Ending...

The course has definitely been useful to me. I have learnt more about how to use technology in my job as an English teacher. There are more tools in my mind now, but I know the limitations we have, here at work. Therefore, taking into considerations those constraints, I will list which topics have been and will be useful to me because I am sure I will use them.

       Lesson planning is definitely what we actually have to do all the time and despite the format, we need to state objectives. Having read about the ABCD criteria, I have a better idea of how to narrow an objective considering the Audience (the learners) Behaviour (learners’ capability to show knowledge or skill in any of the different learning aspects) Condition (the condition necessary to accomplish the behavior) and the Degree (that shows the standard for acceptable performance). This topic has been and will be useful in any condition and for any type of objective not only for the ones related to using technology, so this is a plus in my mind now.

       The fact of having access to Delicious.com is and will be useful to me since I have some important websites saved there and actually I am used to saving many interesting website there because I know I am going to use them and I will not spend much time looking for them.

      This course has also been refreshing on certain topics which are relevant to keep in mind all the time in our job such as:

-       The importance of working on pronunciation,

-       How useful is process writing,

-       Lesson planning and the plan B,

-       How to work with projects, 

-   Assessment through rubrics,

-      The importance of teacher’s silence,

-       Promoting autonomous learning,

-       The issue of learning styles and 

-    Multiple intelligences.

 According to my real situation here at my work centre, there are some tools  I consider very

useful such as:

-          Webquest,

-          Blogs,

-          Nicenet,

-          Padlet ,

-          The use of power point and the interactive ideas,

-          The use of the mobile phone in class and

-          How to be resourceful when dealing with one computer classroom.

THANK YOU SO MUCH ...
MY TOOL BOX IS FULL OF NEW IDEAS!

OPEN ROAD...

This week has been definitely different to me, as I have felt not being in a rush …plenty of time since I am on my free week before we go back to work start all over again.

Learning styles has been the issue this week, and it has been useful to remind us that learners have their own individual differences and which among all of them, there is one that counts on our teaching success or failure, and that is the way they learn which is unique in everyone. Therefore, it is vital to consider it when planning our lessons.

Revising Howard Gardner and his nine multiple intelligences focused on the use of technology has been challenging because this is topic, I particularly had seen long ago, and when working on the discussion I felt like updating an old song with a new version. I decided to try thinking about how I would apply it taking into consideration a topic in order to narrow the horizon.

 

Project Task 8: Final Project/ Plan Report - due Friday, March 6

Following our partner’s feedback ,the template and rubric we had to work on our final project to have it neat and ready to be checked. Looking forward to the experts’ comments!!

FEEDBACK & EXPLORING

Working on the project draft has been so helpful because our due date is next week and trying to complete every single aspect required in the template has been good to do a good final report later on. Besides reading someone else’s project is absolutely enriching to everyone.

Working on the feedback takes you to be on someone else’s feet. Ideas spring your mind and it is nice to share and help. On the other hand, getting feedback helps you have an idea of what you did well and what areas you still need to improve.

This week has also been nice because we have been taken on a tour around different websites with lots of good ideas to work offline and online. I have found myself adding links to my delicious page.  I particularly decided to create a Nicenet since I am very concerned on what to do when I take students to our lab and in a way engage them to follow up linked when they are at home.

LEARNING...

This week has been devoted to lots of reading related to Autonomous language learning and here I would like to highlight some ideas that as a teacher I need to do in order to apply the main ideas I have learnt and posted at Nicenet.

1.      I need to learn to delegate some of my work to my learners so that they become responsible of their own learning to a certain level.

2.      Some students are used to being fed with knowledge and are not able to learn by themselves then it is a must for me to provide some help so that they become learners able to learn to learn.

3.      I should involve my learners in activities in which they have to deal with as a network to socialize as people person and to learn one another so that they do not think they are working alone.

4.      There are lots of websites which promote self-teaching.  However it would be my job to teach learners some self-assessment and self-reflection.

‘No phone’ has been one of my rules recently since students are used to be chatting online while they are in class. ‘Say goodbye to your friends online’ has been one of the expressions I have said very often lately. However, having read so many things we can do by using them,has let clear in my mind that I have to use this to my students’ advantage.

I have thought about using the messenger application called WHATSAPP since with this application students would be able to instant messaging. Whatsapp also gives you the chance to send images, video, and audio media. If we analyze it from the perspective of a language teacher, students might be able to develop the four basic language skills.

I have recently read someone else's conversation thanks to whatsapp. The conversation can be captured as an image and be sent as a photo.

I definitely  think teaching Reported Speech using Whatsapp would be much more fun next time!

