A lot of DISCOVERIES

I'm starting to love Sundays. It's my only day-off and time to analyze what I've done for the week.

So, this week was intense. I've done a lot of reading, research and discussion. I've made the first step of final project. And I've started thinking about the future... The future project and the goals I want to achieve ....

So my reflections on the second week.

1. Mid-term task: Search Engines

I've made up the top list of search engines (SE) that I've already tested. http://www.nicenet.org/ICA/class/conf_topic_show.cfm?Topic_id=852218


I've searched for "How to write international CV" and I've found loads of information. I would recommend Yahoo and Bing (they are the first in my list). 

For my work I often use http://busyteacher.org. It's EFL-teacher-friendly, pretty simple and effective. Most of all I like the idea of sharing ELT materials.

So, I've tested and re-tested SE, read a lot of information about their types, learnt how to search in a more effective way.

2. SEARCH... SeArCh... search...

For the second half of the week I have been using SE mentioned by colleagues. I “discovered” for myself noodletools.com, delicious.com, twurdy.com and lots of others.

Thank you, colleagues! Sharing ideas is such a great tool in teacher’s work.

Going on I might recommend you the article I’ve found on http://www.answers.com/ (great search engine, actually, and not mentioned in our discussion).

So, I've made up a short (not scientific) research, discovered new SE, learnt about metasearch and Web spiders.

3. First Step to Final Project: Describing a Class

Students’ population: 11 females and 1 male

Level: intermediate

Course: Business English

Class setting: desks, blackboard, computer (connected to Internet), mobile phones (with cameras)

For more than four years of teaching I changed a lot of courses: from linguistic disciplines like interpreting and translating to ESL for journalists, social workers and engineers. My current course is Business English M.A. students of School of Economics.

I try to use different teaching techniques including brainstorming, round tables and role plays. We watch movies and Youtube videos, make PowerPoint presentations and even shoot films.

Recently in Business English class we were engaged in the role-play “Six Thinking Hats”. It is Edward de Bono's technique of decision-making at meetings. The students brought and wore caps of different color. Each color represented one style of thinking: the white hat was for supporters of fact approach, the red one was for emotional thinkers, and black hat was for pessimists. ‘Yellow hats’ looked at the benefits, while ‘greens’ at alternatives of a plan. ‘Blue hat’ was chairperson who controlled the meeting. My students were permitted to take on the roles and everyone had a chance to see all sides of a problem. While our debate even the “weak’ students participated actively and used professional English terms.

I strongly believe that this kind of interactive teaching leads to cooperation with students and better understanding of their needs and desires. Preparing for my classes I try to make them interesting for me and challenging for my students. I always find new and unusual information to feed my ‘hungry crocodiles’. I constantly give them food for thought and they digest it producing bright answers and argumentative debates in English.

So, I've started a project, described my class and analyzed where I'm going to.

4. ABCD objectives

My current course is Business English M.A. for students of School of Economics.

My ABCD objectives for one of my classes are the following:

AUDIENCE: 2-year upper intermediate students (age 18-20 y.o.). There are 
11 females and 1 male in my class.

BEHAVIOR: Reading and translating text on economics, answering the questions, watching Youtube video, discussion.

CONDITION: 1,5 hour class. Setting: desks, blackboard, computer (connected to Internet. Students are provided with course books, worksheets, audios and videos. They have already had the classes of Common English (English Grammar, Phonetics, Creative Writing, Discussion Techniques).

DEGREE: Reading and translation: 100 % (all text is translated and understood). - max 5 points to the student. Answering the questions and discussion: 50-100 % response. - max 10 points to the student. Total: 15 points.

So, I've read articles about ABCD learning objectives, wrote them and decided to implement this method in my teaching plans (it's more structural than I did before).

5. Blogging and posting.

That is what I'm doing right now:)