Week 3 - Feelings

Working and studying have always been somehow interconnected and we, teachers from all around the world, are now trying to do our best to manage our time to fulfil all the tasks given by our tutor in this course "Building Teaching Skills through the Interactive Web.

This weekend is going to be tough for me. Except some of health problems I have to deal with and they have quite a huge influence on my mood and opinions, I have to correct writing assignments for Matricular as well as State language examinations. Needless to say that I have a family who would like me to involve in our mutual activities.

As for commenting on blogs of our fellow teachers I find it a bit difficult in terms of time management. There are some of us who have time to update their blogs at the beginning of the week, but most of us have time only before the deadline. Then it happens that one tends to comment on the same blogs all the time due to a lack of new posts on others' blogs. I would like to comment on others' blogs as well but since I am asleep when they update them or have to go to work in the morning, I would not meet the criteria for the week.

Fortunately, there is quite a huge time difference between our time zones and Oregon's one so we can make it on time. 

I was a little bit disappointed by readings this week since there was almost no new information I have not come across before except the one about software monitoring your speech which I personally, in my humble opinion, find useless.

On the other hand, I am more and more delighted about recommended websites or those shared by my colleagues. Hopefully, the websites I uploaded on my delicious might be helpful to other teachers.

Talking about focusing on listening and speaking skills is very important. These two skills are more difficult - listening comprehension is more difficult than other receptive skill - reading and speaking also causes learners more difficulties than other productive skill - writing. Both more demanding skills require immediate actions so there is no time to think or look up words in a dictionary to be sure which one is appropriate. These two skills (listening and speaking} are essential for any oral communication and that is the reason why learners should be exposed to them even more often. If the teacher uses L2 in lessons, learners get used to understanding the meaning and it happens when the teacher switches into L1, sometimes learners are not aware of it. This happened to me a couple of years ago, with a very ambitious group of 16-year-olds, when I was trying to give them a lecture about a certain topic, providing examples and giving illustrations from a real life when suddenly I stopped and thought what language,  L1 or L2,  I had talked in. So I asked  my students what language I had used and they got dumbstruck because they were not sure.

What I love about technology is that it is fast. In the past, I did not attend any of my lessons without a dictionary among my materials. Now I do not bother by thinking of taking a dictionary because all classrooms I teach in are equipped with a PC, OHP and the Internet access. So if I am not exactly sure what the meaning of a particular word is or how the word should be pronounced, I just go to Oxford online dictionary {see My favourite links} and check it there.

In addition to what has already been mentioned above, the issue I am personally facing now is that my English is a mixture of British and American English. How come? At the secondary school we were taught British English and I have to confess that in Central Europe British English is preferred to be taught. However, when I took English classes at the university  I was taught by American teachers - and there are still more American teachers teaching in Slovakia and the Czech Republic, then I used to teach with an American colleauge and of course, films and series I watch are in American English. So what happens to me is that part of my speaking is in British English with an American accent and part of it is in American English.  Would using the technology tools available for pronunciation and intonation help "comb" my English?