From this course,
I am hoping to learn all the theories and practices of the interactive web in
terms of innovative teaching, and most important of all, I will surely apply
what I have learn to my teaching in the real world so that my students can be
motivated and learn English in a new way other than the memorization of
vocabulary and structures.
W1
I think there is no
doubt that everybody will all come to an agreement with these rules because
they're also helping create and protect a professional learning community. We
are all professional English teachers here, and each one of us is suppose to
embrace new ideas that can benefit our own teaching while giving positive and
constructive feedback to dedications of others is also necessary.
But, please
also note the fact that we do come from various countries with distinct
cultures. When judging others' ideas, please ask ourselves that maybe English
is taught differently in other countries, and we don't want to jump to
conclusions too fast when we are not fully aware of all facts. Therefore, if I
should say anything offensive under the circumstances, please don't hesitate to
let me know. Of course, this partnership should be based on mutual respect,
trust and understanding.
The Needs Assessment Survey
This website is
mainly for all the English teachers in a total of eighty junior schools to
participate in all the reverent activities regarding English teaching, such as
English Speech Contest, English Singing Contest, professional development
workshops, promotion for important policies from the MOE, to name just a few.
And, I am exactly the one who officially blogs for the Education Bureau on this
website.
I also like to
watch videos on youtube because I teach a special class using all kinds of
intriguing and authentic videos to arouse students’ interest in learning
English. Also, I already downloaded “Shaping the Way We Teach English” a few
months ago and found so many inspirational ideas to help my own teaching.
Other than
English, I also have a variety of hobbies, including cars, photography,
amplifiers and speakers, travel and so on, so I frequently check the
information and discuss with other junkies about those topics.
I think this
online course will provide a great opportunity for all the participants to gain
a better understanding of how to use computer technology, mainly the
interactive webs, to enhance studetns’ learning. By building up a community, we
can also reflect and share our ideas on this specific topic, so we can get to
know how English is taught in different countries. Eventually, we have to apply
what we have leraned from this course and put all the innovative teaching
techniques into pratice in our own classrooms.
Describe the student population, setting, course goal,
student needs (Week 2)
by Richard Guozhen Li on
Thursday, April 19, 2012 at 12:30pm ·
I’ve been teaching in a public junior high school
for more than eight years and found it quite boring because I felt all I did
every day was to get my students to keep their grades up, like giving them
loads of homework and tests. So, when I was asked to teach a class for
students’ extra curricular activity, I was thinking, “Why not combine two of my
favorite interests, speaking English and watching English-speaking videos on
Youbute?”
In
this class, I am totally free to choose what I want to teach and how I want to
teach it. I especially demanded that those who were interested in this class
must be also interested in learning English in an unconventional and fun way.
Also, he or she should at least have an intermediate listening comprehension
level because they won’t hear their teacher speaking Chinese in this class
anymore.
There are
about thirty students coming from different classes. Since this is a class for
their extra curricular activity, I cannot just give them a placement test and
decide whether I want to accept them or not. So, some of them do have a good
English level, but for the others? Well, I guess they just thought this class was
easy and they got to watch a lot of videos.
My goal for
this class is to create an all English environment and expose them to lots of
intriguing and authentic English speaking videos, using English as the medium
of instruction. Then, I devise worksheets to help them get a better
understanding of the videos we’re watching, put them in groups to discuss
questions regarding to the topic and ask them to do Show and Tell, meaning they
have to pick up a video and introduce it in English.
As for the
students, there are several tasks they have to complete. First of all, they
have to participate in this class by paying attention to my instructions and
elaboration on the videos, answering my questions after watching the videos,
discussing with their partners, finishing their worksheet and choosing a video
to do the Show and Tell. Ideally, I would really like to accomplish all these
that I mentioned above, but in reality, I am usually the one who does all the
talking. If I could just only allow those with an excellent English level to
sign up for this class, I think I can easily carry out all I’ve planned.
ABCD Objective (W2)
by Richard Guozhen Li on
Saturday, April 21, 2012 at 2:51am ·
The
ABCD mode of how to write a proper and complete learning objective this week is
truly inspirational, which makes me compare this idea with the Indicators of
Stage Competence, or ISC, here in Taiwan. So, allow me to give you a
brief introduction to how it guides English teachers here in teaching.
The
Ministry of Education established the National Curricular Guideline when we
were experiencing a major educational overhaul in 2001, and the ISC is exactly
the learning objectives that the MOE wanted every teacher to bear in mind when
we evaluate the effectiveness of our teaching.
The
ISC is composed of three serial numbers. The first one, from 1 to 7, tells us
which language skills, including Listening, Speaking, Reading, Writing and
Comprehensive, Interest and Learning Methods, and Culture and International
Understanding. The second number, 1 and 2, means which stage that this learning
objective is applied to. One is for students in primary school, while 2 is for
those in junior high schools. The third number is the indicators which briefly
describes the behavior that students are supposed to demonstrate.
Now,
let me try to explain it more vividly with one real index of the ISC, like 2-2-1.
The first number implies that this concerns speaking ability. The second one
means this is for students in junior high schools. The third one is described
as “Can say and use major classroom expressions properly. In 2008, the MOE
added the fourth number, giving a more detailed description of each indicator.
So,
let’s take a look at the ISC in a more analytical way with the ABCD mode one
more time. The second number is similar to Audience, telling us at what stage
are the students. The third number deals with Behavior only, and I found some
of them are vague and not observable because they consist of verbs like,
“understand” or “guess”. I guess those who write these learning objectives must
come to realize this, so they decided to add the fourth number, which really
gives a lot more observable descriptions of the behavior, also complete with
more specific descriptions of “Condition”. As for Degree? None. Only there are
so many adverbs like “correctly” or “properly”.
Of
course I still have so many questions about the comparison between the ISC and
the ABCD mode. But, when the ISC was created at a national level like this,
maybe they just cannot be too specific to limit teachers’ innovative ideas of
teaching?
Search, second post (W2)
by Richard Guozhen Li on
Saturday, April 21, 2012 at 3:36am ·
Encyclopedia Britannica Online
School Edition, is one of
the most renowned and resourceful encyclopedia that can provide creditable and
valid information organized by experts in different areas other than any other
search engine. Britannica Project Starlight Taiwan has two major purposes. One
is to help teachers and students all around the world have a much easier
access to the most accurate and pinpoint information classified according to
subject and level. The other is to help all teachers incorporate computer
technology in their authentic teaching without worrying about any plagiarism or
violation of intellectual property rights.
Please note that you do need the username and password for users to log in,
while the Education Bureau of Taichung, in which is the city I live, has already
signed the contract to allow teachers to surf the website using the Internet
access within schools.
Reflective Journal (W2)
by Richard Guozhen Li on
Saturday, April 21, 2012 at 5:00am ·
We
have two topics this week. One is about the best search, and the other is the
ABCD mode. Just by coincidence, I happened to attend two workshops, “Britannica
Project Starlight Taiwan”
and “Assessment Symposium: English Remedial Teaching in Compulsory Education”,
that share some similarities with our topics this week.
Invited by the British Council, the speaker demonstrated how to search its
resourceful learning materials effectively. Since teachers in Taichung are allowed to surf this website
without signing in, we are encouraged to incorporate what we found into our
classrooms. Also, they are planning to recruit innovative English teachers to
team up and design lesson plans, learning activities and worksheets, to help
other teachers make the most use of this encyclopedia.
As
for the Assessment Symposium, Dr. Tan Su Hwi mentioned questioning techniques
by presenting Bloom’ taxonomy of questioning, which made me ponder over the
ABCD method and the Indicators of Stage Competence in this regard. I’m
especially impressed by the differences between “Assessment of Learning”, to
improve learning and “Assessment for Learning”, to check status of learning.
Does a proper learning objective achieve both?
After
the orientation week, we started to really expose ourselves to the
inspirational topics of this week by completing all the assignments. Also, we
got to move towards the final project step by step. By the way, I have a
presentation to prepare, and I’ll incorporate some of the assignments
into my PowerPoint slides because I think I can share what I have learned so
far with other teachers.
Oral / Aural Skill
Building (W3)
by Richard Guozhen Li on
Wednesday, April 25, 2012 at 12:29pm ·
Read
one of the articles about CALL for listening, speaking, or pronunciation
skills, and take a quick look at some of the lesson plans.
Remember that technology can be used by the teacher in preparing as well
as used with students in the class. Look at two or more of the skill-building
websites with an eye to what would work for you in your context/class. Please
share with the group:
- a) which website you used, and which specific activity/web page. Please include the title of the page and the URL,
- b) what English level/age of students could best use this site, and what skills it enhances,
- c) your overall recommendation about the site.
I’m
really excited about this week’s topic because I’ve been telling my students
that English is a tool for communication other than a subject that you only
study for tests. The first step of learning any foreign languages always begins
by exposing ourselves to abundant language input, in this case, of course,
developing listening comprehension skills.
Now,
I would like to recommend a website, English Teachers Everywhere, and the URL
is http://www.etseverywhere.com/
. This website specializes in improving learns’ listening skills with such a
variety of reading materials, songs and games. For example, click on the tab
“Action Listening Games”, and then look for “Who’s Got What?”. http://www.etseverywhere.com/category/action-listening-games.
