Week Four

I had an feeling that  week four would include more postings and homework and I was right. I felt overwhelmed at first, but once I began to work and read through the materials, all became clear.  I read through the articles and chose a favorite as I do each week. This week I preferred Jarek Krajka’s “Using the Internet in ESL Writing Instruction”. The article caught my eye when I realized it would include suggestions in order to enhance writing skills using practical applications such as web pages, e-mail connection and creating class websites. Karjka gives detailed instructions on how to teach writing and I find this useful as writing is an integral part of my students’ matriculation exams at the end of the twelfth grade where they would have to write an essay expressing an opinion, write a letter or write a descriptive essay. Although Krajka might seem in favor of using technology to enhance instruction, the conclusion clearly states that it is preferable to use the technology to enrich the lesson rather than including it just for the sake of using technology, a point that is often stressed in our course. When teaching writing, I cannot agree more with this point. I feel that there should be an introductory lesson to every type of essay as sometimes the internet and technology cannot offer that one on one support for every student. Using technology after the face to face instruction as a means of practice is what I believe Krajka would consider as a good use of technology.

Another required task that was completed this week included writing a technology enhanced lesson plan which I enjoyed as I integrated one of the online quiz tools into my lesson. I've read through the other lesson plans as well and find that the diversity of students in our course just provides us with a range of great activities to think of and possibly adapt with our own classes. I must honestly say that I would have preferred to interact with my classmates and receive feedback from them and from our instructor. I have come to learn what a great asset  collaboration is and on this occasion, I have missed having it available. We have also had to describe a problem which we would solve with our students, and for this task I set my heart to work on a project in which teachers are instructed on integrating ICT into the four domains of the English Curriculum. I’m still going through the planning stage, but hopefully, the picture will become clearer as the course progresses. 

This week I felt like we managed to complete the circle with the rich list of websites that offer reading and writing activities after reading about listening and speaking activities last week (This, of course, was my favorite of them all) . I was, like many others of my peers, impressed by www.breakingnewsenglish.com as I felt it includes everything a teacher could wish for when searching for complete class activities. I will certainly be using it with my students. I have noticed that most of the reading comprehension websites include vocabulary practice. Indeed, vocabulary was always an important part of the English Curriculum in Israel, but when the New English Curriculum was published, it clearly stated the number of lexical items that each student is required to learn which totals up to 5,400 for the foundation, intermediate and proficiency levels combined. I have always stressed vocabulary with my students and find that practicing vocabulary is very beneficial I tend to use Quizlet and Spelling City for that purpose. Please allow me to expand on these two amazing web tools:

1)    Quizlet mainly includes flashcard and games, but what is amazing about it is that you can create your own list, add your own definition and an explanatory image. Sharing your vocabulary list will entitle your students to review each word with its definition and then go on to play games such as scattered words, race, speller and so on. The following image is an activity that I created for the poem The Road Not Taken. You can easily access games by clicking on "Choose a Study Mode" (note that you can embed any activity onto your website):

2)    Spelling City is a website where you can create vocabulary lists. Once completed, you share the link with your students and they can choose from a list of free games (word unscramble, missing letter, quizzes and my favorite- ready to use criss cross puzzles) to practice. Alternatively, you can print out worksheets if you do not wish to spend the lesson explaining how to work around the website and thus save time for reading. (Sample vocabulary list and activities)

http://bit.ly/1n28yCD

      At the end of my post for this week, I would like to say thank you to all those who take the time to comment and give feedback to myself and other participants. It is by supporting each other that we grow as a productive group of teachers. I cannot wait to see what next week will have in store for us, so good luck to everyone.

  Nahla

Sources:

(1)    Krajka, Jarek. "Using the Internet in ESL writing instruction." The Internet TESL Journal 6.11 (2000).

(2)    Ministry of Education. Revised English curriculum: Principles and standards for learning English as an International language for all grades. Jerusalem. 2014