Learning reflections by Dulce Ma. Gilbon

Communicative Skills for Secondary Teachers http://ced.cele.unam.mx/englishforteachers

Online facilitators Escuela Nacional Preparatoria No. 1 “Gabino Barreda Ma. Elena Delgado Centro de Enseñanza de Lenguas Extranjeras Leticia Martinek Karen Lusnia Eréndira Camarena

Dulce Ma. Gilbón

CONTRIBUTORS Introduction

Aceves Martineck, Adriana

Alcalá, Adriana

Checa Téllez, Marisela

Cruz Morán, Leticia

De la Llata Dohrman, Yolanda Gabriela

Galaviz Sandoval, Gabriela

García Álvarez, Ivonne

Gómez Sandoval, Gabriela Ivonne

Hinojosa Flores, Sandra

Main Ballina, Ma. de los Ángeles

Mariñelarena Estrella, Rebeca

Montes de Oca Olivo, Dulce Ma. Verónica

Pérez Argüello, Claudia

Pérez Pérez, Norma Angélica

Roca, Antonieta

Sánchez Graillet, Luis Avelino

Sánchez Vázquez, Alan

Salazar Aguirre, Raquel

Viruega, Ma. Del Carmen

Introduction

A teacher development program will soon be delivered to English language secondary school teachers. For that purpose, some university teacher educators prepared a 100 hour online program using carefully chosen free access sites in order to improve language skills and grammatical competence as well. Seven modules were designed to reach this objective.

Would that program be an appropriate response to that population needs? A workshop for English teachers who would participate as online tutors was designed in order to try all the activities as students in the less than half the time allotted to the program.

At the end of each module teachers were asked to reflect on their own learning process in the different contents: learning to learn, the four linguistic skills, teaching and the use of ICT. Instructions, estimation of difficulty and suitability of each activity for the target population were also analyzed by them.

As a final project of the afore mentioned diploma, the participants are required to write a report. This volume includes the reflections of the first 16 participants who share their enthusiasm, surprise, stress and even frustration struggling with new technologies during their learning process, but their willingness to face the challenge as well.

Communicative Skills for Secondary Teachers A tutorÂ´s journey through the learning activities. by Adriana Aceves M.

1. What I have learnt about learning a language. I have learnt all the possibilities available on internet to improve my English skills, in writing, in reading, speaking and in listening. I develop the social and civic competences when I interacted with my fellow classmates, cultural awareness and expression reading the different sites, digital competence, while using the computer and its tools. 2. Reading Teaching strategies Review the third module and describe the most interesting activity, or teaching strategies used and the effect they had on your learning (text, task, support provided, use of images, etc.). There are several activities that I will definitely use in my teaching practice. Like in module 3, unit 6 the activity â&#x20AC;&#x153;thinking about strategies use to understand Englishâ&#x20AC;?. There are many strategies I will use, like: 1- A good strategy is to active Prior knowledge before reading. Then the students make a connection between what they know, and what they are going to learn. 2- Another good strategy is to ask questions before, during and after reading because, you make the students conscious of their reading activity, and they can develop a better reading competence. 3-It is possible to infer the meaning of unfamiliar words if we read the context where the word is written, or we know about the subject. 4- To visualize when reading to create a picture in our mind is helpful because, we can imagine whatÂ´s happening in the text, or we can imagine and enjoy the text more as an experience.

Another activity I liked very much, and I am going to use the reading material in my class is the one called “100 short English Stories” because I liked the short story about the American way of life,

the reading comprehension quizzes, and the

writing of 2 cultural elements that I found in the story. Writing these elements helped me to really understand certain aspects of the American culture. 3. Writing Strategies Describe the most interesting activity, or teaching strategies I loved the activity called “Movie segments to asses’ grammar goals”. The segments selected by the creator of the blog are funny and very accurate to demonstrate the grammar point you want to teach and the grammar exercises, he does using the video material. Another activity I liked is called “a book poem “ using first the instant poetry forms, the students are able to write poems of different topics, giving a lot of confidence

to them. Then they can make a book with pictures with their poems. The students have the opportunity to see their work on a book. There are many activities I liked, for example, the comic strip or the visual story, I learnt a lot doing them, and you can combine writing in English and creating funny and motivating material.

4. My favorite ICT Tools My favorite information computer technology tools are: 1- The forums where we could share our works with the others' participants, and we could see what other people did. 2- The feedback from our tutors nearly the next day grading and commenting our works. 3- We could send instant messages to all the participants; I learnt to use this tool a bit late nearly in module 6.

5. Lifelong learning 1-â&#x20AC;&#x153;Education would be much more effective if its purpose was to ensure that by the time they leave school every boy and girl should know how much they do not know, and be imbued with a lifelong desire to know itâ&#x20AC;? William Haley quotes I really think that Haley is right about education. It should give the desire to learn more and to create curiosity among the children and adults to know more.

2- “Learning is about more than simply acquiring new knowledge and insights; it is also crucial to unlearn old knowledge that has outlived its relevance. Thus, forgetting is probably at least as important as learning.” -Gary Ryan Blair (Mind Munchies: A Delicious Assortment of Brain Snacks!) Teachers need to re-learn how to teach again, especially if they want to teach lifelong learning techniques, and using the computer as a learning tool. Teachers have to forget how they were taught, and think differently about education. I think that the suggestion given in the listening “ 7 ½ habits for long life learners” is really important to analyze the habits and to comment them. The activity was great, listening to other people reflections about what learning ability they had to improve, really helped me to analyze my habits as a learner and reflect in what habit I have to work more, in order to become a better long life learner. The activity helped me to be conscious about the habits I can acquire in order to improve my way of learning and as well of improving my teaching skills. I will write the habits and explain why I think are so important. 1. Begin with the end in mind- It´s easy to conclude a work or a research or even a book if we have the objective in mind. 2-Accept responsibility for your own learning- What I understand about this, is that you do not need that somebody teaches you so you can learn, you can take responsibility of your learning, and you cannot blame someone for not learning only yourself. 3-View problems as challenges- This is very important in traditional teaching failure is a way to eliminate students, so when we have problems doing an exercise or an evaluation, we think we are not good enough and quit trying. Well, this statement tells us the contrary, when we have a problem it´s a chance to learn.

4-Have confidence in yourself as a competent, effective learner- The most important thing while learning is to believe that we can accomplish the objective we want to do or have to do. 5-Create your own learning toolbox- This is a very important suggestion, everything that we find and learn as we use new learning techniques, we should keep them in a blog or in favorites in order to use them later. 6-Use technology to your advantage- After doing this course finally I have learnt to use technology to improve my studentsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; English communicative and learning skills. 7-Mentor others- This is an ability I have; I like explaining and helping whoever is in need to accomplish the learning activity or class. PLAY- This is the most important skill everybody needs to apply to have fun, while learning. If we donÂ´t play and think that is amusing to learn, we are not going to be able to be a long life learner.

by Adriana Alcalá

More than the simple illustration of the cartoon, the role of a modern teacher has changed to the point ITC tutoring is needed to prepare teachers to a new era of tools and challenges. New challenges imply a different point of view of what teaching is. That is one of the most important discoveries of this course. Each language skill teaching and learning has pushed the boundaries of what in the past we considered impossible or part of a sci-fi movie. About reading, I liked many of the texts but found so enriching having the combination between Reading and Listening, or Reading and Writing. Multi task activities with significant objectives made the difference. For example, the activity 2.2 “American stories” was very interesting because of the pace of the reading, pronunciation emphasis and interaction of the link. The same happened with “Words in the news” from activity 3.2 where the reading was in a more natural way. Talking about interaction, definitely the activity 5.1 “The

Amistad Incident” is a wonderful example, I just couldn’t stop clicking and learning about the topic.

What I found was a totally new way to teach listening and speaking strategies. I was very surprised to learn of so many ways and links and approaches to pronunciation, pitch, intonation, thought groups (I concept completely new for me), etc. It reminded me of the way I was taught these skills and the way I’m teaching, very outdated I might say. We used to have difficulties to find listening texts to work on class, or recording speaking, but now it’s the opposite, there are many options to cater all needs.

Now, the real challenge will be choosing the right text and link to fulfill the needs of a specific group. This course made me think that I need to go over this strategies and learn more about listening and speaking myself.

What ICT Tools did for me in this course was the possibility to choose any kind of activity having multimedia devices at hand. One of the clearest examples was writing. Having templates, examples and tutors on line made writing skill easier and sophisticated at the same time. This ability is not quite simple because it implies the management of the rest of the skills and the time, creativity and will to do it. I praise myself of doing all the tasks on time taking into account the aspects already mentioned. It made me think this sudden “good performance” on what I thought my weakest skill is due to the advantage of technology and the links. I hope my students will take advantage of both aspects, too.

