Week 6: Developing speaking, listening and writing skill with the use of web

Wednesday February 22, 2017

Rate: 4

Something that calls my attention was the increase in the development of communication programs, audio and video to offer a wide variety of possibilities for teachers to compile activities around listening such as watching related videos, holding conversations in real-time, etc. nowadays, teachers are integrating  the technology in the classrooms to foster the improvement of students´ skills (listening, speaking and writing) of a second language, but there is still a lack of comprehension in how to use CALL with a communicative purpose.

Something that I learned and that every teacher should know was that the communicative activities on the internet can be categorized as receptive or interactive.  The receptive activities, in the oral skills, refer to the information students receive from the websites in form of text, images, audio and video. This can be used for teachers to provide to students extra material for improving their listening and speaking skills. Also, the interactive activities refer to interact with a person or a group of people from others countries through the internet and computers.

To conclude, integrating technology to develop students´ listening and speaking skills can be such  a useful element in the classroom and out of it. It is because students can have more interaction with the language and with native speakers.  Also, they can find unlimited resources to practice and learn at the same time. 

Week 5: critical thinking and technology can work together or not?

Wednesday, February 15, 2017

Rate: 4

My initial reaction to this article was how possible is to make active and reflective students when integrating technology in the classroom.

Something I learned and that immediately wanted to share with a colleague was that educators should think in terms of teaching students to understand, analyze, synthesize, and evaluate evidence.  But how do we know that our students are learning and how can we eradicate the barrier of Sedentary lifestyle student could have. First of all we do not have to underestimate the ability to reason. In poor counties education is based on memorizing to pass an evaluation discarding any change for learners to analyze the content and go deeper.  We must understand that we should spend our time teaching students how to learn (that is, how to read the text actively and analytically and to think in the same manner) rather than using the classes to dictate information (p.2, Ken Bain).  

Something else I want to emphasis is that our brains love diversity.  Each student is a different world and each of them will process the information in a different way. That is when technology is able to provide unlimited resources to teach in a different way.  By using pictures diagrams, time lines, etc., students are more able to understand concepts. However, we should be clear that technology is just to expose to students different concepts of the reality and at the same time let them to analyze and process the information to produce their own concept of it.

A belief of mine that was confirmed was the use of technology to get through the material faster. Teachers who use visual aid such as PowerPoint presentation (ppp) should not try to cover a complex topic in on single class. Instead, educator could use ppp to give students the opportunity to draw their own conclusions based on videos or pictures in a sequence.  Also, Schools should make more effort to test students using visual media that just asking them to prepare PowerPoint presentations.

Week 4: how important is to integrate internet in the classroom?

Week 4:  how important is to integrate internet in the classroom?

Wednesday, February 08, 2017

Rate: 5

My initial impression for this article was “another reading regarding CALL” but when I started reading it my mind was changed. Something that I learned from this article and every teacher should know was the use of internet as a personal tutor for students or teachers.  Nowadays, the internet has become a fundamental element for almost everybody and teachers are not the exception. So here I show you how important it is.

A belief of mine that was confirmed was the internet for advice and analysis. For Advice:  maybe you, once in your life as an English-learner, have misunderstood an English topic such as the use of restrictive Clauses and Nonrestrictive Clauses. For such reason, internet can help you to discover unlimited resources to understand easily any topic and use them as a guide. 

Here I left one link which is a perfect example of these resources. http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/grammar-girl

For analysis: to have a better understanding of  English words, there are also many websites which provide you the meaning of any word you want to know and also the context it is used. Here I left you a sample website. You just enter a word and you find many ways to use it. 

http://www.webcorp.org.uk/live/

For Activities:  internet can provides teachers a great amount of websites with interesting examples and tasks that can motivate students to continue practicing while playing. Freerice.com is a page that gives a word and some other for you to guess the meaning. If you win, you will be helping to feed poor people. 

What surprised me in this article was the use of the internet as a tool to foster creativity and communication. What really bother students is to have homework assignments without a specific purpose for them. However, internet seems to be the solution. Some websites such as http://www.drawastickman.com/ or http://www.makebeliefscomix.com/ provide an interactive platform. The http://www.drawastickman.com contains a series of interactive mini games that ask the user to follow some commands like draw a tiger costumer around me. And the second one allows you to create your own comic by adding pictures with movement and text. They both challenge students to continue with the task until it is done. This are tools that teachers can use in their classes to change it a bit. Also for communication, we have    http://alice.pandorabots.com/   which is a program that allows the user to communicate with it by receiving answers of any question you have asked at the moment. That chat can be used for teacher to see in which area their students are failing.

Something that made me want to read more about was selecting an. For selection content, what is pretty important to know is what kind of content to show students. We cannot only take an article to make an activity in the classroom. We have to consider whether to use authentic or semi-authentic material and its usability.

WEEK 3: the benefit of using podcasts in the classroom

WEEK 3: the benefit of using podcasts in the classroom

Thursday, February 2, 2017

Rate: 5

Something I want to remember from this article is verb system and imagery system of students. The verbal system, in my own words, is the capacity of the students to process linguistics information and the imagery system is the ability to create mind maps.

These two elements, for us as teachers, are really important if we want to start using podcasts in our classes. therefore, incorporating podcasts in our classes, such as videos or audio models of input or to be more specific explaining a topic with details and demonstrating on-line listening, reading, speaking or writing strategies with real examples, helps learners to have better understanding and retention of the listening strategies and the real examples make the students feel confident with the topics because they seems more understandable.

A belief of mine that was confirmed was the benefits of podcasts. Some teachers say that use of this CALL can extend class time. This might be extra tasks for some students but for second language- learners who only have fewer hours in contact with the language is the perfect tool to have more audio input to practice their listening skills. Also, learners have the facility to gain more exposure to different types of spoken English since some of the speakers on the podcasts have heavier accents than others.

Something I learned and that I immediately wanted to share with a colleague was students feel that the podcasts with a demonstration component of some sort were more informative than the podcasts which summarized and expanded on concepts previously covered in class.