Reflect 7 from all group's presentation : Classroom Discussion

                                                                    Classroom Discussion

                           In the day of presentation , all groups are being supposed to present the issues given to the whole class. Each group seems well prepared by using Power Point for presentation. The issues being presented today is very useful for language teachers. Here are Teaching Speaking , Teaching Listening, Teaching Writing, Teaching Reading , Assessing and Testing ,and Teaching with technology. For this time, I think I get a lot from presentation to use with my job in the future. Strategy , techniques , how to teach principles of teaching language will also be mentioned.

                            Speaking is an interactive process of constructing meaning that involves producing and receiving and processing information( Brown,1994 ; Burns & Joyce, 1997 ) If you are the one who is studying foreign language , exactly, your main purpose of learning must be able to communicate with the target language . Speaking occurs in real time instantly with normally at least two people talking each other . For teacher, teaching speaking is considered very difficult especially for ESL / EFL students.What teachers have to focus are both fluency and accuracy. They have practice as much as possible from the activities provided. There are various activities such as Information Gap , Jigsaw , The hot seat , telling stories , Stimulation and Role - Play. For teacher's role in speaking activities, teachers have to do everything to stimulate students to speak as much as possible by acting as a PROMPTER .

                             For the group of Teaching Listening , they have addressed very interesting information. In Thailand, from my experiences I think listening skill is still less effective. It must be the result  from the education which teacher didn't work hard to train their students on learning foreign language .In teaching , teachers have to teach them to listen from the word sounds to sentences. Many time in listening it is possible to encounter the unknown words . Teachers need to teach how to guess the unfamiliar word by using the context of the whole content.For the listening activity, teachers might have to put these kind of listening activities for students , dictation , short text ,listening to story ,and listening to newscast. 

                             Writing is categorized as essential skills for not only learners but also workers. It is the important way for communication in the business or government organization to contact with the others formally. For teaching, teaching writing is said to be the difficult task to deal with. Teachers will create teaching writing activities more effectively if they follow the theory or approach suggesting the interesting and useful idea to apply it, for instance , accuracy of process writing ,encouraging writing and producing a finished product. All of those can guide the teachers achieve the goal expected. There are many activities to teach writing suggested from presentation such as story circle , folded story , emails, and using pictures and music. Writing process must also be taught because it can guild the new-  hand writers do it better.

                                Reading is a process of making meaning from print for comprehension. We all need to be able to read in our own language , whether from books, documents, computer , mobile , signs or billboards. Students of English need to be able to read these in English. Reading also helps them to learn and get English. There are two main kinds of reading . The first one is  an extensive reading  .It is reading as much as possible for your own pleasure at a difficulty level at which you can read smoothly and quickly without looking up words or translating to English as you go. The other one is an intensive reading occurring when the learner is focused on the language rather than the text. For teaching , reading activities that we can ask students to do almost anything with a reading text. Here are some of the most common activities , asking for the topic , read and answer a question , filling story into the chart ,etc. 

                               Teaching with technology is necessitated nowadays for education. Many classrooms in the school tend to use more technology applying into their teaching   in order to achieve a goal according to the class objectives. In the classroom, technology can encompass all kinds of tools from low-tech pencil, paper, and chalkboard, to the use of presentation software, or high-tech tablets, online collaboration and conferencing tools, and more. So,  technology can be said to be worldwide resources because we can find everything that you want by using technology as a tool to find it. From my peer presentation , I get various ides in order how to apply it to the real class. As we know well , children in the present are excited with new technology ,so using technology in the class is one technique to capture student's attention very well. 

                             Assessing and testing are the way how to know how much the test takers have . For real classroom assessing and testing, there are various types of assessment ; namely, formative , summative , informal , diagnostic , placement, progress, achievement and proficiency . Each type has its own unique features and principles. When teacher wants to test students , teacher has to use it suitable  to the activities' contexts. Teacher has to set up the criteria in order to assess and test more effectively. The level of scoring is different depending the criteria teachers set up. There are many ways to assess students abilities (directly and indirectly)  . Direct test means testing a skill by commanding students doing that skill ,to  test writing students have to write. In the other hand , indirect test means students don't need to do that skill ,but they have to
 do another skill  instead . To test listening , students listen and write down . Teachers score from what they write.

