Week 4 has started for me with some enlightening articles concerning reading and writing in the FL classroom, skills which I consider hard to make your students like.
Dill's "How to write an Integrated Lesson" was really a good basis in order to start using technology in my classes. She made it clear that defining the objectives of your lesson each time is extremely important in order to have a clearer picture as to what technological "tools" you will use towards this end. Also, we should bear in mind that teaching the desired language chunk and the the technology objective must be at the same time so as students see how these two are interrelated. I, also, enjoyed reading Constantinescu's aricle on the benefits of online readers compared to conventional books. Being "supplied" with multimedia glosses, the first help students to learn and retain in their memory more words and love reading more than the latter. Constantinescu,also, re-stresses and reminds the importance of teachers' knowledge of the existing of technological tools, as well, as the meed to keep themselves updated with anything new that comes up in education.
However, what was really something different for me, and really useful, was Krajka's article concerning writing teaching tips. The author has suggested a very interesting book for off-line teaching of the writing genres and, also, 2 really handy (for me) sites, www.marlo.com/card.htm (which my students will love because they will find reason to send postcards to each other) and www.eun.org (where I can find key pals -this term I had never heard of before!- transforming in this way the need for writing a student's need indeed, since s/he will want to communicate with his/her new friend!
"Recency" and "immediacy" were 2 terms stressed by all writers as key elements for students actually wanting to read about something which has happened in the times they live and not in the past. And, again, there are sooooo many interesting sites to choose from in order to help your students read and write more.... There's more to come in my next post....
Dill's "How to write an Integrated Lesson" was really a good basis in order to start using technology in my classes. She made it clear that defining the objectives of your lesson each time is extremely important in order to have a clearer picture as to what technological "tools" you will use towards this end. Also, we should bear in mind that teaching the desired language chunk and the the technology objective must be at the same time so as students see how these two are interrelated. I, also, enjoyed reading Constantinescu's aricle on the benefits of online readers compared to conventional books. Being "supplied" with multimedia glosses, the first help students to learn and retain in their memory more words and love reading more than the latter. Constantinescu,also, re-stresses and reminds the importance of teachers' knowledge of the existing of technological tools, as well, as the meed to keep themselves updated with anything new that comes up in education.
However, what was really something different for me, and really useful, was Krajka's article concerning writing teaching tips. The author has suggested a very interesting book for off-line teaching of the writing genres and, also, 2 really handy (for me) sites, www.marlo.com/card.htm (which my students will love because they will find reason to send postcards to each other) and www.eun.org (where I can find key pals -this term I had never heard of before!- transforming in this way the need for writing a student's need indeed, since s/he will want to communicate with his/her new friend!
"Recency" and "immediacy" were 2 terms stressed by all writers as key elements for students actually wanting to read about something which has happened in the times they live and not in the past. And, again, there are sooooo many interesting sites to choose from in order to help your students read and write more.... There's more to come in my next post....
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ReplyDeleteLearning about genres is something all teachers should do. When we have students write we have to clearly state the audience and the genre; otherwise, students won't have a clear purpose to write.
ReplyDeleteWe are probably familiar with different genres: expository, descriptive, narrative, argumentative, persuasive, creative and technical but we have to switch from a paper-pencil to a digital mode. Students prefer technology and the same pre-writing and writing activities we used to have them do on paper, we can do digitally.
Check Bloom's Digital Taxonomy http://www.techlearning.com/article/44988
Thank you Sandra! I will check it as soon as possible! And I agree with you that if we don't make to our students clear WHAT they must write and to WHOM, then a disaster is awaiting... And I, also, agree with what you said about having them "work" in a digital writing environment... Maybe in this way, they will feel more interested and less intimidated!
ReplyDeleteThank you for your comment