Final Reflection

My final reflection on this course is that I’m really glad that I took this course. I learned so much in this class and if it wasn’t for the help of Dr. Rivera, I would have never have been able to complete all of the requirements that were asked of me in this course. My classmates were helpful too. Dr. Rivera had shown us many different strategies and techniques along the way and tried to simplify our work load to make it comfortable for us to be able to complete our tasks. She made me feel confident in getting my assignments in and not feeling like I didn’t know what I was doing. I would recommend this course to be taken by all educators. All the technology that we had learned will be beneficial in our classrooms. We don’t have internet access in our school at this time but hopefully we will have access soon. I will be able to use what I have learned in this course in my classroom once internet is in place. Great course and great professor!

This was quite a semester. I was very confused at the beginning of the class but as I got towards the end, it wasn’t so bad after all. Dr. Rivera had taught me a lot in this course and I’m very grateful to her for walking me through this course every step of the way. She had taught me how to do a web quest which I would have never imagined doing. She showed me how to upload my assignments onto the live text. At first, I was very frustrated and didn’t think I could do it but as I mentioned earlier, she was with me every step of the way. Live text is very beneficial. You can create lesson plans, upload them onto the live text and use them in the classroom. This course, special topics in language and literacy had me search the web and be able to find much information on how to apply literacy in the classroom. I was able to find sites that I could create lesson to where I can use them in my classroom with my students. I’ve been able to find articles, lessons, comments by others, instructional technology ideas, and many other great uses for the live text. Once I have internet in my classroom, I will definitely use live text to create many of my lessons.

I must admit that trying to create a web quest was the most difficult task I had to do. Even the staff development assignment because I never had to do any of these things before. It’s a good feeling to see the finished product and I guess, once you get the hang of things, the next time will be easier. I’m glad that I have a friend whose experienced in doing a professional staff development, because she was able to show me how to create one and give me a few tips on what I should do to integrate this technology for my classroom.

I’m grateful to Dr. Rivera because now I will be able to link to the internet and apply practical uses by surfing the net to increase my student’s interest and academic skills. I will be able to meet literacy and educational technology goals for my students. My students will engage in higher order thinking and cooperative learning. My students will also be able to locate useful information on the Web and I can create a classroom environment which is conductive for learning. It’s great that the TESOL standards are included with live text, this way, you don’t have to go searching and downloading the net to get the standards that are required for teaching. Great course, and the greatest instructor I ever had. I’m hoping that Dr. Rivera will offer more classes that I need because I would definitely sign up to take her course. I can’t tell you how much I’ve learned by her instructions/teachings but I can say that if it wasn’t for Dr. Rivera’s assistance and one-to-one with me, I may have never made it through this course. Kudos to you, Dr. Rivera. You’re the best! Aloha, Maka

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

IMAGE SOURCE: WIKIPEDIA

Dear ED661 Students,

Happy Holidays! It was a pleasure having all of you as students this semester. I'm happy that you've learned much, and that you'll be able to apply what you've learned with ELLs. I wish you all the best in your teaching endeavors, and feel free to contact me anytime.

Warmest Regards,
Dr. Rivera

Thank You ED661!

Our Saturday session was meaningful for me thanks to Dr. Rivera and my fellow classmates. Thank you for all your kind words. Reflective activities, such as the one we engaged in, will definitely remain in my schema. Speaking of schema, the whole semester was an engaging one with the many ESL curricular topics we've reviewed, as well as the critical issues papers we had to complete relating to second language theory and development. In the short time that I've known all of you, I knew you were a special group who are committed to the positive development and growth of our ELLs. We've done so much this semester, but we're not quite finished yet. We still have to present our LiveText Portfolios this Saturday. Good luck with finalizing your portfolios, and I'll see all of you then!