Students work in groups of four and follow the instructions in order to
successfully perform the task. For example, For example, “Number 2, pick up the
book.” “Number 1, hand the coin to Number 4.” “Number 3, don’t pass the pen to
Number 1.”. What’s even better, this game has two levels, and each involves
different speed and verbs so that the teacher can choose what works better. I’m
going to do a three-hour long presentation at a workshop, and I’m intending to
invite the teachers to play this game because it will be so much fun watching
them busy passing and picking up objects.
Because of the wide variety of its categories, like “Grammar Songs”,
“Holidays”, “Jokes” and “Kids Songs”, I think they surely can be very helpful
in motivating students’ interest of learning. Most of the activities there are
all well-organized by topic and level, thus teachers and easily find something
suitable to apply to his or her own classroom.
As a
result, I strongly recommend this resourceful and fun website, which is truly
full of ideas and activities for teacher to use in the classroom. Furthermore,
it’s totally free to download the scripts and audio files, so all you have to
do is follow the procedures and have fun with your students while also boosting
their English listening comprehension at the same time.
Delicious.com (W3)
by Richard Guozhen Li on
Thursday, April 26, 2012 at 11:34am ·
Delicious.com is a way for you to be able to see your saved weblinks
(Favorites/Bookmarks) from any online computer and to share links with other
people easily. Read:
to help you
create your own Delicious page and start adding links. You can include links to
other people's Delicious pages on your page, too. Create your own page on
Delicious.com and save at least 3 bookmarks. Share the URL of your page here
with the group and you may tell us your thoughts. The URL will look something
like
http://www.delicious.com/uoaeide2 (that's my page).
Please put the your URL for your Delicious page on our wiki as well, under
Delicious Pages.
First
of all, I really have to say Delicious.com is just awesome because not only can
it organize, categorize and annotate all the websites you like, but it can also
put us together and share valuable information with each other.
Now,
here’s the page of my account: http://www.delicious.com/liguozhen
So,
I’m really looking forward to carefully going through each member’s collection
at the end of this week, and of course, always learning something new from one
another.
Project Step 2 (W3)
by Richard Guozhen Li on Friday,
April 27, 2012 at 12:48pm ·
Choose *one*
of the PDF sample project reports from past Webskills classes (see assignments
page week 3)
Read one
final project report, and comment on that report in nicenet. In your post,
briefly do the following:
- name the author, country and quickly review the teaching context
- summarize what the person did in his/her project, and
- discuss what you liked about the project.
Remember you
will be doing a class project and writing a report similar to one of these. The
idea here is to skim the report and "get the big picture" about the
projects. By reading what we post to each other on nicenet, you will get a
sense of the variety of types of projects and their scope without having to
read them all yourself.
I chose to
read a wonderful final project by Aleyda Linares from Maxico, teaching 16
undergraduate students in the TEFL program (Teaching English as a Foreign
Language). All of them speak Spanish as a mother tongue. As Aleyda described,
they have very good oral skills but still had a lot to improve in terms of
grammatical competence. Well, that is exactly the opposite that teachers in Taiwan would
encounter here, so that’s why I was curious about her project in the first
place.
Aleyda was
in charge of a language lab, so she could often take students there and use
computer technology to involve students’ interest in a fun way. Students were
asked to keep a learning journal as a class, and she would constantly check the
comments and give her positive feedback. Her idea was that students could use
this class blog as an online resource to practice grammar topics and
structures. Meanwhile, she can also develop students’ ability for independent
learning and critical thinking.
After the
students became familiar with blogging and working online, they were asked to
search for grammar activities and resources to practice specific grammar
structures and upload them to the blog, such as videos, interactive quizzes,
games, e-books, etc. Following that, Aleyda added a series of links to
interactive grammar games and activities, and they were quite motivating for
those students based on students’ comments on the blog.
What I liked
most about her project is that not only did she incorporate computer technology
into her own classroom, but also the way she organized all the learning
activities and actually built a learning community within the class. Students
were no longer learning separately because they also learned the value of
sharing information with each other. Sounds quite familiar because that’s
exactly also what this online course is for, right? In addition to that, I also
learned a lot from the way she organized her ideas effectively without using
too many redundant words or difficult technical terms.
“In
addition, they have difficulties practicing their English outside because they
are not disciplined enough to do it or they feel it is not necessary because it
requires more effort, so they are always speaking Spanish among themselves.
As a result, I thought of a technology-related change project that motivated
students to learn grammar outside the regular classroom and at the same time
developed the students’ ability to learn how to learn.”
But, still,
I found one inconsistency in the second part of her final project. My question
is, what does students’ not willing to speak English with each other have to do
with learning grammar outside the classroom? Besides, the main idea of this
project is to improve students’ grammatical competence. Why did the author want
her students to practice speaking English at this point, especially she already
mentioned that they had very good oral skills in terms of language earlier in
the Background part?
Reflective Jorrnal (W3)
by Richard Guozhen Li on Sunday,
April 29, 2012 at 10:49am ·
It
has already been the third week since this online course began, and now I’m
quite getting used to reading the required materials, sharing my reflections
and doing the project task each week. For example, we had to read about how
Call is going to help our teaching, create an account and edit our bookmarks on
Delicious.com, share links regarding building aural/oral skills, review one of
the previous projects, and of course, keep the reflective journal for this
week.
With
all the links provided by every dedicated and resourceful teacher here, I
surely will give it a try and see how they really work with my students.
Undoubtedly, compared with the repetitive and mechanical drills in the
textbook, those CALL resources will greatly help motivate the students with
interesting games, videos and activities. But, other than arousing students’
motivation of learning, how do we know that our students are really improving
their listening or speaking skills with the help of these websites?
What
we can do on Delicious.com is really great because we are also creating a
learning community to share helpful information regarding websites of English
teaching with each other. This social bookmarking site allows its users to
edit, annotate and organize their bookmarks, and just like other social media,
you can also “friend” or “follow” a resourceful user and gain the access to his
or her amazing collections.
As
for the project steps, we had to choose one of the previous final projects and
reflect on its strengths to get the big picture of what we’ll also have to
accomplish at the end of this course. I read a wonderful final project by
Aleyda Linares. It was about how she tried to improve her students’ grammar
competence by creating a reflective blog to involve each student’s reflections.
By finishing this assignment, I surely have a better understanding of what I
need to do for my final project.
Building aural/oral skills, second post (W3)
by Richard Guozhen Li on Sunday,
April 29, 2012 at 9:54pm ·
I
really have to say that I’ve learned a lot from this week’s topic because I
just found I had bookmarked about 15 more resourceful websites recommended by
you guys around the world. I carefully read through every post and tried most
of the sites that have been introduced. Therefore, I guess it’ll take me quite
some time to annotate them on my Delicious.com account.
Now,
I would like to recommend another helpful site, British Council Learn English (http://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/en/). It offers a
wide variety of podcasts, grammar and vocabulary, games, jokes, etc. Regarding
building aural/oral skills, I would like to introduce briefly about a listening
activity (http://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/en/big-city-small-world/series-2-episode-7-alone-christmas).
It is a skit about how some international students in the UK celebrated
Christmas back in their hometowns and decided to have a Christmas party
together this year. It provides a matching exercise and several tasks,
including grammar, vocabulary and comprehension, to help learners pick up some
useful expressions and learn more about the typical Christmas celebration at
the same time.
If I
want to incorporate this unit into my teaching, I would say it’ll work better
for those advanced learners with bigger vocabulary and better listening
comprehension level. So, next time when I am assigned to teach the special
class, where students were selected based on their English levels, I will
surely give it a try and see how it would work.
Anyway, British Council is a world renowned cultural and educational
organization, especially specializing in the promotion of the English language.
Thus, I would like to recommend this website, and hopefully you’ll find it
helpful, too.
Reading, writing, vocabulary skills (W4)
by Richard Guozhen Li on
Wednesday, May 2, 2012 at 2:21pm ·
Read some of
the articles about ways to use computers to enhance the teaching of reading,
writing, and vocabulary. We have several multi-skill websites on our list this
week. Find two or more specific web pages that would work for you in your
class. Include the specific web address (URL) of the page, the title of the
page, the target students, why you think it will work, and why you think it
will be useful. What is an ABCD objective that you could create to go with this
page.
I read the
suggested article “Three Extensive Reading Activities” and gained many
inspirational ideas. The author conducted a reading class and asked students to
write a summary report and a final report in the class weblog. The students got
to select three books they liked, and each member took turns sharing the book
he or she read in groups of three. Then, to better organize their assignments,
they also had to post their summaries and comments on the blog based on the
questions prepared beforehand by the teacher.
What’s more,
the author offered some sort of rubrics to evaluate students’ final group
reports, such as the originality of insight, application of criteria, clarity
of summary, strength of argument and use of language, which aimed to cultivate
students’ higher-order thinking because students have to apply, synthesize and
evaluate information from the online resources, as well as organize and present
their thoughts convincingly.
