Mission accomplished

I was getting used to being a regular here, but this week has really exhausted me. Dealing with three tools and activities at the same time isn’t easy. There are all those penzu pages to read and comment. I have to be often online to see who is in the chat and move things a bit and there’s wallwisher to check and notes to take down.

As I mentioned in an earlier post I decided to use some classes to work on error analysis and correction and it worked so well! I really came home yesterday with that feeling of “mission accomplished”! The students got incredibly involved in the task and by the end of the class they were already able to spot a lot more errors and find out how to correct them. They even asked for homework, so I gave them some more texts and excerpts to try and correct at home. Today I shared my dictionaries, vocabulary and grammar stacks with them, so that they can have some websites they can refer to in case of doubt. And then we’ll do the rest in class. Isn’t this the dawning of learner autonomy?

Today I received a penzu share that I really appreciated. 

The image is here, but maybe it will be difficult to see, so let me explain: one of the students went back to the page she had corrected in class, she edited it marking all the mistakes she had made and then she wrote the corrected text below. I think it was fantastic. I’m sure that after dealing so much with some of the mistakes she has made, she will probably remember what not to do next time. I think that this type of attitude towards work not only shows the student is involved in her own learning and working beyond the initial task, but it also makes the teacher feel that they are turning the assignment into something useful, relevant, real! Thank you, kids!

Week 7 - Sighing

This week there are two interesting topics for discussion: just wish I had more time to be there, but this project is really time-consuming, for the students and for me. I have already had to make some adjustments, as the way I had planned to correct students’ mistakes didn’t really seem very effective. I cannot simply correct or even point them out to students. If I want them to develop some critical thinking and some more autonomy I will have to let them find and correct their own mistakes. It’s important that they understand why it is wrong and try to find out how to correct it. Of course they will need support, but I expect this way they will learn and remember much more.

Tomorrow we will have a completely different lesson: I’m going to take some examples of their Penzu pages and some transcripts from the chat and, in pairs, they will try to find the mistakes they have made. I hope they will be able to recognize and correct many of them. Then I will help them find the rest and with the use of our course book, grammars and dictionaries, they will try to correct those as well. I know I’m going to get behind in the syllabus, but I have informed the school board and besides, I don’t think this is wasting time, quite the opposite, I will be gaining time in the long run if they learn to write better and to apply the grammar structures and rules they have already learned to real situations. I hope that seeing their texts will also make them aware of how important this project can be for them. I also hope they will feel more committed to their own learning and will learn to be more autonomous at writing. In fact, I think that this Writing Extension Project fits quite well into one of our topics this week.

The week has also been a mixed-feelings week. The first days were terrible and I was almost getting depressed with so little feedback from students, but maybe I was expecting too much: after all they were on holidays and it’s usual for people to spend carnival with their families in the nearby villages. Today things changed completely because they’re back to school and suddenly remembered what they had to do. 

Hope.com

Life’s not so grim after all. Little by little students are doing what I expected them to do. Some haven’t still done anything, though. Three tests this week? Fear of the unknown? Sheer laziness? I don’t know, but I don’t want to force them. Let’s wait and see. Still, the ones that had started by complaining a lot are now really involved. I knew they would be!

And the first conclusion to be derived from these first days is: their writing really needs to be worked on. When they write in class and in tests they are writing about something they have studied, they have prepared, and so you don't really see many mistakes, but here, at least in their personal journals and in the chat, they are writing about whatever they want and often on the spur of the moment and all those problems and mistakes appear. I had never imagined the situation was so serious or maybe I had, otherwise I wouldn’t have decided to do this type of project.

Here are two examples from their personal journals:

“Ok, so im starting my journal. I dont know what to say. Well, there's a thing that i can say: i think that all theese links that our English teatcher gave us mean that we ( my class, i dont know if she is doing this torture with other classes.......) are going to actually WORK!!!!!! OMG! I am not ready for doing any work. I DONT EVEN LIKE TO WORK!! But what can i do??...............”

