Week 15

Providing feedback in screen captured

rate:5

The reading from Russell Stannard entitled: How to Use Technology to Provide Feedback seemed very interesting for me because it provides clear and specific information about how to give feedback in an online method. Personally, I felt impressed because that tool in a modern way to encourage our students to better their assigments instead of give a feedback in a paper. This method is more specific and easy for teachers because in the same moment they are revising the task they are recording the video and explaning to the students their mistakes then they just send the video with the feedback and this is nice because in that way they are expending less time.

Another advantage I can observe is that this tool is an excellent element for the teachers who give classes online, as our actual class with teacher Lorena, is satisfactory to see our teacher explaining why something is not correct or correct instead of receive a feedback in a paper.

I think this type of feedback enhances the undertanding of modern students and because they are fans of technology this helps them to understand better their mistakes, so that all the future teachers shoud use this tool. In my case I did not know anything about screen capture technology but since this momment I think it will be very useful for me in the future and a recomendation for all my colleagues is that they use it in their future as teachers in order to expend less time when revise tasks and have more time to do other activities or things.

Week 14

 Interactive english lessons help a lot!

rate 5

THis week reading is very important for me because it is focused on the importance of giving interactive classes. Each reading teach me something new for improve my knowledge about students interest in the classroom and outside of it, how they learn easily and how they feel more interested to achieve one of their goals which is learn a new tongue.

Something I want to remember from this articles is that participation in classes helps a lot each student to improve their skills but also helps teachers to know if a lessons is being well developed.

The activities online to make students participate are also good tools but I felt more interested in the activities of think-pair-share and the ones can be made in power point presentations because these are must developed in the clasroom so that teacher is able to observe the reaction of the student, moreover he or she can see how much the student have in their mind and what can be inproved in the next lesson in order to make them more open minded and keep more ideas in their brain to answer in a more accurate way instead of answer superficially or randomly.

Finally I consider that we as teachers are 50% responsible of  the acquisition and the success of our students so that we have to help them with everything possible.

week 12

The influence of technology and critical thinking on students minds

rate: 4

My initial reaction of this article was attracted for the paragraph because it contains many important questions that we should know in the momment of teaching in order to introduce in our students minds a critical thinking and help them to become analithic people, this with the objective of help them to develop their capacity to understand and reach their own conclussions in the moment they have to work alone. since there is explained the two theories which support intrinsic motivation we are able to know that people has a natural ability or capacity to understand, learn and keep many ideas in their  brains that make them reach more knowledge and to growth mentally. so that as teachers we have to help them to develop their intellect by doing activities that make them think as a debate, or another ones that make them feel motivated and intrested.
Also, there are explained more important factors that are helpful for us as techniques we have to observe in the moment of teaching because is very important to know the type of learners we have and how they work better, sometimes, there are some activities that does not work and instead of make students think it make them feel stressed or bored. Nowadays computers are a more useful tool for teaching to the majority of learners, so we can include a lot of activities that can be heplful to introduce their cognitive skills, analisis and  comprehension like for example audio visual materials as readings or videos. To conclude, I noticed that we should be as careful and intelligents as we can because is our responsability to help our students to become in successful analithic and responsable people.

WEEK 9

MALL, an easier tool.
rate:5

This time we are focused on the reading for week 10 which is named 20 ideas for using mobile phones in the language classroom.
Something that make me want to read more about the article was the point in which is focused on since it mentioned that is cheaper and more accesible than a computer and easir to access to materials from anywhere. 

Also, these devices support in many benefits from emailing to reading books, but also it is a social tool which facilitate everyday communication and learning. The 20 ideas mentioned in the article were focused on support listening, reading, writing and speaking skills. 

Since students are able to have a cellphone, they are able to use all the tools that the device offers like the camera, internet conection, and all the apps related to learning the target language. So that as teachers is a good idea to support them on what they do not know and use that tool as an advantage for their learning. 

Nevertheless, we have to be careful with the instructions and the level of the students we are teaching because they can got distractions or go to other tools instead of work on what you assign if you are not very strict with your assigment to develop in classes

week 8

Authentic materials for teaching ESL

rate 5

This week was an interesting topic to read but also to keep in mind in our future classes. As future teachers we have to keep in our mind and in our hands many ideas to do in the momment of develop a class. This reading caught my attention because I realized that we definitely have to look for authentic materials for teachin ESL, listening, visual and printed skills can be more interactive and interesting because students will be able to listen native pronunciation and learn native vocabulary or abreviations that normally is no taught in a traditional ESL materials. What make me read more about the article was the 4 creative ways for teaching ESL that are presented in the article. 

1.Weather Report: There Is a Blizzard on the Way!2. 

2.Menus: Order Your Favorite Dish

3.Job Opening: 1-2-3 I Need a Job! 

