tHe EnD of DeLiCiOuS WeEk 3!

I am so happy to be with such motivating and helpful classmate! This was indeed another busy week. Like Poncho, I find that I am learning more than I expected to being in this course. We had 3 things to do this week. The first was to look at speaking skills. As I have mentioned in my post in nicenet.org, in my country, speaking skill is not given enough emphasis due to many reason and the main being the fact that teachers are exam-oriented therefore, we would focus more on reading and writing, 2 skills tested in our major exams. Reading Miller's (n.d.), I was reminded of the importance of speaking and that we spend most of our time speaking. But why than speaking is being neglected in our classroom? 

Reading Gong's (2002) article on using CALL in language teaching and learning also gave me a better understanding about reasons why it is difficult, at times, to have well-develop software or program for teaching speaking. I must agree that it would need a great amount of funding in order to develop a realistic and interactive software which all of us can use in our classroom. Besides being realistic and authentic, there's also the question of suitability. I am talking about the accent used. As Malaysia is a Commonwealth country, the Queen's English is used but than our society at large is expose to American English through movies, songs and etc. I guess that is a small matter but a matter which many would use as a political interest in my country. Just imagine, even the teaching of maths and science has become an issue here just because many city parents insist to continue the program but rural folks do not want to simply because of competency and the importance of English language for the rural folks.

I am still trying to include the use of CALL or web skills in my classroom but than I am faced with a major problem of availability of computers and internet access. But than I am sure we are able to use activities which we can download in our classroom to help enhance and expose students to the abundance of resources on the net. Besides that, I would also like to use emails with my students. I think this will help them with spelling and grammar. This will be a small and first step in implementing the use of web skills in my classroom. 

Finally, I can answer some of my own questions about Delicious.com. It is so useful and I can now arrange all my links into stacks and I can easily access them on the net wherever I am. I hope to share more links with others and hopefully some of them would be useful to all my classmates and teachers. 

Lastly, I got to look at some past projects. I am so impressed with how teachers all over the world are so motivated and how they are so detailed in their observation. Looking at their project, 2 in particular, I am reminded of how it was my dream too be be a great teacher. Now I have so many ideas what to do with my class when CALL is concerned. I really hope that I will be able to plan and make things happen, not this year, next year! I truly appreciate all my classmates encouragement and words of wisdom too! This is the very reason why I am still teaching and still a teacher trying to touch lives despite all the negative things happening around me. Thanks to all and good luck too to all my friends and teachers!!!

Delicious Week 3...

Now, where do I start? Delicious! Still trying to figure out how do I upload links on my Delicious page? I am still exploring...

Communication.....communication....and communication...I just returned from my part-time job at one of the local universities, here. I must say that today's lesson is kind of depressing. Perhaps it is due to the fact that I'm have not been sleeping well, lately or perhaps students' reactions to the lesson.  Miller (n.d) pinpointed that most of the time we spend speaking compare to reading, listening and writing. It has come to my attention to the response on this week response. I agree that we speak all the time. There's nothing stopping us from speaking to others and even to our own selves. In Malaysia, generally, the main focus in the classroom is spend on reading and writing. Since English is not the official language and the fact that our education system focuses a lot on examination, teachers and students aim only to excel in 'jotting down' the correct answer on the pieces of papers given. Thus, the aspect of speaking English is much neglected. Today, my students were required to deliver a speech on a topic which interest them such as 'Types of food in Malaysia, My Dream Holiday, Benefits of having Good Personalities' and more. They were given 2 weeks to prepare their speech and I helped correct their grammar and language a week before. They even get to send me their corrected speech through email but yet only 2 out of my 30 students could effectively and successfully deliver their speech. In previous lessons, I have demonstrated to them how they need to delivery their speech and I have also given them input on the style and language. So where did I go wrong or what have I not do to fully prepare my students for the task?

A reason that I think is the major cause of this is that English is not use at all in their daily activities and that English is only a subject they take to get a degree. But eventually, all students will have to sit for an English test and pass in order to be able to graduate. Yet, many of them view English as not important and unnecessary.

