“Visit Pinocchio Live”

 

 click the photo for the task sheet ^_^

Lesson Plan : Natural Disasters; Signs Before the End of the Day

Lesson Plan: Natural Disaster; Signs Before End of the Day

BANDA ACHEH

 

Hypertext and Hypermedia

Gandhi was born in Porbandar, India, on October 2nd 1869. His father died when he was still a teenager. At the age of 13 he married Kasturba Gandhi who was three years younger and the marriage lasts for 62 years until her death in 1944.

As a young man Gandhi left India to study law in London. Then he spent two decades working in South Africa securing rights for Indian expartriates. It was during this time that his political reform through non-violence which he called Satyagraha was born. This movement meant resistance of tyranny through mass civil disobedience, firmly founded upon ahimsa, total non violence, which led India to independence and inspired movements for civil rights and freedom across the world. This way, when he returned to India, Mohandas Gandhi emerged as a political and religious leader in the fight for independence from Great Britain and was accorded the country's Father of the Nation. India freed itself from Britain on August 15th, 1947. Five months later, on January 25th, 1948 Gandhi was shot by a conservative Hindu. Hindus have their own unique chants and mantra.

Article Review

Link to the Journal :-)

Topic: Second Language Incidental Vocabulary Learning: The Effect of Online Textual, Pictorial, and Textual Pictorial Glosses.

Electronic Journal for English as a Second Language, December 2009-Volume 13, Number 3

Research done by: Sayyed Abdollah Shahrokni from Iran University of Science and Technology. He holds an M.A in Teaching English as a Foreign Language from Iran University of Science and Technology. His research interest include Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) and aspects of Second Language Acquisition (SLA)

Summary

Incidental vocabulary learning has been discussed in many different researches, not only for L1 but also L2 learning. It is called incidental because this type of learning occurs unintentionally or unplanned, which results from other activities (Dictionary.com), and in this case, reading text. Differ from incidental vocabulary from actual written literature from books, the essence of this research is to investigate the effect of online textual, pictorial and textual pictorial glosses on the incidental vocabulary learning of 90 male Iranian EFL learners. The instruments used to sample out the participants for this study were; First, English Language Placement Test or Oxford Placement Test, which focuses on the participant listening and grammar skills. These skills are important to be assessed to ensure that the participants are of the same level, as this shall characterize the homogeneity of the sample in terms of their proficiency in English as their second language. Second, Word Recognition Test. The potential participants were given 32 vocabularies. They were required to tick words, which they are familiar with and define the words in brief. Subsequently, the words that were correctly defined were discarded, leaving only 25 words as alien to the participants by overall analysis and weighing. The selected participants were divided randomly into three different groups. Texts, which include the target words (25 non-familiar words as mentioned earlier) were glossed and made online. Three versions of the same reading materials were designed, being glossed with three different modes of glossary; textual, pictorial and textual pictorial. Three sessions of instruction (teaching and learning) was allocated for each group; Presentation of the material, Practice to use the material and lastly, Tests that take place after each reading task; word and picture recognition tests. Finding of the study showed that textual and pictorial glosses was more beneficial to the students because they were being exposed with two different input; picture and textual. For other groups that were exposed with only textual or pictorial respectively, they have tendency to perform well towards the mode they learned. In general, the study shows that pictorial glosses, with or without textual give greater impact to the students incidental vocabulary learning. However, high concern was being paid on the propensity for students to get confused while using the glosses as sometimes, the context given and elaborated for each vocabulary is unclear, and might mislead their understanding. For future study, it is suggested for researchers to include female participants in the sampling. It is also suggested for further studies to be done , focusing on materials with better context to enhance the L2 learners’ incidental vocabulary learning.

Personal reflection

I.                   Does the research interest you?

Yes, this research does trigger my upmost interest. I was caught up by the term incidental vocabulary learning on the title of the research because I truly believe that when it comes to language learning, does not matter if you are learning first or second language, incidental vocabulary learning frequently comes into picture. Learners might possibly learn from spoken expressions that you hear, or song that you hear from the radio or perhaps alien words that you found in different sources such as book, newspapers, magazines, comic strips, social networking system such as Facebook ,Youtube and etc. This form of learning is with accord to the meaning of the term incidental learning itself, which expalins type of learning that occurs unintentionally or unplanned, which results from other activities (Dictionary.com).

