Our four great friends !

We all know about the four necessary skills  for learning a language : listening, speaking, reading and writing.  To be aware of  them and to  use  them,  lead us  to an effective communication with people. Last week, our main concerns were " listening " and " speaking , the first skills we always begin with when we start our teaching-learning process.We usually hear that a good way to learn a language is to  do it as children learn their L1 They acquire the language by listening to their parents and,then ,by imitating what they say.That means, as part of  a natural process.   In that  moment, they are not aware of  speech formation or grammar yet. That comes next, as a relevant learning process in their lives.

When children acquire the sounds of the target language and are able to  reproduce them,they are ready to start  reading : isolated words , then phrases and simple sentences until  they get to more challenging structures. They get a sense of "satisfaction " when they can read something.  Next,  they start  writing  what they began to read. Writing is not something they enjoy doing so much, but   they understand that it is part of their learning process and, I am sure that when they see technology being applied in writing  they will  really enjoy it .I found some good sites during our search where children can practice all language skills. Some of them are :  http://www.vocabulary.co.il  . Here, they play online  games to practice vocabulary and compound words, among other contents.  I  like  a  dictionary  that  I found for kids at : http://yourdictionary.com and a site that I really enjoyed was: http://www.bookpals.net/storylineThis  is a selection of stories read online by well-known actors.  And there is still much more.

I am also interested in young / adults and I found interesting sites for them too.  One  of  them is about images. that  you can use for free. It is found at : http://www.pics4learning.com. To end up, try to take a look at : http://www.usalearns.org. It will surely help adults to improve their language skills.

Have  a nice weekend you all !

Week 4 : The always expected storytime !

http://www-zazzle.com/

Have you heard kids say  I do! I do!  when you finish reading a story and you ask  " Is there anybody who wants to read  ?  Yes, children enjoy reading  and acting stories out. They are all " little readers" and " little artists" who enjoy " reading time " and  " acting time " .They have a great advantage, I think. They like doing things, to be considered, to have a sense of belonging,  and  they want to participate, even though they  may not be the best readers or the best actors or actresses, they just want to participate... They have an inner motivation that we, teachers , feed with the activities we propose in class, our attitude towards teaching and our sense of caring. They are in the right moment, the right age and the right place to acquire the language in the best possible way, to identify the sounds of the foreign language and differentiate them from the sounds in their own language , to utter words with a good and understandable accent, to start recognizing words, reading them silently and aloud and to start writing the words they have already learned.  As time passes, they are not going to be only isolated words, but phrases, sentences and paragraphs As children,"  they play, learn and grow together." After all, they are the center of the class and we are the effective guides who help them attain their learning goals.

A " delicious " start !

And what a start !  When I saw that one of the tasks for this week was to work on the " Delicious " page I wanted to begin as soon as possible. Well, the first try was good   and I added links to the page, but   when I opened it again and wanted to add more links, I got lost ! Thanks to Janine ' s support, I was able to do it and now I really feel we have a great tool in our hands. We do not need paper and pencil any more to save our favorite links and we can also share them.  It is a good way to organize ourselves and help our learners organize themselves 
Each day, we have access to more interesting and challenging things in relation to technology and we need to dare try new things. I believe we are in the right place when I see our own advances and the relevance of the topics we are dealing with in the course. It really impressed me to see what Fernando could do in his blog with the voki avatar. It is an attractive and nice way to introduce himself in the blog, and an attractive tool for students to use their listening and speaking abilities in and outside the classroom.
Another week is coming to an end, but we still have more weeks ahead to keep on learning and sharing comments like these.

Happy weekend to everyone !

Week 3 : Keeping on learning !

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.

Creating Learning Objectives

This is almost the end of a second week and I am glad to say that I learned something new Our weekly task had to do with " creating learning objectives " using the A.B.C.D. method. I did not know about this method before, so, when I started reading about it, and saw all the information 
provided, I thought I was going to get lost.  All the contrary, this method can really help you to be more specific, and to keep an order, when writing your learning objectves. 

 I like the division of the learning objectives into three different domains, according to Bloom ' s Taxonomy : cognitive ( knowledge ), affective ( feelings ) and psychomotor ( kinesthetic ), since he considers the audience in an integral form.  All  these domains are part of our lives, so they
must be part of the learning process, too.  He even mentions the appropiate verbs we may use to write our objectives in an effective way, to make them really understandable. I specially liked the part when he included "digital verbs " that could be useful for our tech-work. You can find them in the site provided below :

http://www.techlearning.com/article/blooms-taxonomy-blooms-blooms-digitally/44988

I agree with Rade when he pointed out the statement of Dr.Bob Kizlik " The purpose of a learning objective is to communicate " Communication is, in fact, essential in learning a language. The student ( audience ) needs to listen to the sounds of the language and, then, express verbally what he/she feels.

I would like to share something else about Dr.Bob Kizlik that I liked. We all know how important
are lesson plannings for us. Dr. Kizlik taught students from different age levels, how to plan lessons that were clear enough and communicated effectively. If you want to take a look at it. go to this site :

http://www.adprima.com/usermenu.htm

Looking forward our third  week !
Best regards,
Denise.

Week 2 : A great start !

And  we finally started our second week !  when I  began searching the engines, I just could not believe the big amount of information we had. I had only used google for my little kids  and young/adults, so I became enthusiastic to see that there was much more ahead ! To decide on the students ' age I was going to choose to narrow my search, was a big deal ( As I said in Nicenet )  When I finally took the decision,  I  started to look for information related to children (those little faces running everywhere and eager to learn ) .

 As sounds, images and games are an important part of children ' s learning, I am always searching information about that. Using the "advanced search" helps a lot . You may find videos at http://videos.search.yahoo.com/videos/advanced.

Another useful engine is " twurdy ". You may find different articles for different students graded from easier and more difficult to read and you can choose the topic of your interest. I found a good article  about  " technology and younger children " since I want to use a technology tool with my "little ones " The  site is  http://twurdy.com/search.phpI

I have been checking the web engines again, and  I found another good site that  I did not  
mention in Nicent . The site is http://www.askkids.com/. Here you have great movies and games that may help you if you teach young kids.

I am eager to share with you my comments on "creating learning objectives" and to know about your own comments on the topic.

See you online !
Best regards,
Denise.

An Amazing week !

Hello everyone !  I am glad to say that I am involved  in what I call a " lifelasting experience " This is the first time I take an online course and the first time I have a blogg. It is amazing to discover how much you can do with technology and  I feel great to have the opportunity to discover it with you.  Creating  this blogg has not been an easy task for me, and I still need to improve things. However, it is so good to realize how much our
students may benefit from what we will learn in this course. They can use the blogg to communicate their ideas in a written form, if they do not feel so confident in speaking in the language yet, and it can become a real motivational tool  ( though some of them use it already )

Well, I really hope to meet you  all as soon as possible and know your comments on this blog.
Denise.