Good Bye CALL 1

First, I thank to the God because finally I have already finished CALL 1 subject in this semester. I feel that I can breathe freshly because I’m not worry to do assignment every week. Yeah, in CALL 1 subject I and my friends never come to the class, we have online course during the semester, but the assignment is every week.  It feels so short after spending 14 weeks for doing assignment every week.

Second, I thank to Mr. Syaifudin for being our kind and inspiring lecturer who recognizes us to the schoology, who tells us that learning technology is really important; especially nowadays most of people, even students are addicted in it. And we, ask teacher, should use it for teaching to make it more interesting. Beside, thank for guiding us to complete assignments with clear and detail explanation, and for being patient in answering our questions via email, although about the assignments or outside of it. 

CALL is elective subject, so if this semester I take this subject, in the next semester (7^th semester) I should take CALL 2 subject. Online course is nice, but I hope that in CALL 2 subject, we can have both online course and offline course (meeting face to face in the class), moreover, my learning style is visualization.

Well, it is really great after I have finished this subject, I really feel that I have a lot of new knowledge about technology.

The last, let me say GOOD BYE CALL 1, WELCOME CALL 2, and SEE YOU in CALL 2, Mr. Syaifudin. ^^

Well, I am ready to face CALL 2 although it will be more challenging than CALL 1. ^^

Self-Directed Professional Development

Well, this is the last session for doing CALL 1 assignment during this semester, and I can smile wider and sweeter because of it. I can say that this last assignment is not too difficult. What we have to do is we should join a group that is provided in internet, and than we are asked to comment in discussion forum there, and we must take the screenshoot of it. It is simple, right? so that the tittle of this project is Self-Directed Professional Development.

So, here the example of groups that we can use and join,

• Yahoo Groups
• Google Groups
• One Stop English Discussions
• ELT Community
• EFL Classroom

Beside the tools that mentioned above, we can use social media like Facebook, Twitter, Path, etc. So, there are many discussion forums that we can find in the internet.

Addition, the topic for joining discussion in my project is TEFL/TESOL. So we should look for the discussion forum that talks about TEFL or TESOL. And this is the result of my project.

The Last Assignment for CALL 1

Well, this is the last week for me doing CALL 1 project when I write this post. It means that I have done thirteen assignments for CALL 1 project (now I’m doing the fourteenth assignment), and I could say that I have done all my assignments well (yeah, because I always submit it before the deadline). Alhamdulillah… :) 

So far I study CALL 1, I felt it’s really challenging for me, because my basic about computer is not very good, but I was always satisfied after doing the assignments in CALL 1, because I always get new knowledge every week, like how to make timeline, mind mapping, blog, poster, and of course it is using technology.

From the first assignment till this last assignment, the most complicated assignment is session 5, 7 and 10; they were about making mind mapping, integrated skill and Skype for teaching speaking. Mind mapping is group project, but it was really wasted much time to do it, even integrated skill, the complicated thing is in reflection task, because I confused what I should write to make poster, and in session 10, we must record our conversation using Skype, it is difficult because Skype need strong internet connection, and we can’t find it easily. The most interesting task is making hot potatoes, comics, and blogging.

Of course I have reason why I take this subject in this semester, and will be continued to the next semester in CALL 2. It is because I want to increase my knowledge in using technology, so when I become a teacher one day, I can use it to make my teaching learning process more interesting for me and my students. ^^

Class Management

Classroom management is important thing that we should pay attention beside we have to prepare the interesting ways for teaching productive and receptive skills in English. Classroom management involves the teacher, the learner, classroom environment, etc.

There are many technology tools in the internet that can help teachers to improve their classroom environment, such as Engrade as gradebook, teach-nology for making lesson plan, scheduleonce and doodle for scheduling, quizstar and classmarker for creating quiz, etc.

When I am asked to choose three of the tools that are given in session 13. First, I choose http://www.teach-nology.com/web_tools/lesson_plan/  to help me make online lesson plan. I choose this tool because it provides simple way to make lesson plan, at least I know what I should do in my class with the goals, materials, objectives, and the assessment on a day, and what activities I should do in my class. I choose this tool because it is easy, clear, and simple to use.

Second, I choose http://www.scheduleonce.com/  to manage my important dates, such as when I have to come to the class, when students will have test, when I have such meeting, etc. For teaching learning process, I will use this tool to remind me the dates when I should give the test for my students, such as final exam, middle test, also the day and the time when I have to come to the class to teach them. This tool will help me remember my job as a teacher although there are other activities that I have. 

Third, I will use QuizStar (http://quizstar.4teachers.org/ ) as the media to give quiz for my students. QuizStar has some advantages such as allow students to complete and review, make quizzes in multiple language, attach multimedia file to the questions, etc. I will use this media to make the quiz interesting for students. I can use it for integrated skill quiz. 

