ASTRINGENTS.pdf Pharmacognosy chapter 5 diploma in Pharmacy
Final projectfahafhao
1. Final Project
3rd
Semester
“What you do today can improve all your tomorrows”
Ralph Marston
Teachers: Nadia Patricia Mejía Rosales, Ana Virginia Garduño
Álvarez Tostado, Julio Cabrales, Isaías Sigoña and Natanael
Delgado Alvarado.
Team 4 Members:
Jaema Macias Breceda, Hazel Jaquez Sepúlveda, Cristian David
Cortez and Alejandro Huerta Zamarripa
June, 3rd 2013
2. Observation
We went to the Centro Universitaro Promedac to observe an English class. The staff at
the Promedac was able to let us observe an upper intermediate class of high school
students. The day we went it was the only English class available. The teacher´s name
is Pedro, very respectful man and was in the classroom before the students got there.
He let us know in advanced that his lesson plan for the class was going to be a review
for an exam they were having the following day.
Aim of the lesson
The aim of the lesson was to review the past perfect and the past perfect continuous,
because the students were having an exam on that topic the following day. The aim was
also to check homework based on that subject to reinforce it and solve doubts.
Grade, class size and abilities.
The students we observed were high school “freshmen” of an intermediate level. The
classroom was very clean, average size and the class was a bit small, with only 14
students. Having this low number of students we think it makes it easy for the teacher
to have a better learning environment. It is important to mention that the teacher spoke
English the whole time and the fluency of the students was excellent.
First activity: Take attendance and Check Homework
The teacher took attendance and then told students to open their book to check the
homework. The teacher would volunteer one student to read the exercise along with the
answer, if the answer was correct he would say the whole sentence again for the
students to repeat after him. If the answer was wrong he would explain why it was
wrong and give another example on the board.
The teacher was applying the Behaviorist perspective because he was using repetition,
while checking homework.
Second Activity: Working in groups of 3 to create dialog.
After the class and the teacher finished checking the homework, the teacher gave clear
instructions to the students to get in groups of 3. The purpose of the group activity was
for them to make a dialog using the past perfect and the past perfect continuous. At the
beginning of the activity it seemed to be going smoothly but after a couple of minutes
the students started to go off topic. The teacher stopped the activity, one group went to
the front to present their dialog and the teacher made corrections if needed. In this
activity the teacher was trying to promote communication and productive knowledge.
3. Third activity: Book exercises
The students worked on some exercises on the book, the topic was the same like the
activities before. Once again the teacher would state something and the students would
repeat. There were some words that the students did not fully understand so the
teacher would use his body or relate to something previously seen. But repetition took
place in most of the activity. The teacher used total physical response and behaviorism.
The activity was not helpful at all because the students were distracted doing other
things, we believe that too much repetition was boring for them. These particular
students are in the age where it is hard to keep them interested, so we figured another
activity to keep them interested and keep them from having an incomplete success
process. Even though the Critical Period Hypothesis claims that there is a biological
determined period when language can be acquired easily, there is also a time when
language is more difficult to acquire, with this students we observe that their English
level was good along with the pronunciation. So age was definitely not an affecting
factor. The students just needed a more dynamic activity.
Based on what we observed we think that adding a game would be more challenging
and would motivate the students. In the class there were some anxious students who
didn’t take advantage of the opportunities to speak and others who didn’t worry about
the inevitability of making mistakes. Here is where two important factors of SLA come
together, motivation and personality. Playing a game that will result in having a winner
at the end would be beneficial towards the student’s exam and this activity motivates
the students to try a little harder while they are having fun. The students who didn’t
participate much during the other activities will feel more comfortable participating
playing the game.
Status of Students
Based on what we observed in the classroom and the theories we saw in adolescent
development we agreed that the student’s characteristics fall into James Marcia’s
Identity Statuses. Marcia suggests that there are four identity statuses in developing
who we are as individuals. Based on the age of the students we believe they are in the
process of developing who they are. For example they are starting to think about their
ideal career, they are developing interest in political and religious beliefs. Their wants
and interests might change with time or experience.
It is helpful for teachers to know these stages because they can take the tutor role
where they can work with individuals or small groups and have more personal contact.
By this we mean giving the students a real chance to feel supported and helped.
Finding out what they like, what they want to be can also help the students to make a
commitment, in this case with learning a second language, if it is what the student really
likes. If the students make a commitment to really focus and learn the second language,
4. the learning process will be great not just for the student but also for the teacher
because he/she already knows the commitment and desires of the student. They will be
able to work together as a team.
Conclusion
Based on the observation of the class review we determined that the teacher was using
the audio-lingual method. When he was checking the homework repetition and
restatement took place. The students’ English level was impressive and all the speaking
was in the target language. If the students had a doubt about a word or grammar, the
explanation was NOT in the native language instead the teacher used total physical
response. The use of total physical response is a great tool to put to practice when
trying to describe something, instead of going immediately back to the native language.
The teacher used face expressions and body movements.
When the teacher was checking the homework, he would ask a student to say the
answer of the book exercise and after the students answer, the teacher would use the
repetition technique. The students would repeat what the teacher would say. The
teacher made very clear the importance of the accurate pronunciation, correcting
students. Even though the teacher was active and served as model to get the right
pronunciation the class was just too repetitive. He did a great job modeling the correct
pronunciation of words and the students were guided to produce response and also
reacted to stimuli, but not all of them were encouraged to start interacting when they
had the chance because it could lead to making mistakes.