Week 3 – reading week
This was definitely reading week. On Monday, I thought it
was just a few reading pages, some sites to review and Nicenet postings will
cover this week. And when I started downloading documents with much more pages
than I expected, I was a little bit scare. Should I reach Wednesday first post?
What about comments on project? When I started reading, I thought it was boring
and too academic for me, but, later, if you survived academic part, it was
pretty interesting, full with interesting and practical ideas that could give
you an idea on how to improve teaching and teaching techniques. This week we
were focused on aural/oral skills. To be honest, teachers sometimes don’t pay
too much attention on listening and speaking skills. In Serbia, I often meet
teachers who like to teach just grammar, sometimes reading or writing, but oral
and aural skills are absolutely put away from their teaching practice. These
readings tasks helped me to think more serious on oral and aural skills, and I
even got an idea to make a workshop on this topic and point out the importance
of these skills for our students.
Another task was pretty amusing for me. We had to make comments
on final project of previous participants. This was my first time to se final
project looked like. Wow, we have to create these kinds of reports up to the
end of February. Well, it is possible, isn’t it? I paid attention on Zlatka’s report, although
I have to read all projects reports in order to decide which one to
comment. What was so special, and absolutely
new for me, was WebQests. The idea of the project was familiar to my personal
view on teaching process, and reminded me on current situation in my country.
Teacher centered classroom, passive learners, and unproductive school
(educational) system. Famous Russian writer Tolstoy said “everybody thinks of
changing the world, nobody thinks of changing himself …. “, and Zlatka
did it! She carefully thought about change way she was teaching and did amazing
project that inspired me very much.
I have to post one comment more on Nicenet, and one comment
on blog.... hmm, week 4 will begin soon, what should expect ? …. more (useful)
readings? ….