New technology, old teaching ways…, in a way, the course made me think about what teaching is all about. It’s true I believe all this tools, strategies, texts are

wonderful in a way, but let us not forget that if they are not understood correctly they would be as good as nothing. Has technology really improved our teaching? Or has technology made us self aware of our own learning process? I still have much to think about both questions. The good news is that I DO have doubts about it. I really wish our secondary teachers will end this course with more than two questions in mind willing to continue learning.

Communicative Skills for Secondary Teachers A tutor´s journey throught the learning activities. by: Marisela Checa Téllez Wisdom is not a product of schooling but of the lifelong attempt acquire it Albert Einstein

Education is a lifelong experience. Experience is a lifelong education. Education plus experience equals expertise. Michael Bugeja Knowing that I have already acquired the basis of the English language, the next step was to be aware of my needs as a learner, and to find possible solutions to reach a higher English level; therefore, what I have learned about learning a language is to reflect upon my own learning and the learning strategies that I use to tackle a particular problem presented in vocabulary, grammar, listening, writing, speaking or reading. At this point, I am more conscious of my strengths and weaknesses because I have identified and improved them with the help of technology, such us the use of the internet websites which provided me with a great variety of activities: quizzes, word matching, multiple choice exercises, video, pronunciation of words and intonation patterns. The sections considered in this course were: Listening. In the websites, I came across different speaking accents which represented a challenge as a listener, but my mind created patterns of accent identification to select precise information when listening to native as well as non-native speakers of the English language. Reading. There were a lot of cultural aspects involved which made a more significant contribution in the explanation of the English speaker’s reactions towards different situations in their communities, life styles, and sense of belonging.

I became aware of the presence of these

aspects in the readings and that helped me make a deeper analysis of the texts and get the main idea presented more easily. Doing skimming, scanning, recognizing facts from opinions, identifying different types of texts, working with cohesion and coherence and having different types of reading exercises made me also a more skillful reader. Vocabulary. I noticed that the more difficult types of vocabulary exercises were the cloze tests because they require a deeper knowledge of the language; therefore, it became a need to check not only the meaning but also the cohesion and the coherence within a sentence when working with cloze tests. It is also essential to know more about collocations when solving this type of exercises because there are words that can only go with a particular preposition or followed by a precise word. Speaking. There were many elements which let the imagination flow, like the use of music, and the remembrance of important aspects of our lives. The chat session provided an opportunity to interact and share opinions. The speaking module also provided key elements to make an appropriate selection of the language to be used, depending on the intention of the speaker and whether he wanted to agree, disagree, make conclusions, give instructions, etc. Writing. The process of writing was accompanied and combined with technology, for example telling a story using bookr. The use of models to create writings was a good alternative to enrich the sequence of the steps to be followed, to provide a guide for non experts, and to set the structure expected. After having experienced this course, I have developed not only new skills to approach to the learning of the English language, but also I have learned new ways of teaching it with the help of technology and internet sources.

Communicative Skills for Secondary Teachers A tutorÂ´s journey through the learning activities. By Leticia Cruz MorĂĄn

1. What I have learned about learning a language I have learned that I can learn a language in any place, everywhere and the important thing is to want to learn. This course has the tools to learn a language through the sites on the internet.

2. Reading Teaching strategies I think that all activities are very useful; it is difficult to use only one strategy, so I choose activities 1.1 and 1.2 that are skimming and scanning because this activities first have a little explanation and then you can practice and have immediately the answers and you can do it as many times as you need. Moreover I think theses strategies are very helpful because they help you to get first the general idea and then to answers questions.

3. Writing Strategies I like activity 2.1 that is related to write 6 poems. I like the site because I think that the site gives the tools and makes the activity easy. In my case, I have troubles to write poems but with this site was very easy to start writing.

4. My favorite ICT Tools I am not sure if you ask about this.

The tools that I think are the most useful are to activate prior Knowledge, classify and categorize information and summarize information. These strategies are helpful because they help students when they read, when they write and when they listen.

5. Life long learning Learning is a treasure that will follow its owner everywhere.

Chinese Proverb

Old foxes want no tutors.

Thomas Fuller (1608-1661) British clergyman and author

Communicative Skills for Secondary Teachers

A tutor´s journey through the learning activities. by Yolanda Gabriela de la Llata Dohrman

1. What I have learned about learning a language Learning a language involves a very complex issue that implies handling the four skills: listening, writing, speaking and reading in the foreign language. Besides, is it not like any school subject, because it constitutes an interdisciplinary discipline which deals with a lot of different topics, values and cultural aspects of English spoken countries. So, taking into account this holistic view we must consider ourselves real experts as English teachers and not second level instructors, as many people think when they ask what our job is. In this course, I became aware of the huge responsibility we have in order to prepare our students for a competitive, globalized world, where learning English is not anymore a fancy trend, but a basic need. Likewise, teachers must be well-prepared and fluent in managing ICT tools, so they “can model the behaviors they expect from their students” (Eight Habits of Highly Effective 21st century teachers) As Albert Einstein pointed out: “ It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge”.

2. Reading Teaching strategies Reading in a foreign language is another ability students must handle to understand any kind of text: scientific articles, newspaper, magazines, TV guides, brochures, etc. For this purpose, teachers need to develop in their students some useful reading strategies in order to get the main idea of the text, or look for specific information, elaborate reviews or mind maps and many others. In this way, they will not need to understand a text word by word.

In this course, teachers are able to increase and enrich their vocabulary a lot, exploring in the internet the many extraordinary sites suggested. As a reading comprehension teacher and learner I will take into account all of these reading strategies and I will try to encourage my students to use these sites and feel free to practice and explore as much as possible. It is also very important to make them aware that: for raising their reading comprehension skills, they need to read all the time and practice as much as possible. Remind them that the more they read in any language the more they learn.

3. Listening strategies When we approach listening strategies we just think of understanding a conversation, a song or maybe a TV program. In this course, teachers become aware of some very important aspects, we sometimes take for granted: word stress, intonation, rhythm, natural pauses, tag questions and phrasal verbs. In addition, there is a variety of sites where teachers are able to practice listening and even grade themselves solving the quizzes in the web page. As an English teacher I always advise my students to watch films in L2 without subtitles or listen to the music they like but paying attention to the lyrics. The more they are exposed to the foreign language, the more they will develop their listening strategies in the future.

4. Speaking strategies Our speaking ability can improve considerably if we practice in a real context. This course provides the opportunity to practice oral production by making recordings and oral comments in an internet site shared by people from different places, mostly educators. I was also able to speak and listen to myself, although it was difficult at the beginning, because I am really not used to do that. To improve my speaking, I will try to speak in English as much as possible and maybe record my voice more often, now that I know how to do it in the computer. I learnt about the English speaking community, specially listening and sharing comments with the people from Voice thread site. As a language learner and teacher, I discovered that recording ourselves and our students in audio or video is very helpful because we have the chance to notice our mistakes or our achievement, when we watch the video or listen to the tape.

5. Writing Strategies Some people think that writing is the most complex and difficult strategy to develop and I agree, because English teachers are not able to practice this ability very often. They talk, listen and read all the time, but they hardly ever write essays, projects or reports in English. That is because, within the context they develop, they require to do all these tasks in L1. In this course, I noticed that my writing skills had decreased since I left the University, where I was supposedly trained to write essays, but that was 25 years ago and as I do not practice anymore, my writing ability is not so fluent. That is why this kind of course is very adequate and useful for language teachers, so that they be able to write in L2.

6. My favorite ICT Tools My favorite ICT tools were the Tall tale, the poem site and the Photopeach. I find them very attractive and motivating to use with the students, so that they can present a school project or as a gift to a friend. I am pretty sure that creating while learning or viceversa, is the best form of making education meaningful and appealing.

7. Life long learning As a conclusion, I think teaching is as big challenge and learning, as I quoted before, is a never ending story. We must always keep in mind the 71/2 habits

proposed in the Voicethread site and consider what Carl R. Rogers postulated: “The only person who is educated is the one who has learned how to learn…and change”.

Communicative Skills for Secondary Teachers Learning to learn, learning to teach. A tutor’s journey through Online Education by Gabriela Galaviz Sandoval Who dares to teach must never cease to learn. John C. Dana

This is a final reflection on one of the most interesting and challenging courses I have had lately. It made me feel anxious as a student, it made me feel proud as a future tutor, it made me feel nervous at first and then confident as a human being, so I believe it was really useful and fulfilling .

