Week 4 - Technology and Lesson Plan

Time goes so fast and it is almost the end of week 4 now. I have been learning many new things from week 1 up now. It is a pleasure for me knowing how to create online class and get involved in it by using Nicenet and Class Wiki, experiencing the use of JupiterGrades for grading the course, and sharing online bookmarks which employ Delicious. And the most benefit ones are reading and reviewing some interesting articles, viewing some useful webs, and posting and discussing web skills issues in Nicenet conference.  Those things are really challenge me and increase my web skills significantly.

One of interesting article that I have reviewed this week is based on the experience of Chao-chih Liao in Taiwan. Her article is E-mailing to Improve EFL Learners' Reading and Writing Abilities. Chao wrote briefly her experience doing email projects teaching English as a Foreign or Second Language in Taiwan. She promoted students to have a key pal from another country between 1997 and 1998 with the purpose was to improve their reading and writing skills. At the end of her project she found the improvement. The students work in her Writing class during the email swapping periods had been easier to understand than before. 

 

As she used key pal stuff for her research it seemed that her experience inspires me to create my project in terms of supporting equipment. I decided to use podcast for my project but after having some valuable considerations from Vinicius in Nicenet discussion I would prefer to think about MP3 sound files that could be applied in most student mobiles. I agree with him that mobile learning is hot trend nowadays and students can really take advantage of it. So, the students have mobile which the purposes are not only for fun or communication but also for improving their listening skills.

Other valuable task is making lesson plan by using technology. A technology-enhanced lesson plan applies ABCD objective and uses template lesson plan from the University of Tennessee. A short description on this plan is the students will review and extend vocabulary items related to minimal pairs which differentiate by using consonants. I managed to write the objective of the lesson that is “given the example of consonants minimal pairs, the students will be able to list more and accurately identify vocabulary items at least 5 pairs in each p/b, g/k, d/t, and v/f”. 

However, I did not include the minimum content requirement as exemplified in State Curriculum Standard for the State of Tennessee since the curriculum system in my own country is different from US. In fact, frankly I say that I have never read or even found a national curriculum for university learning particularly Vocabulary course.  This experience reminds me to consider our national curriculum in my future lesson plan.