Week 10: Ignited minds continue learning ... miles to go ...

Task: Levels of Technology Integration

An interesting task for this week was to participate in a survey at http://www.loticonnection.com/. The aim was to ascertain where do we stand with regards to web based teaching and learning. 

After taking the survey I find that I need to work on Student Learning and Creativity, Digital-Age Learning Experiences and Assessments, Digital-Age Work and Learning and Digital Citizenship and Responsibility. 

At present I see my instructional system somewhere close to level three and in one year's time I would like to reach level five as per the Loti framework. The only roadblocks can be from the administrative side because things move slowly at my place. Nevertheless as a teacher and teacher trainer I will share with others what I have learnt at this web skills course and encourage them to integrate web resources to their class  room teaching. I am confident through this "cascading" of my web skills course training I will see considerable positive change in teachers' and learners' attitudes towards blended learning. 

Discussion: Advice to Future Participants

The web skills course has updated me on web tools so much that I can use them not only to enrich my teaching but also to make my learners' learning exciting and authentic. My biggest benefit from this course was that  I have been able to blend my class based teaching with web based teaching and resolve many of the problems I face while teaching my large ESL classes. And the icing on the cake was to interact with wonderful course instructor, Robert and fantastic class mates from across the world and learn from them.

What I learnt to use and found very useful in my teaching learning context:

1.Nicenet for professional discussions and for my class use.

2.various websites which offered free resources on listening, speaking, reading, writing, grammar, vocabulary and practically every aspect of good language teaching/learning. I also created/used tech-enhanced lesson plans using some of these web resources. 

3.Google drive, Google sites, Google survey and Google docs. I practically used them to complete course tasks and have also created my first ever web site webtools4english.

4.webQuests for enhancing students' learning. In my project I used 3 webQuests to motivate my low proficiency learners in large class.

5.my own blog and reflected on what I as well as others learnt every week. I visited my class mates' blogs and commented on their blog entries.

6.wallwisher, delicious, Hot potatoes, popplet, quizlet, Youtube, interactive powerpoint, rubistar, etc.

My gains from the course:

•A web-friendly attitude to encourage my colleagues and trainees to benefit from web based learning.

•How to use Web based self assessment of large groups

•How to explore very valuable free ready- to- use web resources ... will continue exploration

•Have a clear idea how to blend my class learning with web based learning.

•How to gradually shift from teacher-centredness to learner-centredness

•Have raised motivation level of my learners who are excited to learn authentic English, not examination-oriented English 

•Went through excellent, pointed suggested readings and resources: brief, relevant and succinct

•Participated in extremely rewarding discussion and shared ideas with class mates

•Learnt from the Course Instructor Robert Elliott from what it means to be a good online teacher (facilitator, guide, troubleshooter, motivator and knowledge provider and always supportive) 

•Gained confidence that I CAN use technology to enrich my teaching and enhance learners' learning

It would be great if the following web tools could be included in the course:

1. Moodle/Blackboard
2. Webtools 2.0
3. Web authoring tools
4.  Video conferencing

Week 9 : Project Report

Another important task for the week was to write the final Report of my project. I must say doing this project was a great learning experience for me and I could actually see my learners' motivation and performance going high. Nothing can please a teacher more than watching his learners enjoying learning. Reflecting on their and my experiences while doing webQuests was really revealing and I can now see a concrete plan of integrating my classroom teaching with web based learning and I have given its outline in my report. I would also like to thank my project peer reviewer Safaa for giving valuable suggestions to improve my draft report.

Though hectic (as we were all engaged with giving final touches to Project Reports) this week has been professionally a very satisfying in the sense that it gave me insights into how I could manage ESL learning in my large classes using appropriate technology and motivate my learners to enjoy learning English. 

Week 9: My reflections

The topic for discussion this week was differences in learners' learning styles and finding appropriate fit in technology to cater to these differences.

It is true that one size does not fit all and learners have individual differences. Education research is replete with studies which highlight the importance of variations in learners' learning styles and learning strategies and suggested readings this week mention some of these research studies. In his 1983 book called Frames of Mind, Howard Gardner of Harvard University identified seven intelligences we all possess. Later many more types were added to this. The reading at http://eduscapes.com/tap/topic68.htm suggests that learners have shown the following types of learning orientations:

Verbal-Linguistic

Logical/Mathematical

Visual/Spatial

Bodily/Kinesthetic

Musical/Rhythmic

Intrapersonal

Interpersonal

Naturalist

Existentialist

Similarly, Richard M. Felder at http://www4.ncsu.edu/unity/lockers/users/f/felder/public/ILSdir/styles.htm has also distinguished between different types of learners according to their predominant learning styles.

