Thursday, 10 March 2011
WEEK 10: REFLECTION
Participating in “webskills 2011” has been a wonderful experience for me, so I need to start this post by thanking to Robert and all the course members from whom I learned a lot. First of all, through this course I got an idea about what it is like an online training since it is my first online course. Now, I have a clear mind about how to use Nicenet, wiki, google sites and google docs. Additionally, through this course I have encountered with many valuable internet tools that can be used for both professional growth and language teaching. For example, I have learned about various search engines that I have been frequently using since the second week of this course. Now, I have a delicious page where I am continually applying while preparing class materials. It really has eased my work and helped me save my time. All the topics chosen were great, satisfying and up-to date. I especially liked “webquests” and I am going to try it with my students as soon as possible. The tasks were useful as they contributed to permanent learning through their “learn by doing” nature. For one of the tasks, for instance, I tried out creating “interactive powerpoints” which I seriously have needed for my students here. Now, I have been using it and in fact I enjoy playing with ppt files. Considering what I have learned in this course I have made some plans (expressed in Nicenet post) and I am really excited to realize them and continue to learn…
Sunday, 6 March 2011
WEEK 9: REFLECTION
Though I was late to do readings and requirements of this week, I learned a lot again. While reading about multiple intelligence, I remembered a kind of seminar I attended during my early years of teaching. The presenter was showing how to incorporate music in language classrooms and she suggested using music/songs not only as learning activities but also background tools for presenting the lesson.
A few years ago I taught writing to adult students. We were following the principles of process approach. As you all know, it requires a “prewriting stage” in which students just generate ideas through various activities. After that seminar, I attempted to use music at the prewriting stage and the students’ reactions were positive although I was really doubtful at the beginning. Now I have been still using songs in my teaching practice but this time as a kind of exercise. Students are listening to songs and then fill in the blanks or do matching exercises etc.. And most of the students in my classes state that they like these activities. It seems that I have” musical/rhythmic-dominant” learners. Of course, there may be some other reasons why the students love songs as teaching materials, but the kind of intelligence they have also may play a part in their attitudes toward these song-related activities.
To cut it short, I certainly agree that multiple intelligence theory and learning styles and their suggestions should be considered while designing the courses. Creating variety in the activities is a best way to follow what is suggested in these fields. And we all know (as discussed well in Nicenet) computers and internet offers a lot to create variety in our teaching practices….
A few years ago I taught writing to adult students. We were following the principles of process approach. As you all know, it requires a “prewriting stage” in which students just generate ideas through various activities. After that seminar, I attempted to use music at the prewriting stage and the students’ reactions were positive although I was really doubtful at the beginning. Now I have been still using songs in my teaching practice but this time as a kind of exercise. Students are listening to songs and then fill in the blanks or do matching exercises etc.. And most of the students in my classes state that they like these activities. It seems that I have” musical/rhythmic-dominant” learners. Of course, there may be some other reasons why the students love songs as teaching materials, but the kind of intelligence they have also may play a part in their attitudes toward these song-related activities.
To cut it short, I certainly agree that multiple intelligence theory and learning styles and their suggestions should be considered while designing the courses. Creating variety in the activities is a best way to follow what is suggested in these fields. And we all know (as discussed well in Nicenet) computers and internet offers a lot to create variety in our teaching practices….
Friday, 25 February 2011
WEEK 8 REFLECTION
It was a very busy but a fruitful week. As I will be away for the weekend, I tried my best to finish the tasks/discussions etc.. I got tired but I think it has been worth.
For my project, I prepared some materials for my students. They have not seen them yet but I learned many things about MOODLE, which is my project. One of the things I want to share is that MOODLE allows users to form their own “personal glossary” a kind of individualized vocab list. I have managed to activate that block on our MOODLE site. The students will form their own glossaries and then the site will offer them quizzes special to the students whenever they want. I really liked this feature and I think my students will benefit from it much. I have added the students on the site and next Monday onward, the students will begin to use it. I am excited about hearing students’ initial responses.
