Ms. Marta and Our Class

Lovely faces and Shining Smile

HAPPY LUNAR NEW YEAR!

Reflection on Powerpoint Presentation

Yesterday we worked hard until after midnight but we found it both challenging and interesting. This morning we all got up early and were ready to start our presentation.

With our high collaboration spirit and great efforts, we go through the Powerpoint smoothly. Somewhere during our work, the mouse cannot be used. Fortunately, no serious problem comes up. 15 minutes passes so quickly that hardly do we think our task has been completed. Upon reflection, we all feel pleased with what has been done. The class’s contribution to our group is quite positive and constructive. We get them involved in our presentation through their many follow-up questions. For instance, Maria suggests we should not include too many websites in the Webquest and this is really the matter we have given much thought. In response, we explain that 25 Websites are placed in 5 categories, which means each group of students just chooses one kind and work with about 5 sites. We appreciate the whole class’s comments on our presentation. We ourselves also thank all other groups for giving us a good opportunity to learn new things from their well-prepared projects.

If we had more time, we could put more decorations and effects on our Powerpoint. About the topic, so far we think it requires no changes. We will try our best to make the project better and more practical.

REACHING THE END – ARE WE ON THE RIGHT TRACK? TRY OUR BEST!

Some advanced PowerPoint controls seem enough to start a new busy day bursting with activities. We learn how to interact with the audience thanks to some tabs in the Control Toolbox, which is really interesting. Those who pay attention to the presentation can wholly involve through some communicative tasks like ticking the box or writing the answer on the main screen. Unlike what we have known, a PowerPoint Presentation can be easily managed even when it comes to slide show.

Secondly, Copyright issues which have always been a hot topic are introduced with a lot of warnings from the teacher. It dawns on us that for a long time we have seemed to neglect to cite or give enough reference information. We mistakenly take pictures, videos and texts from the Internet without thinking about copyright or intellectual property. Even though we create something for academic purposes, it is essential to take Copyright matters into consideration. Our group then wonder whether some of our pictures posted on the Blog need to be added the source. Ya, who took them, from which sources, do we still remember? Of course, we will take a look to check this.

Then the whole group rush to another thing: find the Annotated Resource document. We have five members. Each finds at least three useful sites for teachers and three for students. At first it seems to be simple and easy. However, the more we embark on this task, the more tricky and complicated it becomes. It is because Internet offers an ocean of websites for English teaching and learning. A sea of it look so appealing. Are we going on the right track? Which 30 websites can be taken and which 4 can be introduced on the blog? It takes us the whole morning break and midday lunch to search, read then gather information. Even though we use the criteria to evaluate a good Website, we still need to add some more in the evening because the PowerPoint Presentation for tomorrow requires much more time to discuss.

If the teacher doesn’t remind us, we may not come back to elaborate on tomorrow’s work. The last day will be the heaviest. We need to complete 5 blog entries, presenting ideas for the project in the presentation and finishing with the Annotated Resource. Sitting in group, we are totally engaged in the preparation. The topic is so fine – UNDERSEA WORLD, yet how to develop it? How to make the lesson realistic and cater for Students’ need? How to integrate the use of Technology? These questions keep coming up in our talk. The lesson plan is drafted which objectives and activities for each day and the Softwares we intend to use. Hot Potatoes, Webquest, Webpage and Video, with their useful applications are on top of our choice. Perhaps, we will need to carefully design each activity for the lesson, yet the first ideas are important. As usual, we think it is better to invest time in the first stages so that we won’t get lost half way through. That is why we spend the about 2 more hours after class preparing then assigning the role for tomorrow’s preparation.

Sometimes during the discussion some shout aloud, wondering are we overloaded. It is easy to understand because when 5 of us get of the gate, almost no one else in the University. It is dark and the street is busy with people hurrying on their way, preparing for the holiday. Never before have we worked until 24 Lunar New Year. Yet, this year is an exception. None of us says anything but deep inside our heart we long for our effort to be returned, to be changed to something really motivating. Above all, we are ready for tomorrow.

