E-tutors should motivate students to
investigate for additional material. Remember that in internet students
can get any kind of information, so here is when teachers must control
this resources and guide students to reliable information sources.

Stimulate reflection: It is the duty of the virtual tutor to stimulate

reflection in students. To acquire meaningful knowledge, it is necessary
for students to analyze the results of their learning evidences, in order
to make self-reinforcement. Students should learn to self-question and
the e-tutor must start creating on their minds the habit of self-reflection.

Let’s analyze the following situation. Your students had to develop a

research about “how to increase English oral participation in students
of 8th grade in an specific high-school”. After finishing their work, they
report that a good strategy to make students speak is by making
debates in which learners talk about a specific topic of their interest.

Then, is when the teacher must ask them a question in order to

students explore different options. “It was very good, congratulations,
but, Why not to design some funtional communication activities to start
English oral participation in the students?

Disturb the designs: I would like to start this part with the following
quote: “The world is a university and everyone in it is a teacher. Make
sure when you wake up in the morning, you go to school.” ―T. D.
Jakes. After reading the previous quote I can say that we never stop
learning and that we can learn new things everyday from anyone.

Now, how is related the text above with Disturb the Designs? When
you are an e-tutor, you are constantly assigning tasks to your students
for getting learning evidences about their learning process. After
verifying and analyzing the evidence presented by the students, it is
possible to find faults related to the design of the activity. This is when
the e-tutor must ask him/herself how to improve or reinforce this
weakness. Will the redesign of the activity achieve better learning
outcomes in students? It could be that a student let you see through
his/her performance how to adjust or adapt the content or an activity in
order to obtain better results in the virtual learning process.

Hey e-buddy. Let's continue analyzing the next chart about the e-
tutor's moderating role.

The e-tutor's moderating role: “The e-tutor is an educational

facilitator that contributes with specialized knowledge. The tutor must
focus the discussion on the critical points, formulate questions and
respond to student contributions, give coherence to the discussion and
highlight emerging issues” (Silva Quiroz Juan. 2010). As stated by Hiltz
(1995, in Adell and Sales, 1999), the e-tutor as moderator of any
debate should develop different kinds of activities:

 Introduce topic's discuss: It is the duty of the virtual tutor to

establish the topic and to open the academic debate.
 Encourage participation: The virtual tutor should encourage
students to participate in the debate by presenting their points of
view and giving their opinions.
 Provide information: It is essential to provide students with the
appropriate material to participate properly in the debate.
 Integrate and guide participations: It is necessary to associate
the established topic with the ones that rise in the debate to
extend knowledge.
 Globalize learning: It is essential to associate the topic of debate
with the topics previously seen in order to facilitate the acquisition
of new knowledge.
 Ask questions: The virtual tutor must invite dialogue through
questions in order to motivate the exchange of ideas.
  Summarize: Once the debate is over, the tutor must present a
summary that includes everything discussed above.
 Provide help: Help students to improve their writing skills in order
to express correctly their ideas or opinions.

A virtual student is an active and interactive person, who has certain

communicative characteristics, and technological skills that facilitate
the construction of knowledge through research and collaborative
online work. It is important to mention that the virtual student should
have a series of technological competences, in order to respond to the
demands of a competitive environment in a globalized world, such as
autonomous learning, staying online and being part of the cybersociety.

In order to carry out a successful learning process, the virtual student

must acquire a series of characteristics that will help him/her to achieve
the goals in the educational process. Next, you will study the five main
characteristics that a student should have to classify to a virtual
modality program.

Active and interactive: as a good digital being and a member of a

cybersociety, the successful virtual student is an internet lover. The fact
of staying connected and sharing with other people through social
networks and other online media is a necessity. Sharing states, photos
or just chat on WhatsApp, is considered as a pleasure. Finding
information on mobile devices such as laptops, smartphones, tablets or
making purchases and online transactions, is essential for a digital
being. Being active and interactive is essential to successfully
participate in a virtual training process, since the student must be
restless, move through the platform, and communicate with the tutors
and peers.

