Week 4

So, another week comes to an end. Another week of new impressions. It was interesting to know a lot of new and useful things about teaching writing, reading and vocabulary using technology. There are so many useful sites that I haven’t even imagined! Still I do not have enough time now to study these sites carefully so I keep bookmarking all links in my Delicious not to miss anything.

This week we have discussed our classroom problems that could be solved by using technology. I have been thinking about this for the whole week. Reading my classmates’ posts I see that I have the same problems as they do. Though my students are university graduates majoring in English Linguistics, they also have certain problems with grammar, writing, reading, vocabulary. It was not easy for me to formulate a definite problem me group face. Because some of my students are better in grammar, other are better in writing, and other - in speaking etc., but all of them have to master the same material from the course book. In a word, the traditional course book contains activities which are to be done by all the students irrespective of their actual abilities. What I have learned from Jerek Krajka’s article “Using the Internet in ESL Writing Instruction” (and  what I will try to implement into my lessons) that the use of the Web in the classroom gives both the teachers and the students the element of  choice and variety. Each student can get an individual activity which will be interesting for him and correspond to his level. The task of a teacher is only to carefully select the activities suitable for a particular student.

To write a lesson plan … well… in the University we don’t have to write detailed lesson plans as school teachers do. I plan my lessons but in a way of activities to be done without detailed descriptions of materials, procedures and so on… well… I am still working over on my lesson plan….