So this is our third week, already ! Isn ´t it great ? Our first task was to begin searching information on listening and speaking skills and to read about CALL. " Listening" is a skill that it is being given now special attention and that is good. As pointed in the article " Developing
listening skills with authentic material " By Lindsay Miller ", we spend more than 40% of our communication time on listening every day. So it really deserves special attention. And, when it comes to children, it deserves more attention, too. Children are cute " "active learners " that enjoy moving and doing all types of kinesthetic activities and it can be quite a challenge to keep them quiet, sometimes.
I also read the article " New Perspectives in Teaching Pronunciation " By Maria Gracia Busá and I I felt amazed at all the resources we have now at our disposal . Children like listening to native speakers Though it may be difficult for them to understand a conversation among native
speakers at the beginning, they enjoy the fact that they are listening to people whose native language is English. Through Call, you can teach children prounciation, since you find in the article a good site where children may begin . This is the site : http://vocaroo.com/ In nicenet,I also mentioned another site . http://animatedspeech.com/. I looked for more information on the site that can be useful for you. They have merged with with Teach Town and the new website is
http://www.teachtown.com/. This an assisted educational program designed for children with special
needs. You can access the site and find more information about it.
Well, colleagues, I hope my comments are useful. I hope to " hear" from you, too.
I will post again, soon.
Best regards and good luck ib your work.
Denise.
Hello Denise,
ReplyDeleteThere is no any word I could use to say about each past weeks and the forthcoming ones. As one week passes, I am so impatient to wait for another one to begin. Week 3 was so fantastic. All threads are very useful, especially CALL for listening, speaking and pronunciation skills. All these tools are very useful to help our students to get rid of the fear in order they can become more independent learners and in this way they can also build their self-confidence to be able to promote their skills even outside their class.
Best regards...
Rade
Hello Rade :
ReplyDeleteI agree with you. These tools will help learners to become more sel-fconfident. It is amazing how much they can do with technology,and CALL is just great.Since they really enjoy technology, I think they will be very engaged in these tools.
( And we will be, too )I have realized that no matter how long we have been teaching, there is always something new to learn. We are like never-ending learners in a world that grows and changes continuously.
I am also willing to begin our next week.
Best regards.
Denise.
hi Denise:
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with you and Rade. You know that this course is really hard work because we have to read and investigate a lot, but it is worthwhile. I read the article about Listening as well and I was pretty surprised that we spend 40% of our communication time in listening, which is why we should give it more emphasis.
Anyways, I am pretty sure next week is also going to bring something new.
best regards
Katya
Hello Katya ;
ReplyDeleteIt is true. We spend a lot of time on investigation here but, as you said, it is worthwhile. You know that "listening " and " speaking" are main skills to learn a language, but, at the beginning, I was also surprised at the amount of time we spend on listening. I hope we keep in touch and have a good online-working-week.
Best regards