STUDENTS AUTONOMY AND NEW TECHNOLOGIES

Don’t bend; don’t water it down; don’t try to make it logical; don’t edit your own soul according to the fashion. Rather, follow your most intense obsessions mercilessly. 

Franz Kafka

Autonomy is the ability to take your own decisions, the ability to take your own way, the possibility to open the door you find appropriate for your personal development. There are so many doors to open, but you should open them yourself, walk through the door and be responsible for your choices. It is wonderful that people have started to analyze and apply autonomy not only on geographical and political levels, but on educational as well. It is vitally important to be independent, and to be responsible for your knowledge and life.

According to the Oxford Dictionary “autonomy” is a polysemantic word that means:

1.      the right or condition of self-government (mass noun);

2.      a self-governing country or region (count noun);

3.      freedom from external control or influence; independence;

4.      the capacity of an agent to act in accordance with objective morality rather than under the influence of desires  (in Kantian moral philosophy).

It takes its origin from the early 17th century: from Greek autonomia, from autonomos 'having its own laws', from autos 'self' + nomos 'law'. [1] Originally this term was used in politics and moral philosophy. However, “…the notion of learner autonomy was first developed out of practice—that of teacher-researchers at the Centre de Recherches et d'Applications Pédagogiques en Langues (CRAPEL), University of Nancy, France, in the early 1970s. According to the former Director of CRAPEL, Henri Holec (personal communication), the need for a term to describe people's ability to take charge of their own learning… arose for practical, though idealistic reasons. ” [2]. With the aim of promoting lifelong learning “…CRAPEL began to offer adults the opportunity to learn a foreign language in a resources centre, free from teacher direction.” [3]

However, Dimitrios Thanasoulas in his article “What is Learner Autonomy and How Can It Be Fostered?” writes that autonomy is the synonym to activity, critical thinking and independence. The other question is how to use this freedom correctly. “…this shift of responsibility from teachers to learners does not exist in a vacuum, but is the result of a concatenation of changes to the curriculum itself towards a more learner-centred kind of learning.” [4] The role of the teacher remain crucially important in the educational process, thus he/she becomes a tutor, a mentor , who tries to free student’s mind and to show the right door, as autonomous learning is “by no means teacherless learning” [5]. The teacher is the guide, who clarifies that autonomous learning can be achieved when cognitive strategies (repetition, resourcing, translation, note-taking, deduction, contextualization, transfer, inferencing, question for clarification) and metacognitive strategies (directed attention, selective attention, self-monitoring, self-evaluation, self-reinforcement) are applied. The teacher is the one to monitor the educational process by answering the questions how to learn a language and what to learn.

The success of implementing autonomy among teachers-students depends on the desire to learn, the sense of self and self-esteem, the ability to overcome occasional setback and mistakes while studying a foreign language. One of the most important factors is motivation, as it comprises three components at once: "desire to achieve a goal, effort extended in this direction, and satisfaction with the task." [6]

In order to promote autonomy among students and become an autonomous teacher it is required to experience the role of the autonomous students. We need to pass the mental steps of development by living all the steps of the autonomous student formation.

Ashok Raj Khati in his post “Teaching English: Lifeless Life?” describes the monotonous life of a teacher of English. “He gets up at 5 am, rushes to the college at 6 am and starts his lesson at 6.30. He gives lectures till 10.30, and then comes to have a meal in hurry. He has to take several classes in a school from 11 am to 4 pm where he is a permanent teacher. He has been working as an English teacher for 15 years. Every year he enters into the same classrooms with the same walls, writes on the same blackboard, opens the same textbooks, gives the same notes that he had prepared many years ago. He finds that his students are always passive listeners every year except in the first month of an academic year. He usually uses chalk, duster, blackboard, and sometime cassette recorder for listening activities…” [7]. Not to be trapped in this “lifeless life” teacher autonomy, as the consequence, learner autonomy is the light in the end of the tunnel that will encourage creativity, interest variety of approaches and sources, so the students will have enough fuel for the entire academic year, as they will realize the importance of acquired knowledge, will have a high self-esteem and will be motivated to achieve better results, not because they live in the exam-oriented society, but because taking charge of their learning is a norm.

