Week7 : Learner Autuonomy and One-computer classroom

This week, when I worked on the issues like Learner autonomy, I was immersed into the topic more than ever because this was the long-term topic for me. Just after 15 days of graduation, I was offered a teaching job. It was an international school. Half of the students lived abroad using English or other languages more than a year. English is another first language to them. The students who were born in Korea also have a greater expectation on learning English by themselves. At the time, I was only thinking that how I could enhance my professional skills such as the application of new teaching theory or project-based learning. But when I have a job in other area which is quite isolated and full of unprivileged students, the learning aims and teaching strategies were at stake. Then came the motivation issues. From the first day to end, I had to think how can I catch students’ attention during class? How can I make a joke related to English? How can I teach vocabulary adding fun factor? I think elevating students’ motivation and learning needs are the hardest part for any kinds of teachers. How can we, as teachers, ignite students' lower esteem and lack of motivation into a vivid and lively burning fuel to learn by themselves?

This is I found from my students.

First, give the topic related to their real life rather than that from textbook. It was what Richard Smith called, "Relevance".

Second, let them have many of storytelling. It would be the fairytales which usually ends up with the nice people with the good luck, funny story which make them laugh with English, or anecdotes from the biographies of famous figures, newspaper, articles. This make the motivation and self-efficacy stronger and wider.

Third, let them involve. The earlier days of my teaching career, I would stick to the pages that I planned to cover in a period. There's little flexibility. But now I could see bigger picture. I could go faster or slower the pace depending on students' readiness. One day, if they are fully ready, I could give more information than usual and talked about the topic in a deeper version. If class doesn't respond well enough than usual, I slow down the pace of the lesson and let them talk or write about the topic with ample time. This is the way I found and applied to my class so far. I hope that I will find the suitable way to have my students feel the joy of learning. I  also want my students to hold accountable on thier learning.

Week 6: Implementing the Technology-related Change in Class

                              Click a PREZI on Tae-Geuk-GI (Korean National Flag)

                                                                   


Two weeks ago,  I threw several questions to my studensts. The first quetions is "Are you familar with the Powerpoint?" All 15 students anwered positive. And second question goes like this : " How familiar are you in creating new PPT slides by yourself on a scale of 1 to 5?" The answered showed me they are not quite sure about making new PPT for the presentation. But I challenged myself further. "Have you ever heard of Prezi? None of the students are mindful when I was saying PREZI. They looked all blank and aloof. So I showed them one of my Prezis, which exactly illustrated students the final product they would create at the end of Project Week. They were very into the new form of presentation and some of them alreadt decided to go with PREZI instead of PPT. I love this positive and intriguing attitude toward new technology. It will help a lot in both sense : Language and Technology. And they will be more confident when the days are come for a REAL presentation in university or job-related presentation. I want my students to take a big stride toward new gadgets or presentation form and learning how to work together as a TEAM. In a group work, as all language teachers noticed, there are some students who are weaker at language but strong at technology. I wish that I could help both types of students in one class.

Week 5: How will be PBL beneficial to the students

     
When students are young, we are more likely to belive their potential and give them as much praise as possible. But with the time our(paernts' and teachers') expectation would be way too high. They lose the beliefs on studensts autonomy and the power of the self-learning stragegy. How can we regain our confidence on the belief on students and their studies? I think the experince waing time is quite important. Students of course should learn, not at our pace but at their own pace. We, as parents of teachers give them a right amount of resources they use and wait for them to bloom like the spring bring the flowers to blossom. I believe project-based learning could be the one solution. From first to end, studenst activate themselves to research, connect the separate items in order and bring mundane data in life with the innovative delivery styles. This is how students approach the real-life problems. They at first figure out what the core and critical problem is amongst the possibles problematic situation. Second, they have to research all the way throught to find out the possible solution. Then they analyze the soultions on the list according to their ciritical thinking or practical benefits. After that, they implement the process they chose and find out strong and weak points of using the selected soltuion. They accumulated these expereinces with the different topics, they might increase practical sense of problem-solving techniques not experimenting all the possible paths putting ahead of them. It will be the goal of PBL and this merit will never acquire throught traditional way of teaching.

Week 5: Tech-savvy Teacher

I have walked almost half way through the course. The more weeks go by, the more confidece I have as a tech-savvy teacher in every way. I was afraid of applying new technology into my class and had a fear throwing "what if" questions. What if I could not follow all the instruction that is only conducted online? What if I failed in completing this project? But this program has been part of my life and taught me great pleasure of teaching, learning and sharing. I believe that familarity breeds likings. It can also apply to my students. They at frist might have a huge fear of using English for the project-based learning. But if I break down the whole process into small steps, they would follow several steps without knowing that they are on the big project and slowly and smoothly move on to the goal they set. I hope that I would be a good role model who use English and technology in the practical use and we were all born to be digital natives.

Week 4: Immersing to the Technology in Class

 In Korea these days is the age of super high technology. All the smart phones and tablet PC are near at our hand. Most of teenagers who are at the age of my students are born digital. They even ask the mobile companies to create new functions. For example, iphone has developed the application to turn the phone to musical instrument like ocarina, guitar or piano. People who have the same musical interests can create iphone orchestra and play the music at any time with the anyone. I thinks it's more like a shift of paradigm. It was shoking, even  at awe when I learned that we can print out 3D object just clicking the flat design on the screen. WOW!!
Then how about the classroom? Well, we still have a blakboard and a bunch of chalk like in 18th century. How can I bring the technological challenges to class or how can I help the students to apply the technology in  a useful and wise manner?
I hope that this week's my plannning on the tech-ingrained class model will spare me to have more challenges on blended learning. I know that blended learning takes intesified workload in terms of teaching. But if well-organized with the great effort in the begining, it will be worthy to take extra time and efforts. The perfectly designed lesson will be beneficial for the students to see their own progress on the project, to enjoy learning by doing, to build up confidence, resilience and interpersonal skills through group activities. As part of teachers, they might see the less involvement at work best. By conducting student-led class, teacher will make sure of their role as a facilitator of learning.
My plan is just a frist draft. I will polish the rest of the weeks and build up with the sturdy architecture of blended learning.