This is to test image upload to blogger using Word.

Today we discussed different types of assessment, including self assessment. The discussion made me think about self assessment and its limitations. here are a few ideas

Yesterday we were introduce to Tokbox.com which is a service similar to google talk in that it does IM and voice messeging, but also does video conferencing and video messaging. it affords students to establish communication over time and space. it would be interesting to explore leaving video messages for eachother or for the teacher.

Last friday we had our first class, we discussed very general concepts related to the use of technology. Two points were particularly interesting.

This is a picture of the classroom where we are taking the CALL class, I am posting it because I want to point out the arrangement of the computers, the ones that are lined next to the wall have the monitor raised above the students heads, this makes it easy to monitor work. it is a little complicated for the students because it is unconfortable. Still, I think it is a good arrangement that facilitates monitoring of students.

This rubric was presented in some of the class materials. I took the picture and decided to post about it because it reminded me of what German is trying to do in the Academic Unit when evaluating teachers and working with the observations. It is a four point rubric but you have to make 2 decisions in order to narrow down the score.

I will encourage you to use something like this.

Theaching pragmatics has to do with teaching the meaining of language in context. It has to do with exploring different intentions of language depending on relationship, situation, intention, etc.

The frase: "Are you going home soon?" could have different meainings and intentions depending on the situation. I could mean that I want you to go, or that I need a ride, or that I am offering you a ride, or that I don't want to go home alone, etc. The meaning of the question depends on the relationship and the circumstances in which the question is asked.

There are books that offer exercises to explore pragmatics. The most important thing to consider when designing exercises or using materials that intend to develop pragmatic competence is that how the teacher approaches and uses the material is crucial.

For example you might have the following exercise: (taken from Beyond Language, Deena R. Levine and Mara B. Adelman, Prentce Hall.)

If someone offers you some food that you really don't like, you might say:

In your country: _______________________________________.

In the United states:

1. "I hate that"
2. "Sure, I'd love some more."
3. "I'll have just a little bit, please."
4. "Thanks, but I'm really full."

A teacher may approach the exercise as it is writen and concentrate on what is appropriate in the US or in Guatemala, focusing on a single right answer that is polite, appropriate, etc.

A different way, and a more useful, way to approach the material would be to explore how all the options are appropriate in different circumstances and try to decide what those circumstances are. This exploration could be done thinking of american culture as well as Guatemalan culture. Students could then roleplay the different situations in which each of the responses are appropriate.

In conclusion, when teaching pragmatics in a cultural lesson, it is important to avoid creating stereotypes or relying on them in order to explore appropriateness and meaning. It is more useful to explore the different meanings a phrase might have and the different situations in which a given phrase might be appropriate.

Hawaiian. Fried Mahi, mac salad, white rice. cabbage. It was very good.

Today we talked about teaching vocabulary and taking into account different features or properties of words when we teach.

Traditionally we focus on the denotation of words and we clarify denotation as students encounter the words. Many times vocabulary words are associated to the topic of the lesson that we are teaching and so we teach the vocabulary as it is used and presented in the lesson, without considering the extended features the words might have.

When we said extended features in class, we were refering to connotation, collocation, and semantic differences with related words.

We also discussed how exploring these features is a task that students needed to carry out independently more and more as they progress in their english studies. In addition to setting asside time for the exploration in class, students need to make this exploration a strategy in their language learning.

This reminded me of the experimenting I have been doing with Google language tools. Showing students how they can use Google language tools could encourage them to take on the task of exploring words and their extended features.

I will briefly describe Google language tools that may be helpful for students:

Define:

When using this operator in google search, Google will give back the definition of the word from different sources on the web. It also gives related frases, so you can explore the common pairings for this word. It works with single words, and phrases, and even many idioms. Ex: [define:stroll] [define:from the heart]

*:

We can use this operator to explore collocation. The axterix is a wild card in google and it means blank. If you type a word followed or precided by "*" you will get phrases that include the word and what is more commonly found next to it, either before or after. The use of this operator to determine collocation is limited because the corpus is not necesarilly limited to natural english. The corpus is all the web pages that google indexes.

" ":

We use the dobble quote to search for an exact phrase. We can use this to explore which is the most comon form of a phrase by searching for different variations and looking at how many results are found. For example: "alongside my friends" - 3,480 results; "along with my friends" - 2,380,000 results.

Google Image Search:

Google image search can be used as a visual dictionary. It works very well with concrete content words and it gives students a chance to learn vocabulary and clarify meaning without translation.

Google Translate Tools:

Finally, Google offers translation tools that are very acurate. The most interesting feature is that users can contribute better translations and so build up the translation database.

In conclusion, it would be helpful to plan a lesson with students in which you show them and help them use these tools so that they can clarify and explore vocabulary on their own.

Today we had a few minutes in which Jean and Misha shared a couple of websites that were very interesting and useful.

On thursday hawaiians celebrated Kamehameha day and during friday and saturday there were many celebrations and presentations to commemorate the day. We had an opportunity to see a few of the ceremonies. The first video is the lai drapping, in which lais are presented to King kamehameha.

