“Education is not the learning of facts, but the training of the
mind to think.”
Albert
Einsteisn
This week’s
discussion made me understand that as ESL teachers, we are not alone in the
Universe J . Whatever
the geographical position is, almost every teacher faces the challange of
having large classes. I am sure every teacher on the area would prefer a class
with a fewer population but things does not always work in the ideal way. However
whether you teach a small class or a large class, a language teacher has
to come up with engaging activities that will keep the students interested on
what has been presented or discussed in the lesson. As teachers we can find
ways to grab the interest of the students as long as we don’t give up. We should remain convinced.
Having interactive
lessons stresses the importance of acquiring the language by using it rather
than learning it by studying. The reason of learning a language is sometimes
confused by other lessons which can be done only by lecturing. The role
of the teacher in language classrooms should be different as language teachers’
role in the classroom is not only lecturing. A language teacher should be a
facilitator, a resourse, an independent participant, a researcher and also a learner.
All these roles makes learning an easier task on the side of the learner. Learning
the ways of using the language does not mean learning how to use it. As real
communication is the interaction between people, there should be interaction in
the learning environment in nature. Linguistic interaction is a collaborative
activity which brings the need of having interactive classrooms. There are many ways that can be used in a language classroom which are very practical. You can
find some of the very practical ideas in "Teaching Large Classes II –
Enhancing Learning by Engaging Students" by Rick Finnan and Donna Shaw at http://aei.uoregon.edu/de/iraqelt/handouts/engaging_students_handout.pdf
One way of having
interactive lessons is using visuals. It
is a known fact and indicated by Allen Klein that 80% of what people learn is
visual. It is for this reason that having classrooms with engaging activities
such as using interactive PPTs is a way that will enhence the learning in
language classrooms. In order to learn how to prepare an interactive PPT or an interactive lecture you can visit http://serc.carleton.edu/introgeo/interactive/howto.html
, http://thejournal.com/articles/2000/08/01/creating-an-interactive-powerpoint-lesson-for-the-classroom.aspx
and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UgPO-agnnMk
and many other sites that you can easily search from the internet. You might
think that powerpoint is not your way of teaching using visuals, then I can
recommend you to spend some time in http://readwrite.com/2010/11/27/hate-powerpoint-here-are-5-web-based-alternatives.
As the resources indicate, as long as you decide to capture your students
interest, there is a way to do it.
One other task
of this week is to take a step in our Project that we are going to be planning
for one of our classes. As a first step of my Project I have created a wiki in
order to keep in touch with the class. My classwiki is https://www.wikispaces.com/user/my/hulyakucukoglu
. However, as I am a new user of wiki, I will try to get used to classwiki
until I actually start teaching. If I find myself not well prepared in using the wikispace, I
will use the nicenet class that I have created under the name “Teaching English
Through Literature II”. I have also prepared my rubric for the study I am
planning. I belive that this Project plan will be very beneficial for my classroom
and I will reach my aims with my class.
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