Dear friends,
To be honest, I found myself not a very active member of the class. Once or twice, I excused myself for being busy with other work, for being on business. But there is also one thing I know for sure: I love this class and I love all of you.
At times, I thought I would quit the class for many reasons. One of them was my biggest decision of changing my job. And I finally made it to say goodbye with the school I spent almost 15 years (included my student time there) with all my heart and soul to a new place where I think I will contribute more to the development of the local education. I will probably be working as the President assistant and director of international cooperation Center for a smaller school with about 4,000 students. I could see the desire of the leaders in making a good model of education with the true values that the students can benefit.
Overwhelmed with struggling thoughts, I hardly concentrated on my assignments. I did feel sinful sometimes when I tried to make some tasks done with not much preparation.
And now, though there has been dissatisfaction sometimes, I am very happy to know that I have all of you as my international friends who can could recognize immediately if I have a chance to see face to face. I also can "feel" your personalities through what you have shared. I do expect to see you all one day and I do hope to be able to invite you to my new school to visit and to share more with our teachers and students.
I, take this opportunities, would like to give my big THANKS to Robert, our guests and to all of you for what you have done in this class. I did learn a lot, not only new knowledge, methods and technology, I learnt your love to your career and I understood that we need to inspire our students with love and care.
The "goodbye" is just for today. I do believe that I will see you in very near future.
The
Friday, March 16, 2012
Sunday, March 11, 2012
Week 9: Learning styles
Hi,
One of the best parts this week was reading the final reports. My friends did great jobs with outstanding projects. More importantly, I could see how different projects worked in different contexts. I could also learn a lot from them and would try to carry them out in my classes.
I did my final report with very detailed comments from Ky Nguyen. Taking this opportunity, I would like to show my gratitude to him not only for his comments to my report. I still did not satisfy with my report. The idea of using Nicenet in my class sounds ok, however I felt that I did not make it clear enough to pass the message across to the readers.
This week, we were introduced with learning styles that gave me some ideas of how to engage my students with both my strengths and their strengths. Addressing learning styles could help me adjust my current teaching with better student-focused approaches.
Well, we are finishing the course. Too much to say but I do not know how to start.
The
One of the best parts this week was reading the final reports. My friends did great jobs with outstanding projects. More importantly, I could see how different projects worked in different contexts. I could also learn a lot from them and would try to carry them out in my classes.
I did my final report with very detailed comments from Ky Nguyen. Taking this opportunity, I would like to show my gratitude to him not only for his comments to my report. I still did not satisfy with my report. The idea of using Nicenet in my class sounds ok, however I felt that I did not make it clear enough to pass the message across to the readers.
This week, we were introduced with learning styles that gave me some ideas of how to engage my students with both my strengths and their strengths. Addressing learning styles could help me adjust my current teaching with better student-focused approaches.
Well, we are finishing the course. Too much to say but I do not know how to start.
The
Sunday, March 4, 2012
Week 8: If I had more time!
Hi,
I felt really bad this week as I had almost no time reading my friends posts and ideas. I was out of town most of the week for my trip to secondary schools to get ready for a new busy recruitment season. And today, I did not step out of my desk. I tried to catch up with others. The feeling of being left behind tortured me.
All what I could do during the week was to read Ky' final report draft. He did great job and I wish I could do as much as he did.
I also finished with my first draft. I still much dissatisfy with my work. I was a bit confused when putting what I have done for almost 7 weeks all together. It seemed time was going by too fast and I have not done anything remarkable.
I am much worried as the coming week will be much busier than this as I will travel to neighboring provinces to work with more schools on our recruitment. I am not worried about my posts and even my final report. I, instead, feel bad when having not much time reading the suggested materials and especially posts and reports from my friends. I will bring my ipad but not much sure how 3G works in other provinces which were claimed bad signal most of the time.
However, I am always ready for the toughest part of the game.
"See" you soon.
The
I felt really bad this week as I had almost no time reading my friends posts and ideas. I was out of town most of the week for my trip to secondary schools to get ready for a new busy recruitment season. And today, I did not step out of my desk. I tried to catch up with others. The feeling of being left behind tortured me.
