Tbilisi State University

Tbilisi State University

WEEK 10

This week is not as busy as the previous weeks of the course and to me this seems logical. The moderators have given us the chance to look back and contemplate on the learnt, aleady achieved and look forward to our future plans.

This course has been an enjoyable experience indeed! It has given me a unique opportunity to be a part of a wonderful community of highly educated and experienced professionals who were always eager and able to give valuable advice and constructive feedback. In addition to this, the programme of the course was planned in the way which made it possible to encourage our, as learners, autonomy and seek and rely on the advice of our moderators and colleagues.

Because of the effective and sophisticated programme, effective management and friendly atmosphere I have 'emerged' as a more knowledgeable, confident teacher with plans and definite know-how for future personal and 'departamental' growth.

Relying on your efficient posts and analyses, I am sure I am not the only one.

Congratulations and good luck to all of you!!!

Manana

Week 9

This week has been so full of useful and very involving activities that I almost forgot to post on the blog! Many thanks to Dilip who reminded me about the deadline.

I have learnt a lot this week. My team and I plan to modernise the curriculum of our programme and for this, along with up-to-date literature and interactive approach to teaching, I find it extremely important to include internet, webites and other on-line tools in F2F teaching. This will by all means enhance the quality of teaching as well as our students' (learners) autonomy.

Students at our department do theoretical courses in Linguistics and English Literature as well as practical courses of English such as Grammar,Phonetics, Speaking, Writing, etc.

In order to adapt the tools to our needs, I decided to use the Nicenet and blogger. I chose these tools because the former suits the theoretical aspects of the our programme. The students will gladly contribute to the forum. However, nothing is perfect in this world and despite my enthusiastic approaoh, I still anticipate some problems, namely, shy and lazy students' unwillingness to participate. This can be successfully tackled by encouragement, fair assessment system and more elements of interaction in the theoretical sessions.

I have chosen blogger for our practical courses as this system provides an excellent opportunity for the students to share their views on the on-line material provided by the teachers on the blog.

While making an attempt to implement changes I have to deal with resistant teachers as well. Unfortunately, it is not easy for some teachers to say good bye to their 'peaceful' and well-trodden routines, which do not contain 'lurking' unpleasant surprises and more work. Nevertheless, I firmly believe that they have to change, and the sooner the better as the future is ON-LINE TEACHING.

Manana

Before the project I thought that PowerPoint was just to make the process of the presentation more efficient . Now I have learnt that it can be used to make this process involving and engaging, even enjoyable. This week has made it absolutely clear.

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YouTube - The Queen's Speech 2009

YouTube - The Queen's Speech 2009

WEEK 8

Today I have used a PowerPoint presentation interactively at a lecture of Stylistics with our 8 term students of English. Th students were very much involved and the lecture went smoothly. I will design an interacive quizz for next Thursday and I am sure the students will be as interested as today.

Another good news is that our group of MA in British studies opened a blog for classroom use. Let us see what they will post on it- I can not wait myself.