WEEK 15: Feedback!

I find the article “ASSESSING LANGUAGE USING COMPUTER TECHNOLOGY" pretty interesting. It is about how delivering feedback through the use of technology may produce a lot of background advantages when learning a new language. I would have really liked to have this kind of assessment when I was starting college, I think it would have helped me get better during my English classes. Nowadays, it is not common to have this kind assessment in private schools (in countries like ours), and let alone the public ones; however, I think that if we had it, it would be very appreciated. Regarding withdraws one may face when it comes to this kind of feedback delivery, I think it is reasonable not to want to even consider this approach for it might be seen as an overwhelming task, having to make a video for each of my students after every assignment does seem sort of stressing! But as any other stuff, there has to be some time to see results and in this case to get used to it. And even sometimes, there is not even need to spend lots of hours on editing when one general analisis is more than enough to make a change, the fact that this asessment comes out of the routine makes it meaningful.

WEEK 14: Sharing!

Sometimes we (teachers) forget how important it is to have students participate actively in the classroom; “students may not like the idea of raising their hands because they may be wrong about the answer", that phrase is something the author of the article “10 Benefits of Getting Students to Participate in Classroom Discussions” tries to focus on. It does not really matter if the answer is wrong, the fact that they have tried makes their learning more meaningful, so instead of saying: NO! That' s completely wrong!, we should paraphrase what they have said and thereby give them the right answer. It does not only “not break" the student's self esteem but encourages him to keep participating.The other article is “Think-Pair-Share”. Adopting think-pair-share to our classroom does make a lot of sense. It is a very useful approach which helps students have a better understanding of what they are expected to do or what they are supossed to have learned. It has already happened to me; and I bet it has to you too; that you are completely missing what your teacher is saying! Hopefully, after having given you that hard speech, there is the time when he says: “discuss about it with the person next to you!" Don' t you love it? It is like another chance teachers give to students to pay more attention (to do things right). Or even when we think we have completely understood what the teacher has just said, it turns out we are completely wrong! So in those cases Think-Pair-Share is a nice activity, and even for teachers; when they are going from one stage to another; it is an easy way to keep students busy!

WEEK 12: Projects!!

The articles “Maximizing the Benefits of Project Work in Foreign Language Classrooms” and “Seven Essentials for Project-Based Learning” were totally worth reading them. Personally, I liked the two of them; whereas the former provides very interesting information on how to assess students to get outstanding learning projects, the latter focuses on what aspects are to take into account when taking about successful project work and student engagement to it. For getting students work efficiently on their assigned projects, it is necessary to provide complete instructions on what is expected to do. That is, assess students on what is best to do and what would not be of any profit to their learning. However, teachers must not confuse giving instructions with giving assignments. As well as it is true that teacher may suggest what activities are more appropriate to develop when it comes to work projects (foreign language classroom, in this case), it is also true that most of the time it is a better idea to let students decide what activities would fulfill best their learning goals. That way, they (students) are more likely to become indirect generators of their own learning. For instance, getting students do research on things they are interested in, is a good way to wake up the individuals' desire to keep learning.

WEEK 11: MALL

The reflexion for this week was based on the article “Twenty Ideas for Using Mobile Phones in the Language Classroom". I think the article's name gave it up very easily; as it is implied even before start reading, it has very useful tips on how to use mobile devices to enhance the learning process, in this case when learning a new language. One of the tips I was already aware of (and I guess you were too) is the one in which students have to record conversations outside the classroom. I assumed that by the time the article was written, it must have been difficult to have students do this kind of activities; either because cellphones did not have this kind of features (or at least they were not very accurate) or there was not too much interest from the student population when being assigned this kind of tasks. Nowadays, things are different in every sense you can think of, not only cellphones have improved a lot but students are more willing to work with this kind of tools, not to mention that the availability there is does not play a negative issue nowadays.
Another tip I would totally consider to use with my students is the one about text messages or circular writing “as the article calls it'. In this activity, students are asked to write a story by improvising; one student writes a sentence  and another fellow continues the story by writing another sentence and so on. Now with the overwhelming amount of websites one can use to develop this chat activities, I think it goes without saying that it would not be difficult for students and teachers to keep up.
Regarding disadvantages, sometimes students may not like the idea of recording their performance. They may find it intrusive and annoying.
To conclude this log reading reflexion, I would just like to share with you the following sentence, which I believe summarizes my thoughts about the article for this week!
“Students only participated in MALL to complete assignments for teachers rather than to communicate with other learners".

