Farewell post

Frankly speaking, I feel sad but "grown-up" if you understand what I mean. It's like school or University Farewell Party when you cry but you're opening a new page of your life. 

It's so wonderful and strange that this course united different people from different parts of the world. Actually I like travelling and I mark the places I traveled on my world map with tiny red flags. Now I've drawn green stars on the countries where you are all from. I dream about traveling to these countries and may be some day we'll meet. It would be splendid!

                                            Thank you, guys, for unbelievable experience!

Learning Styles

Actually, this week discussion about learning styles is my one of my favorite. 

This problem is familiar to every teacher but still raises a lot of questions and arguments. According to Wikipedia, learning styles are various approaches or ways of learning. They involve educating methods, particular to an individual, that are presumed to allow that individual to learn best (1).

Teaching ESL/EFL we try to use different techs and techniques to satisfy our learners. But our students are different so we should use a complex diverse methodology to make our students perceive information from as many angles as we can provide.

 

AUDITORY ESL LEARNING STYLE are the type who receive and
retain information from listening. They will respond well
to games that involve repetition, dictation, and music.
Simple poems with a strong swing such as limericks are a
good way to start, and you may even introduce some Jazz
Chants for more conservative adults. EFL students often admit that while they may advance rapidly in a classroom, out in public they have more
trouble following the native speakers. This can be
addressed by using tapes and videos to listen for key words
and pick out the general meaning of a dialogue.

Listening memory games, such as 'My name is Mary, I come
from Milwaukee..' are terrific for the auditory learner.
You can expand on this by keeping a record of the words
used and subsequently asking the students to utilize them
again to form new sentences. Quiz games such as Jeopardy
can also be a fun and instructive way to teach language,
and students can be encouraged to extend their vocabulary
by fostering a mild spirit of competition.

VISUAL ESL LEARNING STYLE are the students that most
traditional teaching methods were developed for. They have
a high capacity for retaining information from written and
illustrated text. Flash cards and videos will also prove
good ESL learning tools for these students.

You can make game-boards after the fashion of popular
titles such as Life - this can become a role playing game,
'A Day in the Life', where students can participate in
role-playing scenarios determined by the rolling of a dice
and drawing of cards. Memory cards matching games can be a
fun activity for pairs - have them use the word in a
sentence when they find a match!

Reading Treasure hunts can work well to teach recognition
of the parts of speech; just hand out colored pencils and
designate a color for each type. This can also teach
students to skim and pick up general meanings of words from
context. Let them rewrite sentences too - try captions for
pictures or comics to add a humorous note!

TACTILE AND KINESTHETIC ESL LEARNING STYLES

The remaining two types of learners are similar enough that most games
can be adapted for either learning style. Tactile and
kinesthetic ESL learners and comprehend faster when
participating in hands-on activities, and take in
information using their whole bodies. Games for these types
can actually benefit the whole class; studies have shown
that ESL students as a whole show a marked preference for
this style of teaching, and games of this sort are a
perfect way to introduce variety into the classroom!

Probably the most familiar 'touch' game involves a bag with
different items inside. The participants have to feel the
items through the cloth and guess what they are. A
variation that is helpful for ESL students is to have them
describe the items so that classmates can guess their
identity - be prepared for some laughs!

Charades is a perfect example of a game that uses the whole
body. Have cards prepared with easy titles such as popular
TV shows, and get everyone involved! Ask students to come
up with titles too - perhaps they can give the English
translation of a favorite childhood book or movie.

Crafts are a wonderful option when it comes to hands-on
learning. Coloring and labeling maps is a good exercise,
and can be done individually or as a group. Introducing
building toys such as Legos can help bridge the gap between
the learning styles as you can use written and or verbal
instructions for the Auditory and Visual ESL learners in
the class.

A wide variety of language game ideas can be implemented in
your ESL classroom to embrace all the types of ESL learning
styles. Remember, have fun! Your students will all benefit
from a diversified learning experience (2).

Resources:

(1) Learning styles http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning_styles

(2) Classroom Games for Different ESL Learning Styles  http://www.english-4kids.com/articles/gameslearningsyles.html

Congrats and big thanks

I devote this blog post to the people I work with. These are my colleagues and educators.

This week we have had a great opportunity to meet Jeff and discover ANVILL. Splendid experience! Also I took part in Nicenet discussion writing about online tools in teaching. I did my best at creating online and offline exercises and my class on http://poster.4teachers.org.
Class Name: MariaMironovaEnglish Class

Teacher's name: Maria Mironova

Class code: 226774

But the first half of the week was pretty tough: I worked on my Draft Project with two wonderful teachers:
Damian and Marco. Now I'm ready to write comments about their drafts and fill in Checklists. And I'm also waiting for their feedback. What a nice opportunity to practice a team work inside our group!

Thank you, all my friends, for your motivating comments. Special thanks to Marshiari, Naglaa, Filomena, Richard Li, Wanessa Wang and lots of others. I appreciate your participation.

And one GREAT THANK YOU to Robert  who coordinates and motivates us!!!

Regards and best wishes to all of you,

Maria

Ready for a good time

Week 7 has been quite interesting and mind-boggling.

We've done some different activities:
- Reading articles about learner autonomy
- Writing one-computer lesson plan
- Looking for a partner(s)

The last one reminds me about old good times when we had a Prom. And it seemed that the most popular boys and girls were already engaged))) Now the situation is just like that.

Of course I'm kidding) I hope that everybody has found parner(s) for peer reading and ready for a good time!

Beginning the CHANGE

This term in my University is almost finished. Some final tests, exams and my students are going to their summer holidays. But I'm not going to relax. I'm ready to begin to implement a technology-related change in my classes. 

