The Changing face of tourism in your country

Watch the links below carefully, paying attention to the kind of information provided, answer the questions given, and keep the links as a guidance for your own project to present next class:

1. Amazon Hideout Leticia, Colombia: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNcRF9LoK6c
2. San Andres   Colombia, The only risk is wanting to stay: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5tc-tm0ZWA
3. San Gil   Typical tourist day: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLHhD4iQZ_I
4. Trek to Nevado del Ruíz Volcano:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrVUx3lCCQg

CREATING A TIME CAPSULE

Based on what was discussed in our last class, you are going to create a "time capsule", not to be opened before the year 2250, to help future generations understand life as the beginning of the 21st century. Bear in mind the features presented in your book, on page 93. Write your list below this post (comment), including 10 items.

ENGLISH JOKES

     

Share an English joke with your classmates. Post a joke a native English speaker has told you, or a joke you've read or heard (different from the ones told in class). Try to not repeat. Before posting yours, read the ones your classmates have previously posted.

A VIDEO ABOUT AMERICAN ENGLISH VOWELS

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c97xwLdSsXU

GLOBALISATION: DEBATE CONCLUSIONS

All about travel

Here's a link your classmate Laura Bahamon wanted to share. It's very nice. There you can find plenty of info for what you need to know about places where you would like to travel to:

http://www.state.gov/travel/

Video: A Day made of Glass (Advanced English UIS)

Here's a very interesting video shared by your classmate Juan Pablo Triana about a vision for the future with specialty glass as its base. Have a look at it and feel free to comment below giving your personal opinions.

CREATING A TIME CAPSULE

Based on what was discussed in our last class, you are going to create a "time capsule", not to be opened before the year 2250, to help future generations understand life as the beginning of the 21st century. Bear in mind the features presented in your book, on page 93. Write your list below this post (comment), including 15 items.

What is the Glottal Stop?

Here a share a video some of my students found and presented about the glottal stop:

A very useful website for pronunciation practice

Check this very interesting website from Cambridge English Online. It's got lots of useful resources to practice your pronunciation and your knowledge of Phonetics (such as games, exercises, printing materials, tests, etc. 

Here's the link:  http://cambridgeenglishonline.com/Phonetics_Focus/#

Reading 10: Media as a medium in Colombian Education: How media and ICT are changing communication and the Curriculum in the school (By Rodríguez, C. and Hine. N., 2009)

Download the document sent to your mails and post a comment answering the following working in groups of max. 3 students:
1. How do you agree and/or disagree with Rodríguez Hine's point of view of how media and ICT are changing communication and the Curriculum in the school?. Provide clear, elaborate argumentation.
2. Discuss and tell which have been the media that has had more influence on your English learning process and how.
3. Which media do you think are influencing new generations of English language learners today? Think of your students, mainly. Mention two or three and tell why.

Next activities for the ICTs course

Here are the activities to come and their deadlines:

- Presentation of Photoshop and Paint: 26th/27th July

- Wikis complete and edited by classmates: 29th July (bear in mind that these wikis will not be evaluated individually, but as a cooperative team work, so I'll take into account your work and the participation of at least 3 of your classmates in the construction of the wikis)

- Presentation last tech tool: August 2nd/3rd

- Last part of the work on Wikis (Class construction of the ICTS's in English Teaching Wiki (http://icts-in-english-teaching.wikispaces.com/):  August 2nd/3rd

- Oral presentation of the projects and handing-in of the written paper: starting on the second week of August  probably.

This information, together with the groups assigned for the last part of the work on Wikis have been also sent to your mails.

Final Project Outline

Here are again some considerations about your project work, which you will do in groups of maximum 3 people:

First of all, bear in mind that this project is mainly a plan, a proposal to be developed in one of your groups in your teaching context. You have to choose one or several technological resources/tools we explored throughout the course. The project must be brought about based on the students' needs and following the curriculum of the institution/school where they study. I'd also suggest you trying to integrate it with different areas of knowledge. So the idea is that students would participate in the project, learning the topics proposed in their curriculum, but aiming at the final product of you project, which is something they would create by using ICTS's (a video, a wiki, a blog, a song, a magazine, etc. where they all participate with the guidance of the teacher). It must be planned to be developped in a certain period of time of no less than 3 weeks or 15 hours of class.

In your paper, you must use Arial 11, leaving a 1,5 space between each line.

This is the outline to follow: 

Provide an appropriate title for your project.

- Introduction

- Justification

- Objectives (general and specific)

- Literature review/ Theoretical Background about ICT's in English Teaching and of course the resource/tool you decided to use in the project (at least 2 pages to support your project)

- General Description (steps/stages to be developed -per week-)

- Bibliography (minimum 4 references)

Due to the irregularities at the university in the last days, the deadline has been postponed for the very first date we meet in class again. However, I'd be very pleased if you managed to have it done before. So you can feel free to send it to my mail any time before starting classes again. And PLEASE check your language (grammar, spelling, punctuation, coherence, etc), remember this is a formal paper and you are 9th semester students!!!

WIKI activity

Having the experience of creating and recreating a blog, now we're challenging to work on a personal Wiki page, which gives many useful opportunities for teachers to interact with students, allowing them to participate and cooperate together, in different ways.

Once you've created your Wiki page, you're expected to have made an appropriate personalised profile, according to your target students' traits. In addition, you must have made a Table of Contents with some topics and probably sub-topics to be developed, and you must have already included some information in each one of them. You also need to propose a discussion topic, for some of your classmates to participate giving their opinions. You are also expected to have visited, checked and edited some of your classmates' blogs (according to the groups organised in class) wherever considered necessary. Be careful with COPYRIGHT! Bare in mind that copying and pasting the work of others make absolutely no sense here, and even worse, it is morally and legally banned and penalized! 

New up-date of your blog!

By now, you all are expected to have made the appropriate changes suggested by your classmates and professor the other day, including on your blog meaningful activities proposed for your students, and helpful links and gadgets, plus any other relevant information or feature. This time now, you must have also included an activity made using Hot Potatoes, and a video made through the Movie Maker program, with the help from other useful programs to audio/video convert. Remember the deadline was last Wednesday, so only the links sent to my mail (and which received feedback already) were considered. The last ones with the changes suggested were checked today. No other blog will checked after this deadline, as instructions were given clearly and insistently. 

Reading 7: questions to debate (group J1)

In groups, make up 3 questions based on the 7th reading, to debate in class. Post them all here!

Reading 7: questions to debate (group K1)

In groups, make up 3 questions based on the 7th reading, to debate in class. Post them all here!

Final Questions Reading 5 (group discussion -do not post comments here)

Group K1: In groups, based on the project you read about, and taking into account your workplace/practicum place, analyse and discuss the following:

- How feasible would it be to carry out a project like this in your workplace?
- What would be the first steps to take in order to get it started?
- What kind of support would you look for to develop the project? Who could you ask to get it?
- What activities and methodology could be used in such project?

Final Questions Reading 4

After having read the article " Twenty Ideas for Using Mobile Phones in the Language Classroom " and applied some ideas from it to a class activity (Mobile-assited language learning), please reflect on the 2 following questions and post your commnets in group:


1. Which 2 tips do you consider are the most practical/feasible to use with your real language classes. Why?

2. Which 2 tips do you think would definitely not fit in your current or usual teaching practice and explain why.