                       In conclusion , teaching English is such challenging work for teacher . It is not difficult ,but it is also not easy. All skill can be integrated in the same class if teachers can create the activities properly. There are various methods and techniques that teachers should follow by applying to suit with the classroom context and teacher teaching style.

Reflect 6 : Teaching Reading

                                                                   Teaching Reading
                        Teaching reading is an important skill in leaning English

Reading 8 : The Magic of Movies

                                                     The Magic of Movies

                   In the morning of Saturday after finished all housework, I have a chance to read a story talking about the movie since the past until now. It said that since December 28 , 1895, there have been  movie audiences.That day the Lumiere brother showed short film in a cafe in Paris.The audience screamed when a train on the film came right toward them. Since then , filmmakers have used various technique to amaze audiences. These techniques form the art special effects and create the magic of movies. One of the first geniuses of special effect was also a Frenchman - Georges Melies. In 1899 , he made a movie called The Conjurer. In the movie , he disappeared and then his female assistant disappeared . How was this possible ?

                Early movie makers stopped the camera and started it again. In - between time,the person or objects or scene in front of the camera changed. For example , in one of early films, the inventor Thomas Edison substituted a dummy for the actress in a film about Mary, Queen of Scots. The dummy's head was chopped off to shoe the queen death . When audiences saw the scene, they gasped in horror. Since then, filmmakers have used techniques like this to make people see things that didn't happen in real life in front of the camera. Moviemakers today still use another old technique : small model for large objects. One of the most famous special effects in movie history was King Kong in a 1933 film. The huge gorilla scared audiences when he climbed the Empire State Building. But the real king was a model and was actually only 18 inches high. The moviemakers used the stop - motion technique . Workers put the model of gorilla in one position and took a picture. The they moved it a tiny bit and took another picture. For one second on the screen , there were twenty - four pictures of King Kong.

                   Recently, computers have become important in special effects. In 1996, the movie Toy Story was the first movie made entirely of computer - generated image and characters. Over 800,000 hours of computer time went into the final film.The recent series of Star War films has made extensive use of digital computer images. In fact ,in some scenes , 95 percent of the screen contained image made by computers. And the director George Lucas even took facial expression of actors on film and mixed them together in different way with a computer. The art of filmmaking never stop . What magical effects will moviemakers use in the future ? You will see them at the movie.

Reference : Manuel dos Santos , 2000. Super Goal :  กรุงเทพ . โรงพิมพ์ไทยวัฒนาพานิช

Reading 7 : Computer Crime

                                                     Computer Crime

                     Today , I had a good opportunities to read an essay talking about the disadvantages of computer . I think computer right now is so useful  and necessitated for us , but they showed the different reasons related to computer crime interestingly. Actually, we have been using computer everyday but never know about its bad points . Now, it is a good time to remind you to utilize computer more usefully.  Hacking was the first computer crime that most of us became aware of. By using their computer expertise , people known as hackers can gain unauthorized access to someone's computer and make use of the data which they find there. They may, for example, get hold of lists of name of their competitor's clients and use these to build up their own business , or they may use hacking as a form of industrial espionage to fine out a rival company's plan. Other hacking activities may be more obviously criminal, in that hackers may log on to financial data in someone else's computer.

                       The possibility of serious financial fraud has been greatly increased by the modern practice of purchasing goods through the internet. Apparently, the use of credit cards to pay for such purchase has led to record level of fraud with a great many people being swindled out of a great deal of money. Banks are working hard to improve online security and to provide safeguards for customers, but fraudsters are working just as hard to improve their crooked techniques Many computer users worry in case their systems are affected by computer viruses. The people who introduce such bugs into other people's computer programs may not intentionally be committing  a crime, but may be doing so as an act of mischief or sprite . The motive does not really matter to the people whose data has been deleted or altered or whose files have been corrupted.

                        Computers are part of highly technical method of working, in which there are constantly new development . Unfortunately, there is also a constant stream of new developments in the fraud industry associated with them . All computer users must be on their guard.

teaching english activities

http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/category/articles-site-structure/teaching-resources/activities

Reflect 5 from peers presentation : Teaching Listening

                                                           Teaching Listening

            In the day that my peer giving presentation on how to teach listening, they have delivered many aspects related to teaching listening.They have addressed very interesting information and all of the issues seems very useful for language teachers to apply with their teaching styles in the real situation. In Thailand , from my experiences I think listening skill is still less effective. It must be the result from the education which teacher didn't work hard to train their students in learning foreign language.What they presented are the importance of listening  , strategies , objectives and steps to teach listening.

