Reflection, Week 4

At this week, we discussed readings and explored web-sites with the procedure and mechanism of reading and writing and their role for the learning process. There are many approaches to teach by reading and writing exercises and some of them were discussed throughout the articles.
I have learned that teachers can use e-mail in educational purpose. Chao-chih Liao in the article “E-mailing to Improve EFL Learners' Reading and Writing Abilities: Taiwan Experience” writes about emailing project experience of EFL students in Taiwan to contact key pals from other cultures to improve reading and writing skills. The students wrote to their key pals and through communication they could have “an access” to authentic text. Both “partners” in this case improved mechanical skills, English language skills, and cross-cultural knowledge. Through this practice, I understood that I can use an e-mail at the lesson and after, to arrange communication between the classmates and also conduct a project for communication of students of my school and some other schools.
Another experience I have learned through the article “Three Extensive Reading Activities for ESL/EFL Students Using E-books” that was written by Mei-Ya Liang. The author proposes extensive reading lesson focus on intermediate and advanced ESL/EFL students. The students at the lesson have to choose books by their interest, read them and analyze with the following discussion and sharing the ideas. Students discuss the problem in a book, main characters, interesting ideas and facts. The teachers provide to the students study guide with the questions that help to concentrate on the key points. Students learn to evaluate readings, construct arguments for their oral discussion and presentation. The teacher provides to the students the rubric for evaluation of their work. “Both sides” understand what to do, what the requirements are, and what the expectations are. I like this practice and definitely can use it in my school practice. In each topic of biology, I can suggest several options for students to read and organize the lesson that will include the same steps for developing reading skills.
In my school practice, I verified that students after learning new terms, reading the text, and analyzing it, can discuss the text with supported arguments. The article by Andreea I. Constantinescu “Using Technology to Assist in Vocabulary Acquisition and Reading Comprehension” supports my observations from the school practice. The author writes about the role of vocabulary in reading comprehension and bilateral benefit of that. When student learn new terms, they will better read and understand text and opposite when they read, they learn new vocabulary. Different multimedia programs provide dictionaries that assist learner in studying and author mentions the role of them in learning vocabulary. Thus, studying new vocabulary influences on reading comprehension. I will continue to use this experience in my classes.
A brilliant source of techniques for writing and varieties of them proposes by Jarek Krajka in the article “Using the Internet in ESL Writing Instruction”. The author explains how to write different writing genres such as “a letter to a friend, a formal letter, a biography, a description of a person, a for-and-against essay, a notice and an advertisement, a description of a festival/ceremony, a description of a book/film/play, a newspaper report, an opinion essay and a description of a place” by using Internet. Jarek Krajka suggests using Internet as a resource for learning these genres. Web-sites on writing cards, learning biographies, writing argumentative essays and so on encourage students to do complete these tasks. Moreover, students increase their writing skills. The author points out the role of a teacher in the classroom for punctual organization of each detail in studying through the Internet. I can read this article several times and learn the steps of the writing process through different genres. I am sure that I can use all of these writing genres in my teaching.
Additionally, different web-sites allowed me to find excellent information with well-prepared topics for teaching. That information contains many exercises on reading, listening, speaking, writing, TOEFL practicing, and so on. Many of them I can adjust and modify for my school practice. Some of web-sites are “The Breaking News English”, “ESL Independent Study Lab”, “Lauri’s ESL website”, “Activities for ESL students”. At the same time, I found several sites that I can use for teaching my biology classes, because of the task to write an enhanced technology lesson. I applied my new knowledge about constructing the lesson with using Internet on the topic “The skeletal system”. The lesson plan that was designed at this week, without doubt will be used for students of 9grade. I love the way of keeping information about the web-sites on the “delicious” page and I believe that I will not lose it.
At this week I could think about the concerns and issues of teaching and learning. My thoughts were proposed by the second part of the plan that will be implemented when the school starts. I have learned through this process how to think in details about the problems and analyze them. Discussion board motivates me to think critically about the teaching process and enriching syllabus for biology. Discussion in a positive way encourages me to create, design, and to implement my ideas into the real life. Thanks to Donna and to my Web-mates!