Week 10

Hello everyone !
I hope you will be fine and doing well.
Finally we are over and done with our online course. I cannot even imagine that we have finished our course and now this is the last blog which  I am composing.

Since I have already stated that this was my first online course and before that I did not have any idea about E- learning. Without any touch of exaggeration I would like to say that I will never forget this experience throughout my life. This course certainly provided me opportunity to interact with world class teachers and fellow classmates. One of the most important aspect of this course is that it enhanced our ELT skills especially I have learnt a great deal of knowledge and understanding as far as the use of technology in ELT  is concerned.
CLASS WIKI, blogs, nicenet, Proquest and many other online resources were new to me and I found them very helpful to improve my skills. Apart from learning, socialization with classmates was really a great and unique experience.

Week 10, was not so hectic as there were only two tasks to perform.

1) discussion on two articles about effective use of technology

2) Advices and suggestions to the new participants


Regards,

Muhammad Tariq 

Week 9

Hello everyone !

I hope you all are fine and doing well.
The last week has been really very hilarious in terms of completion and evaluation of our projects. As far as week 9 is concerned, it was  week in which all of the participants concluded their projects with a great effort and diligence. I am sure that it was a kind of practical effort which enabled us to understand the needs analysis of our students in the context of English Language Teaching. Secondly this project really sharpened our own ELT skills.  No one can deny the importance of use of technology in the classes and we all reached on a final conclusion that the use of technology can make such a great difference in our teaching and the learning of students which is undoubtedly cannot be compared with the orthodox method of teaching.
In this modern world of technology ELT has opened new vistas of leaning which is enabling  us to interact with our students in a more effective manner.

This week we also discussed various learning styles and multiple intelligence. I skimmed almost all the major articles of the week and I found them really relevant and practical to my teaching. The discussion about these topics was really very interesting and fruitful. Each one of us shared their own views about the topic as well. I I personally liked   Richard M. Felder's article 'LEARNING STYLES AND STRATEGIES', this article was really worth reading and it cleared my many concepts and quarries. The way Richard describes various learners and their role in learning language was really wonderful. 

I have read  Johan López and Inesa Zubrylina 's blogs and I liked their entire week's effort. Both blogs are really very reflective of what we did in the last week. 

I wish you best of luck for your upcoming assignments. 
Regards, 

Muhammad Tariq 

Week 8

Hello everyone !

I hope you all are fine and doing well. Week 8 has been really very interesting as we all completed our projects and we did peer review of each others projects. First of all as far as the project itself is concerned, I would like to say that it was not an easy task to complete such a comprehensive project as we were supposed to discuss technology related problem and its solution then to what extent we achieved our targets.  I would like to show my deepest gratitude to our course advisers and  her team for giving us clear guidelines to make this project a successful effort.

Secondly while working independently on this project I learnt a great deal of Knowledge and understanding about the use of technology in the classrooms. Even my ELT skills are properly revised while working on this project. we also created a class site and  online exercises which was again a new step to development of our ELT skills.

Lastly, I have gone through the blog of Ms. Ewa, I liked her blog very much as she has explicitly described all the major exercises of the week. I personally liked her project as she she intends to develop basic ELT skills of her students. She also provides ample opportunity to her students to learn independently.

Regards,


Muhammad Tariq

WEEK 7 post

hello everyone !
I hope you all are fine and doing well.
Week 7 has been unique as I really found Learner Autonomy a very useful and effective tool in ELT classroom. There is hardly any doubt about this fact that it provide a platform and a golden opportunity to the students to learn independently. It has changed  the teaching and learning process  and  orthodox teaching methodology  and conventional style of teaching have no place in the era of technology. Teaching has become a more scienfific process where the role of teacher is like a facilitator not merely an instructor. In order to develop slef esteem, slef respect, and to incorporate various cognitive skills, it is important to practice Learner Autonomy in the classrooms.

Secondly this week we also learnt about the effective use of mobile phones or other gadgets in the class. As there is no other alternative to technology, therefore, the use of computers or mobile phones in the classrooms is very significant. Few years back it was considered that mobile phones create problem in the class. Actually technology itself is not bad, its usage makes it less valuable. It all depends upon teachers or faculty how they involve students in the class activities in a positive and effective manner. The scope of mobile phones in the classroom is really very important, especially smart phones like iphone, blackberry or Andriod or windows phones have variety of ELT applications which can be used positively in the classes. I often take help of smart phone while teaching a factual or narrative comrehension passage. Even while discussing an argumentative essay, students can find out many illustrations relevent to the argumentative essays online. We have provided wifi in our computer labs, but we do have proper check and balance system to monitor the use of internet or mobile phones.