Now, I would
like to recommend a website, Starfall’s Learn to Read with Phonics (http://www.starfall.com/ ), because it specializes in
teaching children to read with phonics by using interesting and interactive
animated reading games and materials. I think this website can help me teach
students with two different levels. For slow learners, they usually cannot
associate pronunciation with spelling, so click on “Learn to Read” (http://www.starfall.com/n/level-a/learn-to-read/load.htm?f
) and have those students familiarize themselves with phonics by playing those
games one by one on the page. For advanced learners, click on “I’m Reading” and
select “Chinese Fables” (http://www.starfall.com/n/level-c/chinese-fables/load.htm?f)
, and then have them read and do a summary report as Liang suggested.
Here are the
ABCD objectives in terms of two different levels of students in my class, which
is in a junior high school in Taiwan.
For slow learners, “Given all the interactive phonics games on the page of
Learn to Read, the students who are temporarily falling behind now can get all
the answers right without any errors”; and for advanced learners, “Given one of
the stories on the page of “Chinese Fables”, students can summarize the story
clearly and informatively by Liang’s Points for each Criterion.
Technology enhanced lesson plans (W4)
by Richard Guozhen Li on
Thursday, May 3, 2012 at 1:25pm ·
Read about
technology enhanced lesson plans from e-how.com and look at a sample or two
from the Baltimore County Public Schools Office of Instructional Technology.
Both are linked on our course website. Please share with the group a
technology-enhanced lesson plan, using the template that you downloaded from
the website. Make sure that it is clear who the target students are and the
skills being addressed.
IMPORTANT
NOTE: For Robert's class, I want us
to experiment by trying out a google doc. That is, if you can make a google doc
of your lesson, I can give feedback as "comments". I think the
feedback process will be improved.
1) Here are
some links to help. The template is here
2)
Instructions for making sure your you "share" your google doc are
here (you must "share" by make the settings so I can see it and
edit):
3) post the
link to your google doc in this forum on Nicenet.
This is what
I've actually done for students' extra curricular activity, presenting English
videos to arouse students' motivation of learning. I simply combined two of my
hobbies, speaking English and watching English speaking videos on Youtube. I
decided to use English as the medium of instruction in the hope that I can
expose them to a lot of listening input. I also expect my students can get to
know the importance of English listening comprehension and begin to use English
to introduce their favorite videos at the end of the semester.
Your Name:
Guozhen(Richard) Li
Lesson Plan
with Technology
Class: Leaning English on Youbute, a class for the eighth
graders’ extra curricular activity
Duration:
45 minutes
Materials
The theme of
this week is “Different English Accents”, so I downloaded the following videos
from Youtube beforehand, and the students can learn more about English accents
in a fun way.
The Ultimate
Chinese Accent (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYrT0JGWkHg)
English
Funny Lecture (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6NY83mI1Yk&feature=results_main&playnext=1&list=PLC688D1CCB63456C7)
Cultural
Misderstandings (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_N1Cmt_QB0
Introduction
Since this is for students’
extra curricular activity, I got to decide what I want to teach and how I want
to teach it. So, why not combine two of my hobbies, speaking English and
watching videos on Youtube? Also, other than all the tedious and mechanical
drills, I want to show the students that learning English can be fun, and being
able to comprehend English speaking videos can open another window for them.
Objectives
of this lesson
1)
Vocabulary related to accent, like pronunciation, stress, intonation
2) To learn
English with interesting and authentic materials other than textbooks
2) To pick up
some useful expressions while watching the videos
3) To get
the students to try to work on their pronunciation
Procedure
1. State the
theme of the week.
2. Give a
simple introduction before watching the video.
3. Present
the video.
4. While
watching the video, constantly pause and pick up some key words or phrases
to elaborate on.
5. Replay
the video and encourage the students to use their listening comprehension to
capture the main idea.
6. Get the
students to speak English by asking questions, starting from easy yes/no to wh-
questions.
Requirements
for the teacher
1. Decide on one topic because you don’t want to randomly pick up whatever you
can find on Youtube.
2. Download the videos in advance because you can’t always trust the connection.
3. Devise the worksheet to help you guide your students to a better
understanding of what they are going to watch.
4. Carefully select what useful English expressions from the video that you
want to teach.
Requirements
for the students
1. Students are willing to learn English by watching interesting English
speaking videos.
2. Students have to participate in group discussions
3. Students have to complete their worksheets and assignments
Learning
styles addressed:
Listening,
writing and speaking
Homework
Choose one of the videos that
we watch for this class and carefully go through the comments. Copy three
positive and three negative comments and share with the rest of the class next
week.
Project Step 3: needs, issues or problems (W4)
by Richard Guozhen Li on Friday,
May 4, 2012 at 11:28am ·
Thinking
about the class and students that you described in Week 2, now write about some
issues or problems this class is experiencing. These should be issues or
problems that technology might help with. Very briefly describe the class and
students so that readers will be reminded of the necessary context (you've
already posted about this, just refresh our memory about your class). The
issues could be student-oriented ones related to motivation, group work, class
discussions, project development, etc. or teacher-related issues such as
finding and organizing material, tracking student progress, time management,
etc.
Eventually
the issue should be leading to a NEW use of technology for you, not something
that you are doing now. You don't need to think about solutions this week, just
about issues or problems.
Our goal is
to have a need-driven technology project. That is, you want the need to drive
the solution or technology that you choose to use, and not the other way
around. You really don't what the solution or the tool to be imposed upon the
class simply because it is new, exciting or available. There should be a clear
reason to use the technology you choose for your project. This week we focus on
making the need clear.
I have been
teaching English in a junior high school here in Taiwan for eight years and
found it’s getting more and more boring because every day I do is to get my
students to memorize the vocabulary and grammar rules just in order to get good
grades on paper-pencil tests. For the teachers, keeping up with the tight
schedule can almost take up most of his or her time, leaving very little for
innovative teaching strategies.
Therefore,
when I was asked to teach a class for students’ extra curricular activity, I
knew I could determine what I want to teach and how I want to teach it. I
immediately decided to combine two of my interests, speaking English and
watching videos on Youtube. So, for this class, I’ll decide on one theme and
download relevant English speaking videos without Chinese subtitle in advance
every week, devise proper worksheets to help them get a better understanding of
what the videos are about and come up with interactive activities to engage all
the students in this class.
I have
taught this class for the second semester already and found I really
encountered some unexpected problems. First of all, lack of motivation for
interaction. I used to think that I wanted them to feel completely secured and
try to have fun in this class, so I didn’t really force them to do the assignment
or answer my questions in class because I thought the students were already
overwhelmed by tests. As time went by, they kind of got used to just sitting
there and listening to what I had to say. Now, it is really difficult to get
them to talk or fully participate in the group discussions.
Following
that, some of the students seemed not to be able to understand what I said, let
alone the videos I chose for them. I guess it was because they were not aware
of what this class was really about before signing up. There are about thirty
students from different classes taking this class, and I assume four or five of
them just couldn’t catch up. Should I insist on using English as the medium of
instruction and impose No Chinese policy in this class?
Last, it’s
really not easy for me to find suitable videos that won’t be too difficult for
them. Students here only learn their English form textbooks, so their listening
comprehension really has so much to improve. If the conversations or narrations
are too fast, they’ll encounter great difficulty trying to get the main idea of
the video they watch. Also, with such limited vocabulary, students usually come
across too many new words to at least have a general idea of the video, which
often makes them feel frustrated and less motivated.
Without a
doubt, listening and speaking is always a big problem for students in an EFL
environment like Taiwan.
They actually don’t need to do anything about it because they just have to keep
their grades up on paper-pencil tests, which only demonstrate students’
KNOWLEDGE of the language, not competence of real application. Therefore, being
too afraid to speak English is a problem that has been around for decades
already, and it is really difficult for teachers here to deal with.
Building Writing Skills, second post (W4)
by Richard Guozhen Li on Friday,
May 4, 2012 at 2:25pm ·
“Using the
Internet in ESL Writing Instruction” by Jarek Krajka provides many
thought-provoking ideas for us to think about. For example, the author
mentioned that clarifying course goal is an important first step toward the
successful use of the Internet. Also, Robert said that we should have a
need-driven technology project. We don’t want to use the technology only
because it’s new, exciting or available. So, every time we recommend websites,
we should give consideration to what we really want to achieve and how this
website can help me do that.
Now, I would
like to recommend another website for this week, Advanced Composition for
Non-Native Speakers of English (http://www.eslbee.com/index.htm). But, this link is for
myself, not for the students. I have a bachelor’s degree in English and a
master’s degree in Education, but I was never properly trained to write a
thesis in English. To improve my writing skills academically, which also can
help me a lot with this online course, I think I should carefully read though
the guidelines, tips and model essays posted on this website. Moreover, it has
quizzes about some fundamental knowledge of English composition, like
transitions, connectors, punctuations, etc.
Here is the
ABCD objective. Given the model essays and tips for how to write a proper
academic essay, Richard can respond to writing assignments using appropriate
style, structure, and voice so that an English speaking academic audience can
approve of.
I know the
objective is neither observable nor measurable, and maybe it’s because the
objective is too vast. So, I’m really willing to take advice from you guys.
Thank you.
Reflective Journal (W4)
by Richard Guozhen Li on
Saturday, May 5, 2012 at 11:27am ·
Reading and writhing in English has become an important
part of life since I took this online course, and I feel like I’m a student
again. Each week, we’ll have a different topic and several assignments to do
that really make time fly even faster. Not only will I gain lots of new ideas
and web skills through this course, but I’ll also improve my writing skills by
writing in English for all the discussions, tasks and journals, which also is
related to this week’s topic, building reading and writing skills.
