Reflection on Week 4

         Week 4 was indeed quite challenging! As much as it was challenging, I must not deny the fact that I learned more ideas on conducting reading and writing activities with the help of technology. Before I comment on this week’s tasks, here is what I have got to say. When it comes to reading and writing, it is not only the students who feel anxious but teachers too. I often try hard not to make my reading and writing lessons dull, but it just happens at times. I had never thought much on incorporating technology as it might be time consuming and the fact that I might have to prepare back-up plans for my lessons in case anything goes wrong. Thus, I come back to the traditional method of asking students to read comprehension texts and to summarize them, or asking students to write essays. Since I usually teach students who are in their final year and they are very exam-oriented minded, they do not complain much if my teaching method is very traditional. I must also admit that at times, teachers often misunderstand the concept of integrating technology in teaching and learning process. As an example, by just showing a video or a power-point presentation, we do not integrate much technology. Students must be allowed to experience using the tools on their own.

 

         The discussion for this week was based on three articles which discuss relevant and possible activities for reading and writing using technology. I read all the three articles and I wish to thank Sean for choosing these articles for us to read. Their ideas were superb. Most of the ideas are students-centered, which is exactly how it should be. Mei-Ya Liang’s article on Three Extensive Reading Activities for ESL/EFL Students Using E-books is a nice idea in total. The three activities are simple yet can be very effective if they are conducted attentively. The activities allow students to work independently and in groups where collaborative learning takes place. I like these three activities because this was exactly what I used to do when I was an undergraduate student. However, I don’t know why I had never considered using such method in school. In Malaysian schools, we have a programme called NILAM. Each student will be given a log book to record books which they have read. Students will be awarded based on the number of books read. So, now I am thinking of using these three activities for my school’s NILAM programme. 

            Next is the article on Using Internet-Based Children’s Literature to Teach EFL by Larry J. Mikulecky. The web-sites recommended by Larry are interesting. I had never used any of these web-sites before. I will suggest these web-sites to lower-secondary teachers. Of all the three articles, I find Jarek’s article (Using the Internet in ESL Writing Instruction) very useful for me. By providing literature review in the article, it enables us to read more on the ideas. The author has provided a list of activities which can be carried out using the Internet and I plan to try them. Maybe I will have to make some adjustment to the ideas in order to fit my context. I also explored the links given at the main webpage of the course. I used Lauri’s ESL website and ESL Independent Study Lab and came up with some objectives. After the school break, I will ask students to visit ESL Independent Study Lab and write their own cinquain based on a theme which I will provide them.

        The task on writing the problem in classroom was not a challenge. I understood Sean’s question and I agree that I have problem in terms of time management. We have so many holidays in Malaysia (public holidays, special school events and school break). In addition we waste a few more weeks during the exam periods. However, I cannot use them as an excuse to not to finish my syllabus. By hook or crook, I have to finish up the syllabus before the students sit for their trials examination. Therefore, I would like to use technology-based teaching tools to solve the problem. I plan to use a simple tool as this is the first time the students will be using it. Using a complicated tool might turn things into a mess. 

I must say that my biggest challenge for this week was on preparing a technology-enhanced lesson plan. I had to spend almost 2 days, just to come up with the lesson plan. As I have mentioned before in Week 2, I write lesson plans every day before I enter the classes. And on every Thursday, I have to submit my record book for the Principal or the Senior Assistants to check. Although I write lesson plans daily, yet I struggled when it came to this task, probably because it deals with technology. I tried my best to plan out a lesson that incorporates the Internet and the activity exposes students to real-world context. This activity might be a little time consuming, but I am sure it will bring great benefit for students. To be honest, I am getting cold feet thinking about my grades for this week because I am not sure if my idea on this lesson plan is good enough. My lesson plan is quite simple as I considered many things while writing it. I don’t mind starting out with a simple plan but what I want is to expose my students to real-world context and for them to experience using the Internet to carry out this task. I am looking forward for Sean’s comment on it.

 “In learning you will teach, and in teaching you will learn.” 
― Phil Collins

Week 3

REFLECTION ON WEEK 3

 

It is unbelievable that Week 3 is coming to an end. Time flies so fast! 

I enjoyed signing up for Delicious. Delicious.com is a site to store useful links. I’ve never heard about this site before. Using Delicious.com helps us to store links in an organized way. The links can be tagged using keywords. Some of the features are almost similar to Twitter, where we can follow others and vice versa while some are similar to Instagram where details on how many links, followers and subscription as well as how many people we are following are shown. Therefore, we can also share the links when we visit other’s pages. I managed to save some useful links which I use regularly to prepare my lessons. 

The reading materials assigned for this week is worthwhile. The focus for this week is Aural/Oral Skills. I read two articles;  Developing Listening Skills with Authentic Materials by Lindsay Miller and The Employment of CALL in Teaching Second/Foreign Language Speaking Skills by Julia Gong. Both the articles talked on the importance of listening and speaking skills in one’s life. As I have mentioned in Nicenet, I never quite focused on listening skills and whenever I did listening activities, I used prepared listening texts. Through Lindsay’s article, I’ve learned how to incorporate listening activities and authentic materials in preparing students for real-world context. Julia’s article discussed on the use of computers in learning and more focus was given on speaking skills. 

 

Among the websites listed, I like Esl-lab. Randall’s lab is very organized and easy to be used.  The advantage of using this online-lab is that Pre-, While and Post-Listening lessons are prepared. Teachers need not to crack their heads to think of pre- and post-listening activities. All we need to do is to click, listen and answer the questions. It’s as easy as ABC!

             Reading some of the sample project report gave me a better picture of the final project. Some of the reports were very good; well-planned and carried out. I hope to produce a good report like the ones that I've read. Overall, this week’s tasks gave good coverage on aural/oral skills. Now, I have additional tools to use in my teaching.