WEEK 7

Learning through children's literature

Based on the article: Using Internet­Based Children's Literature to Teach EFL by Larry J. Mikulecky.

Using reading to teach a second language is a great strategy, either to teach young children or adults, however, it is known that there are certain types of problems when the student does not know a certain number of words or meanings existing in the reading and is when students can be frustrated or unable to advance to the next level. On the other hand, in the past to use books meant that you had to invest money to buy them, now with the use of the internet to buy books is very easy, free and simple, nowadays, there are hundreds of books on the Internet that can help a lot of teachers, especially because children's books are easy to get, they are short and simple to understand ... nothing better for those who are venturing into the first steps of learning a language. In addition, if the student does not have the possibility of accessing a website or with access to the internet, the teacher can download readings and provide them with the possibility that they can photocopy, as it is done in the university with the reading books that they can be found on the website of the school of languages or they can be purchased at the photocopier.

To conclude, as future teachers we must be sure that our students are able to understand the readings we have to assign them, and we can do this through activities such as the activities in the text, which confirm how great their learning is or how big it is student previous learning to be able to advance to another stage.

Rate: 5

Week 6

 Creative and attractive ways for teaching languages

Based on the article: Using Original Video and Sound Effects to Teach English by Shahla Yassaei.

Over the years, teachers have invested too much time designing different forms and methods of teaching, even though many of these contents have not succeeded in developing during the classes, for which the teachers' work ends up being in vain but why is this happening according to the text? Well, many of these teaching methods do not awaken the tastes and interests of students since many topics are boring or uncreative, this is due to the lack of interest on the part of the students and often in the low performance they have.

In order to provide an entertaining and interactive class to our students it is necessary that we design teaching methods that awaken their interest day by day and that they create a sense of doubt, that sense in which they may want to discover or develop a topic. In addition, adapting to your environment and making use of technological tools is essential to teach them in a novel way, even taking ideas from the teaching that is offered in other countries through the Internet.

Using programs your favorite television shows or what is fashionable is a way to attract students attention immediately and we can teach any subject, be it grammar, vocabulary among others. Radio can be a fundamental element to practice listening, currently learning English thanks to technology is very simple, so much so that now each teacher can create their own content as the author of this text to reflect and make a video and perform a grammar class. Finally, as future teachers we can develop our classes in hundreds of ways but if we see that a certain form of teaching does not give us the results we expect, we can change our teaching methods, teaching can be entertaining and fun but that depends a lot on the methods of teaching that each teacher applies and develops during the content of a class.

Thank you for reading!
Rate: 5

Week 5: Significant Learning

Based on the article: Critical Thinking and Technology by Ken Bain.

Making students worry about learning and thinking critically is not something simple, for it intrinsic motivation and abstract reasoning are fundamental axes at the time of learning, through intrinsic motivation students are autonomous and have purposes to achieve something without having to be pressured because they have the interest to do things by themselves, likewise, students can feel more motivated if they are supported and made to feel comfortable with what they are doing. On the other hand, abstract reasoning helps them to reason about different situations and makes them more analytical when carrying out their activities, it helps them to learn consciously.

Moreover, human beings learn in different ways, not all of them have the same interests and learning abilities, there are those who learn visually through pictures, videos, etc, or those ones who learn aurally, with podcast, videos, etc, it is why providing good learning environments encourages and motivate the preferences of all types of students, if students feel comfortable working more efficiently due to lack of stress and worries they have.

To conclude, the use of computers can help students think creatively and provide different learning methods according to their preferences, style and priorities.

Thank you for reading!

Rate: 4

Internet as an educational strategy

WEEK: 4

Reflection based on the article: CALL Me… Maybe: A Framework for Integrating the Internet into ELT by George M. Chinnery.

The article presents different alternatives to integrate the internet into language teaching, what is really interesting to me is the fact that integrating technology with education has become extremely fundamental, maybe in our country we are still in process but in other countries students are at a higher level in the use of applications and mobile services, George M. Chinnery author of this article makes me think that students and teachers from more developed countries not only use the Internet but they also create and present new contents, while we only learn how to use the tools they already have, copying their learning models, and this is definitely because in our country not all students and teachers have daily access to the Internet and schools do not encourage us from childhood to thecreation and design of new ideas.