Referring back to the research, the focus was to study the effect of different type of glosses; pictorial, textual and Textual Pictorial to the second language learners’ incidental vocabulary learning. Thus, I was brought closer to the study because this study is closely related to the way I personally learn vocabularies to enhance my proficiency in learning English language. I often surf the internet to search for reading materials; short stories, motivational articles, international news and etc, and these reading materials are usually accompanied by textual glossary as guidance. My problem is that I sometimes got caught up in daily situation where I tend to use the newly-acquired words wrongly. I always wonder on how this situation can be solved. But when I read through this study, the study instrument showed a different set of texts being glossed and published online and the glossing does not only involve the common text, but also pictures and audio of the words to edify the learners on how to pronounce the words correctly and to have better indulgence with the different contexts in which the words are to be used. The study also enlighten that Textual Pictorial is the most effective in providing the most enriching glossary for incidental vocabulary learning to occur. It also helps in decreasing the tendency for confusion to occur while using the newly-acquired word to the least.  

This study somehow answers my question on how my vocabulary learning can be improved; by being exposed to the pictures. But I believe, picture glossary is only applicable up to only certain level and context. Not all vocabularies shall be better presented and explained using pictures. However, I am still happy of being given opportunity to reflect on this research as I believe the overall context of the research is noteworthy to the CALL materials prepared by the Ministry of Education for school students to learn vocabularies to enhance their English language proficiency; which will be discussed further in the next subtopic.

II.                Do you think the research was well conducted?

Yes, I think that the research is very well conducted. This study is very well planned and structured, starting from the sampling stage till the end of the research. During the sampling stage, the researcher used two tests; First, English Language Placement Test, which had tested the participants’ listening and grammatical proficiency and Second, Word Recognition Test to test the participants vocabulary knowledge and to sample out the participants which characterize the majority homogenous group; having similar word which they are not familiar with. The sampling method is very focus towards getting acquaint with a group of people that is suitable to be tested on vocabulary learning. The only problem is that the sample of population chosen was of only one gender; male.

When the target population has been acquired, the investigation done right after was also very well structured. The 90 participants were divided into three groups and being divided to be tested with three different mode of glossary, which accompany the three similar sets of online reading comprehension material and similar test followed at the end of each lesson. The time setting was sufficient and the dynamic of the experimental condition was being controlled in a very efficient manner. The online reading materials established and the test constructed were appropriate to test the effectiveness of the different glossary mode towards the learners’ incidental vocabulary. Just imagine how wise they structure the test. They took the vocabulary being tested during the sampling stage and compose set of texts of different contexts and embed these words in the texts, just to show clear occurrence of the incidental vocabulary learning process. It might seem simple, but if the material chosen and established for a study is inappropriate, the outcome will later be highly questionable. The analysis done was also clearly structured. The researcher chose the one-way ANOVA statistical analysis to analyze the data.

III.             What are the implications of the research in the teaching and learning of ESL (in the general and Malaysian context)?

 In general, the study will definitely drive the attention of English language educators in the new era to consider using glossed online reading materials for the purpose of teaching and learning ESL, because the study has explicitly shown the effectiveness of the glossary to the L2 learners’ vocabulary learning. From the research, ESL educators will be made aware that vocabulary learning occurs incidentally in the immense of time outside the classroom context. By encouraging the materials as such to be used by the students, will in some way help them to enrich their vocabularies acquisition in much meaningful and constructive way.

