Week 6

Comprehension-based? Integrated framework? Or theory-driven CALL? These terms are quite scary when you have to design something related to IT teaching in the class. Definitely, the use of IT must first fit the learning goal. If the topic is more involved in skills building, I think generic model may be more useful.

To design what IT things to be used in a lesson is not simple. To fit the needs of learners is important; to cater the individual differences is more vital while time is always our enemy. We have lots of work to do but preparation cannot be forgotten. Sometimes I use the IT products produced by the publisher in teaching, surely, there are a lot of thing I do not like when using them. However, due to the limitation of time, what can I do? Even I try to prepare a PowerPoint presentation to my students, I still need to revise the structure, formate, chouce of words and level of difficulty every year. To be more interactive in class, we need to equip ourselves as an IT expert first. But does the application of IT stuff equals interactive lessons and beneficial to students?

Reflection--Week 5

My students behave differently online when comparing with in classroom. They tend to use very horrible expressions in the lessons, while they use perfectly well-written English to communicate with me through email. Normally, they will ask me something important for their studies through email and I warned them if they do not use proper English, I won't reply them as I do not want to spend time guessing what they are saying in the email. I think this is only useful for senior secondary students as juniors may not have the ability to do so. Also, juniors will not have something very vital to ask for their English lessons. I don't disagree with the ue of MSN or ICQ to chat with them only if they use proper English. It is quite a good practice if they want to improve their English. Maybe someone may say it will seriously affect the willingness of students to chat online with you but as a language teacher, should we have some demand from our students? I know technology is advancing every day but does it mean to chat fast is more important than having great accuracy?

Using IT or running activites with IT in class is funny; however, there are also technical problems all the time. My experience is that always not to ask students to do too many exercises at a time. But I prepare a bit more than that, if everything goes smooth during the lesson, I can then ask them to do some more. It is much better than throwing them with thousands of exercises but their progresses vary greatly. To monitor a scene like this is very difficult as not everyone is an IT expert. Also, we need to cater the need of our students to a new or different environment, some of them may misbehave or some will become timid to respond. To prepare more than the expected schedule is helpful. In case of classroom management, maybe we can do the tasks together by inviting some students to come out and do it in front of all students. This can help ease the problem.