Week 3- My reflections
Week 3 added more valuable activities to use in the
classroom. We were introduced to aural/oral skill building websites, to the
samples of the project report and created a “delicious” page.
Week 3 was easier to handle than the previous 2 weeks. I am
already familiar with nicenet, I know what I am supposed to do in the discussions.
Creating
a delicious page
It was the easiest assignment to do. The webpage helps to
save useful links by adding them on the webpage and share them with the others.
I have saved lots of useful links that I will definitely use in my teaching.
There are a lot of websites which are very good
for practicing listening and pronunciation skills I came across during the
discussions that I was unaware of, so www.delicious.com was the best solution
to save all the links I liked and explore one by one later.
Aural/Oral
skill building
Developing listening comprehension is the essential part of
learning a language. Building the vocabulary, learning grammar, practice speaking
will not contribute to mastering the language if the person is not able to
comprehend and respond to the dialogue in a real world context. The article by Lindsay Miller “Developing Listening
Skills with Authentic Materials” proved the importance of authentic materials
in developing listening skills.
She suggests to use Pre-, While-, and Post-Listening activities to help learners develop their listening skills.
She suggests to use Pre-, While-, and Post-Listening activities to help learners develop their listening skills.
I read the article by Julia Gong about Computer-Assisted
Language Learning and agree that “CALL environment becomes an ideal safe haven
to learners to practice interaction. One of the greatest advantages is that it
offers a private environment for working on the pronunciation.” It was also interesting
to read about the advantages and disadvantages
of CALL in the development of speaking skills. “Language is speech. People talk
far more that they write and the importance of mastery of the spoken language
as primary objective among learners is confirmed by surveys.”
A Sample Report
The assignment was to choose one of the sample project
reports from the past Webskills classes, read and comment on that report in
nicenet.
I skimmed three reports which gave me a clear idea of what my final project must be like. I
was impressed how hard the teachers worked, made a deep analysis of their teaching
environment, idetified problems and found the solutions. Most of them mentioned Gardner’s
Multiple Intelligences approach to choose the best teaching style.
I liked the reports by Prem Bahadur Phyak from Nepal
and Nicolici Nadina Carmen from Romania very much. I summarized what Nicolici Nadina Carmen did in her project, posted
my viewpoints in the nicenet, and expressed what I liked about the project.