The curricula elaborated at the Moldova State University have already introduced the space for learning autonomy, or independent learning, as we call it, where we introduce the activities, the strategies of activity accomplishment, the criteria of assessment and the duration, similar to the ABCD method. Thus the autonomous learning is fostered at the national level. However to achieve success in building autonomy and benefiting from it, it is necessary first of all to help teachers become autonomous by the means of conferences, seminars, workshops, incoming teachers, by having internships at the universities where autonomy is well developed. If teachers "adopt appropriate activities" and skills and learn to become free when thinking, progressing, enhancing teaching skills, learner autonomy will be a bird-in-the-hand, as Samuel P-H Sheu suggests in his article “Learner Autonomy: Bird-in-the-hand or Bird-in-the-bush?” [8]

The present generation of students has good web skills. They are active members of social networks, they surf the net reading the news and e-books, listening to the music, networking on Skype, Facebook, Twitter, using online dictionaries, writing e-mails, creating personal blogs, watching online TV, subscribing to Youtube, but the question is “What language do they use?” After making a small survey among my students I have come to the conclusion that they spend from 5 to 10 hours a day navigating the World Net mainly in Romanian and Russian languages, only 18 percent of first-year students use English. I have repeatedly advised them a number of websites that will facilitate and improve their learning process, such as dictionary.cambridge.org, oxforddictionaries.com, bbc.co.uk, simpleenglishnews.com/, and many others. Whereas, instead of brushing up pronunciation using online dictionaries that have American and British recorded pronunciation of words and enriching their vocabulary by listening and reading BBC news, they relax and have fun in their mother tongue. The experience has shown that students whose level of English is higher practice autonomous learning. They watch films in English, listen to the radio (BBC), surf the internet, read online newspapers, with other words widely use web technologies to foster their learning autonomy. The students, whose learning process is restricted to the class work commit grammar mistakes, are not self-confident, do not show initiative, and are less fluent in their speech.

The further use of web tools, gradual development of autonomous learning and careful implementation and management of computer technologies in the class will raise the students to a new level, so they can walk through new doors.

References:

1. Oxford Dictionary Online

2.   3. Smith, Richard ““Learner Autonomy”

4.  5.  6.  Thanasoulas, Dimitrios “"What is Learner Autonomy and How Can It Be Fostered? ”

7. Ashok, Raj Khati “ Teaching English: Lifeless Life” “ Teaching English: Lifeless Life”

8. P-H Sheu, Samuel “Learner Autonomy: Bird-in-the-hand or Bird-in-the-bush?”

ENHANCING WRITING SKILLS THROUGH BLOGGING

We live not only in a world of thoughts, but also in a world of things. Words without experience are meaningless. 

Vladimir Nabokov

The World Wide Web is a valuable source of information that can be and must be used by both teachers and students inside and outside the classroom to foster the professional growth. Nowadays billions of people work, chat, write, explore, google, search, blog, twitter, subscribe, comment, post, upload, download, network, publish, and do many other things spending from 2 to 10 hours a day on the internet. English as being lingua franca is indisputably the mostly used language of the internet. We, the teachers of English, should take profit of this fact and introduce web technologies in curriculum and teach our students how to use web technologies to enhance our students’ learning skills.

In the present article I am going to focus on the writing skills, as writing essays, reports, mini compositions, and text analyses is an indivisible part of the any curriculum. Mostly students’ writings are very different with a good or bad grammar, but touching, sad, well-written, however, these are their masterpieces that are honest and deep, that develop their personal style, and sometimes you understand who has written it without reading the name of the students, thus their writing style becomes unique. Many times I catch myself thinking that it would be great to show students’ works to someone else. I found out about a wonderful possibility to demonstrate students’ writings to the whole world by creating Class Blogs, while participating in the e-learning program ”Building Teaching Skills Through the Interactive Web”, organized by the University of Oregon. Blogging is a marvelous way to efficiently organize students’ independent work and share their writings, motivating them to be creative as they become genuine writers, thus their works won’t be stocked in some drawers, and be forgotten forever. There are so many benefits of this type of writing. Thirst of all, I get students’ writing via email, in this way I solve the first problem – students’ hand writing, unfortunately sometimes it takes more time to understand it, and I lose head and tail of the general message. Secondly, before creating the blog it is necessary to inform students about the types, forms and consequences of plagiarizing, teach them how to avoid plagiarizing and tell them about footnotes, parenthetical references, and bibliography, how to paraphrase and summarize the studied material. Third of all, students develop their unique style and become more creative, the fact that they will have a huge international audience motivates students a lot and they show their real potential, besides they communicate with people from different countries, as it is a good manner to reply to the comments left by the readers.

