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Saturday, February 4, 2012

Life goes on ….. in week 4 with multi-skills, technology enhanced lesson plan and some issues

Everything is possible if you have hope and desire


Well, I could finally manage to finish all the tasks for this week. Some unexpected things happen during this week. One of my best colleagues suffered a severe unknown head pain; had to quit teaching a private tuition as I can’t put more effort; my long-lost friend contacted me; experienced Nicenet down when I was about to post my class issues and at the same time my internet was down and had to use at cyber shop. What a week!

No matter what happens, life goes on and so do my dream of becoming the best ESL teacher for my students and my life-long learning desire for the development of my teaching profession. I am happy to live every seconds of my life as long as I am teaching and learning. It is no doubt that I have learned new ways of teaching methods using technology in this week. First we discuss about reading, writing, vocabulary and grammar lessons. I have a clear view of reading as an active skill which involves the interaction between the reader and the text. It is valuable to know how various multimedia glosses (visual, text) enhance students’ vocabulary while practicing reading skills from the article “Using Technology to Assist in Vocabulary Acquisition andReading Comprehension" by Andreea I. Constantinescu.  
I also enjoyed reading the article “Using the Internet in ESL WritingInstruction” by Jarek Krajka.

Have you ever heard of pre-while-post stages in teaching writing skill? According to Jarek Krajka from Poland, you can teach in these ways using Internet as your favorite teaching aid. In pre-stage, analyze writing model pieces; teach grammar, vocabulary and structures offline. Then let the students fill up their minds with full of varied and authentic writing materials and ideas while exploring and browsing through Internet.  After they finish writing their pieces, teacher corrected them and they publish their work on the class website in order to discuss students’ performance and to develop listening and speaking skills based on the knowledge gained during online class. What a marvelous writing lesson out of ordinary one! I set a goal to create a student key pal connection and creating class website to develop students’ motivation and let them experience written interaction by communicating one another. 

Since I have never taught a technology enhanced lesson, it takes me quite some times to figure out planning the listening, speaking and vocabulary focus lesson in which Internet is accessed in the class. It really helps me understand how technology can add variety addressed to different learning styles. 

What is more, we are asked to describe some issues in the class which might have solved by the help of technology. I have some issues of students’ motivation, presentation works, learner’s autonomy and limited time for practicing language and concern about my assessing students’ work and lack of resources. It is quite interesting to see most of my colleagues concern for their students’ motivation. I am certain that there are a lot of amazing technology tools which could solve this issue. 

They look interested in tech. A kind of motivation?
By the way, I found more favorite websites to add to my Delicious this week. They are some fascinating multi-skills websites which I could use to teach all the important English skills in one place.  I have shared a number of great websites in Nicenet. Some of my favorite multi-skills websites are:

I found them very interesting in their unique way. They all provide great learning materials for students and teachers. The thing is you just need to choose wisely for the benefit of your students’ learning.

One week ends. Another is about to begin soon…and life goes on......

7 comments:

  1. Dear Zun Phyu,

    I do hope that your colleague feels better soon. It is great, that despite all of the difficulties you still manage to maintain an optimistic outlook on life.

    I admire your enthusiasm for learning and searching for new things. Keep it up :)

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  2. Hello Zun Phyu:

    I am so sorry about your workmate.I hope everything is find now. You are right. Sometimes things do not go out as we had expected; some situations are harder to face than others, but, as you said,life goes on and thankfully, we have people around to help us in our way. I agree that we had a lot to learn this week. I liked to revise the lesson plans and to prepare one too. And I aslo kept good sites that I found this week.

    See you online.

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  3. Dear Zun Phyu:
    Unexpected things happen from time to time. Luckily some bring joy and surprise to life. I am during my last week of winter vacation. So far, I have made lots of efforts trying to get assignments done by the due day because unexpected things have happened from time to time, but to my great delight, they were visits or get-together from old friends or the students from the past classes who I haven’t contacted for quite a while. First, I would like to thank you for suggesting me ways of solution when I posted a help request on the Nicenet last week regarding my uploading my Delicious.Com page. I think the problem resulted from the web connecting and my computer as well. I have to say that the technical web linking problem IS a headache itself.
    You talked about pre-while-post stages in teaching writing skill. I haven’t tried it in teaching writing yet. However, while going over the websites relating to listening and speaking activities last week, I did come to a website (http://www.esl-lab.com/), which offers materials using pre-while-post stages.I am not sure how long this teaching strategy has been developed , but I personally like the way the teaching activities are designed. The students are given the background knowledge before they start creating. I do think our students need to have input before they can have fruitful output. One of my eighth-grade class get a chance to be filmed for having a pre-while-post reading lesson on the coming February 16. This won’t be a rehearsed class. It is also the first time my class and I try to conduct a class this way. I will share you how it turns out. Wish me good luck.
    I love the photos you have posted on your blog. They are fascinating and they remind me of my grandparents’ house where I spent five years of my childhood.
    Best wishes for your colleague. Hope she is doing well with her head pain.

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    Replies
    1. Dear Gladys,
      Thanks for giving me such a lovely long comment. I’m very glad to know you on this course and I enjoy reading your personal and learning experience during these days.
      I agree with you that sometimes Internet connection could be bothering us. However, I think it is a tiny piece of barrier compared to a great deal of valuable tools and techniques we have gained from this course. No pain, no gain!
      Actually I really like Randall’s cyber listening site (http://www.esl-lab.com/). It is a great site with lots of fantastic listening and vocabulary lessons. I have already used materials from this site in my technology enhanced lessons. Maybe you can check it out on Nicenet (http://www.nicenet.org/ICA/class/conf_topic_show.cfm?topic_id=841459)
      And also, what a great chance for you and your students to have a pre-while-post reading lesson. Is it a technology related one? I wish you the best of luck on Feb 16. I am sure you will have a successful lesson. I can’t wait to know how it turns out.
      Best wishes,
      Zun Phyu

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  4. Hi Zun Phyu
    This is my first post in your blog
    You are active teacher and I am sure
    You will become what you want

    You are sharing with us some great sites
    I like the 5minutes one

    All the best
    Yasir

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  5. Hi Lina, Denise and Yasir,

    Thank you very much for your encouraging words. It means a lot to me. Now I am already excited for exploring more wonderful tools in week 5.

    P.S: my colleague is feeling better now and hope she could be back to work soon. :)

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  6. Hi Zun Phyu

    I am glad that you have managed to
    complete this week's tasks.

    I agree that planning a lesson that is enhanced by technology is not an easy task but it really worth it.

    I am also with you that motivation is a big issue and as we have seen it is a common issue in English classes. I am sure we all are going to find many tools to solve this out.

    Wish you all the best

    Hilal

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