introduction for CD project

CANBERRA COHORT 12 - Hochiminh City January 2008
TILT HIPPO GROUP: 1. Khuong Trong Nhan Student’s ID number: 3023635 2. Le Thi Kim Huong Student’s ID number: 3016060 3. Maria Stolbova Student’s ID number: 3023642 4. Tran Thi Thuy Student’s ID number: 3023651
INTRODUCTION
Student group: Age: 15-16 Level of proficiency: pre- intermediate Number of students: 30 Number of computers: 30
Approach:
This lesson plan is the embodiment of the combination between the communicative language teaching, task-based learning, and computer-assisted language learning approaches. As Warschauer and Kern state it, “providing comprehensible input has become a common pedagogical imperative” (p 1), we want to stress that what students learn is not just the language itself but also the language in context, the language that helps them communicate effectively in real-life situations and “reflect critically on the social practices that they participate in and observe” (Kern : 2006: 203). Now that technology has become an essential part in language teaching, computer literacy has come to be considered as a must for both teachers and learners. In a narrow sense, this term refers to basic computer skills. In a broader sense, however, it is used to indicate “new literacy skills pertaining to computer use” (Kaufmann: 1992: 6). As Kaufmann notices “the computer of itself cannot teach” (p.27), it is the teacher who decides what language skills to be focused on, how exercises are designed, for what purposes and in what stages. When assisted by computer soft wares, teachers can be as much creative as they want while learners can develop their confidence and independence in the whole learning process. Those “authoring programs” can “enable the teacher to produce materials that take into account and build on, the background knowledge of the students” (Kaufmann: 1992: 30). Computer- assisted language learning approach is strictly learner-centered where learners’ level of proficiency is carefully thought of. The topic choice, the vocabulary introduced, the skills intended to be taught must all be able to arouse learners’ interests as well as activate their own schemata in both language acquisition and reconstruction. Learners will no longer need teachers’ support or correction or instructions for every single mistake that they make. They will rather learn by trial and error since there is no time limit in tasks performing and they can always press the “Back” button to either refill a blank or listen to an audio until every word is clear to them. Feedback and answers can be provided in seconds almost after one simple click because the “Check” and “Show answer” button are always there to be of their use.

Objectives:
Under the light of these above approaches, many different tasks have been designed in which students can engage themselves in “ authentic tasks and projects” which later enables them to “enter into the kinds of authentic social discourse situations and discourse communities that they would later encounter outside the classroom” (Warschauer and Kern, p 5). All the vocabulary used and the tasks designed were carefully chosen in terms of their appropriateness and applicability in the classroom with the target student group taken into account. There are tasks when students can work by themselves where they can control their own learning speed as well as tasks when they must work in pairs or in groups where team work spirit is highly valued and where weaker students can seek help from better ones. Vocabulary is one sub-skill that our target students are expected to master. By means of using new vocabulary provided in the lesson and their own linguistic repertoires, however, students can also have a chance to practice all four macro-skills including reading, listening, writing, and speaking either individually or in a group. We not only aim at checking students’ understandings of some facts about fast food but also enabling them to use their own language to rewrite the reading text, discuss in pair or work in groups, and complete a group project at the end of the unit. In other words, students will be able to “reconstruct the original texts, and in the process, develop their own construction of language” (Warschauer and Kern: 2000: 11).

from Maria

Hi, it's Hippo from Hanoi!
Happy New Year to all my dear hippos!Chuc mung Nam Moi!!!!

I'm planning to be in Saigon on the 20 and 21st of February, so we can meet and discuss our project. I have made some changes in the webquest and listening and I want to give it to you when we meet. Ah, Huong hoac Nhan, cac ban co the gui cho minh cai webquest cua m o tren USB nhe, USB cua m chi co listening, ko co webquest huhu. I need to add some more parts into it. Send it as an attachment to mariavnmai@gmail.com nhe!Thanks!
Chuc mung Nam Moi!

annotated resources

Annotated Websites
For teachers:
1. Saigon ESl and Hanoi ESL: These pages contain a large collection of Language School Listings for Vietnam on the Internet, in addition to teaching and job resources to aid teachers in making the right decisions during their ESL career in Vietnam.
http://www.saigonesl.com/
2. ESL teacher resources: This page provides a wide range of articles and activities which can help teachers enhance their pedagogical skills as well as make their lessons more interesting and attractive. English puzzles, funny games, quizzes and even lesson plans can be found here.
http://www.usingenglish.com/teachers.php
3. Teach English: This site also contains resources for ESL teachers such as lesson plans, activities and articles for English language teaching. Moreover, it can also supply qualifications and trainings for those who are not yet teachers but hope to teach English in the future. Besides, it also focuses on improving pronunciation for learners
http://www.englishclub.com/teach-english.htm
4. Teaching English as second language: This site covers a wide range of resources and articles which may help teachers implement activities in their language classrooms better. There are many helpful readings on English communication skills and sub-skills. Many listening tasks can also be found here.
http://esl.about.com/od/teachingenglish/Teaching_English_Techniques_Resources_Certificates_Employment.htm
5. Teaching English: This site was constructed by BBC and the British Council. It’s contents consist of many aspects that the ESL teachers can find quite useful such as ideas about how to present new language, model lesson plans for various topics of interest.
http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/
6. The Internet TESL Journal: This internet database is a good site for ESL teachers to share experience in language teaching. It provides many useful articles on a wide range of English teaching aspects: techniques, lesson plans, activities, and materials as well as writings and researches on Computer-Assisted Language Learning. It is also especially good for those who want to collect ideas for researches on language teaching and learning.
http://iteslj.org/

please put everything for CD here

please put everything for CD here