Week 4: Using technology to Build Reading and Writing skills and to enhance lesson plans!!!

Week 4 is coming to an end and once again, it was rich in exchange and experience. As a matter of fact, this week, we have been concerned with websites likely to help us develop our students’ reading and writing skills and once again, the list is very long. It is though worth mentioning that ‘Breaking News English’ is the site most participants have chosen and recommended to use in class; this is not surprising, given the fact that ‘Breaking News English’ takes care of the development of the four skills in an integrative way; it covers a very wide range of topics and it can be used with students of all levels. The harvest for the week has definitely been excellent.


The other challenging yet interesting adventure is the design of a technology-enhanced lesson plan and the sharing of it using ‘Google Drive’. For me, the challenge was to decide what technology to involve my students in as there were so many possibilities; I eventually decided to have them access sites I gave to them in advance. The point was for them to find on the net information concerning the eating habits of four different countries of my choice; indeed, the topic for the Pre-Advanced level is ‘Pluralism and Diversity’ and having students explore the web is just a fantastic opportunity for them to meet the world as not many of them have the opportunity to travel abroad.

 The idea was to have them select the information they want to share with the class through a PowerPoint presentation. I could of course have just asked them to find information about ‘the eating habits around the world’ on the net and send their findings to me by e-mail but I decided to start cautiously and to take them step by step in this fascinating world. The next step will be to have them search the web in a more independent way and to share information with each other using other discussion platforms like a class blog, a class wiki or nicenet. I feel sure that not only will they enjoy it but they will also develop their language skills more quickly

Week 3: An insightful project from Honduras

Week 3 was another fruitful week which gave us the opportunity to comment on former Webskills participants’ project reports. We were asked to choose one to comment in Nicenet.

I was right away attracted by Aleyda Linares' final project 
report. She is a teacher trainer like me; she teaches English to future EFL teachers at National Pedagogical University, Honduras and I appreciated her clear-sighted analysis of her students’ situations; that is, their strengths as well as their weaknesses, the opportunities offered to them and the threats that may undermine the project.

I was impressed by the fact that she has always been able to come up with relevant and workable solutions for the benefits of her students and integrating technology in her teaching and engaging her students in technology-enhanced learning through blogging, web questing, and PowerPoint presentation, proved an excellent option.

It is surely clear by now that reading Aleyda Linares’ project report helped me get ‘the big picture’ (as Robert has put it) about my own final project: thorough but concise and straightforward.

Week 3: Oral/Aural Skills Building

Week 3: Oral-Aural Skill Building         
How time flies! It is already Week 3. This week, I experienced something I have always  dreaded: a failure in the Internet connection, and it happened at the beginning of the week. Luckily, the problem was solved in time and I was able to carry out the tasks assigned for the week in due time.

As always, the reading materials and discussions related to the best websites for building oral/aural skills were very intense and enriching. We were thus introduced with a variety of excellent sites and we even had the privilege and pleasure to hear Sam and Sujith’s voices. Isn’t that great? This was indeed made possible by technology!



To top it all, we were asked to create a Delicious page, which to me is a real life-saver as I have always had a hard time remembering the sites I needed, and if I happened to bookmark them, I often forget on which computer I had done so. Delicious is indeed a very practical bookmarking tool we can retrieve from any computer we are using, once we have saved our page.

At first, I added three sites to my Delicious page; they are:
 http://www.ello.org/,                                                                                                      
Elllo stands for 'English Listening Lesson Library Online'. It offers a collection of downloadable audio in mp3 format. It can be accessed by English students and teachers freely through the net.There are practical activities which can help develop the students' listening skills: audio materials, video materials, news,... Students can use the materials on their own but teachers can also instruct them.

 http://eslgold.net/speaking/talking_topics.html
This site offers a variety of talking topics together with hands-on speaking activities, suitable for students of all level of competence.It lists the functions the students can practice (e.g: Describing things), some conversation tasks and articles to talk about. The teachers can also pull materials from this site. Besides, it has an online speaking program (Speak-English-Today.com) which allows students to connect with other students and teachers from all over the world.

http://www.eslflow.com/pronunciationlessonplans.html
This site offers a variety of activities helping teachers deal with pronunciation in an attractive way. It comes with worksheets students can use while practicing.

 Later, enriched with the discussions I had with my classmates, I added http://learningenglish.voanews.com/podcast/0.html, which provides audio files about a variety of topics, for high beginner to low-intermediate level and which offers authentic material but these are said to be one third slower than regular VOA English.
I also decided to add http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/2008/03/17/the-best-sites-to-practice-spe...,  a site compiling free and user-friendly sites which are accessible to English language learners. Students will find here useful sites where they can record their voices and post their recordings online.

I, for my part, will be very glad to share this with my students and my fellow teachers. I know some who will be relieved!

