Creating My Lesson Plan with Technology

Week 4 has brought not only delicious reading of articles and visiting web-sites but an opportunity to do something practical (to create our own lesson plans) and it was really unforgettable experience for me.


While reading articles of special interest for the ESL teachers offered by our tutor and participating in the discussions I understood that I should carefully consider my objectives as it is impossible to gain something by adding on-line activities at random.
The next very important issue is that I shouldn’t put the Internet activities on the top of my classroom and spend the whole lesson on them. The Internet should be integrated into the syllabus and connected with our textbook.  


It was also fascinating for me to study two plans – one of a regular lesson plan format, that we are used to, and one with the use of technology. On the one hand they appeared to be similar, because we need to take into consideration such things as students age and level, timing, objectives, materials, previous lesson material, learning styles and resources, on the other hand we should predict all the complexities of the on-line learning environment and  prepare tasks in case the technology doesn’t work. As for the objectives for the English class with technology they are sure to be the A (Audience) B (Behaviour) C (Condition) D (Degree) objectives – very concrete and special.
As a teacher I should support my students while working on-line, because the materials we work with are authentic and students can get lost.


I believe that bringing the technology into my classroom, I bring the whole world into it because my students can experience issues which relate to the present day, and are not out-dated because of the time that passes from the publication of the course book. The Internet gives students and teachers variety and choice, as they have the enormous number of sites to choose from. Since the Web is multi-national and without borders, the classes with the use of the Internet bring cultural issues and help to increase students' cultural awareness, allow them to get to know and appreciate other cultures and give students the feeling of having the whole world at their fingerprints.
Another important thing that I learned during the fourth week is about authentic materials for language learning. Jarek Krajka proposed the wide choice of utilizing authentic materials for English writing practice. The idea of presenting authentic materials to enable students to perceive the natural English usage and communicate with people on the other side of the world is an important objective of teaching the language.


 I have also found interesting discussions brought by my classmates about teaching and learning in the 21 century.