Learning to learn That is what learning is. You suddenly understand something you've understood all your life, but in a new way. Doris Lessing

What I have learned about learning a language is that as teachers and as a consequence as learners, we have to be always updating our knowledge. If we simply sit down believing we already know everything we are lost and we would never be able to continue learning. After doing this course I also became conscious of the importance of acquiring and using in a successful way learning strategies that lead us to handle the four skills involved in language learning: listening, speaking, reading and writing.

What I liked the most in this course was that one module was devoted to each one of these skills and I hadnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t imagined that we could have a four skills course online, so it was amazing and very interesting. Learning and teaching strategies can help us to achieve different goals that affect the way in which the learner selects, acquires, organizes, or integrates new knowledge, in our case language knowledge.

Reading teaching strategies I am always ready to learn although I do not always like being taught. Winston Churchill

Reading is one of the skills that helps a lot to acquire vocabulary and to get to places that sometimes we cannot imagine without reading. In the module of reading I realized how important it is to use strategies like scanning and skimming to read faster when details are not important. I also learnt from the sites we visited that there are a lot of resources that can help us motivate our students. In this module I especially liked the site for Adult Education from the California Distance Learning Project and the http://www.awesomestories.com where we can find a lot of cultural and interesting information. Listening strategies One of the most difficult skills to develop is listening. I found the listening module very useful because I learnt to pay more attention to stress and intonation to identify thought groups, this gave me ideas to help my students to develop their

listening skills. I discovered a lot of interesting sites that can help me to motivate my students when working on their listening skills. Speaking strategies Every act of conscious learning requires the willingness to suffer an injury to one's self-esteem. That is why young children, before they are aware of their own self-importance, learn so easily. Thomas Szasz

This was one of the most challenging modules because I think that everybody is used to speak but not to listen to itself, besides, speaking is one of the most difficult skills to develop. In this module I became very conscious about the stress my students experience when I ask them to speak and especially if I ask them to speak in front of the whole class. Through the activities in this module I learnt to tolerate listening to myself as a great way to correct my mistakes by listening carefully to my speaking and trying to change what must be changed to improve my speaking skills. I also became aware of my real possibilities as a fluent and I recovered my security when I noticed my voice wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t as terrible as I had thought it was. As an English learner and teacher this module made me conscious about paying closer attention to pronunciation and rhythm as very important elements that help us to have a better speaking. This module also helped me to approach to different technologic devices and tools updating my knowledge about how to use technology in the teaching process. Writing strategies I have always thought that writing is one of my favourite skills in English and in Spanish. The writing module taught me how useful it is to use templates and to follow models to make writing much easier than anyone could think. It was amazing how with the tools provided in the sites we could become poets and some of our works were real pieces of art. I enjoy this module very much.

This module helped me to realize how useful images can be to trigger our studentsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; imagination, and how the writing process can be enjoyable for them. My favourite ICT Tools I have been mentioning some of my favourite sites from this course, and about tools I can say that I found really amazing and useful the following: voice-threat, ETCC instant Poetry Forms and Photopeach. I liked these tools because I believe that they are motivating and can become an amazing trigger for our studentsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; creativity.

Commit yourself to lifelong learning. The most valuable asset you'll ever have is your mind and what you put into it. Brian Tracy

The recent advances in technology force us as teachers to try new approaches and new methodologies to get closer to our young students. Internet and virtual learning is one of these new approaches and these kind of courses are a real and urgent need. Online education helps to develop communicative skills and contribute to make our students more confident, autonomous and responsible with their learning processes. To sum up I believe that distance learning is valid and flexible way to make education more available and motivating to our students. This has been an amazing and very useful journey through learning activities.

Communicative Skills for Secondary Teachers A tutor´s journey through the learning activities.

by Ivonne García

This course has demanded hard work and long hours in front of the computer. I finally finished and I can say that I feel such work rewarding in many ways: It has given me the chance to be in my student’s shoes; I could reflect on my weaknesses and strengths as a teacher, as a student and as an English speaker as well, and I have had the chance to discover new tools and resources for both learning and teaching. The following lines are meant to share some of my thoughts on this experience:

What I have learned about learning a language I’ve learned that Iearning a language (excuse the redundancy) demands a great involvement and commitment. It is never-ending work, even when you consider yourself a fluent speaker. There are always areas to strengthen, skills to practice and words to learn. As I mentioned before, I had the chance to see English through the eyes of a student again, so I could experience both: the challenge and uncertainty of fulfilling a task whose purpose demands an effective use of the language, and the excitement it implied in the practice and use of English.

There were activities in the course that made me reflect a lot on my own performance in many ways: Listening to myself as I recorded my activities for the Speaking Module, assessing my work with quizzes, working with online tools, among others, were refreshing experiences that make me foresee how motivated the Secondary teachers will be when their turn comes to take the course.

Reading Teaching strategies.

I really liked all the activities where we could read and listen at the same time. I think doing this is a very valuable practice that can enhance both skills. In general, the links in this unit where text and sound were available were really valuable tools. I could see that sometimes we tend to isolate the study of the skills but it is also very beneficial to practice them together. By listening and reading at the same time we train the inner voice we listen to when reading in silence, in terms of rhythm, intonation and pace, and with this we improve the comprehension as well.

I have personally taught Reading Comprehension for about 6 years, so I found this unit very relevant and related to my experience. The materials and activities we found here prove that Reading Comprehension is by no means a simple or dull work. It isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t easy, but at the same time it is motivating and a key to access a whole world of knowledge and information.

Writing Strategies This is one of the Modules I liked the most. I t is hard to choose a single activity as my favorite because all of them were motivating and purposeful. Perhaps Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d choose Activity 2.2: My book of poems as one of my favorites because I had the chance to explore a style Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m not used to practicing. Besides, I discovered in the tool called Booker a very innovative and enjoyable way to publish and share ideas online.

I also liked very much the activity where we created funny stories. It is a nice idea to use vocabulary in a very different context. In general, the sequence of the activities in this Module is convenient. What I liked the most is the fact that I found myself learning without even thinking too much about it. I was focused on writing a nice poem, in sharing as well as I could experiences with my classmates, in creating a good story that I didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t realize how much I was learning until the end, when I looked at the things I did. As a student, this Module was a great experience.

Speaking Activities

A very challenging Module. I must say that the experience of listening to myself speaking was very strange at the beginning, but it gave me the change to recognize my strengths and weaknesses when I speak. I eventually became used to listening to my voice and record the activities.

The work here was very motivating and represented a great opportunity of improvement.

My favorite ICT Tools:

a) Photopeach: Compared to other online tools devoted to create presentations or videos, the use this one is quite easy and we can adjust it to many different academic purposes. It allows personal involvement as well.

b) Bookr: A very nice tool to share ideas online. As a student I loved to see the final result: A piece of writing where I could see myself reflected, not only with the texts I created but also with the final presentation of my work.

c)BBC: Skillswise: An Internet site we used several times. It offers many tools and allows the study and practice of all language skills. All the activities found in this site are designed to address a great variety of needs. From self- evaluation to actual practice, from activities designed for beginners to advanced students, this site is a great opportunity to grow in the study of the language.

Life long learning

These are some quotes I relate a lot with the context of our course:

Learning is a lifetime process, but there comes a time when we must stop adding and start updating. ~Robert Brault

'The excitement of learning separates youth from old age. As long as you are learning you're not old.' Rosalyn Sussman

Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever. Gandhi

I would like to end by saying Thank you tutors! I really appreciate your kind support. Your help and attitude made unnecessary a Module about the tutorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s role in this course. Your example is more than enough. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d also like to acknowledge all the people involved in the development of the course because there is an evident work of research, design and organization behind. All the Internet resources, activities and tools included in the course are great and reflect how hard you worked planning the course. Congratulations.

As I mentioned at the beginning, the course was really demanding and a hard work, but I really enjoyed it and I would like to say that it made me

think of the following quote, with which Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d like to finish. I think most of us teachers, have proved it right:

Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.-Confucius

“Communicative

skills

for

Secondary

teachers”.

tutor’s journey through the learning activities. By Gabriela Ivonne Gómez Sandoval

What have you learned about learning a language?

Through this interesting course I have learnt variety of new skills. For example, language learning implies a lot of commitment, responsibility for my own learning, patience, I.T. skills and familiarity with various forms of multimedia equipment etc. I also realized that learning requires: pursue and persist in the objective we are trying to achieve, organize one's own learning, effective management of time and information. It is also very important to develop the ability to overcome obstacles in order to learn successfully, assimilating new knowledge and skills. It is also necessary to build learning and life experiences in order to use and apply knowledge and skills in a variety of contexts. Develop motivation and confidence through our own learning experience. After visiting the different websites suggested during the course, I found particularly useful Centre for Education and Training. I have noticed some advantages that I hadn't taken into account; for example, in the section Crazy English in this website, there are different categories to learn words: etymology, idiom, American vs. British and then a test about all of them . I think the great advantage is that the student can take enough time to read, learn vocabulary and apply it in a certain context with certain ease. The more motivated the student is, the more he/she is going to learn.

