Reflections: Week 4

What an interesting week! Among the busy schedule of teaching, the joy of the festivals this week, there was ample learning as well.

What did I learn?

Like the previous weeks, the fourth week was also full of a lot of learnings. The focus of this week were

1. Reading skills
2. Writing skills
3. Vocabulary building. 

These are some of the most challenging skills to develop in our country. Due to exposure to films and television, students do pick up some English, but the problem with our students is that they are not exposed to good reading materials. Asking them to pick up classics in order to develop reading skills is like putting the cart before the horse. 

In the same way, asking the students to pick up a standard English newspaper and underline the unfamiliar words and look up their meaning in the dictionary is also something that does not work with the students these days. 

In such a grim situation, the introduction to various standard websites as well as the corpora was a boon. Not only did I mark most of the websites on delicious.com but also shared some of them with my colleagues at the university and some of the students who were curious to build vocabulary. 

 The resources made available by Deborah Healey (http://www.deborahhealey.com/)  were also very useful. Her links on youtube to movies (http://www.deborahhealey.com/youtube_to_the_movies.html) was also very interesting. 

I continued to explore the delicious accounts of Courtney and my other colleagues and added their interesting links to my account. 

Resources available this week and their impact on learning: 

This week there were a lot of resources that were made available to us by Courtney as well as other participants.  Some of them are as follows:

1. Online Books Page (http://digital.library.upenn.edu/books/) 

2. Breaking News English (http://www.breakingnewsenglish.com) which has about 1500 free lessons.

3. ESL Independent Study Lab (http://legacy.lclark.edu/~krauss/toppicks/toppicks.html) which is a storehouse of language games, reading activities, listening activities, grammar and vocabulary.
4. Activities for ESL Students (http://a4esl.org/) which have vocabulary activities for different languages of English as a second language. It has grammar, crosswords and links to youtube videos.
5. English Vocabulary quizzes using images (http://iteslj.org/v/ei/)
6. Many things (http://www.manythings.org/lulu/) was introduced by Jasmina; very good for vocabulary.
7. Reading for ESL Students (http://fog.ccsf.edu/~lfried/stories/stories.html), a very good resource for giving reading exercises to students.
8. 7 Myths about BYOD Busted (http://thejournal.com/articles/2011/11/09/7-byod-myths.aspx) shared by Cherry was very informative and changed the way we think about mobile phones.
9.Using the Internet in ESL Writing Instruction (http://iteslj.org/Techniques/Krajka-WritingUsingNet.html) by Jarek Krajka.
10. Reading Activities for ESL/EFL Students Using E-books by Mei-Ya Liang (http://iteslj.org/Lessons/Liang-ExtensiveReading.html)
11. Using Technology to Assist in Vocabulary Acquisition and Reading Comprehension by Andreea I. Constantinescu (http://iteslj.org/Articles/Constantinescu-Vocabulary.html)
12. The Michigan Corpus of American Spoken English (http://micase.elicorpora.info/) introduced by Courtney.
13. Corpus of Contemporary American English (http://corpus.byu.edu/coca/) also introduced by Courtney.
14. The Use of Corpora in the Vocabulary Classroom (http://iteslj.org/Techniques/Chen-Corpora.html) by Yu Hua Chen
15. Introduction to Corpora (http://www.onestopenglish.com/skills/vocabulary/corpora/introduction-to-corpora/155104.article) introduced by Cherry.
16. British National Corpus (http://www.natcorp.ox.ac.uk/)
17. Reading Rockets (http://www.readingrockets.org/audience/teachers/)
18. Teaching Plot Structure through Short Stories (http://www.readwritethink.org/classroom-resources/lesson-plans/teaching-plot-structure-through-401.html?tab=4#tabs)
19. 10 Tools for Digital Storytelling in Class (http://www.whiteboardblog.co.uk/2011/06/10-tools-for-digital-storytelling-in-class/) introduced by Deborah.
20. Cristian introduced the idea of using The Guardian newspaper (http://www.guardian.co.uk/)
21. Lauri's ESL Website (http://fog.ccsf.edu/~lfried/) explored by Vinita.