“Today, is the first day that I am write there, but I have already writen in the wallwisher and in chatzy, it's a start! I'm not very good to write in English but, I'm trying.
Tuesday, we had a english class. There we knew the most of works that had did for english teacher, she are crazy! But is a form to win more capacities in writing.
The teacher don't like my reation about this, and now I agree with her! But, in the moment, I have thought that don't had time to do so things!
SORRY, TEACHER! :)
This project can better very notes in class and I hope be one of them! For this I have to work very much and I'm going able.Thank you teacher for leave me to do part of your project, and now the class project!”

You can also have a look at the first Wallwisher http://www.wallwisher.com/wall/ClassDMovies.

And all this data that I am collecting has already made me adjust the project. I first thought I would email them my comments and their mistakes, so that they could edit them, but now I’ve changed my mind: I’m going to use some classes, even if I have to set up some extra classes, to work with them using their own texts. Understanding why errors occur is essential to recognize them and learn how to correct them. And the more you do it, the better you’ll remember it next time you’re writing that structure. It’s going to be real hard work, but it’ll be good for all of us.

Passion

It’s not even 9 a.m. and I am already tired. This project I got myself into is nice, but it’s all-consuming. Kids are always posting things, emailing me with requests for help, doubts, things they want to correct… Then I have to be online all the time in case someone shows up for the chat. I know I should have set up specific times, but that’s not possible with some of them, so I’d rather be around.

But today I just want to talk a little about all the rest: large classes, how to enhance students and interactive presentations. I don’t really have oversized classes, but sometimes teaching 25 kids can be exhausting and trying to keep their attention and concentration high for 90 minutes is not an easy task. Of course there are all types of warmers, fillers and focus activities I use. There are some very good examples in our readings but I also the ones listed at http://busyteacher.org/. They can be really fun, motivating and they always add content.

I also enjoy presentations, but one has to be careful about how to create an effective presentation. We have all talked about it in the discussion board. Still I would like to share with you this presentation “Death by PowerPoint” and also a short video, which is just an excerpt from one of Don McMillan’s talks: “Life after death by PowerPoint”. They teach you a lot using humor.

As for Prezi I really like it and even if you are no expert, there are already many presentations online that you can use. I’ll just leave here an example I used at Halloween and that can give you some ideas on how to use Prezi:  http://prezi.com/nfpshjpths5a/happy-halloween/.

Although I think Prezi is a great tool that both teachers and students like to use in presentations, I think it doesn’t really allow a variety of interactive activities as other type of presentations or as Interactive White Boards do. I’m a great fan of IWB. There are so many things you can do!

Just to finish today I would like to remind you that what really motivates our students is passion, above all our passion and our ability to make them find that passion for learning within themselves.

Week 6 – Hope and disappointment

Here we are carrying out our final Project or trying to at least…

It seems so early and so little time for doing so. In fact, I cannot imagine a two or three-week project. It’s unreal to think that I can change much in such a short period of time. If I want my students’ writing to improve, I need a lot more time… and I will give it to them. This is a project to continue. I just feel sad I won’t be able to present real results in my final report.

Before the week even started there was a lot of hard work trying to narrow a bit more my options and settle on the tools to be used. Then some red tape: informing parents and the school board, emailing students the first instructions, setting up an extra class to make them a bit more familiar with the tools and to explain the tasks.

The expectations are high, but the first day I suffered the first disappointment with two students complaining heavily about the extra work, almost as if they were sorry to be in the project. They are really good students and I understand they have now lots of tests and need to study, but still, it made me sad. I just hope they will see the fun and point of it all once they start.

But yesterday evening I felt better when two students joined me in the chat. One of them is rather weak at English, but he made an effort and that was good. It brightened things a bit. They are also starting to participate in wallwisher, so maybe there's hope.

I decided to do the same as my students: I’m using penzu as my log book. I started yesterday and this is what I wrote https://penzu.com/p/3c26684f.

I feel I need some motivation. Things never seem to be good enough for me. I always wish I could do some state-of-the-art project, but I don’t have what I need to accomplish it. I have to be realistic. Let’s hope it will be elegant and simple!

