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.