In Malaysian context, I believe the method as such has been implemented. This can be seen in the ESL CD-ROM prepared and established by the ministry of education at primary and secondary level. In the CD, the reading texts are accompanied by Textual Pictorial glossary that will guide the students’ understanding towards the texts that depict different contexts. In addition, the glossary is provided with audio function to enrich and guide the students’ words pronunciation. Unfortunately, despite having this CALL material to support the ESL learning of the students’ in Malaysia school, the effectiveness is still highly questionable. The materials in the CD might benefit the students up to the intermediate level and not advance learners. The advance learners, especially in urban areas might easily get bored of having to attend simple glossary list as such. The English teachers in Malaysian school might want to consider adopting the method use in this study to test the advance students’ vocabulary mastery and establish their own material to suit the needs of the students in vocabulary learning.  In order to do so, the government might consider not only to train the teachers to use simple computerized program but also advance computer skills such as web publishing and blogging.  This might seem to be too complex to be implemented, but nothing is impossible when it comes to teaching and learning, where improvement and initiatives done towards betterment is a must.

My Crossword Puzzle- So you think you can do it??? :-)

Jcross- Transportation

Lets have a ride with me by completing the crossword puzzle :-)

Task 4 - Kentang Panas (Hot Potatoes)

Download it as a whole.. and you'll see the intended pretty effects.. ^^

*Click the picture for the link~

Website Evaluation :-)

The link to ESLFAST.com, created by  Ron C. Lee.

What does the application attempt to teach?

If a second language learner is searching for a website that integrates the four language skills; Listening, Speaking, Reading and Writing, than this shall be a great website to be chosen. Eslfast.com is one of the ESL websites launched by Ron C. Lee, which is meant for intermediate ESL (English as second language) learners. The dynamic of each activity established in this website focuses on polishing learners’ ability in each language skill. There are five main contents in this website which are, Easy Conversations, Super Easy Reading, Easy Reading, 1,500+ ESL/EFL Conversations on Different Topics and lastly, Sentence Structure Writing Practice. Each content or lesson does not come in isolation. For each conversational or reading texts, there will be an audio in which the users or learners can listen to and repeat to them as practice to attain correct intonation and pronunciation in speaking.

What sorts of things is the application user expected to do with regards to learning the content?

This application will allow intermediate learners to explore the four skills in mash-ups. However, if the learners are beginners, which are still lacking in confidence and vocabulary, it is best to follow the lead of a teacher or tutor; peer, parents, siblings, that can guide them in using this application. For teachers or tutors who guide beginner learners, it would be best if they lead the lesson one step at a time. Personally, I think the lesson should be lead as below;

ü  First Step: Easy Conversation-simple dialogical form, provided with an audio

ü  Second Step: Super Easy Reading and Easy reading- expose them with more descriptive and complex vocabularies, also come with audio.

ü  Third Step: Easy Reading, 1,500+ ESL/EFL Conversations on Different Topics- the most interesting lesson because the students will be able to practice their free-writing and speaking skills with two amazing robots; Mike and Michele.

ü  Forth Step: Sentence Structure Writing Practice –This practice will be focusing on teaching the students to form grammatical sentences for different isolated grammatical rules. It is best to put this lesson towards the end because up to this level of practice, the students should have already overcome their language ego and have build up sufficient skills and confidence to use the language correctly.

If the students are already up to intermediate level, they can merely use the lessons in this website in mash-ups to practice their language skills to move towards automaticity in communicating using their second language.

Let us take a look at one of the contents and understand what the learners are expected to do in different lesson. For instance, in First Step: Easy Conversation lessons, there are dialogical written conversations provided with the audio for each conversation. Learners can learn in pair, listen to the audio of the dialogue and take turns to repeat the conversation by reading the written dialogical text. Plus, the conversation texts come in different interesting daily topics! For instance, under the topic Dating, it comes with subtopics of Your eyes are blue, A bad date and etc. They were funny at laid back, but still, it provides good practice not only in terms of speaking, but also vocabulary. At the bottom of the main page, there is a link that can brings learners straight to Dictionary.com, in which they can find the meaning of the word that they do not understand and more examples of how the word is being used. Below the link, there is a link in which the learners can click on and they can ask any questions that they do not understand and the answer will be sent to their e-mail.