Reading Teaching strategies What I most liked about this module was the idea of giving a great deal of support to students in the area of reading through reading strategies such as: Bottom-up Reading, Top-down Reading, the use of images to support the studentsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; understanding. In the end, the students can test their own learning by completing the tests provided on the websites. One of the things that interested me most in this module was the section that dealt with the incorporation of new words into American English that occurred after their Independence.

One of the reasons for this was the fact that a large number of immigrants arrived in the United States at this time. It was difficult for them to understand British English. Noah Webster wanted to create American English by simplifying the language. I was fascinated to see how the war of Independence eventually lead to the formation of a new standardized version led to changes in the spelling of important words such as centre-center, colour-color, traveller-traveler, etc.

I was also interested to learn how foreign words were incorporated into American English, i.e. Words or phrases that were introduced by the migrants- Bon Apetit (French), Kaputt (German), Burritos (Spanish), etc. In my opinion, the Cultural Awareness is an essential part in learning, particularly in reading, because through the history or the literature the student can better understand the language and the way the native speakers think and see the world. In the website Adult learning Activities, I think the activities for vocabulary and comprehension are very useful not only for the students, but also for the learners.

Writing Strategies.

The part that I enjoyed most in the Writing module was the poem-writing section. I particularly liked the idea of the students making and publishing their own book of poems in English. Not only, does this exercise reinforce students learning of English language, it also gives students the satisfaction of being creative in another language and is good for their own self esteem. The Tall Tales section was really exciting as well as being a lot of fun. I feel that this exercise will be very successful with students of all ages and, like the poetry section, has the advantage of allowing the students to be creative in a new language. Most of the Tall Tales are so funny that I tried them several times. This is also a great exercise to practice the parts of the speech and review vocabulary in a very different way. The teaching strategies that I also took into consideration was the discussion in the forum about correction of studentsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; pieces of writing is a great part of a teaching strategy because the corrections most be clear enough so that the students can understand why is it incorrect and why.

My favorite ICT tools.

The use of ICT tools is currently the focus of much interest and develop collaborative projects. These kinds of tools also provide the possibility to work in cooperation with groups for example by holding meetings, ongoing discussions, working on documents, information dissemination, and a range of other tasks. I was previously familiar with the ICT tool known as Flickr for uploading photographs but had never used Bookr before. This was

definitely my favorite of the ICT tools that we used. It was very entertaining the fact that I was able to create my own poems book.

Another tool that I really enjoyed was the PhotoPeach. I spent hours uploading my favorite photographs and telling stories that described them. This tool can be used for all sorts of student projects such as family albums etc. The possibility of having music for the presentation also enriches the work and invites other people to watch it. It is nice to send it to our friends. Another tool that I enjoyed was the Movie tool Movie Segments to Assess Grammar Goals. I love movies and I go to the cinema nearly every fortnight and I consider this tool both useful and fun for the students who can learn while enjoying themselves. It also helps students to familiarize themselves with accents from a variety of countries – United States of America, England, Ireland, Australia etc. In general, all the tools that provide entertainment are always a great source of knowledge for the students and they really enjoy these kinds of activities because they are meaningful to them.

Lifelong Learning

“The great difficulty in education is to get experience out of ideas”.

George Santayana.

“Why should society feel responsible only for the education of children, and

not

for

the

education

all

adults

every

age?”

Erich Fromm

Communicative Skills for Secondary Teachers A tutorÂ´s journey through the learning activities. By Sandra Hinojosa Flores.

1. What I have learned about learning a language There are many reasons to learn a foreign language, from working in another country to discovering your roots, through intellectual curiosity, romance, travel, and secret communication. There's a wide range of materials and tools available to help you with your language studies, including language courses, dictionaries, grammar books, phrasebooks, on line lessons, mp3 players and electronic translators. The most important is to have an objective and motivation to start to learn, there is usually a form to reach the goal and people or tools that can help us to improve our levels.

2. Reading Strategies http://www.cdlponline.org is my favorite site of Module 3: Reading. It is an easy to manage site. Students can choose their own topic and materials to read;

the exercises are creative and entertaining. There is also listening practice and nice videos to watch, students practice vocabulary, spelling and explore cultural aspects of the studied language. Many strategies can be used, for instance, activation of previous knowledge, finding main ideas, identifying facts and opinions and many more.

3. Listening Strategies. The most important of the module 4: listening was to know that there are many teaching tools that include using poetry, music and stories. Students can learn a lot through listening. Some strategies are: to determine why what the speaker is saying is important for the student to be motivated, to make sure that students can hear well, to look for the speakerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s pattern organization, to look for theme and main ideas while listening to the speaker, to pay attention to the movement of the lips if possible and take notes in case there is much information and you will probably need later on. My favorite site of the module: http://www.manythings.org/pp/ students can practice minimal pairs.

4. Speaking Strategies This module was a little bit difficult, but it was especially useful because I learned how to deal with recordings, audioconference and videoconference as well.

was

motivating.

favorite

activity

was

the

site

voicethread.com/share/310992 The goal of teaching speaking skills is communicative efficiency. Learners should be able to make themselves understood. They should try to avoid confusion in the message due to faulty pronunciation, grammar, or vocabulary, and to observe the social and cultural rules that apply in each communication situation.

5. Writing Strategies Almost all sites were very useful because it was necessary to check some models to create meaningful essays, in each model there was an explanation as well as an example which helped a lot while writing. My favorite activity was in the following web site: http://ettcweb.lr.k12.nj.us/forms/newpoem.htm First, because I had never experimented a similar one before and secondly because it was funny. The most important factor in writing exercises is that students need to be personally involved in order to make the learning experience of lasting value. The teacher should be clear on what skills he/she is trying to develop, the teacher should promote both enthusiasm, effective and affective learning and autonomy as well.

6.My favorite ICT tools. 1. voicethread.com/share/310992

It is very useful because a student can learn and reflect while listening to the 7 Â˝ habits for long life learning. Then students can record their voice and at the same time listen to people from different parts of the world speaking, you can share cultural aspects and also practice listening. 2. http://www.makebeliefscomix.com

I found it very interesting because students can exploit their own creativity. It can be used by students from elementary school to adults. It is a funny and different way of learning important things such as: coherence, interjections, connectors, cultural aspects and more. 3. http://photopeach.com/

Using this tool, a student can create a nice and attractive presentation. Students learn how to follow instructions and how to manage some computer items. Students can also see some other peopleÂ´s presentations, learn cultural aspects and practice different abilities such as grammar and writing.

7. Life long learning

Teachers open the door. You enter by yourself. ChineseProverb That is what learning is. You suddenly understand something you've understood all your life, but in a new way. Doris Lessing

Communicative Skills for Secondary Teachers. A

tutor’s

journey

through

the

learning

Angeles

activities Main

Learning as many processes in life implies time and effort. As Harvey Ullman says; “Anyone who stops learning, is old, whether this happens at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps on learning not only remains young, but becomes constantly more valuable regardless of physical capacity”. In the case of learning a language and methodology as teachers, it is an endless process that enriches our teachinglearning practice as long as we keep fresh on it. According to B.B. King. “The beautiful thing about learning is nobody can take it away from you” and it is definitively true. In the case of learning English the most we practice and learn, the most valuable and experienced we become. What I have learned about learning a language is that not only a book oriented class provides the learning of the language, but all these materials and resources that teachers can use to enrich their teaching. Nowadays we count on this admissible possibility.

The four skills that were practiced in this course have given teachers a bunch of interesting and fresh ideas that can be put into practice and reinforce them all since they are very fresh ideas and activities.

All the skills practiced through different activities were very interesting. For example in reading we had the opportunity to practice by answering quizzes and not only by reading books. The fact of giving students feedback right after answering quizzes is very rewarding and motivating. Listening and practicing minimal pairs give students a lot of confidence since doing so they can correct their mistakes and be able to speak more fluently after having practiced. In writing, we were able to recognize different genders and frameworks to write more creatively. This means that we can write about real events and that makes our writing more interesting for other to read.

My favorite ICT tools were the internet based sources such as the pimpampum site that gave us the opportunity to express ourselves as well as use technology and understand it. The Photopeach site is a lot of fun because students can relate and their own experiences and it is very motivating to use real information.

COMMUNICATIVE SKILLS FOR SECONDARY TEACHERS.

By Rebeca Mari単elarena Estrella

It has been a great experience to participate in this course, during the modules we had the opportunity to review some strategies and contents and also learn several new strategies and tools that we can use in our teaching practice.