Active and reflective learners

Sensing and intuitive learners

Visual and verbal learners

Sequential and global learners

Obviously these categories cannot be "mutually exclusive" as it is difficult to say that a verbal-linguistic learner cannot be a visual-spatial learner. As teachers we know that there is a fair degree of overlapping among the above categories and the wise thing is just to pick up the "dominant" learning styles strand(s) in a class and modify teaching to accommodate these differences. For example we can diagnose a predominant learning style by administering a learning style quiz to our learners as suggested in the link http://www.edutopia.org/multiple-intelligences-learning-styles-quiz , find out about dominant strands and teach accordingly.

I think apart from these "cognitive" differences learners' learning styles are also grounded in their socio-academic setting. In a way I agree with Sam when he says he is not convinced by the concept of multiple intelligences because effective learning depends on a lot of factors other than learning styles. As practicing teachers we are sensitive to such factors and we keep adjusting our teaching accordingly. So the best option seems to be to create conditions which are conducive to language learning. In my context this would mean blending my traditional "talk and chalk" teaching with multimedia-assisted teaching both online and offline. I think the web tools we have learnt in this course can help us design a variety of learning tasks and select appropriate channels to provide "different strokes for different folks" and lead learners towards their preferred way to autonomous learning.

Safaa highlighted the importance of understanding learners' style when she said: "When you understand your students' learning styles, you can choose the most appropriate activities, teaching aids and materials and vary your techniques to address these ways of learning. The cognitive, psychomotor and affective domains of Bloom's Taxonomy help us link the objectives to the learning styles activities. Here comes your use of technology to facilitate learning, increase students' motivation and raise their performance level."

Week 8 What a week ... this one!

This week gave us hands on tools to try and most of the participants were thrilled creating online exercises as is evidenced from their posts on discussion board.

With Nicenet down Robert set up discussions at Googe group and kept things going for us. We all learnt a good lesson on having "back up" plans.

Some of the web tools I have learnt to use in this class have already triggered the "winds of change" in my class. And the change seems to be quite pleasant and positive. I have felt encouraged by my learners' responses to learning from interactive PPTs, webQuests, wallwisher,and many relevant websites that I used in my class. With my constant support and facilitation they were up on the job and were enjoying doing assigned tasks. I had to be on my toes during the initial phase where I set up the tasks and was around them to assist them in their learning quest. 

So far I have tried out blog, PPT, Youtube, wallwisher, Google survey, hot potatoes and many ELT web sites with them and now I would like to try setting up my own website, blog and wiki and use them with my class. Whereas wiki serves as the class dash board and a blog is for sharing ideas and resources, it is a website with full functionalities that has the greatest "surrender value". I particulary liked Sam's Moodle lesson. Like him I would also like to use an LMS like Moodle as it provides a very convenient platform for all kinds of language learning activities with a built in assessment tool. But a full featured Moodle is an expensive proposition for now so I think I will have to make do with free online resources till we get some funds to use Moodle.

The above tools do promote learner autonomy as they allow them to learn anytime anywhere at their own pace. I feel they just have to get familiar with using them and get into the "habit" of learning from the. With support from teachers I am very sure that web tools can motivate learners to emerge as independent or less dependent learners in a big way! 

Another positive from this week was submitting my project draft and having an opportunity to peer review Safaa's project. She has done a wonderful job in applying Popplet as a very potent brain storming tool. 

She also gave me some insights into my project.

Overall this has been a great week for hands-on learning experience!

Week 7: My reflections

This week has moved at a frenetic pace. There were two discussions on leaner autonomy and one computer class room on Nicenet, a task to post a web link on learner autonomy at wallwisher, to find a partner for the peer review of the project each participant is going to submit and of course a little "report" on the project activities that each one of us has proposed to undertake. 

I participated in both discussions and felt that one computer class room fitted with an LCD projector, a good sound system and a Smart board can help a teacher make a very interesting and exciting interactive multimedia presentation on such genres as a poem, play, novel, an essay, short story, and so on. Since one computer class is usually teacher-controlled, it will be difficult to reach out to each learner and address his  individual difficulties. To reach each learner I felt web-based learning is a very effective option. Alongside PBL, webQuets, email, Googledrive,blogs and wikis,delicious we got a simple and easy to use web tool this week. It is wallwisher. As shown on the homepage of wallwisher and as pointed out by Safaa in her post this tool has so many advantages for interactive language learning. I think this is also a very handy tool for promoting learner autonomy as it is very convenient to use and is very amenable to a variety of language learning tasks along with the teacher's feed back. A lot of course mates have therefore found wallwisher an extremely useful tool for online language learning.