All what I could do during the week was to read Ky' final report draft. He did great job and I wish I could do as much as he did.
I also finished with my first draft. I still much dissatisfy with my work. I was a bit confused when putting what I have done for almost 7 weeks all together. It seemed time was going by too fast and I have not done anything remarkable.
I am much worried as the coming week will be much busier than this as I will travel to neighboring provinces to work with more schools on our recruitment. I am not worried about my posts and even my final report. I, instead, feel bad when having not much time reading the suggested materials and especially posts and reports from my friends. I will bring my ipad but not much sure how 3G works in other provinces which were claimed bad signal most of the time.
However, I am always ready for the toughest part of the game.
"See" you soon.
The
Sunday, February 26, 2012
Week 7: My class of TOEIC with Nicenet: 2nd week of the project implementation
Hi all,
You can see my first week here
This week was really productive with my Nicenet class. I tried to get my students involved by raising some difficulties they encounter in learning English.
The purpose of this assignment was not to find out "DIFFICULTIES" but just to let them know how to name the difficulties they face. I tried to make them think they are understood by others and the teacher. They, therefore, would be more confident to stand on a common ground of sharing and discussions:
Just have a look at their sharing: HERE
Also this week, my students were asked to talk about their first topic among 8 of this term. The topic was "your ordinary day" in which I provided them with some suggested ideas of how to make it simple and interesting. I gave them a list of relating words and phrases they may use in their talk.
The very interesting part of this assignment was, as I personally thought, the chance of talking to native English speakers using their posted topic on Nicenet. After being encouraged, my students posted their topic on Nicenet. I worked together with an Australian volunteer teacher, Curtis, in the class this week and I showed the posts on the large screen to ask Curtis to have a look at the posts to see how much he could understand from the written version of the posts. After a few post reading, Curtis turned his back to the screen and I asked my students to talk about their posted topics to Curtis using both verbal and non-verbal skills to see how much Curtis could understand their speaking.
The result was quite good. The whole class had great time together with fun. The students, by all means, tried to express their ideas to Curtis. To most of the students, It was the very first time talking with a native speaker and presented their ideas in English. I could see nervousness, shyness, a bit reluctance and even some types of failure. However, it was a great sign to know the students were quite motivated and excited to do their task. And it was so good that the students could recognize how different it was to communicate orally and in written forms.
You can have a look at "My ordinary day": HERE
You can see my first week here
This week was really productive with my Nicenet class. I tried to get my students involved by raising some difficulties they encounter in learning English.
The purpose of this assignment was not to find out "DIFFICULTIES" but just to let them know how to name the difficulties they face. I tried to make them think they are understood by others and the teacher. They, therefore, would be more confident to stand on a common ground of sharing and discussions:
Just have a look at their sharing: HERE
Also this week, my students were asked to talk about their first topic among 8 of this term. The topic was "your ordinary day" in which I provided them with some suggested ideas of how to make it simple and interesting. I gave them a list of relating words and phrases they may use in their talk.
The very interesting part of this assignment was, as I personally thought, the chance of talking to native English speakers using their posted topic on Nicenet. After being encouraged, my students posted their topic on Nicenet. I worked together with an Australian volunteer teacher, Curtis, in the class this week and I showed the posts on the large screen to ask Curtis to have a look at the posts to see how much he could understand from the written version of the posts. After a few post reading, Curtis turned his back to the screen and I asked my students to talk about their posted topics to Curtis using both verbal and non-verbal skills to see how much Curtis could understand their speaking.
The result was quite good. The whole class had great time together with fun. The students, by all means, tried to express their ideas to Curtis. To most of the students, It was the very first time talking with a native speaker and presented their ideas in English. I could see nervousness, shyness, a bit reluctance and even some types of failure. However, it was a great sign to know the students were quite motivated and excited to do their task. And it was so good that the students could recognize how different it was to communicate orally and in written forms.
You can have a look at "My ordinary day": HERE
Sunday, February 19, 2012
Week 6: The screen that talks
How fast it was to look at 6 weeks working together with friends around the world. I suppose week 6 and 7 are the most important in our course as it is touching the most-expected part of any courses: EXPERIMENT.
