About Boris' blog

Yes Boris, I agree with you completely; we have been learning many important points regarding language learning. It is interesting to think that, before the course begin, perhaps I would have emphasized on the use of word "teaching."

However, this time during ongoing course, I have seen that we are paying more attention to word "learning;" in other words, without realizing this, we have been learning a great deal in terms of giving our teachings a more reliable shift towards a more learner centered approach. Don't you think?

Holguer

Week 6 - Weekly Reflection

After long hours of discerning themes and topics, I have come to realize that one’s little knowledge binds moving up onto the next step, and so forth. “To teach is to engage students in learning. A teacher requires not only knowledge of subject matter but also knowledge of how students learn and how to transform them into active learners. The aim of teaching is to transform students from passive recipients of other people’s knowledge into active constructors of their own and other’s knowledge.” (Finnan and Shaw).

What a profound statement! It holds the whole concept of teaching and learning. In this context I am learning that in managing large classes, it is important to divide them in small groups, (Tomorrow’s Professor Msg.#859 Making the First-Year Classroom Conducive to learning) which offers opportunities for more students to actively participate. Base groups, in large classes, help to reduce first year students ’isolation and anonymity. Study groups design homework assignments, and meet with the teacher during office hours. Students are more engaged than being isolated, they seem to learn more and get better prepared.

Project groups assign tasks that can be done when getting together rather than leaving students work alone. The following factors are important in dealing with large classes. (1) Carefully explain the rationale for project group. (2) Outlined the responsibilities of individuals to their group. (3) Alert students to potential problems and define ground rules for themselves. (4) Provide strategies, so that the group members deal with uncooperative individuals. (5) Ask students for self and group evaluation. This last group, in my opinion, is the one that shall work well in my settings.

Once group formation for dealing with large classes has been established, let us now look at the following classification of techniques which will benefit teachers in their endeavor. Effective instruction, which deals with the concrete and the abstract. Case studies and Scenarios, where the case tells stories and the scenarios present the situations. Problem Based Learning (PBL), by which approaches begin with a problem and the problem drives what students learn and in what order.     Experimental learning and learning about content whose approaches begin with a problem and the problem drives what students learn and in what order.

“Some technologies are better than others: Better to turn a screw with a screw driver than a hammer – a dime may also do the trick, but a screw driver is usually better.” (Arthur W. Chickering and Stephen C. Ehrmann) This analogy has made me think that some technologies may work well in some contexts, but the same technologies cannot properly work in others. For this reason, I have come to rely on the authors’ principle based implementation of technology. In this context, Winona State University’s seven principles might be helpful to all teachers by means of applying good practice because Good Practice:

Encourages contacts between students and faculty; Develops reciprocity and cooperation among students; Uses active learning techniques; Gives prompt feedback; technology, such as the e-mail can provide person-to-person feedback. This is the technology that will be seemingly used at Centro de Idiomas, at Plitecnica de Chimborazo. Emphasizes time on task; Communicates high expectations. “Expect more and you will get it.” High technology can communicate high expectations explicitly and efficiently to sharpen students’ cognitive skills of analysis, synthesis, application, and evaluation. Learning teams can help everyone succeed.

Finally, Good Practice respects diverse talents and ways of learning. Technological resources can ask for different methods of learning, through visuals, prints, direct virtual experiences; tasks requiring analysis, synthesis, and evaluation with application to real life situations. I have learnt that this last principle has been widely used in this online course, which is great!

Holguer

Week 6 - Project Task 5: Begin to implement the change

Let me start this point by quoting “When one door is shut, another opens,” (Cervantes, “Don Quixote,” 1547-1416). 

It is very probably that my teachings have gone misled on the wrong direction, but new learning has given me the opportunity for better knowledge development. My previous lesson plan contained an item called Technology resources needed for this  lesson, which described as follows:  Internet connection, a computer, video equipment, and web addresses. Such a description, however, does not seem to say much; consequently, to solve this difficulty, the help of technology must be added.

