Week 3 – Tasting new things

Wow! It’s the third week and it seems that we’re working a long time before it!

Well, but I can that this week I could taste new things. Donna’s menu was really diverse:

Let me start to present my menu:

APPETIZER

·      Developing Listening Skills with Authentic Materials    by Lindsay Miller

·      The Employment of  CALL in Teaching Second /Foreign Language Speaking Skills  by Julia Gong

My starter was excellent because I tasted the article by Lindsay Miller called my attention because of its title. And she really presented some ideas to use the authentic materials. One of the suggestions that I liked was the activity using TV/video that is focused on students on the elementary level, so the questions are simple and it can be developed into a more complex activity.

After that I could try a little bit of Julia Gong’s article that presented the use of CALL to develop the speaking skill. The way that she presented her ideas showed us both sides of the coin in relation to the use of CALL. Some of the good aspects are the stimulation in the students’ interest providing a better  dialogue and communication. Also, there are some computers that allow students to “talk to” them. But, (there’s always one), this kind of software is not able to understand and produce natural human speech. There’s a long way to get to this point.

 

MAIN COURSE

·      Delicious.com

Before Donna’s suggestion on this website, I didn’t have the idea that we could put all our favorites in just one place and have an easy access to all of them. I can say that it was really delicious to know and use this resource, that’s why this was my main course.

DESSERT

Project task number 2: Project Report for Lorin Salagean Technical High School by Nadina Nicolici

To finish my wonderful week 3, I could try a little bit of some examples of previous projects of our course. And the one that I liked and commented about was Nadina Nicolici’s. One of the things that I liked is the clear way that she presents her ideas and also her simple and objective goals for her students’ needs. Another project that was interesting was Tendouinde Bruno Nikiema’s whose goals are to develop the students’ skills of reading and writing. One thing that I liked in this project is that there’s a research for the students tell their needs in the learning of English language.

So, this was my yummy week. I think I’m getting hungry for the next one...