From the very first days of Introduction, setting measurable objectives, using internet as tools of learning and searching to make demo project and assessment, We now can see how it works in our real situation. I think the course is really interesting as it helps participants from different contexts could come together to share to have better solutions that can be applied in specific cases.
Week 6 witnessed the possible changes in the participants' classes using suggested tools raised in week 4. The feedback from my students were quite good as they started to raised their voice and joined the introduction thread in Nicenet for my TOEIC class.
Also in Week 6, interactive ppt was introduced to enhance teaching tool kit. First time ever, I tried something new with my ppt to make it more visualized and more interactive. I started to love using ppt as I thought students would find it fun to work with and they can, therefore, expose to different sources of online language teaching. This could, gradually, interest them and open a vast world of knowledge to them.
Also in the week, I was given lots of ideas of how to handle large classes. It did give me some ideas of how to make it work in my university.
As I am having some last hours of my weekend, I would like to wish you, all, a new week full of happiness and fun.
The
From the very first days of Introduction, setting measurable objectives, using internet as tools of learning and searching to make demo project and assessment, We now can see how it works in our real situation. I think the course is really interesting as it helps participants from different contexts could come together to share to have better solutions that can be applied in specific cases.
Week 6 witnessed the possible changes in the participants' classes using suggested tools raised in week 4. The feedback from my students were quite good as they started to raised their voice and joined the introduction thread in Nicenet for my TOEIC class.
Also in Week 6, interactive ppt was introduced to enhance teaching tool kit. First time ever, I tried something new with my ppt to make it more visualized and more interactive. I started to love using ppt as I thought students would find it fun to work with and they can, therefore, expose to different sources of online language teaching. This could, gradually, interest them and open a vast world of knowledge to them.
Also in the week, I was given lots of ideas of how to handle large classes. It did give me some ideas of how to make it work in my university.
As I am having some last hours of my weekend, I would like to wish you, all, a new week full of happiness and fun.
The
Saturday, February 18, 2012
Week 6: My Nicenet class of TOEIC
Hi all,
Actually, I tried Nicenet and my University Forum as an exploring step to my students a couple of weeks ago. I also intended to try www.sties.google.com to have the class schedule. However, I thought it could be a bit too much for the first time and Robert also suggested focusing on 1 tool to perfect it.
I spent an hour introducing Nicenet to them with some of demo topic discussions. It seemed the students were still very confusing doing home assignment online. Some minor problems arising as some of the students were not wired at home. Some had problems with time management as they are now in their last year and there are too much work to be done. So far, there have been about 15 out of 25 students joining Nicenet class. (others asked for paper homework).
To start something very easy at first, I tried not to make anything complicated and not to asked them to speak pages. The purpose of the first week was to let them introduce to get to know one another. I did a small introduction face to face of what needs to be done in the first week with some clear guidance. I also encouraged them to join even with their nick name if they do not want to be known by others.
I focused on 2 pieces of information: Personal Information, Likes and Dislikes.
Look at the log of the below conversations:
Actually, I tried Nicenet and my University Forum as an exploring step to my students a couple of weeks ago. I also intended to try www.sties.google.com to have the class schedule. However, I thought it could be a bit too much for the first time and Robert also suggested focusing on 1 tool to perfect it.
I spent an hour introducing Nicenet to them with some of demo topic discussions. It seemed the students were still very confusing doing home assignment online. Some minor problems arising as some of the students were not wired at home. Some had problems with time management as they are now in their last year and there are too much work to be done. So far, there have been about 15 out of 25 students joining Nicenet class. (others asked for paper homework).
To start something very easy at first, I tried not to make anything complicated and not to asked them to speak pages. The purpose of the first week was to let them introduce to get to know one another. I did a small introduction face to face of what needs to be done in the first week with some clear guidance. I also encouraged them to join even with their nick name if they do not want to be known by others.
I focused on 2 pieces of information: Personal Information, Likes and Dislikes.