Power Point might, for instance, help construct a more interactive teaching and a more actively learning class. The title of the lesson is Narrative Language. Learners have to go through the Power Point slide show and check for students’ assignment. They have to carry out some tasks; for example,  to read a short text, and to read the instructions; to choose a verb from a combo box and to match it with one of the figurines sown on another slide.

In order to perform the tasks, a lot of thinking is needed on the part of the learners. Then, they are required to form coherent sentences (sentence connectors have been supplied) as to tell a story from the exercise.

Next task corresponds to writing down the story in a narration form with 100% accuracy; then it must be e-mailed to the teacher for assessment at: hholguer@yahoo.com.

The technique that has to be used is that of small grouping, groups of three’s for this specific purpose will do.

Assessment technique might call for both holistic rubric or analytic rubric; holistic in the sense of measuring the student’s language performance, i.e. what the student can do with language. And analytic, in the sense of scoring the student’s appropriate item selection; that means evaluating how much he or she was able to remembering.

To conclude, let the writer think that what has been done may be viewed as another step towards improvement. 

Holguer

Week 5 - Comment Athar´s post

I read your blog Athar and I find it very interesting the way you present it. Your text contains very clear forms of interpreting the task you have been performing in Pakistan.

You said that you teach English for reading in Elementary level in Pakistan. You also know how to evaluate your students’ performance through standards. It is good to know that your students know what and how to be assessed. I have also learnt that PBL and WebQuest  made you modify and brought you some change in the teaching learning process in classroom. I do not blame you Athat about lecturing method because I myself have followed and used that method. The point is we both and many others are teachers and in my own case, it will take a little time for changing traditional teaching completely. Happy Teachings.

Holguer 

Week 5 - Weekly Reflection

Although the time this week has run very short, teaching, readings and tasks have given me moments to reflect about what I have learned.

Rubrics are standards for providing a measure of quality of performance to judge the learner’s language performance. These are mainly used on measuring oral or written output.

Holistic rubrics measures language performance as a whole, in other words, what a student can do with the language. It is said that it is less useful for classroom purposes because this rubric provides little information to students about their performance.

Analytic rubric present different dimensions of performance, for example, it may include content, organization, grammar, and mechanics.

Primary trait rubric measures successful performance by narrowing the criteria for judging performance to one main dimension. It is useful in measuring writing or speaking performance.

Multitrait rubrics may rate performance on three or four dimensions rather just one. It resembles analytic rubric in that several aspects are scored individually. 

It can be concluded that rubrics evaluate students’ performance, but it is recommended not to be used for self-students’ evaluation and peers when they are commencing the learning. Let us remember that assessment comes from direct observation and helps evaluate students’ writing assignments and oral presentations.

Project-Based Learning (PBL) is another form of stepping up from old traditional methods of teaching the target language into project-based instruction which makes  teaching-learning activities more meaningful and dynamic. 

There are so many topics that may be used for creating a project. I did not see the immense amount of sources that do exist in my home country; for example, folklore, feasts, traditions, foods, churches, landscapes, forests, rivers, people, etc.  As Gaer refers in her work “Less Teaching and more learning,” I was always encapsulated in traditional teaching (teacher-centered) instead of student centered activity.

I was always talking and the students were learning less; the result of this was frustration. The experts, including Gaer state that the teacher must take the role of a facilitator and make the class to develop multiple projects for different needs.

To conclude this part, I must agree with the author who establishes that “using a project-based approach help motivate students to learn language for a purpose.” Such a methodology promotes a sense of community which is needed to overcome difficulties and to gain motivation for the project fulfillment.

Holguer

Week 4 - Comment on Maggie Reading/Wrinting

Dear Maggie

Maggie, I have read your blog with enthusiasm and I am really so glad that you are doing alright with reading and writing, and also making your learners think critically by means of six steps. That is great, the internet is best tool for communicating; therefore, we must take advantage from it.

I see that you are very concerned about nature’s conservancy of which I totally agree with you. Every citizen in the whole world must be conscientious of the forest devastation that especially our country Ecuador is suffering from.