Positive Experience Approach

I'd like to thank all of you for the nice quotes you said about me. It's a good feeling to have positive feedbacks from my classmates. The first time I encountered a similar activity like this, was in an English communication course that I took a few years back which was about 23-25 students. It was at the end of the semester but it wasn't positive, it was comments about what you think that person is like, (personality). I'm glad our class was small enough to do this PEA. Even though we only met once a month, and sometimes one or two would be absent at times, I still feel that we all had that class/student connection. We had other ways of communicating like blogging, which we were able to view our classmates reflections and comment on them. We also had a group project which we had to get together to get organized to do a power point presentation. And even though we had just met Lois, I felt that she was someone who would easily click with her peers. I enjoyed all my classmates and if we had to comment on a negative approach, I wouldn't be able to do it.

PEA Reflection

Thank you all for your kind words. I believe that positive feedback is essential in any learning process. And even though we do not physically meet often, I feel that I have gained so much from sharing information whether it is online or in the classroom. As professionals, we must acknowledge our strengths and recognize the perceptions they may have on our peers and students as well. Each of you have taught me something about myself and so I hope that I have helped you in the same. I hope all teachers will be able to implement this activity in their classes so that students will feel positive and capable of eventually crossing that finish line.

Not-so-Halfway Through

Note: My midterm reflection appears to be a little over the half way mark but suppose that we turned back time, the following is what I probably would have stated then.

This course has been a test of my dedication, determination, and ability to meet deadlines. Knowing that this course allows busy professionals the opportunity to complete assignments outside of a classroom has transcended into late work. I work two jobs, and I’m also taking three classes through the university. And despite my efforts to maintain an energetic approach to succeeding, I managed to submit late assignments and eventually affecting my grade significantly. This was my first partially online class that afforded me with only one meeting hour a month. Unfortunately, I succumbed to its convenience and now I struggle to keep up.

Critical Discussion

Contrastive Analysis is an area of critical importance. I want to evaluate the differences in some educational strategies that effectively meet the general difficulties in language use and acquisition for non-native speakers. There appears to be a general deficiency in learning a second language because there are drastic differences that prohibit total understanding.

One example is the arrangement of words in a statement. A Japanese would say, "O namae o wa nan desu ka? translated to "your name what is ("desu ka" question intonation). Whereas English speakers say, "what is your name?"

Establishing specific areas that distinctly affect language acquisition will enable a course developer to plan lessons that address these areas and work toward illustrating coherence even before the semester begins. These strategies will save time in planning and completing course outcomes.

Curricular Engagement

This lesson planning is a great tool for us to gather ideas for our course development. I always enjoy asking other teachers for effective ways of communicating information with students, more importantly using interdisciplinary strategies. If staff development days at my school were to inquire ideas for lesson planning from teachers to share, then there will be more diversity in the student learning and more focus on addressing student needs. At a recent conference, I realized that some teachers have the laminated lesson plans that they have been using for so many years. There is no validity in a lesson that works for every student every year. I have only been teaching for two years and already I have witnessed such an array of student performance levels that I could not imagine sticking to the same lesson plan for each class. Thanks again for your input those who have contributed to the discussion.

Mid Term Reflection

Hi everyone,
Here's my mid-term reflection. As we started out this course in August, I thought this course was going to be okay because I knew that we would be doing moodling and going on live text. I had taken a course with Dr. Rivera last year which we had to moodle and go on live text. This course has taught me so much more than the previous class. Throughout the course, I'll admit, I never did so much reading this semester than I had in my other courses. At times, I would feel overwhelmed but all in all, it was worth it. To read the articles in our "Teachers as Course Developers" book, made me see a lot of things that I never knew before. The different strategies, obstacles, experiences, and techniques that all the different professors, doctors, and administrators had to go through, and were willing to share with us was a learning process for me. As an educator, you just have to find ways to get through your students in what ever way that you can. Putting yourself in their shoes and experience what students experience, helps in many ways for a teacher to plan their lessons, and do a syllabus for their students.
As for the grade that I feel I deserve, I feel that I should get what ever grade Dr. Rivera feels I deserve. I'm hoping for an "A", but by turning in assignments late I don't think that would happen. I always strive for an "A" but what ever grade Dr. Rivera gives me, I'll accept. Good luck to us all! Aloha, Maka

