Reflections of Week 12 Essential Reading

Technology in testing: the present and the future

Nowadays, use of IT in testing is becoming more popular. It has many advantages and disadvantages. For its advantages, learners do not need to take the test in a tense setting. Moreover, the computer-based testing can give immediate feedback to learners. It not only saves human resources on marking, but also eliminates errors made by human. Besides, learners’ result can be collected easily for research or statistic purpose. However, for its disadvantages, I can say the computer system only allows learners to take machine-scorable type of questions like MC. Learners’ speaking and writing skills can hardly be assessed through computer-based testing.

What’s more, I have heard of computer/ electronic portfolios as a kind of formative assessment. It is a good idea since learners can keep their pieces of work continuously and systemically. It is especially good for life-long learning as learners can review their work periodically.

Reflections of Week 9 Essential Reading

Practical Considerations For Multimedia Courseware Development

The paper addresses the essential aspects when developing a CALL courseware, for examples, design considerations, objective setting, instructional design and implementation. I think courseware development has its significant value as it promotes independent learning and it provides visual support to learners. Learners become more motivated to learn. After reading this article, I have got a clearer idea on how to design a good web page for language learning. The article stated out a marvelous web page including film viewing, hypertext, dictionary button and so on. However, it is impossible for us to develop the web page like that as I lack the skills and time. Honestly, sometimes I am quite frustrated about that and I feel like I am a computer illiterate. Fortunately with the clear menu provided in the course, I think the task (assignment 3) becomes easier.

Reflections of Week 8 Essential Reading

Hong Kong's Amended Copyright Law --- A Guide for Teachers and Students

I think the guide about copyright issues helps teachers and students know more about our right. In fact, under the condition of using relevant resources for educational purpose, teachers are quite protected by the law. I like the term “fair dealing”; it allows us to use reasonable portions of copyright works in a fair manner for teaching and learning.

To me, I have got no problems about my right and I think I am quite confident that teachers will not take a risk of infringing the copyright. However, students may lack knowledge on copyright issues. When they are asked to do projects, it is very common for them to copy a large portion of copyright work from internet. If students quote where the source from, does that mean it is accepted? Maybe it is a matter of “plagiarism”, but not “infringing copyright”, I don't know. Anyway as a teacher, I think we have the responsibility to teach our students that it is wrong to copy others’ work as it is not good for their own learning.

Reflections of Week 3 Essential Reading

Internet for English teaching

The article states that there are many advantages on using internet for English teaching. It enhances active and creative mastery, autonomous learning, collaborative learning, cross-cultural learning and critical learning.

Nowadays, internets are widely used in our daily life. How can we make good use of internet to enhance our English teaching? In my teaching practice, sometimes I introduce some good websites to students for their independent learning. If they spend time on it, I am sure they will learn more. The problem is most primary school kids like playing games on internet than that of learning.

I also like the idea of using internet when asking students to do a project. Students work together on a topic. They search information and they do an oral presentation on the topic. However, students can obtain so much information from internet and they don’t know how to select the essential piece of information for the topic. Also, plagiarism becomes the problem I concern most.

On the other hand, my school has joined an online writing programme this year. Students can access to a forum where they share and publish their own writing in a collaborative approach of learning. They can also read others’ writing and give comments as well. I think the programme effectively stimulates students’ reading and writing interest.

In my opinion, internet has its positive and negative impact on students’ learning. It really depends on how we use it. Guidance and support are very important to young learners.

Reflections of Week 6 Essential Reading

Theory-driven CALL and the development process

This article mentions about the design considerations for CALL courseware. When designing an educational web site, there are many considerations we have to focus on, like the learners’ needs, theory of learning or the curriculum. The development process of CALL consists of three stages or phases: the analysis phase, the development phase and the evaluation phase. The tasks associated with these three phases are summarized in Bonner (1988, p.5) and are listed below:

² Needs assessment, task analysis
² Goals, subgoals, objectives
² Measurement
² Types of skill/ learning
² Sequencing goals, subgoals, objectives
² Learner characteristics
² Instructional strategies, learning activities
² Media selection
² Formative evaluation

In my opinion, designing a good CALL learning resource is very difficult for me. First the all, I am afraid to say that I am not trained in this area and therefore I am not capable to get it done. Although we will be taught to make some interactive quizzes using some software, it is really not enough honestly. It is good to learn something fun and new. But in my daily practice I seldom need to create CALL resources by myself as there are already more advanced resources available either on the Net or provided by the publishers. Some of them even provide IT support when we come across problems while using. Above all, as we all know being a teacher in Hong Kong is really not easy and the routine jobs have already occupied most of my time. If possible, I prefer choosing the available CALL learning resources for my students than creating by myself.

Reflections of Week 5 Essential Reading

Language Learner Behaviour in a Virtual Environment

I agree that people behave differently in a virtual environment. We feel more relaxed and the anxiety of using a language to communicate is reduced. Take me as an example, I feel very nervous when I am talking to foreigners in a face-to-face situation. I think I am being assessed and I am afraid that I make a lot of grammatical mistakes in my conversations. But when I am chatting with English speakers on MSN, I feel much easier and more confident as it allows me more time to think. When I come across some new words, I can even look up a dictionary. Also, communication becomes smoother because people will not be distracted by different accents. Based on the above reasons, it is a good idea to let students master a second language through a virtual environment.

However, I have come across a situation which upset me a lot about blog using. Last year, one of my students, Clement learned how to create his own blog in the extra-curriculum class. He then thought that he might use it to communicate with classmates in English on his blog. He hopes it would raise the English standard of the whole class. However, some foul languages were found on the blog and we had to handle some parents’ complaints. Since students can use nick name or pretend to be someone else when they give feedback on the blog, it is very difficult for me to investigate the case. Though I had taught students a lesson after the event, I had to ask the extra-curriculum class teacher to delete the blog for me at last. Deep in my mind, I think if students can’t use the blog properly, they better not to use it. In fact, I prefer using yahoo groups than blogs when having discussions because identification or invitation are needed.

Last but not least, I agree with the conclusion of the article that a virtual environment for language learning may not be ideal for all students.