4th week reflections

4^th week reflections

this week has gone very fast for me. Trying to study the course materials , working , and preparing to fly to Thailand . Now i am in my way to Muscat airport.    

In this week we had to:

• ·         Read some of the articles about ways to use computers to enhance ways to teach reading and writing.in which we need to find two or more specific web pages that would work for our class. Including the specific web address (URL) of the page, the title of the page, the target students, why it will work, and why we think it will be useful. And then we have to match them with the ABCD objective. I did my first post in Wednesday morning. It was about writing I believe witting skills is very important language area to develop. Our students have to do many written work such as writing :( assignments, reports, or writing presentation points). So, I want them to take care of sentence structure, grammar, vocabulary, and spelling. Books and magazines used to be my favorite source of information.  I want now to use something more interesting and motivating for the students.

In the course site I have found many useful articles in this area. I was really interested in reading about (Using Technology to Assist in Vocabulary Acquisition and Reading Comprehension). At http://iteslj.org/Articles/Constantinescu-Vocabulary.html . It focuses on various possibilities to enhance vocabulary acquisition and reading comprehension with the help of technology. First, it starts with a brief overview of the relationship between vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension. It continues with a presentation of different technological aids that trigger improved vocabulary acquisition and reading proficiency, with a focus on annotations. Finally, it proposes several teaching principles related to incorporating technology in the language classroom to benefit vocabulary acquisition and reading comprehension.

I have found a very useful site for reading, students writing, grammar and listening. http://fog.ccsf.edu/~lfried/ . In students writing the site shows many of student's works in writing interviews, jobs, families …. Etc. at http://fog.ccsf.edu/~lfried/writing/studentwriting.html. With different levels of students writings for the same topics. This site can be very useful for variety levels of students (target). And help them improve and go to the next level of the writing.

• Going ahead for the final project this week too. We had to write about some issues that technology might help our students; we started working for this project in week two. I started writing with a brief description of the students and the class sitting. This year I am teaching three classes in grade 11 enrolled in the TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language).They all comes from the same background .Their ages ranged between 15-17 years old. There are all boys. All of them speak Arabic as a mother tongue and started learning English in grade 4. The class I decided to work with on project consists of 35 students in one class. It’s a big number of students in one class, that’s why I want to apply technology with them. As English is a foreign language from them and they practice no English outside the classroom. Only 6 classes with 40 minutes a week, so it's hard to watch such number of students progress in the classroom and they need to be exposure to real world language rather than their text book. I want to provide them variety of tools in presenting and practicing new language outside the class room and by the same time exposure them to real world language. 

All of them are able to use the computer and internet in the school. they have computer course now for basic things word processing, creating power point presentations, editing photos, and of course, using the internet and most of them have Facebook pages and involve in some groups.

As I said previously in week two post, I want to use technology to motivate my students to connect learning English with the world they are interested in (group of interest). I have found they are highly motivated with (sport, computer games, movies, music, etc). So, I will use technology in what's motivating them in learning.

•   Create a technology-enhanced lesson plan in which we read about lesson plans from the University of South Carolina. Then we share with the group a technology-enhanced lesson plan, using the template that you downloaded from the website. 

My Lesson Plan

Title: TV Programmes

Learners: A group of students in basic education in grade 4 learning English as foreign language.

Duration: 40 min.
 

•  Aims/Objectives :

1.       Teach the students different kinds of TV Programmes.

2.     Teach the students some questions and answers.

(What kind of TV Programmes do you like?) and e.g (I like sport Programmes because they are interesting ).

3. Ask for giving opinions about TV programmes. Teach the students some adjectives (funny ,boring ,exciting ,scary, interesting)

• warming up:   (5 minutes)

Ask students ,What programmes they watch in TV ? , Can you name them?

Show them some pictures and ask. What you can see?

•   Presentation:       ( 15 minutes)

1.       the teacher  present the Power Point to the students for different types of TV Programmes with sample of each one.

2.     the teacher  show the students some pictures of TV Programmes with the written form .

3.     the teacher  show the students some pictures of TV Programmes and how to pronounce them correctly .

•   Practice:               (10 minutes)

1.       the teacher asks student to recall the name of TV Programmes.

2.     give the students an exercise. ( matching)

3.     ask the students to work in pairs to practice how to ask and answer about TV Programmes.

4.     the teacher asks student to mime some adjective in front of the class.

•   Production:           (5 minutes)

1.       The teacher asks the students to recall the names of the TV Programmes.

2.     The teacher asks two students to come in front of the class to match the picture with the correct kind of TV Programmes.

3.     students work in pairs asking what is your favorite TV programme? why ?

•   Expected problems:

1.       Some students may mime the adjective wrongly.

2.     The overhead projector or computer broke down. 

•   Solutions:

·        T will try to ask another student or the T will mime himself.

·        Use the flash cards of each TV Programmes

• Homework:

·        T asks students to write with their own words about the TV Programmes they like and don’t (name them ) and why(funny ,boring ,exciting ,scary, interesting).

•   Materials:

·        Pictures.

·        Power Point Presentation (Microsoft office software )

·        Colored flash cards.

•   Source:

 “English for me “   Grade 4 B   Ministry of Education – Sultanate of Oman