On the other hand, intenet is giving us hundreds of tools where we can access videos, podcasts, interactive documents and websites where someone can learn creatively, or even speak with native speakers of the language, which makes it more awesome because exist a cultural exchange. Young people today prefer to learn visual and innovatively, the use of the internet generates a plus. 

To conclude with my reflection, access to the Internet or not does not mean that we can not find a way to bring new ideas to our classroom. 

Thank you for reading!

Rate: definitively 5!

                                      

WEEK 3:

The importance of combining technological and educational resources in ESL classrooms.

Based on the article: Integrating CALL into the classroom: the role of podcasting in an ESL listening strategies course by Anne O’bryan and Volker Hegelheimer.

Podcasts help to promote an integral learning when it comes to learning languages. Now that the technology has advanced, listening areas and oral areas have been improved with the combination of postcast and language teaching.

In the past, listening areas were reinforced with the use of cassettes, but nowadays access to the internet and technological resources allowed the use of podcasts to become more common due to the diversity and novelty of the materials they offered. However, upon the emergence of this training process, it became evident that most teachers lacked and still lack technological knowledge, which consequently prevented them from renewing their knowledge and implementing new forms of study in the classroom. On the other hand, most of the educational centers in our country still do not have the necessary resources to integrate the use of new technologies to their learning methods, which definitely does not provide good results.

To conclude, in the future we have the task of updating ourselves and creating our own interactive materials, sharing our knowledge and resources with our colleagues, it does not matter if our educational center has the resources or not, we are already part of a generation that has grown hand in hand with technology, so we have no excuses not to integrate new forms of study in our classroom.

Thank you for reading!
Rate: 5

WEEK 2 

The effectiveness of ICT Tools in teaching English.

Based on the article: Effectiveness of the Integration of ICT Tools and Activities to Foster Awareness as the First Stage to Reach Learning Autonomy by Andrea Ariza y Mario Suarez.

Nowadays, ICT Tools favor the learning of the English language greatly, since not only do they develop linguistic skills in the students but they also guide them through their experience, contributing not only to their development and to the mastery of the English Language, also it gives them a true knowledge of themselves, that is why the role of teachers is fundamental to discover and recognize the strengths and weaknesses that students have inside and outside the classroom.

On the other hand, it is very interesting to know that to achieve a successful learning of the English Language through ICT Tools, the learning strategies that a teacher uses and the meta-cognition processes that are taken into account at the time of teaching encourage in the student the ability to learn to learn to build truly meaningful learning.

To conclude, the use of ICT's will undoubtedly help students to be independent and work on making their own decisions, they will be able to recognize the tools that best adapt to their learning style and what their preferences are, making them more autonomous and helping them to improve in other aspects of daily life.

Thank you for reading!

Rate: 5

WEEK 1: TEACHING AND LEARNING FROM TECHNOLOGY

Computers and language learning: an overview argument by Mark Warschauer and Deborah Heale.

Rate: 4

Over the years, computers have played a very important role in the lives of people; this evolution is noticeable and necessary for human being progress, the easy use of computers created confidentiality and comfort in the users, motivating them to discover and develop new ways of learning.

Reading, writing, researching and communicating in real time with others synchronously or asynchronously with just one click became easier, also knowing other languages and cultures is no longer a taboo; this allowed that in the educational field the teacher became a facilitator of learning and not just in a knowledge holder, students are constantly updating, so teachers have been forced to update themselves to get new information.

Creation of programs for teaching languages has become indispensable, in our country the knowledge of a second language is almost indisputable to acquire a job, studying languages online people can save time and money, but it can not cover physical and emotional aspects in the student’s life.

To conclude, as future teachers we have the challenge of creating a fusion between education and technology because world is leaving us clear that electronic literacy is only a reality that takes giant steps. Artificial intelligence is just giving us freedom and suggestions to teach in a new way to our students.

Thank you for reading!