WEEK 10 - Closing a chapter - Starting a path

Dear Janine and dear friends,

I’m here again to close this wonderful chapter but not this amazing learning path. It is time to gather the valuable and enriching experience we have acquired and most important: SHARED through this course.  

The course was great, I've learned a lot. I can say that I have more confidence now when I teach because I’ve learned multiple and varied ways to “catch” students’ attention. I've improved my skills and knowledge. The course gave me a lot of new ideas for teaching my students and challenged me to think outside the box.

Due the fact that the access to the latest techniques, approaches, tendencies in the field of EFL is merely impossible in my city, I believe that this space would deeply complement my knowledge about exciting new applications, sites and platforms: I consider that these tools are going to change the way we use to give classes, and also to motivate students and prepare them to face this changing world.   

Particularly in my context the benefits I am expecting to obtain after attending the course, are many.

The course let me identified the possible problems a class could face (eg.):

-      Students may not be fully confident in the language

-      Students may not be motivated to learn

-      Students may be fearful

In order to design activities to encourage their involvement in their own process of leaning the course provided me with a rich and delightful “menu” of options that would be merely impossible to mention only some few ones to choose for applying in class. The use of internet technologies will provide students with opportunities to practice the target language outside of the classroom. They will be able to interact with each other and with the teachers regardless of distance and time constraints.

What about you dearest friends? Are you as excited as I am to support and comlement your classes with all this "digital" knowledge? 

Rottner

WEEK 9: Importance of Blogging in an ESL Class

The main purpose of using a blog in an ESL course is to serve as a tool for both teachers and students to enhance and promote language learning by providing activities for self-study with online material.

Blogs can promote critical and analytical thinking, promote creative, intuitive and associational thinking, promote analogical thinking, promote potential for increased access and exposure to quality information, and promote a combination of solitary and social interaction.

 Aaron Campbell (2003) has outlined three types of blogs for use with language classes:

The tutor blog. - It gives daily reading practice to the learners. It promotes exploration of English websites. It encourages online verbal exchange by use of comment buttons. It provides class or syllabus information. It serves as a resource of links for self-study.

The learner blog. - It’s run either by individual learners or small collaborative groups of learners. It’s best suited for reading and writing classes.

The class blog. - It is a shared space, with teacher and students being able to write to the main area. It is best used as a collaborative discussion space, an extra-curricular extension of the classroom. Students can be encouraged to reflect in more depth, in writing, on themes touched upon in class. Students are given a greater sense of freedom and involvement.

Blogs could be an excellent tool to provide extra reading practice for students, to guide students to online resources appropriate for their level, to increase the sense of community in a class, to encourage shy students to participate, to stimulate out-of-class discussion, to encourage a process-writing approach, to help build a closer relationship between students in large classes.

WEEK 8 - Summing Up

Through this course, I realized that learning a foreign language is a challenging and complex process and students always need motivation and encouragement during this period. Technology definitely is one of the factors which affects students’ attitude positively in the teaching-learning process.

The use of technology brings lot of advantages into the classroom. Students have a chance to see the real world in the classrooms and they can be motivated easily. Use of technology provides a good opportunity to develop and create different and enjoyable tasks in EFL classrooms.

Using computers and every kind of technological tools or platforms gives students the sense of freedom and encouragement. With the help of technology students can be active, motivated and involved in language learning   process.

Students always have positive and optimistic ideas for using computer in the classrooms and it gives opportunity students to create new ideas and develops their problem solving skills while providing self-responsibility thus students feel comfortable.
 The positive effects of computer and technology in EFL classrooms by allowing the students to observe the real life situation and meaningful communication

Internet, as an important tool, encourages students, increases autonomous learning potential and brings enthusiasm into the classroom.
Using technology in EFL classrooms improve students’ four skills. Web using enriches and supports good motivation in the development of speaking skill.
Computer-based reading texts are authentic, more effective and motivating for every kind of language learners.

WEEK 7 - Final Destination

The use of internet technologies allows students to learn through exploring new tools and web based applications. The act of looking up information and researching with such extensive resources can keep students engaged in a project and learning far longer than they would with a text book only. We as teacher have to incorporate this technology into lessons, in order to make our students more engaged in and excited about the subject they are learning. Aspects that would normally be tedious for many, such as grammar points, can be much more engaging with the use of these new applications and web platforms. Students are able to go at their own pace with the help of technology. This allows the students get individual instruction directly from the computer.

We have to be conscious but, that we can’t include all teaching and learning activities and replace the real teaching and learning environment. Internet technologies are a tool for educational activities. With them, our students are going to be motivated to use English in their daily lives and provide functional communicative experiences. It is going to enhance the creative work and will give opportunities for collaboration and socialization in the learning process. It is going to change the interaction between teacher and students making learning more student-centered.

WEEK 6 - Defining the path

I consider that blogging will benefit my class in many aspects. First of all I want to create a blog for a specific class in order to make it an extension of the class itself. I could use it in the classroom to provide additional practice, I could use it in the computer lab to review and reinforce the contents previously seen in class and the most important aspect to use it to promote autonomous language learning in students by telling them to access it at home, work or whatever place at whatever time.

Blogs could enhance critical and analytical thinking, they could promote creative and intuitive thinking, they could increase access and exposure to quality information and finally they could develop a combination of solitary and social interaction.

I will start a class blog with simple announcements, homework assignments, and external useful links organized by language skills. To get them accustomed, I will ask students to read other blogs related to topics they want.  I will supply a subject related list and I will review it with them.

With blogs I will:

Encourage online verbal exchange. Provide with class and syllabus information. It serves as a resource of links for self-study.

It will be a space for collaborative discussion, an extra-curricular extension of the classroom where students can be encouraged to reflect in more depth, in writing, on themes touched upon in class as an online portfolio.

Provide extra reading practice for students as online student journals that can be read by peers. Guide students to online resources appropriate for their level.

Increase the sense of community in a class encouraging shy students to participate, stimulating out-of-class discussion.

Rottner

WEEK 5 - Awareness

I realized that the tools discovered in the development of the course, will provided personal, continuous, and customized experiences through the creation of cooperative learning environments where every student is responsible for connecting and forming a community of new learners, where all contribute and collaborate.

They are a space for students to get to know one another, to access resources and materials, to share information and to participate in activities such as discussions, reflections, development, etc.

The exposition to new technologies and tools (having the opportunity to learn how they worked,) will empower the experience of our students.

The ability to participate in the use of these technologies provides us with a new understanding of the capacity of social networking to facilitate the contribution, connectivity, and collaboration among students.

We are in a middle of a radical change: Instead of measuring the ability of students to recall and reproduce, we have to focus from now on in measuring what and how students integrate and use the information they acquired to produce communication. 

By assessing students, we have evidence about how students approach, process and complete real life tasks.