“How would you use Real English website with 1^st grade students-intermediate school in Yanbu” 

At the beginning, This site is about learning and teaching English for beginner to be come in a more advanced levels.This site provides us with original videos and interactive lessons.It is very useful site for learning and teaching English and it is completely free site.

I would use this site with my 1st grade intermediate students in Yanbu to improve their listening and speaking skills.At the beginning I will introduce them to the site to be able to use it easily.

I have two ways to use this site in the class.The first way is that I will play a video for them and ask them to listen carefully because I will ask them what did they hear in the video. I might play it for them many times because it might be hard for them at the beginning.In this way they will catch so many new word and with the correct pronunciation.Then I will let them watch the video with the subtitle to see how word are written and then I ask them to write them on the board and then write it on their notebooks to remember it.


The second way is that I will play a video for them .Then I ask them about what they heard and ask two or three student to write it on the board.After that I will let them do a small activity which is related to what they heard.For example,If the video was about introducing you self I will ask two to three girls to come on the front and practice what they heard by introducing them selves to the class.


To conclude, I can use Real English website with my students to learn how to speak English.They will also be able to understand the real English that is used in the TV,news,media and so many more.So they will Learn in a better way how to speak, hear, and understand real English easily and confidently.

   

"The role of WebQuests in learning a foreign/second language"

Dr. Bernie Dodge defined WebQuest as an inquiry-oriented activity in which some or all of the information that learners interact with comes from resources on the internet, optionally supplemented with videoconferencing.Webquests involve the exploration of real world information and events on the Web in an attempt to solve a problem or find needed content related to a task that students have been assigned.WebQuests take advantage of several learning concepts that are believed to benefit learners. One of these advantages is that the use of WebQuest improves the students’ critical thinking. They will be encountered with lots of issues that they have to analyze and solve. They have to gather information, analyze, decide the suitable one, ask questions and summarize what they find. It has a major role in many important areas in TEFL/TESL field like activating critical thinking, student-oriented activities, enquiry-oriented language use, cooperative and collaborative learning and Project-based learning.

WebQuests are student-oriented tasks, require students to depend on themselves not on their teachers and collect information through out the provided resources not from their textbooks.In Webquests students will learn independently and think critically which lead to creativity and self improvement. Through WebQuest students will use the target language indirectly, they will read more and then learn better.

WebQuests based on authentic tasks or problems that have to be done in groups.This will develop the students cooperative and collaborative learning.For example a group of students can be asked to work collaboratively in solving a problem and finding solutions to complete a task.Students will learn how to collaborate with their classmates,students from other classrooms, and with students halfway around the world.It also encourages the cooperative and collaborative learning in which learner learns that his/her knowledge has to be shared with others.

Project-based learning (PBL) is a teaching method which provides students with complex tasks based on challenging questions or problems that involve the students' problem solving, decision making and investigative skills. As has already been mentioned, WebQuest tends to be a student-oriented teaching tool, supports inquiry-oriented learning and requires group work which all considered as the basis of project-based learning.

To conclude WebQuest is a great tool to be used in TEFL/TESL field.It make teaching the language more interesting which consequently motivates students to learn and explore more.

Using Wordle In EDU401

How would I use blogs, wikis and delicious with my EFL students?

When I become a teacher I will use different types of technology tools to help me teach, interact and communicate with my students effectively, for example I would use blogs, wikis and delicious to enhance my students skills.

 

Blogs:

Is a type of a website or part of a website, Blogs are usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, description of events or other materials such as graphics or videos.

Using blogs will improve the writing skills for my students by making them think critically and expressing themselves by sharing their opinions and ideas, they will learn English by writing it and also by commenting in each other’s blogs.

Wiki:

Is a website that allows the easy creation and editing of any number of interlinked web pages via a web browser using a simplified markup language or a WYSIWYG text editor. Wikis are typically powered by wiki websites, to power community websites, for personal note taking, in corporate intranets, and in knowledge management system.

I would use wiki with my students by posting a lesson and wait for them to respond about what they have learnt from it and what issues they did not understand, it helps them to ask questions and interact with me and the other students,Wiki allows teachers and students to work closely together on a topic and help the students to be more collaborative in the learning process.

