Week 3: Three big ideas of the third week

               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
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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.