The Most Interesting Websites

After searching and discovering the Internet, our group all agreed to choose the following websites we have found are the most interesting. They are not only reliable but also invaluable resources for both teachers and students.

Websites for Teachers:

1. Oxford University Press – A great resource for language learners and teachers. We can also search for academic, professional information and materials.
   <http://www.oup.com//>
2. Teaching English - As a co-production between BBC and the British Council, this website provides teachers of English with a practical resource, a theoretical and historical archive as well as a forum for teachers to exchange their thoughts, ideas and materials.
   <http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/ >

Websites for Students:

1. British Council – A reliable site of different kinds of interesting activvities and links related to foreign language learning and teaching, which is suitable for leaners at different levels. It includes exercises, songs, quizzes, and so on. <http://www.britishcouncil.org/learnenglish/>
2. BBC Learning English - This website enables students to practice their English with a lot of activities like Listening, Crosswords, especially downloadable videos and audios related to interesting and daily topics.
   < http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish>

More websites will be added soon. ^^

We welcome all your contribution to lengthen this website list.

Hot Potatoes, really interesting!

Hi all, do you find that our lessons today are very interesting and informative? We ourselves think those are really exciting. Now let see how it is...

Hot Potatoes

1. What is Hot Potatoes? (http://web.uvic.ca/hrd/hotpot/)
The Hot Potatoes suite includes six applications, enabling you to create interactive multiple-choice, short-answer, jumbled-sentence, crossword, matching/ordering and gap-fill exercises for the World Wide Web. Hot Potatoes is not freeware, but it is free of charge for those working for publicly-funded non-profit-making educational institutions, who make their pages available on the web. Other users must pay for a licence. Check out the Hot Potatoes licensing terms and pricing on the Half-Baked Software Website.

2. What can language teachers benefit from Hot Potatoes?

- apply technology in teaching

- design a variety of activities

- make teaching more interesting and meaningful

..... ( maybe there are more, you can contribute)

---- Finally, some lines about our lecturer - Ms. Marta
We would like to send great thanks to you.
Our teacher is so nice, we love to hear her voice and see her smile.

An Exploration Day For Everybody in TILT Class

Today is a hard-working but meaningful day. What we need as an English teacher to create activities and exercises is delivered clearly from the very beginning of the class.

Soundforge and Audacity breathe a fresh wind to the design of Listening tasks. We can actually manage and exploit an audio file in a number of ways, not just only play and stop. Indeed, these are useful tools enabling us to manipulate listening practice in an efficient way, a far cry from the traditional method of recording, pausing then playing over and over – which is too inconvenient and results in poor quality.

Besides, our attitude towards using Software in language teaching is dramatically changed after we are introduced to Hot potatoes – which is the key point of today’s lesson. We were fully immersed in creating Cloze test, Multiple choice Questions as well as Matching and Crosswords activities. They are so amazing and beneficial. Our group is considering them in our project. How can these programs be inserted and exploited in our final product – the CD ROM? We are all eager to try, to explore and practice with the new Software, yet how to apply them logically and methodologically in a lesson plan? We have just come up with the topic, perhaps about the environment, more specifically, about the UNDERSEA WORLD.

With clear and detailed instructions of Ms Marta, we have better and deeper understanding of the software so that we can apply them in teaching and learning English. Also, the thing that we are interested in is the way teachers can use well-designed activities for students to do at home and also get students' results via email or saved document. In that way, both teachers and students can make use most of technology in studies even if their schools don't have multimedia rooms or labs. From what we discovered today, our group has a number of ideas for our projects and our lessons in future as well.

Ya, there are still a lot of things to be done for the next two days. Wow, the TET is coming, shall our group be able to settle everything before we enjoy ourselves? Will our fine appreciation of this subject and the exhilarating moment in class remain vivid to guide our way through the busy festival? We hope we will find a way!

Webquest Evaluation

Option 3: ESL Website Exploration: http://pw.vsb.bc.ca/library/eslexp.html
These are the strengths and weaknesses that our group have just found in the webquest above.