There is no doubt that this web-skills course is day by day equipping me with many wonderful resources that I can employ in my teaching. This week Robert has provided us with three very important articles on listening, employment of CALL in teaching and new perspectives in teaching pronunciation. I've read the last two. In the nicenet discussion, many have talked about RP/BBC English or American English and in case of pronunciation whether native-like accent is the target or not. My opinion is that in case of teaching English we should focus more on the clarity of speech and pronunciation, i.e. speech and pronunciation should be understandable by people from anywhere. I basically talk about the English that aids the global communication.
Let me now talk about this week's activities. I've created a blog on delicious.com and have added some important links. For the project work and task, I'm going through some prior readings that are really bountiful and are enough to clearly guide a teacher to prepare his tasks and projects. But due to the tremendous pressure of script checking of my students and because of getting disconnected from the internet server from time to time without any information, I'm passing a real hard time. No pains, no gains. If this is true, I'm sure if a teacher struggles harder, s/he is sure to gain something valuable for his/her own professional development.
I've surfed some effective lesson plan sites (Speaking lesson plans at One Stop English, Conversation lesson plans at esl.about.com, Communicative lesson plans at ESL-galaxy.com) and found that many of them are really of great use in the class. In addition I liked this website: http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/2008/03/17/the-best-sites-to-practice-speaking-english/ for teaching speaking and this website: http://www.real-english.com/reo/1/unit1.html for teaching listening.
All these are opening up a new horizon for working as an online teacher in future. Every week's reading articles, blogposts, discussions, comments, writing and preparing new tasks and project works, weekly reflections and commenting on others' blogs are keeping me always busy. I feel as if I were sometimes in a classroom, often in a computer lab, in a library discussing and gossiping with classmate about preparing assignment. What an amazing experience!
Many thanks to my instructor Robert and also to my classmates.
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Hi Ziaul karim
ReplyDeleteAbout accuracy and fluency of the language, I may say that in terms of communications all the skills are needed. When speak students need to be aware of pronunciation as well as the accurate performance of communication.
I am going to visit your delicious so we can share more links and opinion about ways to improve our students learning. I always ask to myself: What do they want? What do they need? How can I do it?
Thanks for sharing, and nice blog.
Regards,
Yariela
Hallo Ziaul Karim
ReplyDeleteIt's nice to see you. That's true that speech and pronunciation should be understandable and also as Yariela said that the accuracy is also has to be considered. In case of English speaking, my additional opinion is that as long as the meaning of message could be interchangeable and understandable between both sender and receiver. No matter where do you come from and your own language.
I believe your struggle will create a wonderful benefit for your professional development.
Regards
Andy
Thanks a lot Yariela and Andy for your valuable comments. Both of you have put an emphasis on accuracy. I totally agree with you.
ReplyDeleteLook forward to hearing from you more in future.
Yours,
Zia