WEEK 2
By reading the class descriptions that we were asked to upload on Nicenet.com, I realized that although the geography may be different, the students and the challenges of teaching are pretty much the same worldwide. We are sometimes faced with limited resources and perhaps little support from school administrators, not to mention large classes with students who may not be altogether motivated towards foreign language acquisition. Despite all this, we are teachers. I believe one reason is that we find conveying our love of discovery to others very rewarding.

This week I learned that following the ABCD model makes for unambiguous, observable and measurable learning objectives. This made me remember my teacher training days when our instructors always emphasized the importance of including clearly written objectives not only in academic programs but also in our daily lesson planning.

I also had the opportunity to use a variety of totally new (for me) search engines. The list in NoodleTools proved  to be exceedingly helpful. http://www.noodletools.com/debbie/literacies/information/5locate/adviceengine.html
It will take me some time to go through the list and try all of them out. I must remember, however, that information on Internet is not permanent and that some of these search engines might soon disappear.  

I especially liked IDEA Portal  http://www.idebate.org/portal/ for its resource content that will be useful to set up debates with my advanced level students. Another cool place to get updated in-depth news is BBC Special reports http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/special_reports/