Week 10. The things I have learnt

This course was like a blessing to me. I have learnt many things and met many teachers from different countries. I hope to continue the collaboration with them and create some great projects!
I can't distinguish the best topics, I think they all were very good. Studying in this course I thought not only about my students and how I can improve their learning, but I also thought about the teachers in Lithuania and how I can help them with integrating technologies in their lessons. Most of the teachers in my country don't use technologies at all, and it is very sad. I will try to do my best to change the situation. I am planning to start from the IT SIG which I coordinate in LAKMA (Lithuanian Association of Teachers of English as a Foreign Language) and write some articles about the course. I think our teachers want to change, they only lack knowledge and are afraid of doing an unusual things. I am not sure about the type of tutoring, but I will do it for sure. The great changes are coming!
Have a good summer my dear e-classmates!

Week 9. 5Cs and 4Cs

I have read the article "Sailing the 5 C's with Learning Strategies" where in the review of the National Standards for Foreign Language Learning was described the 5Cs. They stand for five goal areas in language learning:

1. Communication
2. Cultures
3. Connections
4. Comparisons
5. Communities

It reminded me of CLIL (Content and language integrated learning) where we have 4Cs: 

1. content
2. communication
3. cognition
4. culture

The meaning is very similar, both standards serve for language learning. In the first learning strategies the goal is general English, while in CLIL the main goal is the subject and English is only the tool for reaching it or the secondary goal.

Week 9. What Is Your Learning Style? | Edutopia

This week I found a great tool for finding out learning style. Have a look at it. I am going to use it next school year for my students.
What Is Your Learning Style? | Edutopia

I have taken the test. My results:

Week 8. Projects

I am not a writer. I can do projects easily, but when the time comes to describe them I am getting very depressed. I always invent something and make improvements to my previous works in my mind, but I never keep records. I know it's not a good habit, but I have it. Even when I worked at school and we had projects, I tried to take as much work as I can, but the description of the projects left to others...
This is the first time I writing the description of my project myself, so, please, be patient :)
I am impressed of abilities to write of my colleagues Kayyum and Zahirah. They explain their projects so clear and in details. I always thought that if I know how it works, the others will also understand it without the explanation. Of course, it's a joke, but often the reality is that the things that are clear to us, we think they should be clear to others too.
During this course I have learnt to write. It's not a joke! I have never written so many messages, post and etc. It's strange, but I am starting to like this :)

Week 7. Padlet

This week I discovered padlet on www.padlet.com. It's new and very interesting to me. First, I thought that I am going to use it with my students, but only next year. This school year goes to an end and there is no time for new things. But suddenly I've got an idea of summer task. I created a padlet and asked my students to write their wishes for next year English lessons during summer holidays. Here is the link. I hope I will get some good ideas from my students :)

Week 6. My Project

This week I am working on my project...

My CLASS:
There are 6 children in the class. They are 11-12 years old. There are 4 computers, a multimedia projector, and some other equipment in the classroom.
THE PROBLEM:
The bad usage of the vocabulary in context
THE SOLUTION:
I decided to focus on the sentence writing level.
Now I am working on building Moodle site. The next step will be 'Hot Potatoes' exercises. 

Week 6. PowerPoint

Some years ago I used PowerPoint Presentations very often. Later I have changed them to flash presentations. I used Adobe Flash Professional program for creating my presentations. The reason I have change the presentation program was the animation. Today I had a chance to look at PowerPoint presentations from new angle. I especially liked the idea of blank slide. It is so simple and so powerful. It can help to return the lost attention of the students, it gives time for teacher or students to interpret the material of the lesson. The factor of unexpectedness is very powerful tool. I saw how my colleagues shared fantastic presentations and I think I will do some for my students too.