When I was
doing my homework, my daughter was also very curious about the website,
Starfll.com, that I surfed because it has vibrant colors and animated games to
practice phonics and spelling. She was immediately attracted and wouldn’t let
go of my laptop. Watching her getting everything right and laughing while
playing those games let me think how lucky this generation is. When I began
studying English in junior high school, my teacher just asked us to memorize
all the facts and then gave us lots of tests, and many of my classmates have
lost interest in learning since then.
Robert
mentioned that our goal is to have a need-driven technology project, and we
don't what to use technology in the classroom without knowing how the
technology is going to satisfy our needs or solve the problems. I couldn’t
agree with him more. Three or four years ago, English teachers here were asked
to attend many workshops about the interactive whiteboard, telling us it was
going to revolutionize the way we teach English in the classroom. But now, we
still don’t have any whiteboards in my school. Moreover, a teacher who has used
it for quite some time told me that he thought the whiteboards can be replaced
by tablets. So, what’s the point of the wasted time when it is just a topic for
the workshop, or it might be replaced some day?
Now, I want
to talk about something which is irrelevant to this week’s course. I’m thinking
that if it is possible some day technology can help all English learners to
practice speaking at their computers, and I mean real and meaningful
communication, just like you’re talking to a real person and exchanging ideas
and thoughts with each other. Of the four language skills, you can always
improve yourselves on your own by listening to English-speaking radios, reading
English novels or keeping your diary in English. But, when it comes to
speaking, you really have to talk to someone in person. With the technology of
speech recognition and correction, learners of English can improve their
pronunciation and intonation. Then, how about meaningful communication? Can
technology like this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPIbGnBQcJY ) really be
happening in the future? If this is true, it’ll definitely revolutionize the
way we, nonnative speakers, learn how to speak English in a much more fun way.
RE: Project Step 3: Issues or problems (W4)
by Richard Guozhen Li on
Saturday, May 5, 2012 at 4:19pm ·
Hi Richard
Some classic
problems, yes, ones that will not go away. If we go back to the original idea
her, find a problem that technology might be able to help with, that might help
you select the best problem for the final project.
If I can
paraphrase your problems:
-passive
students who don't have a real need to communicate or use their English
-students
use Chinese in class
-videos that
are suitable in level, yet interesting
To me it
sounds like #1 and #2 might merge into a single problem that technology might
be able to address. So perhaps you could look for a tool that would provide
students a meaningful way to communicate in English. Maybe some kind of video
interaction where students could connect with another student from a different
country to talk about a movie and would need to do this in English? Maybe
writing a review of the movie that others might see? Maybe making their own
short movie in English based on a scene from the movie they have watched?
This could
get interesting!!!
#3 could
also work, but then as I see it appears to be about finding a database that
screens movies for easier level somehow, which might be a bit simple for a
project (if such a database even exists). Something like twurdy but for video.
Robert
Hello
Robert,
I think this
is a shared problem in some countries like China,
Korea, Japan, etc.
Students really study hard, but still they cannot use the language outside the
classroom as a tool for communication. Teachers and students spend most of time
memorizing facts that are going to help them get good grades on written tests.
So, as a teacher, I have to be mentally prepared to deal with the frustration
in advance before I try anything new.
Thank you
for paraphrasing my problems and offering such wonderful advice, and I'll give
it a try in the class. Once I used Readers' Theater as a teaching technique in
my classroom, getting every one to read their parts out loud. Also, I found
Show and Tell was quite effective as well because they got to bring their
favorite comic books or albums to school to share with the whole class. I asked
them to give me a script first, and then each member of the groups was assigned
to do oral presentations about what they like most about the object they chose
to introduce in English. Anyway, they can practice integrating different
language skills and also have fun at the same time.
Assessment, Rubrics and PBL (W5)
by Richard Guozhen Li on
Tuesday, May 8, 2012 at 3:34pm ·
Read about
rubrics, project-based learning (PBL) and WebQuests. The web offers new kinds
of learning opportunities and new tools for assessment.
Many ideas
come to mind when discussing PBL and assessment. Here are a few:
- How can PBL be used to help motivate students more?
- How can PBL best be incorporated with technology in your class?
- What limitations are there to using PBL in your class?
- How can we best assess projects?
- What is the role of rubrics and/or alternative assessment within PBL?
- How can PBL, rubrics and/or alternative assessment be used to promote independent learning?
Choose one
of these questions to answer in a post to get the conversation started. Be sure
to respond to and incorporate what others write about. You may raise your own
related question(s) as well.
After
reading the suggested articles about PBL, Webquests and Alternative Assessment,
I suddenly realized that what we have done so far, including doing project
steps, writing about class needs and problems, searching for resources, reading
one of the final projects, creating rubrics, etc, are revolving around the
webquest. Furthermore, most of the principles and techniques of PBL and
alternative assessment can also apply to this online course itself, directing
all the participants towards the construction of the final project each week.
Project-Based
Learning and Alternative Assessment share many in common. First of all, they
both focus on the quality products, performances or tasks, and learners are
required to demonstrate what they can DO with the language, not just their
knowledge of it on written tests. Second, learners should have a clear
understanding of what they have to do in order to meet the evaluation standards
or rubrics. Third, learners must be motivated in the beginning, getting to know
that project they are about to do is for a real purpose related to their life,
interests or strengths so that they will dedicate so much more to their work.
How can PBL
be used to help motivate students more? When students get to decide the topic
of the project, they will surely want to do more for the task because they know
that they’re also doing this for a meaning purpose, not just for their grades
on the report cards. Of course, this teaching approach places the students in
the center of their learning, and teachers become facilitators offering their
help only when it is necessary. In addition, with PBL, students will be divided
into groups to work on the project together. Thus, they will develop a sense of
community and learn each member has his or her part to accomplish. When all the
members have a consensus on the goals of the project, they will encourage and
help each other when they encounter obstacles.
Last but not
least, teachers should give consideration to students’ different learning
styles. According one of the suggested articles about PBL, there are four
different kinds of learning styles. If students can be assigned their work
based on their preferred styles, without a doubt, they’ll be much more motivated
because they’re given an opportunity to show what they are capable of, not
their weaknesses.
Create a rubric/alternative assessment tool (W5)
by Richard Guozhen Li on
Tuesday, May 8, 2012 at 6:54pm ·
Create a
rubric or alternative assessment tool that you might use in a class. Include
information about the class and students so that we can understand the context.
Share your rubric on our Wiki in the area Rubrics and tell people about it in
this thread.
I’m teaching
a special class for eighth graders’ extra curricular activity, which I got to
decide what I want to teach and how I want to teach it. I decided to combine
two of my interests, speaking English and watching videos on Youtube. This
class is conducted by using English as the medium of instruction because I
think I can also brush up on my speaking competence when introducing a variety
of videos in English. Then, I will decide on one theme each week and download
relevant videos. In order to help my students have a better understanding of
the videos without any Chinese subtitles, I also devise worksheets and
discussion questions beforehand.
Here is my
rubric: http://rubistar.4teachers.org/index.php?screen=ShowRubric&module=Rubistar&rubric_id=2192050&
I intend to
divide them into groups, and then they’ll have to select one of their favorite
videos and introduce it to the whole class in English. With the help of this
rubric-creating website, we can easily develop quality rubrics to fit into our
teaching and of course, let our students fully understand our standards before
they engage in the project.
STEP #4: Describe a technology-related change (W5)
by Richard Guozhen Li on
Tuesday, May 8, 2012 at 10:01pm ·
So far, we
have focused on describing your learners and context, reading sample projects,
and exploring some problems. This week will will finally turn to the solution:
brainstorming the right tool for your problem, class and students.
Step 4:
Describe a technology-related change or potential "solution" that you
will implement to help with one or more of the issues you mentioned last week.
Explain why you think it will be useful in resolving the issue(s). This should
be something that you are not doing now.
Thanks to
Robert, he kindly paraphrased my problems last week as follows:
-passive
students who don't have a real need to communicate or use their English
-students
use Chinese in class
-videos that
are suitable in level, yet interesting
Robert also
suggested that maybe I could provide a meaningful way for students to
communicate in English. For example, students could talk about a movie with
someone from another country in English, write a review of the movie or make
their own short movie based on a scene from a movie they watched.
For the
first problem, I think there’s nothing special about it, especially for
learners in Taiwan, Korea, Japan
or China
where English usually is only a subject students study inside the classroom for
better grades on written tests. Thus, I found an interesting article, http://iteslj.org/Articles/Welker-Communication.html ,
which the author shared many ideas and techniques that I can resonate with a
lot .
Then, I am
considering looking for some worksheets or board games at http://www.esl-galaxy.com/speaking.html as a warm-up
activity for the students to get ready to speak English in a fun and secured
learning environment. Then, I think I’ll ask them to record themselves speaking
simple English, like introducing themselves in English for a minimum of two
minutes at http://vocaroo.com/ , in the hope that they can feel secure
and realize speaking English is not as difficult as they used to think.