Another best thing was to have Safaa as my partner for the peer review of my project. She is an experienced online teacher and teacher trainer and I hope to learn a lot from her. I was also able to post a few links at wall wisher and also used it in my webQuests to enrich my students' learning. They were really happy to post their views on Macbeth's character on one of the webQuests.

Week 7 My Project work

As far as my project is concerned, I am using web tools like interactive PPTs and webQuests on Macbeth's soliloquies  and Sounds of English  to provide individualized learning experience to my learners. I demonstrated learner-centred teaching and learning by teaching through a PPT on Ode to Autumn and a webquest How to write a Persuasive Essay  to put learners at ease with technology. With my initial support and "scaffolding" they have received it very enthusiastically and I will get to know of their feed back by administering them a Learner Satisfaction questionnaire. I am happy because the new technology seems to be shifting my learners' focus from exam-based learning to learning for communication. As Robert said at Nicenet, my class 'beyond the campus class' has just begun. It feels just great to see them excited and taking some responsibility of their learning. 

Week 6: Managing large classes and Interactive PowerPoint

Discussion

This week's discussion focused on finding online and offline ways of engaging learners in large ESL classes. The topic  and suggested readings were of much relevance and interest to me as I have taught large ESL classes for almost 25 years in really difficult circumstances.

It is generally observed that as the number of students increases, the related educational problems such as mixed abilities (in English) among the students, the decibel level of the classroom, teacher's efforts to teach effectively, his use of usual methods and materials, learners' disciplinary problems, etc. reach unmanageable proportions. The large size of a class thus leads to the magnification of the 'given' problems -- the problems which could be considerably minimized had the teacher had adequate opportunities to address the individual problems of the learners. It follows that if we want to ensure learning especially in teacher-fronted classes, the class size should be such as could allow teachers to monitor learners' 'on and 'off' task classroom behavior and provide them sufficient opportunities to give productive feedback within the allotted time. 

Fortunately, online learning can help us in providing student-centered, individualized learning opportunities. As suggested in the recommended readings for Week 5, Web tools like webQuests, PBL, e-mail, discussion boards, blogs & wikis, interactive power point presentations need to be integrated judiciously to make learning effective in large ESL classes. I agree with Sam that discussion boards can help us in reaching out to every learner in our class but then it becomes extremely difficult to read and respond to hundreds of learners within the limited allotted time. Sam suggests that we can somewhat manage this problem by creating smaller work groups. But it can still be as Robert points out, a lot of work for a teacher to respond to each learner. He recommends that we should respond according to the learning focus, to take the discussion forward.

In my undergraduate literature classes of 60-80 learners, I generally use power point presentation and videos alongside my interactive lecture. Though my "presentation" is effective, I am not sure what each learner has learnt at the end of the class. I think web tools like webQuests and discussion boards can help me out and I can send quizzes, comprehension checks, and other extension tasks to my learners to understand and address their individual learning problems. 

Some important considerations to manage large ESL classes:

1.The teacher and students must be very clear about the ROUTINE of the whole class and composition class activities. This helps in quick "settling down" and getting down to business.

2.The biggest challenge is to address learners' individual learning problems and give prompt feedback on them. This involves a lot of hard work for the teacher whether one chooses to do this manually or electronically. Peer correction and group correction did not work for me with my low proficiency learners. I  got some helpful suggestions from Robert (Using Clickers) and Safaa (using Drop Box) and Jit's recommendation to use Blackboard as LMS sounds quite promising. 

Task: Interactive Power Point

Interactive PPT is yet another hands-on tool we have been suggested to help  make our teaching interesting and effective. Although I have been using PPTs for quite some time it was good to go through the suggested readings and see the sample PPT to get a fair idea about making PPTs effective. Features like conceptest, quickwrite and blank slide make sound pedagogical sense and are quite useful. 

Using some of these features I  made a PPT for teaching John Keats's "Ode to Autumn" for my undergraduate learners and uploaded at the class Wiki.

Project Task 5: Begin to implement the change

My teaching learning context

1. Class size: 60-80 low proficiency/mixed abilities learners sitting in rows on desks. 

Associated Problems: Noise & discipline, how to address learners' individual learning problems, to monitor their learning behavior and to provide corrective/productive feedback.

