ICT in teaching writing

These are my notes from today's ICT class. As an ELT teacher, we all have to incorporate different language skills into the syllabus and they should be given more or less equal proportion. So, when it comes teaching writing skills, what help can we get from ICT? Is the use of ICT effective in teaching writing? If so, in what ways? My answer is, YES, ICT comes in very handy to teach writing skills. Here I will explain my reasons.

1. At the very elementary level, let us look at the use of word processor in teaching writing.

Most writing activities are generally divided into 2 categories: a) product writing and b) process writing. In the past, many writing activities were organized around product writing. For example, teacher gives a sample of the letter and asks students to produce a similar kind of letter of their own. Process writing, on the other hand, involves a lot of stages of writing.

The use of word processor is valued highly in process writing. Students can write, rewrite, review and restructure as many times as they would like to whereas writing with pen and paper would make it too much time consuming. Moreover, teachers can comment on students' writing and students can see the feedback and improve. Finally, it makes students work a good looking product and thus motivates them to do more writing outside classroom.

2. L2 learners generally have positive feelings about the use of WP in language classrooms. They see writing as a fluid process and pay more attention to writing. It can also help them to spend more time composing outside classroom. Teacher has to make sure that L2 have access to WP either at home or learning resource centres at school. In addition, learners are assumed to have basic IT skills to use WP.

3. The class can agree on the use of spell checks and grammar checks. Personally, I would let them have spell check but disable the grammar check. That is because we all use spell check in real life and in my opinion accuracy is not always the important issue in communicative way of teaching.

4. You can set up a task on WP such as text repair, text manipulation and guided dictations.

Now, let us look at web-based writing. Can we use web-based tools to teach writing?

1. Blogs and wikis are now widely available to everyone to use at no cost. Creating blogs and wikis to publish their own work can be very motivating to any level of students and blogs look very good. End result could be learners spending more time composing, structuring and writing.

2. Teacher add comment on specific language forms. Peers can add comment so it is evaluated collaboratively. Everyone can see each other's work, compare and learn from one another as well

3. Learners can show finished work at no printing cost, easy distribution and it becomes a reading task for other students in class

In general, I think the use of ICT in teaching writing is highly valued in language classrooms. Although I beleive that there is still certainly a place for handwriting, ICT could be incorporated into writing activities to make the activity more attractive. Especially, those who are used to a different script in their own language might find it really discouraging to do writing exercises in L2, only because they find it hard to write in a completely different script. In addition, elementary and pre-intermediate level students will find it more motivating to do web-based collaborative writing activities.

Some tools that can be used to teach writing

1. Web Rhubarb and Sequitur from Creative Technology. Both softwares are only free with short texts and will need licensing for longer texts. They can be downloaded from

http://www.cict.co.uk/software/textoys/index.htm

2. Blogs can be created at http://www.blogger.com/home and wiki at http://pbworks.com/

3. Writeboards http://writeboard.com/

4. Google documents https://www.google.com/accounts/ServiceLogin?service=writely&passive=true&continue=http://docs.google.com/%3Fhl%3Den%26tab%3Dwo&followup=http://docs.google.com/%3Fhl%3Den%26tab%3Dwo&ltmpl=homepage&nui=1&rm=false

5. ZOHO online word processor http://writer.zoho.com/home

your child to you!

Today Sofiyya had her last vi-sit session at the nursery. She is starting tomorrow inshaAllah. She seems to like it there. However, I am not really sure how she goes on as she has always been very clingy to me.

Anyway, today she had her last visit session to help her settle in well. Unlike the first two visit session where I stayed and played with her, I was supposed to leave her and wait outside. So, I sneaked out without her realizing mommy was gone.

The nursery is located inside a big building that has everything- primary school, community centre, children's centre and family services. I went to family services where they provide a nice lounge for parents. I sat on the sofa and picked up one of the books from the corner shelf. Interesting, very interesting. Bradford Council has a Parental Involvement Learning Group that helps parents how to help with their children's learning. I sat and read that small book called Let's Talk- Ideas in 40 minutes. And I think I learned or was reminded a lot of things that I learned in the past.

