Hi,
Another busy week went by. I learned about very useful ideas and tools this week too. Firstly, alternative assessment: it is something we have already been doing at our school. We give performance grades each week depending on student participation in class activities. Rubricstar, however, is a new tool for me and I found it very helpful in creating alternative assessment tools. I will use it for student oral presentations next semester.
Secondly, I would like to write about Project Based Learning (PBL). Everything needs a purpose and meaning, so do the language learners. As teachers we need to provide our learners with purpose and meaning. Otherwise, as far as I have experienced, students memorize some vocabulary and grammar rules only to pass some exams. I think it is not real learning. PBL activities could be helpful in providing students with purpose and meaning for learning a foreign language. I had two different group of students last year. In the coursebook, students were required to write an email to a language course asking for price, date and accommodation. With the first group, I tried the traditional way. They wrote an email on paper and gave that to me. With the second group I asked them to find a language course on the Web and send an email. The second group were much more excited about the experience and talked about how they wrote it, how they felt and they told me that they were excited to see that they can actually communicate with real English speaking people by email. So, I say PBL activities rocks :)
Another busy week went by. I learned about very useful ideas and tools this week too. Firstly, alternative assessment: it is something we have already been doing at our school. We give performance grades each week depending on student participation in class activities. Rubricstar, however, is a new tool for me and I found it very helpful in creating alternative assessment tools. I will use it for student oral presentations next semester.
Secondly, I would like to write about Project Based Learning (PBL). Everything needs a purpose and meaning, so do the language learners. As teachers we need to provide our learners with purpose and meaning. Otherwise, as far as I have experienced, students memorize some vocabulary and grammar rules only to pass some exams. I think it is not real learning. PBL activities could be helpful in providing students with purpose and meaning for learning a foreign language. I had two different group of students last year. In the coursebook, students were required to write an email to a language course asking for price, date and accommodation. With the first group, I tried the traditional way. They wrote an email on paper and gave that to me. With the second group I asked them to find a language course on the Web and send an email. The second group were much more excited about the experience and talked about how they wrote it, how they felt and they told me that they were excited to see that they can actually communicate with real English speaking people by email. So, I say PBL activities rocks :)
Great hearing PBL it works great. I hope to have the same result after aplying it to my class.
ReplyDeleteRegards
Dalton
Dear Abdullah,
ReplyDeletestudents really need to be in contact with authentic language because it gives them a sense of their proficiency to communicate.
Regards,
Malu