Week 4 lesson plan post

Hi, Donna and all,
Thinking about main structure/features of a lesson plan according to the template and i-add-ons...
It's possible to make-up just one-lesson design of the course and use it as a model for other classes.

Unit name : Singing together! In English.
Optional lesson

Lesson Title: English/Scottish old song 'Auld Lang Syne'

Lesson Author: Irina Vasilieva + webpage http://www.manythings.org/songs/ckmp3-auld-learn.html

Grade Level/Subject Area: 3 year ballet academy students/ESL

Time allotted for lesson: 1a.h.(40 min)out of 2 a.h.(1.30h)a week for each of 3 groups.

Short description of lesson: study vocabulary/listening/pronunciation/old scottish/ with the song; memory training.

Classroom layout/Students grouping: in every group of 3/in-class activity/work all together first and then individual/group contest(optional)

State Carriculum Standards: Russian State Secondary Education Standards

Instructional objectives: be able to listen, read the script online ,understand, articulate and sing without any mistakes. Memory training and fun.

Materials, resourses, technology: print-outs of the lyrics from the webpage ( made by students at home) and online in-class webpage listening/watching/repeating.

Students present level of performance and skills:
low-intermediate(mixed groups)

Instructional procedures:

1)Intro:
F.e.- Warming up Questions/Answers activity:
What English songs/singers/groups do you know? Why do you like these songs?
What do you sing on the NY ( ABBA songs)? Teacher ask questions and shortly tells 'the history' of old Scottish/Irish blessings and 'Auld Lang Syne' greeting song.
Informal talk. Oral speech mistakes are possible.

2)Techniques and activities:
Learners involvment: drawing attention/activating listening/general speaking in Eng. on the topic.
Communicative method - Informal talk.
Group listening and individual speaking/singing activity with hand-outs or website.
Learning proper pronunciation/text meaning and memory training with fun (informal way).

3)Closure:
Lesson overall summary and students outcome evaluation:
singing in Eng without mistakes ability;
gaining students attention to the course;
activating listening/speaking;
pronunciation practicing;
vocabulary practicing;
gaining Eng./Scot.cultural traditions knowledge;
motivating with fun/higher grading;
motivation with personal/group public performance (optional).

Supplemental activities: follow-up individual/group competition for best singer or best group singing(if time left)

Assessment: accurate, clear and distinctive pronunciation,vocabulary(lyrics)study by heart - average 90% per student for grading.

Student products (feedback or outcome??): ability of individual singing in Eng.(without mistakes), funny public performance.

[Reply]

Another Week4 problem nicenet

Below is my personal opinion.
It's a real joy to teach linguists or translators their Core Subject. 
Most of such students enjoy classes and are highly motivated,inspired to everything you can propose them:wikis, PPTs and so on.. Rare lucky case. Is it?

It's really a joy to master ESP students, highly motivated to aquire top grades in the ratings and professional language level for their future well-paid job...Right? 

At last, there are many low or not motivated students for the 'junk' subject(Engl) we have to deal with...True?

What about teachers?

Teachers need joy and motivation to teach any students and to look for the new ways for better teaching results(via internet or so on).
So, to invest lot's of their personal time (not paid!! or appreciated by colleagues and some students) to design and prepare such 'personal'courses...

There are many teachers - and students!- here think the above is crazy and not necessary, and consider traditional teaching way of formal 'lecture-book-paper-pensil' and 'chalk and talk' easy and best.
I come accross it everywhere here...To give it up?

WEEK4

So, Week 4 time vanishes... This week I found some sites useful for the project.  As for weekly articles , not much new...
Clear and well structured  template for  lessons planning, but we normally have similar templates here ( not online). State requirements for courses/lessons plans writing in Russia are different... Anyway, I decided to post some of my nicenets here to' collect toughts' for final project.

I read the articles by Jarek Krajka. I agree that for writing skills, on-line activities should be incorporated into your class work. But the idea itself is not new. 

I was using our class wiki site at http: //evabasilvk.Pbworks.com for teaching English for about 5 years already, and I would say that e-mailing is NOT necessary at all - except may be cases of foreign students class correspondance.

By the way,any side 'pen pals', comments, chats, forums and other things wiki's missing, could be easily integrated into class wiki and used for communication. You get everything in one!

