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domenica 19 novembre 2017

Elt and learners : how can we support them.


ELL


Image Attribution :By Ms. Cagan [CC BY-SA 4.0], via Wikimedia Commons

More and more I have had students with difficulties in learning English. I teach  students whose language level is not the right one for the classes they are attending. Some  follow a different  course as they need  special education. The others are often struggling learners. Some are really good and they would like to work better and to master the language.

Support and  differentation are important for me as  I need to cope with  different  language  levels.

What should I do?

I have tried to come to terms with individual learning differences and the only thing I can do is to provide more language  opportunities and exercises for the  less able ones. I can also provide some links for the students who can work on their own and wish to better. It is only  a pity that  I cannot do much for them as  I teach  3 hours per week in their classes  and we do not have good technology in class.
Most classes have 28-30 students, this is the worst learning environment as  we do not provide them with a lot of  engaging activities. It is difficult to work in class as pair work can be very noisy.
I do need to rely on their own  devices and on their  hopes and interests as they should care about what need to do to become better learners.

How to approach the needs: how I began to work online to provide support to my students

The first thing I had to do was to focus on their  difficulties. My planning was  full of topics and ideas but I was making  mistakes. I tried to focus on what to do and I realized that they should become aware of their difficulties and I should be ready to offer them some help.
I talked to my students and  began working online by  providing activities or video tasks that had been also shared by  other teachers. I had to work on what language competences needed improving and then I created  online activities by using web 2.0 tools  and my websites.  I had to provide links with  solutions or feedback . I must confess that I was not ready to do this when  I began.

Hopefully I found some interesting platforms and online communities that provided me with ideas.

What followed and what is following  now is  a different approach to teaching and learning.
Not everybody is working on line, some are not interested but  I have seen that others are working on self-development and  are trying to better because they care.
It is sometimes difficult to work with the younger students as they are not used to planning in advance what to do. I need to  set goals and time. It is my task as I am responsible for what is happening in class and also in the follow-up activities.


Does it work? Is it working for most of my students?

Kids with Education Tablet Computers

Image Attribution By Intel Free Press [CC BY-SA 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

It is not easy: some students do not have  technology at home or they  do not rely on good internet connections.
Tablets are now becoming more popular and they seem to enjoy what they are doing. Most of my students use their smartphones to do some tasks. It is important to trust them and  thanks to modern technology they can do some exercises also by using  them. New apps have been developed and  this means that  I will be able to support them. I am trying to learn more and I am doing  some self-development online to learn more.   
I am starting to use  a new platform that I am going to use for some courses I am doing at school and I hope they will  use it.
It's called   Weschool  http://www.weschool.com/.
It is a user-friendly platform and I can work online by creating groups and  tasks. 

Creating ebooks and activities for my  language learners

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I have started to create some ebooks  where I provide  links, videos and materials which  can be found online. Some of them can be done  during the summer time. Currently I am thinking of  writing an ebook  about  writing skills as  my learners are  not used to writing on their own and they need some more  exercises and tips to follow. I rely on  Google apps for  creating them. 

You can find here  an example  of  the language  support I am providing by using ebook creators online:  most of them  are not free but you can find some that can be used  and  you can  publish  online materials for your learners. 
Link    http://en.calameo.com/books/0051359822ec5a200af90                                                                                                                                  

Presenting Verb Tenses In English



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Teaching in the XXI century can be very demanding but  teachers can rely on tools which  can  empower them.

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