A PBL guru?

Aren’t you all a bit obsessed about PBL by now? I know I am. And as soon as I saw Courtney’s question “What kinds of projects could incorporate the websites that students already frequent such as You Tube and Facebook?” I suddenly felt very proud of a project I carried out last year with my 12^th grade students.

The idea was to do some research on someone they considered an icon in terms of Democracy. As I didn’t want any copy-paste kind of work I told them they would have to present their work either by creating a blog impersonating the character or by creating a fake facebook page that they would update for a certain period of time, adding more and more information, comments, etc. It was a fantastic activity. They all got involved in it, interacted with other groups, learned a lot about the person they had chosen and in the end presented their pages and findings to the class.

I wrote an article about it for InEnglishDigital where you can find more details about this activity (Research work: an upgrade, page 20). Check it out here!

Ah, and there was a very careful and strict planning and assessment. They knew I was checking their pages every Friday and something new had to be there, they knew what type of information and material they were supposed to gather, they were expected to interact with other groups and comment their blog posts or status updates and they had guidelines for the final class presentation.

Maybe I am a bit of a PBL guru and I just didn’t know it. ;-)

The road less travelled by

The week is quickly coming to an end and I still have so much to do. I have already promised myself I will slow down for a while after I finish this course. My husband laughs when I tell him this, my kids just disregard it. They think I’m crazy and that I’ll never change.

But let’s get serious. This week came as refreshment, as I got involved again in PBL and I paid a bit more attention to WebQuests. I had done one or two some time ago, but then I kind of forgot how challenging they can be for both students and teachers. I think I’ll get back to them soon. I just wish I had more time to work with my students! I feel I’m putting a lot of pressure on them, giving them a lot of hard work that will have to be done mostly after school. Just hope the parents won’t start complaining.

The truth is I got so enthusiastic about this whole thing that I’ve done some research and I found some interesting sites with WebQuests ready to use. Check my WebQuests stack.

Another important moment this week was my brainstorming for the final project. I have listed a few tools I may use and I have decided what I’ll be using them for. There is hard work ahead, though. I feel I am at crossroads; there are so many roads ahead and I’m still not sure which one to take. It reminded me of that Robert Frost poem:

“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.”

In a way I think it summarizes my situation, probably yours, too. I’d like to do something different (the road less travelled by), I’d like to make a difference, but if I choose wrongly it will make all the difference too.

Assessment was another buzz word this week: rubrics, alternative assessment, even self-assessment. Although I find that self and peer assessment is important for students, I don’t really feel it’s necessary here. This is not a competition or, if it is, it is a competition against myself: I want to be better, do better, inspire more.

But, going back to students, I really believe that the way we assess them can make all the difference. You can bring out the best in a student if you are fair and thorough in your assessment. Testing is important too, but you only get part of the picture; there are so many other skills, even communicative skills that you only perceive and assess through alternative activities and alternative assessment methods.

In our minds there is always this idea of an ideal teacher we would like to be. I definitely think this course will help us get closer to that idea. Thank you all.

Week 5 - Joining the Quest

Here we are in week 5, immersed in students’ tests and with an extra task that everybody will try to do, so I cannot be the exception. Aren’t there time banks where we can get a few extra hours too?

The week started with some readings on Project Based Learning, a subject I find fascinating although I must confess that I haven’t really spent much time reflecting on it. I am familiar with the theoretical principles underlying this instructional approach and I have tried it once in a while, but I have probably never been consistent enough.

I understand it has multiple advantages as it makes student more autonomous learners and helps them develop critical thinking, decision-making skills, team work, while it helps them build knowledge in a much more realistic, collaborative and effective way. It is also challenging and extremely rewarding for the students when they complete it. This type of activity makes it possible to evaluate students in a different way, focusing on strengths rather than weaknesses, emphasizing the process rather than simply the result.

It made me think of a film I often use in class: Freedom Writers. Has anyone seen it? It’s great to talk about integration, discrimination, racism, education issues and project work. It’s what that teacher did and it worked wonders.

