It is interesting to see that most of us, so far, use the Internet quite often. To be honest, I think this is qute predictable - what is perhaps more interesting to find out is what sort of Internet resources people have been using.
Do you use the internet to
access the content of newspapers online?
find YouTube videos that fit into your lesson?
get mp3 files of songs?
find short stories or poems which you can use for extra reading?
Do you
use Google to get pictures and visual prompts?
use Wikipedia to get texts or extra info?
use web 2 tools such as wikis and blogs as writing practice tools?
use Facebook (or other) to create a social network with your students?
It's wonderful to see you back here on the community, even though I know you are so busy with your PhD in the UK and all the other voluntary activities you carry out online!
I can safely say that I use the Internet for all of the above, although you'd have to substitute 'lesson plan' for Teacher Development workshop plan!!! :)
I look forward to seeing comments from others about how they integrate web resources into their lesson preparation and professional development.
Best from Brasilia (and good luck to Brazil in the decisive game this afternoon!)
I tried to be in contact with everyone every time I escape from my 'academic bubble'. Unfortunately it does not happen as frequently as I wish.
As for resources, I usually incorporate online newspapers, YouTube videos, mp3 audio files and lots and lots of visual prompts I take from Google. Nowadays I can hardly ever teach without using a ppt on the IWB, both for language teaching and teacher education.
first I would like to thank all the contributers in this site for their beneficial and interesting ideas. I am a new memeber in this site and I choose to comment on this topic.
Personally, I think internet is the container of all the teaching ressources including texts, articles, stories, poems, songs...etc. In my opinion and from my experience as a novice teacher, using songs in the classroom with EFL lerners is really effective to motivate them and break the bordom in the classroom. I call it bordom because students in Morocco for example, which is my country, have just few hours of contact with english per week and when they go outside they do not need to use it. So, when they come to the classroom they really find it a burden to study english; so when I use songs with them I make from the classroom atmosphere less formal and the students feel more at ease and motivated when they listen to songs. I also try to vary my activities by integrating the four skills and enriching the lesson. In my students case, if I bring a text from wiki or an article from any famous newspaper or even a story they won't be as motivated and happy as they become when I use songs. I can briefly say that SONGS are a full-value teaching material that should be used frequently in the classroom. My advice is that we should never judge a teaching material before trying it and examining its effectiveness.
Thanks for sharing your insight and experiences, Nora... I wonder if others would like to comment here about how they use music and songs... or if they've had a different experience regarding Ss acceptance of this kind of activity.
I must say, you're lucky your students have 'a few hours' of contact each week with English in the classroom, as here in Brazil many teachers, especially in the public sector, have to do 'miracles' with just 45 minutes per week of English!
Students also rarely have contact with the language outside the classroom (e.g. on open TV, as opposed to the expensive cable channels)... but this is slowly changing with the internet and resources such as:
Thanks for sharing with us your experience. Here are two different experiences one in Morocco and the other in Brazil. This can be very beneficial for us as teachers to exchange information and discuss the situation of teaching English in our countries. I would like to add that I conducted a research in two big Moroccan cities about the use of songs and background music in the classroom and I found shocking findings: most teachers do not use songs in their classrooms for diffrent reasons (electricity, lack of equibment, large classes, lack of time...). So we can guess the situation in other cities. Concerning background music, teachers do not even know its utility and use in the classroom and some of them consider that it may be distractive.
I think it does not matter how many hours we teach English per week, but how to make students enjoy the English class by of course diversifying the teaching materials and methods. Teachers should deploy more efforts to make the EFL learning atmosphere appealing to the students. Also, students should be given a reason for studying English so that they can enjoy what their teachers do with them in the classroom.
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It is interesting to see that most of us, so far, use the Internet quite often. To be honest, I think this is qute predictable - what is perhaps more interesting to find out is what sort of Internet resources people have been using.
Do you use the internet to
Do you
Looking forward to your replies :)
Cheers - Chris
Hi Chris!
It's wonderful to see you back here on the community, even though I know you are so busy with your PhD in the UK and all the other voluntary activities you carry out online!
I can safely say that I use the Internet for all of the above, although you'd have to substitute 'lesson plan' for Teacher Development workshop plan!!! :)
I look forward to seeing comments from others about how they integrate web resources into their lesson preparation and professional development.
Best from Brasilia (and good luck to Brazil in the decisive game this afternoon!)
G.
Hi Graeme
I tried to be in contact with everyone every time I escape from my 'academic bubble'. Unfortunately it does not happen as frequently as I wish.
As for resources, I usually incorporate online newspapers, YouTube videos, mp3 audio files and lots and lots of visual prompts I take from Google. Nowadays I can hardly ever teach without using a ppt on the IWB, both for language teaching and teacher education.
Cheers from sunny and hot England :)
Chris
Hello everybody,
first I would like to thank all the contributers in this site for their beneficial and interesting ideas. I am a new memeber in this site and I choose to comment on this topic.
Personally, I think internet is the container of all the teaching ressources including texts, articles, stories, poems, songs...etc. In my opinion and from my experience as a novice teacher, using songs in the classroom with EFL lerners is really effective to motivate them and break the bordom in the classroom. I call it bordom because students in Morocco for example, which is my country, have just few hours of contact with english per week and when they go outside they do not need to use it. So, when they come to the classroom they really find it a burden to study english; so when I use songs with them I make from the classroom atmosphere less formal and the students feel more at ease and motivated when they listen to songs. I also try to vary my activities by integrating the four skills and enriching the lesson. In my students case, if I bring a text from wiki or an article from any famous newspaper or even a story they won't be as motivated and happy as they become when I use songs. I can briefly say that SONGS are a full-value teaching material that should be used frequently in the classroom. My advice is that we should never judge a teaching material before trying it and examining its effectiveness.
Thanks for sharing your insight and experiences, Nora... I wonder if others would like to comment here about how they use music and songs... or if they've had a different experience regarding Ss acceptance of this kind of activity.
I must say, you're lucky your students have 'a few hours' of contact each week with English in the classroom, as here in Brazil many teachers, especially in the public sector, have to do 'miracles' with just 45 minutes per week of English!
Students also rarely have contact with the language outside the classroom (e.g. on open TV, as opposed to the expensive cable channels)... but this is slowly changing with the internet and resources such as:
http://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org and http://learnenglishkids.britishcouncil.org
All the best from sunny Brasília,
G.
Hello Graeme,
Thanks for sharing with us your experience. Here are two different experiences one in Morocco and the other in Brazil. This can be very beneficial for us as teachers to exchange information and discuss the situation of teaching English in our countries. I would like to add that I conducted a research in two big Moroccan cities about the use of songs and background music in the classroom and I found shocking findings: most teachers do not use songs in their classrooms for diffrent reasons (electricity, lack of equibment, large classes, lack of time...). So we can guess the situation in other cities. Concerning background music, teachers do not even know its utility and use in the classroom and some of them consider that it may be distractive.
I think it does not matter how many hours we teach English per week, but how to make students enjoy the English class by of course diversifying the teaching materials and methods. Teachers should deploy more efforts to make the EFL learning atmosphere appealing to the students. Also, students should be given a reason for studying English so that they can enjoy what their teachers do with them in the classroom.