Week 3

     Week 3 began on Monday April 15th 2013. It is for me one of the most useful parts of the course. This week' s title is: Skill-building Websites for Oral/Aural Skills and Saving Bookmarks with Delicious.

     The week starts as usual with very interesting readings. The main topic being Teaching Aural/Oral Skills, we had to read a lot of documents on how to build listening and speaking skills using CALL (Computer Assisted Learning Language). All the documents have discussed the neglect of these two skills in Second and Foreign Language.classrooms. Julia Gong thinks ''the introduction of computers in language classrooms has opened a new door to both teachers and learners.'' What I like best  in her article The Employment of CALL in Teaching Second/Foreign Language Speaking Skills: is that she has clearly demonstrated that the computer environment is highly motivating and less threatening psychologically.  Therefore, as modern teachers, we ought to change the traditional language learning context.
       The same idea is developed by Lindsey Miller  in Developing Listening Skills with Authentic Materials. She focuses on the scope of listening in ESL/EFL today and how important it is to change things by using technologies. Something new I have learned from Miller's article is that in the daily communication listening is the language skill which is most often used ( Listening +40%, speaking 35%, reading 16% and writing 9%).
     In a nutshell, the philosophy behind these readings is that computers and other technologies allow students a greater degree of independence. We have discussed about all this in Nicenet and as usual the discussion was fruitful.

     Another important task we have done this week is to create a Delicious page. A new discovery for me and for sure this will help me and my students work more effectively. With the Delicious page I can from now on save my bookmarks. 
     The last but not the least activity was to read and discuss a past sample project. With this task I know better what I am expected to do by the end of the program regarding the project.

Week 3 has particularly risen my interest in the employment of CALL in English Language Teaching.