Written communication: it is true that in a learning process mediated

by ICT and virtual platforms, there are video and audio tools for
communication, but it must be recognized that written language plays a
fundamental role in transmitting ideas or opinions through forums or
text reports. The quality of writing of a virtual student and the handling
of relevant vocabulary are directly related to the quality of the learning
evidences. Written communication is considered a fundamental aspect
of any educational process, even more so if a virtual platform is being
used to carry out the teaching / learning process.

Commitment and credibility with the virtual modality: Although

many people believe that virtual education is synonymous with facility,
it is necessary to understand that this educational modality could be
the same, or more demanding than a classroom course. The
commitment and dedication shown by the student will determine the
success of the process. On the other hand, the virtual student must be
aware that learning is linked to effort, carried out to achieve the
competencies required by the course through self-learning and
research.

Technological skills: the fact that the teaching / learning process take
place through virtual platforms, requires that the student possess a
series of technological competencies in order to be able to function
properly in the virtual environment. Obviously, it is not necessary to be
an expert in technology, but to have basic computer skills and ICT
management are required for presenting learning evidences, and to
navigate through the different menus offered by the virtual campus.

Willingness to share knowledge and learn collaboratively: One of

the fundamental aspects in virtual education is the fact of sharing
opinions, contributions or ideas through tools such as forums. In virtual
education, the student does not only learn from the pedagogical
mediator, but also from the classmates through the contributions to the
forums or working groups. Thematic forums are spaces of great
importance in virtual education, since through these, students expose
their points of view in relation to a topic, and can analyze and learn
about the opinions of their peers. As mentioned by Dickinson in one of
his works "The student will receive feedback from other participants in
the debate and he/she becomes more aware of his/her own learning."
(Dickinson, 2003).

Remember that in online learning processes is not the teacher who

teaches but the digital learning material or pedagogical mediator. That
is the reason why these contents must be created and produced
following an instructional design that allows students to learn in an
autonomous way. We know that a specific educational content is good
if students learn by themselves without asking any question to the
virtual tutor. I am not saying that is not good to ask questions to the
tutor, but when the quality of the learning contents are as good that
students don't need an extra explanation to understand a topic. In
virtual education, students must be the center of attention of pedagogy
and didactic and the contents sould be related to their socio-cultural
context.

Learning implies a change or transformation and it’s related to the way

we think. The learning process is a daily phenomenon that takes place
along the whole life. In virtual education, both, students and tutors learn
in a constructivist way. People inrolled in a virtual educational process
learn in a cooperative way through interaction within a virtual context.
Tutors and students are all part of a cybersociety who interact to build
knowledge.

E-learning provides the students a context where the intensive use of

Information and Communication Technologies are the main tools for
the study and presentation of evaluative learning activities. In other
words, ICTs are the mediators between learning and the result of the
process. In addition to autonomous learning, e-learning promotes
cooperative learning, since it is a didactic technique of a social nature,
which seeks that students, through teamwork, build their learning in a
collaborative way.

Writers Johnson, D., and Johnson, R. (1987) define Cooperative

Learning as “A set of instructional methods for small group application,
training and development of mixed skills (learning personal and social
development), where each member of the group is responsible for his
learning and for the learning of the rest members of the group”. The
main objective of cooperative learning is that students learn to work in
teams, and that each member contributes in a fundamental way to
achieve the general objective of the activity, which will be of group
benefit.

Forums are spaces of great importance in virtual education, since

through them, students expose their points of view in relation to a
specific topic, and can analyze and learn about the opinions of their
classmates. As Dickinson quoted in one of his works, "The student will
receive feedback from other participants in the debate and become
more aware of their own learning." (Dickinson, 2003).

