Reflection: Week 8

This week, we have done the following assignments:

i. Swapping first draft Project Reports with a peer for a review
ii. Discussing Learner Autonomy
iii. Creating a One-Computer Activity

1- Project Report:
This week, I swapped my project draft report with my partner's, Mana Al-Masri, for a peer review and comments. She kindly made some very useful comments and suggestions on my project, which will definitely be taken into consideration before I submit the final version of the report on June 6, 2010.

I think this activity, i.e. peer reviewing, is very important because when we write, we sometimes digress from the main subject or we do not get down immediately to the point, which makes our writings long-winded. A good peer review can help us refine our writings indeed. It is an indirect lesson to us that we should do this activity with our students as we now have a hands-on experience with it. Thanks Deborah for this great lesson!

2- Discussion: Learner Autonomy
Our discussion this week has been about how we could encourage greater autonomy in students, with and without technology. In my posts on Nicenet, I pointed out that both Dimitrios Thanasoulas’s article What is Learner Autonomy and How Can It Be Fostered, and Samuel Sheu’s article Learner Autonomy: Bird-in-the-hand or Bird-in-the-bush? emphasize the relationship between learner autonomy and teacher autonomy. In other words, in order for teachers to foster the learner autonomy, they need to learn how to be autonomous in developing their own teaching strategies.

To make my students more self-directed, I have recently begun to implement some strategies such as the use of blogs and task-based activities. I also suggested that we should expose students to authentic materials (in and outside the class) such as reading newspapers, magazines and listening to the BBC. Students should keep in mind that "a successful learner is a long life learner".

I also argued that the role of the teacher in a learner-centered approach should not be undermined because he or she will have crucial responsibilities such as guiding the students to the right direction and observing their progress.

3- Creating a One-Computer Activity:
After reading Susan Gaer and Donna Price-Machado’s article Teaching in a One Computer Classroom, I created a speaking activity benefiting from a map of the United States that has been grabbed off the Internet and will be shown through the overhead projector to the students in the class.

The behavioral objective: After studying the direction expressions and the Comparative (Condition) my General English university students (Audience) will be able to locate a certain state on the map of the United States that is shown through the overhead projector in the class, say in which part of the United States it is and compare it with two other states (Behavior) with 100% accuracy in grammar and pronunciation (Degree).

For example, the teacher will ask individual students "Where is Oregon?"

The expected answer will be something like "It is in the northeastern part of the United States. It is between Washington State and California. It is bigger than Iowa but smaller that Montana".

Yours,

Mohamed