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Área  Learning theories, Language knowledge

 Classroom Management
 Learners and learning.
Sub-área  Language systems, types of error, handling error
correction in spoken and written language.
1. Planteamiento del problema

For the past seven years, The Scotchburgh English School has been providing language
courses to native speakers of Spanish in Mexico. The school offers English language
courses of all types up to the C1 CEFR level and boasts the use of communicative
methodology and social constructivist foundations to achieve results.
About half of the courses are for exam preparation since it is an authorized testing center
for language exams through a widely recognized university and the other half are General
English or Business English courses. All course syllabi and course books follow a
functional-notional structure which includes language points organized by the complexity
of form. Currently, there are close to two hundred students enrolled in the school and
twenty-two teachers because all of the groups are smaller than fifteen students.
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The school has been successful because of the high pass rates for exams and a mostly-
satisfied body of alumni.
The majority of the teachers are native speakers, many of them from the United States
and Canada. One of these teachers is Mr. Cornell, who is from Canada and has been
teaching for a year and a half at Scotchburgh, the only school at which he has ever taught.
He arrived in Mexico two years ago to take an initial teacher training course at
Scotchburgh and was hired to teach because of his level of English and success in the
course. He decided to stay in Mexico and teach English while learning Spanish in which
he is slowly improving. He began teaching at Scotchburgh while working towards a
certification that enables him to teach Business English as well as the other courses at the
school.
For the past year and a half, Mr. Cornell has been happily teaching General English
courses at the elementary level (A1-A2 CEFR level) without any difficulties,for the most
part. However; one of the courses he is teaching now is a General English course at the
B2 CEFR level and he has found it quite challenging. His lower-level learners have been
happy and have achieved satisfactory results, but his B2 group has posed more of a
challenge for him. This group consists of thirteen adult learners, most of who have studied
English for at least four years. The group has been meeting for the past four months twice
a week for sessions that are two and a half hours long, and they are two months away
from the end of their course.


On this course, a typical lesson involves Mr. Cornell reviewing a previous language point
with the entire group and then demonstrating the use of the current lesson’s target
language. For this demonstration, he uses the whiteboard, images, audio, video, and
other materials selected based on what has given him good results in previous lessons
with the group. Then, the whole group practices the language with exercises in the
coursebook or by speaking one by one with Mr. Cornell. Then, learners either continue
to practice individually with tasks on handouts orwith Mr. Cornell using the materials
preferred by the group.
Whenever learners make any type of mistake when speaking, Mr. Cornell interrupts the
speaker and corrects using recasts, which he learned how to use in his initial teacher-
training course. He prefers this method of giving correctivefeedback and uses it for every
single mistake made. Mr. Cornell does not use any other error correction technique and
does not allow peers to correct each other. When engaged in fluency activities, learners
usually cannot continue speaking after the interruption despite having been speaking
fluently before the correction. Mr. Cornell is unsure why learners stop speaking after his
corrections but he assumes that it is because they are unable to remember what they
were saying.
For written mistakes, Mr. Cornell has the same policy of correcting every single error using
crosses in red ink. This is his least favorite part of teaching and his learners all groan
audibly whenever he hands back papers. These learners all consider themselves weak
writers but prefer writing and reading to speaking.


Almost immediately, after the six-month course began (four months ago) the group of
thirteen learners began asking questions, which were more complex, for which Mr.Cornell
has been unable to provide clarification. He found this embarrassing and told the learners
that knowledge of grammar is not important and that he knows the grammar but they do
not need to know it so he prefers not to explain it.
One question was concerning the use of gerunds and infinitives as nouns. The learners
wanted to know why sometimes one form must be used instead of the other but in other
cases both are acceptable. Mr. Cornell was unable to answerthe question and had to
complete an exercise in the coursebook along with the class while looking at his teacher’s
edition in order to understand the different uses. Even at the end of the lesson, the
language point was mostly unclear to Mr. Cornell and his learners. So, he told them that
with practice they would know when to use each form without having to understand why.
He assured them that they did not need to understand the difference immediately and
that throughpractice they would learn. Still, learners seemed unhappy and Mr. Cornell
realized he needed to be more careful teaching this group than he had been with his
lower- level learners. Although Mr. Cornell has realized a need to improve his knowledge
of grammar in order to teach it in a more effective manner, he has not yet actively begun
to do so.


Another issue, which has arisen, is that learners report being unable to use the language
effectively outside the classroom. Despite this difficulty, they have noticed some
improvement in their ability to read and write, clearly visible from a reduction of the number
of red crosses on their marked papers. So, they know they are improving in some areas
and they have been happy so far with Mr. Cornell’s explanation that they will gradually be
able to listen and speak at a much higher level by the end of the course.
During lessons, the time not spent on speaking to Mr. Cornell or listening to him is spent
practicing reading and writing because he learned in his teacher training course that
students must use all four skills in each lesson. He also believes that if there is enough
use of the language in class, they will achieve a full command of it. This belief is based on
the fact that in his training course there was a heavy emphasis on acquiring the language,
which he thinks is identical to the acquisition heexperienced as a child. He assumes that
learners do not need to worry too much about grammar or explanations because he never
did when he acquired the language as he grew up in Canada.
Last week, for the first time in his career, Mr. Cornell attempted to teach learners how to
use causatives. His aim was for his students to understand and to be ableto use have
as a causative verb to describe services one person does for another. From the beginning
of his presentation, learners were very confused and did not comprehend his examples.
They asked questions about the grammatical pattern but he could not explain the reasons
behind it and told them it was unimportant information.
Learners also asked questions about meaning and use which Mr. Cornell was unable to