For Second Step: Super Easy Reading and Easy reading, readers will be exposed to simple paragraphs, essays and short stories to enhance their vocabulary. The texts will also provide samples of written text in which the students can learn how to write in appropriate manner. The texts will teach the students how to write descriptive sentences, narrative expressions, appropriate discourse and etc. What the learners can do is to read through the text first while listening to the audio. Learners can rewind the text more than once to get clearer ideas on what the text is all about. Actually I think they can already understand what the text all about on the first reading because the interesting and emotive expressions used in the audio has already provide clear picture on what the text is all about. After done understanding the text in brief, learners should identify words that they do not understand and find it in the dictionary using the link provided on the main page of this website. That is why it is best for this website to be used with guidance from tutor or teachers, especially for beginner learners. For intermediate learners, teachers or tutors should give constant reminder on how they can use the different lessons in the website and benefit from it.

The Third Step: Easy Reading, 1,500+ ESL/EFL Conversations on Different Topics would be the most interesting part ever of all the lessons in this website! They have two cute robots named Mike and Michele that can communicate freely with the learners upon any common topics in daily life; shopping, job, stress at work, break-up with girlfriend, anything! Most importantly, they are able to recognize grammatically incorrect sentences and guide the learners on how to alter what they intended to say by giving more examples that can easily be understood.

Lastly, Forth Step: Sentence Structure Writing Practice. It contains semi-guided writing practices that guide students to learn how to construct grammatically correct sentences. All that the learners need to do is to type in the sentences and comments will be given automatically for them to make alteration or proceed with the next question. However, a gentle reminder to all learners, in every sentence construct question and practice, there is a button that will enable the learners to get the answer immediately without even trying to construct the sentence. If the learners click on them without trying to do it by themselves, most probably they will not get the utmost of the lesson. Learners will also get bored easily and the practices will seems pointless to them. They will miss the part where the application will guide them step by step by giving appropriate hints for them to be able to construct the correct version of their sentence. That is why, again, the presents of a teacher, tutor or facilitator is necessary.

What sorts of computer skills is the computer users expected to have in order to operate/access/ use the application?

If the learners are using this website on their own, computer skills needed to enable them to operate or access this application are just basic skills. Learners only need to know how to get internet access, able to type on the keyboard, know how to use the mouse to click on the links in the website to get access to different lessons and functional applications in the website, and know how to use e-mail to send and receive e-mail. E-mail is used when the learners want to ask anything to the ‘virtual teacher’ anything that they do not understand from the lesson. Therefore, I believe this website is suitable to be used by any type of learners. Even if they have the least skill with regard to computer, they will be able to ACCESS this website on ease. To fully OPERATE the application in this website, or in other words, to be able to use the lessons in the application practically, some additional skills should be developed such as, blogging or online chatting. Facebook conversation will do as well!

If they are using this website together with other fellow classmates, with guidance of a teacher, or with guidance of a tutor, they also need all those basic skills as mention above. However, it would be best if the learners know how to create their own blog where they can practice their writing skill and the other fellow classmates can read and post their comments. This is because by using the website alone, the practices are very strongly guided. Extended effort is truly needed to widen the opportunity for the learners to practice. Just as simple as creating cute fables would make them more than happy to practice what they have learned from the website.

While you are playing/ accessing/assessing the application, does it remind you of anything you do in a classroom or with a teacher or with a fellow classmates or in self-study?

Yes, it does remind me of some activities that I do in class with my teacher and fellow classmates. For example, the activity ‘Easy Reading’ reminds me of story-telling activities in my class every Friday back in primary school. The teacher asked all students to hold the text. She started the reading with expressive verbalization of the story and occasionally, she will point out any students to continue the story –telling till she said ‘STOP’, and she continued the story telling. While the students were reading, she guided the students by correcting their pronunciation and guide students to use the right expression in reading. I believe this activity is similar to the activity in the website. Students can listen to the audio while reading through the text, occasionally, students can pause and try to read by themselves, and play the audio back to check whether they have pronounced the words correctly.