Look at the log of the below conversations:
FROM: The Pham (02/09/12 8:00 PM PST) [ Send a personal message to The Pham]
SUBJECT: Self Introduction
[Reply]
Briefly Introduce yourself to the class with:
+ Some personal information
+ Likes and Dislikes
- FROM: van anh nguyen (02/15/12 6:30 PM PST) [ Send a personal message to van anh nguyen]SUBJECT: RE: Self Introduction
You don't reply my messeage.Why???
REPLIES (1): [ Hide Replies ]
FROM: Vu Duong (02/09/12 8:14 PM PST) [ Send a personal message to Vu Duong]
SUBJECT: Introduction
[Reply]
Hi,
My name is Vu Duong.
I am currently a student of HPU majoring Tourism.
I am at my 3rd year and i found my studies very interesting.
I love traveling and making friends with all kinds of people. This is also the reason why I chose my major "Tourism". I hope that I could have a good job as a tourist guide and I would have opportunities to travel to many places around the world. I also did expect to introduce Vietnam to the rest of the world.
My bad habit is biting my nails
Thank you for your reading and hope to to "see" you online.
regards,
- FROM: The Pham (02/13/12 5:55 PM PST) [ Send a personal message to The Pham]SUBJECT: RE: Introduction
Hi Duong,
Great job.
I love the way you did your intruduction.
Keep doing good work.
The
REPLIES (1): [ Hide Replies ]
FROM: yen nguyen (02/12/12 6:20 AM PST) [ Send a personal message to yen nguyen]
SUBJECT: FBI
[Reply]
hi beautyful girls and handsome boys ^^!
my name is Hai Yen. i very nervous... ^0^
- FROM: The Pham (02/13/12 5:58 PM PST) [ Send a personal message to The Pham]SUBJECT: RE: FBI
Hi Yen,
It is scary to start a talk in a big group. I did English badly when I was in grade 10. Then I noticed one thing: If I dont try then I will be soon left behind.
So, try your best and good luck.
The
REPLIES (1): [ Hide Replies ]
FROM: LienLili (02/12/12 7:46 AM PST) [ Send a personal message to LienLili ]
SUBJECT: About me
[Reply]
Hi my newfriends. Today I'm very happy when to talk to you about myself
I'm Lien, I'm come from HP. I'm 23years old and I learn culture and tourism department at HPU
I like travel and discovery culture and special things in country when I come. I like take photographes in that and eat special food
Everyday I go to school. I often listen to music or reading book at free time. Sometime I go out with my friend to go to the cinema or go to coffe shop to talk about our life
I dislike cook because I'm a bad cooker. But I like eat
I sing bored so I don't sing with crowd. I only sing when only I here
It's too late. I'm going to sleeping and I hope see you soon. Goodbye
- FROM: The Pham (02/13/12 6:03 PM PST) [ Send a personal message to The Pham]SUBJECT: RE: About me
Hi Lien,
A very good start.
It's good to share your interests to the rest of the class.
Keep moving all the time
The
REPLIES (1): [ Hide Replies ]
FROM: Binh Luu (02/12/12 8:09 AM PST) [ Send a personal message to Binh Luu]
SUBJECT: No.4
[Reply]
Hi!
I'm Binh . I'm from HP , i like living in HP .
I'm 23 years old and I learn accountancy .
I like eat , sleep , playgames , meet my friends.
to see football , I'm very like Manchester United.
Thank you for your reading
- FROM: The Pham (02/13/12 6:05 PM PST) [ Send a personal message to The Pham]SUBJECT: RE: No.4
Hi Binh,
Thank you for sharing.
Your introduction could tell much about you. Let's share and to be shared.
The
REPLIES (1): [ Hide Replies ]
FROM: Linh Vu (02/12/12 9:09 PM PST) [ Send a personal message to Linh Vu]
SUBJECT: 123
[Reply]
Hi everybody
I'm Linh , one of some students are ALWAYS late for class haha.
I like nothing and i don't like everything.
My life is so boring and empty .
So, that's all of me
I'll try writing longer about by myself again .
See U !