As for
finding suitable videos for my students, maybe I’ll try some of the animated
picture storybooks from Tumblebooks. Taichung City Government already signed a
contract which allows teachers here to gain a full-scale access to its
database, so I can choose a few ones for the students to act out, just like
Readers’ Theater. Therefore, students’ reading and speaking competence can both
be improved, and hopefully they can learn to appreciate the fun of being able
to speak the language.
Reflective Journal (W5)
by Richard Guozhen Li on
Wednesday, May 9, 2012 at 9:45pm ·
I don’t
think I am good at multi-tasking, so I was working much harder to finish all
the assignments within two days. Why? Because I have a three-hour long
presentation to do next Tuesday, and I also don’t think I’ve prepared well
enough for it. And, there’s a whole-day workshop about speaking fluent English tomorrow.
On top of that, I’ll have to go to Taipei
and celebrate Mother’s Day this weekend. Finally, I can be fully concentrated
on my presentation after this reflective journal.
Enough
complaining now. Then, what have I learned this week? Well, first of all, I
read the suggest articles about PBL, WebQuest, Alternative Assessment and
rubrics, and I found not only do they have a much in common, but this online
course itself is exactly based on PBL. All of the topics this week are talking
about one thing, which is to have learners demonstrate what they can actually
DO with the language, instead of showing their mere knowledge on traditional
paper-pencil tests. In order to do that, teachers have to develop rubrics in
advance, and students are supposed to know the criteria even before they work
on the project.
As for
practical web skills, I have learned how to develop rubrics through RubricStar
at http://rubistar.4teachers.org/ . Rubrics play a curial role
in evaluating students’ speaking and writing performances when a teacher
decides to implement PBL in his or her classroom. With the help of the website,
teachers can easily develop rubrics that suit their needs. The other skill I
learned is to create a WebQuest through Zunal WebQuest Maker at http://www.zunal.com/ , which you can sign up and follow
the instructions to create your own WebQuest step by step. To add some failover
to your page, you are also allowed to upload pictures, music and videos to make
it more appealing.
I finally
spent quite some time organizing and stacking my links on Delicious.com, and
I’m going to introduce my page to other teachers at a workshop next Tue. After
that, I can finally concrete on this online course without worrying about
failing to hand in my homework on time. After the final project, it’ll be
drawing even closer to the end of this semester. Being subsidized by the MOE, I
can’t wait to go to Australia
to study for five weeks this summer. Anyway, all I want to say is learning
makes me happy, and being able to study abroad in a English-speaking country
and see whether my English is good enough to survive there makes me even
happier.
Creating a WebQuest (W5)
by Richard Guozhen Li on
Wednesday, May 9, 2012 at 9:46pm ·
Knowing the
theories and rationales behind WebQuest is one thing, but creating a quality
one is totally another. I have to say this is a very immature first attempt to
create a WebQuest, so I hope to see more coming and learn something from yours.
Here is the
link: http://zunal.com/tasks.php?w=150989
Teaching Large Classes (W6)
by Richard Guozhen Li on
Thursday, May 17, 2012 at 2:39pm ·
You can use
many of the same techniques to do a better job of teaching small classes as
well as large classes. Look at "Teaching Large Classes" and
"Using Technology in Teaching Large Classes." Think about
project-based learning, WebQuests, and some of the ideas in "Enhancing
Learning by Engaging Students" to help in your response.
What
techniques and technology could you use to make your classes more interactive,
and especially if you teach large classes? Make sure you mention not only what
you do now, but what else you might do, based on the readings.
I wish I
could have more time to read all the articles from Teaching Large Classes. The
suggested web page contains so many useful links that all deal with how to
teach interactively in large classes, which is just what I need to know because
I always teach classes with more than thirty students here in Taiwan. In
addition, I can’t agree with “The Problems with Large Lecture-Style Classes”
more because all the mentioned problems actually have been happening here for
decades. Therefore, I think I really should set aside some time to try all the
techniques provided by the page.
I happened
to give a presentation to a total of eighty teachers this Tuesday, and I found
I’ve already implemented some of the techniques to engage all the audience
before reading this week’s suggested articles.
First, I
tried to make my PowerPoint slides interactive by adding hyperlinks, pictures
and video clips. I utilized Action Buttons to give the audience a more vivid
picture by showing them what I have actually done before, instead of lecturing
on and on about theories. Videos are very effective because they provide visual
aids and recapture their attention immediately.
Then, I used
the Think-Pair-Share technique, which is also mentioned several times in our
articles, to get them participate in the discussions and share their ideas with
the rest of the teachers. Although they were shy at first, they eventually
began to talk with their partners if I could wait patiently enough.
Finally,
“From Attention to Comprehension to Integration” also gives me so much to think
about when I give my next presentation. The article suggests both some familiar
and creative techniques that are worth trying.
As for the
potential techniques or technology I might use in the future? Well, overwhelmed
by all the information provided this week, I still need more time to think
about it, and I’ll share what I can come up with in my second post.
After reading the
articles related to teaching large classes interactively, it seems to involve
so many techniques as long as they can motivate as many students as possible.
It’s not easy to be systematic because those suggested techniques are pretty
separated from each other. So, if a technique works or helps engage students in
a large class, it can surely be classified into this topic.
In general, those
suggested techniques can be divided into three groups, which are innovative
teaching strategies, technology and group work. Therefore, based on what I have
read and understood so far, I might want to use interactive PowerPoint slides,
with discussion questions or concept tests, to try to involve as many students
as I can. Of course, I could also divide them into groups to work on a project
collaboratively. Or, I could just do something new, and then students will be
naturally attracted to it.
Reflective Journal (W6)
by Richard Guozhen Li on Friday,
May 25, 2012 at 1:52pm ·
I have learned
two things this week. One is teaching large classes, and the other is
interactive PowerPoint. I read the suggested articles about how to engage
students in large classes and checked the given links that provide resources to
help teachers get the job done. Also, I followed the instructions of how to
make an interactive presentation step by step, implementing some techniques and
adding Action Buttons as well.
Giving
proper individual guidance in a large class is extremely challenging. Teachers
can easily find excuses of not trying to create a student-centered class simply
because lecturing is just a very effective teaching technique if you can ignore
the fact that there is no interaction at all. Thus, how to give interactive
lecture sounds more plausible for me under the circumstances, and I found
Interactive Lecture Techniques, http://serc.carleton.edu/introgeo/interactive/typesoftechniqu.html,
provides many doable techniques that are worth trying.
Learner Autonomy (W7)
by Richard Guozhen Li on Friday,
May 25, 2012 at 4:21pm ·
Read about
learner autonomy (Thanasoulas, Sheu, Interconnections). Effective self-directed
learning starts with learner autonomy. What could you do to
encourage
greater autonomy in students, with and without technology?
I have read
two suggested articles about leaner autonomy by Sheu and Thanasoulas
respectively. Well, first of all, I cannot agree more with Sheu about his
reflections on the current setbacks that most English teachers in Taiwan usually
experience for such a long time. Washback Effect plays a very powerful role in
the teaching system as a whole, leaving teachers very little to develop or
implement innovative teaching strategies. All I do every day is get my students
underline this and memorize that in order to keep their grades up on
pencil-paper tests, which can only show us their knowledge of the language.
What’s more, English is only studied in the classroom, and there’s no need for
students to work on their language skills, such as listening comprehension and
speaking competence. Students are all aware of the importance of learning
English, but they become less motivated as they learn along the way because
English merely means loads of tests and homework to them.
Then, I have
to admit that I encountered many big and descriptive words in the first
article, and sometimes I wondered if I was reading a novel rather than a
academic journal. However, I double-majored in Psychology in my college so that
I could manage to use some of the “schemas” to help me grasp the main ideas.
The author tried very hard to define learner autonomy and used three
philosophies, Positivism, Constructivism and Critical Theory, to reveled
different approaches to explaining knowledge and learning. Then, for learner
autonomy to work, learning strategies, cognitive strategies, metacognitive
strategies, etc, are essential. Finally, some techniques, like self-reports,
diaries and persuasive communication are suggested.
So, what
exactly can I do to foster learner autonomy? Well, I think I’ll just try to
follow Sheu’s suggestions by having my students make their own vocabulary
cards, and this can be done in a traditional way or with the help of
technology. Quizlet.com is an online flashcards making website, allowing
teachers to create visually heavy aids with only some simple steps to follow so
that learners can pick up new words more effectively and naturally. With the
ready-made templates, teachers can easily make flashcards, annotate
definitions, and most important of all, add pictures to create a more durable
and vivid image for learners to retain. What’s more, this is also a social
platform that teachers can follow and share each other’s dedicated work by
signing up for an account. It features six different modes, such as Flashcard
Mode, Speller Mode, Learn Mode, etc, to meet the diverse needs of teachers.
With a concise demonstration, the audiences should have gained a clear picture
of how it can help with their teaching.
One Computer Classroom Lesson Plan (W7)
by Richard Guozhen Li on Friday,
May 25, 2012 at 4:23pm ·
Read about
activities for the one-computer classroom and some strategies and applications.
Create a sample activity for a one-computer classroom to share. Make sure you
include who the students are, when in the lesson you're using the activity, the
behavioral objective (ABCD format), and why technology will make the activity
more effective.