The activity ‘1,500+ ESL/EFL Conversations on Different Topics’ where learners can interact with the robots; Mike and Michele, are somewhat similar to my classroom activity back in primary school. In this website, we can talk freely to Mike and Michele about anything. Occasionally, Mike and Michele will correct learners’ grammatical errors and provide more examples. Back in school, my teacher asked us to work in pair. She called any pair to come up front, pick a topic from a box and we have to talk freely, as much as we can, base on the topic given. While we were having the conversation, the teacher guided us to speak, and sometimes corrected us if we did any mistakes in the conversation. Sometimes, we are also given random topics and write a simple dialogue base on the topic given. The activities are almost the same right? However, I personally think my classroom activity is much effective because we are interacting for real, where we can see the expression of the other parties. Talking to Mike and Michele, the expressions are restricted to writing only, though it does seem interactional, as if learners are having a chat online with friends or anyone online. Mike and Michele’s responses are also restricted. They are extremely good in correcting grammatical errors, but in keeping the  flow of the conversation, in some topic, their responses are restricted and limited.

Can you pinpoint some theories of language learning and /or teaching underlying the application?

Using website as preferred learning source? This shall bring us to the discussion of preferred learning style. Reid,1995, explained learning style as individuals’ natural, habitual and preferred way or absorbing, processing and retaining new information and skills. There are four common learning styles which are visual, aural and kinesthetic (Lightbrown & Spada, 2006). For those who preferred visual and aural (learning by ear), I highly suggest this page to be their learning guide. This is because by using this website, these two styles; learning by looking and listening, are used all the way through.

At some point in this website, Audiolingual Method is used. Audilingual Method focuses on structural patterns being taught using repetitive drills and text presented in dialogue form. Learners will only listen and repeat whatever they heard and also base on the dialogue text given to them. To be exact, it can also be called ‘parroting’, to attain correct pronunciation and intonation of phrases and sentences in different context.There is also a great effort to get students to produce error-free utterances (Audiolingual Method, Brown, 2001, p. 22)

When I click on through all lessons in this website, I take in that no users will be able to benefit the utmost from this website unless they have one thing which is, INTRINSIC MOTIVATION; an urge that is not pushed by anticipation of being rewarded ( teaching by principle: Principle 4, Intrinsic Motivation, Brown, 2001). This is because the lessons were prepared simple, guided and interesting but it is for sure a no-child- play lesson. Users need to have motivation to have their own ‘rules’ of using the website as there are no suggestions or guidelines provided for users to use this website. It is 100% up to the users to strategize and utilize every single lesson to be able to benefit fully from it. For instance, the Easy Reading lesson,which only comes with text and audio, with no picture, or pop-out interesting quizzes or any guideline to use the text. Only and only, plain text. Without intrinsic motivation, one would simply pass over and get nothing out of it. But, with clear focus and objective of learning, added by strong intrinsic motivation from the learners themselves, they would benefit the most out of it! They will realize that the text is actually fun and the expressions used in the audio-guide is also very amusing. Other example, the lesson with the robots; Mike and Michele. They will give answer to any sorts of questions. I repeat, any sort of questions! Without clear objective, focus and motivation to learn, it will turn out to be motivation to play around instead.

 While assessing the application, I tried to put myself as one of the learners or end-users of this application and I strongly believe any users would first wanted to achieve one thing which is automaticity or fluency in using their second language. This reminds me of the Teaching Principles: Cognitive Principle; Principle 1: Automaticity, aligned by Brown, 2001. According to Brown, beginner learners usually are too anxious of using their L2 (Second Language) especially when they think they have very limited vocabulary or are unsure whether they are uttering the language correctly. Therefore, by using this application will most surely make the desire and dream to attain automaticity or fluency in using the language to them, a few steps closer. The lessons are simple, yet interesting, catchy and comprehensible for beginner and intermediate learners, for whom fluency and automaticity is almost far out of grasp. Most importantly, the comprehensible input attain from constant practices from the application. Mr. Ron C. Lee has established such a wonderful site in which the instillation of fun learning thus, I shall say had almost being embedded in each lesson in this website. The texts are funny, and so realistic, covering the social context from the older generational daily conversation to cutie-pillow-talk of siblings before they go to bed!