What did I do?

Besides the reading exercises that were given, I did not do much. Commented a bit on the posts of some of my colleagues and posted a couple of my own. 

An important thing that I did only because of compulsion but which turned out to be far better than expected was the Technology enhanced lesson plan for teaching a poem of Keats, "Ode to a Nightingale". I had been taught poetry by my teachers using the book as a medium. It did not occur to me that technology can be used to teach poems as well. Using youtube to give the background listening to set the mood, then use a power point presentation to develop a student centred learning activity was something I had never imagined would occur. 

I never knew that Google docs can be used for sharing lesson plans and other information. The only use of Google docs to my knowledge was to open office 2007 files on a computer with Office 2003 available. 

I also managed to inspire more students to post on the exercises on my blog. I am glad that both BA Semester-I as well as BA Semester V have participated in online discussions despite the festival season here in India. 

The icing on the cake was the idea for homework where the students have to upload a video of their recitation of the poem on youtube. It is one of the most creative homework(s) that I have ever thought of. 

A new idea

I read Chao-chih Liao's article E-mailing to Improve EFL Learners' Reading and Writing Abilities: Taiwan Experience which was been mentioned in the additional resources. Chao has mentioned the experiences in Feng Chia University where she used the method of "key pals" to educate/train the students. She had handled the programme for two and the half years successfully. She had nine students; each one of them had two key pals across the globe. She corrected the hard copies of the email-conversation with key pals and also improved inter-cultural understanding.

I proposed to my colleagues that we as teachers of English of this batch also come up with a programme like this for our students. I also suggested that we could create a community on Facebook where we could all be in touch even after this course and co-ordinate this programme in future batch after batch. How far this idea would go is yet to be seen. 

Overall a very productive week I must say. 

Looking forward eagerly towards week 5.

Ashish Pande

Exercise on The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

Dear Class,

Today after watching the film "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" think through the following points:

1. Symbolism in the film.

2. Character of Lucy.

3. Does Aslan represent Jesus?

4. The film as a fantasy.

Looking forward to your responses

Ashish Pande

B.A. Semester V- New Exercise

Exercise based on the film "Courage Under Fire"

Dear Students,

Wish you a very Happy Dussehra and Durgapuja.

While most of you would be busy with the celebrations of the festivals, I would advice you to devote some time to think through the following issues while we screen the film "Courage Under Fire" today.

During the viewing of the film, try and see the following issues in the film:

1. Honesty and redemption
2. Taking responsibility
3. Leadership 
4. Suicide
5. Casualties from friendly fire
6. The role of women in combat
7. The effect of stress on the married life of army officers.

Take up any two issues and discuss them on the blog. The points for which you can take up in the next class for discussion. 

You  can also see the film from another angle, which is that if you were to make this film about India, which war would you choose and why? 

Happy viewing.

Ashish Pande

Week 3: Reflections

Using technology to become a better teacher

This week was another very fruitful week in terms of learning new things. However, on the teaching front and using technology there was some disappointment for me.


What I did.


The heading defines what I did during the third week of my course in webskills. Not only did I learn to use some of the tools which were a requirement of the course, I managed to pass it on to the people for the benefit of whom I am doing the course.

I shared most of my learnings with my PGDTE (Post Graduate Diploma in Teaching of English) students. Also, as suggested by Courtney, I showed my BA Semester V students the film "Freedom Writers" that deals with the challenges of teaching and becoming a better teacher. As most of the students who come to The EFL University to do B.A. (Hons.) intend to become teachers of English.

With BA Semester-I, I put up an exercise on the poems I taught them.

What went wrong.

Despite asking my students to contribute to the discussion on my blog, as of today, I am unable to see the post of even a single student. The 'fault' lies totally with me. I think that I have not been able to inspire them or motivate them properly. Though in one of the advantages of blogging, I had read that even those students who do not speak out in the classroom do well on blogs.