After
reading the suggested articles about one computer classroom, I realized that so
many techniques can be used to create a learning environment where students can
demonstrate what they can do with the language inside the classroom. Since my
final project is to get my students to do Show and Tell activity, which they
pick up one of their favorite videos on Youtube and introduce it in English,
I’m going to focus mainly on one computer in the classroom as a presentation
tool, which my students are required to show a English-speaking video and
introduce it in English.
This is a
class for the eighth graders extra curricular activity, so I can fully decide
what to teach and how to teach it without so many constraints as we usually
encounter in regular English classes. I use English as the medium of
instruction and present interesting videos on Youtube in the hope that my
students can be exposed to lots of listening input and eventually try to
introduce their favorite videos in English as well. In this class, I can teach
authentic and interesting English expressions that students will never learn
from the carefully organized textbooks.
So,
here is what I plan to do by using one computer in the classroom. First, I
showed them my WebQuest (http://zunal.com/webquest.php?w=150989) to give them a
clear idea of what they need to do for this project. They already watched me
presenting videos in English many times, so I think each of them should get the
big picture of how to arouse audiences’ interest first, devise flashcards with
Quizelet.com and present the video in simpler English. Then, I asked them to
find partners last week, so they can choose a leader and assign each member a
role, such as the reporter, the recorder, the checker and the controller. Next,
they’ll have to give me the list of their group members, along with the URL of
the video and the draft of presentation, next Monday. Finally, I’m going to use
the rubrics that I created (http://rubistar.4teachers.org/index.php?screen=ShowRubric&module=Rubistar&rubric_id=2192050&)
to assess their performances.
Please note
that though my students have learned English for at least eight years, this
project probably will be their first time to speak English in public. My idea
is mainly to get them to experience what it is like to stand in the front and
introduce something they like in English. Well, suddenly I found this post
could also be served as my draft final project. Of course I learned a lot from
this online course, but when it comes to my final project, I really didn’t know
where to start. Now, with this task, I finally came up with something more
specific with it.
The ABCD
Objective:
After
participating in this class for over ten weeks (Condition), Students who sighed
up for this class (Audience) will be divided into groups and introduce one
video in English (Behavior) clearly enough for others to enjoy while also pick
up at least three new words or phrases at the same time (Condition).
Reflective Journal (W7)
by Richard Guozhen Li on
Saturday, May 26, 2012 at 10:38pm ·
Well, it’s
already the end of the seventh week, and that means we’re getting closer to our
final project. Again, this week’s topics, learner autonomy and one computer
classroom, are quite helpful. First of all, according to many studies, students
in Taiwan
become less motivated as they study inside the classroom along the way, and
they usually sit quietly and listen to what the teacher has to say throughout
the whole class. So, how to foster learner autonomy is a big challenge to most
teachers in Taiwan.
Then, we do
only have one computer in the classroom, and the required readings provide many
useful techniques to engage as many students as possible, such as learning
center, presentation tool, communication station, simulation center, etc. The
idea is to make the most use of the only one computer, and teachers can make
the classroom such a wonderful learning environment full of outside and
interactive resources with the help of Internet connection.
As for the
tasks, we need to find a peer reading partner and create a one computer
classroom lesson plan. I was honored to be invited by Thin Peng to be his
partner. What’s more, we talked in person through Skype on Thursday night. Not
only did we exchange ideas and thoughts about this online course, I also
introduced a little bit about Taipei,
such as the good food, night markets and the MRT. Following that, I created a
lesson plan based on the ideas and techniques of one computer classroom from
the suggested articles. When I was in the middle of doing this task, I suddenly
realized that I also gained many clues of what I should do for my draft final
project.
Now I
already have difficulty imagining life after this online course because I’m so
used to reading articles, creating posts and doing the tasks every day. They
gradually have become a part of my life, especially every time when I feel I
learn something new and useful and just can’t wait to give it a try to see if
it works in the classroom. Besides, talking to one of your classmates in
English is really a good learning experience, and I was already quite impressed
by the way he always effectively organizes his thoughts in his posts before
talking to him. So, though the course itself is a little demanding and tiring,
I do believe I’m also making myself become a more professional teacher.
Discussion, Second Post (W7)
by Richard Guozhen Li on Sunday,
May 27, 2012 at 12:37am ·
In Taiwan, the
Basic Competence Test, on which students have to work very hard to get good
grades and consequently go to a better senior high school, has been playing a
very powerful and dominant role not only in teaching but in learning. Teachers
and students can’t care less about the test because the pressure of being
successful in the test makes teachers do whatever they can to help students get
everything right on tests. The rote memorization of vocabulary and grammar
rules has become a very common practice here. Also known as the Washback
Effect, it is also the biggest constraint on teacher autonomy.
Now, since
the Ministry of Education has decided to abolish the BCT, teachers are supposed
to enjoy their freedom to decide on what to teach, how to teach it and what to
assess. But, as far as I know, this educational overhaul also caused so much
panic among teachers. They no longer can rely on the textbook solely and of
course, and innovative teaching techniques become essential to motivate
students when there is no more BCT to worry about. Facing an unknown future,
some choose to remain their old habits because that’s the best way they know
how to teach English. No wonder Andy in “Interconnections: Learner Autonomy
Teacher Autonomy” would ask, “Do they want that?”
So, I can
only experiment with those unconventional teaching techniques in a class like
extra curricular activity, where I am totally free to decide what I want to
teach and how I want to teach it. Then, I imposed No-Chinese policy on myself
in this class, hoping to brush up on my own speaking competence and expose my
students to lots of language input. Then, I would choose some interesting
English speaking videos for them so that they can pick up some authentic
expressions that they’ll never learn in textbooks. Finally, at the end of this
semester, I’m going to divide them into groups to introduce one video they like
in English.
To foster
learner autonomy, I kept telling them that keeping your grades up should not be
the only concern of learning, and you can learn more effectively if you can do
something to enjoy English. For example, listening to English songs and learn
some vocabulary at the same time. Or, using your listening comprehension to
fill in the blanks of lyrics. Passion is the best teacher. When students’ interest
is aroused, it will be so much easier for teachers to make sure that the
learning goals are achieved simply because students are willing to accomplish a
task that can intrigue them in the first place. In contrast, if we overwhelm
students with endless of homework and tests, they are pretty unlikely to become
autonomous learners.
But, how can
you expect students to become autonomous when they are forced to learn a
language that they think they’ll never use in the future? Students in Taiwan tend to
study the language inside the classroom, and the application of English in
real-life situations cannot help them go to a better school because it is not
on the test. Under such circumstances, I think even technology can do little
about it when learning English merely means getting good grades.
Draft Final Project (W8)
by Richard Guozhen Li on
Wednesday, May 30, 2012 at 10:23pm ·
Building
Teaching Skills Through the Interactive Web
Project
Report
Name:
Richard
Li
Country: Taiwan
I.
Background
There are
about thirty eighth graders participate in this class as their extra curricular
activity, and they come from different classes with mixed English levels. They
are supposed to take into consideration that they should be interested in
learning English and have an at least intermediate listening comprehension
before signing up. This class is conducted only once a week, so they’ll have
plenty of time to prepare for the tasks.
I decide to
use English as the medium of instruction because I enjoy doing it. Every time I
speak English in regular classes, I can see their typical facial expressions
telling me they have trouble understanding what I said. In this class, I am
totally free to decide how I teach without worrying about the curriculum or the
Indicators of Competence. So, I think this is a great opportunity for me to try
something new.
Also, I love
watching English-speaking videos on Youtube, and they are authentic and fun to
watch. In contrast, English textbooks are carefully designed to systematically
introduce vocabulary and grammar rules in order to equip students with enough
knowledge to get good grades on written tests, and they are usually not
interesting enough to arouse students’ interest. As a result, I want to show
them that there are many other ways to learn English other than textbooks, and
watching these intriguing videos is a very good way to improve their vocabulary
and listening ability.
The
following are my teaching procedures:
1. State the
theme of the week.
2. Give a
simple introduction before watching the video.
3. Present
the video.
4. While watching
the video, constantly pause and pick up some useful expressions to elaborate.
5. Replay
the video and encourage the students to capture the main idea.
6. Get
students to talk by asking questions, starting from easy yes/no to wh-
questions
My goals for
this class can be divided into three categories. First, I want to create an all
English environment where students are exposed to a lot of language input.
English teachers in Taiwan
don’t need to speak English to teach, and students mainly rely on Chinese
translation of the content provided by their teachers. All they need to know
for tests can be taught in their mother tongue.
Second, I
want the students to pick up useful and interesting expressions that they’ll
never learn from textbooks. For example, they can learn some basketball terms
by watching Jeremy Lin’s highlights, or they can also learn some useful phrases
about make-ups with a real demonstration.
Third, after
several classes, I will ask simple yes/no questions to create a need to speak English
after watching a video. Then, they can talk more by participate in group
discussions. Eventually, at the end of the semester, they are going to
introduce one video in English at a minimum of one minute.
In this
class, students are required to do several hands-on task to keep their grades
up. For example, they have to finish worksheets that can help them have a
better understanding of what they learned from the videos. Also, class
participation is important so that they need to answer questions and contribute
to group discussions. Most important of all, they’ll divided into groups and
choose an English-speaking video on Youtube as to introduce it in English in
front of the class.