However, in order to start implementing web technologies in the classroom it is necessary to find out about the possibilities of students, if they have computers and internet connection in their residence places. When I started investigating this question the results did not surprise me at all as the present generation of students has computers, laptops, and ipads at home. They are active members of social networks, who surf the net reading the news, listening to the music, using Skype instead of the telephones, consulting online dictionaries, reading e-books, corresponding via mail, networking, using personal blogs, How to? Blogs, online TV, Youtube. The list is really impressive. The students who live in the university campus have Wi-Fi internet connection in the university hostels. So, students have possibilities to apply web technologies into practice.

         To start blogging, it is needed to inform students about the benefits and opportunities that are opened if writing a blog. And here again web technologies are of great help. To help my students with this I used webquest. According to webquest.org, “A WebQuest is an inquiry-oriented lesson format in which most or all the information that learners work with comes from the web.” I created the webquest entitled “To Blog!”, on zunal.com, to introduce my students into blogging, make them investigate this notion themselves and find answers to 3 questions “What is blogging? What are the types of blogging? What are the rules of a successful blog?” As the final product of the investigation students were to make Power Point Presentations to share the things that they have learned in the classroom.

       As the experience shows, being informed is being enarmed, the power of knowledge helps to make the next step – create a Class Blog. Deborah Healey, e-teacher from the University of Oregon, has written a perfect guide for all beginners. It is entitled “Creating a Blog at Blogger.com”. I didn’t hesitate to use this marvelous opportunity and my two groups of students and I have opened our account on Google and created our Class Blogs to have a wider audience for our writings. We entitled them ClassBlog261, and ClassBlog262 . The students were given one week to post their introductions, where I asked them to present themselves, their group, their language experience, hobbies and write a motto that would represent them. In general the introductory posts were very different and very similar at the same time. Some students uploaded their photographs or the photographs of their pets to make the presentation more attractive. Working and posting on the Class Blog culminated in individual students’ posts. The groups under consideration have become more responsible and engaged in new activities. The role of the writers, not mere readers inspired the students to manifest themselves from very positive and promising perspective. They became more independent and open to the world. The new technologies used during the classes of Applied English have a big impact on both me and my students. The most important thing is that we have changed and we are ready to explore new technology tools in continuation. I was delighted to see that my students became more active and flexible during the lessons. The group attendance has grown.

By all means students should be informed about the ground rules for discussions, as all posts and comments should be respectful, clear and correct from grammatical point of view. It is highly recommended to give the students necessary instructions that would help them avoid unpleasant communication.

A journey of thousand miles begins with a single step. Sometimes the first step is the most difficult, but it should be done. It takes time to learn, as teaching as well as learning is the life-long process, but we, teachers, should inform our students about web technologies, encourage them use new technologies in the class and in individual work to enhance their writing skills, and introduce them in the modern classroom through curriculum. 

Bibliography:

• Jarek Krajka "Using the Internet in ESL Writing Instruction"
• “AssessingLearning Alternative Assessment”
• Susan Gaer “Less Teaching and More Learning”
• “TeachingLarge Classes”
• “Top Ten Slide Tips”
• “Presentingwith PowerPoint”
• http://classblog261.blogspot.com/
• http://classblog262.blogspot.com/
• Deborah Healey “Creating a Blog at Blogger.com”“Creating a Blog at Blogger.com”

Week10. Reflections

Can you avoid knowledge? You cannot! Can you avoid technology? You cannot! Things are going to go ahead in spite of ethics, in spite of your personal beliefs, in spite of everything.

JOSE M.R. DELGADO

Scientific American, October 2005

Knowledge and technology are two inseparable things that have always gone together since the invention of the light bulb. In spite of the fact that the ongoing collaboration between these two whales has been successful so far, the article CALL and the Future of Language Teacher Education isn’t as optimistic as I thought it will be, as “According to existing research, technology integration is unsatisfactory in teacher education.” It depends on us, teachers, whether we shall be the steering wheel in the present and future system of education or the brakes (J.A.Gardner). The course “Building Teaching Skills Through the Interactive Web” is aimed at fighting with inertia, ignorance, insufficient standards, lack of practice. It was one of the brightest learning experiences since I was a student.

In my final reflections I wanted to sum up the things I have never done before, but I decided that this course is a new beginning and I should be more positive and write about the technologies I have learned and I am going to use in my classes. To start with PowerPoint, I have opened new perspectives of it and I have learned about a great alternative to PowerPoint - Prezi. I can’t imagine my lessons without rubrics, a type of alternative assessment. The Wallwisher is another technology tool that has a huge potential if being used in the class or as independent work. I fell in love with Delicious, I can’t imagine myself one day without it, this is my personal library, where I stock some favorite and new links. I have never thought that I will love to have a Blog, that I will wake up at 2-3 a.m. to post on my blog, read my colleagues’ blogs and comment on Nicenet. I enjoyed reading the recommended article, as they were very informative. It is complicated to get across such valuable sources without someone’s help.