Firstly, I need to refine my project plan. I'm still thinking about it and I will share my ideas as soon as they will be in a form of draft project.

Secondly, I need to take into account all the points: resources that I plan to use, rubrics and follow-up activities. 

Thirdly, I have to pass my draft report  by Wednesday week 8, and the final report by noon on Friday week 9.


I started working on it and I'm in the process now.


I'd like to share a lesson plan I've made implementing a technology-related change in my classes.

Environmental Protection Lesson Plan

Students: pre-intermediate level, 15-18-year-olds

Time: 2 sessions (90 min each)

Video: 1,5 min “Give Earth a hand” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ep9MFiWXR8M

Values: environmental protection consciousness, responsibility

Objectives: to acquaint students with environmental protection problems and solutions – to make a video project

Building language awareness: challenging vocabulary (Wordle clouds), passive grammar structures, modal verbs in context

Building cultural awareness: these problems are not national but universal and people must unite to solve them

Teacher’s Tips: potential challenges are using topical vocabulary and relevant grammar structures. To overcome this we should use lex-gram schemes or tables

Lesson Sequence

Pre-viewing task:

Ask your students the following questions:

What do you want to be happy?

Can you do without it?

What can’t you do without it?

Viewing:

Show your students 1,5 min Youtube video “Give Earth a hand”

Discussion

After watching discuss these questions with students:

1. What do people really need nowadays?
2. Are all those things friendly to the environment?
3. What are real values for you personally?

Tell students to post the results in twitter and get the feedback

Building the topical vocabulary

1.    Students work in small groups and make Wordle clouds. Think about the following words and expressions to be mentioned:

Air

Pollution

Water

Earth

Rainforest-destruction

Global-warming

Overpopulation

Species-disappearance

Ozon-layer-depletion

Greenhouse-effect

Fresh-air

Purifying-systems

Planting-trees-and-flowers

Food-without-destruction

Being-green

Environmental-protection

Greenpeace

Smog

Nature

Wildlife

Universal-concern

Green-tourism

Recycling

Hazardous-waste

2.    Students divide the vocabulary into groups: environment-friendly and harmful to the nature.

3.    Students state the problem and find the solution to the problem (using the voc).

4.    Group work (3-4 students each)

Using the Internet search (Google, Yandex, Yahoo)  students find articles on the following problems:

-         Air pollution

-         Global warming and climate changes

-         Overpopulation

-         Hazardous waste

-         Water pollution

-         Etc.

Students study the problem and make short presentations in groups.

5.    Using Skype, Twitter, ICQ, etc. students talk to their mates from other countries to find out what types of pollution are the same and peculiar in different countries? How developed countries can help each other to overcome the problems (the USA, China Russia, etc.)?

 6.    Students share the information discussed in their blogs to use in further projects.

 7.    Home assignment: video project promoting ways of solution of the problems presented.

Passing by the second half of our path

We are in the the middle of our course! The week 5 is over. We are getting closer and closer to final projects. 


Feel enthusiastic?


Actually, I haven't thought how much we learnt until I saw Yap Thin Peng's post on Nicenet. Here it is:


FROM: Yap Thin Peng   (05/11/12 10:21 AM PST)   [ Send a personal message to Yap Thin Peng]
SUBJECT: RE: Step # 5 : Writing Skills & Blog

Hi Robert

Correct me if I am wrong. 
First, allow me to make a summary of what I have learnt up to week 5.

a)   Google sites (https://sites.google.com/site/webskillsuo/home + wikis)
b)   Search engines
c)   Reflective blog (Blogger.com)
d)   Virtual Classroom ( Nicenet.org)
e)   Blogger (Blogger.com)
f)   Social Bookmarking site (Delicious.com)
g)   Google docs
h)   JupiterGrades   
i)   Rubrics (Rubistar.com)
j)   PBL with WebQuest as an example

Did I miss out anything?


All in all, we have learnt a great amount of things, we brainstormed and shared lots of wonderful ideas. I feel proud of myself and it's a great honor to work in the team like ours.  

READING, WRITING, VOCABULARY

Week 4 is almost over and I feel tired but satisfied. Web skills on line courses make me more disciplined and responsible for the stuff I'm doing. I've realized  that I should post messages to the conference threads and blog on the first and second half of the week.

My colleagues' posts inspire me to work harder. I've caught myself on thinking about new technologies, problems and needs of EFL/ESL teacher. I've started to form my final project and I must say that's a great feeling to be part of the international teaching community.

As far as we discussed Reading, Writing and Vocabulary skills this week I've read some wonderful articles about these teaching issues. I could recommend them to you!

READING


You Can Do It: 6 Easy Steps to Creating a Perfect Reading Unit with ANY Text
http://busyteacher.org/11089-6-easy-steps-create-perfect-reading-unit-any-text.html


Goodbye, Boring Reading Classes: Using Reader’s Theatre To Spice Up The Reading Class
http://busyteacher.org/10497-goodbye-boring-reading-classes-use-readers-theatre.html



WRITING


How To Teach Writing: 6 Methods For Generating Writing Ideas
http://busyteacher.org/4650-how-to-teach-writing-6-methods-for-generating.html


Getting Kids Ready to Write: 4 Easy Strategies for ESL Teachers
http://busyteacher.org/11013-getting-kids-ready-to-write-4-easy-strategies.html



VOCABULARY

10 Out of the Ordinary Places Your Students can Pick up New Vocabulary
http://busyteacher.org/11075-10-places-students-can-pick-up-vocabulary.html


The Power of Words: 5 Easy Tools to Help Your Students Learn Vocabulary
http://busyteacher.org/11014-5-tools-help-students-learn-vocabulary.html