The Human Mind and the Body: Understanding the Connection,

Asociación Cooperadora de la Facultad de Lenguas

Lugar: Córdoba; Año: 2011 p. 115

978-987-1308-74-3

The connections between the human mind and the body are a fascinating topic to explore.In conjunction with such topics as communication and language, social conflicts and dilemmas, conformity and prejudice, and music and painting, the connections between the human mind and the human body constitute the thematic background against which English Language III students at the School of Languages (Facultad de Lenguas, Universidad Nacional de Córdoba) embark on the task of developing and enhancing their linguistic skills. To post-intermediate and advanced students, understanding how the mind and the body are related may be a genuinely stimulating challenge.As ESL teachers specializing in these levels, however, we have also often encountered insecurity on the part of some of our students and even reluctance to participate in classes which promote the active and lively discussion and expression of ideas which center around scientific or medical issues. We have also noticed that such fears are rooted in the perception that a person has to be well versed in science to be able to express an opinion or communicate a response. FONT-FAMILY: ; mso-fareast-language: ES; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold" lang We have designed the present material for our students? in-class and out-of-class work taking special note of two different groups of students: the ones who are naturally inclined to enjoy science-related content and the ones who would also do so, if they could only overcome their initial fears: We have addressed the needs of the former by including listening and reading texts which deal with a variety of perspectives on such topics as fears and phobias, emotional literacy, and alternative medicine, as well as material which presents or describes original, engaging, unusual, and controversial ways of dealing with certain ailments and psychological conditions.We have provided student-friendly background information about common disorders and increasingly popular treatments. we have designed activities and tasks which will involve all students alike in a multiplicity of collaborative tasks in which they will be able to share and allay their fears, learn from one another, and construct their knowledge following individual and shared pathways. the point of view of our language teaching goals, the present material purports to fulfill at least four major objectives. important objective underlying the selection and organization of all the contents is the encouragement of language-promoting interaction through the integration of all the language skills and sub-skills.Following the communicative approach known as ?Tapestry Approach,? developed and advocated by Scarcella and Oxford (1992), we have structured the materials is such a way as to integrate the practice of all the skills, rather than dissecting language instruction into rigidly separated skill compartments.emphasis on meaning, exposure to naturally occurring authentic language, the opportunity for the expression of personal ideas, peer feedback, and various forms of cooperative learning. We subscribe to the view that vocabulary acquisition, in particular, occurs in both incidental and intentional ways.  , there is a special emphasis in the present materials on explicit instruction of content-specific vocabulary, as our next main objective, based on current research which suggests that explicit vocabulary may have the added effect of increasing students? interest and motivation to learn lexical items and collocations.The content unit intersperses a series of vocabulary exercises with the integrated practice of the major skills and offers an additional consolidation section at the back of the set.This section provides students with the opportunity to develop and enhance their lexical competence.In the selection and design of activities for vocabulary acquisition, the authors have followed the five-stage cycle model proposed by Brown and Payne (1995), by which all strategies fall into five essential steps: (1) having sources for encountering new words, (2) getting a clear image, either visual or auditory or both, for the forms of the new words, (3) learning the meaning of the new words, (4) making a strong memory connection between the forms and meanings of the words, and (5) using the words., students will acquire content-specific vocabulary throughout the practice of the major skills of speaking, listening, reading, and writing. Teaching and Learning in the Language Classroom, Tricia Hedge (2000) builds a picture of teachers? perceptions of the self-directed learner, which we would like to share with our students. know their needs and work productively with the teacher towards the achievement of their objectives? classFAMILY: Wingdings; mso-fareast-language: teachers of English Language III, we propose the development of self-directed learners in the manner described by Hedge as our third main objective in our language course, because we believe that successful students take the initiative in learning and assume responsibility for it. We have designed these course materials to enable our students to develop their own plans for pursuing and achieving their goals, to learn how to use materials and resources effectively, to organize their time for learning, and to engage in the active development of successful learning strategies.Practices oriented toward the promotion of learner autonomy vary a great deal.According to one possible taxonomy, Benson (2001) subdivides approaches to the fostering of autonomy into six categories: resource-based, technology-based, learner-based, classroom-based, curriculum-based, and teacher-based.  The course materials we present have been enriched by the inclusion of a blended learning component, which combines in eclectic ways the first three approaches to the development of self-learning strategies and skills.The self-study components are web-based authentic materials which are made an integral part of the course materials by means of pre-computer, online, and post-computer tasks, our fourth major objective has been the creation of opportunities for students to profit from a variety of resources available on the web. Gradually, our students should be able to develop the notion that their learning can take place beyond the walls of the classroom through technology-based resources which are not merely decorative frills but legitimate tools for knowledge acquisition and reinforcement. The Human Mind and the Body Understanding the Connection, we aspire to awaken a genuine interest in science-related topics among our students. No less important are the four main objectives which we have delineated as part of our language teaching goals.The materials contain sections for in-class activities and for out-of?class practice, consolidation, and research. They include tasks and activities to promote the integrated practice of all the language skills and sub-skills, research on specific content and linguistic items, exercises to develop and enhance students? lexical competence, exciting activities to enlarge their repertoire of learning strategies, and carefully selected Internet resources.It is our hope that our students take advantage of this opportunity to become autonomous language learners and to acquire or enhance their science-related knowledge.