Listen carefully!
My mentor, a good and wise man, once said that if you want to be good in speaking, be a good listener first, so that's why God give us two ears and only one mouth". The quote above is the words that he has presented. I don't know if he got it from the book or it is indeed his own words. I feel that the words were really touching.
After reading the two articles for this week, I just realized that listening and pronunciation skills are very important. Listening is a skill which is very often used in everyday life. "More than 40% of our daily communication time is spent on listening, 30% on speaking, 60% on reading, and only 9% on writing" (Burely Allen, 1995) - Developing Listening Skill with Authentic Materials by Lindsay Miller. Currently many educators have taught English using technologies such as radio, television/video, and internet/CD ROM. There are websites that provide materials in teaching these listening skill such as VOA Special English, VOA Learning English, Internet Talk Radio. Being good in speaking is not an easy thing. It requires hard work. The ability to listen must be addressed and for that pronunciation must be repaired. In the article "New Perspective in Teaching Pronunciation" by Maria Grazia Busa it reviews recent technology for teaching pronunciation. There is an useful website that can be used by teachers and students in teaching pronunciation and it is prə-nŭn'sē-ā'shən. Just check websites out and it will be fun. Finally this is the most interesting part of the task, Aural/Oral Skill. :)
Now I know that it's very important for us to use authentic materials in teaching English and improving aural/oral skill. I think I will use those materials to teach my students listening and pronunciation. It's really new and interesting way for me.
Never Lose a Link Again
Once I've gathered a lot of websites in a browser app. I forgot to write a website list in notepad or Ms. word. So after I reinstall my computer, all the websites in bookmark list was missing. I regretted it. but now I know an easy and free way to keep it because Delicious is the way out. This really helped me find and use the web that I want. The phrase above is the headline from a web called Delicious. A free and easy tool to store, manage, and find an interesting link on the web. Fortunately it is my second assignment this week, creating my own Delicious page.
The last task for this week is reading a sample final project. I chose to read a project report written by Nadina Nicolici from the Lorin Salagean Technical High School in Drobeta Turnu Severin, Romania. I found in her report that improving English through reading can improve the others, such communication, writing, speaking, and even listening. The solution that she did is creating a blog. She thinks that it can be
used to expose students to authentic material, covering all the four
skills. I really like this project because the way that Nicolici has taught her students is similar to the way that I've
got my learning through this online class from an instructor. Nicolici used the internet, and created either educational reflective blog or interactive power point presentation. Needless to say, I do agree with her that technology helps us reduce the teacher's talking time, and allow students to speak more.
Thanks all.
See you in next episode.
Husni