1. What I learned about learning a language. I learned that learning a language is a continuous process that never ends. A teacher must keep practicing and learning every day, they have to update their strategies and tools all the time in order to get the students attention and also to get that students enjoy learning the language. In this course the activities included were very varied and most of them really amusing. I confirmed that English is not only useful but also enjoyable.

2. Reading Strategies.

In this module there are many activities to review some of the most common reading strategies teachers use like skimming, scanning, identifying facts and opinions, questioning, etc. There are some activities like the one entitled Cell Phone where the teacher had to practice reading and listening the text at the same time, then there are some exercises to check the content. There is a very complete activity â&#x20AC;&#x153;Amistad Incidentâ&#x20AC;? where there is important information about a real situation in the courts of the United States which made the reader think about the main values that people in that country accepted to follow. The linkers in this text lead the reader to authentic documents related to this case. With this activity the reader practice reading comprehension and learn cultural items of the United States.

3. Listening Strategies

At the beginning of the module there are some activities to detect listening problems and to find out the way to improve their listening abilities k. Then there is a series of activities to work with intonation, stress, rhythm and thought groups. This module also included the dictation section with different levels of English. Finally there are several exercises to work phrasal verbs in context.

4. Speaking strategies. In this module it was required to record a personal story, an imaginary story, and a short presentation and give instructions. In the second part of the module it was necessary to talk with another participant by MNS and report the conversations. There were some problems to get the communication due to problems in the software of the PCs or to arrange the time to talk or because the audio wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t O.K. or just because it was difficult to send the answers to the forum. Even though this module is king of difficult it is very interesting and shows the teacher different meaningful ways to teach speaking.

5. Writing Strategies.

This module included productive activities such as create a tale, create a book of poems, do a comic, how to write a book review, an eyewitness article, a News writing and to use movie segments to asses grammar goals. These activities were presented in an entertaining way that created in the participant the feeling that it is possible to be creative and positive using all the resources in internet.

6. My favorite ICT. There are some ITC chic are very practical and interesting, for example, the Work in the News for

listening; ESL Activities on Line, English Club and Skillwise where there are many exercises to learn and practice grammar. You Tube. English with Jennifer, which is a wonderful guide for English pronunciation.

BBC Learning English, this site

contains many different topics, grammar structures and materials to learn and practice English. Make Beliefs Comic for Educator. This is an easy way to promote writing in a meaningful way, with this tool people can write, read and tell meaningful, brief stories.

7. Lifelong Learning.

There is no end to education. It is not that you read a book, pass an examination, and finish with education. The whole of life, from the moment you are born to the moment you die, is a process of learning. J. Krishnamurti

If somebody wants to be updated in his/her career, he/she must consider to study and learn during all his/her productive life, especially teachers. Every day there are new teaching approaches, strategies and resources. The teacher must know them in order to improve his/her teaching. The 7½ habits for lifelong learners mention in a concise way the main points you have to consider if you want to be a lifelong learner. Among other points, you have to consider to “ Accept the responsibility for your own learning”, meaning to establish specific time to study, to research for information in books and internet; to try to vein touch with English as much as possible, watching TV, listening music, etc.; to ask for an advice or help with your friends or colleagues.

My learning experience Communicative Skills for Secondary Teachers

A tutorÂ´s journey through the learning activities by DULCE MARIA MONTES DE OCA OLIVO

Foto tomada en el Museo Mcnay de San Antonio, USA

What I have learned about learning a language is that I need to practice the language every day and use all the resources which are in the net, I need to explore them, use them and propose them. I also need to identify my strengths and weaknesses to reinforce my work and do my best to get my goal which is to improve my English and use it as natural as it could be. Another important aspect of language is culture and it is important to use it to reinforce my studentsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; learning because culture is the key to their success in the learning of a language. Culture should be seen as a tool to make students feel like studying English, they should be aware of the importance of culture as a resource to be involved in their language learning.

Reading Teaching Strategies

One of the most boring strategies for students is reading, why? Because teachers have developed these strategies but in a passive way and the student wants to be involved in the reading process, he wants to participate and feel that he is active and that he can propose and use his/her previous knowledge to understand a text. One way that it could be different is that in these module teachers could check different sites to motivate students to read, how? By listening and reading at the same time, students are reading but they also can listen and in this way they can improve their pronunciation and reinforce their reading strategies. Furthermore, they can learn about reading strategies using the fact sheets and worksheets to improve their reading strategies then some quizzes can be solved and them

printed

at the BBC in this way students will check their progress and they can feel

more confident and they are aware of what they are learning.

Listening strategies This is one of the most difficult strategies for the students so they need to develop their listening strategies and what it is suggested to make students feel confident and they have to be taught to listen using all the visual support they have but also

they need to listen to an specific purpose and recognize the intonation, stress and rhythm too. How can the students do that? RandallÂ´s ESL cyber listening is one of the best sites for them because they can choose their listening activities according to their level and the difficulty and interest too. Different topics are listed so students can choose one and practice the exercise and do as many as they can. In this module, MP3 or MP4 could be used as a tool to improve their listening strategies and it could be a motivating way because they feel they are learning English with their new devices and the teacher is updated. Another activity which seems old fashioned is dictation and in this module, it was refreshed by listening to the passages on line and check your dictation in the same way, so dictation could be done in a different way and it will be a good listening practice.

Speaking strategies Speaking is believed as one of the most difficult strategies to learn a language but using the resources in the net, it could be seen in a different way and the students could feel they are learning because they could get vocabulary and they will feel more confident. One of the most important tools is music because it makes your imagination flows and gives you ideas to produce a passage orally, music is considered one of the exciting sources to learn English and reinforce speaking strategies. Voicethread.com is a useful site and easy to use students can use it as a way to leave comment and they can have the opportunity to speak by giving opinions or leaving comments.

ESL: English study and learning materials is site designed to know more about speaking expressions as agreeing and disagreeing, the expressions can be listened and read and the students feel more confident to speak so their speeches and conversations can be recorded and they can checked their pronunciation, intonation, stress and rhythm and their progress too. It is a motivating way to force students to speak. Writing Strategies Writing is the skill which can not be checked at class so teachers are not worried about it and this skill is the one which is not practiced enough. In this module, The sites suggested give you different ideas to work on writing using the sites which makes writing a useful and interesting way for writing reports, news, the weirdest thing you have experienced and so on. Students can write and produce their photopeach slide and they will enjoy it and share it with their partners in this way, teachers can check how their students are writing and teachers can give feedback in class. My favorite ICT tools In this workshop, I have learned how to improve English skills by using the ICT resources, my favorite ICT tool was bookr because this tool is developed to write and produce a book with poems and at the end, the product is seen and used to read and create and write your own poems. Life long learning

The wisest mind has something yet to learn. George Santayana US (Spanish-born) philosopher (1863 - 1952)

The human being is interacting with different resources and should learn something new every day. In this life long learning , responsibility and organizing information are the two steps which are ones of the most important if students want to be successful and get their goals in the future, so, our role as a teacher should be as facilitator and monitor our students work , we have to keep in mind that Learning without thought is labor lost; thought without learning is perilous. Confucius (551 BC - 479 BC), The Confucian Analects

Communicative A

tutor´s

Skills journey

for through

Secondary the

learning

Teachers activities

by Claudia Pérez Argüello

The following report includes the reflections on a three-week learning experience working with the Course on Communicative Skills for Secondary Teachers platform. Different aspects related to the teaching-learning process are dealt. The participant´s role was to actually interact within the Course with other participants and tutors. These are the conclusions. What I have learned about learning a language The first task as participants was to confront beliefs versus reality. All modules began with a self-evaluation on skills. Then through work and continuous practice conclusions were drawn. Vocabulary increase, abilities´ improvement, awareness of directions to be taken in order to raise levels. Reading Teaching strategies According to the main objective in the Reading module, the participants were not just asked to experience reading as an isolated skill, but a supported one by other skills (such as listening) and different on-line tools. The module´s topics helped participants discover, identify, practice and apply reading strategies with useful and carefully chosen materials, which enabled them to become more fluent and independent readers. Listening Strategies In order to develop good listening strategies participants were exposed to different kinds of useful materials. The tasks were leveled and included explanations and exercises on intonation, rhythm, word stress, pause and stories. This approach allowed us recognized that we must be more aware of students´ difficulties to reach listening goals in class and in life.

Speaking strategies Ideal speakers do not exist. Most of the times students would try to apply their speaking abilities in artificial learning experiences and that is not totally unreal communication, but it should not be the only choice. Fortunately, technology can play a helping role in this matter. As participants we could encounter a number of difficulties expressing ourselves through recordings and trying to speak to somebody. Finally, we did our best to overcome problems and learned how to use sound recording software.

