Thanks for stopping by.. Don't forget to follow.. Grab my button..

Monday, July 23, 2012

Technology in the ESL classroom

Well, during the last year I've been giving a course on "Technology in the English Classroom" for esl teachers and I must say I enjoyed it so very much, that I've decided it's time to get my M.A degree in technology in Education. I've enrolled and been accepted already and it will start after the holidays sometime in October, 2012

I really think that it is necessary for today's students to have the opportunity to use computers, tablets, smartphones, smartboards, magiClass (www.magiclass.com) etc as it is part of their daily lives. They are using these devices every single hour and it is our job as teachers to cope and go ahead and learn, make new lesson plans and implement them in our classes.

True! It's a hard work but it is rewarding seeing the kids enjoy a lesson, it's rewarding seeing the kids enthusiasm about the English lesson and it is rewarding seeing the kids' progress. But most of all it's rewarding looking at the progress we, as teacher have done up to now.
This is a very nice video I've found in YouTube that show the changes in education during centuries.
So, what kind of teachers do we want to be?  What do we want to teach our kids? What do we prepare them for?
Once you have an overhead projector and a computer in the classroom  you are ready to go!! 
The sky is the limit!!!
As I see it there are many levels for the implementation of techonolgy in the classroom.
The first and most basic is using Word/PowerPoint.
You can make a nice explanation sheet, game, activity and show it on the overhead projector. You can make it fun for kids to learn.
when the kids are activated - they find it more interesting. For example, they can go to the board and circle/match/color (using a marker - no need to use the computer)
See example here:  (you can click on the image to go to file)

The kids just love it! They really love coming to the board, using the teacher's marker and everyone waits nicely for their turn. (I usually begin with a boy coming to the board and then a girl, a boy and a girl... so they don't aruge as for who goes first).

PowerPoint games are wonderful and the kids enjoy learning by playing. (sometimes they don't even think they learn)... There are many ways to prepare a PowerPoint game and you can learn how to make a basic game using the tutorial I've made.

These kinds of games can be played with the entire class, where each student has a chance to come to the board  (computer) and play once, it can be played in a small group or individually.

It will be delightful if every English teacher had an English room with computers, but unfortunately this is not the case in Israel. But looking at the bright side of things I think every school has a computer lab where an English lesson can be done once in a while.
The computer can be used to help the students explore. One activity I like to do is to give some information about a specific topic and ask the students to explore.
They like it as they write on colored cardboards, add images, paintings, drawings and then they present it to the class.
So that kind of activity where the students use the computer, but only for exploring, finding data, translation and reading is also a great way of using the computer in the classroom, which is one of the curriculum domain (access  to information). Our goal is for students to objain and use information from all kind of sources by applying their knowledge of vocabulary, syntax, morphology  etc. 
Here is an example for such an activity:





2 comments:

  1. I read your article and got impressed due to have a positive ipression, many people would like to read it also because you have made an effort to write perfectly, please keep it up!
    Tech 4 Technology

    ReplyDelete