Therefore my dear friends and teachers, what should I do or what can I do to help raise that speaking English is important and it is a 'valuable' too.

Opps! Forgot...

Oh yes! I have another interesting site which I love as well. It's fun and suitable for beginners to help with grammar! Hope you'll try it out!!!

http://wackytales.com/

Good night all!!

End of Week 2

Phew! I never thought that it would be so hectic and packed to be back learning! But it's definitely FUN! The weeks started with describing our target students and I think I wrote a bit longer than I should. However, I really can't just describe my students and not talk about some of the major problems that I face in carrying out my lesson especially when ICT is concerned. Jodi pointed out a very good and realistic point when she said that even before IT or ICT, the world has had many, loads of great teachers. This is an undeniable fact! Something I should always remember. So now my goal is to learn how these technologies can help enhance my lesson and not let them take over my lesson or my students. I should be in-control and I should be the main factor that directly influence my students.

After 12 years of teaching, I kind of lost the idea of being able to write realistic and measurable objectives. The ABCD system is indeed a simple and easy way to always remember how we can write our objective so that others and our students are able to understand what we want to achieve. My teachers' and classmates' comments were extremely useful! Looking at the comments and what my other classmates have done, I was able to write my objective some what easier. I will need guidance and more practice to be able to write proper and better objectives. I strongly recommend to all my other friends in my school to look at the slides provided in our reading so they too can write better objectives for their lessons.

To me the best part of this week was I get to explore the many useful links in www.noodletools.com. At the beginning, I was  kind of lost as there were just too many links and headings. But as I explore further, I find that it is quite easy as long as we know what we are looking for. I love the fact that these links or search engines help us to narrow our search and make it easier for students and teachers to look for resources or specific information they need.

Here are some links which I find useful:
1)  http://infomine.ucr.edu/ - Search annotated academic sites and subject databases

2)  http://www.idebate.org/portal/ - Browse or search a debate topic database with pro/con arguments

3)  http://www.biography.com/people - Search 25,000+ biographies by name, keyword and profession

4)  http://www.multcolib.org/homework/sochc.html - Links to pro/con on current social issues

5)  http://www.ipl.org/ - Easy-to-navigate, well-annotated directory of librarian-selected Web sites

However, I would like to share some other sites which I normally use to find materials as well as information or to download applications. Here is my list:

1) www.englishforeveryone.org

2) www.download.com

3) http://www.tlsbooks.com/educationalwordsearchpuzzles.htm

4)  http://www.teacher-appreciation.info/Quotations_on_teaching/

5) http://www.myenglishpages.com/

I hope you will find these links useful.


Our 2nd week is almost over, and I am sure that there will be more to learn. I look forward to share and learn from all my friends. All the best to all of you! Thank you to Jodi and Celeste for another great weak and another 8 more weeks to come!

It has been a great 2 weeks!

End of Week 1

It's almost the end of the week.. Actually it's another 15 minutes... but here in Malaysia its already Monday almost noon.. I must say again that it has been a very exciting week.

I thought things would start slow and eventually speed up but in our case, its been 'fast and furious'! I love it! This very week itself, I became friends with so many people from all over the world. But it is so strange (good way of strange) that though we are from different part of the world and come from different background and culture yet we all share so many things in common. We all love knowledge and we love sharing knowledge with others.

Other thing I learn which I think important is that we get to participate in everything. We all get a say in decisions and we get to say what we want to say and learn to cooperate with each other despite all the differences we have. I simply just love that as I don't normally get to do so in my work place.

I look forward to more new experiences to learn. Thank you to all my 'classmates' and both my teachers, Jodi and Celeste for all the guidance.

A new beginning.... Week 1

Gosh! I must say that it has be a such a hectic but fun week. Everything started so fast and everyone in the class are so active!  And what a mixture of people from all over the world! It's all so exciting.

This is my first blog. My friend, Audrey Wiles, has been trying to get me started with one for so long but sadly, I never did... until NOW! Yeah! I am here and I am writing a blog. It seems easy at the moment and I hope it won't be too difficult as time passes.