I just got back from the nursery and put Sofiyya to sleep. While my feelings of the book still fresh, I decided to jot down some thoughts. Here comes your child, talking to you. How can you help her learn better and have a better understanding of the world around her/him? Talking, explaining and playing tips

1. Travelling a long journey- why dont you keep a small notebook and a pencil to scribble on the way. Children absolutely love when their parents draw something and let them to guess. This works even with the youngest kids. Draw a funny looking cat and tell your child that it is a dog. You could be amazed by how little one argues that it is not a dog. You can then ask her/him to make the picture look like a dog- few improvements by a child and the picture is nowhere near dog. In fact, it is not even a cat any more. However, this time your child will proudly announce that it is a perfect looking dog. You can carry on the conversation as you wish and try any animal or any other theme to draw

2. Make faces with different feelings and let your child guess. You can start with easy ones like "happy, sad, angry, surprised" and then move on to complicated ones like "right after you had a medicine" or "mommy's face when she/he doesnt do what he/she is told to" etc

3. In and around the house. Pretend to have a power cut for a short while. Use torches to light the rooms and to find things around the house. The houses feel quiet and the voices feel loud. Seems like a perfect time for story telling. And you can tell your own stories from childhood- these always make the best stories. In the light of a candle, you can all sit cosy and mommy starts "When I was a young girl ......"

4. We often seem to finish the unfinished jobs while kids watch TV. Alhamdulillah, I dont have one of them in my house but I let kids watch some cartoons on my laptop sometimes. While acknowledging the fact that TV certainly has a place in child's life, we have to admit that all too often, we use it as a free babysitter. Try to watch something nice with your children once in awhile. You can ask her about the characters or what is going on at some point. Watching together is more fun and far more better. You can discuss ideas, characters and what happened afterwards. Try to think of some questions to ask depending on the age of your child. My girl is only three and loves when we watch a cartoon together. Afterwards, we have a short quiz that she really awaits

5. We adore our children. We want them to give a happy life. And happy life from the start. So, we start buying things- toys that they will not even play with. Toys industry is growing bigger and bigger with babies being introduced to all sort of gadgets like remote-controlled cars or toy mobiles. I do believe toys come in handy at some point, but I am against filling in the child's room with all sorts of toys. Surprisingly, most children are more interested in everyday objects. Instead of a mini laptop with games, she/he might prefer that plastic spoons and cups. Tea towels, old boxes from packaging, crumpled paper and plastic containers to make tower blocks- all make a perfect toy for your child. As far as it is safe, I give my daughters anything in the kitchen. My oldest loves it- she takes a plastic container out and pretends to be cooking a dinner for us. So we have some of the most hilarious conversations in our kitchen. I keep asking "What are you cooking for us today?, have you put some salt? are you going to put a sugar in a soup? do you want to turn your soup into the cake? then why dont you add some eggs too?" She grabs anything within her reach and turns it into anything she needs for her dish. So, tea towels might become an egg and spoon plays the role of cucumber.

I would like to write a little bit more. But, I am off to univ shortly, need to get going. So, the rest comes in bullet points

• Remember, your child's favourite toy is YOU. Favourite music is YOUR VOICE. So, try to turn down the background noise wherever possible and try to spend time talking to your child as much as possible.
• Try to have some "special time" with your child each day. Give her a nice cuddle, and sit her in your lap and ask "what did she like most about today?"
• Everyday activities like "bath times" and "dinner times" can be a nice "play times" and "conversation times" as well.
• Try to give her some responsible tasks every day. If you are going to a local shop for some milk, ask her to remember what you need to get from the shop. Let her pay and carry the shopping bag home (you can sew some little bag for her to carry the light things)
• Try to make some funny rhymes in and around the house. The funnier- the better. The ones that doesnt make sense at all- are the best!

Once again, I came to conclusion that interacting and communicating is the only way to make the little ones more intelligent, more sensible and more reasonable. Talking, discussing and sharing ideas help them to digest knowledge and to reason thoughts depending on their age. Their brain is like a sponge and they take what they are exposed to. Expose them to good habits, good ideas and interesting and fun conversations that make them think and come to conclusion. You will be amazed how their output is advanced than your input. In other words, they come with something even better than what they were exposed to.

evaluating web based teaching resources 2

As you can see from the title, this is the continuing part of the evaluation of web based teaching resources. Originally I thought of writing a bit longer and a little "academic"ish piece. However, since I am very busy and running short of time, I have decided to list the number of things to watch out when it comes to online ELT resources.

