Week 7: Using Internet to Improve Reading and Writing Skills.

Based on the articles: 

• Using Internet-­Based Children's Literature to Teach EFL by Larry J. Mikulecky. 
• Using the Internet in ESL Writing Instruction by Jarek Krajka.

Rate: 3

   This article was about how the Internet access has overcome expenses  and have helped students to improve their reading skills by providing reading materials.

   One of the many benefits that the Internet offers us is that we can find a large number of books in English for children, teenagers or adults; and for any level of students, either basic, intermediate or advanced without any cost; and that is good because we avoid spending money on books because as we know, their costs tend to be very expensive, and many of our students may not be able to acquire them, and reading books is very important because it is a way in which we can develop our reading skills as we improve our vocabulary, grammar, reading comprehension as well as writing.

    Besides, we as teachers can also help them to encourage their reading skills by leaving them some extra activities like asking them to list the words that are new for them and look for their meaning or to make a brief summary of the reading. Also, providing them with task where they can evaluate themselves if they had reading comprehension.

   In addition, In the article was mentioned that students can use the Internet to develop their writing skills as they can use social networks, e-mail, etc where students can work together by sharing videos, information or any file, and it is nice because it helps them to be creative, analyzers and to produce information. What the Internet offer us while using networks is that they free students from limitations of traditional writing tools and learning is transformed into a discovery experience.

Week 6: Teaching Speaking Skills Through CALL

Based on the articles:
-The Employment of CALL in Teaching Second/ Foreign Language Speaking Skills by Julia Gong
-Using Original Video and Sound Effects to Teach English by Shahla Yassaei.

Rate: 5

This article was about how computers fulfill the role of tool or resource to facilitate in many ways the teachers' work, while for learners it helps them to prepare and practice in tasks and experiences.

The use of CALL increases the interests of students as that is something that catches their attention and, most importantly, allows them to improve their speaking skills, therefore, have more fluency, and we know that getting fluency is a little bit difficult and the only way to achieve it is through talking a lot.

Something that I would like to remember is that there are two components that spoken language covers, which are Meaningful aspect.  It offers great programs that allow students to talk to computers, they can choose any situation that interest them and then, they can record themselves in order to provide their opinions about it. I think that implementing this program encourage students to speak and think critically.

The other is Mechanical aspect, it offers audios and video clips where show to students the articulation to produce any sound or a word and the study of phonology,These video-clips show the speaker's mouth, so it is easily for students to see the movements during the pronunciation of the word or sounds. Besides, It can convert any text to speech or translate sounds into graphic representations, so students can practice the pronunciation per each word. I consider that it is a good idea for the ones who are shy because it provide them a private environment, so it does not matter how many times they mispronounce a word because the computer can repeat that as many times they need it.

Something that I liked from the article was that we can create our lessons based on media like radio programs, newspaper, television shows, videos, etc. and that is amazing because using these materials for teaching our classes will be meaningful for the students as they will be able to engage with our activities because they are familiar with that. Also, we can include all those resources with different skills ( listening, speaking, vocabulary, grammar, etc).

Week 5: Critical learning

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

Rate: 3

This article was about how we as teachers can make students think critically. 

Something that I remember from this article was that through the investigation, researchers have found that two theories. One of this is that human beings are naturally curious, and that is why we tend to ask for everything that is around us. We must take advantage for that in our students as asking them questions that intrigue them or if the know why X is like that, with the objective of awakening their curiosity. so that they become thinking beings. 

Something that I liked from this was that instead of teaching history, chemistry, etc. We must teach students to understand, and that is great because they can learn how to analyze, evaluate evidence, etc through teaching them different methods and techniques; it will be helpful for them as it would be meaningful learning because we would be teaching them how to produce something.

Besides, there are some students that have their own learning style like visual (they learn best with visual materials such as pictures, time lines, charts, diagrams, etc) auditory ( learners perform best when they hear the information such as podcasts, oral presentations, etc.) and kinesthetic (students learn through moving doing and touching). But,  we can provide them a better learning environment while implement new activities with different learning style so that, students can encourage their learning.

This article gives us a key to achieve our goal, which is to have diversity. as we know, each student learns differently, so we could implement activities using different learning styles. And this is where technology becomes part of it, because we have pictures, videos, songs, podcasts, etc to get students' attention. Also by their own they can search for more details about any topic that interests them,  finally, they will become gradually autonomous learners.

Week 4: Taking advantage of Internet

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

 Rate: 4

This article is a great help for many people because it explains us how we should take advantage of the Internet according to our limits.

Students can compare and contrast global perspectives about recent events by using analytics tools like Google trends, survey friends on social networks, preparing presentations on sites such as Prezi, which has many advantages than using Microsoft Word. Also, they have the chance to posting what they have found or they consider interesting on Youtube.

Something I want to remember from this articles is that the Internet has been used in some main ways. one of this is as an information technology, we can find information in English on websites and I think it is good because we avoid looking for information in our native language, and try to translate it, instead of  doing that, reading in English helps us to practice, learn more vocabulary and get familiar with the language we are learning. Another way is as communication technology, it allow us to interactive with other, either with a native speaker or with someone else; and that is great because while communicating we develop our writing and speaking skills because we can be chatting, making calls or sending voice notes through different social networks such as Facebook, Whatsapp, Skipe, etc. Using Internet in ELT increase the motivation of the learners and encourages them to be autonomous as they have the freedom to access to the information found on the Internet.

Something I liked was how social media allow students to communicate with someone who native tongue is different from other, with the purpose of teaching their native language to each other.

In addition, teachers can use Internet as tutor as well as tool. If they use it as tutor it offers advice (they can find a variety of lesson plans focused on different skills), facilitate analysis (offers web-based text and speech corpora and  concordances that allow language analysis) and activities (they can fin
many activities such as matching exercises, gap fill, etc. to include in their classes). And for a deeper level the Internet can be use as tool to stimulate creatively ( let students to produce creativity by using different websites) foster communication (allow students to interact with other by using social networks) and collaboration (some social networks are seen as learning sites because they allow communication).

When the Internet is limited or there is no access to it, and we need a document or any other material that we are going to use in our class, we can save them in our computer or in Google Drive, which allows store documents that can be view off-line. Also, if we want to use an audio or video from any website we can download it by using conversion websites, and printed the task that they have if we desire.