Week 3: Oral Skills in Delicious Proportions

Quote of the Week: 

"God gave us two ears..

and one mouth so that we can hear twice as much as we say."

This week I've been using much of my two eyes checking the sites particularly created for the eyes of English learners all over the world. However, the amount of links encountered has again been overwhelming, and if it weren't for Courtney's wonderful idea to insert the "Delicious" task in this week's course, I might have felt a little bit like drowning when "hunting" in that ocean of links that lead to numerous  resources related to teaching listening, speaking, efl, etc. Therefore, THANK YOU.

Week 2: "Search Engines&the ABCD Objective"

My Food for Thought for This Week:

                                                "DECISION IS A CHOICE (especially when...

Feeling Overwhelmed with Bookmarks)"

                                                                                                

I've entitled this week's reflection as such, due to the fact that I strongly believe that one's brain, in spite of the amount of knowledge and information encountered in a certain period of time, still has the ability to organise it and retain the core of it.

It is a sort of "Roundabout Underwing" effect, triggered by a successful combination of one's work with one's love for fresh ideas, in my case for teaching ideas and thus re-inventing oneself as a teacher.

Nevertheless, I am now aware that I should probably need another week or more, in order to fully explore the almost 200 links that I have gathered in my bookmark list in connection to search engines and teaching resources sites.

In addition, during the past week, I somehow had to face some difficulties in designing that accurate ABCD Objective, becoming a source of stress for me, since I wanted it so badly to fit my next week curriculum for the class that I have chosen as "Subject-Class" for the Project Task.

It seems like the 'frame within a frame' technique I know but I'm looking forward to applying what I've learnt and to thus reading their blogs and follow their posts regularly to see how much they improve their writing skills. Their first task was to write about their winter holidays, whilst for the next task I want them to receive an ABCD Objective and see how it works for them. 

Week 1: "Building Teacher Skills Through the Interactive Web "

Today's Food for Thought is:

                                                "Most people don't care enough to make a difference. 

                                                 Fortunately, we're not most people."

                                                                                                    --Seith Godin

There are teachings everywhere. You just have to look hard enough. As a teacher, I know that it takes curiosity to make things going and brighten up our lives and world, and mistakes to learn from, in order to become better. 

During the past week, I felt very happy and extraordinarily grateful to have been given the chance--by the Oregon University-AEI E-Teacher Scholarship program-- to participate to this wonderful interactive web course that should help us - teachers- overcome our technological 'inadvertence' when teaching our students English and keeping up with the latest trends and technological changes. The problem with technology is that it can be rather disheartening at times, so we are to devise tricks like motivational quotations, stories, songs  or pictures to cheer us up. (see the picture above)

I should probably confess by now that this is my first blog to have ever written. Moreover, this has been an exciting week as I had to struggle with new terms and discover a whole new 'galaxy' that differs from the time-consuming socializing networks as well as other internet resources that I might have already been familiar with. It has enlarged my teaching vision in a way that I may have not expected: I was aware of the fact that the course would help me work my way out through new teaching techniques, but I don't think that I've ever foreseen the potential of these tools, e.g. blogging or word-processing to give immediate feedback to the learners in such an easy and open way.

Furthermore, I must admit that I am much impressed by the course itself as well as the way it is conducted, not to mention the brilliant idea to design it in the form of an 'organic web,' that is a learning community that learns at its own pace and evolves constantly, similarly to a hive. I am looking forward to expressing my thoughts here, and weekly,  with regards to the course and its every weekly task. 

Finally, I salute all the members of the course, and especially the intructors, thanking them for reminding me that: "Inspiration exists; but it has to find you working." (Pablo Picasso)