Week 4 - The most important thing in science is not so much to obtain new facts as to discover new ways of thinking about them. Sir William Bragg

Hello My Dear Journal,

I haven’t talked to you for a week but it doesn’t mean that I forgot you. All this time I have been thinking about you.  I just waited till I have enough to tell you. Now the moment has come. So, if you are ready to listen, I’ll start.

As usually I began the week with exploring the materials and the content of Week 4. I can divide the tasks into two categories: challenging and enjoyable.

 First I will tell you about the challenging ones.

It was about reading some of the articles about ways to use computers to enhance ways to teach reading and writing. We had several multi-skill websites on our list and the task was to find two or more specific web pages that would work in your class.

Having read and analyzed the resources on using internet in ESL writing instruction  I got a lot of information on how we can use internet as a teaching aid, through which students will be able to write and create.

What do we want our students to write?  It can be a letter to a friend, a formal letter, a biography, a description of a person, a description of an event and a place, a description of a book, essays, a newspaper report, etc.

The authors focus on teaching writing using different approaches in achieving the goals: cooperative learning in an online classroom; use of email writing as an instructional and learning tool. The articles also give the advantages of using Web that provides the students with the opportunities to use email for collaborating and working together with other classmates and their teachers. Also learning how to use computer motivates students’ learning intrinsically.

 Computer literacy can give a lot of opportunities to the students: from setting up a class page, creating blogs and teaching basic searching skills to participation in the international projects.

 What are the benefits? The students learn how to interact, write emails both to each other and to their international pals, use discussion forums, make posts, learn the great possibilities that Web provides them with. Moreover, it is a good way for making students use English regularly not only in- but also outside the classroom.

When all the goals are set, the next step is integrating online activities into the syllabus. Is it an easy task to do? The teacher should be aware of challenges of the online learning environment. There are a lot questions that need clarifying: Are all the students computer-literate? Can they search for the sites and then save and print them out? Do all the students have computers and internet access outside the classroom to complete their tasks?

The teachers’ role here is invaluable as they have to be well prepared for the lesson, considering every detail in advance, know the content of the sites, how long it might take them to load and how much assistance the students need; anticipate technical  problems,  have an emergency lesson plan in case of a connection breakdown.

How often can a teacher have online lessons? The authors give a suggestion of a balanced syllabus of the course including online elements. For example, four hours out of six should be given to grammar, vocabulary activities based on the course book materials. One hour can be spent on working online giving students samples of different pieces of writing for analysis or exploring the Web. In order to make students writing purposeful, meaningful and relevant, the teacher can give them chance to participate in real writing exchange and then giving different topics stimulate students’ writing.

The online lessons should be followed by another off-line giving the teacher time to correct students’ writing pieces and post them on the class website for reading. In this way the students’ performance can be discussed, students will develop listening and speaking skills while reflecting on the online class activities.

All the students are offered a lot of choices to use the internet sites and each student must be encouraged to do something different and then compare what they found orally.

So, online writing lesson can be divided into pre-, while- and post-stages, which can integrate all the language skills (reading, vocabulary work, listening and speaking activities).

 What are the advantages of online lessons? This is a contrast to the traditional course book; the Web is multi-national and without borders, students increase their cultural awareness, they get to know and appreciate other cultures, giving them chance to feel the whole world, moving freely from one place to another. Moreover, the internet lessons are rewarding when the students realize that what they read or read belongs to outside the world and they themselves are the members of the global community.

Taking into consideration all the information and tips that the resources gave me I followed the link that was recommended to explore. The website is focused on developing different language skills: grammar, reading, writing and listening. The target audience is 6^th grade students.  The materials are designed for students and teachers to use in an online lesson. At the same time the page structure allows the users to work autonomously as the activities are followed by the answer keys. The reading section offers a number of stories and reading comprehension tests. The grammar section appealed to me as it has the tests on different grammar aspects and they can be done both in class and as a home task. The writing section displays students’ writing on different topics. I think my students will like creating (writing) a story as it will involve them in making their own efforts and contribution.

The opportunities that site  gives the users are hard to overestimate. I would use the tests with my 6 grade students to enrich and practice their vocabulary and improve their grammar. The tests have different levels from easy to difficult ones. Bilingual quizzes may attract more users. It also has the section that can assist teachers in creating their own tests and quizzes.