In virtual education, the development of tasks plays an important role,

since through them, the student shows his tutor learning evidences.
Learning through task development is based on constructivist and
cognitivist teaching models. Taking into account the anthropological
approach, it could be affirmed that man is an entity with an open mind
and capable of constructing his own knowledge.

According to Aznar (1992), man is conceived as:

 A being, who has to be built.

 An open being, which means that people can build their lives
based on their purposes.
 A being who needs to build himself through his activity.
 A being who has a language, which enriches his possibilities of
action.
 A being who requires a medium to interact with.
Tutorial videos are one of the main tools for teaching in virtual
education, since they are considered relevant elements in the teaching-
learning process. Videos provide students with exact explanations with
which they learn in a thoughtful and conscious way, allowing them to
acquire knowledge in order to fulfill the objectives established by the
course. The video as a mean of instruction in the educational field, is in
a privileged place in relation to others, since it is a broadcast channel
aimed at groups of people with common (educational) interests who
will be able to watch the material any time and the times they want it for
the purpose of acquiring skills in a certain topic or area.

In virtual education, the most used type of video is the “Video Lesson”,
since in the absence of a physical classroom, it is used as a mean to
instruct students, providing them with the acquisition of knowledge and
showing them practical examples.

In online educational processes the tutor doesn’t teach lessons. There

aren’t any meetings where the he is the center of attention. Isntead of
that, students are in charge of building their own knowledg an they are
the main characters of the learning process. The success of online
education is related to the design of the contents, the proposed
activities and the established goals set for developing the process.
Most of the learning is carry out through feedback and this is a process
called “behavioral self-control”.

Methodologies in Virtual Learning Environments: as every new

paradigm, e-learning or Virtual Education, has been criticized by a
sector of the teaching population. Surely, their negative criticisms are
not based on valid studies, but on a simple desire to discredit a
pedagogical model with which they do not feel identified with.

The learning platforms become in Cybersocieties that through the use

of synchronous and asynchronous methodologies, students build
knowledge with the guidance of a tutor and with the use of pedagogical
mediators. The virtual classroom is the meeting place where teachers
and students decide what they want to do and how to do it in order to
achieve the objectives proposed by the academic program. Virtual
platforms are the technological tools that serve to deliver or distribute
the courses to a final user. The platforms have a friendly interface, and
its execution is through any internet browser.

The Virtual Education is a learning and teaching system that uses the
Information and Communication Technologies, as an effective mean
for the comprehensive training of the students regardless of their
geographic location. The appropriate use of these technologies in
educational processes necessarily requires the articulation of
pedagogies, didactics, methodologies, study materials, learning
strategies and innovative communication strategies that motivate the
students.

What is the model to follow in virtual learning environments?

Once selected the methodology and didactics to be applied within a

virtual teaching process, it is necessary the use of the Information and
Communication Technologies (PC and Internet) to make use of the
digital materials and resources. The students' learning strategies
accompanied by communication, interaction, interactivity and
cooperative learning will take students to acquire significant
knowledge.

Flipped Classroom: According to Collazos and Mendoza (2006, p.

65), Flipped Classroom, proposes to reverse the activities usually
carried out in the classroom to make way for other activities that favor
learning in collaborative environments. As claimed by Carvalho and
McCandless (2014), what was traditionally done in the classroom, such
as the content display, is taken outside of it as a pre-class activity; and
in the same way, activities that were normally given as tasks to do at
home or outside the classroom, now become in participation activities
within the class. But the question is, how a methodology like the flipped
classroom can be applied in Virtual Learning Environments?

Flipped classroom is an approach focused on the student and his/her

learning. "The goal of this approach is to redirect attention, take it away
from the teacher and put it on the student and his/her learning"
(Bergmann and Sams, 2012, p. 15). As we studied in the previous lexia
"in online education, students are in charge of building their own
knowledge and they are the main characters of the learning process".
So, flipped classroom is an ideal methodology to be applied in Virtual
Learning Environments (VLE). On the other hand, Teachers who put
into practice the flipped classroom approach, depend on the use of
technology for the development and distribution of the content. This is
another reason why this approach is relevant when we refer to e-
learning.