- FROM: The Pham (02/13/12 6:13 PM PST) [ Send a personal message to The Pham]SUBJECT: RE: 123
Hello Linh,
Life is not an easy thing to define. There are 3 factors that make you happy. Let's see what they are:
1. Satisfy with what you have2. Optimistic3. Having Good relationships
So, be happy with what you have and think about making it better.
Joining a group learning together will bring you more fun.
Cheers,
The
REPLIES (1): [ Hide Replies ]
FROM: dao lien (02/13/12 1:36 AM PST) [ Send a personal message to dao lien]
SUBJECT: introduction
[Reply]
hello!!! lady and gentleman .
I'm Lien , come from HP city . I'm 23 year old. I'm currently a student studing in HP Private University , majoring accounting and auditing .
I like making friends with everybody, shopping , watch TV and eat . I always listen to music ,cook ( although I'm a bad cooker), sing , reading book at freetime . Weekend ,I sometime walking the park , meet my friend , cinema , play a joker.
I dislike liar ,I hate betray because it's make me sad .
Until , my english still very very bad . I hope you help me better.
Thanks for you reading !
- FROM: The Pham (02/13/12 6:16 PM PST) [ Send a personal message to The Pham]SUBJECT: RE: introduction
Hello Lien,
You are doing good job of introducing yourself.
Yes, the reason of setting up this class is to help each other and to build up stronger relatioship between students.
Keep moving together.
The
REPLIES (1): [ Hide Replies ]
FROM: van anh nguyen (02/13/12 3:34 AM PST) [ Send a personal message to van anh nguyen]
SUBJECT: Introduce myself
[Reply]
Hi everyones!!!Nice to meet you^^
My name is Vân Anh.I live in Hai Phong.I'm 22 yearsold.Now, i learn culture and tourism dpartment in HPU.
I have so many hobbies.I like listening to music everyday.My favourite music is pop.Beside, i like reading books, shopping, watching TV,traveling and many many...
At weekend, i often go to HÃ ng market with my father and cook my forte food for my family.
I like going to every places in Vietnam and in the world.My dream is going to the Paris.And i hope my dream comes true.
I hate rain and winter.Beacause, i feel sad and lonely in rainny day.
And now, i have dinner.Enjoy your meal.
See you soon:))
- FROM: LienLili (02/13/12 4:38 AM PST) [ Send a personal message to LienLili ]SUBJECT: RE: Introduce myself
I like rain because it't very romantic :) and I wish come to Paris, too - FROM: The Pham (02/17/12 11:50 PM PST) [ Send a personal message to The Pham]SUBJECT: RE: Introduce myself
Hi Van Anh,
You had a very nice post.
Sorry for my going past you.
Yes, I also like going to Hang Market. It's some kind of fun to see all kinds of things are sold in the market.I am also raising some singing birds, a simple hobby to keep me close to the Nature in my free time.
Cheers.The
REPLIES (2): [ Hide Replies ]
FROM: Vu Trang (02/13/12 5:41 AM PST) [ Send a personal message to Vu Trang]
SUBJECT: Introduction
[Reply]
Hi everyones!!!
My name is Trang. I'm 21 yearsold. I'm currently a student in HPU, majoring acouting and aditing
I want to make friends with everybody.
I like everything make me feel comfortable, exemple: read book, listen to music,sometime I cook a new dishes, maybe it is good or bad, but i'm very interesting when i make it by myself.
I diskie peoples who not keeping their word and lair
I hope you hepl me learn english better, because i feel my english not good
there is some information about me.
Will you be my friend!!!!
- FROM: The Pham (02/13/12 6:08 PM PST) [ Send a personal message to The Pham]SUBJECT: RE: Introduction
Hi Trang,
It's good to know more people. Yes, we are here to learn, to share and to exchange.
I strongly believe that we will make our learning more effective. And we also set up good relationship with others.
Cheers
The
REPLIES (1): [ Hide Replies ]
FROM: Nguyen Thuy (02/13/12 6:03 AM PST) [ Send a personal message to Nguyen Thuy]
SUBJECT: Introduction
[Reply]
Hi everybody!!!
I'm Thuy, I learn acounting and auditing.
My english not good ,i can't talk no more about me. I want to make freind with everyones and hope you hepl me learn english well.