Our daily classrooms here at my work have a computer and multimedia, if I want my students to work with a computer each one, we need to previously book the laboratory.

I like doing multitasking, but I never thought about using the computer in class as a station and that is exactly what I am going to do next time. I just have to organize it well to avoid bottle neck.

Posting on our class Padlet has made me think about a new possibility to encourage autonomous learning and the chance of having an activity which will help our students not feeling ‘alone’ because the idea of ‘sharing’ what you know is the best way to learn.

I have created one just to feel what it is like. I have posted trailers with some ideas for the students to work and develop listening comprehension. Here is the link.http://es.padlet.com/belindalidiazav/l3tqoug7qjws

I would really appreciate if someone shares one to the wall.

SPECIAL REFLECTION

This week, as every week, has provided me more ideas which I will definitely use in my current classes and the ones coming later on.

I have found myself very concerned with the silence we teachers should take into account in class so that learners become more vocal and this has happened to me especially in my larger class, which is not the class I am using for my project. 

This particular class is a pre-intermediate class and despite the fact that we are skipping some topics from the text, we have to basically teach four different grammar structures plus the listening, reading, vocabulary and writing activities linked to them in a range of four to six days. I usually try to integrate skills so that speaking is not neglected, but this week I particularly given them the time and chance to speak more.

I have to confess that I have also given them more time to think before I check answers and this probably has been due to another idea stuck on my mind: ‘Each period of Learning is followed by a period of reflection which is conducted in silence.’

Time is really important in an intensive course and I sometimes do not give my students enough time to solve a task and help them in a way so that they could finish faster, but again there was another idea going around my mind this week: ‘Do not make things too easy for the learners, this way they will not use their own learning resources’. I especially remember having this idea in mind while working on a reading activity we were working on.

The class I am working my project with is upper –intermediate and here things are different, students speak more and it is our job as teachers to just make up activities so that they could produce language. We also have to rush but a bit less since we just have to deal with just three grammar topics linked to lots of vocabulary.

It is in this class where I have applied think pair share when they had to think about a new shampoo for men, which involved thinking about a name, shape, colour, target market, where to advertise and where to sell the shampoo.

I have also used in this class the technique of paraphrasing.

Finally I want to share how exciting has been to me two things this week:

1.       Learning new things about interactive power point. The power point I have prepared for the task required, it is something I am going to apply in my classes any way.

2.       Starting the project, I was so anxious about it, speculating about any difficulty I might encounter not only with the technology , but also the students' response to it.

CHALLENGE.

This week has definitely been really challenging and full of new things to me.

It has been good to read about Project Based Learning since it took me back to some old files about projects that I empirically had created few years ago for some intermediate classes. I have been able to see that I was on the right track about assessing the process rather than the final result. And it has been amazing to reflect on how they all can be enhanced with the technology. PBL is motivating and merging it with technology I guess students would just be fascinated because they would find the tasks to be done simply meaningful and more authentic and similar to their real life.

Reading about alternative assessment and rubrics has simply broadened my mind when thinking about giving my students their marks. It has been challenging to make up our own rubrics for a task and I have to honestly confess how relieved I felt having finished it.

Creating the rubric might seem extra work, but thinking about the benefits it provide to both teacher and students I think they are good to be used.

Working on the Extra and optional task given this week, has helped me deepen the topic of Webquest which I was afraid of. I have tried to follow the steps on a small scale project. I guess students are used to research on the web. They would just love it. 

I created one on vocabulary about verb phrases with MIND. It probably look simple, but it took me long to do it, I love illustrations and for some reason I never could.

The last thing I have worked on this week, due to a misunderstanding, is about my Project. We are supposed to provide a solution to a problem we have in the class we previously described. I have been suggested to address on the problem of listening rather than on the speaking innacuracy. There seemsto be more technological tools on listening. 

I have decided to create a blog as a tool to give my student some links where they can do some tasks to develop their listening skills. I am a bit concerned about assessment and the fact of creating rubric has actually made me think about doing the same through webquest. 

QUESTIONING MYSELF...

This fourth week has made me questioned myself on certain issues teachers are all aware of.

The first one is about process writing and how important it is to help our students produce better texts. Brainstorming, drafting, revising and editing really help!

And I say questioned myself because despite the fact that I know it I do not do it. I usually try to integrate skills when preparing a lesson. And when I do writing in class, I usually time it. I do not want my students to think I am there spending my time “cracking knuckles”.

When I visited the websites suggested in the article I found that they are really interesting for me as a teacher who wants to improve her academic writing. I do not know how my students could react with them.

Another aspect to reflect on, has been lesson planning.

