Week 4 Reflection

Week 4 Reflection

As weeks passed, it becomes a great habit that we should be familiarized with something new, useful and applicable.

For reading, vocabulary and writing skills, I read an article "Weaving the Web into an EAP Reading Program" done by  Bonnie Ellinger, Simone Sandler, Debbie Chayen, Keren Goldfrad, and Jackie Yarosky (Israel) in which they show how they experienced using the internet to enhance students' reading skills. They stated that there should be flexibility in selecting topics which should interest students as well as well-planning of the materials used. As for me, searching for a suitable and interest-provoking website was a bit selective. The one I prefer using for reading and vocabulary materials is Adult learning Activities website (http://www.cdlponline.org/). Besides its interesting topics, what I like about it is that it can be easily used by my learners. Only choose their topic and reading title, then they are smoothly directed to have some vocabulary games activity which focuses on learning new vocabulary items, their pronunciation, spelling and how they are used in the contexts. As for reading, they are leaded to do two activities: comprehension and a question asking for students' opinion and personal reasons.

To be honest writing is a long learning progress which has to be monitored regularly because for my http://www.rong-chang.com/tutor.htm#) might encourage my learner focus on spelling because the questions and words should be typed correctly so that the robot Mike can understand what they are asking for.

students writing sentences can be done well. However, joining sentences to form a paragraph or an essay is much challenging. They focus their attention to write as much sentences as they can regardless spelling and punctuation. I could find a website as an encouraging tool for beginners. 

Moreover, through this week we came across a fundamental step to begin a lesson using technology. To experience a technology-enhanced Lesson Plan, I downloaded some samples from suggested websites (http://www.bcps.org/apps/CBTIA/). It was useful to see how to technology was integrated in a lesson. However, the lesson plan wasn't different from the non-technology lesson plans that we are currently doing. There are only three differences: lesson plan layout, integrating technology and allocating time for each step of lesson procedure. This photo is used in my country. And the URL link to my technology-enhanced lesson is:

(https://docs.google.com/document/d/1qXFPrwLEaPPMhEg3JdCOV_CF1mrumvl707xZ70a32Ww/edit?usp=sharing)

As for our project task this week, we are recommended to focus on main issue concerning us and the technology might help us overcoming it. Circumstances of my school location are exceptional compared to the schools in towns. In towns, teachers have access to internet, but we haven't. There are no other learning resources in my school area. Under such situation, my students, therefore, become independent and relying on me and the textbook as the main resource to acquire their English language. In their age they should be more independent and build self-study attitude in their learning progress. Thank Allah, there is something I can build my project. My 7 learners in grade 11 can access the Internet at home which makes it a bit relieving for me to use technology to help my students build self-autonomy in their learning progress. They should be more responsible to learn not only during the school hours but also outside via different resources.

Waiting for another fruitful week!

Sincerely,

Iman, Oman