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