Delicious:

Is a social bookmarking web service for storing, sharing and discovering webbookmarks.

I would share useful websites with my students to help them learn grammar and vocabularies, for example by giving them websites offers activities and exercises and also they can share it with the other students to cooperate and learn from each other.

To conclude by these technologies, the learning and teaching process will be more interesting and enjoyable for students, they will be motivated to learn and understand new topics and also improve their skills.

Digital Natives,Digital Immigrants

I consider my self as a digital native student, defining digital native students according to Marc Prensky they are native students who grew up using technology, unlike digital immigrant teachers who were not born in the digital world but later on they adopted many aspects of the new technology. He also showed some differences between digital immigrant teachers and digital native students, for example digital immigrant teachers prefer to teach slowly step by step, they also do not believe that students can learn effectively while watching TV or listening to music, they want to teach their students the same way they have been taught, in contrast to digital native students they prefer to learn fast, parallel and multi-task their work process, they also prefer playing games to serious work and graphics grab their attention before texts.

Prensky defined digital immigrant teachers accent as foot in the past, no matter how they become capable of learning the digital style, they still have something in their accent shows that they learnt it from the native digital students, for instance they print out a document rather than just editing it from the screen, they also show their students in class to see an interesting website rather than just sending them the URL because they might not know how to send it via email.

Prensky’s point of view about the biggest serious problem facing education today is that the digital immigrant teachers are struggling to teach the students who speak an entirely new language.

He was confused whether the digital native students have to learn the old way or should their digital immigrants learn the new style, so he gave two suggestions which are:

·     Firstly is the methodology of learning should be that the teachers must learn to communicate in the language and style of their students, this does not mean changing the meaning of what is important, or of good thinking skills, but it does mean going faster, less step by step, more in parallel, with more random access among other things.

·     Secondly is the content; there are two kinds of content:

1) Legacy content.  2) Future content.

The legacy content is our traditional curriculum that includes reading, writing, and arithmetic, logical thinking, understanding the writings and ideas of the past etc., it is still important but from a different era, Some of it will continue to be important but some will become less.

The future content is a large extent, digital and technological. It includes software, hardware, robotic, nanotechnology, genomics and many more. It also includes the ethics, politics, sociology, languages and other things that go with them. The future content is interesting to today's students and some people suggested that children should be allowed to use computers as a tool in school.

Prensky’s own preference for teaching digital natives is to invent computer games to do the job, even for the most serious content.

So if digital immigrant educators really want to reach digital native students they will have to change, so they must stop grousing and as the Nike motto of the digital native generation says, “just do it!”  It is a message for teachers to change their curriculum quickly in order to teach students effectively, the results will be positive and the students will succeed in the long run and their successes will come much sooner if their teachers support them.  

  "Application of Bax Normilasation in Saudi Arabia: The how!"

Stephan Bax argues that, "Our aim should be to attain a state of `normalization' in which the technology is invisible and truly integrated"

Stephen Bax’s (2003) Article shows a critical examination and reassessment of the history of CALL and how CALL is developed in the past, present and the Future, and he discussed three new categories, which are Restricted, Open and Integrated CALL, he also highlighted three important questions that helped him during his research, the questions are: Where has Computer Assisted language learning (CALL) been? Where is it now and where is it going? He also used Warschauer’s and Healey’s three main phases of CALL which are Behavioristic, Communicative and Integrative, to help him answer the questions.

Furthermore, Bax defined the goal for CALL through the concept of normalization. This concept is relevant to any kind of technological innovation and refers to the stage when the technology become invisible and embedded in every particular and hence 'normalized', for example pen is a technology which has become normalized to the extent that we hardly even recognize it as a technology, CALL will reach the state of normalization when computers are used by the students and teachers in classrooms to improve learning. Therefore, CALL should be invisible In order to achieve normalization.

Since CALL was invented, technology became an important part of our lives in teaching and learning.

In Saudi Arabia most of the schools and universities follow the traditional way of teaching, but nowadays some schools and universities improved their educational system, they started to use computers, smart boards and projectors in the classroom, but some of them has a lack of knowledge so teachers and students must be trained properly to use those tools effectively, So it is not difficult to achieve normalization in Saudi Arabia because we just need time, knowledge and changes in our educational system.