May be, I have not got the hang of it or they do not see it as very exciting. We do have a computer lab which opens from 8 am to 8 pm. Still the students have not responded. Perhaps they have been overwhelmed by the idea of putting their thoughts formally before the whole class and are scared that they will be "judged". I need to get this fear out of their mind as well.

What I learnt. 

As a student and as a participant in the course the week was very fulfilling.

1. Project: Step 2: Reading the project reports of eight participants who had done this course earlier was very informative and gave me a sense of direction in which I have to proceed. We were required to skim through the projects of the participants whose posts was there on the course website and pick any one. I decided to go with Aleyda Linares, but saw that Muhamad and Marina had already discussed her in a great detail. Later I picked up Camelia Pagilia and discussed her work with teens in Romania. I was quite satisfied with it until I read Jasmina's discussion of Nadina Nicolici. I went through Nadina's report in detail as well. I must say it was a very well structured and crisp report. The three reports that I read have helped me make up the structure of my prospective report in my mind.

2. Task-Delicious.com: Though most of my colleagues were very quick in making an account and categorizing the websites on it, I faced a tough time. It was rather easy to make the account on it but adding sites was something that took me 4 days to understand. I was ready to give up but suddenly I got it like an epiphany. My account on delicious is http://delicious.com/aashish_pande. Delicious proved to be very helpful in saving the favourite sites on the web.

3. Discussion-Aural/oral Skill Building: This week the discussion was very effective. I contributed a little bit on the forum about CALL for listening, speaking and pronunciation skill; but my knowledge was enhanced a lot by the comments and the posts of my colleagues and Courtney. I got to learn about
a. Dailystep (dailystep.com)
b. Listen and Write (http://www.listen-and-write.com/?gclid=CPzjoYqYhrMCFdG6zAodPhQANw/) Thanks to Jasmina for this link.
c. ESL Lab (http://www.esl-lab.com/)  Thanks to Evelyn. 
d. Real English
e. Onestopenglish
f. Vocaroo.com which Courtney suggested is a very good device for recording audio online. 
g. Randall's ESL Cyber Listening Lab
h. http://www.visuwords.com/
i. http://www.wordle.net/
j. Courtney also suggested a very good lesson for using drama for speech which is indeed very good-http://www.onestopenglish.com/skills/speaking/lesson-plans/pdf-content/speaking-skills-lesson-plans-drama-activities-teachers-notes-intermediate-to-advanced/149726.article

There are many others, which I will mention in a separate post.

4. Reading Assignment: Julia Gong's "The Employment of CALL in Teaching Second/Foreign Language Speeking Skills" and Maria Grazia Busà "New Perspectives in Teaching Pronunciation" were two papers/articles that were to be read. I read both of them and found them very informative. It was sad to read that we are still in the developmental stage in computers as far as speaking skills are concerned. But reading the posts of some of my colleagues and thinking about it, I realized that the articles were dated and everyday technology is making new advancements. CALL is very useful even in speaking skills. I suddenly realized the BPB Multimedia Software which I used to learn French. It had various tools and exercises for improving pronunciation. Busà also mentioned Praat- a software that can be used to see the speech in wave form and how it has been helpful with some of the Italian speakers of English in improving their pronunciation. 

5. Pronunciation: Pronunciation was the skill that was focussed this week. There were many links to websites that were posted on the discussion forum. In the two articles, the role of pronunciation being "intelligible" was mentioned. The difference in 1. speech rate 2. pitch range 3. pitch prominence 4. length and location of pauses 5. intonation contours 6. prosodic stress are some of the factors that are responsible for the difference in pronunciation. 

Overall it was a very busy week in a positive sense. There was so much to learn, but I have learnt only a little. I would be lying if I claimed that I have checked all the links that my colleagues have posted online. I still need to check some of them, especially the ones that were posted yesterday.

I also need to make changes to my ABCD objectives based on the feedback provided by Courtney.

I am looking forward to the next week eagerly to learn more and to be able to do things in a better way, especially teaching in the classroom and outside it.

