Week 7: Learner Autonomy and one Computer Classrooms

Morpheus: ‘I’m trying to free your mind, Neo. But I can only show you the door. You’re the one who must walk through it’

- The Matrix (Film)

This week’s discussion was about Learner Autonomy and one Computer Classrooms. In the environment where I teach, having a computer in every classroom is not always possible. There are new projects that have been conducted about having more technologically supported classrooms but of course this kind of innovations take time.

Learner Autonomy according to (Holec,1981) is the “ability to take charge of one’s own learning”, learner autonomy is not an ability “is not inborn but must be acquired either by ‘natural’ means or by formal learning in a systematic, deliberate way”. He also points out that autonomus learner should “ …take charge of his learning and have the responsibility for all the decisions concerning all aspects of this learning..” (Holec 1981, p.3). It is also important to be an autonomus learners as teachers. A teacher has the reponsibility to improve the way s/he teaches and also should try to catch up with the innovative changes in the area of ESL/EFL studies. By improving ourselves we become role models to our students.  As the above quote indicates, as being the teachers of this new century, what we really need to do is to show the way “how” they can do things intead of telling tham “what” to do.

 

Today, foreign language education is a prominent issue on my country’s educational agenda. While forming a national policy in education, the needs, objectives and the realities of the society should be taken into consideration. The needs analysis should be done according to concrete scientific data studied by professionals. While planning the language studies, innovative changes should also be taken into considiration as Turkish society is a transitional society between the “Orrient and Occident”.

 

Language policy of a country is an important issue in having Autonomos learners in the society. The students should be taught about the strategies in order to become autonomos learners starting from the early ages. The decision of such an important thing should also be taken by the academicians and put into the curriculum of the national education system.

 

The discussions this week were really fruitful and I have gained a lot with all the sharings of my colleagues. This new experience as a whole is one of a kind because it is not very common to learn the teaching environments, needs, Project plans of teachers who are kms away from where we actually live. I hope to keep in touch with everyone in the program and hope to study together in the future.

As for the final Project, we have moved one step further as we have chosen our partners for the peer check. We have all started to write down the first draft of our Final Project so that we can send it to our peers.  I am hoping to have a well prepared Final Project so that I can get the best out of my studies.

Final Project Tentative Study!

While planning my Final Project, I had two important goals; 

- one was having more motivated students,

- and the other one was to increase  the exposure to the target language because my students do not have much chance to do this.

In order to reach my goal I have aimed to:

•   Create a group where we can keep the contact about the course given.

•   Tutor the students to create blogs as I will ask them to publish every product related to the course – I will also ask them to comment about each others' studies-.

•   Guide the students to choose a short story to read, if they have problem in choosing a story I planned to direct them to http://www.classicshorts.com/

• Introduce the students with the Microsoft Photo Story 3 which is a Digital Storytelling Software.

•   Create a rubric for the need of the classroom.

•   When the students are ready I will ask them to present it on powerpoint presentation.

•   Then the students will be asked to post their presentation to their blog page and write the whole story about how they prepared the study.

•   The last part of the Project will be asking the other students to comment on at least two studies.

As for the application / planning of the Project, this week every student in the course started to work on the Project.  I personally moved on few steps as for ;

-          Ceating a classwiki

-          Cerating a nicenet class

-          Preparing a rubric for the planned product-I can edit the rubric according to the needs of the classroom when I actually start to apply my plan to my students-.

In order to get the comments of my fellow coursemates, I would like to share my rubric. http://rubistar.4teachers.org/index.php?screen=ShowRubric&module=Rubistar&rubric_id=2288181&

I would like to share the rubric in my blog just incase of a difficulty in seeing it on the “Rubistar" page.

Digital Storytelling : Teaching English Through Literature II

CATEGORY	4  Highly Effective  ƒ	3   Effective	2   Moderately  Effective	1   Ineffective
Point of View - Awareness of Audience	Strong awareness of audience in the design. Students can clearly explain why they felt the vocabulary, audio and graphics chosen fit the target audience.	Some awareness of audience in the design. Students can partially explain why they felt the vocabulary, audio and graphics chosen fit the target audience.	Some awareness of audience in the design. Students find it difficult to explain how the vocabulary, audio and graphics chosen fit the target audience.	Limited awareness of the needs and interests of the target audience.
Soundtrack - Emotion	Music stirs a rich emotional response that matches the story line well.	Music stirs a rich emotional response that somewhat matches the story line.	Music is ok, and not distracting, but it does not add much to the story.	Music is distracting, inappropriate, OR was not used.
Images	Images create a distinct atmosphere or tone that matches different parts of the story. The images may communicate symbolism and/or metaphors.	Images create an atmosphere or tone that matches some parts of the story. The images may communicate symbolism and/or metaphors.	An attempt was made to use images to create an atmosphere/tone but it needed more work. Image choice is logical.	Little or no attempt to use images to create an appropriate atmosphere/tone.
Economy	The story is told with exactly the right amount of detail throughout. It does not seem too short nor does it seem too long.	The story composition is typically good, though it seems to drag somewhat OR need slightly more detail in one or two sections.	The story seems to need more editing. It is noticeably too long or too short in more than one section.	The story needs extensive editing. It is too long or too short to be interesting.
Duration of Presentation	Length of presentation was 4 minutes.	Length of presentation was 3 minutes.	Length of presentation was 2 minutes.	Presentation was less than 2 minutes long OR more than 4 minutes.
Grammar	Grammar and usage were correct (for the dialect chosen) and contributed to clarity, style and character development.	Grammar and usage were typically correct (for the dialect chosen) and errors did not detract from the story.	Grammar and usage were typically correct but errors detracted from story.	Repeated errors in grammar and usage distracted greatly from the story.
Point of View - Purpose	Establishes a purpose early on and maintains a clear focus throughout.	Establishes a purpose early on and maintains focus for most of the presentation.	There are a few lapses in focus, but the purpose is fairly clear.	It is difficult to figure out the purpose of the presentation.

Week 6: Engaging Large Classes with Interactive Teaching!

“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.