Writing Strategies One of the most feared and overwhelming ability for many is Writing. However, the materials and ICT Tools were carefully chosen to make the participants feel confident and safe to use them.

This module allowed us to reflect on many

aspects of our lives: family, friends, colleagues, work, home, likes, dislikes, etc. It made us express our feelings and thoughts in such a nice and sharing atmosphere.

My favorite ICT Tools Definitely all of them from the Writing Module:

ETCC (Instant Poetry Forms) and BOOKR MAKEBELIEFS COMIC

PHOTOPEACH

They made me feel, remember, imagine, think, laugh, learn, share, etc. Life long learning HABIT 3: VIEW PROBLEMS AS CHALLENGES Reminds me that I have to deal with problems, otherwise they will not disappear or become smaller. I am an intelligent and resourceful woman. HABIT 7: TEACH/MENTOR OTHERS If you do not share thenâ&#x20AC;Ś what for.

A tutor´s journey through the learning activities. by Norma Angélica Pérez Pérez

Nowadays, the advances in technology have provoked that most people learn English since this language is spoken world wide and is very indispensable in any job. It could be said that when learning English, it is necessary to know how to do it. To know the different strategies and techniques to learn the different skills required like: Reading, Listening, Writing and Speaking. Referring to this course, definitely all these activities learnt were so helpful to learn more about English since some basic mistakes were corrected and understood and other easy techniques could be applied in the classroom with successful results.

According to the experience learning strategies, they were so helpful because new vocabulary could be corrected a lot with the different activities practiced. It could be said that it is really important for teachers to be updated in this kind of techniques since technology is completely changing every day and it is necessary for them to know all about the technological advances in order to apply them in the classroom. Indeed, as teachers as students can consult all the extraordinary information on line which is very helpful for them to learn. It is important and useful because the students can check and learn from the most up dated articles.

In all modules, there were different things to learn. It could be said that in reading skill, there are different strategies to read just by pleasure. One example could be to look for real articles, it means that teacher has to apply the most appropriate articles to the student, in other words, those articles have to be very interesting for the students and part of their area and their level because it is not possible to read an anthropological article in an engineering career, for instance. So, the articles have to have an easy format or organization in order to be better understood.

According to the listening activities, it was an amazing experience since different strategies could be learnt in order to use them in the English class. It means that, all activities have a specific purpose without the students get bored. If the listening activities are well applied with the objectives clearly stated, the students will easily learn and understand the language. Most of the activities were focused in the identification of intonation and rhythm. For this reason, these activities are considered really important.

The speaking module was really interesting because of two important reasons. The first reason was â&#x20AC;&#x153;the team workâ&#x20AC;?, where there were very helpful personal point of views shared. The second reason was that there were different speaking mistakes to be noticed and corrected since the great activity about recording the voice and pronunciation was excellent. It means that, when learning, the most probable aspect is that the pronunciation is never recorded just because the person doesnÂ´t consider worth do it. However in this case, it was really good to listen to myself and find which were the most repeated speaking mistakes I had. Above all, it permitted me to modify that defect for having a correct pronunciation and at the end, it was very funny.

Other interesting module was writing. These activities were really funny to work. They covered the most important points from grammar. It could be said that in order to improve this ability it is needed to practice it more by making more grammar activities in order to differentiate the verb tenses in a faster way and get accustomed to answer them faster without a lot of analysis. Just answering them by heart. According to the most interesting activities made with the technology I can say that all of them were the exact tools for each module however I consider that there were two very amazing and funny to me. The first one was how to make an online book. It was really funny and let us create and show our feelings, also, our computer abilities. The second one was how to design our photopeach album. I really enjoyed both tools and definitely I will apply them with my students because it is part of learning new technological tools. According to lifelong learning, there were very important points like “Begin with the end in mind”, since many people want to learn but they do not know what for. The other point is “problems as challenges” because we as humans when we have a failure, we don’t want to continue with our projects and we hesitate to complete them, in that case, we have to think positively. Other point is “to teach others”, I really liked this point because when we teach in higher levels (University) we are corrected by students and this makes us improve our learning.

As a conclusion, I may say that the experience in learning strategies was really good since I could know different techniques of learning and teaching this amazing

language, not just in speaking but also in writing, listening, writing, grammar and writing skills. It was a very helpful and useful course.

FINAL REPORT By Antonieta Roca

As it is explained in 7 ½ Learning Habits, lifelong learning is essential to survival, to success and to self-actualization. Lifelong learning doesn’t end with the end of formal schooling but continues on throughout people’s lives, and it is the role of the teacher to model the ways in which students continue to learn and grow.

The course was started with a diagnosis exam and a self evaluation where each participant was asked to estimate his language level. The participants were then asked to explore a tutorial which would show them how to log in to the site of the course, and how to work the modules of the course by following the instructions given in the tutorial. The first activities that were carried out had to do with learning to learn through the Internet and the identification of the learner’s grammar weaknesses and how to work on them. The next modules that followed were reading- where different reading strategies were learned and practiced through different interesting tools. Listening came after and again the activities that were chosen were completed through a variety of tools specifically chosen to work and increase the learner’s listening ability. Speaking was rich of communication activities with monologues and dialogues using technology to carry them out and to allow the participant to extend his/ her speaking practice. The last module was

writing, an ability that is not very liked by both teachers and students because many of them feel that it is boring and tedious. Oh but what a surprise, after the fun that the participants had with the previous model, they probably thought this was going to be a terrible module and as the activities advanced it was found that they were as fun and motivating as the ones in the previous module allowing them to learn about the different pieces of writing and that even comics could help to develop their writing abilities and how creative they could be with writing and publishing poems and that images were a fresh way to tell a story.

The experience that the participants had was enriching, motivating fresh and the most important thing they learned was that tools and technology can go hand in hand with teaching, and that all that has to be done is to give them an opportunity to enrich and make their teaching more dynamic.

Communicative Skills for Secondary Teachers

A tutor´s journey through the learning activities. By Luis Sánchez Graillet 1. What I have learned about learning a language When I learned English there wasn’t anything similar to these superb ICT tools we have now, so I gave my first steps into English studying in printed books, dictionaries and verb charts (I remember those funny verb charts made from two cardboard circles jointed by a rivet, in which you could locate the meaning and irregular forms of some verbs in a window cut off in the outer circle), besides notebooks, pencils and magazines and newspapers in English, and sometimes – but just sometimes- I could have in the lessons I attended some audiovisual auxiliaries, as dialogues to listen in those old tape cassettes (how can I even remember that old stuff!), and for special times a lesson in video (-cassettes, of course).

When I now contemplate the

computers linked to the World Wide Web, in which you have available at the same time and in the same place resources for training reading,

writing,

listening

and

speaking

abilities in English, aside from videos and communication

tools

asynchronous communication,

(for

both

and as

well

written

synchronous as

for

voice

communication in real time), when I saw all these tools as easily accessible for so many English students I just wonder how we can effectively work in this new learning environments when we were formed in those old-traditional learning resources.

So, not just for me, but for all English teachers from my generation it has been necessary to make an enormous effort to update our teaching abilities in order to make them operative in these new virtual environments, and this course has offered us an outstanding opportunity to do so. It has been especially worthy because here we were taught how to fully incorporate the ICT as valuable tools in the learning-teaching process, helping us to make our classes more interactive, more amusing and richer in updated cultural contents. Nevertheless, if I were compelled to point out one single teaching I have acquired here as the worthiest, I would then say that the key thing I have learned is that it is perfectly possible to plan and conduct a complete and rich four-abilities English course at distance relying entirely in the computer and web resources, without leaving aside the peer-to-peer communication in real time via voice, which is very significant since it avoids students from feeling isolated.

2. Reading teaching strategies Probably, reading is the most import language ability in Internet environment, and that is, consequently, the most developed ability in a student working at distance by means of a computer connected to the web. For some years I’ve been concentrated in reading comprehension courses, so I tend to believe I know a lot about that matter… but it’s absolutely true that there’s always something new to be learnt.

Among the reading activities we had in this course, the one is liked the most was the

reading

and

listening

activities

the

web

page

http://www.manythings.org/voa/stories/ In this page you can read a short story as well as listening to it simultaneously. That is just fantastic since doing so have your visual and aural brain circuits performing at the same time in complementary tasks, which makes possible a more precise and more comprehensive building of the reading meaning. Of course you can do the same thing in a conventional class, but the tools that make possible to have fully integrated the reading and the listening components of the lesson in a single page give the student immediate and easy access to this integrative activity. In addition, the authors selected in this web site are excellent, and the offer you as a teacher excellent opportunities to explore with your students some cultural matters. For example, in the activity I worked with I read two short amazing stories by Ambrose Bierce about the American Secession War, so these activities offer a wonderful opportunity to discuss this central chapter of the American history with our students.