The final LoTi survey was a brilliant denouement of the entire course. To find out about LoTi I highly recommend the articles LoTi Framework and IMPLEMENTING THE SEVEN PRINCIPLES: Technology as Lever. My survey results are the following:

1. Digital-Age Work and Learning - 68%

2. Digital-Age Learning and Experiences and Assessment - 75%

3. Students Learning and Creativity - 82%

4. Professional Growth and Leadership - 42%

5. Digital Citizenship and Responsibility - 40%

After fulfilling the whole amount of work during the course we have a solid background. I understand that this course is just a beginning and our purpose is implementation of web skills in the classroom.

I would like to express my deep respect and gratitude to my instructor Courtney and to my dear colleagues, whom I appreciate very much! We shall keep in touch!

As for my blog E-learner2012 I don’t say good bye, I shall go on exploring!

Ina

Week 9. Reflections

"I believe that the brain has evolved over millions of years to be responsive to difficult kinds of content in the world. Language content, musical content, numerical content, etc. …"

Howard Gardner

All people are remarkable, incomparable, special, individual, and unique. According to Howard Gardner, Professor of Cognition and Education, who developed the theory of multiple intelligences, there is an Einstein, Van Gogh, Mozart, Mendeleev, Shakespeare, Pythagoras, Oprah, in all of us, but at a different rate.

As Thomas Edison said “Genius is 1% inspiration, 99% perspiration”. But sometimes this 1% opens the huge potential for new discoveries, brilliant masterpieces, and human evolution in general. Who is to open our talents if not our parents, our teachers, our friends and enemies, and finally us?! When I was a small girl I had the role of the teacher in almost all the games. I think that my profession is not a coincidence. These things should also be taken into consideration. This is the time when this 1% can be discovered.

To discover what types of intelligences are better developed in me I, following Courtney’s example, decided to pass the test in order to find out about my learning style, from www.edutopia.org.

The third place has interpersonal intelligence – 56%.

The second place goes to linguistic intelligence – 67%.

The winner is intrapersonal intelligence – 69%.

I don’t think that the human being is the center of the universe, we are just a small part of it, but the human trace can be seen from the open space.

To find more about multiple intelligence it is worth reading the article Learning Styles and Strategies, by Richard M. Felder, where the following types of learners were mentioned:

·         Active – Reflective

·         Sensing – Intuitive

·         Visual – Verbal

·         Sequential – Global

Some strategies help one type of learners, but at the same time confuse the representatives of the other type. The perfect solution is to have a balance between different styles and gradually develop the weaker.

Today I uploaded my final project report on Courtney’s wiki. Almost all of my colleagues have already submitted the reports. They did a great job! Every project report is very special. I want to read them during my winter holidays.

Until the beginning of our course “Building Teaching Skills Through the Interactive Web” I couldn’t understand how can people make friends, fall in love, get married through the internet. They don’t see each other, don’t shake hands, don’t hug, don’t smile to each other, don’t cry on someone’s shoulder, but now I know that it is possible. These nine weeks is like an entire life and a single moment. 

I shall miss everyone so much!

Ina

Week 8. Reflections

Past is a Noise

Present is a Choice

Future is in your Voice

Author Unknown

Submitted by Sujatha Kanthan --- India

We, teachers, need to focus on the right choice, on development. “Computer literacy is a necessity, not a luxury” any more. (Gwen Dolyn) Our e-course has opened so many options for us. My instructor Courtney is 6 000 miles away from me, but she has taught me so many useful things that I feel like a sponge full of water. Courtney’s wiki is her personal study. Nicenet is our classroom. Main website is our syllabus and library. Jupiter Grades is the register. All these possibilities are open to us due to the global network. I wouldn’t know my course mates if not for the internet. Our course is a good choice in the present. It inspires us to have a voice in future!

This week we have continued exploring and enhancing our web skills by creating online tests, exercises, crosswords and puzzles. I really liked Easy Test Maker as it offers a variety of different exercises such as multiple choice, true or false, fill in the blank, matching. I usually like when my test looks good, and it takes me a lot of time to design it properly. This tool solves this question.However Easy Test Maker dosn't contain pictures like Tools for Educators but I couldn't save my worksheet.

I have shared with my colleagues the links to ClassBlog261, and ClassBlog262. My students and I are looking forward to further communication and collaboration! We are waiting for you at our blogs!