The students get(download,copy, print out) the texts of different genres from our class wiki assignment page and when ready (online or offline) post(upload,copy) their writings(f.e.translations) themselves to their personal wiki pages. 
Then submit'em to my weekly editing and evaluation and other students commenting at the same time.

Another benefit is that the teacher (and students!) can monitor all metadata (drafts) of these writings and edits. 
From this point of view, the above article looks for me a bit outdated, sorry...

Another article on extensive reading by Mei-Ya Liang could be of help, too, as for describing teaching methods/patterns of how to arrange it online, but also looks very basic,I'm sorry.

I'd like to support some of the below course participants when they say it is not possible to teach writing/reading only online, without in-class 'paper and pensil', especially when it comes to beginners or to immediate tests!
In my experience, so called 'Blended Course e-Teaching' is the best strategy.

BTW,thank you for the multi-skills sites. I found two useful for my course project - listening and speaking: Mikhael Krauss one(I completed his Internet course several years ago, it was super!!)http://www.lclark.edu/~krauss/toppicks/toppicks.html and http://www.manythings.org/. 
I will use some stories and songs. 

So, f.e. ABCD is: 
All ballet students of each class group (1-2-3) should read loudly the lyrics of the song 'Auld Lung Syne' at http://www.manythings.org/songs/ckmp3-auld-learn.html, 
then translate it into Russian, 
then listen and repeat the song all together about 5-6 times within,say, 10-15 minuted to learn it by heart, articulating it with 90% accuracy. 
Then they will vote for 'the best English song singer' between them in each group to be graded.

Kind,
Irina

WEEK3

I was a bit delayed with WEEK 3 comments.
It was useful to  read more about teaching speaking  and listening using CALL and explore recommended websites. Sure, it could be useful for my students.  I revised all websites on the matter and saved some on my Delicious page. Normally, I dont use social bookmarking and  prefer  posting links on our class wiki or open the frame on Netvibes portal. It's quicker and easier to use.  Have everything in one pocket...Anyway, I consider Diigo  more convenient for my browser(GChrom)...
As for the the former projects revision, the same simple pattern and  template was used  for different courses, but the language itself differs,  style looks a bit lengthy and wordy ... I  may be not right, but I would prefer another style writing -  something like' thesis' writing  with 'milder' verbal forms for activities description.
Can't say anything about the content itself, as only the project author knows if it fits or not.
See what we have on WEEK 4

Sample of Slide.com Presentation ( Business Translation Studies students)

Sample of Animoto.com video ( Business Translation Studies Students)

Project Draft 1 ( WEEK2)

Audience(A+Digital) description:

1.Target audience: 
1.1.Aged 15-18(boys and girls)
1.2.3rd(last)year undergraduate ballet academy(college)students
1.3.Acad.hs per week: 6h total(2h per each group weekly). 2 semesters(September-April).
Exit Exam in May.
1.4.Mixed Groups(basic-interm Eng)- 3 Groups:
1 group(Folk dance) - 6 girls: 2 interm, 2 pre-interm 2 basic 
2 group(Classical ballet) - 2 boys: 1 pre-inter, 1 very basic
3 group (Classical ballet) - 7 girls: 3 interm,1 pre-interm, 3 basic
1.5.Class Feature:
about 80% of their daily study 6 days a week are devoted to professional ballet trainings and dance study - i.e.could be very tired. 
Minimum homework recommended. Mostly work in-class.Sometimes missing classes because of the dance trainings.
Motivation: average low 
Digitally: average basic.

3.Course Textbooks: 
a)Eckersly.English for foreign students-Part 2.
Purpose: texts to read correctly, listen and translate; dialogues, jokes and poems to perform(play)orally(communication). 
Dictations to write in class,new lexis to study.
b)Round up - 3
Purpose:Grammar and lexis to study, dictations and texts to write and study by heart,and Revison and Units tests done.
c)Writing professional ballet dancers' CV and business letters (using templates)
d)(Optional)Homereading and pieces performing in-class - O.Wild.Fairy Tales
e)(Optional)Poems(R.Burns and other)to study by heart and oral presentations; songs - English lyrics and music to study and sing (f.e. Let it Be, The Beatles)

4.EXTRAS:
A-Digitally in class:
Devices:PC/Tab/Communicators. 
Purpose: 
a)using online dictionaries and Wikipedia(Eng/Rus) - for all students
b)Google Websearch on ballet key terms (Rus to French to Eng); correct ballets' names (in Rus to French,Eng,Spanish,Italian,German);search for specialized ballet theatres' sites( Rus, Eng, Fench)and ballet media texts on ballet in Rus an' Eng- for advanced students
c)MP3-Music and lyrics search,download to study, learn and singing in class ( all)
d)Youtube Video on culture,country study, international folk music and dance(Italy,UK,Ireland,the US,Spain and other)to watch an' listen (all)

I think it' suitable to copy this daft to my googledoc wiki to use it later for the cource project...