Towards the end I would like to say that I am really grateful to Rustam. He is one person whom I can go on thanking each time I use HTML.
Rustam is one person who heard my cry in the wilderness when I cried, "Please help me with HTML!". He tried his best. First he tried to do it on the discussion forum; and when it did not work, he sent me an email, some easy steps on how to insert HTML.
Thank you Rustam. Thanks a lot.

Ashish Pande. 

(BA Semester V) Freedom Writers

Dear Students of Film as Literary Device (BA Semester V)

Today we are going to watch the film "Freedom Writers" starring Hilary Swank. The film has been suggested by my course supervisor Courtney Cunningham.

The purpose of showing this film to you is to show how a teacher needs to adapt quickly to a situation and use the challenges that accrue to come out with flying colours.

I have been given to understand that most of you want to be teachers of English. This film is just a preview of how challenging the teaching profession can be. But the idea is not to scare you, but to give you  an insight into the possibilities in the profession.

Not only does a person need to think outside the box but also needs to have empathy.

While watching this film, comment on at least 4 of the following issues:

1. Script of the film.

2. The various themes in the film (racism, violence, gun/gang crime and drugs)

3. Challenges before teachers to actually make a difference in the lives of their pupils. Ste

4. Stereotypes (Negative, racial etc.)

5. The teacher what Mulvey refers to as a 'gate to freedom'.

You could use the following links for your help.

1. http://zara-med-5.blogspot.in/
2. http://www.huffenglish.com/?p=467

Waiting to read your responses.

Best, Aashish Pande.

3 Poems (BA Semester I)

Dear Students (BA Semester I)

Today we discussed three poems from three different ages

1. "La Bella Dame Sans Merci" by John Keats
2. "An Extract from Paradise Lost" by John Milton
3. "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" by Robert Lee Frost.

The reason that I took these three poems was that they were simple, pleasing to read and were diverse in their subject matter.

 I will be glad if you could post your comments about these poems on this blog.

Looking forward to your comments.

Shramona and Swastika: You had asked for a curtain raiser i.e. one act play for your communication skills class. I suggest you check out the following link:

http://freedrama.net/one.html

It has got various plays on a wide variety of themes. The introduction also tells you how many characters are needed. If you intend to do a play with two characters then I suggest that perform the play John and Magi http://freedrama.net/johnmag.html. You could also adapt the story "The Gift of the Magi" by O. Henry in the form of a play.
If you have about 5 characters in mind then  I think this should help: http://freedrama.net/honeymoon.htm

This link is also very promising http://www.kaneprod.com/.
 You can adapt the plays to the Indian settings.
All the best and share your feedback with me.

Ashish Pande.

Reflections: Week 2

Learnings of the Week:

WOW! 

A very hectic week! I have never studied so much after my Post Graduation; but I have not learnt as much before as well. 

Beginning this week, I came to know about the various kinds of search engines using noodletools

http://www.noodletools.com/debbie/literacies/information/5locate/adviceengine.html

Then I was amazed at the various search engines as well as library resources available to a teacher or a researcher. Intute helps us investigate annotated academic sites. One of the participants in the forum on online search also shared this link which I found very good. 

http://blsciblogs.baruch.cuny.edu/support/weblogs%20in%20the%20classroom/

It helps us to or rather guides us in using the various online resources for classroom teaching. 

Earlier I did not know that the world of the search engines lay beyond our dear old google and bing. One of the better websites that I found for educational research is http://education.iseek.com/iseek/home.page. I was searching for matter on listening comprehension and it did provide me with very good material on that. 

I must state that beyond these websites, I discovered one very good website while net surfing and that is www.answers.com. The good thing with this website is that it has links to most of the encyclopedias online including Wikipedia and Encyclopaedia Britannica to name just the two. 

Accessing original documents/ letter written by George Washington or Abraham Lincoln is a dream for all of us here in India. Searching American memory at http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/browse/ helped me see some of the letters of some of the greatest men in the history of mankind. I also saw some of the letters of the author I did my Ph.D. on i.e. Henry Miller. 