This week the USA celebrated Thanksgiving Day. I would like to congratulate everyone on this wonderful occasion. I am very thankful to God for this scholarship, for my dear colleagues and Courtney!

Another important event took place on November, 22. This is the Independence Day in Lebanon! What is important to my colleagues in important to me. Congratulations, Paula!

Finally I came across a very good cartoon that I would like to share with you. It is entitled The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore. I want to share just one comment: “I have no words to describe this. Even if I cried for a solid month, it couldn't even begin to explain the magnitude of this beauty. Just, wow." (Silver Wolfblaze) I think it is about us!

Ina

Example of one-computer classroom

Since the nicenet went down I decided to follow my colleagues’ example and place the example of one computer classroom on my blog.

One computer classroom is more than familiar to me. I like using PPt during grammar classes, because

•  It grasps students’ attention.
•  Slides with different type of information keep them interested.
•  The necessary structures, rules, examples, pictures, video are included in PPt, thus less time is spent on explanation and more on practice.
• Since all the information is included in the PPt beforehand, grammar lessons are well managed, thereby the quality is higher.

I am going to describe a one-computer grammar lesson; the topic is Present Continuous (Progressive) by means of PPt.

Pre-watching activity

·         Give students some samples of texts with Pr. Cont., ask them to try to identify verbs in Pr.Cont.

While working with PPt

·         1^st slide – the structure of the simple sentence in Pr. Cont.

Subject+Verb (to be in Pr.S.+Participle 2)+Object

Ask students to have a look in sample texts again and find the verbs that were missed the first time.

·         2^nd slide – 1. Conjugation of a verb “to play” in the Affirmative form.

·         3^rd slide – 1. example with a picture or video

2. Divide the class into 3-4 teams and give each team a verb to conjugate in Pr. Cont.

·         4^th slide – exercise, the task is to use the verbs in brackets in Pr. Cont., students are to write the answers on the blackboard, to check if every student has a clear understanding of the new topic

·         5^th slide – a blank slide, meanwhile ask the students how to form Pr. Cont., or ask them in teams to share or write what they remember about Pr. Cont. affirmative form

The same work is to be done with Negative and Interrogative forms. It is required to consider the students’ level and the ability to percept new information. I would probably explain all forms to one group, but have more practice with another group/class.

Post-watching activity

During grammar classes the last activity is a game. As it helps repeat the new topic and fill in the gap between theory and a real situation. After working with Pr. Cont. I like taking “miming” game. On the strips of papers are written sentences in Pr. Cont. Each student is to draw the strip with a sentence and to show it to the class. The class is to name the action in Pr. Cont. This game is helpful, relaxing after the new grammar topic and fun!

I have recently created a PPt, the topic is Modals of Politeness Modals of Politeness

Another tool to develop one-computer classroom is the Wallwisher. I liked the idea of using the Wallwisher as a tool for language practice (proverbs, idioms, word tree derivatives, examples), described in the article by Titova.

Week7. Reflections

Morpheus: ‘I’m trying to free your mind, Neo. But I can only show you the door. You’re the one who must walk through it’

The Matrix (Film)

Authentic Reading by W.C.Cardoso

There are so many doors to open, but you should open them yourself. Autonomy is not about being left alone in the desert it is about standing on the crossroads and taking charge of the direction you take, it is the ability to take charge of your learning (Holec), the ability to walk through the door and be responsible for your choices. I consider it is wonderful that people have started to analyze and apply autonomy not only on geographical and political levels, but on educational as well. It is vitally important to be independent, to take decisions yourself, to be responsible for your life in general. Autonomy was the first question to discuss during the 7^th week. To be informed about autonomy is it worth reading the articles What Is Learner Autonomy and How Can It Be Fostered? by Dimitrios Thanasoulas and Learner Autonomy: Bird-in-the-hand or Bird-in-the-bush? by Samuel Sheu.

The Wallwisher  is “simplicity and collaboration for motivation and effective teaching” (Titova). Being amazingly simple it can be used in a variety of one-computer activities, I would even call them projects, as using the wallwisher implies preparation and research. I liked this new tool as it fosters students’ autonomous learning.

Finally, several words about the final project. This week we had to choose our partners for peer-reading. At first I wanted to invite some definite colleagues to be my peers, as we all have different styles, perception, cultures that more or less influence our choice. However my final decision was to choose my peer-readers according to the field of interest. I thought that it would be good to be open for collaboration to everyone as all my colleagues are professionals and I would be honored to work with everyone. My peer-readers are Raj and Mary, my very active colleagues. Thus we shall have an international collaboration between India, Venezuela and Moldova.

Looking forward to hearing from you!
Ina