I'll try takl about my self more in the next time.
See you soon !!!
- FROM: The Pham (02/15/12 8:03 PM PST) [ Send a personal message to The Pham]SUBJECT: RE: Introduction
Hello Thuy,
It is a good start.
I believe that we will together make a strong class community.
Cheers,
The
REPLIES (1): [ Hide Replies ]
FROM: Vanilla (02/13/12 6:53 AM PST) [ Send a personal message to Vanilla ]
SUBJECT: REP
[Reply]
Hi everybody.
I'm Quyen. Like everyone in this class I'm currently a student studing in HP Private University, majoring accounting and auditing .
I love listening music and watching movie in my free time because it's make me reduce stress after a tiring day.
I hate wake up early on Sunday
I've used all English skill of myself so thanks for reading . See you soon in our class. ^_^!
- FROM: The Pham (02/13/12 6:19 PM PST) [ Send a personal message to The Pham]SUBJECT: RE: REP
Hello Quyen,
Your English is good.
I also like lying lazily in bed on Sundays.
Keep on sharing more. Come and make friend with others in this topic.
Cheers.
The
REPLIES (1): [ Hide Replies ]
FROM: Anonymous2752263 (02/13/12 7:15 AM PST) [ Send a personal message to Anonymous2752263 ]
SUBJECT: introduction
[Reply]
hello !!
my name is Thuong.I from Thai Binh.I like watching TV, listen to mussic and play game.I lean acouting and aditing.I have leant E for 10 year but I fell very hate E.Now, my english very very bad. I hope everybody in class will lean E better. .see you again in our class
- FROM: The Pham (02/13/12 6:21 PM PST) [ Send a personal message to The Pham]SUBJECT: RE: introduction
Hello Thuong,
It is a common picture that people learning English for 10 years and more do not satisfy with their result.
So, now we try out something new to see if your situation will be different or not.
Keep moving,
The
REPLIES (1): [ Hide Replies ]
The students are now doing their second week assignment and I am doing some correction and giving some suggestions to their INTRODUCTION. Basically, words of praise are tool to encourage them. I tried not to focus on their grammar errors but on the styles instead. Giving some suggestions of developing their ideas with more information.
Looking at the conversations, I could see the differences between them in terms of language proficiency and psychological manifestations.
I already prepare 8 week assignments and I am trying to offer them simple materials for further reading helping them to have more tools to understand and carry out their tasks.
Hope you to share me on how to make my Nicenet more effective.
Saturday, February 11, 2012
Week 5: Sleepless nights: Wondering where my teaching was heading
Another busy week with office work has been almost over as it is now 12 am Sunday in Vietnam (GMT+7). I love my weekend (just Sunday) than ever before as I would have my own time reading my friends' blogs, discussions and sharing.
This week, I learnt more about PBL, Rubrics and Alternative assessment, things I knew for long but never considered it seriously before. I also tried a PBL lesson in my current class of 25 students of intermediate. It worked quite well as the students were really interested in working on the project in groups. I think PBL together with Rubrics would definitely motivate the students' autonomy as they are given more choices to do things relating to their future professional development. They were also happy with their group work and found it fun to self and peer assess. Though I could see their puzzles in their eyes when presenting their own ideas before the class, they did great jobs and had brilliant ideas that I could never thought about. The group of Business students brought me from surprises to surprises presenting their ideas of running their own business with "10,000 usd" I "GAVE" them.
The Rubrics also gave me good ideas of how to assess and evaluate my students' assignments better. Rubrics, at the same time, can encourage the students to be more independent as they could figure out how they would be assessed. They, therefore, could plan the best for their work.
I am also trying a WebQuest and expecting to finish it by tomorrow. Though teachers invest a big amount of time preparing a WebQuest, it is worth doing as the whole class will benefit from it. WebQuest helps students interact with the clear introduction of Task and Process to do.
To be honest, I am a bit lost this week. I am still doing more reading on the provided materials to understand and apply more on my teaching.
Acquiring not much, Yet I am very happy with what I have gained so far.
Thank you for your reading and sharing.