             The importance of listening is said to be the the foundation of communication , which two speakers transfer ideas and interpret the information or spoken language. Listening is a process of ability to communicate effectively to the others.Thai students said learning English is very boring and  difficult , we have to face it , practice will help you to develop listening skill . So ,students have to work hard to achieve it. In addition , listening can also enhance our meditation which it means if you deeply understand what the speaker said , you possess well mediation. Personality development is also the good result of listening.

             The strategies of listening is the next issue that my friends are talking to . It is very interesting and I think it will be a good guidelines for the teacher to apply into practical. To start with the first one , listening for the main idea can be said that we listen the whole story and can say what happens from listening . Listening for predicting is to listen the sequence of the story from the beginning. Then, we can predict  the subsequent  which will happen later . We have to analyse and criticize rationally to predict it.  Next , drawing inference from listening is provided students to infer the situation . They have to keep an ears on it . The last one is summarizing . All of those are the listening strategies that were delivered in the class.

             The steps to teach listening are said to help us how to apply. For English teacher, we know how to listen and how to catch what speakers said in order to make sense , but not every teacher can teach listening effectively. How can they teach listening to the real class if they have no their own model to follow. From my friends presentation can be a good example to deal with listening class.  First of all , students should be taught to listen about word sounds ,then they can understand individual words. After that ,what they have to practice is to identify and understand the sentences. Full sentences will be easier to understand if they learn the words sounds or linking sound formerly. Next, listening to unfamiliar word will be taught by using many technique to guess the vocabulary by inferring from the context around it. However, in the real situation , student have to apply it to effectively listening result.

Reading 6 : Endangered Species

                                                            Endangered Species

                           From our daily life being , I strongly believe that every people are now aware of the damage which our modern way of life impacts to the environment. Every kind of animals are the living thing that also get harm from human being ; more badly , some of them are extinct. It is very hard or impossible to call it back. For millions of years , extinction among animal was a natural process , in fact , it was  part of the process of evolution. In the present,the extinction of some species has been the result of human activities. Will all kinds of animal be extinct or not in the next century ? It extremely depends on all of us how to consume the nature resources constantly.

                            Some species have either been made extinct or become endangered because of hunting. In the present , even the every earliest of humans were hunters because they ate the flesh of animal and clothed themselves by its skin. The more they hunt will lead to more extinction of animals. However , it was the introduction of guns with their accurate aim which put certain animals at great risk. By this time , animal were being hunted for trading purposes apart from the provision of food and clothing. For example , elephants were being hunted for their ivory. Attempts are being made to regulate such wholesale commercial hunting but it is difficult to control in some areas. Thus ,animals continue to die to make profits for humans. Of course, not only commerce is to be blamed . Hunting as a sport has also played a part in the extinction of certain species.

                             A more modern threat to many animals is the destruction of their environment and the resultant changes in the ecology of whole area . Our use of pesticides and other chemicals has polluted both soil and water . This pollution has proved to be toxic to many of plants where are part of the habitat of many animals . Furthermore, we regularly lay waste to land inhabited by animals, in order to make way for expanding populations or to provide goods for wealthy nation in case of deforestation. Modern living has had a deleterious effect on the ecosystem. We must try to reverse this to save our wildlife


           word                          function                         sound                              meaning

     deleterious                      Adj.                        /ˌdɛlɪˈtɪərɪəs/                  อันตราย เสียหาย

     ivory                                  N                         /ˈʌɪv(ə)ri /                            งาช้าง

  

     inflict                               V                             /ɪnˈflɪkt /                          เป็นสาเหต


Reference : Kirkpatrick, 2005. Read and Understand :  Singapore. Learning Publishing Pte Ltd

  

                  

