Saturday, September 17, 2016

Combining WASs’ Attitudes with Teaching Strategies

Photo taken over the Gulf of Mexico on August 15, 2016 by Jonathan Acuña

Combining WASs’ Attitudes with Teaching Strategies

By Prof. Jonathan Acuña-Solano, M. Ed.
School of English
Faculty of Social Sciences
Universidad Latina de Costa Rica
Saturday, September 17, 2016
Post 294

          As it was previously introduced in the former post (293), Working Adult Students have a series of attributes (or traits) that comprise the kind of learner s/he is, the essence of who they really are in terms of learning and motivation. Recounting a bit of what this WAS’s description includes, the following attributes are to be borne in mind: Knowledge and Abilities, Self-Concept, Expectations, Needs, and Attitudes. As suggested by Laureate Education (2016), there are different ways to capitalize from all these abilities if the instructor is able to envision the kind of strategy or strategies that can accompany it to have the WAS fully profit from his or her experience.
         
          The following chart intends to explore on the possibilities of adding teaching strategies for the WASs’ knowledge and abilities attribute. Though this is not a conclusive set of strategies, three are correlated with the chosen attribute: schema activation, case studies, and project-based learning (PBL) tasks. Each one will be outlined individually for a better grasp of the possibilities behind each teaching strategy.


          To conclude, any of the WASs’ attributes (Knowledge and Abilities, Self-Concept, Expectations, Needs, and Attitudes) can be used in combination with learning strategies or teaching method. What is suggested here are three different strategies that I have found useful among the English Teaching Learning major students, who also happen to be sitting in any regular course at the university and mostly at night. I am almost certain than more approaches to teaching can be used with the attribute I decided to work on, and needless to mention that you are bound to find more to say in regards the other attributes that were not taken into account for this reflective exercise. Based on my personal experience with language learners and content courses, using schema activation as a simple prior knowledge enlivening technique, lots can be gained with WAS. Cases studies and PBL tasks are wonderful to prompt learners to start using what they are learning in combination with their empirical expertise gained at work.

Happy teaching!

References

Activating Schema. (n.d.). Obtenido de TesolClass.Com: http://www.tesolclass.com/lesson-planning/activating-schema/

Cased Study. (n.d.). Retrieved from BusinessDictionary.Com: http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/case-study.html

Problem-Based Learning (PBL). (n.d.). Retrieved from Learning-Theories.Com: https://www.learning-theories.com/problem-based-learning-pbl.html

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