4.The Reporter: Fact or Fiction

These activities are very creative and based on something important, which is not just teaching the topic, it it also a way to help them to improve their learning, to open their mind, to make them avoid shyness and become better students and successful people. for that reason is very important that teachers choose carefully the activities they will apply. They have to observe the necessity of each student and the level they are. As the article says authentic materials are a bridge to fill the gap of each learner and the wide quantity of activities we can put in practice are going to be a very useful tool for making learners develop themselves comfortably in real life and to put in practice what they learn as much as necessary.

week 7

Vocabulary acquisition and reading comprenhension plus online dictionaries.

Rate:4

This time the readings are focused on teaching vocabulary and reading by using CALL and the usefulness of online dictionaries or learner dictionaries which are very used by foreign learners nowadays. It is very important to mentioned that vocabulary and reading are closely and reciprocally related one each other, what means that people who are disciplinated readers or like to read are people with a more wide vocabulary acquired. In the actuallity, multimedia which is a computter-based system and an interactive tool, offers a lot of contents that teachers can applyto in all the lessons. This way to teach has had good results to make students enhance the acquisition and comprenhesion of the foreign language. Talking about the learner dictionaries I considered them totally complete because they show a precise explanation of the meaning of the word that we are searching but also it shows sentences and the different meanings that it can has according to the parts of speech. Something I have learned from this week readings are the five features about Online English-English learner dictionaries (1.Corpus-based dictionaries, 2.Word frequency,  3.Collocations,  4.Authentic examples,  5.Topical vocabulary)  and is very interesting because each of them has been designed to enhable all the learning that students need to know deppending of the course they are taking, also what caught my attention is the recomendations for teachers to go to the correct option in the moment of recomend it to the students.

WEEK 6
rate:4

Tools for teaching EFL and ESL 

Reading this week's articles I have learned that actual students are more accesible to acquire and improve their new language acquisition with more wide strategies that teachers can introduce in their knowledge. This time the articles are focused on reading and writing lessons. Realia, URL, HTML, e-mail lessons, websites and others are the more used tools nowadays for teachers in the momment of develop a class or give a task and it has become in successful ways to teach in many cases. Unfortunately, always are presented some disadvantages for some students in the moment of learning by CALL because sometimes can be dificult for some to learn by using technology or sometimes they can feel scared of doing something wrong, but in that case it is an obligation for teachers to make them feel comfortable and help them as much as necessary. That with the objective of become them  independent and confident in the area they were developing. Something I disliked about the article was to notice about the traditional instructions when they used the coursebook which consisted on do the same exercise during the whole class, I consider that tool was bored.  Something I want to remember from this article is that we have to take into account the level of students we have in the moment of teach them with CALL tools, also I like the links presented there for teaching EFL and the activities mentioned for make them improve their writing. Moreover, it is important for us to be totally prepared with our lessons and on the other hand, to keep extra materials or activities in case we lose internet access or any technologic problem arises.

WEEK 5
Rate: 4

"World Wide Web"

My initial reacction to this week reading was interested on the facility that provides the cybernetic tools to develop a class and to be able to impart them through international conferences in different countries simultaneously. This is one of the great advantages that gives us the World Wide Web.

Moreover, it also talks about the amount or percentage of Internet in English at the beginnig and how technology has gone advancing exponencially. About English internet in 1997 it was 80% for 2004 it decreases at 68% in order to offer a more wide variety of languages translation for different cultures or ethnic groups.​​ So that it becomes in a very efficient advance tool for everybody worldwide.

Something that made me want to read more was the receptive communication because there are mentioned the tools that we are going to use with our students in the future and the classification of the 5 websites groups because it was somtehing completely new for me and that thought me which are the ones I will be focussed on in the momment of teaching.

for the time, the internet has advanced and focused more on communication, information and education and has created a more effcient form to learn and share with others our thoughts or information with simple tools such as private conferences through web cameras and audios, making it easier for long-distance communication. To summarize, it is very interesting the way in which you learn so easy and fastand how you can make your students improve when they are learning ESL or even EFL.

WEEK 4.

A useful framework for ELT

Rate: 5

As the name of this week´s blog, since I have been reading about CALL and how helpful it has become for the branches of learning but mostly for teaching a foreign language, I consider that CALL is the more important framework nowadays. Because since it has been progressing, it has become in a tool that can be used for everybody around the world and without taking care of the age, even kids are able to learn a foreign language since they are really young. It is amazing to realize the quantity of websites that are in there. People can pay for a class online to support their learning but also it can be obtained for free just by having networking connection they are ready to browse whatever they want like readings, grammar lessons, podcast, etc. There can be found from basic to advanced tasks to support each level of learning. What surprised me in this article was the reasons not to use internet bacause it says that it can become exaggerated way to teach and that a comprehensive analysis of the research on CALL in primary and secondary school English language education similarly concluded that “the evidence that technology has a direct beneficial impact on linguistic outcomes is slight and inconclu-sive”. But I considered that from that investigation to the actuality, those tools that maybe were not a hundred percent successful, now have been improved in order to overcome the last ones and provide better strategies of learning and are being more used for teaching because teachers have observed that is a good tool for keeping students interested and not boring. The last point that caught my attention was the mentioned ¨branch of CALL¨ which is mobiled-assisted language learning (MALL) it has become in a very useful and eassier device than a computter, and can have at the same time a lot of applications for learning lessons and develop tasks out of the classroom.

week 3

The important integration of blending technologies as an estrategy for teaching ESL.

