WEEK 7 ALREADY !

This week will have been devoted to my project report , I spent most of my time organizing ideas , thinking about the different parts , writing drafts .
I haven't written long and analytic report for many years now and I am not as sharp and quick as I was when I was a young student but I love this feeling of rejuvenating !
This course is not only opening new horizons for me but also giving me a new impulse to see my teaching differently and myself too !!!…..

Let's stop the self analysis to get into what I did this week :

Mainly , a lot of exchanges with colleagues about students' autonomy and the use of mobile devices in class. It is still a controversial subject and even if it is the future , it is not adaptable to all type of students . It depends a lot on their age , their capacity to be autonomous and trustworthy.

I read with a lot of attention the article of thanasoulas  http://iteslj.org/Articles/Thanasoulas-Autonomy.html  and I enjoyed commenting on his sayings and receiving Donna's and my colleagues thoughts about it. (see nicenet)

This week I also went to a training session on "how to use new technology in our classes"  offered by the ministry of education for 2 days and I was very proud to be able to give the links "vocaroo" and http://www.voxopop.com  when we talked about how to help students improve their pronunciation !

I also discovered a link during this training session ,which could replace powerpoint , this link was given by our trainer
Here it is :
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1CTyfrtVAlMWGjdfWJnDIEF3_kxnpy-USJ0ICQSNlXlc/edit#slide=id.p
It may be useful for some of you .

 Goog luck to all of you with your project report ! See you next week !

WEEK SIX =POWERPOINT (for me) !

For me this week is associated with my first creation of a powerpoint for my class ! It must seem strange for some of you who are already mastering this device .But it was a big deal for me !
Many of my students use it to present some of their tasks but I had never created one myself before .
It took me quite a long time but I managed to create something by myself .Yet, I definitely need to practice this new software since I have most probably used 1% of the possibilities it offers.

This powerpoint will be used to introduce a new topic and to engage students in a more captivating way into the lesson . Then I will study a song  ( lyrics and video on you tube) and the students will have to write a poem (a limerick) on the topic studied ,related to their own life , as a the final task .
(The details are on nicenet)

Then , this week , I also enjoyed reading all the good and new ideas proposed by all of you , my foreign colleagues , on nicenet , on engaging students . Even if the course readings given to us as the week task were interesting too , I preferred discovering the practical ideas proposed and used by all of you in your respective classes.
As I said in my post on nicenet , engaging students has become a challenge these days in a lot of French high schools , that's why learning new "tricks" (class website, blogs, powerpoint , quiz games, group work, information gaps, jigsaw , graphics, quick thinks etc…etc..) to attract the students 'attention has been greatly appreciated . Thank you !

Moreover , I implemented the use of Vocaroo and Rachel (la cle des langues/rachel) in my 12th graders class to help them prepare their next oral presentation on "hispanics in The US". Students will use these two websites to train themselves before speaking , to improve their pronunciation .
I will record their oral presentation each time they have one every trimester throughout the school year and we will check their improvement at the end of the year before their exam as far as their pronunciation is concerned.
My students seem to be eager to start this experience and see how their way to speak and pronounce evolve.

Then , I gave the NYC webquest to my 10th graders . I took them to the computer room to do the webquest :
 http://questgarden.com/author/create/preview.php?u=163961&l=163961-131104023429&pt=student&p=introduction
They liked doing it but I noticed they had difficulties to find the right answer in the wide range of information contained in wikipedia . I had to teach them how to scan documents to find what they were looking for .
Actually , students are used to some websites they know to handle because they use them regularly such as Facebook or you tube but they are not very comfortable with new ones for them and we have to give them methods to be more efficient .

Anyway , many changes for me this week with my students ! Exciting and scaring at the same time more for me than for them I think .
After 6 weeks , I start seeing things change ……..but I need more time to feel totally comfortable with all these novelties !
Take it day by day !

Webquest on NYC

Here is the link of the webquest I created for my students on NYC



http://questgarden.com/author/create/preview.php?u=163961&l=163961-131104023429&a=&p=introduction&pt=student

I am going to work on it with my class next Wesnesday . I hope it will work ! 
I will let you know!

WHAT A WEEK !!!!!
Working , reading , thinking , questioning my work , changing ……………so many things to do !
A very demanding task indeed!

At first I felt a little bit lost among all the terms given this week : PBL, Rubrics, assessment, webquests , holistic grading …and step by step I made links between the training we receive as teachers in France , the French school curriculum we follow and what I was reading in this course , this week .

Actually many techniques presented this week can be found in what we call the CECRL (the common European framework of languages) which was published in 2001 by the European Council of Europe but started being used in school in 2005/2007.

For years , I and my colleagues , centered our teaching on "learning" "feeding students" and for 7/8 years now , we are focusing on learners to accompany them in their learning.

All these techniques presented this week in the course ,create a relationship between  the learner -the teacher - the learning.
These tools can be very efficient to involve the learners in their evolution , their progress , their way of learning , their bond with their peers.
But it also requires trust, respect , will to progress , envy to learn , to share between each student , the group he/she belongs to and the teacher ……which is not always the case …..

Our goal as teacher is "to create a supportive classroom environment in which students feel comfortable with one another " and with their own learning , as it is said in http://www.nclrc.org/ (alternative assessment ) ; but the reality of the class is not always as idyllic !

Anyway ,PBL and webquest are what I worked the most on this week but I definitely have to complete my reading of alternative assessment and holistic grading . These are topics , techniques that I have to deepen and master to be able to use them with my classes.

Finally , as far as rubrics are concerned , after reading some of my foreign colleagues , I noticed that the one I proposed is maybe too centered on the quality of the language and maybe not enough focused on students' behavior  and  involvement .

Changing habits is always hard but I am working on it !

Happy halloween to all of you !

Week four is about to end and I have been working a lot this week . It has been a very demanding week for me with a lot of reading , creative activities , sharing with colleagues –which I like a lot .

I realized ,thanks to Sean’ s remarks that I may have been demanding too much to my students most of the time . When I worked on the ABCD objectives , I noticed that I was asking more than one objective to be reached by my students and I realized that it may have had a discouraging effect on some of my weak students .

When you have been teaching for many years ,you get into habits that are sometimes difficult to change and this course offers me the opportunity to refresh my way of thinking and planning my lessons . It is a great opportunity to question my work and I wish I could have had this opportunity before .

Anyway , better late than never !

I also really enjoy reading and experiencing what some of my colleagues in this course are proposing , sharing with all of us . It participates in my reflections about my teaching .

Thank you all for this lively adventure which will continue next week with new discoveries !

See you next week !