Reading/Writing skills

I would like to thank you all for the useful sites you have helped me add to my delicious list. Thanks for sharing.

I have to admit that teaching writing through the web is cerainly funnier and esier than teaching through a course book. Through the web we can teach our Ss how to write good essays, letters, e-mails, descriptions etc. Similarly, reading could also become funnier and more interesting using the web.
On the other hand I insist on teaching literature for reading/writing purposes through literature books with the help of CDs DVDs.
Ss must touch, smell and feel the books they are reading rather than scrolling down the text to read. In many occassions I've found sand inside the books I read during my summer holidays in the Greek islands and the memories I recall are so powerful that no PC can offer.
Any other romantic teachers out there?
Angela

listening speaking skills

In Greece most courses are certificate oriented and listening and speaking skills have been neglected.

I happen to know teachers who asked their students to memorize whole paragraphs (about themselves, about the area they live in, sports, smoking, environment, etc) in order to help them pass the speaking test for FCE or CPE. In some occasions I asked my students during a speaking test: “Hello, what’s your name?” and they started telling me a whole paragraph they had memorized: “Hello, my name is Mary. I come from Sitia, Crete. Sitia is a seaside town on the east coast of Crete with kind and generous people…” Then the next student came in : “My name is Helen I am from Sitia….” When I asked them, they said that their teacher had written some paragraphs, one for every occasion so that they would manage to pass their speaking test. I told them that I could not give the pass grade since they couldn’t actually communicate. Instead of devoting time and effort trying to learn by heart whole paragraphs, they could have practised the language.    

Things are now improving and I hope we'll manage to change the teachers'  the students' and their parents attitude towards English  languafe lwarning.

teaching situation and CALL

The second week is already behind us. It's easier than I thought, due to Robert's accurate remarks and immediate help.
It is really interesting how techers from all parts of the world face the same more or less problems. I've noticed that we've all been trying to use CALL in our teaching situation, despite the constraints we've been facing. For this reason, as I've just suggested to Abed, we always have to have a back up plan when dealing with Educational technology. In this way we can be flexible in our teaching if anything such as (power cuts, problems with the internet connection or the software we are using) occur.
We can always overcome problems with patience, persistence and knowledge of course . After all, that's why we've all taken this course.

And of course remember: Computers can never resplace/displace teachers. Teaching is not just about providing knowledge but also caring and fostering each student's  personal needs, character and feelings. 

That's all folks

See you on line

Angela

the ABCD model

It was quite interesting reading about the ABCD model and learning objectives. I believe that learning objectives (linguistic, pragmatic etc) exist at the back of the mind of every teacher whether he/she realizes it or not. It reminded me of a quotation by Rogers (1986: 41) who defines education as “a planned learning activity which one party provides for another in relation to an agreed objective. There are four elements involved: the teacher agent, the student participant, the intended goals and objectives and the methods and content that enable the student participant to learn”. And it’s   obvious that it is our job to combine all the above for the benefit of our students.

Moreover, Johns (1991: 67) maintains that “All language teaching must be designed for the specific learning and language use purposes of identified groups of students.”

What I believe that is of primary importance before setting out the objectives is to carry out a Needs Analysis of the class we’re going to teach. We can use Kipling’s “honest serving men” as quoted in (Hutchinson and Waters 1987: 22) to outline the basic questions:

                                           I keep six honest men.

                                          (They taught me all I knew.)

             Their names are What and Why and When

                                        And How and Where and Who.

Consequently, an effective researcher should ask “who” is going to be involved in the process, “where” and “when” the learning is to take place, “what” the student needs to learn and “how” learning will be achieved, before starting to design a syllabus. As Hutchinson and Waters (ibid: 22) point out, the questions above are interdependent in course design and can be listed under three main headings: language descriptors (what?), theories of learning (how?) and NA (who? why? where? when?).

 About Needs Analysis, in order to be effective it should incorporate a PP (Personal Profile), a PSA (Present Situation Analysis) and a TSA (Target Situation Analysis).

Similarly the ABCD model can help teachers determine the Audience (who?), Behaviour (what? how?), Condition (why?) and Degree of Mastery (when? where? how fast?) of our objectives.

Practical application of the ABCD model in my teaching situation

I’m teaching at the department of Accountants of  a Technical Vocational School. The particular students have been taught how to write application letters and I’ll use the ABCD model to get a feedback whether my objectives have been fulfilled:

Audience: 12 Students in the field of Accountancy. Level of English language: lower intermediate to intermediate. All of them are computer literate.

Behaviour: The Ss are expected to read and understand an ad (Secretary Wanted)

WANTED URGENTLY

A secretary for a travel agency.

 Must speak English fluently

and either French or German,

 be prepared to work long hours

 with extra money for overtime

work. Single, young persons preferred.

Apply to  Mr Patric Jones

39 Venizelou st

Athens

Condition: Ss have to write an application letter using all the info included in the ad and making up the appropriate qualifications to get the job. Previous knowledge (content and formal schemata) has to be activated.

Degree of Mastery: Writing in a formal way addressing a manager. No grammar/spelling mistakes include all the info provided.

Through this task, which can also be used as a test I can find out whether the particular Ss have understood how a formal, application letter should be written, applying the ABCD model.

Google what?

Dear all,

I was very happy to find out that teachers all over the world have been trying the same things and sharing the same agonies as me.

I am (or used to be) a Google fan as most of you. During the past few days since I received the e-mail from Robert about the other search engines that exist, I have been really busy searching (like a female Sherlock Holmes) about everything. I even started to wonder how come I hadn't thought that there should be other search engines (apart from Google) earlier.

I am a teacher trainer for the Greek Ministry of Education and Lifelong learning. After the reading and searching that I did this past week I realised that I can share the knowledge and info acquired with the English teachers of primary education and talk to them about Noodletools.com and ask them to search at kidsclick.org (for facts, arts, mythology, Extra Sensory Perception) or Ask kids  and Yahoo kids (for  films, cartoons, creating DVDs). In this way I'll save them time and help them make their lesson motivating and funny. I have started preparing a new seminar and it will take place in the computer lab!!!

I've also found the part of Country Studies in the Noodletools.com very useful for my students at the Technical Vocational School. Earlier this year we had some problems with racism as some students are immigrants from other countries (Albania, Bulgaria and Russia). Some of them have not been incorporated in the school community smoothly. I thought that if I took the whole class to the computer lab and help them find info about each of the above country and make projects about its history, culture, geography etc it would give the Greek students another perspective, eliminating the fear of the unknown. I’ll let you know!!!

Angela

week 1

hello everybody,
My name is Angela  Christaki. I'm from Greece. I live and work in Sitia which is a small seaside town on the east part of Crete (the famous island where the Minoan palace of Knossos is).
I have been an English teacher in Primary, Secondary and Tertiary education  for the past 13 years  and I'm currently appointed in the Technical Vocational School of Sitia. I've studied English literature and I've got a masters degree in  "Methodology of Teaching English" . I am married and I have two sons Johny 10 and Mario 7.
I've just managed to create my own blogspot and I feel excited. I think that we will manage to exchange ideas and experience and it will be fun!!!

Please write to me about yourselves, after all we're going to be chatting for the next 10 weeks!!!

Best Regards
Angela Christaki