Reading 5 : Climate Change

                                                                       Climate Change
                       Nowadays,  from many studies , experts in climatology and other scientists are getting more serious about the climate change to our weather which are taking place . All of what happen caused from the climate will affect to human being . Many time in the past ,it has greatly been shown that disasters could killed  many people immediately. Generally , climate changes have occurs on our planet before . For instance , there have been various ice ages or glacial periods.  The climate change as we know in the past and present time are different . it seems getting stronger gradually . Many people believe that the disasters happening is cause from climate change ; but in fact , human being are the major part leading to great disaster as we have seen nowadays. The changes currently being monitored are said to be the result of human activities  not just only natural causes such as deforestation and energy use, etc. The rate of change is getting alarmingly rapid.
                        The major problem is that the world appears to be warming up. As we have notice from many phenomena , global warming is occurring at a rate unprecedented in the last 10,000 years , according to some experts. The implications for the planet are very serious . Rising global temperatures could give rise to such ecological disasters , incidence of flooding and of droughts. These could have a harmful effect on agriculture and reduced it proficiency in production of crop. Every part of the world nowadays seem getting gradually great impact from climate changes. Accordingly, people have to change their way of life and be ready for all  unpredictable natural changes in the near future , for their safety of properties and lives. It is thought that this warming of earth has been caused by greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide emitted in to the air by many ways such factories or car engines. Gas is not only emitted to the atmosphere but also create a greenhouse effects which leads to the warming up of the planet.
                           Politicians are also concerned about climate change and there are now annual summits on the theme of global warming climate involved , attended by representatives from around 180 of the world 's industrialized countries . Of these summits ,the most important took place in Kyoto in Japan in 1997.There is a agreement that the most industrialized countries would try to reduce the volume of greenhouse gas emission and were given targets for this reduction of emissions.There was also suggested that more forests should be planted to create the planet shelter from greenhouse gases effects. Because of all climate changes  caused from deforestation , reforestation finally must be arranged to prevent the  disasters.


       word                        function                  sound                             meaning
unprecedented                 Adj.                /ʌnˈprɛsɪdɛntɪd/          ที่ไม่เคยเกิดขึ้น มาก่อน                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       

  

glacial                              Adj                            /ˈgleɪsɪə/                     ที่เป็นน้ำแข็ง

                                                                                                                             

      Reference : Kirkpatrick, 2005. Read and Understand :  Singapore. Learning Publishing Pte Ltd

Reflect 4 : Teaching Speaking

                        Speaking is an interactive process of constructing meaning that involves producing and receiving and processing information (Brown, 1994; Burns & Joyce, 1997) . If you are the one who is studying foreign language ;  exactly, your main purpose of learning must be able to communicate with the target language . Speaking occurs in real time instantly with normally at least two people talking each other.For teacher , teaching speaking is considered very difficult especially for ESL/ EFL students. There are many aspects to talk about teaching speaking which is relevant to foreign language instruction; principle  , classroom activities , teacher's role and technique.
                          The principle for teaching language can be the backup for the teacher in teaching. The first one is to focus on fluency and accuracy which is depending on the unit objectives. The fluency is the extent to which student's speech matches what people actually say when they use the target language. Accuracy is to which the speakers use the language quickly and confidently with few hesitations ( Suriany : 2012 ).  To provide the feedback and correction is necessitate to comfort students to use the target language more correct by using the appropriate way to help them learn .Moreover , to provide the student an opportunity to initiate the communicative language is very important in teaching speaking.  The can learn by imitating the practical language to use more effectively .In addition , teacher must teach students speaking strategies that students can use to develop their speaking skill and  can cope with the real situation; asking for clarification  , asking someone to repeat something , getting someone attention , etc. All of them will be integrated to design classroom activities more effective result.
                        For classroom activities used for teaching speaking foreign language , in the traditional classroom activities are just to want students express their ability in asking and answering the questions that they might remember from the conversation the teacher has taught without depth understanding to adapt the sentences. But in fact,  many situations  in the real communication should be taught through various kind of activities with focusing students to be able to change the structure of sentences to use with the other situations.What teacher should consider when creating and running the activity for teaching speaking are how to stimulate them , what authentic material to use ,and what context or situation, etc.The well - known activities for teaching speaking are The Information gap ,The Jigsaw, The hot Seat and The Buss Group, etc.

                       The tip in teaching speaking is to provide a chance for students to speak and make them speak . Although the context teacher is going to teach is very useful . There is a belief that students should not be forced to speak when they are not ready to do . This belief is based on the assumption that if the students have not learned enough language components, they are unable to produce meaningful language.  Students have to learn grammar and vocabulary  to be the basic foundation for speaking skill.Therefore, designing speaking activities that give students’ opportunity to speak is one of the main tasks for language teachers. The most important aspect of preparing students to speak in real life is to give them as many opportunities as possible to practice producing practical conversation.
                  
