Reflecting Teaching and Learning

Monday, October 17, 2011

Reflective Summary of Week 3




During week 3 creating a delicious page was the first task I completed. Creating the site was quite easy and very useful. This social bookmarking is a way to save our favorite web links and share them with friends. I have been saving my favorite pages by bookmarking them and I can access my own bookmarks from anywhere. Isn't that wonderful! You can visit and check my bookmarks on http://delicious.com/roza1. During the week I have also learned how to upload my picture with the help of my course mate Vinicius. Thanks Vinicus for that. In addition, I have discovered how to create a stack in Delicious page which will allow a collection of links built around a common theme. This will be of use when we need different types of information on a theme.

If you want to create a stack, you have to visit the stack tab on your profile page and click “create stack.” Then can choose the links, add some descriptions, pick images, and layout. You can also shuffle the order of links if you want. When every things set, then click publish to share your Delicious stack.

As a second task I read the articles about CALL for listening. I have read the article Developing Listening Skills with Authentic Materials by Lindsay Miller. The article is indeed interesting and as mentioned that listening has not received wider attention in the past given that it is the language skill most often used in everyday life. She has mentioned the process for helping learners develop their listening skills; Pre-, While-, and Post-Listening and how this process can be followed while using technology like Radio, TV and the Internet. Radio stations such as BBC World Service (BBC) and Voice of America (VOA) are constantly on-air and send programs, authentic and good for listening in class. After reading the article I posted my comments on Nicenet and on my blog as well. Then I visited websites for listening skills.
http://www.bbc.co.uk,
http://www.avoa. gov,
http://npr.org,
http://www.npr.org/programs/morningedition/,
http://www.npr.org/player/v2/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=140949453&m=141229934I,
http://www.esl-lab.com/


The most amazing site I have visited this week is Randall's Cyber Listening Lab: http://www.esl-lab.com/. This is one of the few websites that includes pre-, during, and post- activities. Definitely I am going to use these sites well to develop my students listening skills and recommend to my friends as well.

I have also visited this interesting website Real English http://www.real-english.com which is devoted to teaching English, namely listening/viewing and speaking. It contains a set of lessons each of which relies on a video and a “while-viewing” task.

To comments on sample project reports I chose “Building Teaching Skills through the Interactive Web Project Report” by Aleyda Linares from Honduras. I selected this project as I thought it might relate to what I am going to do for my final project. I found that the learners and the setting were very well described with clear goals of the course and project. However, I wonder how much the project goals are measurable. When I studied the needs of the students I found that there were two goals which specifically relates to what I have thought for my final project.

Develop writing and reading skills to communicate more effectively in English.
Develop technology skills to enhance their English language skills.

By analyzing this project report I have got the idea of how our final project report is expected to be and I have learned many new things during this week as well.

No comments:

Post a Comment