WEEK 10: wikis!

The article “Online Collaborative Writing Using Wikis" brings information on how to use the internet to enhance writing skills. In this case, it centers on the use of “wikis" to get such improvement. But what are wikis? According to Richardson (2006), a wiki is a website where anyone can edit anything anytime they want. In other words, the “perfect" place for collective learning to emerge.
Giving the right instructions, wikis can become very useful not only when learning a new language but in general. It is said to provide a space where students can interact among each other indirectly. It brings the appropriate scenario where students can work more effectively when given long term assignments, and it also creates a perfect environment where Student-Student feedback may take place. And there might be many other advantages I cannot think of right now! However, I cannot help thinking that these kind of working tools may lead to a more irresponsible learning process; that in the sense of students relying on others to make their job and teachers not providing the right incentives to make it look attractive.
In a nutshell, I would probably use this kind of activities with my students but not very often. That way it would be refreshing and it would be a way to break up the pattern once in a while.

WEEK 8: vocabulary!

Nowadays, ESL students and even teachers are unaware of the advantages it has to have a learner centered dictionary. In that sense, the article «Online English-English Learner Dictionaries Boost Word Learning “Vocabulary is one of those things where the rich get richer." by Ulugbek Nurmukhamedov » provides very interesting information on how students can take advantage of it by having into account five aspects when selecting a dictionary. It is not just about getting definitions; as the article mentions, most of the online dictionaries only provide a brief explanation of the target word and do not provide many examples on how to use it; and even when they do, those examples are not contextualized, which means the learner cannot assimilate the information to his real context. The best online learner dictionaries include (1) a corpus-based compilation of words; (2) word frequency data; (3) collocation guides; (4) authentic examples of how words are used; and (5) topical vocabulary from different disciplines. I consider that it is very important for ESL instructors to have into account these five aspects when recommending their students which dictionaries would provide a more accurate learning and which dictionaries would not fit their needs.

WEEK 7: Typing!

Based on the article “Using the Internet in ESL Writing Instruction" byJarek Krajka.

The reading for this week was very interesting. It had information about the usage of the internet when teaching writing skills. Back in high school, whenever I was told to do a writing assignment, the only thing I could think of was that I had to do something very boring, not to mention that it was pointless (because there was no improvement). Now I think differently; I consider it depends on the method and the approach teachers use in order to enhance the learners' proficiency. In that sense, this article provides very useful tips to do so, by having the internet as an ally. Nonetheless, it does not mean the whole learning process relies on the internet at all; on the contrary, it depends on how we foster our learners to get interested in it(writing) by having them share their thoughts about social aspects and real life experiences.

The usage of internet in writing instruction has become very important these last years. Nowadays it provides an unlimeted source of information that can be reached from anywhere by anyone. For instance, students who are given the same task are not very likely to read the same information about it; thus, they may have a very different perspective (come up with different thoughts) about the same issue. In other words, giving the learner the chance to digest their own material, promotes a more autonomous learning.

A very useful tool the article mentions is blogging. I like it because ESL not only have a space to give their opinion about critical aspects but they also have the opportunity to improve their writing by checking their classmates' work. That way they can speed up their learning process by being judge of their own performance.

To conclude, I would just like to say that the real improvement our learners may have (either in writing, reading, speaking...) does not depend on what we have (internet) but on how we use it!