2.Prescribed Syllabus & Text books: Anthologies of poems, stories, essays appended with some reading comprehension/language exercises.

3.Evaluation: Annual term-end achievement tests where students are asked to write essay type answers to 5 questions out of the 8 given questions. These questions are fairly "guessable" and students normally memorize them.

4.Examination-oriented learning motivation: Students know that they can "pass" their annual exams by memorizing answers to a few well-guessed questions, so they do not feel the need to participate in class room activities, or sometimes even attend the class!
My objectives for Technology integration: 

• To shift my learners' attention from exams to learning to communicate in English.
• To engage them to use online resources along side traditional class room learning.

Possible solutions:

A. Whole class presentation: The aim of the whole class activity is to provide "comprehensible inputs" to the whole class.

a) Traditional way of teaching the prescribed texts (poems, stories, essays) using text books, by lecturing and explaining, using black board "the chalk and talk" method.

b) Tech-integration: Interactive PPTs, videos, Smart boards

B.Grammar and Composition groups: The class size is reduced to 20 students and they are given practice in LSRW, grammar and composition activities.

Traditional way: Handouts, assignments and "chalk and talk".

Tech-integration: Web Quests, wikis and blogs, e-mail, discussion groups, chats. Though Robert pointed out that Discussion groups can be difficult to manage at times and we need to prioritize responding to them as per our learning focus.

On these lines I tried out a webQuest  on "How to write a Persuasive Essay" and an interactive PPT on John Keats's "ode to Autumn" with my class and observed that my learners were very receptive and and enthusiastic about these new ways of learning. Though PPT was quite easy to receive, they took some time to learn from the webQuest. But they were happy to work online in small groups of 4 learners. I found the whole class presentation responsive, quieter and students showed willingness to learn. I feel I need to give them some training to learn "how to learn independently" from online resources.

I am preparing more PPTs and webQuests based on the prescribed syllabus and will try them out with my learners in the coming week. 

Week 5 : My Reflections

The assignment schedule for week 5 included  a discussion on creating rubrics for alternative assessment, Project-based learning and webQuests. We were also asked to complete two tasks viz. creating a rubric using the website  http://rubistar.4teachers.org/  and another task was to describe a potential change which could occur in our target classes with the application of  appropriate technological tools. An additional extra credit task was to create a webQuest at http://www.zunal.com/.

Discussion: Assessment, rubrics and project-based learning

As Smiles points out this week's discussion focuses on three interrelated issues of online learning: project based learning (PBL, hereafter), rubrics and webquests. PBL , as Liliana , Bernie and many other friends have suggested, is a learner-centered and inquiry-oriented method of learning where learners, with some guidance from their teacher, try to find solution to some of very clearly defined and specific problems assigned to them by their teacher. This is "learning by doing" and the value of this approach lies in the total cognitive and affective processes used by the learners for exploring ways and means to arrive at the solution or to complete a particular task. PBL is like a mini research project which gives learners a sense of thrill and accomplishment on its completion. So PBL is great fun, it is competitive, it , caters to learners' various learning styles, motivates them and keeps their total attention on completing the project at hand at their own pace, in consultation with their class mates or mentor. Compared to a class where students fear ridicule at incorrect responses, PBL is non-Face threatening and it instills a sense of confidence in learners.

In spite of its various advantages PBL has had only moderate success in academic circles where teaching through lecturing/explaining is still predominant. Sujith's assertion that learners don't find PBL interesting has some truth in it. If the project does not have a clear road map, learners may just get caught in the quagmire of world wide web and may feel lost and demotivated. The teacher has to play the multiple roles of (broad) project designer, technical adviser, superviser and facilitator. A teacher needs to be "just there" as Robert and Janine have been for all of us. Moreover, as Janine has very pertinently pointed out, projects should cater to the age and linguistic level of our students. So it is a real hard work that keeps the teacher on his toes till the project is completed. Janine has given us a nice link http://www.edutopia.org/project-based-learning-guide to give us an idea of project-based learning.

In week 5 assignment schedule Robert has defined PBL as an approach where learners are given instructions and resources (scaffolding), then they work in groups create a project. This is similar to problem-based learning, where learners work to come up with a solution to a specific, usually real-world, problem. If the task is authentic and the audience is broad, this is especially effective. I think the key word here is "scaffolding" where alongside giving clear and specific instructions the teacher has to take care of the following:

• The design and set up of the project
• On demand technical support/solutions
• Immediate guidance/feedback
• Detailed criteria for assessment
• An awareness of learners' proficiency levels
• An awareness of content complexity and challenge
• Constant motivation to learners

I think only continued supervision and support by teacher can encourage learners to complete the project successfully.