As for the weekly tasks and discussions, I have found about ANVILL and I am still learning about it. Actually, Robert has suggested me before but I was too busy with reading about MOODLE, I could not understand it well. It seems to be different from MOODLE due to its special emphasis on “speaking” and being designed for language teaching in particular. I have just set up a course on ANVILL. And maybe it will become the topic of another “project” in the future. I also want comment on “hotpotatoes” which I could not mention in my nicenet posts. I am quite familiar with preparing quizes through hotpotatoes. It is really user-friendly. Even you do not have to read anything about before using it because the application guides you very well. Just clicking on the buttons is enough to prepare different kind of quizes/exercises. I especially like “crossword” as it has attracted my students too much. I do not know why my students have loved studying English through crossword. Maybe crosswords make them feel as if they were doing a free time activitiy. I strongly suggest “hotpotatoes” to those interested in creating their own net-based, interactive exercises.
For my project, I prepared some materials for my students. They have not seen them yet but I learned many things about MOODLE, which is my project. One of the things I want to share is that MOODLE allows users to form their own “personal glossary” a kind of individualized vocab list. I have managed to activate that block on our MOODLE site. The students will form their own glossaries and then the site will offer them quizzes special to the students whenever they want. I really liked this feature and I think my students will benefit from it much. I have added the students on the site and next Monday onward, the students will begin to use it. I am excited about hearing students’ initial responses.
As for the weekly tasks and discussions, I have found about ANVILL and I am still learning about it. Actually, Robert has suggested me before but I was too busy with reading about MOODLE, I could not understand it well. It seems to be different from MOODLE due to its special emphasis on “speaking” and being designed for language teaching in particular. I have just set up a course on ANVILL. And maybe it will become the topic of another “project” in the future. I also want comment on “hotpotatoes” which I could not mention in my nicenet posts. I am quite familiar with preparing quizes through hotpotatoes. It is really user-friendly. Even you do not have to read anything about before using it because the application guides you very well. Just clicking on the buttons is enough to prepare different kind of quizes/exercises. I especially like “crossword” as it has attracted my students too much. I do not know why my students have loved studying English through crossword. Maybe crosswords make them feel as if they were doing a free time activitiy. I strongly suggest “hotpotatoes” to those interested in creating their own net-based, interactive exercises.
Sunday, 20 February 2011
WEEK 7: REFLECTION
Both topics of this week were really great. I appreciate that fostering learner autonomy in our students should be one of primary objectives in designing our teaching practices if we aim life-long learning. The first step for autonomy is arousing an awareness in the students about their learning process. Here, I frequently encounter students asking me the best way to learn vocab. They ask “how can I learn the words? Should I write them as a list or is making sentences with the new words better?” I think such questions imply that those students are teacher-dependent and they just waiting for someone prescribing learning for them.
My answer for such questions is that: try to discover by yourself. Of course, as teachers we should support our students in their learning process. With regard to vocab, for example, we should show them different ways. For instance we can introduce them visualization or mapping etc… And then we should encourage them to think about their own learning styles and choose accordingly. The students should be encouraged to reflect on their learning, identify their weakness and strengths and discover themselves as learners, and take steps in accordance with this reflection. As teachers, we should create environments in which they can these steps easily.
The other topic (one-computer classrooms) was also didactic for me as one computer classrooms are very common in my setting. As a matter of fact, here we get happy when we have a class with a computer and a projector. So far, I have not thought about whole-class online activities that could be done even with one computer, but this week, I learned that there are some ways to incorporate whole class into an activity by using a comp and a projector (like the one I mentioned in my nicenet post). I am going to try it and see if it works…
My answer for such questions is that: try to discover by yourself. Of course, as teachers we should support our students in their learning process. With regard to vocab, for example, we should show them different ways. For instance we can introduce them visualization or mapping etc… And then we should encourage them to think about their own learning styles and choose accordingly. The students should be encouraged to reflect on their learning, identify their weakness and strengths and discover themselves as learners, and take steps in accordance with this reflection. As teachers, we should create environments in which they can these steps easily.
