Week 3

They say time flies. It's true. I can't believe that Week 3 is behind. Robert was right that gradually our study would turn into routine. I'm not afraid of the assignments as I used to in the beginning. I feel I'm getting more computer and Internet literate. This course pushed me to give my students tasks to search the Net in the lesson which I never did before. One of the tasks was to find a quotation for their essay. They were so surprised and excited that they would use the Internet in the lesson. Then we faced the problem that the Internet worked slowly as we used Internet Explorer. My students suggested downloading Google Chrome and we did it. I felt so proud when I had to insert my e-mail address and password to finish the installation as I had my Google account! Now I understand that the Internet attracts teenagers and it can become my friend  in raising my students' motivation.

Looking back at this week, I could say I have learnt a lot.

First of all, I have read  the articles "New Perspectives in Teaching Pronunciation" by Maria Grazia Busa and "The Employment of CALL in Teaching Second/Foreign Language Speaking Skills" by Julia Gong which made me put more attention to teaching pronunciation. I liked the idea of using "signal analysis software to teach intonation in discourse" described by Maria Grazia Busa.

Secondly, I have discovered so many useful sites for oral and aural activities, like www.esl-lab.com, www.trainyouraccent.com, www.esl-galaxy.com. I will definietly use them in my future job. I have already recommended www.esl-lab to my students who want to develop their listening skills at home.

The next step was to create my page on Delicious.com to Store Useful Links. I followed the instructions and fulfilled the assignment. I think it's a very good idea to have such a page for preparing for my lessons.

Finally, as my Project Task 2 I analysed the final project of a former participant,  Camelia Pagila from Romania. Her detailed work really impressed me and helped me to have a picture of what I am expected to do in the end. I have started thinking about creating my classes' blog. My next step is to define its contents.

This course is a good example of on-line learning and it opens new horisons for Englsh teaching.