PBL, in short, is an exciting area to explore and I hope to use it in my upper-intermediate classes where learners have examination-oriented learning motivation. I am very sure that if I blend PBL with my traditional classroom teaching, my learners will feel motivated and enthusiastic to learn English communicatively

Project Task 4: Describe a potential change

Academics at the college level in India have always been strongly influenced by the annual examinations. What teachers teach and what students learn is largely dictated by what will figure in the exams. Subject areas which are not important from the viewpoint of examinations are either not dealt with seriousness or they are simply neglected. Tests have a great impact on the way we teach and learn any subject. The simple logic is: `Why bother to study the entire curriculum when you can score well by studying limited portion of the prescribed syllabus'. Hence it is testing, not the 'official' stated curriculum, that is increasingly determining what is taught, how it is taught, what is learned, and how it is learned. I believe that annual achievement tests for English language learning have had a negative wash back effect on the entire teaching and learning operations in India.

When I went through the links http://www.nclrc.org/essentials/assessing/alternative.htm , http://www.cal.org/resources/digest/tannen01.html on alternative assessment, I saw an opportunity to convert the negative wash back into positive wash back by choosing rubrics. As described by Robert in Week 5 assignment schedule, a rubric is a kind of contract between the teacher and the learners, so that learners know that if they do the things associated with "excellent" in the rubric, they will get an "excellent" mark. Students are more motivated, and assessment is easier. The main goal is to "gather evidence about how students are approaching, processing, and completing real-life tasks in a particular domain" (Huerta-Macias, 1995, p. 9). Here students' attention is shifted from a term-end test and they are involved in genuine language learning experience through various classroom and online tools like projects and webQuests. As many of my course mates have said in their posts such learning is dynamic, authentic and personally so rewarding to learners that they do the learning tasks for the joy of "doing" them and not for passing exams. 

As I am grappling with the problem of examination-oriented learners, I think a gradual introduction of rubrics, PBL and webQuests will raise my learners' motivation to learn English for improving their proficiency levels. Following detailed instructions by Robert, I was able to create rubric  for teaching and assessing a persuasive essay : Do advantages of playing video games over weigh the disadvantages? for my upper intermediate learners at http://rubistar.4teachers.org/index.php?screen=ShowRubric&rubric_id=2249356& and also create a webQuest on how to teach a persuasive essay at http://zunal.com/webquest.php?w=171218.

Task: Create a rubric

http://rubistar.4teachers.org is yet another great find for me in this wonderful course. It is a handy tool for creating ready to use rubrics which can be customized as per our learning focus. The best thing about this tool is that it allows you not only to assess learners' performance but also help them with clear guidelines for assessing their performance. No wonder most of my fellow teachers in this course have found this tool extremely useful in teaching and assessing learners.

Here is the link to rubric I created for teaching and assessing a persuasive essay : Do advantages of playing video games over weigh the disadvantages? for my upper intermediate learners. 

http://rubistar.4teachers.org/index.php?screen=ShowRubric&rubric_id=2249356&

Extra Credit Task: Create a technology-enhanced project or WebQuest

Robert describes WebQuests as a form of PBL that follows a fairly specific pattern. The teacher creates the task statement and designates the resources (learners do not "just search"). Learners work in groups and have a specified product. The teacher produces an evaluation in the form of a rubric for students to use as they are doing their project and for self-evaluation when it is finished. The teacher evaluates with the rubric as well. After going through some sample projects at http://susangaer.com/studentprojects/ and using the website http://www.zunal.com/ I was able to create my first ever webQuest on how to teach a persuasive essay at http://zunal.com/webquest.php?w=171218 for my upper intermediate students. I hope they will find learning through webQuests quite exciting and rewarding and this experience will raise their motivation to learn and use English for genuine communication.

Week 4: More reflections

Cooperative or participative learning is something I am experiencing at the Web skills course in plenty. Participants are making helpful comments and lending a helping hand to one another and all this is creating a very conducive learning environment. The participants have explored some of the best sites on LSRW skills and the task on preparing technology enhanced lesson plan has made us apply whatever we have learnt on this course. Robert's wiki is growing richer with online resources and will emerge as a data bank of very good web resources. The way the course is designed and delivered is really making us learn hands-on skills. I only wish I could devote some more time to explore the mind blowing world of www.