Rate: 5

Hello there! this week I have learned more about the importance of CALL because with each lecture I got something new in my mind which is going to be completely useful for my future. Something that I'm interested in this week's text was the ease provided by different technological tools such as postcast and RSS, which are simple tools to receive information directly to your computer or on a web page. These tools help us in communicating and teaching to the students, practically postcast has become an important strategy for any new teaching lesson. Through out time, are becoming more essential for our learning and helpful for teaching to other people interested in learning a foreign language.

What surprised me in this article was the evolution of each tool during the time, because when everything started despite the fact that there was no stable, technology terms of these tools managed to establish themselves so that people began to realize that the technology at that time it was used and seemed as an essential tool for learning. The first beginnings of the postcast was an audio of a conference about a dialogue in a foreign language stacked up by a book. Through everything was developed, it began to popularize the mp3 and by this media it began to boom to this technique that has become very useful today.
Nowadays, this technique is still little known by schools but mostly used by universities to increase the learning by listening native speakers in order to reach correct pronunciation. 
Moreover, talking about blending technologies in ESl what surprised me in that article was that it talks about the importance of this tools as teaching teachniques put into prectice at univerisites with the objective of facilitate and optimizate the way of learning. To finish, it is remarcable to mentioned that these methods are very useful and ergonomic for students as well as for teachers because nowadays classes online can be done from whatever place just by having internet access and in that way people have more opportunities to study and work at the same time but also to organize their time and get prepare on the area they want to achieve. Thaks to blending strategies teachers can do their work from whatever part of the world.

WEEK 2. ICT tools and the improvement of              awareness on student's mind.
Rate:5

Hello everybody! This time I am going to talk about the effectiveness of ICT tools in the moment of teaching a language since students start acquiring their academic knowledge.
My initial impression for this article was curiosity about the results of the research since it had been developed with new language learners. Something that made me want to read more about the article was how useful is the technology in the momment of make students improve their skills. Those students becomes self-confident, independent, responsible and autonomous. Besides, they reach more commitment and awareness in their activities as well as in their everyday life. My favorite quote from the article was a point of view from a student who said: "I can improve every day if I practice; or if I effort myself, I’m going to continue have good results as now". wow! I really loved that phrase! It was really amazing how students felt interested on their own improvement, acknowledge their skills and their weakness thank to the teachers' tools and the trendy activities that they develop in the classroom and outside in order to keep the students interested. Something I learned and that I immediately wanted to share with a colleague was that it is important for us as future teachers to introduce on students minds technological activities and demand responsability to each of them, with the objective of direct them toward success but also, to develop their self-confidence, their desire of growign and go beyond into what they want to reach for their future goals. That's it for this time! thanks for reading.

Hello everyone, my name is Natalia Gregori. As all of you I am majoring a bachelor degree of languages. I am so interested on learning a lot of this subject to improve my knowledge and become in a better future teacher.

Week 1. The advent of CALL
RATE: 4

This time I am going to share with you my point of  view about the first reading...

My initial impression of this article was the history that computer-assisted language learning (CALL) has since it starts in 1960s, and how it has changed until this days. It stared to be used just as a support to make students work alone with language drills, then it was becoming more useful since it development was growing up. CALL has become an inportant tool in the teaching field because student learn in a more interactive way as it is mentioned about studies made in 1991 that shown that students felt more motivated in writing with computers than in a traditional way, also teachers have a wide field for developing their classes. 

Something that made me want to read more about the article was the amount of programs and apps that CALL offers for learning in general. It is very interesting how easier can be for us as future teachers to prepare a class using CALL instead of preparing all the material by hand since we can find many activities searching on internet but also we can make them do drills alone or create their own presentations. Moreover, students of a foreing language can look for extra help on internet as dictionaries, voice recording, video clips and animation of the mouth. There is a lot of courseware to be used in order to improve the mental development.

Filally, something I learned from this article and that every teacher should know was that technology is growing up and we have to growth at the same time and prepare ourselves to create the best classes as possible for our future students. To help them to develop correctly their skills and learn according to their stage, we have to take advantage of everything we can of CALL and remember that to not be bored teachers we have to be adapted to the environment.