ESL Podcast

As an ESL teacher, I am definitely the right person to ask how ESL Podcast could be utilized in second language teaching. Few weeks ago, I introduced my immigrant students a website which they can listen to tons of audio files in polishing their listening abilities and computer skills. By the same token, ESL Podcast could be another useful website for ESL students to brush up English proficiency. For example, I would first choose a topic, seeing a specialist, for my students. In a computer-selling classroom, students would be asked to listening to this particular podcast the first time without referring to the script. The second time students have to jot down what they think of this podcast is mainly about, the theme. Then I would show the script to my students and require them to go to Merriam Webster, the online dictionary, to look up vocabulary they do not know in the script. After that we will discuss together about the meaning of the unknown words and the practice of making sentence out of those words will be assigned. When finishing up all of the activities, students will be asked to listen to the podcast again. By doing so, students can review what they just pick up and learn some more common sense and background knowledge about seeing a specialist.

ePals

ePals could be a combination of the functions of Google Blog, Twitter, Wiki, and Flickr. According to its website, ePals is a virtual workspace optimized for creating, sharing, managing, and collaborating on educational content. On top of that, it also provides a safe and secure environment for students and teachers to build up an education-orientated community. Among all of the features, SchoolMail and Digital Lockers have impressed me the most. With digital lockers, users of ePals are able to save and edit personal documents, photos, or audio files. As to schoolmail, users can not only rid themselves of spam and virus that slow down their time of work-processing, but also make use of the instant language translation in 35 languages. To use ePals in my own teaching, I would divide into groups and assignment each group a blog project. In this assignment, they are asked to design the layout of their blogs, decide the topic, and delegate the responsibilities of group members. Publishing at least one post is required to be able to continue working on their blogs which would be graded at the end of semester. As an ESL teacher, I would make English as the only viable language for communication. In this regard, students would be given opportunities of improving their fluency of writing.

Improve Students' writing by using Bubblr

Bubblr is a tool which users can create their own comic strips based on the pictures from flickr. The comic strips remind me of my entrance exam to university in Taiwan so long ago. In that exam, students were asked to make up their own dialogues in the bubbles. Then they had to compose writing based on the dialogues they created. I found this creative and fun activity could really give students a boost to their writing. Though it appears to be simple, this writing activity based on comic strips requires coherence and logic, in which students will be trained to be more aware of their flow and organization in writing. Other way of using Bubblr's comic strips in the classroom include asking students to do storytelling. For example, the teacher divides students into groups of four and those who are in the same group will be working on the same comic strips. Students can discuss their topics, pictures, and storyline for the presentation. By showing their comic strips to the class, students have to tell a story using their work. In this activity, not only will students' speaking skills be developed, but also their cooperative learning will be increased.

Creative Commons

Never perceive all the photos on the Internet as public until you are introduced to Creative Commons. What is Creative Commons?  According to flickr, Creative Commons is a non-profit that offers an alternative to full copyright. The Creative Commons provides free licenses and other legal tools to mark creative work with the freedom the creator wants it to carry, so others can share, remix, use commercially, or any combination thereof.  In fact, Creative Commons is comprised of four different types of licenses.

Attribution
Users chosen to offer their work under attribution licenses give the permission for others in duplicating, passing on, and exhibiting their images as long as others attribute the images to the creator.
Noncommercial
Users chosen to offer their work under noncommercial licenses allow others to duplicate, pass on, and exhibit their images for noncommercial purposes.

No Derivative Works

Users chosen to offer their work under no derivative works licenses enable others to duplicate, pass on, and exhibit their images verbatim.

Share Alike 

Users chosen to offer their work under share alike licenses agree on distributing derivative works for others who also share the same license.

Tecahing Enhancement with Edmodo

It is the first time I heard of Edmodo. Frankly speaking, it appears to me like just another type of blog in the first place. But the more articles I read about Edmodo, the more understanding of its functions seem to make sense for me. The surprising fact is that Edmodo allows school teachers to build bridge between them and their students. For example, problem concerning students’ homework assignments can be solved in the blink of an eye on Edmodo. The teacher can even have a private chitchat with their students with the help of Edmodo. It seems like Edmodo has more advantages than drawbacks for it’s designed specially for education purpose as compared to some other microblogs sharing the similar functions.

In respect of using microblogging in my teaching, I would consider Edumodo as not only a platform for academic use but also a backchannel for me and my students. For instance, it creates a comfortable environment for reticent students or those who are in need of instant assistant to communicate with their teachers. Unlike the traditional way of organizing files, the posts on Edumodo are archived for teachers as a reference in the future and for students to trace back their previous assignments. Personally, I think Edmodo would work even better than the commonly known blackboard. The fast speed of delivering information and message reminds me of the day my professor from graduate school called sick. I remember all the students, including me, were so anxious for professor’s tardiness. If back then we were all on edomodo, this situation would have not happened because by simply blasting some notes on Edomodo, the notice of being not able to make to school can become immediately known to everyone. Other benefits of using Edmodo are that it saves us plenty of time and promotes productivity.

However, I am not so familiar with Edmodo at this moment. More information and computer skills are need to be gleaned and honed before actually incorporating it into my teaching.

Lift Your Narrative Writing Skills

 Out of five posts from the five education blogs I hit it off with Two Writing Teachers straight away. The post that I shared on GoogleReader is Show Don't Tell. Technically, this post is a rough lesson plan of narrative writing to fifth graders. In a nutshell, the teacher encourages students to improve their narrative writing skills by asking them to come up words or emotions in describing someone who is mad or put their characters out in the real-life situations.

EFL Classroom 2.0

     Among all of the suggested websites on Mod4, I like EFL Classroom 2.0 the most. Unlike the Virtual Worlds website, EFL Classroom 2.0 is more pragmatic and requires less computer skills. In fact, this blog is filled with teaching resource which not only accessible to EFL or ESL teachers but second language learners. For instance, there is a tag named teacher’s toolbox at the top of the blog in which viewers could find worksheets of pronunciation or activities of vocabulary. Most importantly, EFL Classroom 2.0 resembles a virtual library encompassing abundant up-to-date information. As a English teacher-to-be, I would enjoy logging to this blog once in a while to discover novel ways to teach English more efficiently and effectively. The lesson plans found on this blog is fairly useful to me as an inexperienced teacher. It provides lots of insights into the fundamentals of teaching English.