Week 2: Writing Learning Objectives

I knew I would learn a lot during this course but I was far from suspecting that after about a quarter of century of teaching experience I would still learn about a new way of writing learning objectives and yet, that was the case.  As a result, I cannot but be thankful once again to the University of Oregon and its staff who designed this course.  As explained in the Pennsylvania State University site (Penn State Learning Design Community Hub, Mon, 12/17/2007),

‘The ABCD method of writing objectives is an excellent starting point for writing objectives (Heinich, et al., 1996). In this system, "A" is for audience, "B" is for behavior, "C" for conditions and "D" for degree of mastery needed.’

I definitely welcome the A.B.C.D. method as it has opened my mind to the fact that up until now, I have always limited myself to the A and B when writing my objectives and neglecting C and D . In a way, then, I can say that my objectives have been truncated and now I understand how much this method can help establish a realistic relationship between what you expect the students to learn and how much you want them to learn. I know that using this method will help me design better assessment materials so I’ll do my best to master it.

Week 2: The world of search engines

This second week started with a frantic search into the world of search engines and allowed most of the participants to discover that the web is offering a rich variety of search engines that help hit sites we can use to carry out our search for relevant and reliable information.

We thus came to realize that there are many other alternative search engines to Google we can resort to; indeed, as one of my e-classmates has put it "Google is just one of many". As a matter of fact, I have learned from the insightful discussions we have had during this week that the choice concerning which one to use depends on what you are looking for and thanks to the various search engines listed in http://www.noodletools.com I was able to try out some whose existence I would not have known hadn't I participated in this course. Once again, this shows how enriching the course is.

I also learned that there are 'General Purpose' search engines which can display an ocean of websites (with the risk of drowning), such is the case for Google or Bing but if we want to carry out more pinpointed types of search, we can also have more 'Specific Purpose' tools like Infomine, KidsHealth, or Intute, to name but a few.

A major point worth mentioning is though that even if it is good to familiarize our students with varied search engines and websites, it is more important to have them crosscheck the information they retrieve from one site. Indeed, from experience, I know that students have a tendency to consider anything from the net as trustworthy, which is not always the case.

On the whole, then, I can say that the door has disclosed a real treasure when opening for us/me the world of search engines and as hinted during the discussions, the coming week promises to be more enriching.

Week 1: And the door opened!!!

What a relief! And what a joy! The door finally opened and brought me to the light. As I was exploring what was behind the door I couldn't help thinking of what I would have missed if I hadn't managed to log in to this class.


 I'm sure everyone here has at one time or another felt this thrill and exhilaration at the discovery of new things. I have to say that it was worth the wait and I am sure that there is still a lot to discover. Indeed, once I had chosen a template for my blog, I wanted to know how to insert or upload photos and after some trials and errors I finally managed to do so. Thinking back of it all I feel reassured that I will find my way through all this and  I will enjoy discovering all the treasures kept behind this door, treasures which will be disclosed during the coming weeks!!!

Week 1: Rat-a-tat-tat

Yes, technology is a wonderful thing but when you are stuck somewhere and don't know how to proceed, it is rather frustrating. Indeed, I've been trying to access the class WIKI for about ten hours without success but I don't despair; I'll try again until I can open the door to this class which is so promising. But even if I cannot share my URL yet -and I guess nobody has seen what I have posted yet- I was positively surprised to see that I was allowed to comment on the others' blogs.

Despite this slight inconvenience, I still believe that blogging is one of the best tools I can use with my students and I will definitely open a class blog for them to share their pieces of writing pertaining to their reactions to a topic studied in class, for example; this way, they can benefit from the feedback of a larger audience and thereby be more motivated to write. I can also ask them to have their own and I think we can use it as a writing portfolio. I feel certain that they will love it.

Week 1: Off we go!

October 5, 2012

As I was reading the blogs the former Webskills participants wrote I felt like a little child in front of an appetizing cake, still amazed at the idea that now I can have my share of it but not knowing which part to bite first. In fact, it is with exhilaration mingled with some apprehension that I made up my mind to set off for this new adventure which promises to be very enriching.

First of all, I have to say that I am one of those who maintain that reflecting on your practices helps you forge a solid theory about your actions and I am convinced that blogging is the right tool that will allow me to do so. Indeed, as a teacher, not only have I always tried to reflect on what went well and what didn’t go so well in my classes but I’ve also been used to discussing any classroom issue and sharing new ideas with my fellow teachers; I though think that the blogs represent a more advantageous tool as you can benefit from the expertise of a larger array of knowledgeable people from different parts of the world, with various backgrounds and varied working conditions but sharing the same goals and interests as you: the success of the students.

Besides, I am someone who welcomes changes and innovations. I am always ready to explore new ways of teaching and the idea of having my own blog fills me with satisfaction. I know that my teaching will no longer be the same as before. Moreover, I’ve come to realize that I now belong to a worldwide community of teachers thanks to my blog which will not only open the door to the world for me but it will also allow the world to enter my universe. Anyone who knows what this means to an islander like me will surely understand how grateful I am to all those who made this possible.

For all these reasons I am determined to make the most of this experience for it to benefit my classmates, my students and myself. I will thus do my best not just to learn from the others but also to share as much as I can. I hope nothing will come to delay or stop this journey.