Reflections Week 3“Voyage to find self-tutorial programs”

There were three tasks this week. The first task was to make my own delicious.com page. What an inviting name that is! Up till now I was quite satisfied that my web browser has a place called “favorites” to bookmark sites, but I learned about http://delicious.com and how it organizes bookmarked sites. The amazing concept of this site is not just storing and organizing your sites with categories, it enables sharing sites easily. Thus if people use it more, the infinite amount of information in cyber space will be organized bit by bit. I have a virtual storage place now. My delicious page is http://delicious.com/toyozatok. As voyaging into the various sites, I will learn how to be a better organizer. Thanks to my colleagues, my storage is getting great sites.

The second task was to read one of two articles and to explain how to bring technology into my lessons.
One of the articles is “Developing Listening Skills with Authentic Materials” (http://www.elthillside.com/up/files/article4.doc) by Lindsay Miller and the other is “Best Practices in Technology and Language Teaching” (http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/fulltext/121675554/PDFSTART?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0) by Dennie Hoopingarner about the CALL program for listening, speaking or pronunciation skills.
I usually use authentic materials for consolidating or integrating the whole lesson staying with the theme, vocabulary and the grammar of that particular lesson. However, I found out the sites such as ESL. English Video Lessons, quizzes, Grammar Exercises, http://www.englishmedialab.com/survival%20English/listening/ticket%20to%20Glascow%20.htm and ESL.-galazy.com ESL Resource Planet, http://www.esl-galaxy.com/speaking.html have very effective audio pages. But one drawback might be that I need to go through the online materials to find pages that are fit to the level of my students.
One of the colleagues, Dilip introduced us to his experiments of implementing authentic materials using an audio freeware, “Audacity.” It seems like a fantastic tool that could introduce a variety of learner-oriented uses. In the future, I would like to try to implement it in my classes. After all, I have to remind myself of the goal of education. That is “to teach students to learn by themselves.”

Week 2 “Trekking to web-search and back to write objectives ”

This week I learned what search tools are available and how to use them effectively. I have to admit that I did not have a clue about those search engines. I thought Google was enough for me. All the tips in “Technology Tip of the Month” are extremely valuable and “Noodletools” is an incredible tool. Knowledge of both certainly takes away much of the “searching” frustration. However, I am not an expert yet. I am still a technically-challenged teacher.

I also learned how to phrase my query into an appropriate search engine. I think the more I use different engines and portals, the more skillful searcher I would be. While searching, I realized that I was always looking for teacher-tools to utilize in the class, but that I actually need to find tools to assist students to learn independently and also to have a collaborative learning.

In formulating learning objectives, I learned the A.B.C.D. method. It is a formula to write a clear objective. It is in the form of Who (Audience) Behaves how, in what kind of Condition, to what Degree to achieve. This method is truly beneficial because it helps teachers focus on what their objective is and gives students a clear goal.
I would like to show what I learned this week to my coworkers at school.

There is so much that I did not know last week but this week I know.
I thank you all for sharing great sites, opinions and insights. They are very effective and helpful. I hope that I can contribute more to the class next time.

I just finished checking all the sites that Mr. Larry Ferlazzo posted in his blog. I am grateful that I can learn so much form those great sites. From his students’ works, I can see how much fun they had!
I definitely would like to use Jottit for my writing class and Backyard Paradise for oral communication class.

Week 1 Reflections "A Slow Start"

Never did I think I would be interested in creating a blog. I always had the idea that a blog, like twitter, was just a place for gossip or for people with too much time on their hands. I even thought it was just a diary. To me, a diary is a personal thing not to be shared with anyone. Actually I have discovered that a blog is something quite different. It is a platform. It is like a place where you have a “show and tell” or like a portfolio.
Reading articles on “Teaching ESL to Adults” changed my biased view and I am now convinced that the blog can provide abundant and organized information, which can be used as a powerful tool for effective language education and even for professional networking.
As for applying a blog to my class, I would focus on helping students learn to express themselves with proper manners and to show respect to classmates.
In one of the reading assignments, “How Twitter Helps ESL Students Learn”, there are several great ways to use a blog effectively. Among them, I particularly like the idea to create group stories.

Week 1 Reflections

This is the beginning of my venture to my unknown world to learn something new. Since I did not know much about blog, as it has always been the case, I panicked. As I started to create my blog and see my colleagues’ blogs and their faces in their pictures, it did begin to give me a feeling of closeness. The blog has its unique power. I know it is going to be a very exciting experience and this web learning will affect my way of communication and professional skills to help students learn English.