How well is the Constructivist Theory of Learning applied to the chosen website?

There are two proponents of the constructivist theory; Piaget and Vygotsky. Piaget’s theory explains the process of learning using five terms; Schemas, Assimilation, Accommodation, Organization and Equilibration (Piaget , 1980 in Santrock J.W, 2008, 3^rd ed). Remember the steps mentioned earlier on how teachers can use this website to teach beginner English learners? ). Let us take a look one by one on how these terms are related to the application, as below;

( The discussion is based on the Piaget’s Theory, 1980 in Santrock W.J, 2008, 3^rd ed, p. 37-38)

ü  First Step: Easy Conversation-simple dialogical form, provided with an audio. From here, students will learn how to use simple vocabularies in conversation off different topics, how to keep the flow while having conversation, how to construct simple sentences to write simple dialogical text and etc. From this lesson, students will develop their Schemas (mental representation that organize knowledge) about how the language can be used in daily conversation. 

ü  Second Step: Super Easy Reading and Easy reading- expose them with more descriptive and complex vocabularies, also come with audio. Students’ schemas developed at the early stage will be added up with more complex language structure at this stage. The concept which explains this is called Assimilation (incorporation of new information into existing knowledge).

ü  Third Step: Easy Reading, 1,500+ ESL/EFL Conversations on Different Topics- the most interesting lesson because the students will be able to practice their free-writing and speaking skills with two amazing robots; Mike and Michele. This is where they will practice their language skills learned earlier, by experiencing themselves how to converse freely without being guided, or merely repeating utterances from the audio. Mike and Michele will also correct the learners’ grammatical errors occasionally. This will help the learners to test their knowledge and alter their existing knowledge towards betterment. The concept which explains this is called Accommodation (adjusting schemas to fit new information and experiences)

ü  Forth Step: Sentence Structure Writing Practice –This practice will be focusing on teaching the students to form grammatical sentences for different isolated grammatical rules. Their knowledge will be much organized and focus, as at this stage, they will start to pay close attention to correct grammar rules to be used in their written or spoken expressions. They will also make constant alteration of their existing knowledge upon any conflicting occurrence while using their knowledge and skills in completing the exercises given in this lesson. The concepts which explains this are called Organization  (Piaget’s concept of grouping isolated behavior into a higher-order more smoothly functioning cognitive systems; arranging knowledge into categories) and Equilibration (shift from one thought to another when learners realize conflict among the knowledge they have had)

In Vygotsky’s Theory, the theory of learning explains how children develop more systematic, logical and rational concepts as a result of dialogue with a skilled helper (Vygotsky Theory in Santrock J.W, 2008, 3^rd ed, p. 47). There are two concepts in Vygotsky’s theory, which are Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) and Scaffolding. As the ZPD concepts focuses on dialogue with skilled helper, I don’t think it is much applied in this website. However, I believe a little scaffolding is applied in this website. From the steps mentioned earlier, we can see the changes in the amount of support given before the learner could actually construct sentences freely for casual conversations and at last, being able to construct functional and grammatically correct sentences, within small units of organized and isolated grammatical rules.

In 1980’s and early 1990’s there was a major debate on whether the computer was master of or slave to the learning process (Higgins, Johns 1984). In relation to your evaluation –was the computer a replacement for teachers or merely obedient servant to the students?

According to Dictionary.com, the word ‘master’ means, a person with the ability to use, control or dispose something and the word ‘servant’ means a person in service of another. In my personal opinion, this application or website will show how users and the lessons in the website take turns to ‘play’ the role as ‘servant’ and ‘master’.For example, in the lesson Easy Conversations, Super Easy Reading, Easy Reading, the website plays the role as ‘master’ because students will listen to the audio first while reading the text and follow the pronunciation uttered from the audio device. However, during these lessons, users also play role as ‘master’ when they are the one who choose which topic to be read and when to pause and play the audio back and forth.