Please note
that English is mostly studied in the classroom, not used in real life
situations. The rote memorization of vocabulary and grammar rules are common
practice here in Taiwan.
Students are usually overwhelmed by loads of tests and homework prescribed by
their teachers to ensure that don’t do too poorly on pencil-paper tests. So,
after many years of learning, students only acquire a huge amount of language
knowledge, not real application of it.
Thus, I feel
it is my job to get them to know that learning a language is all about being
able to communicate with that language, instead of getting good grades. In
addition, I also want to show them there are other interesting or
unconventional ways to learn English compared with the textbooks. I strongly
believe that students will definitely learn much better and more effectively if
they can also feel the joy of learning English by completing interesting tasks
with what they can actually DO with the language.
II. Issue or
problem that started your project
Only after
two or three weeks of teaching in this class, I immediately realized that there
were two major difficulties. First of all, the lack of motivation for
discussion. Though they seemed to quite enjoy watching the videos I presented,
they just didn’t want to answer questions or have any forms of interaction. It seems
that they’re so used to sitting quietly in class, and I had to wait a long time
for a response. Gradually I found myself answering the questions for them, and
sometimes I even just didn’t want to ask any questions.
Second,
teaching a large class with mixed abilities is really not easy. Some of them
are quite confident in their English listening comprehension because they’ll
look forward to my introduction to the video and they’ll be happy when they can
understand the videos totally depending on their own listening skills. But,
there are also quite a few whose English level is too low to engage themselves
in this class. This class is conducted totally in English, and I guess students
will get bored if they can’t comprehend anything at all.
III. Initial
solution and expected response
With two
specific problems in mind, I decided to do something different with the help of
technology. I used to open the class by stating the topic of the week and
giving them a simple introduction to what they are about to watch. To foster
students motivation and learner autonomy, I let them play some hands-on games
instead, hoping they can feel more relaxed or confident. For example, we played
action listening games like “Who’s got what?” from http://www.etseverywhere.com/category/action-listening-games.
Since then, I tried to conduct similar activities from those online resources
to motivate them before I began teaching.
To help
those slow learners with their listening ability, I tried to get the whole
class to do listening quizzes from http://www.esl-lab.com/ after an activity, starting from
easier level. These quizzes are interesting and authentic, so most of the
students can perform well and feel confident about themselves.
IV. Response
and reflection
After a few
weeks, students were used to these new changes before we actually began the
class. For those who already have a good English level, they seemed to quite
enjoy all the activities and quizzes. But when it came to expressing their
ideas in English, most of them were still reluctant to do so. Meanwhile, for
those who were falling behind, the listening quizzes seemed not to help a lot,
and they even didn’t want to try to listen to the audio files at all.
These
changes made them more willing to participate in the listening tasks, but they
still didn’t want to try speaking some simple English in this class. I tried to
call on some of the students with better English level, but it usually took a
very long time before they said anything. Then, I had to answer my questions
again.
I didn’t or
couldn’t blame them for being so passive at all. Students in Taiwan are so
used to staying quiet in class. They always expect their teachers to prepare
everything for they have to learn, and all they have to do is listen and take notes.
Besides, this is not a regular English class, so they are under no pressure to
make a change at all.
As for
getting them to speak, well, it’s also a very difficult change to do. Though
they have studied English for at least seven years, they don’t have to anything
to work on their spoken English because it’s not on the tests. What’s more,
they are too afraid of making mistakes and getting laughed at, the easiest way
for them to get out of this awkward situation is to keep remaining silent or
just say I don’t know. Therefore, I began to wonder if there’s anything I can
do to make a change after all these failing attempts.
V. Changes
made
Since it’s
only a few weeks away from the end of this semester, I planed to divide them
into groups and do a show and tell activity. The main idea is that they choose
an English-speaking video they like and try to introduce it in English. So, in
a “One Computer Classroom”, I told my students that the computer would be used
as a presentational tool, and they had to prepare an oral presentation sharing
what they like most about the video in English.
Based on the
idea of Project-Based Learning, I hope I can arouse their interest by offering
them an opportunity to do something they like in English. Then, this Monday, I
demonstrated what they really have to do in about two weeks. I chose a topic,
Superheroes, and introduced two videos about the Avengers http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPoHPNeU9fc and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0jBF912xYY.
With these
two video clips, I told the students about a simple history of Marvel, Stan
Lee, etc. Then, I picked up useful words like computer generated, hopelessly
outgunned, persuade, volatile, self-possessed and so on. Finally, I shared why
I chose this topic and what superpower I would like to have. In the end of the
class, most of them were intrigued by my demonstration. So, I asked them to
follow my example and start to think about what they want to introduce in two
weeks.
I expect
them to put their efforts into this project, and most important of all, they
can feel what it’s like to be able to do something enjoyable and learn English
as well. They may just read their scripts, their voice might not be loud enough
or they could get their tongue tied, but I think that’s O.K. as long as they
can finally realize that learning English can be fun. So, I think this class
can be served as a start or a glimpse, and hopefully someday they’ll do a real
and bigger project with their English learning
VI.
Conclusion
In regular
English classes, my way of teaching is nothing different than other teachers,
which I adopt the Grammar-Translation Approach and give authoritarian lectures
to students. Through repetitive drills, students learn to master all the
required grammatical structures required by the Ministry of Education. Thus,
the only concern for me is how to help my students get good grades on the
English Competence Test to have a better chance to go to a better senior high
school. Under the circumstances, job satisfaction is becoming a luxury I won’t
have.
So, I won’t
hesitate to seize the chance to do something different. Compared with regular
classes, I have to do so much more for this special class, like finding
suitable videos, creating worksheets, using online resources, conducting
interactive activities and so on. After all the hard work, these students are
still not very willing to try to speak English.
But, when I
read articles about Project-Based Learning a few weeks ago, I began to think
about what else I can do. What if I can come up with something interesting
enough, something they need to Do with what they have learned? Then, according
to PBL, learners will have a much stronger motivation to learn because they
feel they have the power do demonstrate their skills by doing a project like
this. Though I won’t be able to see their performances until two weeks later, I
feel a sense of achievement already.
If I can do
this project all over again, there are several things to improve on. First, (
to be continued!)
VII. Resources
( to be
continued )
Teaching with Online Tools (W8)
by Richard Guozhen Li on
Saturday, June 2, 2012 at 10:39pm ·
After
exploring some of the different tools and exercises for this week, share your
ideas about how using these might change the way you teach and/or the way that
your students learn. Please respond in particular to these questions:
- how could using these tools promote learner autonomy,
- what are the constraints that would make it difficult to use these tools, and
- how will you overcome them?
This time,
not as a teacher but a student, I would like to share how the online course can
help a student with his or her spoken English. Five years ago, I began taking
one on one online conversational English classes through Skype. Of the four
language skills, speaking is the only one you cannot work on your own as you
improve other three skills, so I started to look online for information about
how to improve my speaking ability. I found a Taiwan-based online school, New
Sky Online (http://www.newskyonline.com/newskyonline/), which offers
manageable long term classes for an EFL environment like Taiwan. Since
then, I have been speaking English for two hours a week, and I just gave my
oral presentation at a three-hour long workshop totally in English not long
ago.
I consider
myself a very autonomous learner as a language learner of this kind of one on
one online course because all my efforts to improve myself in terms of English
proficiency revolves around speaking English. For example, I read English
articles, newspapers and novels at school, and then I summarize them and
discuss with the teacher at night. The teacher would ask so many questions that
I have lots of opportunities to express my ideas and thoughts in English. Most
important of all, when I have to do a presentation at workshops, I can rehearse
my presentations with the teacher several times so that I can have confidence
in public speaking, and indeed they always go very well. This might not sound
like a big deal to you, but I do gain so much recognition from many English
teachers here because you have to be confident and brave enough to do so in a
society that making mistakes is regarded as losing face.
The biggest
strength is also its weakness. I really don’t think you can teach a language
learner how to speak a language in a large class. Learning to speak a language
requires an environment that learners can actually express themselves and get
enough feedback from native speakers. This can apply to any languages learning.
For example, no matter how many books you have read, you just can’t learn how
to speak Chinese, Japanese or French unless you have the chance to talk with a
native speaker. Though technology today can recognize and identify your
pronunciation and intonation, it can never help you speak a language fluently
without interaction, and consequently the biggest constraint is that you cannot
just create an online course to teach people how to speak that language.
Reflective Journal (W8)
by Richard Guozhen Li on Sunday,
June 3, 2012 at 7:10pm ·
Without a
doubt, the most demanding task this week was the draft project. Not only did we
have to finish it in time by Wednesday, but we also had to read our partner’s
work and give feedback. We were given a final project template, information
about project plan and report, rubrics, peer reading checklist, etc, so I think
all the members of this online course must have a clear picture of what to do.
Then, there were discussion and task to do as usual, and this week’s topic was
about online course sites.
While I was
doing the draft project, I thought I could just copy and paste my previous task
steps, but then I realized it was not that easy. I found most of them were not
organized enough or looked not like a serious academic essay because oftentimes
I was just reflecting on my own current teaching practice and wrote down
whatever came to my mind. So, I almost had to start all over again to fix the
problem, and still I wasn’t quite satisfied with my draft. I wish I could have
more time.
