Let’s not “power down”!

This week has been exhausting, but also terribly challenging. First there were all those readings about Computer Assisted Language Teaching and the reviewing of some websites on listening and pronunciation. I think these issues raise several questions, though, and I’ve hinted at some in one or two of my posts. As much as we can agree that CALL is useful and reliable, we also know that there are many speakers of English as a foreign language who are fluent and have reached a high degree of perfection without ever using these methods. For some, the learning of a language seems to be almost innate, no effort needed. I have that experience with my three children: they are all quite good, but one of the twins seems to take everything easily and he hates studying grammar rules. He relies more on intuition and he is usually right. He never had special classes or training and still, he is more fluent and he pronounces most things more correctly   than the others.

And then there is the question of which English or which accent we should teach. I agree with David Crystal and think this is another challenge for us, teachers. I’m sharing a short video where he talks about this issue, but there are many others you can watch on YouTube.

While testing some of the activities on pronunciation in all those websites Robert suggested, I suddenly remembered a video I had shown my students not long ago. It is quite nice and they even tried to learn some bits. It also made them aware of how difficult English can be and how important it is to learn it right. Here it is in case you’re curious.

Another task that I enjoyed doing was reading and commenting on one of the projects from last year. It’s always difficult to judge on someone’s work when we don’t exactly know what is behind it, who are the people involved, etc. I hope I have not been unfair because I realize that creating and developing a project is always difficult and there are many variables that we cannot control. However there are always lessons to be learned, even when things don’t go as well as planned. Or especially then.

To conclude this week’s overview I just would like to point out that in every job, in every area of our life, people need to be challenged, they have to remain awake. I remember something I read by Prensky: in his book “Don’t bother me, mum – I’m learning” he says that some students don’t like school because they feel they have to power down when they get there (as many of the things they do and learn outside school are much more challenging than what they do there). I think this course won’t let us power down. Nor will our students, as I sense, in all of us, the will and the power to make learning a real challenge!

Week 3 - A different type of CALL

Week 3 is still in its early stages, but I feel like sharing a story with you.

As I have already said in one of my posts, reading about Computer Assisted Language Learning, language labs, voice recognition and analysis software and all that made me go back in time and remember how we learned this almost 30 years ago. There were no computers or language labs at college back then, so we had to rely on our ears, our teachers’ excellent pronunciation and their patience to correct us.

I remember one particular teacher who was, in a way, a trailblazer then. He was already using CALL, only it was a different kind. We could call it Candle Assisted Language Learning. Yes, he would have us take a candle to class and he would give us a list of words beginning with “h” that we had to read aloud in front of the flame. Then he would check our pronunciation just by looking at the flame – did it move, should it have moved? The first time he did this, we thought he was crazy, but it worked - we learned. And then other strange things followed: there were mirrors, physical exercise, endless repetitions, trying to speak with small objects in our mouth… I can’t remember it all.

Good thing we don't have to do this anymore. Things have changed and there are now so many different types of activities, software and resources to learn those skills. What I’m trying to show with my story is that sometimes we have to be resourceful, too. That teacher was quite peculiar, but he certainly was resourceful and I thank him for his efforts.

Sharing ideas

Having performed all the tasks for week two and reflected on them in my previous post, I woke up today thinking I would like to share a video and a quotation that I completely agree with and that mirror  a bit the way I feel about teaching and teachers' roles nowadays.
The video is an animation created for an RSA talk given by Sir Ken Robinson. I always enjoy his talks and his insights into education.

The quotation is one, among many others, that I enjoyed reading and that I feel is true.

" I will predict this: there will still be a place for teachers, because teachers are irreplaceable. It's still true that any teacher who can be replaced by a computer - should be. No amount of technology, self-study or user generated content can ever replace teachers. They will still be there to motivate and inspire, and they will still be there as pedagogy experts to facilitate and support learning. What they may do less of is - teach. There will probably be less 'front of the classroom' activities and more drawing alongside learners in project work, small group activities, problem based learning and technology enhanced processes. Most importantly, teachers will need to work more in partnership with their students."

2020 teachers by Steve Wheeler

Week 2

Here I am again, week 2 almost completed and so much to say.

I can’t help feeling a bit overwhelmed at the beginning of each week when I look at all the things we are supposed to do. I always think I won’t simply have time to do everything as well as I want to, but then I settle down to work and I seem to find the time for it all.

I believe this week has been most enriching for all of us. I know it has been so for me. I learned a lot and I seem to have become a bit of a bore telling everyone at school about all the new web search engines I now know of. Apart from the posts in the discussion boards, I have been trying some of them simply for fun and I’m amazed at the results. It is a time-consuming activity and it’ll be weeks or months before I have tried all of them, but that’s not the point really, is it? What’s good is that we now know about all these resources that are available to us and we can start using them as we need.

It was also great to work with objectives and read all those texts on the subject. I hadn’t really looked at Bloom’s taxonomy for years, since my times as a trainee teacher, so it was good to rediscover them, particularly this new adaptation to the new learning situations and all the new resources and activities available.  I must say that the most difficult task for me was exactly building measurable objectives with the precision our teachers were expecting. I had to put some more effort into the task, as we are not really used to doing it this way in Portugal, but it was challenging. I still have some doubts, though, which is probably good because it will make me more careful the next time I have to write objectives.

One of the things I like about this course is that it is making me reassess some of the things we tend to take for granted after so many years of teaching.

I also felt that our community is getting stronger with people interacting, giving feedback and encouragement. I just wish we could have our photos on Nicenet. I often feel it hard to address people whose faces I do not know, but with the help of our blogs and the photos we have there, it will progressively get easier.

Well, maybe I’ll get back here before the end of the week. Meanwhile, I can’t wait to see what is coming next.

Week 1

Week 1 is almost over, so I feel it’s time to think and write a little bit about everything that has happened.

This is my first all-online course and, if I want to be truly honest, I must say that I am both thrilled and afraid. I think it will be a wonderful opportunity for us to learn from each other’s experiences, to share ideas and materials, to build knowledge and develop our problem-solving skills together. But I can’t avoid that awkward feeling that sometimes I jump into too many things at the same time and will have to multitask every second of the day to keep it all going.

It’s my first time using Nicenet, but I don’t envisage any problems there. I am used to working with the Moodle platform and I have already created a classroom in Edu 2.0, so I don’t suppose it will be much different.

Although I love technology, I have a confession to make: this is my second attempt at blogs. I created one, some time ago, but I never really felt committed to it. Maybe I was a bit lazy, maybe I didn’t believe I could reach so many people as I do using social networks. I use Facebook a lot with a wide group of teachers and also with my students,  and that is where I share most of the websites and tools I use, where I sometimes write my own reflections and where I often share my students’ work (with due permission, of course). And then there are the online platforms that I like to use when our Internet connection is good.

I see this new attempt as my real opportunity to create a blog that will not only add meaning to my teaching practice and to the work of our group but also one that may continue after this course ends.

One last thing: I am happy to be part of such a diverse group and to meet people from so many different parts of the world. I’m sure it will be most enriching and that it will make each one of us a different and better person.

In case you want to know more about me as a teacher, you'll find it on pages 16 and 17 of In English Digital. The link is here:

http://issuu.com/britishcouncilportugal/docs/inenglishdigital_01/1

Hello!

The adventure is about to start! Still unsure and not knowing what will be expected of me, I am eager to start and learn. A teacher's role extends well beyond teaching; it is mainly a commitment to lifelong learning, to a constant attempt at improving one's skills and knowledge. Let's hope we will all learn a lot, both through the content of the course and through our shared experiences.