1st Group Discussion

 Hello, happy to see you again. 

For this week, we continued discussing the fundamental methods, which are the Grammar Translation Method and the Direct Method. Each of them develops two macroskills, one productive and the other receptive. In GTM, reading is the receptive skill and writing is the productive skill. In the case of the Direct Method, listening is the receptive skill and speaking is the productive skill. 

As we can see, developing every macroskill in a language requires the integration of these two fundamental methods. Likewise, each method demands different abilities from the teacher. The GTM needs a deep understanding of grammar, structures, and other aspects of a language in order to transmit a digestible content. The Direct Method also requires a deep understanding of the language, especially its pronunciation. For this method, creativity is the fuel for teaching content without the support of the student's mother tongue as the main teaching resource. 

As I mentioned before, pronunciation is a key element in Direct Method. In the same way as it is for communication in tonal languages such as Chinese, Thai, Navajo, etc. The pronunciaton of these languages cannot be overlooked since a tonal mistake can lead to many kinds of misunderstanding in oral communication. 

After the lesson, we discussed in small groups any ideas that drew our attention. Our group's contribution was the evolution of learning tools such as parallel texts and glossaries. In the Victorian Age, the latter were tools used for learning a language and understanding art politics, and religion, but nowadays these are used to ensure consistency througout a transaltion. 

Moving away from the class content, this week we had a birthday girl! We had some cake, popcorns, and took some photos. 

 

This week I recommend you the song Clouds of the rapper NF. Just from that song I learned many new words.