                         

Reading 4 : A history of tourism

                                             A  history of tourism
               Tourism probably started in Roman times. Rich Romans wanted to visit friends and family who were working in another part of the Roman world. The Romans built roads , at first these roads were for the army , and traverses stayed in small hotels next to these roads. But when the Roman Empire ended, this kind of tourism stopped. In the early seventeenth century , the idea of the  Grand Tour started. Rich young English people went across the English Channel to France , and then visited the most beautiful and important European cities of the time. The tour lasted for two to four years, and the tourists stayed a few weeks or months in each city. They usually visited Paris , Rome , Venice and Florence . Sometimes , they visited cities in Spain , Portugal and Germany, too.  The Grand Tour was an important part of education but only for very rich.
                In the eighteen century, tourism began to change . For example , people start to visit towns like Bath in the UK to take the water. They believed that drinking the water in those towns was good for them. Large and expensive hotel were built in these towns. Travelers became much easier and faster. When the first railways were built in the 1820s and 1830s , it was easier for people to travel between towns, so they started to go for holidays in towns by the sea. They also started to have holidays in the countryside, because cities became larger , noisier and dirtier. Travelling by sea became faster when the first streamships were built, so people began to travel to more distant countries. Go on , there was more and more tourism. People started to have more money and more time. Until 1008, workers did not usually have holidays from work. But by 1951, 66 per cent of British workers had two weeks holidays a year. Travel became cheaper and easier during the twentieth century. More people had cars. Planes became larger can could carry more people , so plane tickets became cheaper.
                    At the present , many companies founded . With packets holiday was born  and the companies put everything together - plane ticket , hotel  , even food. And tourist pays for it all before she or he leaves home. Many other countries started to sell package holiday from the UK to Spain . Finally , the modern tourist was beginning.

Reflect 3 : Teaching writing

            

                                                                                      Teaching writing

               Writing is categorized as essential skills for not only learners but also workers. It is the important way for communication in the business or government organization to contact with the others formally. For teaching, teaching writing is said to be the difficult task to deal with. Teachers will create teaching writing activities more effectively if they follow the theory or approach suggesting the interesting and useful idea to apply it, for instance , accuracy of process writing ,encouraging writing and producing a finished product. All of those can guide the teachers achieve the goal expected. 

             Accuracy is raised as a core of writing products because all of the ideas will be written on paper which is unable to change after it passes the audience’s eyes. In addition , what will capture readers’ attention to read your idea from top to end must be handwriting. Badly, from handwriting , audience may judge you writing bad although your idea written down is so excellent and creative. To taสk about writing process, it is normally seen in writing course focusing to. To promote students’ products more accurate , going follow the process can help the new writers to excel their written task. In the other hand, he or her who are the old hand can go back and forth to rethink and reconsider your point of view more productive.

               For the real class to promote learners’ writing skill, it is not easy to cope with since writing is said very boring. They have to think and write down numerous steps as its process. It is the great impact for teacher to attempt and encourage them excited and interested to learn through the creative activities. Namely, spontaneous writing is a kind of teaching writing that students will practice instantly without any anxiety .Furthermore, writing together activity can help them practice with a lot of fun and share their idea through discussion. Writing from pictures is an activity that students have to narrate or describe what happens in the picture . What is more ? , Writing from music  can stimulate learners to improve their skills by listening the song and writing down, how the composer feel or describing what happened in the song.

                After finished written task, the last vital step is to publish their work to the public with various way they can do. Portfolio, journal and blogs are the popular way to do so.

Every piece of students’ task has to be graded. It would be easy for the teacher to check their work from their portfolio in the end of the semester. In the other way , students can put the ideas on and submit to the school press to present his or her work to the other school fellow. In addition, the popular way which many school or university learners choose to publish the finished product must be blog. There are various advantages to use blog as a way to present their ideas. Because of being on the internet, the viewers can visit it wherever and whenever. All of those mentioned can well encourage learners to enhance their skill with fun.

                 To sum up , writing teaching, in practice ,must be based on many theories and approaches to help teachers to design teaching method. It will be easier to do so if teachers study and follow those steps thoroughly. The importance of accuracy, writing process and work publishing must be taken into consideration when designing teaching process.