The other topic (one-computer classrooms) was also didactic for me as one computer classrooms are very common in my setting. As a matter of fact, here we get happy when we have a class with a computer and a projector. So far, I have not thought about whole-class online activities that could be done even with one computer, but this week, I learned that there are some ways to incorporate whole class into an activity by using a comp and a projector (like the one I mentioned in my nicenet post). I am going to try it and see if it works…
Sunday, 13 February 2011
WEEK 6: Reflection
One of the best things I have learned this week is how to “play with” Powerpoint presentations. I am frequently trying to use Powerpoint presentations in my teaching. This is because most of my students like to “see” the stuff and I believe that Powerpoint presentations save our class time. However, I have never had the feeling of “perfectness” with the presentations I have prepared. When I use them in the classroom, it is OK because I know the correct answers or how to help the students when they do not understand anything about the topic. But my point is that my students generally want those ppt files to study on the topic after the class. I know that these files cannot make good study tools because I have not known how to give feedback through ppt presentation. This week I have learned it. Now I feel that my students can use Powerpoint presentations efficiently while they are studying on their own because I can direct them easily within the presentation to make them see the important points about a topic, and I can give immediate feedback even when I am not with them.
For my project task, I am not currently teaching. So I cannot begin to implement my plan. But I have begun to do some preliminary work for my project. I found someone from the university and he is going to help me with technical aspects of Moodle. This week, we built moodle on a server. And my plan for the next week is to add the students to the site and decide on the content of the “first week” on the moodle. Next week, I have an exam to take related to my Phd, so it seems that I will be very busy with it. But as soon as the exam finishes, I will begin to prepare some content for the Moodle. I am planning to share what I will do in the eight week.
For my project task, I am not currently teaching. So I cannot begin to implement my plan. But I have begun to do some preliminary work for my project. I found someone from the university and he is going to help me with technical aspects of Moodle. This week, we built moodle on a server. And my plan for the next week is to add the students to the site and decide on the content of the “first week” on the moodle. Next week, I have an exam to take related to my Phd, so it seems that I will be very busy with it. But as soon as the exam finishes, I will begin to prepare some content for the Moodle. I am planning to share what I will do in the eight week.
Sunday, 6 February 2011
WEEk 5: REFLECTION
One of the most important contributions of this week’s studies is that I come across with webquests which I have heard of before but never examined so closely. I liked it so much. What is really striking about using webquests is that we can use ready-made ones easily by choosing in accordance with our topic. However, what I did not understand about them is that where the students share their projects. Let’s say you have used a ready-made webquest about “describing people” (this is what Umesha shared with me through sending the link. Thanks a lot) , and the students have prepared their presentations. Can they publish it on the same site or will they bring it to the class to share?
Another very good thing about this week’s post is my friends’ invaluable suggestions about my planned tech-related project. I really got very helpful feedback. And now I feel a need to clarify why I want to use Moodle with my students. I focus on CMSs because here we have just two hours per week to deliver the instruction, and since the classes are crowded, I cannot see whether the students understand the topic or not. Another reason, most of our class time is spent on giving grammatical rules and I cannot find enough time to incorporate listening or reading or writing activities.
My students are young adults, beginner students and among them there are those who have not received any kind of English instruction before. Because of this, I feel that I should begin with grammar. What I am trying to do is to make them familiar with basic rules and vocabulary first on any topic, and then to introduce reading or listening materials. Let’s say "simple present tense". Sometimes before asking the students to read a passage including simple present structures, I feel I should give rules for sentence structures to help them understand. I have also been trying to the opposite: we begin with reading a dialogue and then we try to learn the rules together. But, whatever the technique is, there is less time left to make more practice in most cases. This is why I want to use a CMS through which I think I can help students to make some more practice. For example. in a unit about "describing yourself", we read a few descriptions; learn the words and structures. We do some guided exercises on the structures. But we do not have time to see whether the students can describe themselves by producing their own sentences. So I feel that I should find a place where students at least try to write their own sentences.
Shuhudha has warned me that managing moodle and delivering the course through it can be difficult. I appreciate this and accept that it is demanding too much time on my part. Thus I will keep it as simple as I can. I am planning to use the “quiz” module mainly for reading/speaking activities and the “forum” to make the students write a few sentences. And file/link sharing tools to remind the students the content of in-class course.
This is what I am planning for the time being. And it seems that I will revise this soon!!
Another very good thing about this week’s post is my friends’ invaluable suggestions about my planned tech-related project. I really got very helpful feedback. And now I feel a need to clarify why I want to use Moodle with my students. I focus on CMSs because here we have just two hours per week to deliver the instruction, and since the classes are crowded, I cannot see whether the students understand the topic or not. Another reason, most of our class time is spent on giving grammatical rules and I cannot find enough time to incorporate listening or reading or writing activities.
