Goals revisited
My main goal or expectation for this course was to gain knowledge about and ideas on how to use technology in teaching English. For me, the most rewarding parts were when we were introduced to examples of websites that offer us tools to work with in class. The best way to learn to actually use these technological tools is, of course, to practise them first hand and that's way tasks that required using some new tool taught me the most. Prezi, Google Docs, Presemo, Voki, just to name a few examples.
The student presentations also gave me a handful on ideas and I'm looking forward to adapting those in my teaching next year.
keskiviikko 6. toukokuuta 2015
Task 5
A.Chik Digital gaming and language learning
Having read the article Digital gaming ang language learning by A.Chik there are several questions as well as thoughts that come to my mind. First of all is the natural question on which kind of the games that would be used for this purpose. Being a typical woman, I've never had any interest in playing video games, even playing Angry Birds on my cell phone when there is absolutely nothing else to do seems like a waste of time. If we would actually integrate video games as a part of teaching English at school, I would expect the games and their contents to fit the overall teaching and educational goals, not just serve as a tool in learning the language.
Furthermore, I'm not sure how easy it would be to find the time to actually play games during lessons. It is very difficult to get through the teaching material (dictated by the national Curriculum) as it is, and although playing games could prove to be a quite effective way to teach English, there are many areas of language learning that have to be taught at school. Naturally, if there were games particularly designed for teaching purposes, it would be more justified to use them when teaching a certain theme.
However, I can certainly see the point why playing video games is advisable. Having taught English for two years at an upper secondary school, I was clearly able to see the difference between boys who played video games in their freetime and girls who had basically learned the language via textbooks and in school. The students that performed best, especially in essays and listening comprehensive tests, were mostly boys and the level was very close to that of a native speaker. And these boys played video games and I would assume a lot. This is not to say that all boys that played video games excelled in English or all girls that had learnt English solely in school weren't that good, of course not. You could even say that there is some inequality in that. Nowadays, with all those boys thriving in the matriculation exams, the level of the exam has risen so much that a perfectly good student is unable to get the best marks.
In conclusion I would share the author's view that teachers should provide guidance and structures for youn learners on learning to use games to the purpose of language learning. This way students would understand that they can profit from their freetime activity and it might inspire girls to take up playing, too.
Having read the article Digital gaming ang language learning by A.Chik there are several questions as well as thoughts that come to my mind. First of all is the natural question on which kind of the games that would be used for this purpose. Being a typical woman, I've never had any interest in playing video games, even playing Angry Birds on my cell phone when there is absolutely nothing else to do seems like a waste of time. If we would actually integrate video games as a part of teaching English at school, I would expect the games and their contents to fit the overall teaching and educational goals, not just serve as a tool in learning the language.
Furthermore, I'm not sure how easy it would be to find the time to actually play games during lessons. It is very difficult to get through the teaching material (dictated by the national Curriculum) as it is, and although playing games could prove to be a quite effective way to teach English, there are many areas of language learning that have to be taught at school. Naturally, if there were games particularly designed for teaching purposes, it would be more justified to use them when teaching a certain theme.
However, I can certainly see the point why playing video games is advisable. Having taught English for two years at an upper secondary school, I was clearly able to see the difference between boys who played video games in their freetime and girls who had basically learned the language via textbooks and in school. The students that performed best, especially in essays and listening comprehensive tests, were mostly boys and the level was very close to that of a native speaker. And these boys played video games and I would assume a lot. This is not to say that all boys that played video games excelled in English or all girls that had learnt English solely in school weren't that good, of course not. You could even say that there is some inequality in that. Nowadays, with all those boys thriving in the matriculation exams, the level of the exam has risen so much that a perfectly good student is unable to get the best marks.
In conclusion I would share the author's view that teachers should provide guidance and structures for youn learners on learning to use games to the purpose of language learning. This way students would understand that they can profit from their freetime activity and it might inspire girls to take up playing, too.
Task 6
Presentation revisited
I presume our project will not raise a whole lot of objections among pupils. Our main idea is to let the pupils create a news report and use Voki's avatars for recording and saving their work. For our target group, primary school pupils, I would imagine this to be a lot of fun since they get to create their own figures and also their own reports. For those who like to "play it safe" there is the chance to choose en English speaking country and create a news story about a thing that happened there. More creative pupils can come up with a fictional origin of the news.
As for the benefits of this project, I would promote this for the pupils as a task that will improve their writing and oral skills, creativity as well as give them a chance to learn a new technological tool.
I presume our project will not raise a whole lot of objections among pupils. Our main idea is to let the pupils create a news report and use Voki's avatars for recording and saving their work. For our target group, primary school pupils, I would imagine this to be a lot of fun since they get to create their own figures and also their own reports. For those who like to "play it safe" there is the chance to choose en English speaking country and create a news story about a thing that happened there. More creative pupils can come up with a fictional origin of the news.
As for the benefits of this project, I would promote this for the pupils as a task that will improve their writing and oral skills, creativity as well as give them a chance to learn a new technological tool.
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