Project Pasantia 1999

Rationale

Learning involves experimentation and risk-taking and exploring ideas. This is more likely to happen in an environment where students feel their efforts are valued.

I believe that learning to read is an extremely complex process and that while meaning is central to this process, the learner needs to be able to integrate his/her understanding of the world and language knowledge with their developing understanding of written concepts, phonological awareness and spelling patterns.

We all know that communication involves understanding the meaning and purpose of language and that language helps them to make sense of the world.

The process of reading is closely linked to the other skills and as teachers we need to help make these links explicit to the students.

Reading is a process that needs to be helped to encourage our students to bring meaning to and gain meaning from many different sources. In this respect, the use of technology, as a source of information, will bring the students an increasing range of input that can be taken advantages of This project is the first step to a new way of teaching reading using technology as a main tool and resource to make reading FUN. Students will not need to sit somewhere, reading a book or wherever; now they are able to explore a new world.

General Information :

Skill aims         : Reading comprehension Level             : freshmen (First year). 15 - 16 years old. Organisation : Peer, pair group. Two per computer. Resources     : Computer room, with class-net system, software. Time               : 1 period of 45 minutes a week. Strategy         : The teacher monitors by observation, setting tasks, collecting info, and games.

Achievement Objectives

General Objective: Select from the Internet several programs which can be used for teaching reading for enjoyment, understanding and information a range of written texts using semantic, syntactic and visual cues to gain meaning.

Specific Objectives:

Select several appropriate English Learning software programmes from Internet.

Present to freshmen class different programmes, which use visual texts to communicate ideas and information.

Aim to design learning environments that are socially interactive and reflective.

Feel comfortable and confident about using technology.

Prepare technology to be a learning facilitator rather than an information provider.

Trial the programmes with different groups of students and evaluate their effectiveness.

Train the English staff teachers to use the recommended software to teach reading.

Strategies

It is very important to take into account a wide variety of questions before going through the strategies. How am I going to reach my goals? What sort of resources does my High School have? How can I make my project useful to my school reality? What kind of support would I need?, etc.

I will list the steps I am going to follow trying to carry out the present project.

Learning Activities Overview

1. The following is a list of the different Internet addresses to be considered in the project:

www.actdes.com www.refdesk.com www.study.com www.school.discovery.com www.iatefl.org www.iatech.ac.jp www.teachers.com www.pacificnet.com

2. Select those, which I am going to trial. 3. Choose the classes I am going to work with. 4. Plan and implement lessons, which include the software. 5. After a month, evaluate each programme and write a report and recommendations. Make    contrastive analysis of them showing the advantages and disadvantages. 6. Train the English teacher staff of my school explaining how to use the software effectively. 7. The evaluation and assessment of the progress of the students will consider formal evaluations (marks through skimming and scanning), and questionnaires about their acceptance of the new procedure

Bibliography

Main ideas of the Project : Teaching Staff of University of Otago Otago Language Centre Dunedin College of Education

Internet Web Pages : Yahoo.com Unete.com

Assessment of reading : E.S.O.L Dunedin College of Education.

Scholarship Programme : Ministry of Education Chilean Government.