The reason of being a school or university is the students, and for the students there must be a teacher, we are clear that E-learning is only a virtual working tool, which without the teacher`s management the reason would be lost.

Holguer

Week 4 - Weekly Reflection

“Skill to do comes of doing” Emerson (1803-1882). What a marvelous quotation! To me what an experience. I have never come to realize that the more one does at something the more familiar it becomes to him. In this context, I would like, in brief, to say that I have read many articles about reading and writing, in the text appear some links, and curiosity makes me surf through other fields. From these findings I have learnt, for instance, that objectives are not merely verbs in infinitive, but meaningful dynamic ones that serve specific goals; even in my mother tongue, the word objectives are meant as specific or basic competences, for example, communicate, select, apply are specific competences, whereas hear, take notes, analyze are basic competences.

In English, however, the word objective appears much clearer. For example, the experts at Tennessee University have classified the instructional objectives into three categories, i.e. specific, outcome based, and measurable; besides the Bloom’s Taxonomy, which classifies the stages of learning into six levels, i.e. remembering, understanding, applying, analyzing, evaluating, and creating is seen as simpler to digest the helpful 100.  A very important point that I have learnt and that I will not ever forget is the A.B.C.D. method for writing objectives. All these elements will be taken into account when planning a lesson. This is my reflection. I believe that you, too, might like to follow this address: 

http://edtech.tennessee.edu/~bobannon/classifications.html

Holguer

A comment on Abdullah’s point

I followed Abdullah’s week 3 blog and selected his pros and cons about using computer assisted teaching-learning programs, I found it very interesting from my own perspective. Yes, Abdullah, I agree 100% with what you say in your post. Even though I have not been familiarized with high tech communicating tools, however, such technology can save precious time in obtaining speedy information from a great variety of sources, as well as the sending of it.

High technology can also cause drawbacks; for example, a group of students (level three of English – age 24) use to get Spanish printed matter for their English classes from the internet, they ask the computer to translate the Spanish sheets into English, the result is a very poor job, such English type is unintelligible; therefore, let me say that this is a constraint towards learning because the computer is not capable of competing with the human intelligence.

Week 3 - Weekly Reflection

In The past two weeks I have been reading a lot, understanding people’s views, meeting new colleagues, making points, keeping myself busy in trying to resolve tasks and assignments. This new learning experience is amazing and rewarding because I have started to change my mind from a static traditional state into a more dynamic updated teaching-learning stratum.

During this short period of time I have learned new things and concepts about using interactive web (still a bit unknown to me by now but which will be learnt shortly after). I have learnt, for example, that a very important language skill, listening, had been relegated in the past to a secondary position in the English language-teaching classroom; perhaps, due to so much research  conducted into the other three language skills .i.e. speaking, reading, and writing, and nothing of interest towards listening.

Academicians and teachers appear to have emphasized their attention on speaking for maintaining that it is more valuable than listening, which has been assumed that it can be picked up; P. Strevens, 1983, has referred to it as natural acquisition. But such acquisition (in the case of English) can be reached when the learner is exposed to that medium constantly.

A great thing that has occurred on me is that coincidental feeling respect to using authentic materials brought by L. Miller. I did not realize that I had been going on that direction with reading. With listening, I always asked my students to do listening from English teaching prepared materials. I know I must change behavior on that direction. Moreover, speaking too, must be viewed that way. For instance, when my learners translate sentences from Spanish into English wanting to express feelings, needs, etc. in a genuine situation is more meaningful than producing well constructed sentences which may not go along with reality.

Another important aspect that I have learned is the one concerned with the A.B.C.D. method which enhances writing objectives. This morning, for instance, one group of students at Centro de Idiomas (A) took a test; I wrote the instructions on the white board (C), including the phrase “80% accuracy  is required (D), the students amazingly took care of it (B) and obtained better results than ever before. I will be grateful on any E-participant´s comment, that would be another way to improve what might sound wrong.

Holguer