The plan we have used to plan an enhanced lesson class related to with what we have at my place of work has made me think about the PLAN B which is a criteria we have not included in the format we use.  I particularly plan my classes following my own style and I always think in a plan B whenever I use the multimedia for my power point presentations. There are many factors which can spoil your class plans such as black out, no computer in class, etc.

Trying to describe and narrow a class issue or problem from my class, even that we were asked not to think about solutions, has been difficult.

Speaking is a skill I have not seen-yet- in several websites I have visited. Anyway listening would be my second option since it is part of conversational skills.

I also want to highlight the fact of how many class issues we teachers from the course have in common and it is good to know that somewhere else, there is someone also struggling with an issue we can or cannot cope with.

   

USEFUL TOOLS...

This week has definitely led me to reflect on an issue which I usually skip on. The texts we useat the language centre I work in, have small sections based on pronunciation that I simply do not do, sometimes because of lack of time, I should say, or because I know it is something which hardly ever comes in the quizzes. Phonetics is actually a topic I do not feel comfortable when teaching. What I teach on pronunciation is what I really know well. Asking us to visit some websites with the eyes of what could be useful in our classes led me to http://www.english-online.org.uk/pronounce/pronounce5.htm, which for sure I would include in my lab lesson I next time.

I have always thought that a native speaker can help learners with phonetics and pronunciation in a better way than a Spanish speaker, but the article suggested in the current course I am taking, has quoted one of Jeremy Harmer’s idea so well about the aim teachers should have when dealing with pronunciation and that is help our students be understood and in order to accomplish so we should work on developing  and not looking  accent perfection. 

I am the kind of teacher who is keen on systematizing his work. It might be for several reasons such as time constraints due to my life being a mother, a wife, a daughter, a house wife, and a teacher. I have a file for each level I teach full of sheets ready to be photocopied and have them used in class. They are also in my computer to do the necessary changes or adapt them since every class is unique and has its own differences.

Besides, I also have some important websites of all types joined in a file on my computer so that I can access to them faster and easily.

‘Meeting’ Delicious .com is definitely a plus to my style so now I am going to have a pool of websites related to teaching at hand.

I have always had the idea that a blog can be a useful tool in class for developing students’ language skills in a TEFL class. After reading one of the sample projects and seeing the blog used, it is like my idea has come true.

This project was focused on developing grammar and writing, but I guess there are so many things we can develop on our students there. Actually, the teacher from the project involved used it with different classes later on.

Working with a community blog might mean a lot of research on the net from the part of the teacher so that the tasks to be assigned have the same goal with instructions to be followed.

I am really interested in doing this on a regular semester which in our language centre lasts about four months.

Getting on...

It’s hard to believe, but this second week is coming to an end and sitting here in front of my computer and reflecting on what we all have been working I could say that I am still trying to get used to it –you know getting used to being in front of the computer more than I was used to.

Regarding to web searching, and going to NoodleTools has been really enriching to me as a teacher with the eagerness to exploit what the internet has, not only as  a personal tool , but as something we could provide our students who as I always say have been born with a different ‘chip’ and want things in a different way.

I have found so many websites which can be used and I am sure I will- despite the constraints we may have here in our language centre.

Working on the objectives using the ABCD criteria (Audience- Behaviour-Condition-Degree) has definitely helped me to clarify about stating a lesson objective and narrow it helping to be focused which makes it easier to assess whether the goal has been accomplished.

The task of Describing your class has definitely helped us all, be aware that there –someone somewhere in the world may have the same, better or worse limitations when teaching a language. What I am pretty sure now it is that I will think twice before making a complaint on any issue related to making my job difficult.

Week 1: My Feelings

I still remember me telling my students once, kind of : 'I will have a blog someday' , but I did it thinking about how useful it could be giving them the chance to write in English in a modern environment different from a piece of paper. 

I never thought about me, writing and sharing how I feel since I have started the course of Building Teaching skills through the Interactive web .

So far, I have to confess that creating this blog has been much easier than I thought. However, I cannot deny that trying to work on each task given for this first week has taken me longer than what I had planned to be in front of the computer which is something I usually have under my control.

As a teacher I use the computer to prepare power points and use the internet basically to copy some illustrations and some grammar exercises.

At the language centre , I work in, we have a lab. I do not take my students there very often , but when I do so , I usually prepare a sheet of paper with some instructions to follow . My aim  is to develop their language skills and I lead them to different websites where they can do Listening, reading, grammar I use the famous You Tube for trailers too. But I am not an expert at all and I really hope to learn through this course online the web skills I need to implement them in my classes despite our limitations.

I have the impression that during these few days I have felt really nervous thinking twice before clicking here and there , but I am sure I will get used to it.