While looking for more information on the subject, I came across this nice video about PBL that I share here with you.

There is still a lot of work ahead this week analyzing and trying to create rubrics and possibly a WebQuest, but I will come back later in the week to tell you more about it.

The reading mother

In spite of all the hellish work this week, I must say that it has been one of my favorites so far. Why? Because we’re dealing with reading and writing, two of the things I most enjoy. 

I started a Reading Project a few years ago with my students and the first ones to integrate that project are already at University. It was great to see them reading and enjoying it. I started with very short and simple stories taken from Short and Scary and Short and Spooky by the late Louise Cooper. Then we moved on to Roald Dahl and other writers of teen fiction. Last year, when that group was in the 12^th grade, about to leave school and move into higher education, after six years with me, we could see a good number of them reading complete, original works and presenting them in class with enthusiasm. It is so rewarding when something like that happens!

I also use literary texts in class to replace some outdated ones in our course book and if those texts are well chosen and somehow relate to their own experiences, their response exceeds all our expectations. I prefer that to the Extensive Reading activities that our curriculum suggests. Literature has to be integrated naturally and not forced upon students as something extra and painful.

As I am a bit addicted to reading, I have quite a nice library at home and I’m always ordering new books, but there are also many websites where I sometimes find excellent material. I have shared them in my delicious account and you can find them in the stacks Reading and Writing. Have a look and see if there’s something you may like or use: http://delicious.com/stacks/limaluisa

Writing is also important and sometimes one of the most difficult skills to develop. I like to start early and have them retell stories and do all kinds of activities. Sometimes I tell them to write 15-word or 50-words stories – it’s quite difficult and they really need to be creative. I like to give them pictures or a group of words and they create a story using them. I love using writing prompts, but what is really important is that they end up loving it too.

I seem to have made up my mind about my course of action for the final project. Well, not the whole course of action, it’s just an outline, a scribble, maybe, but it’s a start. I just hope that, with your help, I have some good ideas to put into practice.

And as this week was dedicated to reading I leave here a poem and the idea that, as there are not many reading mothers nowadays, maybe we, the teachers, can take that role (another one, why not?).

THE READING MOTHER

I HAD A MOTHER who read to me 

Sagas of pirates who scoured the sea, 

Cutlasses clenched in their yellow teeth, 

"Blackbirds" stowed in the hold beneath

I had a Mother who read me lays 

Of ancient and gallant and golden days; 

Stories of Marmion and Ivanhoe, 

Which every boy has a right to know.

I had a Mother who read me tales 

Of Celert the hound of the hills of Wales, 

True to his trust till his tragic death, 

Faithfulness blent with his final breath.

I had a Mother who read me the things 

That wholesome life to the boy heart brings- 

Stories that stir with an upward touch, 

Oh, that each mother of boys were such.

You may have tangible wealth untold; 

Caskets of jewels and coffers of gold. 

Richer than I you can never be --

I had a Mother who read to me.

Strickland Gillilan

Week 4 - Sleepless in Bragança

Remember an old film called Sleepless in Seattle? It’s almost 20 years old and it has nothing to do with our course, except for the title that enabled this word game. Because sleepless is how I feel: these two weeks will be hell as all my classes are having tests and I feel drowned in paper. Seven classes to correct and mark plus our tasks here – sorry if I don’t give you all the attention you deserve, but I’ve been sleeping much less than I need to keep my creativity up where it should be.

Besides, as I said before, I am restless until most of the work is done. I was also a bit worried about defining my students’ needs. There are so many things I’d like to do, so many problems to tackle, decisions to make… It was hard for me to start writing about it but as I was doing so, my mind sort of cleared and I was able to realize what my priorities should be. If we want to keep it “elegantly simple” as Robert very well put it, we cannot try to do everything at the same time. There are hundreds of tools out there to be used but, as much as we may like many of them, the secret ingredient for this project will be our ability to choose the most appropriate one(s) to reach our objective. I know now it will be impossible to solve all the problems, but I will have to start somewhere and then move on, continuously, planning, adapting, rearranging, learning, teaching.