Thirdly, this week we also used PADLET, it was really an amazing tool to write or create effective academic documents.
My first PADLET page is given below:


http://padlet.com/embedding:

I really liked it very much.

best regards!

Muhammad Tariq
 

week 5 Blog

hi everybody !

I hope you will be fine and doing well. This week was full of creativity and fun, as  all topics were really wonderful. The Project Based Learning is not a new idea but the way its being used in this course, is absolutely immaculate.
The students get opportunity to explore their hidden talents and skills when they work independently. No doubt, sometimes classrooms become noisy but it does not mean that learning process has been compromised. My students always show keen interest in making projects especially when they are offered to do online. Frankly speaking my students come up with novel and artistic kinds of ideas although they work on language skills but one way or the other their all mental faculties are being employed.

The creating of rubrics or alternative assessment was really a fun. Frankly speaking it was really a new experience for me. My rubrics were about how to write a short story and the name of the story was The Savior, the website was really a great aid to formulate rubrics. I am sure with the given rubrics my students will come up with brilliant creative work.
regards,

Muhammad Tariq 

Week Four: Reading and Writing Skills

hello everyone!

Its exactly  the  one month since we started this course and time is passing so quickly. Week four is all about teaching and learning about Reading and writing skills. Reading comprehension and writing skills are two important pillars of ELT and without them there is no concept of language teaching.
This week was full of activities and discussions.
First of all we discussed the problems which we face related to teachnology in our classrooms. Then we have discussed various websites which can contribute in the learning of reading and writing skills.
In fact , its always easier to find out resources or material on both skills but when it comes to relevance, it really becomes an uphill task. I believe our course advisors are really taking us on right direction and hopefully by the end of this course we will be having a substantial amount of knowledge and understanding about ELT in terms of technology.

Regards,

Muhammad Tariq

Week 3 Blog

Hello everyone!

I hope you all are fine and in high spirits. Our third week was really wonderful as I could see variety of tasks were involved. Since English Language has become an international language, from all four basic skills of ELT, currently Oral or speaking skills occupy unique position.
No one is considered successful in any profession who does not have good interpersonal skills and English play vital role in the context.

This week we made our account on www.delicious.com
which was really a great fun as we can see all our favourite pages any where online. Therefore, its undoubtedly a great help for language teachers who explore different websites in  a day but they can not recall not even a single. But now they cac access them all webiste which they visited simply through one click.

Secondly in this week, we also studied the projects of different people and I gave my comments about one of the projects which was about teaching grammar and communication skills.

I also explored vaious websites which offer online courses and materials to improve oral skills.
This week was full of activites and I am glad to read  and participate in the dicussion about all topics.

Regards,

Muhammad Tariq

Week 2 Blog

hello everyone!

Second week was really hilarious as it was fun to take part in wonderful activities.  ABCD learing objectives  were really new for me, although I was ware of this fact that how important are these things in an ELT classroom. Secondly searching websites and exploring the new horizons was really a great learning experience. I believe that the way we are sharing knowledge and personal experiences about real ELT situations, make us perfect ELT teaching community.
This is first time I am the part of an online course  and I can safely say it  I am enjoying every bit of it.
Best of luck to all participants.

Regards,

Muhammad Tariq

REFLECTIVE BLOG

Good morning everyone!

 I hope you all will be fine and doing well.  English Language Teaching is a challenging task, where I believe that everyday is a new day -  not only for students rather for teachers as well. Teachers have to prepare interesting activites and lessons to impart their knowledge and skills of ELT. In this modern age, ELT has become highly scientific and  challenging, therefore  I believe  this course will definitely enable us to imrpove our English Language skills.
As far as the use of technology is concerned, undoubtedly no one can deny this fact that technology has given a new a trend and spirit to  ELT. Without the use of technology, it will be really hard to interact with students.

I am sure that its a golden opportunity for all of us to learn and share our experiences through such wonderful forum where distances do not matter and we all are working as a one family unit. It is important for us to share our views and experiences about the use of technology in the class or for our own academic purposes. I am really eager to learn every bit of this course so I could meet the expectations of my students. I would like to request that kindly do share the official website of your respective institutions so all of us may get a chance to know one another in a better way.

Wish you best of luck for the next week's assignments.

Regards,

Muhammad Tariq
Aitchison College, Lahore.
www.aitchison.edu.pk