Article 8 Review

The five C's is my new motto. Hull establishes clarity, continuity, coherence, creativity, and consistency within her planning and development. Although I have yet to teach an entire class of ESL students, I am currently practicing this format with my high school students. I try to incorporate as many C's within each lesson to help learning acquisition. I found that this approach also provides teachers variety and accessibility for effective teaching.

Critical Issues Paper #1

Topic: English Language Acquisition Methods

Through ED661 course I have been studying about course development for English language acquisition. In the textbook “Teachers as Course Developers”, seven articles describes the process of developing a course.
They mention about the key word for English language acquisition is “autonomous learner” respectively.
This means how the teacher can motivate students and after the course completion, how the teacher can make students continue to learn English language.
In the articles of the textbook, each author struggled to design the course as the students become autonomous learners.

I think understanding the English structure and grammar is very helpful in reading and writing even speaking and hearing, especially when native language and target language are not cognate languages.
The grammar-translation method is a kind of classic method, however, I think teaching second language to the students whose native language is not cognate with target language need grammar to understand second language more clearly and more systematically.
If I design the course I will include grammar-translation method in my course content.

Group Project #1

To work with class mates is a fun. On this group project we could exchange our idea. Especially on line course is lack of communication. I am looking forward to see our class mate on Dec. 1, 2007.

Article 8: Acurriculum framework for corporate language program

In this article (Article 8), the approach of the institution is to provide personalized language-learning programs to meet the needs of corporate clients and the students they send for training whenever the client request. And most of the cases instructors must be ready to provide a language and cultural training within a day or two of a student’s arrival, often with little advance notice or pre-arrival information.
Because of course period is so short, the author thought it is important that the curriculum should facilitates the student independent and autonomous learning. I think this idea is very common and plays the key role for language learning as the other authors used for their course design in this textbook. I agree as the author emphasized, the continued self-study after graduation from the course is very important especially like this short course and their learning method enables self study after graduation.
I have an experience that I took intensive English conversation course in Japan which offered two weeks just before I started to the United States for one year stay for corporate internship program at US architects firm. At that time I experienced very fresh stimulation through the tutorial lesson which was a quick response drill with native speaker using very good textbooks which were made by their own institution. Until that time I thought my own way of studying English conversation that using language tapes and listening the radio English conversation program or attending English circle to talk with native speaker was the best studying method. However, that intensive English course was beyond my expectations. I continued to study with the same method even after graduating the course.
I think corporate language programs especially one-on-one tutorial lesson is the best program as long as if it is designed efficiently. Because they can tailor programs to meet individual needs, of course tuition fee is very expensive.
In the article, the questionnaire to the learner would be used primarily to examine and refine the learning plan process to make more effective.
Curriculum framework uses the questionnaire to assess learner’s learning needs, analyze their learning style, define learning objectives that were specific, measurable, and achievable within a given time. Then implement the program plan through the practice of carefully selected learning strategies. And also design a self-study plan to continue their learning after on-site work. Learners’ comfort in their learning environment is also important and considered in the development.
The idea to define curriculum content by core and variable elements enables everyone using the framework to tailor programs to meet individual needs with little time to prepare and few guidelines.