My students are young adults, beginner students and among them there are those who have not received any kind of English instruction before. Because of this, I feel that I should begin with grammar. What I am trying to do is to make them familiar with basic rules and vocabulary first on any topic, and then to introduce reading or listening materials. Let’s say "simple present tense". Sometimes before asking the students to read a passage including simple present structures, I feel I should give rules for sentence structures to help them understand. I have also been trying to the opposite: we begin with reading a dialogue and then we try to learn the rules together. But, whatever the technique is, there is less time left to make more practice in most cases. This is why I want to use a CMS through which I think I can help students to make some more practice. For example. in a unit about "describing yourself", we read a few descriptions; learn the words and structures. We do some guided exercises on the structures. But we do not have time to see whether the students can describe themselves by producing their own sentences. So I feel that I should find a place where students at least try to write their own sentences.
Shuhudha has warned me that managing moodle and delivering the course through it can be difficult. I appreciate this and accept that it is demanding too much time on my part. Thus I will keep it as simple as I can. I am planning to use the “quiz” module mainly for reading/speaking activities and the “forum” to make the students write a few sentences. And file/link sharing tools to remind the students the content of in-class course.
This is what I am planning for the time being. And it seems that I will revise this soon!!
Sunday, 30 January 2011
WEEK 4: REFLECTION
This week was a very busy one for me so I had some difficulties in keeping up with the requirements of the course. However, I learned a lot again. I especially focused on the articles related to reading and vocabulary, and learned about very useful websites, software or applications. I bookmarked the websites that I found beneficial on my delicious page, which is a really useful website for me. Reading the discussions going on Nicenet was indeed informative this week. I read the suggestions made by other participants and they helped me to revise my classroom practices. I appreciate the sites recommended by Ava. I liked them too much.
For the tech-enhanced lesson plan task: I know that going to the class with a clear written plan will facilitate the work but it is not so easy to write all the details down when there is overload on the teacher. I wish I had two or three classes with 20 students utmost; lesson plans will certainly work well. Anyway, it has been a good experience for me and I am planning to use it when the next term begins here.
For my final project, I am thinking on the use of MOODLE to increase the time of instruction for the students. I am continually complaining about the limited course duration (2 hours per week), and I think it can help me to extend the instruction out of school. I am not experienced on it, so I will be happy to hear form those having ideas about MOODLE.
For the tech-enhanced lesson plan task: I know that going to the class with a clear written plan will facilitate the work but it is not so easy to write all the details down when there is overload on the teacher. I wish I had two or three classes with 20 students utmost; lesson plans will certainly work well. Anyway, it has been a good experience for me and I am planning to use it when the next term begins here.
For my final project, I am thinking on the use of MOODLE to increase the time of instruction for the students. I am continually complaining about the limited course duration (2 hours per week), and I think it can help me to extend the instruction out of school. I am not experienced on it, so I will be happy to hear form those having ideas about MOODLE.
Sunday, 23 January 2011
WEEK 3: Technology Use in Aural/oral skill-building
Another abundant week!. I learned about many websites and software that can be used in aurol/oral skill building. Among them, some offer good solutions to my own teaching context.
The first one that I learned about and planning to recommend to my students is software called SLIM (Multimedia Interactive Linguistic Software). It applies to my teaching context because currently we do not have much time for in-class instruction. And the students need some more help out of classroom. Such self-study software can provide this help. The software is said to be designed for beginner/false beginner students (Delmonte, 2002: I have added the link to his article that clearly describes the software and presents the benefits of using it). It also applies to my conditions because mine are university-level students and they find “repetitions” funny and childish. In most cases, they do not repeat even after I correct the pronunciation. I think this happens because the presence of others may arouse a kind anxiety in the students. Therefore, studying on their own on their pronunciation will “offer a private environment for working on pronunciation without fear of the number of repetitions needed for full comprehension or accuracy of production” (Gong, 2002). I do not know whether it is “outdated” another version of the software has been developed or not, but I am going to search about it…
For the sources to be used in-class, I have discovered the http://www.esl-galaxy.com. I have examined the website and found many useful sources especially for listening. The page with powerpoint presentations has attracted my attention in particular because I use them frequently just to save time. So it seems that I will often visit this site when the second term begins. http://www.esl-lab.com/ seems to be beneficial to enrich my teaching practice.
