It is nearly the end of the third week. Each
week seems as a new semester for me. I’m getting new insight with newer
exploration of cyber world. I learned three great ideas-social bookmarking,
building aural/oral skills with websites and implementing technology related change in
class (project) in this week.
Delicious is a social bookmarking
site. It gives us freedom web links shaving and sharing. I created account at
delicious dot.com and shared some web link with some tags. The process was easy.
It has made my web search easier. I am habituated with Mozilla Firefox
bookmarks. I feel difficulty to get them from other devices. Now I can easily
share web links to my students and get them from anywhere. I can’t stop thanking delicious. I can take my
favorite web links where ever I go. What a freedom!
Every
language learner wishes to speak fluently with native like pronunciation but it
is impossible without proper aural /oral training. Listening and spoken skills
are neglected in foreign language class room in Nepal. The listening and spoken component s are
skipped in class room. We never got such training in the past. New technology
has offered new possibilities i.e. integrating listening and speaking in the
class. Let’s hope there will be something different as digital divide is
narrowing rapidly
.
.
I
have been using teaching English and you tube for my own listening skills
enhancement. But I got long list of web sites for listening skills. Each
participant suggested new sites according to their experience. I need to
explore them. I voted Randal’s cyber listening lab as best listening site. It
supplies detail listening activities very well organized. The other useful sites
I visited are..www.manything.org, I tried vocaro ,eyejot and audiopal. I learned to send
voice-email and video mail. I got oppertunities to review some great articles to
strengthen my insight in teaching listening and speaking skills. ‘Developing Listening Skills with Authentic Materials’ by
Lindsay Miller, ‘New Perspectives in Teaching Pronunciation’ by Maria Grazia
Busa, and ‘The Employment of CALL in Teaching Second / Foreign Language
Speaking Skills’ by Julia Gong and ‘Pedagogy-technology Interface in Computer
Assisted Language Learning Neri and e.t al. I read Miller article on using
authentic materials in the class and got ideas of using radio, TV, internet and
CD as authentic listening source in the class, with well established format of pre
listening, while listening and post listening activities. I updated my
knowledge made in computer assisted pronunciation training
( CAPT). I realized the importance of self directed private pronunciation
training with automatic feedback. I am hopeful that automatic speech
recognition soft ware will make progress to meet the demand of time.
I got opportunities to review the practices
carried out by the past participants while doing web skills course. I learned the
different types of practices they did with technology and the outcomes brought by
such practices .I reviewed the project report written by Tendouinde
Bruno Nikiema in Burkina Faso. I read about other reports from other participants post. I got the overall
picture of course project and the way of preparing the project report.
I
am back to work. It is a bit difficult to manage time because of heavy teaching
load. I am slowly getting used to the schedule and process of the course.I has
noticed some changes in my online behavior. I spend less time on social net
working sites and check my email more frequently. I have gathered more web
tools. Internet is vast. I need more guidance and support to
fully use it for personal and professional growth.
Thank you Deborah Haley, our guest moderator
, Courtney our instructor and course participants.I am waiting for Courtney's mail for the fourth week.
