WEEK 6. LOTS OF LEARNING AND FUN!

This week’s readings focused on strategies to create interactive power point presentations and techniques to teach large classes.


The most interesting thing I learned this week is some guidelines to present material with power point. From this link http://tep.uoregon.edu/technology/powerpoint/docs/presenting.pdf  I learned that if I use power point, I have to emphasize on QUALITY rather than quantity. Besides creating an effective PPT, I also have to develop good communication skills such as the use of nonverbal language to keep my students interested in what I say, not just in the PPT. To keep my student involved in the presentation, I learned that I should ask them to perform a specific pair or group work task where they can interact with their partners and put theory into practice.

By watching these two videos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UgPO-agnnMk
http://www.microsoft.com/education/story.mspx

I learned to create interactive power point presentations such as a jeopardy game, a quiz and an interactive story. I created my own jeopardy game to review the contents of a unit of the textbook my students use and I am planning to play this game next semester. I am also thinking about implementing more interactive quizzes, especially to practice vocabulary and grammar. I am sure my students will love these new activities.

From the article “Teaching Large Classes II – Enhancing Learning by Engaging Students” by Rick Finnan and Donna Shaw, I learned some suggestions to engage students in lectures. For example, I have to use variety, correct pace, include interesting stories, individualization, routines, speaking style, enlarging the cycle and especially collaboration. Small group activities can promote collaboration and facilitate learning and the development of critical thinking skills. Furthermore, collaboration promotes social and emotional development, it helps students to respect and appreciate diversity, and it reduces student attrition. From this reading, I also learned some small group informal activities such as: think-pair-share, concept test, quick-thinks, minute paper, scripted cooperative learning, and so on. You can find more information at this link:
http://umbc.uoregon.edu/eteacher/webskills/material/engaging_students_handout.pdf

Finally, from this link http://serc.carleton.edu/NAGTWorkshops/earlycareer/teaching/largeclasses.html

I learned to use i-class pair and small group activities to make lectures interactive. By giving students the opportunity to work with others, they have opportunities to internalize the information and as a result real learning takes place.

As you can see, I had lots of fun learning these topics this week! I hope this can be useful for you as well.

WEEK 5: PUTTING THEORY INTO PRACTICE.

I learned about three important topics this week: Project-based learning, WebQuests, and alternative assessment. These three approaches are worth using in the EFL classroom because they are student-centered and they allow students to become more autonomous learners. They help students to learn to work in a collaborative way, and they also develop their research skills.

In PBL students take a more active role and they learn to learn, becoming more autonomous learners. So the teacher's role changes and he/she acts as afacilitator who provides clear guidance in order to develop the project. By designing and implementing project based learning, students' motivation to learn increases since they perceive learning in a more realistic way when they complete their projects.
  I recommend checking the link below. There you will find free and updated materials which you can download in order to design, assess, and manage projects. It is a really useful website, it has lots of resources including rubrics to evaluate projects.
http://www.bie.org/tools/freebies

I also learned about WebQuest. According to  Bernie Dodge, a WebQuest is an inquiry-oriented online tool for learning. This means that in order to complete a task students will have to search the web to find the information need to complete a required task or project. WebQuests help students develop high-thinking skills. WebQuest have six key elements: 1.introduction, 2. task, 3. process, 4. resources, 5. evaluation and 6. conclusion. For more information, please check this link.
http://www.thirteen.org/edonline/concept2class/webquests/index_sub3.html


The last reading topic was about alternative assessment. As I mentioned in the Nicenet discussion, the most interesting part is the one related to formative assessment which can be used as a tool for learning. Formative assessment should be designed to provide effective feedback which can help teachers and students identify weaknesses and strengths,  so everybody can improve by reflective practice.  In addition to the readings provided for this topic, I found this information that I want to share with you.

http://www.yorku.ca/univsec/senate/committees/scotl/tevguide.pdf 


Finally, during this week, I did part 4 of my project task which was about technology related change that I would like to implement in my teaching based on my students' needs which are related to the lack of opportunities they have to use English for real communication and the little exposure they have to authentic materials. I am thinking about creating a wiki with extra class tasks based on the use of the web. Another idea I have, is to ask my students to keep a learning log, by using a blog.

Well, this what I have learned this week!!!

WEEK 4: MORE INTERESTING IDEAS TO IMPLEMENT TECHNOLOGY IN OUR TEACHING!!!

During this week, I have read several articles related to the implementation of technology to plan lessons and to develop my students’ communicative competence.

From the link : http://edtech.tennessee.edu/~bobannon/lesson_plan.html   I learned about the importance of planning our lessons based on curriculum standards. We also wrote a technology-enhanced lesson plan using the format provided by the Innovative Technology Center at the University of Tennessee. In order do that, I had to review some concepts about the importance of planning lessons as well as the typical components of lesson plans. This website also includes some useful practice on how to write instructional objectives using the ABDC model.

I also read the paper “Using Technology to Assist in Vocabulary Acquisition and Reading Comprehension” written by Andreea I. Constantinescu from the University of Washington, (Seattle, Washington, USA) http://iteslj.org/Articles/Constantinescu-Vocabulary.html  The most relevant part of this article is that reading and vocabulary comprehension are closely related so in order to help students develop their reading skills teachers have to make use of technology and implement multimedia based- exercises to help them develop their vocabulary knowledge.

Another article I read is ‘E-mailing to Improve EFL Learners' Reading and Writing Abilities: Taiwan Experience” which was written by Chao-chih Liao and published by
 http://iteslj.org/Articles/Liao-Emailing.html  In this paper, the author points out the importance of using email to develop cultural awareness and promote cross-cultural knowledge by establishing key pals projects among ESL / EFL students with other students or native speakers from different countries. The author also gives some suggestions to implement these kinds of projects.

Finally, I checked the web site: http://www.breakingnewsenglish.com/   I recommend it because it has complete lesson plans to develop reading skills by checking some updated and interesting topics. Some of the lessons also include listening exercises.
I encourage you to read these interesting sites!

WEEK 3, AN INSPIRING ONE!!!

The most interesting thing I learned this week comes from task in which I had to read and discuss a past sample model project. I think all model projects are very good and present really innovative ways to use technology in teaching. However, my favorite is the “Project Report for Graduate Students at the Jesuit University of Philosophy and Education "Ignatianum" in Cracow, Poland. written by Joanna Zubel.


The project aimed at proving new technological tools to solve the problem related to the lack of opportunities students had to practice the target language outside the classroom and to reduce the student’s use of L1, Polish, instead of English.

To achieve this goal the author implemented the use of Blackboard virtual learning environment, which is an application that makes use of Internet technology to provide a platform for teaching via the web. With the implementation of Blackboard, her students had more chances to develop their communicative skills by being exposed to English outside the classroom.

I liked her project very much because it reflects the teacher’s hard effort to overcome all the problems related to the lack of technological tools in order to help her students learn English. She really inspired me to make changes in my classes.

This week I also read the article "Developing Listening Skills with Authentic Materials" by Lindsay Miller which talks about the importance of the listening skills in a foreign or second language acquisition. It also presents the methodology that has to be used to teach this skill, which has three stages: pre-listening, while-listening, and post-listening.

Finally, this week I also created my own page on Delicious.com. I’ve only saved 3 bookmarks related to listening and reading so far, but the list will increase during this course.