And finally this week I have come across with “delicious.com” which I have not used before. I really liked it because I have been using two computers one at home and one in my office. Up to now, I have been using the computers’ own bookmarking tools. Sometimes I find a good link and bookmark it but then I forgot where I put it. It has been confusing for me. So this delicious will ease my work too much. It was also a user friendly website and I did not experience any problems in setting up my own page although it is my first time to use.
The first one that I learned about and planning to recommend to my students is software called SLIM (Multimedia Interactive Linguistic Software). It applies to my teaching context because currently we do not have much time for in-class instruction. And the students need some more help out of classroom. Such self-study software can provide this help. The software is said to be designed for beginner/false beginner students (Delmonte, 2002: I have added the link to his article that clearly describes the software and presents the benefits of using it). It also applies to my conditions because mine are university-level students and they find “repetitions” funny and childish. In most cases, they do not repeat even after I correct the pronunciation. I think this happens because the presence of others may arouse a kind anxiety in the students. Therefore, studying on their own on their pronunciation will “offer a private environment for working on pronunciation without fear of the number of repetitions needed for full comprehension or accuracy of production” (Gong, 2002). I do not know whether it is “outdated” another version of the software has been developed or not, but I am going to search about it…
For the sources to be used in-class, I have discovered the http://www.esl-galaxy.com. I have examined the website and found many useful sources especially for listening. The page with powerpoint presentations has attracted my attention in particular because I use them frequently just to save time. So it seems that I will often visit this site when the second term begins. http://www.esl-lab.com/ seems to be beneficial to enrich my teaching practice.
And finally this week I have come across with “delicious.com” which I have not used before. I really liked it because I have been using two computers one at home and one in my office. Up to now, I have been using the computers’ own bookmarking tools. Sometimes I find a good link and bookmark it but then I forgot where I put it. It has been confusing for me. So this delicious will ease my work too much. It was also a user friendly website and I did not experience any problems in setting up my own page although it is my first time to use.
Sunday, 16 January 2011
WEEK 2: Search Engines/ABCD Objectives
First of all, I would like to say that this week was beyond of my initial expectations. At the beginning of the second week, when I read the title “search engines” I thought that this week there would not be so many things to cover. Soon I understood that it was just because of my “ignorance” about the search engines. I have just known “google”. What I have read this week (both the required readings and the participants’ posts on Nicenet) have contributed to my understanding a lot. I realized that I am not good even at google though it is the unique engine I have been using. I learned many useful tips for searching through google. I learned about using + sign to combine the words I search for; using – sign to exclude the words that you do not want to appear in the results. I also learned about tilde for the synonyms. Now I want to add one more thing. When you want to search for specific file types, you can use “filetype:pdf” just after the query. To illustrate, you can write your query like "vocabulary practice for clothing fletype:ppt" This one may have been told in the posts or you may already have known it. I just want to share it just in case. The most important outcome for me about the search engines is the doaj.org and openj-gate.com. I admired both of them and I think that I will frequently make use of them from now on. Through the posts sent by the course participants I got aware of the search engines to be used for powerpoint files (mentioned by Mbarek ) for educational purposes (mentioned by Ali).
With regard to ABCD objectives, I realized the significance of setting objectives beforehand once more. I certainly appreciate that we should have a clear mind about what our students are, what we expect them to do after every lesson. Writing objectives down will definitely contribute to have a clear mind. But the thing is that I have too many different classes here filled with students at various levels. And it is not so easy for me to write down the objectives before every class. It seems that I will use what I have learned from this topic for certain classes but not all of them.
And finally, I want to comment on the final project step 1. I chose one of my classes to work with for the final project. I really want to introduce a change to the students in that class in order to make the instruction more effective. Now, I am not certain about what to do. I am just interested in Course Management Systems which I think can bring about a change in the way I desire. I would be happy to hear your suggestions about what to do with such a class.