WEEK 2 posts

Hello,
I fould all the below very fruitful, but I did not see much about ABCD digitally. It's pretty obvious that ABCD taxonomy method applies to any course. It is more difficult to rethink it and construct it also digitally. My first try,let's test thy...
A:
Aged 15-18
3rd(last)year undergraduate ballet academy(college)students.
Mixed Eng(basic-interm)level.
GE course: f.e. Grammar with "Round-up" 3.
3 groups 2h per week each
1 group - 6 girls: 2 interm, 2 pre-interm 2 basic 
2 group - 2 boys: 1 pre-inter, 1 very basic
3 group - 7 girls: 3 interm,1 pre-interm, 3 basic
Digitally: Average-all groups are basic.
Study motivation - low and average.Mostly in-class work.

B:based on LOTS
F.e.one of the objectives sets(cognitive application)is:
Given the examples of words (nouns and verbs)and its collocations(from R-U3), all students should be able to recognize them in the given sentences, to translate or paraphrase them and make up at least 1 own sentence using these collocations with suitable accuracy or minimum errors.
Every advanced student of the group should construct,write and read 2-3 coherent simple sentences(a text)with at least one of these collocations without any grammar,spelling,pronuciation mistakes. 
All other students should listen and then ask 1 question on each text consequently without grammar/tense/pronuciation mistakes.

Digitally: Internet/e-Dictionary search. 
Be able to google correctly at least 1 of these word collocations in 20 minutes. Or find correctly at least 1 key word of the collocation in Lingvo 10.0 or any on-line dictionary in 40 minutes.

C:In class only, with the teacher, with the textbook. Individual work with students and communicative approach.
Collaborative activity with Internet in class. and at least 1 device per group (student's or teacher's PC or Communicator).

D: Aveage Target Degrees for the above objective: 
1 group - 2/90%,2/70%,2/50%. 
2 group - 1/50%,2/20%. 
3 group - 4/80%,3/50%

Now I feel it will take me long hours to design the project for that classes, Alas..

Webskills e-teaching overview :Weeks one and two are over, due...
So,  I feel happy to join that course now as I've learned lot's of new information on teaching methods and theory,  such are Rubrics (W1), ABCD taxonomy and digitally (fitting to CALL) (W2). And I could try to apply it to my ballet students course to start in September...Hope so.
As for Webtools information, up now, there is really a litte new for me, as Nicenet, Blogs, Googledoc/sites, search engines and so on.  The only exception is SnapGrades : I use Exel table or any googledocs one instead for students grading (it's pretty time-eating and  even 'harsh' 'side of the moon' 4me,BTW).
See what alse could we get.

P.S. I suppose to copy here some of  my Nicenet discussion posts and project drafts...

http://www.slideshare.net/mwiscount/technologyits-all-around-us

Enjoy Slideshow Thechnology around us!

PBWiki page news for students

OK! We've now started our PBwiki site and collaboration! Congratulations!
But before, I had to write and post on the Front Page a Code of Conduct for those students interested in writers access and joining this teaching project. The thing is that we are all do it for the first time, and some of the students like to cheat a teacher or practice plagiarism, illegal copying both "on-line"and"off-line". Bad habits are difficult to overcome!
So trying to avoid possible abuse and in reply to some honest students worries, I did it - see how they will try to follow the rules...And how it works. Hope it will. Trying to make corrections on-the-go.
Anyway, this Internet site is of great help in paperwork and emailed attachments reducing, time saving and it's great for learning and teaching!
Unfortunately, PB wiki has limited free size of the site and it's impossible to work offline. I will try to compensate it by our students' writings activities transfer to other great option - Google docs!
When you manage about 100 students, writing min.10-15 A4 texts each a semester - it make sense to store it with Google docs, rather than to open several PB wikis... It's also my first try - a bit early to make conclusions... I'll keep you posted on the progress...