Saturday, August 13, 2011

Week 8- August 13- Reflections on the progress


This week was very intensive. The course Is coming to its end and there is a lot to be done. This week we had our draft reports to be published on wiki and to proofread our peers’ reports as well. It was very interesting to know what my colleagues decided to change in their classrooms and how they were going to implement the change. I was very impressed by the projects I had a chance to read and I am proud of having had the opportunity to collaborate with these people during the course. I’ve learned a lot from the course materials and from my peers professional experience!
The topic of this week was very interesting as well. We’ve learned so many sites and tools which can help us make our lesson varied, learner-centered and what’s more important promote students autonomy. It is so easy to create different multiple-choice tasks, quizzes, puzzles, matching tasks which you can use at different stages of you lessons. You can practise any vocabulary or grammar target structures, consolidate or test with the help of the tool we were introduced to. It doesn’t take too much time to create something which is adapted to you class and you students.
What was the most exciting for me this week is to discover ANVILL with it voiceboards and other tools. I’ve never had even a slight idea that speaking is so easy to develop with the help of technology. Speaking skill are usually the most problematic for students. They are always unconfident and insecure when they have to speak up. I think online chatrooms, voiceboard, etc.  will build their self-confidence and help students feel free to express their ideas and thought on different issues. It will help them learn the cultures of the world and share their own experience. It may help find e-pals and students may continue their communication even when they are not in the classroom which is the main aim of any English course. They will use language in real life.
I want to thank Jeff for the detailed information about ANVILL. I was not able to investigate all the tools and opportunities it provides us with but I’ll do it in the nearest future!

5 comments:

  1. Dear Iuliia,
    I can't agree more that this course was really fruitful and we were luck to meet such experienced people. I really enjoyed sharing ideas with you and have been exposed to brand new ideas. I already started to use some of them and need to look with depth into others such as ANVILL. It seems it has a lot. Good luck with your project.

    Hala

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  2. Dear luliia,

    I recommend you to use ANVILL's TCasts which enables you to record audio and video to your students. This could be accomplished by using a microphone and a computer that has a webcam (camera). It is so easy to use once you try it and it will give your course an exciting touch and motivate your students to speak and express their views and at the same time listen to you and maybe compare their pronunciation to yours and thus be able to improve.

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  3. Hi Hala,
    I am very happy to have a chance to meet such professionals as you are and other participants of the course!! It is so interesting to share ideas with you and learn from people's broad experience! I sure our projects will change our teaching and learning in a better way. I think from now on we won't imagine our classrooms without technology))))
    Good luck with your project!

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  4. Hi Nagwa,
    Thank you so much for your piece of advice. ANVILL's Casts are really an amzing tool to develop students speaking skills and to build their confidence in speaking. I'll definitely try it in my classroom!

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  5. Hello Iuliia Shalina,


    I totally agree upon what you wrote in relation to learning styles with technology tools,I just like to add some items to support your ideas.

    1. Linguistic
    -Journal keeping
    -Memorizing
    - Students Speeches
    -Listening to CDs or Talking books

    2. Logical/Mathematical
    - Scientific demonstration
    - Logic problems and puzzles
    - Creating codes

    3. Spatial
    - Charts
    -Maps
    -Diagrams
    -Videos
    -Slides
    -Movies
    -Photos-
    -Graphic organizer


    Javier

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