Week 7: Attaining that which was not withheld???

If you consider taking into account the students' learning habits, interests, needs and motivation as imperative and at the end, you do not give them a real opportunity to choose materials and tasks, why bother even considering after all?

On the other hand,

If you just give the students total freedom to choose materials and tasks without first actually considering their learning habits, interests, needs, motivation, you might end up doing cool stuff for them, but you are not going to be sure if that cool stuff is actually contributing to  the language learning process.

As the articles and the discussion have mentioned, learner autonomy does not mean a classroom without teachers... additionally, learner autonomy does not mean students take on the role of teachers. In other words, learner autonomy does not cause the teacher to disappear magically... in fact the existence of both depends on the existence of the other.

Take for example parents and children. When a son or a daughter becomes autonomous, it means that he or she is able to do many things without the strict supervision of the parents. However, parents are still around (they can be contacted for help), they do not suddenly disappear because she or he has become autonomous... then again, if there were not parents at all to begin with, the kid would not have to go through the process of becoming autonomous at all.   

Autonomy cannot exist if there is not a person who confers or bequeaths the said autonomy to another who accepts it, no more than effective communication can exist without a  transmitter and a receptor . If we want our students to be autonomous learners, we will have to be there, helping them, making them think... Otherwise, being autonomous will lose its gist. You certainly cannot become autonomous from nothing, the very word implies that something initially withheld has been attained. 

Week 6: Creating Student-centered Classes and Interactive PowerPoint

Although I am currently teaching, it will be impossible to apply this technological change during this term because I have already finished reviewing the last topic and next week, I will start applying final exams (according to the University's official dates). However,  the following are the details of what I am planning to do with the group next term; based on my specific context and students' level of English proficiency:  

READ AN ONLINE ARTICLE (for developing reading skills):

The students in the group that is supposed to present are going to read an article from the following websites (new aspect): http://www.breakingnewsenglish.com/ or  http://www.manythings.org/  -this last page provides the students with the audio (for developing listening skills) and the script at the same time, and they can actually change the number of times the audio is repeated-. Every group should decide which article they are going to read (from one of the two websites provided). Once the group has chosen and read the article, they will have to develop an oral presentation about the article taking into consideration the following aspects: content presentation, language used, delivery, comprehension and time frame. The students will know beforehand that their oral presentation will be evaluated with a rubric provided by the teacher.

Choosing themselves and reading the article online (new aspect) might give the students the opportunity to have more variety and access to articles that have been more recently published. Furthermore, choosing and reading the articles from a webpage might add some "new flavor to the classroom", provide interesting topics and as a result of this, maintain the students' attention.

PREPARE AN ORAL PRESENTATION (for developing speaking skills):

Once the students have read the online article, they will have to prepare an oral presentation. Before, no rubric was used to assess their oral presentation (new aspect), but this time the students' presentation will be evaluated with the following rubric:

Oral Presentation Rubric : Online articles

CATEGORY	4 EXCELLENT	3 GOOD	2 AVERAGE	1 POOR
CONTENT PRESENTATION	Student presents all the main and relevant  ideas (5 or more) from the article . The student demonstrates a thorough analysis of the article.	Student presents almost all of the main and relevant  ideas (4 or 3) from the article and demonstrates moderate analysis of the article.	Student presents some of the main and relevant  ideas (2) from the article and demonstrates limited analysis of the article.	Student presents almost none of the main and relevant  ideas (1 or none) from the article and demonstrates superficial analysis of the article.
LANGUAGE USED	The student demonstrates an effective use of vocabulary, grammar and target language structures. The meaning is completely understandable and clear.	The student demonstrates a fairly effective use of vocabulary, grammar and target language structures.  There is some inappropriate use of language but the meaning is still understandable.	The student demonstrates a restricted use of vocabulary, grammar and target language structures.  The meaning is barely understood or clear.	The student demonstrates a inadequate use of vocabulary, grammar and target language structures.  The meaning is not understood nor clear due to the  distorted and exceedingly ungrammatical language used.
DELIVERY	The presentation is fluid, understandable and sustained. High intelligibility. (2 or less errors)	The presentation is generally fluid and clear with some difficulties. Good intelligibility. (3 to 6 errors)	The presentation is moderately  fluid and clear with some difficulties. Moderate intelligibility. (7  to 10 errors)	The presentation is not fluid nor clear with lots of difficulties. Almost  no intelligibility. (more than 10 errors)
COMPREHENSION	Student responds correctly to all (100%)  the questions asked by the teacher or peers.	Student responds correctly to almost all  (90-99%) of the questions asked by the teacher or peers.	Student responds correctly to only some (80-89%) of the questions asked by the teacher or peers.	Student responds correctly  to few (79% or less) of the questions  asked by the teacher or peers.
TIME FRAME	Student administrates the designated timeframe accurately. 15 to 20 minutes.	Student deviates from the designated timeframe by one to two minutes. 23 or 12 minutes.	Student deviates from the designated time frame by four to five minutes. 25 or 10 minutes.	Student deviates from the designated timeframe by over five minutes.

Follow-up activities:

For developing writing skills: students will have to create a personal blog where they share thoughts and make weekly comments: about their oral presentations, about that of their peers, and about the articles read.  

Finally, students will have create a delicious webpage where they can add their favorite pages to keep practicing their English skills at home. 

Week 5: Rubrics, project-based learning and Web Quests!

I enjoyed reading about rubrics, project-based learning and Web Quests. However, what I have enjoyed most is the readings about rubrics. As I mentioned in the nicecet discussion thread for this week, I think rubrics can facilitate the learning process in diverse ways. They function as anchors for teachers and students, they provide a standard to which everybody can refer to and they even provide a measure with which to determine the quality of performance on the basis of pre-established criteria.

As I was doing my rubric, I realized how complex and interesting assessing students’ performance can be. Simply marking the students as good or bad does not always provide sufficient feedback to give them the opportunity to learn and improve their language skills. In fact providing limited generalized feedback, can even be a reflection of the teacher’s reluctance to carry out a thorough evaluation. Rubrics, on the other hand, give specific and detailed information to the students and teachers. They explain what the relationship between different degrees of performances and their corresponding grade. To me, they serve as learning contracts: if you do this, you will get that.

Finally, I would like to share with you 2 pages I found interesting and useful for calibrating rubrics:

1- Examples of Likert Scaled Responses Used in Data-Gathering

http://www.rpgroup.org/sites/default/files/Surveys%20Interactive%20Activity%20-%20Examples%20of%20Likert%20scales.pdf

2- Likert-Type Scale Response Anchors

http://teorionline.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/scale.pdf

Week 4: Be specific and congruent!

Be specific and congruent!

After this week (and all the previous ones), I have learned that being specific is exceptionally important when giving instructions to the students, describing a class (setting, needs, classroom problem/issues) creating a technology-enhanced lesson plan, writing ABCD objectives and even when sharing our favorite sites on the class wiki.

Every time I read the instructions on the Google site, on Nicenet.org and the weekly e-mails from Sean, I realize that ¾like Sean's¾  my instructions have to be clearly written, neatly organized and properly delivered. So far, I have mastered the Google site and the weekly assignments because of the congruent layout of the Google site and the constant instructions and reminders from Sean. Although this seems to be an easy task, it is not. Therefore, on my blog reflection for this week, I would  like to recognize Sean's hard and professional work and effort. I am building my teaching skills by looking at his teaching skills.

Thanks for your hard work Sean!