Week 4 : My reflections

Discussion: Reading/writing skill-building

This week we were assigned to explore web resources for teaching reading and writing skills for proficiency level relevant to our teaching contexts.When I explored sites for practicing online reading and writing for my upper intermediate level learners I came across a lot many that attempted to teach these skills either individually or in an integrated manner across various levels of proficiency. However, a great majority of these sites offer comprehension exercises for reading and free writing prompts for developing writing skills and another roadblock is that most of them are paid sites.

A very good site that has been used and recommended by most of my course mates is the one listed by Robert in suggested resources for week 4. It is : http://www.breakingnewsenglish.com/  It contains 1599 excellent ready to use lesson plans for every level. Authentic news related reading passages are followed by intensive exercises on reading comprehension, vocabulary and usage, speaking,listening and writing. The site uses Lindsay Miller's Pre-, while and post-task format to encourage learners critically think of the task as a piece of genuine communication thereby seeking complete involvement from them.

The other sites i visited and found useful were:

http://www.esl-lounge.com (It had a nice reading/writing exercise to differentiate between informal and formal letters)

http://www.rong-chang.com (contains exercises on vocabulary, reading comprehension and writing skills) 

I visited this site at http://www.rong-chang.com/qa2/stories/story062.htm. This page contains a short passage on the nutritional value of vegetables and has exercises on vocabulary, cloze, crossword, Yes/No Questions ,Wh- Questions, comprehension check Questions and, Dictation.

http://www.infosquares.com/readingcomprehension/ (Has many exercises on reading comprehension skills) 

http://www.cdlponline.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=stories&topicID=4 (Has many passages on reading/listening comprehension with vocabulary support) 

I visited some of the pages on these sites and wrote ABCD style objectives.

Some other sites recommended by the participants:

http://eltv.clubefl (This wonderful site was recommended by Abdelghani and it has many interesting videos followed by multi skill exercises) 

http://www.famouspeoplelessons.com

(Recommended by Preeti Shukla, has a reading/listening passage on a famous personality which is followed by multi skill exercises for intermediate level learners)

In addition, there were scores of sites which the participants recommended keeping in mind their surrender value to their learners. Robert suggested that good links to reading/writing skills may be posted on his Wiki so that they can serve as a data bank for all. 

During the course of discussion two issues were raised i.e. how to teach longer texts such as novels and the effectiveness of e-mail for promoting writing skills. The discussion helped me to look deeply into these issues.

Task: Create a technology-enhanced lesson plan

Like others I found Google Drive and Google Docs very useful tools for storing a lot of data online. Though new to me,I could create a technology enhanced lesson plan for my upper intermediate level learners at the following link:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/137wwaEo44ZdgVAEl0S_n_oDMupo35vD7cVtCELlZdaw/edit

I have found this exercise very exciting and rewarding as a first practical move towards integrating online resources with traditional class room teaching. 

Project Task 3: Describe some issues

My learners are not motivated to apply themselves fully in English classes because they have examination-oriented mindset, and unfortunately, exams in my context are so predictable that any student can pass them without attending classes and by memorizing answers to a few well guessed questions!I hope if I draw them towards interesting online resources they will feel motivated to learn to use English for genuine communication, not for passing their exams.It is all about motivating them to discard rote learning and to go for learning English for communicative purposes. My aim for blended teaching is to bring in this holistic change in orientation towards learning English. By using web resources I expect that there will be a positive change in their attitude towards learning English and I would like to measure this change. My possible research topic could be: 'The impact of using web-based resources in classroom on learners' motivation to learn English'. So instead of focusing on a specific micro issue I would like to see the effect of technology integration in learners' attitudes towards learning of English.

My possible broad objectives could be:

a) raise their motivation level by making my instructional inputs interesting by exploiting web resources which contain a lot of audio-visual and illustrative material.

b)   encourage them to interact with the online material individually or in pairs and exploit web resources for assigned learning purposes e.g. completing a project or assignment, participating in online discussion, participating in a survey and so on.

c)shift their attention from examination-oriented learning to genuine and authentic language learning by making them use English for real-life communicative situations.

I hope I will be able to achieve these objectives once I am very clear about the available online resources ("What") and the delivery system ("How") of web-based learning. Happily, the web skills course is helping me learn both these tools.

This has been a yet another great week of learning Robert and dear classmates!

