Task 7 - How Can The Standard-Features Word-Processing Programs Be Exploited For Teaching Writing Skills?

Writing, one of the four main skills, has always been a problem for ones and a piece of cake for others. But why is it so? It is so because of the lack of vocabulary we have.

Nowadays, there are many technologicals tools to better our writing skill, one of them WORD-PROCESSING PROGRAMS.

Word-Processing Programs are many, we can go from free to pay programs ( Calligra Words, Lyx, Quicksilver, Microsoft Word,etc). All of them can be used in the educational field, especially Microsoft Word wich is the most famous and manageable nowadays.

Teachers can ask the students to create paragraphs, essays, etc. These programs automatically will help the students with the mistakes they make and the students will be corrected instantly.

Undoubtedly, word processing is one of the most important technological tools that can have been applied to education due to it offers freedom to write and can be used without the help of a teacher.

On the other hand they have some disadvantages like:
- Students can get used to being corrected automatically and not pay attention to their mistakes anymore.

-Prevent student writers from revising their superficially neat-looking but unfinished writing.

- Not all the students have equal access to these programs.

But anyway, they can be applied, as I already stated, by teachers trough asking the students to write an essay, paragraphs ,etc. And students are helped because we can check and check our work before submiting it and if we have a mistake we would not have to make a total rewritten version, just modify the problems.

They should be applied more often in the classroom as a technological tool.

Task 6 - Should technologies play a central or a peripheral role in second language teaching and learning?

It is true that we, human beings, are involved by a big wave of technology and therefore all the aspects that, as humans, we face are involved by such technology. Educational aspects are not away from these reality and our students are exposed too.

Many years ago, we did not even though we would be able to have such technology, but now we do have it and we have to take advantage of it. Specially in our case, we could use many technological resources to make our classes more interesting and make learning happen. Videos, computers, etc should be used in the normal classrooms, but I think in a peripheral way. Because if we use them all the time, many normal situations may stop taking place, such groupal work, social interaction,etc.

Technology makes our lives as teacher easier due to nowadays it is not difficult to find , for example, an audio to play in the classroom, a video to be shown or even lesson plans are avaliable specially in the internet. We could make our students to read an specific article or task we want them to be develop in their houses in order to have more time in the classroom to discuss it or to teach another topics that require time that we often dont have.

Students, as I stated, should take advantage of this too. They shouldn't spend many hours doing something non productive but doing somenthing productive. We as students have many tools we can use, such tutorial videos, explanation videos, educatinal videos and so forth , that we can use to better our learning.

Technological tools should be taken into account when developing a class because it catchs our students' attention easily and make learning better.

But let's be careful, because if we want to make technology the center of all methodologies, it wont work because students could get bored by the overused of it, as all things in a high quantity bores us!

To sum up, technology should not play a central role in a second language teaching and learning, but a peripheral role.

Task 5 - What do you think is the role of research in improving our understanding of teaching?

Many times we assign some homeworks in which students have to make use of "research", according to us. But we are miss understanding it! In fact, do we really know what it involves and what it really takes?

"Research" is not only for students but (should be mainly) for teachers. It is quite important for us, as teachers, make research. 

By doing this, we will be able to keep updated and therefore to have better results in our classes and in our own understanding of teaching. What I mean by "keep update", well it means that we will know what strategies, approaches or techniques might work in some instances and wich might not.

Researching also allows us to get familiar with topics that we have to develop and we dont know very well. In addition, it helps to improve our way of teaching and consecuently it makes our students to learn more and to have a learning not mechanical but for life. Anyway, our goals as teacher is no other than make our students learn the most they can and "research" takes a great part into it.

Task 4 -What Experience Do You Have Of Learning A Second Or Foreign Language? How Would You Characterize The Teacher’s Teaching Method? How Effective Did You Find It?

First I want to clear that learning a new language is not recieved by all the people in the same way. Some of us learn better when we are taught trough some especific method or approach, others get it more whe are taucht by other methods and finally there are some of us who just can't learn trough any method.

I have been exposed to English for a little period of time, approximately for 5 years. But since I first started to study this foreign language I felt really atracted and I really liked it.

I have had many teachers, some have had a knowledge about methods and approaches of teaching but some others have not. My first English teacher was the best teacher

 I could ever have. You may be asking: Why was he such a great teacher? Because he was not boring at all and he always knew how to catch our attention. In fact, he was one of my inspirations to become an English teacher.

On the other hand, in the university I had the least prepared teacher I have ever seen. Even though he prepared the classes, he didn´t know how to use the tools and therefore all the students got lost and didn´t understend a thing.

They both used mostly the CCL and Direct method but for one of them they worked and for the other it didn't. But it just depends in how you apply it and how the teacher has created the rapport in the classroom.

I think teaching is not something innate, I think it is something you learn trough the years and according how much you like it. Sadly, some persons take it just like a job wich is not. IT IS MORE THAN A JOB.