WEEK 8

I would use “ANVILL (A National Virtual Language Lab)...a speech-based toolbox for language teachers both with my fellow teachers and with my students.

As teachers we will benefit from the creation tools and, therefore, introduce different strategies in our teaching practice. Apart from this, I consider this is also a collaborative tool: the LiveChat will give us a chance to exchange ideas and introduce feedback about lessons with this tool. We cannot forget that we will have the support of a team who will be there for us and, therefore, will give us confidence to experiment and create.

I think it will be a great toll to try with my fellow teachers at school. Next school year we will have to adapt our assessment criteria as far as spoken skills are concerned and I think this is a great tool to put into practice.

As far as the work we can develop for and with our students, ANVILL gives a considerable amount of diversity: we can easily set a task, let the students watch a video, for example, allow them to “speak" the answer, if they have doubts they can watch the video again, and then we can evaluate the students’ performance as far as their spoken skills are concerned.

The quizzes and surveys offer many possibilities as well as the voiceboards.

This tool gave some ideas as far as developing a project with a school in another country. I have been reading information about a project developed by the British Council entitled “Connecting Classrooms”. I will read more about what the program offers, talk to the Head of Department and consider the challenge of using ANVILL to develop the project. I will have to present the project to the Director of the group of schools who will ask for the Pedagogical Council’s approval.

This is what “Building Teaching Skills Through the Interactive Web” is all about: finding about all these resources online, testing them and put them into practice in our teaching activity. We will feel better teachers and our students will be better students.

The other online tools for teachers are also very appealing such as  Tools for Educators Hot Potatoes and Easy Test Maker. I created my exercise online with Easy Test maker but I could not go on and publish it online. I would have to pay for another version. Therefore I will have to use my account to access the exercise and ask the students to answer. As I saved a pdf copy of the exercise, I can email it to my students and ask them to do it and sent it back to me.

I think this course is also give us great collaborative tools as we read our partner's project draft and sent them ours so that they could also give us their feedback. This example of collaboration online should be done in every school. I'm sure all students would benefit.

Now it's time to revise our projects and complete them.

This is what “Building Teaching Skills Through the Interactive Web” is all about: finding about all these resources online, testing them and put them into practice in our teaching activity. We will feel better teachers and our students will be better students.