WEEK 4

Week by week I understand that we are given pieces of work just like those of the puzzles to create our final project.

The articles we were proposed to read opened us new paths to organising our lessons in a more attractive way referring to the skills of reading, writing and vocabulary. In the article "Three Extensive Reading Activities for ESL/EFL Students Using E-books",written by Mei-Ya Liang we found out that by reading interesting and authentic materials, each student's motivation and confidence in learning and using the foreign language increases. When students have understood that by reading , they enter a wonderful world with so many possibilities to visit and get to know realms of all kind, in which both dialogues as well as personal reflection are involved, our objectives are totally fulfilled. To sustain what I have said I quote Aldous Huxley :- “Every man who knows how to read has it in his power to magnify himself, to multiply the ways in which he exists, to make his life full, significant and interesting”.  

Considering writing, Jarek Krajka  writes in his article " Using the Internet in ESL Writing Instructions", that on-line writing instruction should not be used all the time, or the Web materials only, but rather a teacher should enrich lessons with the Net component when it is really profitable for students and could help them in their learning. The Internet component is not a goal in itself, but it is rather a useful teaching aid, and it should be subjected to the general syllabus to enrich and give variety and authenticity to learning English.

The role of the teacher in the classes where technology is used is very demanding ,but also very rewarding.

If everything had been perfect with our students or with the materials we use, our roles would have been useless. There are times when I perfectly understand how important our role is in identifying problems and involving to the maximum in order to solve them. We were asked to identify problems we have to face in our school and I have referred to materials, to the teacher, to the parents and to the students as well. I hardly wait to identify solutions for all the problems I have mentioned here. It’s great fun to think at several solutions and then choose the best one; we ourselves develop the critical thinking and then we can easily ”pass” it to our students.

The most enjoyable task  for me was to write the lesson plan. We are not obliged anymore after 2 years of experience to write a complete plan , but to have only a draft so, I was very happy to write a complete one using the very well-structured model. It was something really new for me to include so many activities using the technology within the same hour. I enjoyed writing my plan at the rewarding thought of my students’smiling faces, because they were willing all the time to  use such means during English lessons. Lack of space and materials let me do it rarely enough. I have already thought at a solution for being able to use computers in almost all my lessons, even if it would be difficult. I let you know about it next week, when we have to come up with solutions for the problems identified.

“The road to success is always under construction”- Lily Tomlin, so we have few more steps to see our project finished.

Thank you, Laura- Cristiana