English /through the Internet: teacher3

Objectives for Module 3

For EFL students

to surf the Internet with a purpose:

using newspapers
through a treasure hunt
to learn some of the short hand used in writing emails

in EFL

to scan newspapers and articles
to write a summary

to go through some of the stages of process writing using email, relying on the expertise of the "partner"

For teacher Trainees

to surf the Internet with a purpose:

using newspapers
through a treasure hunt
to learn some of the short hand used in writing emails

for teaching:

become more aware of learning process by going through the same stages as the learners
write a lesson plan using newspapers on the Internet
try out part of the plan with a partner
join a discussion on how to use the Internet with on-line newspapers

This module should take at least 2 sessions with a lot of student access to the computer inbetween!

By this stage the students should know quiet a bit about their partners. They will use this knowledge to find an article that will interest their partner. They can use any of the newspaper sources they like. The link supplied is just a starting point. This is a very realistic exercise because we seem to be always looking for something for someone else!

The next stage is real EFL teaching. How do you write a summary of 200 words? How can you help a student in the process of writing a summary, to be constructive and not just correcting? This is something we will discuss with the students after the exercise in a discussion just with the trainees. Also when should we interfere if at all?

The problem of timing between the pairs hopefully will be minimal because most of the work is carried out through the Internet and only afterwards, when they receive the article, does the correspondance begin. Meanwhile the participants have the treasure hunt to do. So there will be an overlap between the modules while the participants are correcting their summaries and writing and doing exercises written by their partners.

While the students are writing informal notes to each other accompaning summaries etc. it s a good idea to teach them some of the accepted short hand in email writing. In particular the smilies. If you turn your head to the side you will see different types of smilees

:) this is a smile
;) this is a wink
:( this is a sad face
:0 this is a yawn

this is a nice feature of writing that only exists in email writing so the other person knows if you are serious or not, or just tired.

The work and discussions will take place here.

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