Week 10: A new beginning

Don't be dismayed at goodbyes. A farewell is necessary before you can meet again. And meeting again, after moments or lifetime, is certain for those who are friends. ~Richard Bach

Many of you have written in your final posts on their blogs and in our Nicenet discussions that although we have come to the end of this course this doesn't necessarily mean that we have to break all the links between us. Remember that we live in an amazing age! Today's Information Technologies enable us to be in touch with everyone everywhere. I strongly believe in the saying that if there is a will there is a way.

These past ten weeks have been amazing both for my personal and professional development. I am eager to disseminate and share the knowledge I gained from this course with my students and colleagues. I sincerely hope that the participants of this course will embark on collaborative projects where we'll show our students all the values of intercultural education.

Good luck to all of you and keep up the good work!

Week 10: Stay in touch!

These past weeks have been amazing, not only because I learned so much that I can hardly wait for the new school year to begin, but also because I've been provided with an excellent opportunity to meet and learn from wonderful teachers from different parts of the world.

Now I would like to keep in touch with all of you! Yes, we can do it via Nicenet, e-mail, blog and our wiki, but in my humble opinion, Twitter is the best way to connect with like-minded teachers and to learn from the greatest minds of the ELT. Yes, there are many of those that we mentioned during the course: Larry Ferlazzo, Richard Byrne, Sean Banville, Sue-Lyon Jones, Scott Thornbury, Ken Wilson, Ana Maria Menezes, Graham Stanley and many, many more who can enrich your teaching experience.

I have been "tweeting" for more than a year now and I have developed my own PLN = Personal (or Professional) Learning Network of passionate educators from all over the world.

If you are not familiar with Twitter take a look at my presentation about it or visit this guide.

If you already are on Twitter, you can find me on @abfromz (which means Arjana Blazic from Zagreb)

All about Twitter on Prezi

Week 9: Learning strategies

This week I have been reading not only about multiple intelligences and learning styles, but also about learning strategies. I strongly believe that the instruction of learning styles and learning strategies can help students become better learners.

As stated in The Five C’s (or the goals of foreign language learning standards, which are Communication, Cultures, Connections, Comparisons and Communities), by becoming aware of their learning strategies, students’ motivation increases. On the one hand they become confident and self-reliant language learners, and on the other, they become familiar with various techniques for language learning, which focus on their thinking processes. However, students should also be taught how and when to apply the strategies.

There are two types of learning strategies, according to the Five C’s: Metacognitive and Task-based Learning Strategies.

Metacognitive strategies focus on reflection. Students analyze and reflect upon their own learning. In this way they are able to see their own strengths and weaknesses. There are four metacognitive strategies:
• Organize/Plan Your Own Learning
• Manage Your Own Learning
• Monitor Your Own Learning
• Evaluate Your Own Learning

Task-Based Strategies address students’ own resources. There are four categories:
• Use What You Know (e.g. background knowledge)
• Use Your Imagination (e.g. role-play)
• Use Your Organizational Skills (e.g. summarizing)
• Use a Variety of Resources (e.g. the Internet).

In Chapter 5 of Sailing The Five C's with Learning Strategies, you can find different activities that you can use with your students. All of them focus on different learning strategies mentioned above.

Week 9: Multiple Intelligences

I have been reading about different learning styles and multiple intelligences with pleasure.

I have never taught in such a way as to make my students aware of how they are learning, but after this week's readings, I think it is very important to introduce different learning styles to students.

This extract from Dr. Felder's Learning Styles has been an eye-opener to me:

When mismatches exist between learning styles of most students in a class and the teaching style of the professor, the students may become bored and inattentive in class, do poorly on tests, get discouraged about the courses, the curriculum, and themselves, and in some cases change to other curricula or drop out of school. Professors, confronted by low test grades, unresponsive or hostile classes, poor attendance and dropouts, know something is not working. They may become overly critical of their students (making things even worse) or begin to wonder if they are in the right profession.

Yes, I have questioned myself if I am in the right profession! Now I can see that a balance needs to be achieved for successful teaching and learning to take place.

However, with every new class I do a quiz on multiple intelligences which helps my students to find out which intelligences they are strongest in. They greatly appreciate it as it boosts their self-esteem and confidence. You can find several printable quizzes here, as well as the lesson plan on how to use them in class. The materials were developed by teachingenglish.org. BBC British Council.

Week 8: Creating online exercises

Many of my colleagues have mentioned the importance of introducing test makers to students. If we teach them how to make exercises on their own, they will become involved in the learning process. In this way, students will become aware of the importance of their engagement and their new role in the classroom. Eventually, they will take control over their learning. The teacher will be there to guide them, facilitate the learning process or simply someone to lean on when problems arise.