Teaching EFL Using Twitter

Twitter, according to Wikipedia is an online social networking and microblogging service that enables users to send and read short 140-character text message, called “tweet”. It is kind of online social media that connect us with people around the world easier than Facebook. 

How can it be? If in Facebook we have to add and wait for the confirmation from person that we add, but in Twitter we just have to follow people that we want, and without waiting for confirmation we automatically can see what happens with the people from their tweets. Usually, most of us use it for following such actors and actreess. 

I am sure that teenagers nowadays have twitter account for entertaining.

For teacher, you can use it to teach English. Yeah, you can use that popular social networking among your students for teaching English.

Here what you can do with twitter for teaching:

• You can do online discussion through twitter, just decide the day and the time, for example you do it once a week on Monday at 8 p.m. In your online discussion, ask students some questions related to the materials and ask them to respond it. Or maybe they have questions about the materials that they have not understood yet. Use certain hash tag to make your students easier recognize the online discussion.
• You can use twitter for giving information or announcement about your class, such as assignments, due date for submitting assignments, or maybe when the class off.
• Using twitter, you can ask your students to make summarize or main point about the lesson of the day, or articles, or others.

These are some ideas about teaching EFL using twitter. My suggestion for teachers, let’s use our creativity to make our teaching learning process more interesting for our students. Because there still many ideas that we can do with technology to teach English. ^^

Lesson Plan

Lesson plan defined as the preparation of teacher about what he would do in the class. It is detailed description involved instructions, activities, and assignments of the teacher’s plan to teach on a day.

In making lesson plan, we must include:

• Lesson objectives: what do you expect your students to learn.
• Procedures: the activities that should be done by students.
• Assessment: assignment that you will give to your students and the way you mark it.

You can use technology to support your teaching in the class, for example choosing the materials from internet like youtube, presenting materials by powerpoint, teaching using podcast, and giving online assignment through internet.

Here the example of lesson plan about teaching grammar for class X. In this lesson plan, we also collaborate technology with activities in the class.

Topic               : Holiday

Target Students: Indonesian Students learning EFL

Grade               : 10

Allocated time : 1 hour

Description:

In this lesson Teacher will assign student to make some examples and do some exercises about simple past. The class will be in the lab. The activity will be in the form of online game and watching video (videoscribe) about simple past tense. The formula and the function of simple past tense will be shown in video and then students do some online exercises about simple past tense. Students will assign to take advantages of Facebook as a popular social media they have already used.

Objectives:

a.       Students can apply the formula and the function of past tense.

b.      Students can differ between V1 and V2 by doing tasks in the internet.

c.       Students will have practiced make a short paragraph about their holiday and post it to the class group in Facebook.

Pre-activity:

• Teacher makes sure that the projector running well and equipped also with working headphones and microphones.
• Teacher makes sure that all students have Facebook account.
• Teacher introduce the videos and help Students to sign up if they have no account

Procedures:

ü  Teacher will begin the lesson by asking student to mention some verb 2. 

ü  Teacher will show some pictures about verb e.g. eat, drink, etc. 

ü  Tell students to watch the videos about past tense verbs in their screen. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_15Ij_omWc   and  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0b4rsDuzThE

ü  Teacher gives some explanations and answers some questions from students if they have any problems about the video. 

ü  Teacher gives a glance of information about simple past tense. 

ü  Tell students to do some online exercises about simple past tense individually and get the score. 

http://www.myenglishpages.com/site_php_files/grammar-exercise-simple-past.php#.U4TR03YmTIU

ü  At the end of the lesson, students are asked to make paragraph about their holiday using simple past tense and post it to the class group in Facebook. 

Assessment:

·         Online exercise: (taken from how many correct answer from their online exercise)

·         Make paragraph:

4	3	2	1
Almost sentences use correct grammatical and clear content.	Almost sentences use correct grammatical, but unclear content.	Some of the sentences use incorrect grammatical and unclear content.	Almost sentences use incorrect grammatical and unclear content.

And here is the summary of the language learning activities in the lesson plan using Tiki-Toki media. Click this link.

Teaching Listening Using Podcast

For ESL or EFL students, listening is rather difficult skill, because they must learn to listen the native speaker’s speaking, moreover, sometimes the speaker speaks fast.

Listening is not only classroom activity for language learners, but should also be recreational activity outside classroom. Podcast is an interesting media for teaching listening, beside students must listen to the audio that based on their lesson.

There are many podcasts that provided in internet, which easy to be hunted for and downloaded by students. They can choose which podcast they like and suitable with their level. Podcast also provided various topics that will make students free to choose which topic they like.

In session 11, my project is making my own podcast by recording, it is group work, and the topic is culture shock. So, we are in five doing conversation about culture shock, we must record it and upload it in our blog.

Here is my group work for making our own podcast. Click here. ^^