Week 4: Reading & Writing classes Enhanced with Technology

“There can be infinite uses of the computer and of new age technology, but if the teachers themselves are not able to bring it into the classroom and make it work, then it fails.”

Nancy Kassebaum, US. Senator

             Use of technology in language classrooms has been the main concern of this study that is being conducted by the university of Oregon, as well as the rest of the ELT World. Having technology in language classrooms supports learning when used efficiently. In my opinion there are a number of key components of using technology in learning: the first one is the active engagement of the learners. Others are; participation in groups, frequent interaction and feedback, and connection to real-world experts. In order to use these key components, learners need proper guidance and support. As teachers, we are the ones to guide and support our students to use the net which has “infinite uses”. One of my professors at University said, “You cannot teach something you don’t know”. It is for this reason that we, as teachers, improve our teaching by not only reading books or articles but also trying to find ways to integrate ourselves to the rapidly changing World. Having all these things in my mind, I am moving on in my journey to “Building Teacher Skills Through the Interactive Web”.

            The first challange of this week was the discussion conducted on the articles which are about using web in teaching reading and writing. The article that we read written by Jarek Krajka was about an interesting way to use CALL in language classrooms to enhance learning and teaching goals. By using web pages, e-mail connection and creating class websites, the researcher conducted a study which shows us how on-line component could be incorporated into the curriculum. One other study was by Mei-Ya Liang, who gives an example of an application in which the teacher centralizes the learning activities in the learners within a classroom. Having the learners as the center of the learning environment and using the internet are the main concerns of his study.

           Preparing a technology enhanced lesson is the second challange of 4th week. Although, as most of us in the program, I am use to preparing lesson plans, the term “technology enhanced lesson plan” was new to me. But with correct instructions and positive reinforcement, I could write my “technology enhenced lasson plan”. I belive that there is nothing that a teacher can’t do when properly guided.

             We are also moving on in our studies for the Final Project. For the “Third Step” of our Project, we have pointed out the problems, needs or other issues about our classes. In order to solve a problem, the first thing to do is to identify the problem. That was what we did at this part of our study. I am very excited about the next step..

                 All the sharing and ideas on this weeks’ discussion topic opened new horizons to our writing and reading classes. The steps we have taken since the beginning of the course, make me feel very positive about guiding my students and my colleagues properly about using web tools in my classrooms.

 

Week 3: Improving Speaking, Listening Skills and Pronunciation Through Web Tools

"Education is Not the Filling of a Pail, But the Lighting of a Fire"

William Butlet Yeats

My personal classroom experience and the researches show that lack of participation in Speaking, Pronunciation and Listening parts of EFL classrooms is a common problem for most of the English Language classrooms all around the world. As Burely-Allen mentions, more than forty percent of our daily communication time is spent on listening, thirty-five percent on speaking, sixteen percent on reading, and only nine percent on writing (1995). In the classrooms, however, the general aim is usually on other skills. Students try not to participate in listening and speaking parts of the lesson. Without enough participation, these skills stay as the most problematic parts of language classes. It is for this reason that the teachers need to think twice about the ways of increasing students’ aural/oral participation in these two skills. Third week’s study in "Building Teacher Skills through the Interactive Web” helped me a lot in organizing my ideas about how to cope with unmotivated students in aural/oral skills.

Reading the articles recommended by our tutors was the first part of our study. Among many other articles on the issue, I found http://www.elthillside.com/up/files/article4.doc and www.edfac.unimelb.edu.au/research/resources/student_res/postscriptfiles/vol3/vol3_1_gong1.pdf as the most beneficial ones in understanding the importance of using the right materials for these two important skills and where to find them.

“The Employment of Call in Teaching Second Foreign Language Speaking Skills” by Julia Gong enlightens the readers about the use of CALL (Computer Assisted Language Learning) in language classes by giving the advantages and the disadvantages. It also gives ideas on the applications of CALL in teaching spoken language.

 “Developing Listening Skills with Authentic Materials” by Lindsay Miller shows the teachers that there are many “easy to access” internet tools to be used in language classrooms. She also leads her readers the importance of Pre-, While-, and Post- activity strategies in teaching. As teachers of English, the first thing to be done to reduce the anxiety of our students, I belive, is to use these strategies. With the correct use of strategies, the students might feel more self confident about the material used in the classroom.

One other thing that makes a difference in a language classroom is to find the right material for your students’ use. At this point, the number and the variety of the Websites and the Web tools shared by our colleagues were enormous. Learning about these sites, which were mostly new to me, was a great experience. Among these sites that are there for English Language teachers to use, I found the following sites as the most interesting ones;

http://www.shortstoryradio.com/index.htm,

http://www.artofstorytelling.org/

http://www.starfall.com

http://www.eslfast.com/robot/

not to mention http://www.esl-lab.com/

 and http://learningenglish.voanews.com/

I highly recommend the language teachers who visit my blog to visit these sites and search for the opportunities to make their language classes more interesting.

Creating my Delicious page was another challenge of this week. I have created my own "Delicious" page and started adding links. The URL of my page is (https://delicious.com/#hulyaku). This is a free service and it is designed for the users to save their favorite web pages. The best part of it is that you can have an access to your favorites even if you are away from your personal computer. You can also develop a network in which you share your intrests with other people all around the world or just with friends.  It is easy to create, I did it within a few minutes, so I belive that everybody can do it J

Reading a final Project and commeting on that report was another task of the week. It was an experience which made me feel excited as it is the final part of this 10-week marathon. Even the vision of a finished final project which has my name on it made my day J.  The variety of the projects I have read made me understand that I need some more time to decide on what and how to study in my Project class.

Just like the second part of Yeats quote, with the new tools I met by the help of my tutors and my colleagues, I feel myself lighted up and this gives me the power to make my students feel the same.

 

­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­Burely-Allen, M. 1995. Listening: The forgotten skill. New York: John Wily & Sons, Inc.