The
This week, I learnt more about PBL, Rubrics and Alternative assessment, things I knew for long but never considered it seriously before. I also tried a PBL lesson in my current class of 25 students of intermediate. It worked quite well as the students were really interested in working on the project in groups. I think PBL together with Rubrics would definitely motivate the students' autonomy as they are given more choices to do things relating to their future professional development. They were also happy with their group work and found it fun to self and peer assess. Though I could see their puzzles in their eyes when presenting their own ideas before the class, they did great jobs and had brilliant ideas that I could never thought about. The group of Business students brought me from surprises to surprises presenting their ideas of running their own business with "10,000 usd" I "GAVE" them.
The Rubrics also gave me good ideas of how to assess and evaluate my students' assignments better. Rubrics, at the same time, can encourage the students to be more independent as they could figure out how they would be assessed. They, therefore, could plan the best for their work.
I am also trying a WebQuest and expecting to finish it by tomorrow. Though teachers invest a big amount of time preparing a WebQuest, it is worth doing as the whole class will benefit from it. WebQuest helps students interact with the clear introduction of Task and Process to do.
To be honest, I am a bit lost this week. I am still doing more reading on the provided materials to understand and apply more on my teaching.
Acquiring not much, Yet I am very happy with what I have gained so far.
Thank you for your reading and sharing.
The
Sunday, February 5, 2012
Week 4: Swimming in the sea of knowledge
Hi all,
A busy week with lots of traveling and work made me really tired. Some contracts need to be finalized as soon as the end of the coming week. Yet, I do feel relaxed and happy when reading our class posts to know how hard you work and how close we are together regardless of where you are from. I really admire my friends with their wonderful job of week 4. I think I am quite behind and I will try best to catch up.
Well, back to the two big issues of skill-building webs and technology-enhanced lesson plans, I believe that all members in the class have enjoyed much the party of teaching and learning resources.
The hardest part of the week is designing a technology-enhanced lesson plan. To meet the objectives of the lesson and to match with the existing syllabus, it is not an easy task to make a satisfactory lesson plan.
A busy week with lots of traveling and work made me really tired. Some contracts need to be finalized as soon as the end of the coming week. Yet, I do feel relaxed and happy when reading our class posts to know how hard you work and how close we are together regardless of where you are from. I really admire my friends with their wonderful job of week 4. I think I am quite behind and I will try best to catch up.
Well, back to the two big issues of skill-building webs and technology-enhanced lesson plans, I believe that all members in the class have enjoyed much the party of teaching and learning resources.
The hardest part of the week is designing a technology-enhanced lesson plan. To meet the objectives of the lesson and to match with the existing syllabus, it is not an easy task to make a satisfactory lesson plan.
Sunday, January 29, 2012
Week 3: Delicious Food - a Feast for all
I started this week quite late as I enjoyed a 9 day holiday of Tet traveling around, visiting relatives and friends, going to pagodas with best wishes for a Lunar New Year full of happiness.
The workload I need to do in 3 days was huge but I did love this week assignments. CALL is great when integrating technology and internet in teaching and learning languages.
As Gong has quoted in his article "In second/foreign language classrooms, the CALL environment creates situations that stimulate interest, allows dialogue and communication, enhances reactivity, fosters a sense of personal worth, facilitates collaboration among students working together, permits rich learning experiences for all students and strengthens communication skills" (Borras 1993; Pennington 1995, 1996; Cameron 1999; Hardisty et al. 1989; Inoue 1999; Kohn et al. 1997; Powell 1998)
It is no doubt CALL will enhance the effectiveness of language learning in our technology Age.
I also created my own page to save link on http://www.delicious.com/. The first time ever I have my own stack without worrying of losing my bookmarks when my laptop goes wrong. It was amazing to visit my friends' pages. They introduced dozens of interesting and useful websites those I have been looking for long. I tried some especially on teaching pronunciation. "http://www.howjsay.com" introduced by Ky Nguyen is very useful for Vietnamese students as researches showed that one of the biggest problems we have in Vietnam is pronunciation. This could be explainable as Vietnamese pronunciation is something similar to French and Russian language when looking at the words people know how to speak them correctly. And in pronouncing a word, consonant endings and consonant cluster endings are not heard while in English it is very important factor to recognize the words. To pronounce these following words, for instance,:
wife /waif/
while /wail/
wise /waiz/
wine /wain/
white /wait/
wild /waild/
My non English major students tend to make it only as /WAI/ for all the above words. The comment:
- "Your /WAI/ tastes nice" could be very confusing as I often joked my students.