In a comment to my previous post I mentioned an influential post by Doug Johnson from The Blue Skunk Blog: Creating Empowered Users where he says that instead of saying "Here's how you do it", we should ask the student "What have you tried?". By being LESS helpful, the teacher actually empowers the students to think independently, to rely on themselves and to become autonomous.

So far I have introduced my students to exercise-building on the ITESLJ website, where you can see some of their bilingual quizzes. However, what my students did, was to write the words in two languages and send them in an email to the site administrator who generated the quizzes. I believe that my students would enjoy going through all the stages of the quiz making process. Over the next school year I am going to make use of this weeks’ recommended websites and I am sure my students will benefit greatly from being involved in test making, be it only for practising purposes. Besides, I might use some of their creations for “real” test, which will make them more engaged and motivated.

Week 8: Tools for enhancing learning

This week we have been given a great list of test makers that I am looking forward to trying out.

Besides HotPotatoes, I have used the following quiz generators that I can recommend:

ESL Videos – teachers open an account, embed a YouTube video and create a multiple choice quiz. After the quiz is done, you can copy the embed code of the quiz and paste it into your blog, wiki or website. Otherwise, you can leave the quiz on the ESL Video website.

Scroll down to do my latest video listening quiz: All Summer Long by Kid Rock. In this quiz students are given a list of three synoynms to choose from.

Shakira’s Waka Waka is also a quiz on synonyms, while Mungo Jerry’s Summertime and Robbie Williams’s How do you rate the morning sun is a quiz for practising confusing words – homophones.

While listening to Mika’s Rain students students can practise phrasal words.

Week 7: The new teaching is learning

Last weekend I participated in the Reform Symposium Conference, an online conference organized by enthusiastic educators worldwide who believe that teachers are capable of bringing change into the classroom.

One of the quotes that best describes the essence of the conference was The new teaching is learning by Monika Hardy, a passionate math teacher whose students want to redefine school for improved learning, where they are responsible for their learning.

This perfectly sums up what we have been discussing this week. Students have to learn to take control over their own learning. Teachers need to direct their students to follow the path of independence and autonomy. In order to facilitate this process with competence, teachers themselves must be autonomous and comitted to lifelong learning.

Week 7: One-computer classroom - the current state of affairs

First I have to describe the situation in my school regarding the use of the classrooms. As we share the school premises with a vocational school, we have simply-furnished classrooms where students remain stationary and the teachers move from one classroom to another. However, we don’t share all the classrooms with the other school. There are several labs that are only ours, such as the two computer labs with Internet access, and the two foreign language labs. Only one of the language labs is equipped with a computer with Internet access and a projector. There are 8 language teachers at my school so we have a sign up a list for this lab as well, just like for the computer labs.

Unfortunately, the lab remains locked during breaks, so I read the article Self-access – A Framework for Diversity by Michael Rodden with envy. There is absolutely no possibility for me and my fellow language teachers to create a student corner at school, where our students would have access to materials connected with language learning, such as dictionaries, newspapers, brochures, postcards and other memorabilia that we bring from our trips to target language countries (besides English, German, Italian and French are taught at my school).

Also, as the financial situation won’t allow us to buy software for language teaching and learning in the near future (schools have always been underfunded), we have to rely on the free resources available on the Internet. For this reason I set up a website together with two of my enthusiastic colleagues. I’m in charge of the English pages where I post links to all the free interactive materials that have instant feedback. Occasionally, I write my own materials. As it was the first of its kind in Croatia, the website became so popular that it is now used by students from all over the country who are preparing for their school-leaving exams. Since its launch in December 2009, it has been visited by more than 183,000 students (with more than 10 million hits). You can visit the Moja matura page here.

I sometimes use the links from the website in the one-computer classroom, but I have to admit that it is much more useful when students do the exercises individually or in pairs at their own pace, especially as they can check their answers immediately.

Week 6: My Interactive PowerPoint presentation

I have finally managed to create an interactive PowerPoint. Although it took me more time than I originally planned for it, I did it with pleasure.

This presentation represents the beginning of my project. It is not finished yet, as there are many other questions and elements that can be added (such as Think-Pair-Share or Quick-Write for example). Before my students embark on their inquiry-based learning journey, I would like to show them what the end result should look like. Of course, I don't want to impose shapes, forms, features or elements of the PowerPoint presentation upon them, so this presentation is only an example, not a rule that must be followed. My students will present their findings on English speaking countries, so I decided to create my presentation on a country that won't be included in the webquest.

The title of the presentation is Cultural Profiles: Croatia and it can be seen here.