We certainly live in a changing world. No matter the science or art we ae talking about it changes fast specially now with technology. Everything seems to become easier and faster, but the point is that not all suits everybody well. We must be very careful with the material and information we use from the net as we also must take into account not to fall in plagiarism. The ideas are certainly very useful; however give credit to the person that has made them possible. I learned that I must be very careful in this matter and also that it is true that almost everything in a lesson plan is cooked if you download it from the net; however, you must check it and make certain changes to adapt it to your class and level. Those are the changes that we don't like because it takes more time than usual. Besides you have spent lots of time already surfing the net. Guess what? It's worth it becuase you get authentic English from places like www.breakingnewsenglish.com, www.amnesty.or and www.panda.org not to maintion others.
The lesson plan with technology vertion word seems easier than the one from PDF. That's the one I'm using. I also included in my class other sites that I learned on the XI National Conference for Blog Teacher of English. One of my favorites for writing practice is a second life site where you actually chat with a cartoon character. It is nice because you can use it with adults that are afraid of talking "LIKE THE ONES I HAVE". The site is http://showcase.pandorabots.com. There's also a place for language practice: www.elfs.com/sorythr-html and many others.
To make your class easy and smooth using a lesson plan with technology is not so easy. It takes lots of time and patience taking care of each single detail with the material used in general. If you do this you're class will be just fine. But as Liliya said in her blog "It took me more time than I had expected". However as Azhar says on her reflection by doing this you can encourage your students to do something different, and later tha class could compare their finding orally, in this way adding speaking and listening developement to the lesson. That's a pretty good idea. Thanks Azhar. And what about Hanan, it is true you can surf the world in a very short period of time. Let your students do the same.
Roxana
Dear Roxana,
ReplyDeleteI liked the idea that you get things from the net "cooked" but you need to adapt it. You could think of it as adding your own flavoring to suit.
Please do be sure that you check your weblinks, especially when you make them live. You'll need to change a few of them:
www.amnesty.org
www.pandorabots.com/botmaster/en/home (you can only get to the other link after you register)
www.elfs.com
It's very useful to have links in a blog so that you can go back to them easily. And when they're as useful as these links, it's all the more reason to be sure they're correct.
Yours,
Deborah