"http://www.howjsay.com" will be more than helpful to my students to self teach their pronunciation.
The hardest job of the week was making comments on the past project report. It was really hard but also very interesting. I could somehow imagine what my final report could be after reading all of the 8 reports. I did enjoy the one of Camelia "Final Project for Teens at the School with Classes I-VIII, Academician Marin Voiculescu, Giurgiu, Romania". I learned a lot from the way of integrating technology and web-skills into language learning, the way of motivating and encouraging the students to collaborate in learning.
I am eager to try some new ideas on the coming week as I am enjoying the last day of a long TET holiday in Vietnam.
Nice weekend to all,
Friday, January 20, 2012
Week 2: ABCD: measurable objectives
Jones, 1997 – "Clear objectives can help the instructor design lessons that will be easier for the student to comprehend and the teacher to evaluate".
Our course is getting more interesting in week 2. ABCD model offers a good way of setting and evaluating my objectives. At times, I expected too much from the students and forget a very simple thing: "What do I really expect the students to have after each lesson?". To teach a very first lesson, Was I too greedy to talk over on what to be called "contrastive analysis" of greetings between cultures?. My lessons were like preaches on MY understanding of greetings of those countries I have been to or read somewhere. As the result, the students were listening "eye-opened" and had almost no chance to practise. I thought it was a successful lesson. By that way, I make them admire me with the experiences I had not the way I give them the tool to survive in the English speaking world.
I just forget a simple thing that the KEY objective of the lesson is to give them the ways of greetings and motivate them to practice, to create a safe "swimming pool" in the heat of summer for first time "swimmers" to jump into. Analysis and Positive comments could go after the last person in the class has raised her voice.
The Condition plays a very important part to the Behavior of the Audience in making the Degree of Master. Teachers should be the catalysts that help make good learners.
Well, this is somewhat I understood from ABCD model and I do hope to have your sharing.
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
Week 1: New experience
Here, in Vietnam, it is not surprising to see a person with 2 or even more smart phones, an ipad and a laptop. And it is also a shock to a lot of foreigners to know that they can access free wireless Internet at every corner of the big cities. In my university, free wireless connection was offered since 2006 to provide the students with the best conditions of searching and browsing our Libol (library online). I was told about blogging dozens of times with lots of invitations to join some social communities like yahoo 360, twitter, facebook... from my students and friends.
Yet, I never thought about joining one before registered this webskills course. I thought it would be a waste of time sitting in front of the laptop talking to people I do not know much. My key prupose of surfing was to look for the teaching resources and reading articles and news.
A bit funny when I started to creat my own blog today as I did what I assumed nonsense just a few days ago. To be honest, the feeling of my first date was recalled. I am excited with a bit nervous writing the first blog of my life.
Well, This is my New Experience.
Personally, I suppose that blogging could be a good way to approach students. Why I use the term of "Approach"? There has been a GAP between the students and the teachers for long in Vietnam. In some schools in big cities, "student-centeredness" was talked, new methods were applied, "prolem-based learning" was introduced and brought into practice elsewhere. However, in most parts, "Grammar-focused", "teacher-centered" "Teacher - students - Board and Chalk" ... are still dominant. Reluctant speakers, Grammar-contented tests, exam-passing motivation.... are the issues and topics of thousands of talks, discussions. The situation of English teaching is gradually improved. And if we look at the bright side, there have been a number of positively remarkable changes. And since the students can share and can be shared with the blogs, it helps teachers to have a closer look on "need analysis" and "learners' psychology" to form flexible teaching methods that suit both the core curriculum with the institution's objectives and the expectations from the learners' perspectives.
It is a little bit too much for a new blogger right? Hope to have your frank comments.
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