In the lesson 1,500+ ESL/EFL Conversations on Different Topics, where the users are able to practice their free-writing skills by having a chat with Mike and Michele; the robots- the users are the ‘master’ because they are the one who lead the conversation while Mike and Michele will only follow the flow lead by the users. They also correct any mistakes made by the users base on the sentences written by users.

Lastly,the ‘Sentence Structure Writing Practice’.In this lesson, the website is the master because users need to answer the question base on the instruction given in the website. Students also need to make alteration upon any mistakes made by following the lead and instruction given in the website (if the students’ answer is wrong, the website will give hints so that students can alter only the parts where they make mistakes). However, during this lesson, users also are the ‘master’ when they take role as the one who chose which grammar rules to be tested on. As I mentioned earlier, in this lesson, for each question, upon any grammar rules, there is one button that can be clicked on where the users can instantly get the correct answer for this question. The users can choose to click on the button, and not much learning shall be obtained, if they do as such. In that case, users are also being the ‘master’.

Would you like to use the application yourself for your future work? Give reasons for your respond.

If in the future, I were to be an English teacher in schools, I would love use the application with my students who just started learning English as their second language. I believe the lessons provided in this website will truly benefits my students and will also help me to construct good English lessons for my students.

For example, the interactive robots, Mike and Michele. They are so cute and interesting to be chatted with. They can give opinions, though the opinions given are just the simple ones. They also correct grammatical errors in a comprehensible manner, which will not intimidate the users. The robots can actually help the learners who are still anxious to talk with real person in real life situation. By constant practice, I believe students will be able to overcome their language ego (Brown, 2001).

The reading texts are also interesting as the texts chosen are all base on current issues, gossips and cute topics that can provide fun learning in every English lesson. I’m sure Mr Ron C. Lee, the creator of this website, is the person who pays attention to current trend of daily conversation and content-based lesson that is needed by beginner and intermediate ESL learners.

Most importantly, I would love to use this application in future with my students because each lesson integrates the four skills; Listening, Speaking, Reading and Writing-and the lessons also go across disciplines and skills. I really want to make my future students understand that the four skills do not come in isolation and they can practice those skills in one piece of text or one well-structured English lesson. Having in mind to master each skill in isolation will not do any good to the students in their ESL learning. It will cause them to be more anxious in using the language (Scott Thornburry, 2005)

Suggestions and Recommendation:

My suggestion is for this website to have a proper guideline for users who are using this website individually or team-learning (e.g classroom lesson) because the contents are good but without clear guideline, the users might benefit much from the website.Most important lesson that need a proper guideline is the lesson where the students or users can interact freely with the robots; Mike and Michele. Some students might misuse the application and end-up not being able to use the lesson to improve their language. They also need to put reminder about limitation of utterance and information that can be provided by Mike and Michele so that students will not get confused and misunderstood any grammar rules of the language.

 I’ve stated earlier about my personal opinion on how this website can be used. Firstly, for teachers who is using this website with beginner learners, it is best to guide the students to use the contents step by step as below;

ü  First Step: Easy Conversation-simple dialogical form, provided with an audio

ü  Second Step: Super Easy Reading and Easy reading- expose them with more descriptive and complex vocabularies, also come with audio.

ü  Third Step: Easy Reading, 1,500+ ESL/EFL Conversations on Different Topics- the most interesting lesson because the students will be able to practice their free-writing and speaking skills with two amazing robots; Mike and Michele.

ü  Forth Step: Sentence Structure Writing Practice –This practice will be focusing on teaching the students to form grammatical sentences for different isolated grammatical rules. It is best to put this lesson towards the end because up to this level of practice, the students should have already overcome their language ego and have build up sufficient skills and confidence to use the language correctly.

If we take close look at these stages of steps, we can see that in each lesson, students will learn step by step essential skills needed that will at last, prepare them to use the language in real situation without hesitation and anxiousness of making mistakes anymore. For users who already mastered the basic skills in ESL, they can merely practice their skills by operating the lessons provided in this website in mash-ups because the lessons in this site complies all four skills for each lesson. Students need not to worry of not being able to practice certain skill if they just simply choose any lesson to be practiced.