answer. He was very unclear to his learners because he himself did not truly understand
the structure, so he moved on to the next (and final) stage of his lesson. In this stage, he
asked the learners to complete a worksheet requiring them to read a paragraph about
people having various other people do things for them(e.g. have their hair cut) and
complete a series of questions about who had done which activities. The learners became
even more confused and were completely unable to do the task.
After having worked for ten minutes on the task, learners became extremelyfrustrated and
asked for the teacher´s help. Mr. Cornell gave them a few of the answers and they became
even more confused and asked for clarification. He was unable to provide any more
support and two learners walked out of the classroom to complain about their teacher.
Another teacher had to go into the classroom and take over the lesson while Mr. Cornell
talked to the school Principal.
The Principal listened to him and explained that he understood the difficulty but that if
Mr. Cornell were unable to remedy the situation, a different teacher would have to take
over his course. This would mean that Mr. Cornell would only be allowed to teach lower-
level courses at the school if he were unable to regain his learners’ confidence and help
to achieve success in the course. He was very embarrassed and has now decided to do
everything possible to remedy the situation.


2. Consignas por resolver
1. Comment on the appropriateness of Mr. Cornell’s views on language systems in

this situation, specifically grammar, and of his degree of inclusion of this system in
his teaching practice. Identify any areas of opportunity and suggest any necessary
changes in his views on grammar.
2. In what ways could Mr. Cornell become more informed in the area of language
knowledge? What resources could he use, and what steps could he taketowards
this end?
3. Comment on the degree of appropriateness of the corrective feedback techniques
Mr. Cornell uses. How effective is Mr. Cornell’s manner of handling errors? Provide
detailed reasoning for your answer including validated alternatives could he adopt.
4. Mention the main differences between learning and acquiring a language.
5. Reflect on the advantages and disadvantages native teachers have when teaching
their mother tongue.
6. Outline steps that Mr. Cornell could use to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses
of future teaching decisions he makes and implements. Use at least one of the
changes needing to be made in this situation as an example and support answers
with information from relevant sources.
7. Create a list of action points that Mr. Cornell should follow in order to help him
remedy the weaknesses identified in his teaching-learning situation in order of
importance.


8. Identify the two language points from the narrative which Mr. Cornell hasstruggled
to understand and teach. Describe the cause of each difficulty for Mr. Cornell in a
detailed manner with examples as necessary.
9. Consider this language point: The use of the infinitive vs. the gerund form of verbs
in conjunction with other verbs such as like and create a communicative activity to
practice it.
10. Design a lesson plan for a lesson in which students are expected to learn howto
use the verb have as a causative verb. Justify all decisions made and include all
necessary appendixes


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Proceso de Acreditación de los Docentes de Inglés

CLAVE DE CASO: 019-LEI-SSL

Área  Learning theories, Language knowledge

1. Planteamiento del problema

ADVERTENCIA: QUEDA ESTRICTAMENTE PROHIBIDO CUALQUIER TIPO DE REPRODUCCIÓN,

Centro Nacional de Evaluación para la Educación Superior, A.C.

ADVERTENCIA: QUEDA ESTRICTAMENTE PROHIBIDO CUALQUIER TIPO DE REPRODUCCIÓN,

Centro Nacional de Evaluación para la Educación Superior, A.C.

ADVERTENCIA: QUEDA ESTRICTAMENTE PROHIBIDO CUALQUIER TIPO DE REPRODUCCIÓN,

Centro Nacional de Evaluación para la Educación Superior, A.C.

ADVERTENCIA: QUEDA ESTRICTAMENTE PROHIBIDO CUALQUIER TIPO DE REPRODUCCIÓN,

Centro Nacional de Evaluación para la Educación Superior, A.C.

ADVERTENCIA: QUEDA ESTRICTAMENTE PROHIBIDO CUALQUIER TIPO DE REPRODUCCIÓN,

Centro Nacional de Evaluación para la Educación Superior, A.C.

ADVERTENCIA: QUEDA ESTRICTAMENTE PROHIBIDO CUALQUIER TIPO DE REPRODUCCIÓN,

Centro Nacional de Evaluación para la Educación Superior, A.C.

2. Consignas por resolver

1. Comment on the appropriateness of Mr. Cornell’s views on language systems in

ADVERTENCIA: QUEDA ESTRICTAMENTE PROHIBIDO CUALQUIER TIPO DE REPRODUCCIÓN,

Centro Nacional de Evaluación para la Educación Superior, A.C.

ADVERTENCIA: QUEDA ESTRICTAMENTE PROHIBIDO CUALQUIER TIPO DE REPRODUCCIÓN,

Centro Nacional de Evaluación para la Educación Superior, A.C.

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