Reading readings of the week has brought back some memories of my own learning experience using new technologies. I remember that I took a course when I did my BA at CityU named Creative Communication projects. One of the main learning activities was to carry out a creative group project. We were asked to work in groups of four to create a support site/ fan site for an organization/ industry. We finally came up with the idea of designing a website for Dai Pai Dong, traditional Hong Kong style food stalls.
That project was fun because eveyone in the group cooperated with one another and worked collaboratively. I was not a big fan of new technologies, well I am still not one at the moment. Lucky that we had got a computer expert in the group. I mainly worked on the writing and proofreading of members' work and that expert helped us out a lot of the technical stuff. He even taught me play with some easy skills making a website. I remember that we as a group hanged out a few times to try out the wide range of variety of food at the Dai Pai Dongs located in Central and took a good deal of photos to post on our website. Yeah, that was really fun. Sad that I can't remember the hyperlink of the website that we created back then. I think that would be interesting to look at it again.
Back to the point, using the Internet for English teaching isn't as difficult as I have thought. Looking back at the experience that I had as a student, I did enjoy project-based learning. Working on our own, we gained much experience and discovered ways to solve problems. Working on our own doesn't mean teachers don't care about us. But as the reading of the week mentioned, teacher's role shift from 'sage on the stage' to 'guide on the side'. Teachers provide help and give instructions at times. In addition, we did work and cooperate with others in the group. That relates to one of the learning goals of using the Internet in English Teaching.
Putting myself in the shoes of teachers, I think it is very interesting to teach with the use of the Internet. The Internet is so vast and ubiquitous and is fused in our every day life. So as teachers we must help students with the use of the Internet and to equip them in the multimedia future. We have the responsibility to teach students strategies to adapt to the fast-changing technologies, motivate them to think crtically and work collaboratively. Wow such a challenging job for teachers.
Um I think it's really time to think about which age group I want to teach in future. And where to teach.
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Thanks for a very thoughtful reflection. I think project-based learning is a great way to make use of the collaborative possibilities of the internet (and it has gotten a lot easier since your project a few years ago). Tip - link to the reading somewhere in your post.
ReplyDeleteJust to answer your question, Alice, about my thoughts prior to the start of my TESL career... I wanted to teach students at elementary level in Japan (equivalent to primary school level in Hong Kong). This was way back in 2000 when a native English teacher scheme had yet to be implemented in elementary schools across the country. So I ended up teaching at senior high level (equivalent to Form 6 and 7 in Hong Kong) instead. Three years later I fulfilled my wish of teaching primary school children, albeit in Hong Kong and I'm still doing this now. One day I'll move back to Japan though, as I understand that there is now a demand for native-speaking teachers of English at the elementary level there.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, do you think your creative 'Dai Pai Dong' project would be a good choice for a class of primary six students to try out?
I really appreciate what you have experienced in BA while I didn't have such experience in my BA degree.But I do learn some useful technology in English teaching from this course.
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