Wow! It’s incredible and yet very satisfying to see all the work that I’ve done so far in my first blog ! This course has actually shown me a new window with a new angle to the CALL world, that I was not quite familiar with, and led me to some new discoveries. Let me share with you what they are.
The first discovery is the wonderfully rich resources available online for CALL. They not only help add more colours to the diversification of our teaching and learning process but also lessen teachers’ burden and time in preparing teaching materials. Here are some of my favourites:
- Amazing Movie Maker or Photo Story 3 for DST–I really love the idea of making digital stories as it is a powerful means to deliver messages and express feelings. It is also an interesting task for students to do and it can help develop their different talents as well.
- User-friendly, useful tools for ELT–e.gs. (1) Audacity for speaking practice of all kinds like reading aloud and recording listening materials for exams and so on; (2) Hot Potatoes for creating exercises of different kinds like matching and gap-filling.
- Interesting, educational websites for teaching and learning different language skills–e.gs. (1) NAXOS spoken word library which enables students’ listening skills and understanding of the literary works. (2) breakingnewsenglish.com which provides teachers with detailed lesson plans, up-to-date news articles and useful tasks with answers.
The second discovery is the possibility of my being an effective I.T. English teacher who can meet the needs of increasingly large numbers of “digital learners” in our Hong Kong classrooms.
The next one is I always thought that it’s ineffective and time-consuming to go to the MMLC for English lessons, especially with lower ability, misbehaved students. I always found the programmes boring and I was also very afraid of dealing with the technical problems occurred anytime and that time would be wasted. Now, I’ve realized that I haven’t fully-utilized and familiarized with those interesting, useful softwares and websites available online for arousing students’ interest. These problems can actually be solved very easily!
Moreover, I’m glad that I’ve been holding firm to my right belief or attitude in corporating I.T. in class, i.e. CALL should be used as a means to an end but not an end in itself. Though we teachers are more like facilitators nowadays, we are still the central figure in class who plays a vital role in influencing our students’ learning attitudes and monitoring about their learning progress with care and love and I.T. can never substitute us.
I sincerely thank Paul for all the effort he’s made in class, especially for all the brand new stuff related to CALL that he’s introduced. Of course, if I want to be an effective CALL teacher, I need to update myself with the CALL world and practise using the CALL materials more. One last thing, I know this course is just a beginning in my CALL journey, yet a GOOD one:D
You can discover a colourful CALL world when you use your heart!
Wow, Sally, you read my mind. I’ve much rapport with what you view and describe above. All of them are unexpected reward which can help maximize the learning and teaching effectiveness, especially for my students who were low-achiever academically. For sure, CALL would be a useful tool to motivate their learning interest.
Let’s celebrate of what we did so far and thanks Paul for making our teaching world more colourful and fruitful!
Happy Teaching!!
Kitty
Thank Kitty. it’s nice that we share the same thoughts. Let’s keep in touch, OK!
Dear Sally,
You’ve made a fabulous sum-up on what we’ve achieved in the couse so far. I am not good at IT myself. After taking this course, Paul has introduced a variety of CALL activities and softwares to us which help us further explore our ways of teaching English . The CALL softwares ,such as Inspiration, Cooliris, Photo Story 3, using Wiki to write stories, have provided us with ideas to conduct our lessons in a more interesting, engaging and interactive ways. We can incorporate these tools flexibly into our daily teaching to make students enjoy English learning through CALL.
Clare
Thank Clare:D
Your point of ‘technical problems occurred anytime’ reminds me of an experience I had when I was a student teacher (of another subject, liberal studies): I prepared a worksheet for a documentary clip but the notebook computer failed when I had the lesson (despite my repeated checkings before the lesson). I ended up failing to do anything that lesson because I spent too much time trying to fix the machine and I failed to prepare Plan B (what to do without the computer). Yes, sometimes computer can be that troublesome; but when we consider its power of attracting students’ interests (especially less proficient ones), it is still worth the try. And of course, now I would have Plan B (or even Plans C and D) in mind to prevent any loss of time.
Sally
Keep and treasure this blogfolio. You have put in great effort and produced a lot of fantastic work. You deserve to be proud of it. – Paul
Once again, thank Paul:D