Flipped classroom implies to take a different view towards the

teaching-learning process. First, the e-tutor must be able to select the
content to be distributed. Then, he must make use of his digital skills to
design materials according to his students needs. In addition, e-tutor
must be ready to allow his students to take charge of their own learning
and help them become autonomous.

The main characteristics of the flipped classroom are:

 Active learning
 Use of the Information and Communication Technologies
 The tutor's role change
 Inclusiveness
 Personalized learning.
 Continuous formative evaluation.

In the flipped classroom approach, the tutor is in charge to plan and

design the teaching/leaning process through the use of the information
and communication technologies and the different methodologies,
approaches, and strategies, but always making enphasis on a
cooperative learning in the educational process. On the other hand,
students develop the learning activities and receive feedback from the
e-tutor and classmates as well.

Flipped classroom advantages

 It increases the students' commitment because they are in charge

of their learning process by developing cooperative learning
activities.
 It allows students to learn at their own pace, since they have the
possibility of accessing the material at any time and place, as
many times as they need.
 It personalizes the student learning process.
 It turns the virtual classroom into a space where ideas are shared,
questions are asked and doubts are solved, strengthening
interaction and promoting critical, analytical and creative thinking.

Let’s finish the study of this final unit of our Didactic Course answering
the following question: What is a flipped classroom?

A flipped classroom is a place where the learning is personalized, the

roles teacher /student are changed and where the use of active
methodologies are integrated to technology in a transparent mode.

Coritos
Recordemos que el eclecticismo es una corriente de pensamiento que
reconoce la incapacidad de un único sistema educativo.
Teoría o modelo pedagógico para alcanzar el verdadero conocimiento.
En este sentido, el eclecticismo propone la necesidad de
Aplicar diferentes teorías, estilos o ideas dependiendo del caso
concreto de estudio.

How did the teaching of English start?

Let’s start this part studying about the methods and approaches used
to teach English as a Foreign language In this first unit we are not
going to study them deeply but to mention them to have an idea of how
teaching of English started.

One of the first ways used to teach English was The Grammar
Translation Method. This teaching method originated through the
teaching of classical languages.

After that began a revolution about how to teach a second language.

The linguists of that time started looking for better methods to teach a
second language. Because of this, was developed The Direct Method.

Later, was the turn for The "Designer" Methods; in this category we
have the Suggestopedia, The Silent Way and Strategies-Based
Instruction. In the middle of the last century, and as a consequence of
the First World War, was presented a new method of teaching English
known as The Audiolingual Method.

A short time later and due to the emergence of new linguistic theories
was created a new method known as The Natural Approach. Then,
was the turn for the Communicative Language Teaching that now a
days is one of the most famous and known English teaching methods
around the world.

In the third and last unit of this English Didactic Course you will study
about each one of the methods and approaches that have been used
to teach this language through history. Also, you will look at some
advantages that all those methods and approaches could give teachers
to apply in the classroom.

The muddiest point technique

This strategy is about asking students to write about specific topics that
are not clear for them. Topics that are difficult or confusing to
undertand. The goal of this activity is help students to reflect on what
they need to review or reinforce to adquire significant knowledge.

Rotating chair group discussions

This strategy make students to listen in a dinamic way to selected

speakers who make a summary of the topics studied previously.
Students guide the class discussion by rotating roles and selecting the
following speaker once and again. In this way, students reinforce what
they have studied by listening to their peers talk about the different
topics or concepts explained by the teacher in the class.

We can also find some individual learning strategies such as Asking

yourself "What the main idea of the topic explained was” or "putting
the main idea and details into your own words"

Now let's analyze the following mind map in order to understand a little
more about what didactics is and how it works.