Yesterday (saturday) I went to the aquarium. It’s a small aquarium but they have beautiful tropical fish. the most impressive gallery was the jelly fish gallery. those things are beautiful and I hear they are very poisonous. All the kids in the aquarium were talking about Finding Nemo. It’s amazing how that movie got to kids everywhere. In the gallery you’ll find some pictures from the aquarium displays, including clownfish and jellyfish.

Hawaiian, mac salad, rice, pork wrapted in a deep green leaf. I'm not sure what the leaf is called.

Today's class focused on how textbooks and materials are evaluated and chosen. many times the selection of the textbooks is not up to the teacher. When we have the oportunity to select books we consider things like appropriateness for the level, inclution of activities that are inline with adopted methodology, how current the material is, etc.

How do we save the coral reef? this is a very nice demonstration to explain the ecological problems that affect the reef.

Very nice presentation explaining the geography of the island of Oahu.

I am posting this a little late, this is from our tour of the island yesterday. It's a beautifull view. We are at a historical landmark from which you can see the valley below.

MAI TAI!!!!!!

American. Rost beef sandwich with mushroom gravy, pickle, mashed potatoes. Delicious.

Vietnamesse. Gralic butter shrimp. white noodles. bed of fresh cucumber, lettuce, soy sprouts. very good

This is a short video, walking around the city of hawaii. Not all the city is like this. I am walking in a business district near the tourist area. This is close to the hotel where I am staying.

During the lecture today, we were challenged with the question of what constitutes authentic material. The question is, let's say you take a menu from a restaurant, you take it to class and you might consider that you are using authentic material. What about if you find that same menu printed on a book? The publisher of the book took the menu from the same restaurant and put it in his book along with the activities to work with it. This might not be considered authentic because it is on a book.

Today we had two clasess

Japanesse. Miso soup, salad, tariaki chicken bowl. sticky rice. chopsticks. jinger. vegetables. wasabe.

During orientation we heard an interesting talk about diversity. Our group is very diverse, as you can see. In many ways it reflects the history and the current situation of hawaii. Mix among different races is very common in hawaii, there are people, according to the talk we recieved, that have 4 grandparents each of a different ancestry. That's preatty interesting. The university also has a lot of international students, 1/3 of the students are international.

Another interesting fact is that more than 50% of the population does not identify itself with any religion.

Fire trucks are yellow in hawaii, cool.

Today was our orientation tour. We got to know the university and saw the place where we will be taking class. We walked around downtown, took the bus, learned how to get from the hotel to the Univesity.

The Univesity is about 20 minutes away from the hotel but buses don't come by that often so I am thinking I will have to start out at about 7:30 in order to be at the University at 8:30.

The university is very nice and the classrooms are very nice too. there is wireless internet everywhere but we can only connect to the network if wi have a student ID. luckily we'll get our IDs tomorrow.

We walked a lot downtown. Honolulu is a very clean city. a lot of historic buildings and the arquitecture is very 70s and maybe 60s. some very nice buildings. and it's all very green. One thing that doesn't come across in the pictures is that there is a constant breeze blowing. it is very soothings.


Even though it's hot, the breeze cools you down in the shade.

I am about a 10 minute walk from the beach but I haven't gotten there yet. maybe tomorrow after class.

I'm in Hawaii, Aloha everybody.

I have been here for only a few hours and can say very little except it's hot. it's kind of the same weather as Morales o Puerto Barrios but dryer. There is a nice wind blowing all the time.

This is a very interesting town and I am sure I will learn a lot. Just on the drive over from the airport I noticed that the city has many layers. It has gone through different phases and transformations very quickly. I saw the old industrial area, the small businesses that were probably very important at some point, and the big mall.

I met some of the people from the group, it is very varied. I am looking forward to talking with all of them.
Tomorrow we are going to visit the University for the first time. I got a bus pass that I intend to use a lot. I want to discover how far the bus will take me. It is an island so I am confident that I can't get lost.

Tomorrow I will be taking photos of the city and what not...

Hello everyone,

I recently found some material online from an MIT course. The course is "Media, Education, and the Marketplace."

Here's what I will be studying dourning the Institute:

The course is devided in 2 parts. The first two weeks, the topics are:

• An Introduction to the Office of English Language Program (ECA/A/L)ELT Materials (Instructor: Jean Kirschenmann)
• Materials Evaluation and Design with a Focus on Language and Culture (Instructor: Sandy McKay)

The last two weeks, the topics will be:

• Classroom Assessment (Instructor: Catherine Sajna)
• Computer-mediated Language Learning (Instructor: Hanh Nguyen)

The topics I find most interesting and useful are: Materials Evaluation and Design, and Computer-mediated Language Learning. I think both of these topics fit right into what we are doing here at IGA.

By the end of the course I hope to have an evaluation tool that will help us with the flipcharts that we are creating, and I hope to have learned a little bit more about computer-mediated language learning in order to start with our blended learning and distance learning projects.

Hello everyone and welcome.

I will be posting as much as I can in this blog. Expect stories, notes, photos, even some videos. I will be posting my class notes and any ideas. Click on "follow" (bottom of the left column) to get notifications.

Thanks for reading.

Victor Castro