Week 3: My reflections

Discussion: Aural/oral skill-building

The focus of this week's discussion was to explore,discuss and recommend a few websites for teaching and developing the skills of listening and speaking. The focus was on teaching listening and not "testing" listening. As listening is a passive skill it is mostly taken for granted and no concerted "teaching" efforts are made to focus learners' attention on active listening. We were asked to read the following articles to update ourselves:

Developing Listening Skills with Authentic Materials (Word .doc file)

http://www.elthillside.com/up/files/article4.doc

New Perspectives in Teaching Pronunciation (right-click on the link to download it)

http://www.openstarts.units.it/dspace/bitstream/10077/2850/1/bus%C3%A0.pdf

The Employment of CALL in Teaching Second/Foreign Language Speaking Skills (right-click on the link to download it)

www.edfac.unimelb.edu.au/research/resources/student_res/postscriptfiles/vol3/vol3_1_gong1.pdf

For teaching listening I have found Lindsay Miller's article at http://www.elthillside.com/up/files/article4.doc very useful as here she proposes a workable framework to teach listening skills by dividing the listening experience in 3 stages viz. pre-,while- and post-listening. These activities engage the learners with the task and make them respond to it more fully. They are not just listening and (mentally)responding, but actively noticing the processes and strategies which lead to good comprehension.

And an excellent demonstration of this framework was found in Randall Davis's http://esl-lab.com/ where he has created a large number of activities across "easy", "medium" and "difficult" levels to teach listening skills. The best thing is that the complexity of materials is tuned to the proficiency levels of learners. I strongly recommend Randall's ready-to-use resources for every teacher.

For pronunciation, Robert has given us an excellent link https://sites.google.com/site/pronunciationstuff/links which contain a very comprehensive list of useful links. In particular, I  used http://www.uiowa.edu/~acadtech/phonetics/english/frameset.html where we can not only listen to the exact pronunciation but simultaneously also see through video the way internal organs such as tongue, lips, teeth combine to produce speech sounds. I think this is an excellent tool to teach pronunciation even up to the intermediate level.

For speaking I visited http://www.bbc.co.uk/ and found the following speaking activities quite useful for teaching disagreement and retelling stories respectively. http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/radio/specials/1756_how_to_discuss/page4.shtml.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/radio/specials/1210_how_to_converse/page16.shtml. My students could come up with their own related anecdotes/ little stories using past simple and past continuous tense.

 (Please find links at http://www.delicious.com/rajinder26)

For me two best web links which contain a large number of useful links to listening/speaking sites are:

1http://libguides.madisoncollege.edu/content.php?pid=29095&sid=368782

2 http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/2008/03/17/the-best-sites-to-practice-speaking-english/

During discussions with course mates two important issues arose, of teaching speaking to large classes and whether to use authentic materials with beginners. Robert said the large class issue will be taken up in week 6 and regarding authentic materials it was agreed that they could be used at advanced levels, when learners have achieved a fair degree of accuracy in language use.

Task 1: Create a Delicious page

www.delicious.com  is an excellent web tool which not only helps us save our favorite links at one place but also lets us organize them under appropriate category tags! As teachers we can have a well organized repertoire of resources which can be easily quickly accessed online for our own or learners' use from anywhere. We can really develop it as our quick and efficient reference library.Following the website above I also created my Delicious link at: http://www.delicious.com/rajinder26/

Task 2. Discussing sample project report

The second task was to read one of the  research projects submitted by Web Skills course participants and comment on it. I went through two past research reports : one by Prem Bahadur Phyak of Nepal whose research focus was teaching online writing skills to postgraduate students and second by Zlatka Dyankova from Bulgaria in which she focused on activating her otherwise passive upper intermediate level learners by introducing them to online learning through WebQuests.

 I would like to proceed on similar lines because like Dyankova, I also deal with passive upper intermediate level learners who are pursuing a functional English course. Their mind and imagination towards learning English can be ignited if the usual mundane classroom teaching and learning is integrated with exciting online learning. I think to blend online learning with offline classroom learning is though challenging, can be really very rewarding, and like Zlatka Dyankova, I would also like to achieve this objective.

Sam and Egle have already presented an outline summary of her work in their posts and I would like to add a few things here. First is that she has used the ABCD style to state the main objective  of her project:

After doing research on sports and games using given materials/C/ the class of upper-intermediate students/A/ should be able to write a research report of 80-100 words describing a sport/game using passive voice and linking words/B/ at the accuracy of 80%/D/.

Secondly, she has chosen to use WebQuests to motivate her learners. A detailed procedure of her WebQuest was given on the Process page  to make learners comfortable with technology use. This way classroom-based lesson was supplemented with most of the information that students explored from the World Wide Web.

Thirdly, she had a clearly defined 6 week timeline where learners knew what they were supposed to do each week. This helped her to pace her teaching inputs with learners’ learning efforts.