With regard to ABCD objectives, I realized the significance of setting objectives beforehand once more. I certainly appreciate that we should have a clear mind about what our students are, what we expect them to do after every lesson. Writing objectives down will definitely contribute to have a clear mind. But the thing is that I have too many different classes here filled with students at various levels. And it is not so easy for me to write down the objectives before every class. It seems that I will use what I have learned from this topic for certain classes but not all of them.
And finally, I want to comment on the final project step 1. I chose one of my classes to work with for the final project. I really want to introduce a change to the students in that class in order to make the instruction more effective. Now, I am not certain about what to do. I am just interested in Course Management Systems which I think can bring about a change in the way I desire. I would be happy to hear your suggestions about what to do with such a class.
Sunday, 9 January 2011
WEEK 1: Using Blogs in Language Teaching
I am not so new to using blogs with students as I used it for different purposes before. While I was working at a prep program, I used blog software as a tool to support in-class writing instruction. I am deliberately using "blog software" because what we did was not blogging in its real sense but just making use of the software to share students' writing assignments. I was teaching writing skill in accordance with the principles of process approach: As you know, process approach emphasizes recursive nature of writing skill, the need to guide the students through the stages such as planning, drafting, revising, editing and publishing (Hyland, 2003). It also underlines the concepts of audience, purpose and interaction with peers and the instructor. However, it was not so easy to provide an effective writing instruction since the course hour (face-to-face meeting) was very limited. So, using blogging provided us with a wonderful solution to the time-limit problem.
I used the class blog and learner blogs as described in Campbell, 2003. First of all, I created a class blog which was used to inform students about the things to do (assignment, giving feedback to peers, activities to be done etc...). Then I required the students to create their own blogs (learner blogs) to share their writings with the class. During the in-class instruction, I was teaching the topic of the week, showing them some model paragraphs/essays, doing some structure related exercises with them, and all the other stages of writing process were being carried out on the students' blog pages. They wrote the first draft of their assignments on their pages. Then I waited for the students to comment on each other's works. After they got feedback from their friends, I myself read and gave feedback to their writings. For the surface level feedback/correction, I used some colour codes each indicating different types of mistake; for the content-level feedback I used the comment option of blogging as well. Depending on the peer and teacher feedback, the students wrote their subsequent drafts. We did the same things for each topic covered throughout the term.
The short version of the story is that using blog, first of all, increased the time we spend with students; it increased the teacher-student interaction. And most of my students reported that using blogs also contributed to the social atmosphere of their classroom. An interesting thing we experienced during this study was that the students got "real audience" to their writings in addition to their classmates. I strongly believe that this added to their motivation. Even, several of my students said that they felt themselves as if they were column writers in a newspaper, which I found very amazing. To me it was a very pleasant and beneficial experience...
Campbell, A. P. (2003). Weblogs for Use with ESL Classes. The Internet TESL Journal. 9 (2).
Hyland, K. (2003). Second Language Writing. UK: Cambridge University Press
I used the class blog and learner blogs as described in Campbell, 2003. First of all, I created a class blog which was used to inform students about the things to do (assignment, giving feedback to peers, activities to be done etc...). Then I required the students to create their own blogs (learner blogs) to share their writings with the class. During the in-class instruction, I was teaching the topic of the week, showing them some model paragraphs/essays, doing some structure related exercises with them, and all the other stages of writing process were being carried out on the students' blog pages. They wrote the first draft of their assignments on their pages. Then I waited for the students to comment on each other's works. After they got feedback from their friends, I myself read and gave feedback to their writings. For the surface level feedback/correction, I used some colour codes each indicating different types of mistake; for the content-level feedback I used the comment option of blogging as well. Depending on the peer and teacher feedback, the students wrote their subsequent drafts. We did the same things for each topic covered throughout the term.
The short version of the story is that using blog, first of all, increased the time we spend with students; it increased the teacher-student interaction. And most of my students reported that using blogs also contributed to the social atmosphere of their classroom. An interesting thing we experienced during this study was that the students got "real audience" to their writings in addition to their classmates. I strongly believe that this added to their motivation. Even, several of my students said that they felt themselves as if they were column writers in a newspaper, which I found very amazing. To me it was a very pleasant and beneficial experience...
Campbell, A. P. (2003). Weblogs for Use with ESL Classes. The Internet TESL Journal. 9 (2).
Hyland, K. (2003). Second Language Writing. UK: Cambridge University Press
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