References:

Brown H.D (2001). Chapter 4: Teaching by Principles; Cognitive and Affective Principles. 55-57, 61-62 

Santrock J.W(2008). Cognitive Development: Piaget and Vygotsky Theory. 37-48. 3rd ed

Spada & Brown (2006). Individual Differences in Second Language Learning: Learning Styles. 59

Meaning of the word 'servant' and 'master' . Retrieved from http://www.dictionary.com/ 

Task 3- Using Excel . Fun learning Indeed :-)

Anyone here likes Maher Zain? Click on the link below

 Questions about Maher Zain -Grammar task :-) 

Task 2- Electronic Worksheet, Microsoft Word

This worksheet is meant for beginner English learners to use greetings appropriately and to recognize some activities that are done on certain time; lunch and etc. Take a look at the picture below.

In-Class Task 1

I'm so excited as this is my very first entry for this blog :-). I'm Farihah Mazmi and people call me Fa.Why prettycool sifu? haaa because I personally think that teachers who can incorporate technology in their English classroom are cool !

In terms of skills, I would say ..hmm I'm almost illiterate heheh. That is why I'm just so eager to be in this class! I wanna be cool too..atleast to myself :-) Never had a personal blog like this before since my last class with Dr Izaham, years ago!.

My experience learning via the computer? I didn't have any experience learning via the computer untill I further my study in UiTM !! hehe ...I just love learning via the computer as it seems like everything is at the tip of my finger. I can get any information on ease.Hmm..I did a lot of web surfing to learn more on how to teach in an ESL classroom when I was preparing for my practicum last semester. I learned a lot of techniques and activities that are suitable for classrooms of different levels. I've also joined some online forum and shared my predicaments in teaching my ESL classes with ESL teachers around the world and they help me out. Most importantly, lesson plans! there are thousands of interesting lesson plans for ESL lesson that can be referred to and there are also many beneficial activities being created to help English teacher or future teacher like me to make our English lessons PRETTY COOL for the students :-)

Did I incorporate technology in my class during my practicum? Yes. I was assigned to SMK USJ 13 last semester. When I first entered the class; which was a form four class, 4A, I realized that chalk and talk can no longer interest them into the lesson. I used the school APD room ( Bilik alat pandang dengar) a lot and they just love it! Let me share with you one of my experiences.I taught them drama entitled 'Gulp and gasp last semester and my students, they just wouln't careless of these drama thing or any English lesson because they think they are proficient enough in the language and this whole drama thing is just a waste of time. So what I did was some drama warm up activity in class , just for Ice-Breaking and the following lesson, I brought them to the APD room and showed some real life theater preperation and stageing; Puteri Gunung Ledang , Glee and etc. They were like..'Miss fa, is this what we're going to do?' I just smiled and say, 'Something like this, but you are all beginners for drama staging and we're gonna do just a mini version of this '. I merely showing them what they need to learn from me. Student, they always think that they know what they want, but teachers are the one who know what they need right? :-) After that, alhamdulillah I had no problem asking them to participate in my drama lessons.

Opinion on the use of computer or technology in language teaching?  I think it is good to use technologies in language teaching because it is interesting. However, personally I do not think that it'll work everytime in my class. Firstly, because to use the technology, I need to ask them to move from their own class to another room, which is a bit far. It takes time and I simply put my lesson obejctives for the day at risk. Once in awhile..yes..I highly recommend for teachers to use technology. But still, using books, having class activities and tasks are also necessary to ensure that the students really understand what they have learned and prepare them for examination. Especially when it comes to essay writing. Written tasks are crucial for them. Well, I shall say that it depends on the teachers themselves and what type of students they get.

Lastly, my expectations from this course. I hope that by the end of the lesson I can finally become more skillful in using computer and technologies as a medium to teach ESL in my classroom and also....become....a PRETTY COOL SIFU for my students! hehe

Wassalam :-)