The obvious gains of this project were, as she herself points out,” Students had the opportunity to express their ideas, feelings and experiences free of any pressure. They processed the information and interacted with their classmates. They shared, compared and commented on each others’ notes, worked individually, in pairs and in small groups (think -pair - share). They were interested and enthusiastic. As a whole, the students enjoyed working cooperatively.”

Overall, she was able to achieve her objective of motivating her learners to use web resources to complete their classroom tasks. I think hers was a good attempt at integrating technology with traditional classroom teaching to induce learners to explore and learn English communicatively.

To conclude, week 3 has been very rewarding to me and I have started feeling confident in exploration of relevant web tools to optimize learning in my classes.

Week 2 : My reflections

SATURDAY, 13 OCTOBER 2012

Week 2 : My reflections

Week 2: My reflections

Discussion on search engines

The second week has seen a lot of discussions on exploring non-Google search engines and websites which are useful for ESOL studies. After going through the recommended readings and the links I came to learn about 50  odd search engines and the strategies to refine our searches to get narrow, more useful hits. We can now really see beyond Google and see that 'one size doesn't fit all' and that there are many other alternatives to Google. Participants have shared their personal experiences with various search engines (and many useful websites!) in the class discussion thread to highlight the speed, relevance and accuracy of these engines. At the same time some important issues also came up for discussion regarding child safe search (Saafa ), authenticity of resources at Wikipedia (Diana, Liliana, Robert), search for audio files (Sam) and many other colleagues have given long lists of their recommended websites.

But I feel that the recommended lists are so long that one can easily get lost in the maze. So the guiding principle remains "Choose the search engine that best meets your information needs". All we need to do is to prepare a manageable inventory of search engines and web sites that best meet our major search requirements for our respective learners and for our own academic and general pursuits. Perhaps it can be taken up as a valuable research project where a team can compile a list of such resources along with small descriptive tags. 

Writing learning objectives ABCD style

The second task for the week was to write learning objectives written in Pennsylvania State University's ABCD style .I usually engage my learners in such learning tasks as letter writing, report writing, taking long turns in speech, précis writing, role plays and discussions. I think the learning objectives cast in ABCD style can be very useful in determining, as Lohr points out, specific knowledge, skill, or attitude and specifying what method of instruction and criteria for learner achievement are required. 

An example of learning objective

Given a topic statement and three bullet points,(A) the learners (B) will be able to develop a letter in about 150 words around the given bullet points (C) with no more than 3 mistakes in coherence, cohesion and grammar.(D)

Robert pointed out that section D could be made more precise by adding a performance criterion like "with at least the score of 8 on 10." I also joined discussion with Sam, Liliana, Colomba and agreed with this. I believe that  writing a learning objective in ABCD style is a pretty handy tool for learners and the teacher as it brings much clarity in the teaching and learning operations in a classroom. However, as has been pointed out in the recommended readings, this tool cannot adequately specify those learning behaviors where the learning processes are multiple, complex and more covert as was evident from my discussion with Sam, Liliana, and Colomba. 

My Learners' Profile

The third task was to define the class and learners that I teach. The primary objective was to make some preliminary beginnings towards the project that every participant will be taking up individually. My learners are first year students of a three year degree course in humanities. They are boys and girls in the age group of 18-20 years who have studied English in the literary-humanistic, examination-oriented instructional system for about 7-8 years.The target group has joined a Functional English course instead of a literature-based English course because they want to learn practical skills of English so as to communicate effectively in real life situations. They are used to teacher-centered lecture classes and are not experienced in participative learning methods like group or pair work.Typically these students come to a Functional English class with the mindset of examination-oriented learners and the biggest challenge before a teacher is to engage them to learn English language for genuine communication rather than for passing the examinations. 

My target learners have some basic knowledge of computers and internet surfing, Facebook and online chatting. However, they communicate in their local language using English letters. I think a teacher can exploit their familiarity with the Net and with some training help them get involved in computer assisted/online learning of English. We have a special computer-assisted language lab in our college where learners can spend time learning English online. I would like it much if I could blend classroom learning with online learning. Perhaps this very idea could be a stepping stone for my project. 

Well this week I also visited most of the blogs of my classmates (Diana, Colomba, Liliana) and commented and shared a few things with them.  Another learning was to know my scores using Jupitar Grades, i think it is very good idea to "outsource" grade compilation work and it can certainly reduce burden of organisations where large scale testing takes place.

THURSDAY, 4 OCTOBER 2012