It was a
pity I didn’t catch up with the online face-to face discussion, but Robert has
kindly recorded the whole webinar so that I can check it out later on.
Actually, I myself have been practicing speaking English one on one via Skype
for five years, and it has really helped me a lot, like giving presentations in
English at workshops here in Taiwan. I wonder if there will be another chance
for us to exchange ideas of this online course with the teacher and other
course members.
With the
help of modern technology, language learners have more access to different
learning methods and motivating resources, which also makes it much more
challenging to be a teacher. Since our students are so exposed to different
formats of stimuli, traditional lecturing might not be sufficient just to grab
their attention, and that’s why we teachers have to keep on learning and
studying. Therefore, I am grateful that I get to know so many online resources
because of this course and its tasks.
Learning Styles and Technology (W9)
by Richard Guozhen Li on
Saturday, June 9, 2012 at 11:10pm ·
Multiple
Intelligences and Learning Styles provide we teachers with the possibility that
each child can learn successfully if we can identify their unique strengths and
come up with effective teaching strategies accordingly. Based on the suggested
and articles, students learn better with technology because it can provide a
variety of stimuli that deal with many of their intelligences at the same time.
According to studies, anytime three or more intelligences are used to introduce
new material to students, the greater their chances of long term retention.
Now, I would
like to elaborate on three intelligences and use what I have learned from this
online course to help students cultivate their language competencies. First of
all, Verbal/Linguistic touches most of language learning, such as listening,
speaking, reading, writing, etc. Teachers can create a class on Nicenet.com for
students to practice writing and expressing their ideas and thoughts at the
same time. Second, Intrapersonal learners are good at self-reflection, so
teachers can encourage them to keep a diary in English online. Third,
Bodily-Kinesthetic learners prefer to learn with hands-on work, so we can
assign them to create a WebQuest as groups.
When each
student’s unique learning styles can be addressed with the help of technology,
we teachers are also creating a resourceful learning environment meeting
different needs of students. What’s more, every student have his or her
stronger intelligences to process and take in information in terms of language
input, so teachers cannot just adopt a single teaching approach throughout the
whole semester. Instead, we should keep on equipping ourselves with diverse
innovative teaching strategies.
Reflective Journal (W9)
by Richard Guozhen Li on Monday,
June 11, 2012 at 2:03pm ·
Thanks to my
peer reading partner, Thin Peng, I have revised some of my draft and also added
certain extra information based on his suggestions. The first draft was done in
a hurry last week, I found a lot to improve after careful proof reading this
week. In addition to some typos and grammatical errors, some paragraphs were
also not well-organized enough, and others were wordy and not concise. I really
hope I’ve done a better job this time.
Of course, I
also quickly went through others’ wonderful works and really admired their
great efforts. We have teachers around the world, and some of them are teaching
in colleges. Not only are those projects diverse and interesting, but some of
them are actually good models for me to follow because of the thought-provoking
ideas and good English writing skills. It would be great if we still the access
to Robert’s Wiki because I would definitely need to go back and check all the
works from each dedicated members of this online course.
How to give
proper individual guidance to every student in a large class has been a very
hot topic here. For example, there were several workshops about “Differentiated
Teaching” have been held to raise teachers’ awareness of its importance.
Therefore, I think this week’s topic of discussion, “Multiple Intelligences,
Learning Styles and Technology”, had much in common with it. As usual, we read
suggested articles and learned more about it’s basic assumptions and practical
resources we can use in the classroom in terms of technology. The most
important thing for teachers is to identify each student’s unique learning
styles and try to incorporate at least three intelligences when teaching new
materials.
Where did
the time go? It has been nine weeks already? Looking back on the past weeks,
again, I would really like to say that I have learned so much more along the
way week by week. With all the readings, tasks and final project each week, I
really feel I’m a student again. So, I guess the next question would be how to
apply what we have learned into our real classrooms and benefit our students.
Also, when given an opportunity to do a presentation next time, I would also
like to share this course with other English teachers in Taichung, Taiwan.
Advice for Future Participants (W10)
by Richard Guozhen Li on
Thursday, June 14, 2012 at 11:38am ·
The most
valuable I have learned form this online course is that teaching is far more
professional than I used to think. In an EFL environment like Taiwan, English
is studied in the classroom, not used in the real world. Getting good grades
probable is the only priority for most students and even teachers here. Thus,
as long as you know your vocabulary and grammar, you shouldn’t encounter any
difficulty. After this course, I gained so many different ideas and practical
web skills that can be used to help solve the current problems in the
classroom. With the help of technology, I can design different learning
activities, like WebQuest, for students to demonstrate what they can do with
the language. Also, I have stored many useful links on my Delicious.com page so
that I can provide more interesting hands-on tasks for my students to work on
their language skills. As a result, I found there was still so much for me to
learn, and I’m glad I have this opportunity to improve on myself.
The
following is my humble advice. First, read the given articles and mark key
points. When necessary, you’d better read the additional resources as well.
You’re going to create at least two posts on Nicenet.com, so make sure your
answers are directly relevant to the questions and most important of all, use
what you learned form the articles to back up your ideas. Also, you want to
keep your posts organized and easy to read because every one is required to
give feedback to others’ posts.
Second,
you’re asked to do some tasks every week. The best part about this online
course is that those tasks are mainly designed to help you finish your final
project, so you just have to “connect the dots” when the time comes. Therefore,
read the given instructions carefully and perform those tasks step by
step, and you should find they are very helpful in the end. For example, you’ll
be asked to sign up for useful websites like Delicious.com, WebQuest, Rubrics,
etc. On top of that, you are also going to make your lesson plans incorporating
technology in your teaching or create an interactive power point slides.
Third, share
your reflections on your blog. Usually this is the final assignment of the
week, so you can share what you have learned form your readings and tasks.
Since this is your own blog, you’re free to write whatever you like. You can
pose an interesting question or share an link. Or, you can just express how you
feel for the week. It’s always interesting to get to know your colleagues’
other ideas besides this course. Don’t forget to at least comment on one entry
every week. It’s also a good way to get to know more participants around the
world of this course.
Fourth, the
final project. It may sound a little bit daunting at first, but as long as you
do your tasks earnestly, you can finish it without too much difficulty. But
first of all, you have to identify your current teaching problem and find
suitable technology to deal with it accordingly. Then, apply what you have
learned each week, including the discussions and tasks, to help you move
towards your target. You’ll be given a template, so you’ll have clear and
specific ideas of what you have to do. In addition, one interesting task is to
find your peer reading partner. I talked to my partner in person through Skype
and exchanged many ideas about this course with him. With your partner’s
feedback, you can improve the quality of your final project.
LoTi (W10)
by Richard Guozhen Li on
Thursday, June 14, 2012 at 11:40am ·
I read the
LoTi Framework and took the survey as suggested, and not to my surprise, the
result indicated that my current teaching practices in terms of using
technology to assist students in learning still have a lot to improve. Four of
the main categories reached priority level.
Traditional
lecturing has been the dominant teaching approach for decades here in Taiwan. Several
years ago, teachers were asked to attend workshops regarding using technology
in the classroom. Only about two years ago, each classroom has been installed
an overhead projector and every teacher was assigned a laptop. Now, I can see
more and more teachers using the computers in their classrooms, so most
teachers are willing to try something new when provided with the necessary
equipments.
After taking
the survey, LoTi also provides recommendations and weblinks for teachers to
utilize and reach an higher level. I immediately checked some of them out and
found they were all websites with abundant resources. Again, we don’t want to
use the technology only because it is new or available. We should identify the
problem we need to address first.
Reflective Journal (W10)
by Richard Guozhen Li on
Thursday, June 14, 2012 at 12:36pm ·
I can’t
believe this online course finally comes to an end. I can’t remember how many
times I said that I have learned so much form this program, either. What’s
more, being able to learn and exchange ideas with so many wonderful teachers
around the world is just amazing. Without a doubt, I’ll sign up for another
course if there is any in the future.
It’s really
difficult to say which topic or tool is the most successful because they were
so connected to each other. To me, looking back on those past ten weeks, I just
enjoyed every assignment I have done, including the readings, discussions,
tasks, reflective blog and the final project. For me, this course itself is
Project-Based Learning because we kept on leaning something new each week in
order to finish the final project step by step along the way.
The way
Robert organized this course and guide all the participants to the final
project is the best thing I learned. Not only is he so resourceful to provide
us many practical and insightful articles and links, but he also did the best
he could to solve the problems we encountered and give us constructive feedback
every week. As for the final project, all you had to do was connect the dots,
combining everything that you learned and did in the past few weeks.
These past
ten weeks has truly been hectic and fruitful. Although I have to admit that I
didn’t do my best for very few of the assignments because I was busy doing
something else, overall, I consider myself a dedicated student actively
participating in everything this course demanded. Undoubtedly, I still need
some time to fully take in all the abundant knowledge and skills from this
course. And then, I will have to think about the real application of what I
learned in the classroom.
I wish you
all the best and hope all your dreams come true.
Richard
Li
Thank you. Your blog is very informative. Assessing speaking is now the hottest topic here, so I hope we can also learn from you.
回覆刪除thank you very much I took a lot of information from this site))))))
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