Sunday, August 7th, 2011

WEEK 7

LEARNER AUTONOMY

We never stop learning and we learn something every day.  This week we were reflecting about the importance of learner autonomy, which is the ability to take charge of one's learning, which in my opinion is the most important aspect we should teach our students in order to have competitive leaders, who do not depend on teachers but on themselves.

The teacher plays an important role here, we need to adapt resources, materials, and methods to the learners' needs and even abandon them if necessary.   The teacher can help students to take responsibility for their own learning, making them read for pleasure and suggest them to listen to as much English as possible, e.g. english programs on TV or radio, make them to form groups to share their experiences. This could encourage those who are less motivated to learn by choosing and doing what they wanted and liked, and sharing with their friends.  And nowadays with the use of technology it is easy to find interactive tools for learning English language and students can access to them anytime of course if they have the resources.  Unfortunately, in my country, no many people can have access to internet very often, but if they get the opportunity it is an advantage for them to learn.

And finally my suggestion is to continue learning the advantages of technology in order to share them with our students.  Most of the students don't have access to internet, but we can share with them what we have researched by the use of a computer, speakers and a head projector in our classes.

Let's get better for our students.

STUDENTS ENGAGEMENT

Saturday July 30, 2011

To have large classes in my country is very common, is a reality that we face, and of course it is a negative aspect for the leaning process, because in large classes, there is lack of interaction between teachers and students, teachers do not know their students, the facilities and environment are inadequacy and it is difficult to test or grade more often and, that's why the teacher requires not only knowledge of the subject matter but also knowledge of how students learn and how to transform them into active learners.

Teaching large classes is particularly challenging and teaching consists of getting students involved in the active construction of knowledge, how to do that?, within a cooperative context; individuals, working together.

A teacher working in class with projectors and a power point presentation is common and this doesn't have to be boring, it can be fun if we use creativity in our power point presentations, and we make them interactive, where students participate in a cooperative learning.

Have fun with your power point presentations.

MEANINGFUL LEARNING

Saturday, July 23d, 2011

Rubrics are so important for me as a teacher, because they are a wonderful way to clarify expectations for grading, for writing or speaking, especially when a teacher wants to emphasize one specific aspect of that performance, in summary they are an agreement between the teacher and the students.

During this week I have learnt about Project-based learning, where learners are given instructions and resources, and then they work in groups to create a project. And I find this method very useful to apply with my students.

I have used WebQuests, but I didn't know  they are a form of Project-based learning, now I know, that's why a webquest follows an specific pattern where students work in groups and the teacher clarifies the evaluation in the form of rubrics. With the example of the webquest  I can understand easily the concept of Project-based learning and from now on I am going to try to use more webquests.

Last year I presented my students three webquests, but the one I liked more was the one that talked about water, first I presented them a video about how water will disappear for year 2050, and they the webquest, in this project students presented very good ideas. I really liked their work.  Another webquest I did was about the global warming, and I titled it, what can we do to help?, students also did a great job. And the third one was about avoiding pregnancy in teenagers.

I don't want to be a traditional teacher, using traditional methods of teaching English that have not given good results so far. I want to help my students to develop language skills while conducting meaningful projects with meaningful language and about meaningful topics which are according to the student's interests and needs. 

Technology Enhanced Lesson Plan

Sunday, July 17th, 2011

The most important issue I learnt during this week was about the design of a Technology Enhanced Lesson Plan.  We need to plan our classes and with this new pattern we need to specific the technology material we are going to use.  Students are very attractive to technology, so this is a positive point for teachers to improve our classes and call students attention.

The web provides many tools for language learning and it is an invaluable source, for teachers to create classroom materials and for students to explore the whole world, since Internet gives students variety and choice, from an enormous number of sites. And in order to develop specific skills in our students.

In order to improve my students' writing skills, by using web resources I can apply different content and task based writing activities, such as: writing a letter to a friend, a formal letter, a biography, a description of a person, write an essay, a description of a festival/ceremony, a description of a book/film/play, a newspaper report, an opinion essay and a description of a place, etc. Applying of course cooperative learning in my on-line classroom.

For improving my student’s reading skill I will use a story, because  stories are attractive and they call the attention of students. Through this, my students will get the main idea of texts through questions, and working in groups.  They also will be able to answer questions about detailed information of the text, by sharing with their partners their ideas and thoughts. Finally students will elaborate an individual summary. 

In addition, in order to improve reading and vocabulary I will apply the web page about news: (Breaking News English.

http://www.breakingnewsenglish.com/), where students can get informed and at the same time they get updated about the Business area, In this page I will use the link Business English materials.  There are plenty of great sites out there that cover the “traditional” stuff like presentations, meetings, talking about graphs, etc. all of which lead students to read more and study more outside of the classroom, with the authentic material they can find.

In my opinion the main problem students have in English is pronunciation and writing.  So considering these problems, the web can help a lot in order to improve all basic language skills reading, writing, speaking and listening, including the sub skills: grammar and vocabulary, since there are plenty of great sites in the internet that we teachers and our students can use.  Personally I try to use in my class the Integrating skill approach where all the skills are integrated and not separated, the virtual class as a reinforcement and cooperative and collaborative learning.

Monica Vaca Cardenas

Every day is another opportunity to get better

The time flies away and we need to improve every second to be a better human being, be happy and learn from our mistakes.
In order to improve our classes with the use of technology, another new tool appeared called delicious.com, which is a kind of bookmarking, which is an interesting way to organize our web links online and share them with others.
We were also reflecting about how to develop our students basic skills mainly listening and speaking skills, and the resources I prefer for improving speaking skills are videos, internet radio, and cds. I favour videos because, they allow my students access to more information when listening. They can see what is happening as well as listen to the text. They are a good motivation too.
This week had brought me many challenges, but I think I am succeeding them.

STARTING A PROJECT

Monday, 27 June 2011

STARTING A PROJECT

This has been an extremely busy week for me, but with the help of my students, and God, everything has gone satisfactory.

During this week I have learnt a different tool for searching information, which is www.noodletools.com/debbie/literacies/information/5locate/adviceengine.html , with this tool, we are able to improve time and reduce stress when searching in the web, because we get what we really need in an easier way, with not many entries.

Teacher need to establish clear and measurable objectives that help to design lessons, that are easy for the student to understand and easy for the teacher to evaluate.  In this area, I have learnt a new way for setting objectives called ABCD, which stands for: Audience, Behavior, Condition and Degree.  an original and interesting way.

Finally,  I started thinking in who my final project will be directed to, and I decided to direct it to level I, since they are starting taking this subject at their superior level, and they follow the learning process easier than the ones who started before with another methodology.

Many challenges present In our lives, let´s continue with perseverance.

DISTANCE LEARNING PROGRAM

Webskills Reflections

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

My Blog

During this week I had many challenges; we have been talking about important topics like rubrics and discussion rules. I had my blog, but I haven't been using it, so this week I recuperated my password and learnt that my blog can be a very useful tool to work with my students, because it can be used for many purposes as a method for improving teaching.

My students can follow my blog, read the articles I published, give their opinions and we can discuss about a specific topic from the blog in class.