Project Step 4

Part Three

“Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything”.  George Bernard Shaw

Last week , I made a brainstorming activity to pinpoint the main issues that my students and I face in Yemeni EFL context. The main problem seems to be lack of resources including technological tools in the university. However, the students can have access to the internet either in their own homes or in the internet cafes.

This week, I am also doing another brainstorming activity to suggest the technological solutions that can suit my setting and that can be used for the implementation of my project. It might be worth mentioning that my actual plan can be/have three-fold:

1.     I will implement the technology integrated program and asses its impact on the instructor, the students and the whole learning process.

2.    After completing the Webskills course, I am planning to conduct a one day workshop to my colleagues in the Department of English to share with them the new experiences that I acquired due to my participation in the Webskills course.

  

In what follows, I will present the possible technological tools that I am planning to use in my project to enhance my teaching practices as well as the rationale for selecting such tools.

1.      Class Blog

 I have already set up a Class Blog on Blogger for my Theories of Language Learning class. The idea of having an online blog is a novel one to me and to my students. Sometimes ago, I created a Faceebook page to communicate with my students and my friends, but most of the time we use Arabic as the medium of communication and most of my students are those who graduated from the university. Therefore I think that the utilization of the class blog would add some spices to our class and would allow for more learner autonomy. It will serve as an online forum or space where my students can communicate with one another and with their instructor out of class. In addition, the students are supposed to post their own reflections on what we do in class and what they learn each week. I was inspired the whole idea from the Webskills course. Usually a three hour class per week is not enough to teach a whole theory of language learning  and students generally need more practice out of  class to reinforce and review class contents and materials without making them feel overwhelmed or exhausted. Our class blog will function as that of the Nicenet to the Webskills course. The URL of the Theories of Language Learning Class Blog is : http://mohammad-abdu-al-mekhlafi.blogspot.com/ . When they are comfortable using this class blog, I will encourage them to create their own blogs.

2.      Delicious

              Delicious is another novel idea to me and to my students. I am planning to use this tool to share resources that the students need now in writing their term papers and later in preparing the bibliography of their own dissertations. Thus, the new technological tool, i.e., the Delicious account is expected to allow the instructor to guide the students and accompany them on their way in finding the relevant websites and free e-books.

             I will also train my students to use the following websites for their own research purposes.

1.      http://highwire.stanford.edu/lists/freeart.dtl

2.      http://questgarden.com/search/

3.      http://www.noodletools.com

4.      http://www.scholar.goggle.com

5.      http://www.freebooksearch.net/

Furthermore, I will be sharing additional websites that I will find useful to my students on Delicious.

I expect that my students will show a positive attitude towards the integration of such technological devices. They will be using them to communicate with each other and with their teacher outside the classroom. They will also learn from one another. Furthermore, they are expected to develop their research and writing skills. Thus, these tools will extend the teaching and learning process beyond the classroom.

Have a nice weekend!