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.