Getting Closer and Closer to the Final Project

I teach English at Rostov Municipal English Language School #65 (in the south of Russia). My students are 13 years old and they are in 7th form now. Their English language ability is pre-intermediate because they have been studying English for 6 years. There are 11 students in my class. We study English 6 hours per week. 

I took the group 2 years ago, before it they studied English with another teacher in the primary school. I must say, that the students were taught to pay much attention to grammar rules, they have a good memory, can easily learn poems and long texts by heart, but they are not interested in writing and can't communicate.

This week I have offered my students samples of communicative creative students’ writings in the Internet. We have studied samples of writing e-mails, biographies, news, articles, stories etc. They expressed the idea of writing school news. I have offered them an opportunity to write individually or in pairs. Most of them wish to write in pairs. We have brainstormed the ideas about the interesting events in November and the students have chosen the topics. I am really surprised to see the enthusiasm of my students to write in English and still can’t believe my eyes and ears!

All of my students have computers at home; most of them have the Internet in their mobile phones and at home. Our classroom is equipped with 12 computers, the Smart Board and the Projector. We have got the Internet in our classroom this year.

There are some difficulties with the use of the Internet in our school – you can't be sure that you enter the Internet any minute you wish because they switch it off from time to time (for some unknown reasons). Besides, it is very slow.  That is why we can’t use Skype in class. But still, now my kids and I have got an opportunity to use the Internet in the classroom! 

Here are my A B C D objectives related to the communicative writing teaching of my special needs students: 
the students of 7th grade – pre-intermediate level will be able to write their own stories (120 – 130 words each) on the topic which is interesting for them and publish them on the on-line school site or teachers’ blogs site. They will be able to illustrate their works with photos, maps, pictures, etc. They will be able to write 2 or 3 comments on their classmates' writings on-line. The learning will occur both in class and at home.

 A common setting - 80% of time. 

I believe that technology helps to motivate my students to develop communicative writing skills, write creative compositions (not only reproductions), exchange opinions, make comments, etc.