1. Be careful when selecting exercises for teaching a specific language skill. Most recent ELT web sites have become a specific within one aspect of language skills. Some sources are particularly designed to improve grammar, some offer good source of activities for academic writing. To find out the purpose of the web site, you will have to do a quick survey. Look at the overall meta language, sections and subsection and pictures. Look at ESL Blues at http://ww2.college-em.qc.ca/prof/epritchard/ . There are lots of grammar terms, sections have been divided by grammatical categories. Although there is an attempt to keep it communicative, i.e language in the exercises are authentic and sort of contextualized, one can easily tell that this website is to practise grammar and accuracy.

2. Updates and more recent materials makes the site more relevant and attractive. Check if the links are maintained and if the content is up-to-date. Scroll down to the bottom of the home page and look for "This page was last updated in dd/mm/yy".

3. It feels almost like reading a packaging. Once you have checked the "best before date" of the website, you can move on to find out the content. Is it interesting and relevant for your age group of students? Is it funny, useful or culturally appropriate? Decide wether or not the materials provided on the webpage is suitable for your learners.

4. Finally, the technical side that include the presentation and layout of the website. Is it attractive to look at? Easy to use/navigate? Does it contain both audio/video?

This is short but useful criteria for beginners who are destined to use some online ELT resources in their teaching. Choose the right website with the right activities to make your classroom experience more successful and fun.

evaluating web based teaching resources?

Internet is full of resources, activities and materials that we can use in classroom. However, one has to spend good amount of time evaluating the resources found on the web and decide whether it would be appropriate to use the material with a particular group of students, So, basically, how do we evaluate resources and activities we found on the web? How do we decide if it is relevant and useful for our students?

It is very important to have some sort of evaluation criteria for making the decision to use a certain materials on the web. We do not send the students off to the machine just so they can have a bit of technical exercise to practise certain language form or structure. With a big debate and discussion on Communicative Language Teaching still going on, we do want to keep our approach communicative even with the use of technology in language classrooms. What are the things we are looking for on a web-based material? Let us look at communicative aspects of resources first.

1. Range of skills- does the material give equal proportion to receptive and productive skills? Or is it particularly designed to improve reading or writing?

2. Are there variety of tasks and exercises to keep the students alert and interested? Most often, we find materials featuring different aspects of language but with the same tasks and activities. Many language quizzes and tasks designed with the software called "hot potatoes" are classic example of this

3. Is the material using an authentic text, meaningful and contextualized language? We dont want to present a text at sentence level, even with beginners, it is always best to expose learners to some authentic, meaningful and contextualized language

4. Is the activity interactive enough to keep students interested? Learners tend to get bored and not pay attention to language forms if they are not actively involved in activities. Some web-based materials are more interactive than others, some are not interactive at all.

5. One of the advantages of web-based resources that it can give the learners immediate feedback. Teachers find it hard to equally divide their time among students, especially in large classrooms. With the help of resources on the web, students can practise their language skills and they would have opportunity to get the immediate feedback. Usually, appraisals such as "Well done, correct!" or warnings like"Read page x in y book and try again" pop up in the screen during the activities like quizzes and multiple choice tests.

I will look at other aspects of evaluating criteria later on this week.

Here are some websites that came up good or "ok"ish according to my criteria.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/index.shtml

http://www.eslcafe.com/

http://ww2.college-em.qc.ca/prof/epritchard/

http://www.efl.net/index.htm

Have a look and let me know what you think of these ESL websites.

1st day of blogging

Assalamu alaykum wr wb,

Here I am, at the advice of my friend, trying to get a little bit more "technical". I thought about blogging awhile ago. However I often thought to myself that "this is really something that I cant commit myself to". What if I never have time to update it? What if I don't really know how to use it the way I wanted? What if...

Here I am, leaving all my "what if"s behind, decided to create my own BLOG. This is firstly for the purpose of familiarizing myself with blogging, get to know the tools that I might need one day in my teaching experience and also share my news and thought with my family and friends.

Secondly, I will publish some of my thoughts and poems time to time. I am interested in creative writing and I often write poems too. Most in Uzbek and some in English.

I might publish some academic/educational writings in working with children, the use of specific approach/methodology/technique/activities in teaching, syllabus design and curriculum development, critical evaluation of a certain technique to promote learning or encourage independence etc.