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)
(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!
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