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This unit covered the different forms of using the Engage-Study-Activate (ESA) teaching methods in a concise and helpful way. I really enjoyed learning about the different activities that can be used in each part of the lesson, such as Consequences or Slow Pictionary. I've used many of the games and techniques in my classroom before but never realized they were part of a specific part of the ESA technique. While reading about the different theories of language learning, I realized my teaching style is most aligned with Task-Based Learning and Communicative Language Teaching because I believe that language learning should first and foremost enable one to fully participate and function in a society that speaks that language; for example, a student should be able to travel to the United States and be able to navigate through school, finding a home, or even ordering food as a result of taking that class. I also really enjoyed the section on correction, since that has always been a difficult area for me in my classroom. I find that I have a habit of jumping in and correcting too quickly or not correcting errors that occur consistently. The three occasions on which we should correct an error is when the error is the language point we are teaching, the error is regular and becoming ingrained, and the mistake impedes understanding. This section on correction also made me think about the error correction techniques I learned during another course on language teaching, such as using hand signals to point out the error non-verbally or creating a similar example and allowing the students to self-correct from that example. Altogether, this section helped me form more ideas to integrate into lesson plans as well as gave me more guidelines in terms of how to make corrections or interact with the class.