3. Listening strategies The Web is a big box plenty of opportunities do increase our listening comprehension capacities, since it posses now fully integrated multimedia resources which allow us to listen to a wide variety of audio and audiovisual materials: music, musical videos, recorded speeches, movies, homemade videos, educational videos, documental films, historical audio files, etc. However, from the activities we solved the most helpful one was probably an activity purposefully intended for English learners: the dictation activities from the web site http://www.dictationsonline.com/ It was the first time I took dictation in English, and I found this was a challenging activity, which fully integrated listening and writing abilities in one single task. Taking dictation is not easy at all, but it repays well for the time and effort devoted. It was a great learning experience, which I consider we should frequently experiment with our students. Other kind of listening activities I believe we should use more intensively are those done form authentic material: films, music videos, news videos, etc. To use

this sort of material is essential, because this is the real thing, the target listening material to which we should direct our teaching.

4. Speaking strategies Speaking is the scariest language ability, maybe because when writing and reading you always have a second opportunity to correct, and when listening you can almost always ask for a slower and clearer repetition, but when you’re speaking there aren’t “second opportunities”: if you did it well, you did it well; however, if you’ve made some mistakes, the mistakes will remain in the memory of your audience notwithstanding if you repeat the wrong sentence in a corrected version. Everybody understands this in a way, and this is probably one of the reasons why speaking results so frightening to learners of English as a foreign language in all levels. Having this in mind, I believe that the practice of recording oneself and having those recordings reviewed is a very good activity, since it help learners to get confidence in their speaking abilities, having the opportunity of correct and perfect their speeches until students feel those speeches are well enough to be recorded and sent. Of course, before the Internet era something like that could be done using a cassette recording, but the computer makes this process cheaper, easier and faster, so in the same day a student can make a lot of drills, get an ultimate version, send it to the teacher and get feedback. In my personal experience, this practice of having speeches recorded and send them by the net was a really discovery, and this is a teaching strategy I do put into practice with my students, as I find it really effective and worthy.

5. Writing strategies It has been usually said that writing is the most difficult language ability. Perhaps that’s true, although it is also true that writing can be the most exciting and amusing language ability, since nothing compares to the pleasured of seeing your ideas put in paper, so you can share them with everybody else. Writing, must be said, has radically change with the new ICT. In first place, the Internet, the cell phones, the Blackberry and the Palm have made us to write much more than before… which is of course a very good thing.

By the way, the

peculiarities of all these electronic media have created particular writing practices, as those of the conventional abbreviation in the SMS, the “shorthand” uses for writing in the live chats, the typographical conventions in the web, or the witty “emoticons” =D, 8-{, ;-) In second place, writing in the modern ICT means writing with a rich catalogue of auxiliaries at your immediate disposition: dictionaries, thesaurus, online encyclopedias, translators and so on, as well as – most important that all- automatic spelling and grammar correctors. Sometimes these writing auxiliaries have been harshly criticized, but in fact they can be seen as powerful aids, capable of release us from the tyranny of the “spelling rodeos”, so we can really focused in the more creative aspects of writing. After saying this, the activity which I found more interesting and useful for our

students

the

page

“Writing

with

Writers”,

http://teacher.scholastic.com/writewit/, which is aimed to have students really training their abilities in the creative writing of fables, stories, poems and other literary genres. This is special important since most of the writing practice in our English classes is directed not to creative writing but to academic purposes,

although writing just for the pleasure of telling a good story or listening to a beautiful phrase is the quintessence of writing.

6. My favorite ICT tools The ICT tools which we could mention are so many, that I will list just the ones that I consider particularly useful for English teaching and learning purposes.

 The spelling and grammar correction tools, which can liberate us from paying too much attention in these matters, allowing us to concentrate in the most creative aspects of writing.  The electronic dictionaries and thesaurus, that make possible to have easy and fast access to linguist information equivalent to pounds and pounds of printed materials.  The tools for recording and compact voice files, which makes possible to record your oral presentation and send them to your teacher or your peers.  The video channels and video podcasts, that make available updated news to work with them in different sorts of activities with authentic materials.  The chats with voice conferences and videoconferences , that make possible to practice speaking and listening abilities in real time with your partner, teachers and maybe –why not?- with native speakers.  The digital libraries by means of which we can get easy access to huge

quantities of some of the most representative works of the literatures in English language.

7. Lifelong learning "Just as eating against one's will is injurious to health, so study without a liking for it spoils the memory, and it retains nothing it takes in."

Leonardo Da Vinci "When I examine myself and my methods of thought, I come to the conclusion that the gift of fantasy has meant more to me than my talent for absorbing positive knowledge." Albert Einstein

The two quotations Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve chosen to conclude this report are aimed to emphasized the fact that learning isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t a purely intellectual activity, and none amount of teaching strategies can succeed in its goals unless we accomplish in the task of capturing our students fantasy and imagination, so the learning experience can be lived as a delightful, interesting and passionate experience. If we achieve these goals, it will be sure then that our students will get not just a piece of knowledge, but also a lifelong experience, capable of compelling them to go forward as accomplished learners. And we can and should try to do so by any means, including, of course, the means that the ICT offer.

Communicative Skills for Secondary Teachers

A tutor´s journey through the learning activities. by Sánchez Vázquez Alan

I would like to start my report by stating what American writer Oliver Wendell Holmes said about what a language is. He said that “Language is the blood of the soul into which thoughts run and out of which they grow.” Indeed, when a language is taught, important elements such as culture, literature, and different conceptions of the world are –or they should be- embedded in each of our classes. As language teachers we know that, but very frequently our students are not aware of this, and they often think of language learning as a process in which a book is opened, grammar is checked and homework is never done. Throughout all of the modules, we had the opportunity to grasp a part of the English speaking community by reading interesting passages, or listening to a wide variety of excerpts in which culture and language were as one. I consider that one of the primary goals that we as language teachers must approach is cultural awareness, particularly, because our students’ conceptions of learning, language and even conceptions of the world might and will change positively.

If there is something that I have learned through this journey is that new environments for meaningful learning are here in different forms: blogs, interactive websites, tools for writing and speaking.

In that sense, one key word in this

journey is adaptation. The belief that one marker and a white board along with a tape recorder will provide my students with motivating and challenging material is totally obsolete. Students do not know anymore what VHS means, and that gives us a clear idea of what we have to do. The different tools, and websites provided as resources were not only interesting but challenging to many of us and will definitely serve as a trigger to start thinking about making our own online material. It is now our duty to make good use of these set of resources, and take risks on using them, because technology itself is not doing the job, but it is a new way to approach language learning. As I mentioned lines above, the key word is adaptation because language classrooms are varied as our learners.

Many things can be said regarding strategies, from the wide variety we checked and practiced in the different skills to a deep analysis on which ones are considered more effective to specific learning situations. The reality of our particular learning environments is so different from each other, that we had to consider different aspects to decide whether a strategy could be applied or not in our contexts. In my opinion, one of the most important aspects during this learning process was to be aware of the strategies in each of the language skills but also, to be able to apply them. It was important because sometimes we have the factual knowledge about the strategies, that is, what the strategy is called, how it should be applied –in theory-, but the procedural knowledge or the “how to” in practice this strategy is going to work is not always clear, and I consider that is one of the reasons some strategies are ignored. In my case, I take with me a lot of these strategies and new tasks to approach learning objectives, among others I would like to cite the one about recognizing thought groups. I think that one was, somehow, new for me. I have reviewed books about it but it was clear to me until I checked it in the Listening module. It is clear that all of the tools that we checked were amazing, we may have our own favorite but I would say that depend on our personal learning styles. So when I say that I liked so very much the listening websites especially “Australia’s network

English bitesâ&#x20AC;? or the websites related to teaching intonation, it is partly because I consider that the listening skill is seldom taught as a process. Nevertheless, I must say that â&#x20AC;&#x153;photopeachâ&#x20AC;? is an interesting tool due to the fact that students are going to be able to relate their knowledge of the English language to their own experience turning it into an enjoyable and meaningful experience on writing, just the way it happened to many of us. To sum up, writing this report was a helpful learning and teaching analysis trigger. It was necessary to take this time to make a self assessment and to reflect on what our new task as language teachers must be. Being able to provide our students with culturally rich environments in which language learning can be acquired is a must if we want to motivate our students. The use of technology is not only a motivating activity, but it has become in the past years an essential assignment in the new era of learning.