I have a very long list of what I did during the week on web search which I will not discuss here.

I also managed to describe my classes and after the suggestions of my colleagues I decided to take the BA Semester I class on poetry for the purpose of writing my final project.

During this week I was more interactive with most of the participants in the group and have developed one to one interaction with Jasmina, Cherry, Muhamad, Sankarakumara and others. Thanks to Jasmina, I was able to remember an activity which I had created during my days as a teacher in law school. In order to assist her, not only did I document that activity step by step but also posted it on this blog.

But I still have more friends to make and have to improve my writing skills so that more and more colleagues comment upon my posts.

This week I also decided to open this blog to my students for their training into poetry.

I am eagerly looking forward to the assignments of the next week.

Towards the end, I would like to invite all my friends to make a list of the films that can be used for motivating teachers. I will start with a few myself.

1.     Dead Poets Society

2.     To Sir With Love

3.     Mona Lisa Smile

Waiting for your suggestions

Ashish Pande

Improving Listening Comprehension and logical reasoning

Hello Friends and Courtney

Today I am sharing an exercise that I developed earlier. Technology had an important role to play in this.

It is from the film "Scent of Woman" starring Al Pacino.

Requirement: An LCD projector or a big TV.

The pre-task preparation:  Buy an original DVD of the film "Scent of a Woman".

Make the students watch the film till the time the speech Al Pacino is about to give in the Baird hall.

Task: Pause the Video when the Principal says that  Charlie will be sorry or from where the scene where this speech starts

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPSzV4IbwSg

Now ask the students to defend Charlie. They are asked to form groups of 3-5 and write their speech in defence of Charlie.

After this they read out their speeches getting feedback from the teacher as well as their peers.

Then I suggest that you make them listen to the speech of Al Pacino to complete the film.

There would be students with poor listening comprehension skills. Though the video link that I have sent you has subtitles, but if you wish to play some other clip, then you can get the complete transcript of Pacino's speech from here

http://www.americanrhetoric.com/MovieSpeeches/specialengagements/moviespeechscentofawoman.html

Then you ask them to comment on the use of rhetoric

Note: You could use the edited version where the four lettered words are muted. Also, you could delete the words in the transcript if you feel it is not suitable for your students (especially if they are of an impressionable age group)

It is a very helpful exercise.

I also made an addition later. In the exam I gave them the question: Refute the speech of Al Pacino (Lt. Col. Frank Slade) and compose a speech in favour of the Principal Mr. Trask.

I hope you and your students will enjoy it as much as my students and I did.

Regards

Aashish

Reflections: Week 1

REFLECTIONS OF A LANGUAGE TEACHER

Week 1: October 1-7, 2012
Course: Building Teaching Skills through the Interactive Web

    After much procrastination and looking at the blogs of my colleagues, my blog is finally taking shape. Doing this on line course from the university of Oregon is an entirely new experience for me. Filling out the Needs Analysis form and looking at the rubrics was an introduction to a new paradigm of teaching learning process. 

     Having doing some readings I have been able to know about the benefits of blogging. I am sharing some of them here. Please note that these are the benefits that I can think of for my students. Other teachers can think of much more useful benefits of blogging.

1. Blogging can help a teacher guide his/her students even after the class. Of course the teacher gives recommended readings to her students but as a follow up when s/he feels that there is something more that can be given, the teacher need not wait for the next class. S/he can directly post it on his/her blog.

2. The teacher can post the summary of a lesson covered on a particular day after the class for the students and ask them if there was a point they have not understood or not completely understood. It will help the students get their doubts cleared completely and as it has been mentioned in ELT link of the British Council that it can even get the shy students to open up and share their doubts and views as well. 

3. Peer review and peer guidance as in our case can also be sought. For example if I were to teach a lesson on nouns to my students, I could post my lesson online and ask my colleagues to comment if there is anything in their opinion that I might have skipped. 

  This is all I can think of. If you think of any other benefits that can accrue to your students in your part of the world, please share them with me. I could include them here.

Regards and have a happy weekend. 

Aashish