This is my symbaloo!

Using the personal learning environment when you are teaching made easier your lessons. You can have all the resources you need for your planned activities in your Symbaloo (which is a Personal Learning Environment).

With Symbaloo you create your webmix and you can have all the tools (the buttons for the tools are called TILES) that you need to use during the lesson but being effective and practical. Without Symbaloo, you have to switch on the computer, write the web page, search something and then lock for the most appropriate link. Symbaloo provides you the option of going directly to the correspondent link without losing time.

I have my Symbaloo separated in different categories. Colours and sections in the web mix separate these categories. As you can see in the following image, we can find different categories:

1-    ORANGE CATHEGORY; here is included all the professional tools that I use or check before teaching my students. I also put some links of web pages that I didn’t know about them before and I feel they are an appropriate resource a necessary in my Symbaloo.

2-    GREEN CATHEGORY: in the green category, we can find some blogs that I follow related to the education or some interesting topics like the use of the ICT.

3-    BLUE CATHEGORY: All the blues tiles are useful tools, like the calendar, the calculator, weather forecast, translator, and the access to the google page. To sum up, all the tools that we need to have them but they are not 100% necessary.

4-    RED CATHEGORY: here we will find links related to the news, la vanguardia, mundo deportivo and 324 to be updated with the news here in Spain and CNN and BBC to have access to the international news.

5-    WHITE CATHEGORY: here is my social part of the webmix. I have here my facebook account, twitter (which are not related with the education) and Linkedin and MyEF (which are more specific and related with my professional life).

6-    PINK CATHEGORY: tiles related with travelling are coloured in pink. This part is not useful for my profession, but I am using symbaloo always so I have everything I need here.

7-    BROWN CATHEGORY: everything related to buy something on-line are coloured in brown, they are not belonging to my professional life but is very useful to have them in my own symbaloo.

In my opinion, symbaloo is a very good resource and I like using it a lot. It is fast and useful and I am using it everyday so I don’t have to loose time in typing the web and finding exactly what I want to look for.  This is a very good resource which I have never been talked about and it is one of the best resources I discover in these years studying as a future teacher. 

Using new technologies!

Nowadays using new technologies is very common in the schools. Generally it is very complicated and it produces a difficult situation because sometimes-even teachers don’t know how are smart boards and other digital displays working.

Teachers first should know how to use the new technologies and when talking about this I cannot avoid thinking about one experience I have lived during my Practicum I. The English teacher was trying to use the smart board and she didn’t know how was it working.

Some weeks before, the students from 6^th grade started using it with their teacher so they had to explain the teacher how was it working.

Besides, there are a lot of teachers who can use it and know how are they working. They usually enjoy it a lot while they are teaching using them and they take advantages about having such a useful resource in the class.

In my opinion, using new technologies while you are teaching is very important because it is a new tool for communicating with other students, they have an active role in the activities and for them it is easier to define their goals or objectives and they can evaluate their progress. Teachers’ role is also changing with the new technologies because he/she is not the centre on attention anymore. 

What the motivation exactly is? How do we have to motivate our students?

Motivation is the key to school achievement. But it is important to know exactly what motivation is.

A lot of people think that one student is very motivated when he/she is smiling and happy in the class.

Motivation is being very happy of course, but it is also being encouraged, involved and interested in the class.

Motivation can come from the students (intrinsic motivation) for example when they do something for their own pleasure. Or it can come from the outside, form teachers, situation, families, tasks, topics… (extrinsic motivation) when they do something for others pleasure, to please their parents or teachers or just to have a reward.

As all of us know, motivation varies depending on the people involved in the activity, the situation and of course depends on the task.

One student can lose the motivation very easily when things don’t go as they expected, as if they make mistakes, they lose the motivation because they don’t want to feel stupid in front of their classmates.

Gifted and talented students can feel bored and demotivated when the concepts are being repeated in class all the time.

As future teachers that we are going to be, we have to cope with all of these things and we can do it following the next steps:

-       - Challenging our students.

-       -  Give clear directions and feedback.

-      -  Relate schoolwork with their interests.

-       - Emphasize their good progress.

MEETING INDIVIDUAL NEEDS

As future teachers we should learn how to cope with all the differences that we will find in our class groups. We have t be aware and recognize these individual differences and use methods that help them to learn in a positive way.

Of course it is very difficult and the ideal situation doesn’t exist but we can find a way to help them in feeling better and comfortable.

How can we do it?

When asking this question I can’t stop thinking about my own situation. I have dyslexia and when I was studying at school and specially when studying the English subject I remembered that I was so motivated.

The English teacher used different resources and materials, and instead of doing a normal class when teacher explain everything we used to play games, use different manipulative material and that was very helpful for me because me and the other students in the class were so motivated.

We used to do projects in small groups and I felt this responsibility inside the group, which helped me in feeling positive and better when working with the whole-class activities.

 I also did tutorials with the teacher and they helped me in expressing my feelings to the teacher because we did it individual. When teachers have these interactions with students, teachers can connect with the individualities of each one and help them in feeling secure and better.

I had been always supported by all the teachers of the school and I feel they worked very hard to make me feel better, encouraged and helped me in being what I am today.

In the future I would like to be like them because they make me feel better and comfortable and not differentiated and special like most of the teachers do.

Which method should we use to teach foreign languages effectively?

Today I want to talk about which method should we use to teach foreign languages effectively.

While I was learning English I had been always feeling that English lessons are always the same, a lot of grammar and few vocabulary and speaking exercises, and here is when the demotivation comes. Students are learning English during all their lives and when they go abroad (either to study or just to visit other countries) they are completely unable to speak in English.

What I am doing actually with my students (and this is the method of the school I am working for uses) is follow next strategies:

-       - Having an appropriate physical environment: the classes are decorated with multilingual labels, posters, displays of work… So when kids go into the class, they get a good impression of the use of a foreign language.

-    . Using the target language: this is he most important strategy because kids can be immersed in the language. Immersion is the ideal situation for language learning at school and it can be improved if we, as teachers, use the target language as a medium of communication. If we use it, students listening skills will improve and also it will develop strategic and discursive competences in hearing communication in real contexts.

-    . Using rhythms, songs, games and stories produces a lot of benefits because it improves listening, pronunciation and speaking skills. Using this kind of activities helps them because they learn and enjoy at the same time. In working with stories they develop their language skills and sense of identity because they have top lay different roles.

I really like using these strategies because I’ve seen that they are productive. So that’s why I want to share with all of you!