Noam Chomsky mentioned: "Language embodies the world view of a culture and is unique to the culture that created it. It reflects values and concepts that are deemed to be the most important by a culture. A language describes the culture it

comes from." Learning is never a finished process, at every stage of our lives we are facing new ideas, concepts, and knowledge. Letâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s take the opportunity to develop new ways to provide ourselves and our learners with a new perspective of this world of us.

A tutorÂ´s journey through the learning activities. By Raquel Salazar Aguirre

1. What I have learned about learning a language Learning a language requires motivation, attitude, aptitude and time. It is not an easy task, for that reason it has great rewards.

Through this course I have learnt that people can learn languages far beyond the classroom. Teachers and students cannot limit learning just in class. We have seen many sites specially the ones offered by the BBC, which are an excellent extra help for students.

2. Reading Teaching strategies

I learnt that it is very important to divide the reading activity into three stages; pre, while and post reading in order to help students with the understanding of a text. Another essential part to ease reading comprehension is identifying the type of text. This gives a clue about the authorÂ´s purpose and intention. So students will be able to anticipate and focus their attention in the reading task.

3. Listening strategies It is important to prepare students with previous knowledge or ideas. Listening happens fast and they should be aware that it is not necessary to listen to every single word, in order to get the idea and some important details. The three stages will be needed here as well. To help students with the listening task it is necessary to teach intonation, word stress, pause and rhythm.

4. Speaking strategies Students have to be aware of who they are talking to, tone and intonation used. The location where they are is also important. So, according to this context is the way the student is expected to use the correct words. Here it is also important for students to be aware of the intonation, word stress, pause and rhythm.

5. Writing Strategies This is a difficult skill which also needs some previous preparation and some time for reflecting on what we want to say and how we are going to convey our message. Thinking about the audience is a primary step to consider. Following models is a good way clarify ideas for a better writing. The three stages can be applied here as well (pre, while and post).

6. My favorite ICT Tools My favorite tool is the photopeach. Although, it can be time consuming, I think is great for a writing a story which is going to be completely creative, students will feel free and motivated using their very own information. The BBC sites are a wonderful tool as well for revising topics seen in class and students will also enjoy getting a certificate. All the module 3 sites are great too.

7. Lifelong learning This is an excellent activity for reflecting because learning never ends. It is a continuous activity that everybody should be aware of because learning does not happen only at school. Every day we learn something in order to ease our lives. From the seven habits mentioned: number three, view problems as challenges, is the one that called my attention. It is an opportunity to grow and learn in a

positive attitude. It gives an opportunity for a change of view which is a great way to improve ourselves every day.

“Life is a long lesson in humility” James M. Barrie (1860 - 1937)

Communicative Skills for Secondary Teachers A tutor´s journey through the learning activities by María del Carmen E. Viruega Trejo

Johann Wolfgang, who was a German poet, playwright, novelist, and natural philosopher said, “Knowing is not enough; we must apply” or in other words, “Willing is not enough we must do.” That is the reason why a teacher or learner of a foreign language must become aware of the strategies and tools that are available, in order to become successful and acquire a foreign language. Hence,

this essay will point out the experience that summarizes the learning of one of the participants.

Learning a language The four skills: reading, listening, writing, and speaking were practiced throughout the course making it at the same time interesting and fun. Especially, the section on writing and speaking are two of the most dynamic and interactive. Audio conferences were held and tasks were precisely established giving the conference a sense of fulfillment.

When talking about writing it should be

mentioned that it gave the participants the opportunity of challenging their own strengths and, even gave them the chance of writing poetry, which might have been seen as an impossible target to achieve. The words of Wolfgang Goethe are extremely powerful since it is not just a matter of knowing; it is a matter of doing and practicing. This is precisely what the course gave the participants, a chance to work and practice. When people get enough practice, knowledge adheres smoothly and deeply. The more practice learners get the better people they will turn up to be, bearing in mind that experts are called experts because they have made all the mistakes one can think of. Reading Teaching Strategies Robertson Davies said, â&#x20AC;&#x153;Although there may be nothing new under the sun, what is old is new to us and so rich and astonishing that we never tire of it. If we do tire of it, if we lose our curiosity, we have lost something of infinite value, because to a high degree it is curiosity that gives meaning and savor to life.â&#x20AC;? This curiosity and will to know more about any matter is commonly satisfied at the moment one gets to read about the topic or topics that are creating this curios need. Therefore, when talking about reading, a teacher should always bear in mind the different reading strategies required to improve comprehension. For this reason the site

called Content Area Reading Strategies is considered the most relevant, since it will be a helpful tool for the teacher and the students as well. The important fact is that once the teacher recalls all the reading strategies mentioned in this sight, they make him or her become aware of the ones preferably used by the teacher to improve comprehension.

Writing Strategies "There are a thousand thoughts lying within a man that he does not know till he takes up a pen to write", this quote was said by William Makepeace Thackeray. It is true that the best way to get started is having a blank piece of paper and brainstorm thoughts and ideas that can be classified and organized in such a way that pieces of language can turn up onto ideas or thoughts that start becoming sentences, and putting sentences together make up a paragraph, and paragraphs make up pieces of writing.

Two of the most important issues to consider are what I am writing and the audience I will be writing to. In other words it is important to determine if I am writing a message, e-mail, note, letter, poem, composition or an essay. Obviously, the audience the written production is addressed to, will change and the kind of register I use will depend on these two facts. Once the audience and objective is determined, one can begin dealing with different aspects of grammar, vocabulary, and punctuation. When talking about grammar it is better to get started by checking the basics.

For example: what a sentence is, the part of speech of words, word

formation and simple aspects of punctuation as a full stop and a capital letter. Sometimes it happens that our students are not used to using these two simple punctuation rules. It is not that they do not know about them, it is simply that they have forgotten to use them and get accustomed to the fact that words scribbled on one line do not necessarily communicate an idea or a message that they want to

convey. That’s why for writing two preferred sites were Skillwise and Elements of Language.

Favorite ICT Tools Dr. David Schwartz, a senior lecturer in Information Systems at the Graduate School of Business Administration of Bar-Ilan University in Israel, says, “Believe it can be done. When you believe something can be done, really believe, your mind will find the ways to do it. Believing a solution paves the way to solution.” In other words, anything you want to accomplish can be achieved if one really believes things can be fulfilled. Hence, Internet has proven to be an extraordinary tool for teaching English, since there are numerous sites that offer different activities and sources to help the learner acquire the language. However, in this particular case only three sites were selected and are to be mentioned following. The more interesting and fun tools were English Phrasal Using English. Com, Book r, and ETCC instant Poetry Forms. These sites are really interesting and fruitful because in the English Phrasal site verbs are first of all presented within a chart. A great number of words are used in different phrasal forms. The learner selects the word he is willing to work with and gives it a click. Following he will get a quiz to become aware of how much he knows. The learner will then check his performance and will be given explanations for his mistakes.

The site is

entertaining and motivates the learner to goof around with it and traps him without the learner even realizing how long he stayed on the site. About ETCC instant poetry it is said that it is really outstand, because it is fun finishing model poems that the learner is given, motivating him to create his own writing and particularly writing about any topic the learner feels like. One participant said, “I never thought I could be a poet and it turned out that my poems were not as bad.” Obviously, the poems created by the learner look wonderful when he publishes them in Bookr. The learner gets the opportunity to select the images that are to accompany his poems, because there are a great variety of

images. As a teacher, if you were to work writing do not hesitate and log your learners to these two sites. Believing one can be a poet and publishing one’s poems is a reality ad Dr. Schwartz says.

Life Long Learning Two of my favorite quotes are: "The mediocre teacher tells, the good teacher explains, the superior teacher demonstrates, the great teacher inspires." -William Arthur Ward and “The education that leaves fingerprint is not the one that is done from head to head, it’s from heart to heart.” Howard G. Hendricks To begin with I would like to start by telling you that this course has become a challenge, because apparently it was going to be a piece of cake and from my personal view point it might be okay, but not easy. Besides the time spent on line differs a lot from the one recommended by tutors, which was 2 hours a day. I took about 3.5 hours a day and still found it was difficult for me to accomplish all the tasks in one Module.

It is true that I have tried to work all the activities, but

sometimes it was becoming tedious and laborious and I felt like dropping everything. Anyway, I am still trying to get to the Finish Line even when I am really tired and feel I need some rest. The four skills: reading, listening, writing, and speaking were practiced throughout the course making it at the same time interesting and fun. Especially, the section on writing and speaking are two of the most dynamic and interactive. Audio conferences were held and tasks were precisely established giving the

conference a sense of fulfillment.

When talking about writing it should be

The more practice

learners get, the better people they will turn up to be, bearing in mind that experts are called experts because they have made all the mistakes one can think of. Knowing is not enough, we must apply and soon a sunset will be encountered.