Welcome to my blog!

The reason behind creating this blog is directly connected to the online course I am happy and proud to be part of now. I am honoured to be selected into the group of passionate and professional English language teachers who want to develop their skills and share their experiences. Building Teaching Skills through the Interactive Web offers a chance for me to go a huge step forward in my teaching journey.

Let this blog serve as a record of my attempts and efforts. Please feel free to comment on anything that is going to happen here.

Sunday, May 30, 2010

Week 8 - Self ... Autonomy

Although this week started with sharing and working for others (the students), it ended with thinking about myself. How strange?

The hardest thing for me to do this week was to wrap up all my endeavours concerning implementing the use of technology (or the new uses rather) into my teaching. I have tried many things, at least this is what I thought. However, when I started to translate it into the project report template, I felt disappointed… Actually, I thought I have done more and more effectively. Nonetheless, second thoughts came and I realized the importance of the very attempts made. I know now that being part of this programme raised awareness in me as to the potential offered by the outside world. Obviously, I do not mean I did not know anything about the Internet, but I learnt it from other perspectives. Also, being able to share the experiences with people from so many different spots on the globe proved invaluable. Finally, I guess I convinced myself that nothing is impossible, we just need to find the way through, even though it leads through thorns.

As concerns the issues connected with learner autonomy, I obviously pondered a lot over my students’ perception of their own learning, but even more over my own learning which is a never-ending process! Finding your own place on the teaching-learning continuum makes a good start. Where is my place then? Everywhere, I claim...

4 comments:

  1. Dear Joanna,
    The work with the project was not easy for me too. I had to try many ideas though it's about the end of the school year here. Still, trials are always the begining. I am satisfied with the job my students did. It gives me the zeal to try out more otherr things I have leanred in the program.
    As for the students' autonomy, I wonder if young teenagers can reflect on their learning autonomy. If they can do it, they will be able to make their learning much better.
    hamid

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  2. Dear Joanna,

    the project asking us to implement technology in our classes is just the beginning of what we are expected to do in the future. I wouldn't worry so much about the quantity of technology I implement in my lessons. I am for quality, not quantity. I also had problems, so many things were there, in my mind, and I was not able to organize everything in a logical order. But, as long as there is quality... I am satisfied.

    Good luck,
    Nadina

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  3. Dear Joanna:
    I am with you when you state that doing the report was a teaching reflective task itself. The same happened to me but that made me realize I need to update my teaching somehow.
    But as you also said, this course has opened our eyes to what's out there and how that can help us become independent teachers for independent learners.
    Thanks for sharing
    Eve

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  4. Dear Hamid, Nadina and Eve,

    Thanks a lot for your comments. Now that we are almost through the course I am beginning to wonder if there is any posibility to continue ... and surely there is!

    As Nadina said this project was supposed to show us the way, to make us change, or rather update, our teaching styles. And here I think we can all admit it has been a success. However, everything depends on us now.

    As far as I am concerned, I have already started planning my next semester at university which is about to begin in October. And although I am a bit tired now, I really can't wait...

    Regards,
    Joanna

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