Week 4: TELL makes the difference

-
If we look at it critically, our students always expect their teachers to do something different, when teachers do so, students feel motivated and it creates expectations and curiosity because they never know what the next class and lesson is going to be about. Implementing and e-lesson plan at least twice a week is a great way to engage students and the most important is that they always want to attend classes to know what the teacher is going to do, it does not mean teachers do not plan, in my case I do plan but just tell students if they ask me "tomorrow is something very interesting, different and exciting" I am not telling them the answer nor what we will be doing. It works. Last week, I planned to work on a newscast based on real news in the country and abroad. It went super well and they even wanted to upload some of the videos onto www.youtube.comand embedded them to their Facebook and hi5. I truly believe that implementing Blended Learning is using technology in and beyond the classroom and it makes the difference, nowadays students love it and think it more fun than using chalk or marker and a black/white board.

Comments

  1. nagwa SolimanJuly 20, 2011 at 8:14 AM

    Hi Javier,

    I agree with you Javier that using technology or 'blended learning' is an excellent way to motivate students to learn and attend classes. Using a webcam which records the students while conducting an interview is a superb idea. This is because students will compete and do their best not only in appearance, but also in performance. This will lead unconsciously to the enhancement of their language skills.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Week 7: Learning Autonomously

-
Learner Autonomy is one my favorite topic when it comes to teaching; I truly believe it plays an essential role in the acquisition of the L2. The best way we could foster Learner Autonomy is in a student-centered class, as we all may know, in   student-centered class is not a place where the students decide what they want to learn and what they what to do. It is a place where we consider the needs of the students, as individuals and as a group and encourage them to participate in the learning process all the time, the role of the teacher should be a facilitators and not an instructor and just guide or help students while they participate in the learning process actively, let us not get confused with the “teacher”. To me, being a teacher means helping students to learn, manage their activities and direct their learning. In the student-centered class the teacher becomes just another member of the class. I enjoyed reading the article by Dimitrios Thanasoulas, especially the part where he
Read more

Week 8: ANVILL is great

-
I am surprised; this site is simply great, what I most like of ANVILL,  is its flexibility; it has got something for every language teacher and the great opportunity for language practice. I definitely think that this site motivates students to do things by themselves making them more autonomous because of when students find many things to do and things they like, they feel eager to go and give it a try. I have used www.agendaweb.org which has tons of stuff for learners of different ages and that is what students like, many options to choose from.   It is hard for all students to have access to internet connection either at the campus at home, here in Ibarra, Ecuador; few people have got internet connection at home. Some will not able to afford it but the main reason is internet speed, it is very slow and princes are a bit high so I think this could be a constraint that would make difficult to use this technology. The solution to overcome this problem is that the government start ha
Read more

Week 6: Interactive Ppt based on Touchstone

-
I have done a Ppt about the E-components the book series we teach with has got. We have finished the semester at the university and we will start again the second week of September so I am not teaching at the moment. The idea of doing this power point presentation is to show it to students the next semester so I can make them realize of how many things they can do as extra-curricular activities to support their learning and at the same time promote autonomy. It is very important to teach students what they can do to complement their learning; sometimes not even teachers realize of the materials there are available. In my opinion, in Ecuador, teacher like to spend a lot of time planning and writing on the board, it is amazing that some teachers still go to their classes and the space for writing on the board is limited to them, Many of them know that there is a vast amount of information, teaching ideas, lesson planning and so on available out there. However, some are teachers refuse
Read more