Why to teach English?

More people around the world are learning English because it has
become the international language of education and business. Due to
English is the most commonly used language among foreign language
speakers, it is quite important to command the speaking ability to be
competent in the current society. Having said the above we can make
a list of the reasons why it is important and essential to teach English
to people.

A door to success: English as a second language is a valuable tool

that allow people to succeed in a globalized world. Through the
teaching of English, students and future professionals receive the
appropriate training to obtain better advantages in a world where only
the most capable achieve success.

The fact that English is the language of education and business

worldwide, gives people the opportunity to train and establish
relationships with people, companies and institutions around the world.
That is why the English language is considered a door to the success
and to new opportunities.

A fundamental reason why teaching English is necessary is that this

second language has become a fundamental requirement when
applying for a job or entering to a university in order to carry out a
master's degree or a PhDs. On the other hand, job opportunities are
doubled due to the usefulness of the language in all areas.

In addition, people have the opportunity to access thousands of

scientific and technological documents and websites published in
English. It is not a secret to anyone that most academic texts from
different areas of knowledge are in English and that around 56% of
websites have English as their base language.

Language allows people to get to know other cultures and it opens their
minds to new ways of thinking which will make people understand
more clearly aspects of their own culture that they did not see before.
 It has been scientifically proven that learning a foreign language
stimulates the brain by improving all its functions, allowing people to
perform better in their daily occupations.

 Richards, Jack C.(2006). Communicative Language Teaching

today. Cambridge University Press.
 Chiappe, A. (2016). Tendencias sobre contenidos educativos
digitales en América Latina. UNESCO.


 The fact of teaching students a specific vocabulary before

developing a listening exercise, represents a huge help for them,
since it reduces considerably the level of confusion when listening
to a recording, teniendo en cuenta sub skills usada para
paracticar el speaking es necesario estar en contacto con el
idioma que se quiere aprender y asi mismo A substitution process
for not repeating unnecessary words or phrases when speaking
pore so es necesario al momento del diseño de un plan de clases
tiene como objetivo o goal is to motivate students to learn and
acquire significant knowledge in a dynamic and interesting
environment such as: what am I teaching?, who am I teaching
 to?, how will I teach it? and how will I know if the students
understand? are important inquiries to take on mind
 In the Silent Way the teacher plays the role of a neutral observer
while learners are responsible for their own learning process by
self correction and cooperative work Students' learning process
consists of trial and error, experimentation, and revising
conclusions and it is relevant that the teacher focuses the
attention on the way his students learn.
 cuando hablamos teaching listening in the classroom, students
are working in a different language, so, their brains will be working
harder and some of them will present confidence issues as the
recording or our voice is being played. Taking in mind the
previous considerations, the objective would be to create bases
with the purpose of making listening activities accessible to
students, especially when new expressions or vocabulary will be
heard si bien preparer un pre -listening activities to develop
successful listening debe estar centrado en


 Didactics is the art of teaching. It is a discipline of pedagogy that

has as main purpose the intervention in the teaching-learning
process in order to optimize the methods and tools that take part
in this process It is the part of pedagogy specialized in teaching
focused on how to transmit knowledge effectively. It's said that a
learning process is Meaningful when what is going to be learned
can be related to something already learned. In other words, the
fact of having a prior knowledge of something, and to relate it to
something that is going to be learned, allows the student to make
a process of association that facilitates the acquisition of this new
knowledge in an easier way. Taking into account the previous
text, it can be said that Learning is significant when there is a
cognitive change, since the learning process is achieved in the
long term through previous learning experiences. One of the main
goals of a teacher when teaching English as a second language is
to try to reduce students' reading difficulties to maximize
comprehension of the written texts. When reading, students
should follow in an easy way the main points of a written text.
Also, they should be able to understand parts of texts which are
linguistically complex.For that, teachers should make use of some
strategies. The Language Experience Approach.