Technology Enhanced Lesson Plan

The next two tasks can be defined as enjoyable ones. It didn’t take me much time to write the Technology Enhanced Plan as I was sure of its content having taken into account my students needs and expectations. Here is my plan:

Class : English language; Creative Writing;   6^th grade students (age 11-12); visual, kinesthetic learners;

Duration: 6 lessons a week; each lasts 45 minutes;

Materials: computers, net books

Technology component downloaded from/accessed in class at:

http://fog.ccsf.edu/~lfried/stories/stories.htm;  

Other materials: students’ dairies

  Introduction

Review of previous lesson: Students will revise descriptive and narrative domains of writing; and read some extracts from their own dairies “It Happened to Me”.

Objectives of this lesson : Using descriptive and narrative domains of writing and addressing the real audience students will be able to produce texts that show appropriate sentence fluency, word choice and organization and after proof-reading, checking and finalizing it to post them either in blogs or send them via email to their peers.

Procedure

Presentation: At the beginning of this stage the teacher writes the title of the series It Happened to Me “Working in the Bank” on the board and asks the students to give their associations with the title and think of the vocabulary that can be used. The teacher introduces the vocabulary (Pre-reading activity):  (bulletproof glass, secret signals, suspicious, dropped down) and asks the students to think about the content of the story.  Then the teacher directs the students to the site to do the task.

Activity (student): The students go online http://fog.ccsf.edu/~lfried/stories/stories.html and start working on the story. First they read the text, then do online tests on reading comprehension; after giving the right answers (as they won’t be able to go further if the answers are not correct) they will go to the vocabulary section. The students together with the teacher analyze the answers and work on the vocabulary making up sentences of their own using new vocabulary. The final stage of the task is to create the continuation of the story.

Learning styles addressed:  As my students are mostly kinesthetic and visual learners I will ask them to act (role-play)the end of the story in class and use pictures and animated images for creating a story for posting in blogs or sending via email to their classmates and the teacher.

Technology alternative (in case things don't work as planned): If there is technology or internet connection breakdown, I will prepare hard copies of the stories and hand them out to the students and have them work in pairs. In this way they will be able to prepare a role play and act it in the class; and later when they are at home (provided that they have internet access) send their pieces of writing to their classmates and the teacher.

Review before the end of the class session: Students will revise and practice sending emails with attachments and making posts in the blogs. My students are provided with net books, so in case there is reliable internet connection they will be able to accomplish all the tasks within 5 days (1 day for creating the end of the story and sending it to the teacher; 1 day for the teacher’s error correction; 2 days for designing and posting, 1 day for reflection and assessment).

 Homework: Read the story “Working in the Bank” from series “It Happened to Me”, think about the end of the story, write it using new vocabulary and send it to your teacher for proof-reading and finalizing. After receiving it back from the teacher, design it and post in your blog or send it to your peers via email in the attachment.

Class Issues

When the lesson plan is ready, we teachers will have to  think about anticipated problems if there are any. There should be, I think.   

The learners are 6^th grade students (age 11-12) who started learning General English as a foreign language in the second grade (age 7-8). Their learning is based on developing four language skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing. Most of the students have low-intermediate level.

The project is focused mainly on developing writing skills. Writing is fundamental to learning in all disciplines. Writing in English for non-native speakers is also challenging.

So, one of the most important issues is how to make our students write. I must confess that using technology in the classroom is something new in our context that’s why our students would prefer writing using keyboard rather than using pen and paper.

Some students do not have good computer skills, others get lost while browsing in the Web. Some prefer to work in groups as they do not feel confident enough to work autonomously, they prefer watching other people working.

So, summarizing the class issues we can highlight the following ones: lack of computer skills, experience and very low motivation; lack of confidence and fear of risk-taking, limited  internet access. The students prefer lurking to working; they still have false beliefs about using computer assuming that computers are in the classroom only for playing games. Here we must expect parents’ support which is essential in students’ learning process.

My Dear Journal,

The time flies so fast indeed

Still there’s so much we need

To read and write and analyze

And then create the online class

We worked all nights and days so hard

That it affected our heart

Don’t worry it is not at all disease

It’s our Learning that’ll never cease.

Thank you  for being so patient. :-)

Hope to see you next week with new stories of mine.

Bye.