Article 8: A curriculum framework for corporate language

As I was reading this article, at first I did not understand what Laura Hull was trying to get at. It was not until I read the part when she wrote about implementing the program learning plan that it started to sink in on what she was getting at. Her curriculum framework for corporate language, to me, would take a lot longer than six months to put together. I like her strategies. Her format was very comprehensible to me.
Her appendix A: Curriculum framework was more into detail and I would be able to implement this for a syllabus. Appendix B: Sample needs assessment I prefer because this gives the instructor more information on the individual. This assessment tests the individual for proficiency in determining ones level of English competency, seeks information about how the students used or were expected to use English, and finding out how the students perceived their own needs.
Her learner training included both learning styles and learning to direct one's own learning. This meant that the learners became aware of their preferred learning ways of learning, analyzed their benefits and drawbacks, and learned news ways that was necessary to them.
The best part I liked about this article is that there were what I would call follow-ups on their course. Even though the course was over, there was an independent ongoing learning plan which had an initial follow-up, a three month questionnaire, and a six month follow-up workshop in what ever country the student was at. This would make any student feel like they're not left out in the cold. If they're really interested in learning the English language, they would continue to do so, knowing that they will be checked on to see if they really continued to learn the English language.

In this article, the author combined the course topic as “advanced listening” and “contemporary lifestyles and issues in the United Kingdom and the United States”. I think it is a right choice because they are linked to Japanese students' reality and needs.
The author preferred a more interactive teaching style than in a language lab (LL). The author thought the key to the success of the course seemed to be finding the right materials, such as good textbooks, songs, movies, animated cartoons, news programs, TV programs, and so on. For the supplementary materials the author got the idea from one of the student essay and also from her colleagues that students would select listening materials and teach them to the other students. As the author admired herself, I think this is a brilliant idea. I remember that when I was a college student in Japan I was very interested in learning English conversation through romantic American movies. And it worked very well to practice English hearing.
I could find the importance of students’ autonomy of learning not only in this article but also all of the other articles in this ED661 textbook. I realized the importance of the learners’ autonomy in course designing.
The author’s next task was to write start of the year letter to students, describing the course and the author’s expectations. In this letter the author mentioned that the author will act as a resource person and guide in the class and gave four requirements for satisfactorily completing the course.
1. Attendance and punctuality.
2. Completing the homework assignments.
3. Keeping a daily listening diary.
4. Complete a group project.
For the group project, each group would select a listening material related to one topic area of course and design a listening task for that material and teach them to the other students. Thus the author designed the group project to obtain input from the students, offering them choices, and having them take the teacher’s role.
I agree the idea of the group work, however, as the instructor the author should lead the students who take the teacher’s role. Otherwise the students will confuse whether they are learning right or not learning appropriately.
Throughout the practice, the author experienced and found that some change is required for her course. The author expected many things in her course design, however, through the practice the author found how a choice made on principle can fail to work.
When I read about the author’s final course evaluation, I remembered the last article “6 Designing a writing component for teen courses at a Brazilian language institute by Maria Estela Pinheiro Franco”. The author mentioned that how much the students learned from each other, not only from the group projects but just from the stimulation of being with a motivated and active group of learners. Because the same thing was mentioned in the last article 6 that the author cited in this textbook as “Many linguists and psychologists agree that interaction is crucial as a means of exchanging knowledge that would engender both development and learning”. I agree that the students act as “worthy rivals” for one another and will interact to share students’ ideas and build their knowledge.
In this article, the author expected that the students will meet the goal, however, because of a variety of interests, background knowledge, experience, language skills, and so on, the author must alter some aspects of her course. I think this is quite common and those try and error experiences will help the author to improve course design.

It was interesting to know how the author developed an ESL social studies course for seventh graders. The author wanted to teach a course that would bridge the gap between what her students could do and what they needed to do. To design a course the author brainstormed and decided that the document should be as explicit as the author could make it. And the author made the syllabus graphically and organized the goals and objectives.
The author’s idea for success of this course design was the students’ autonomy as well as competence. The author decided to transfer the responsibility for learning from the teacher to the students themselves. One of the ideas was a “contract”. Teacher would give each student a “contract”. The contract itself enabled students to develop and schedule their own study plan, thus transferring learning responsibility to the students.
The author had been considering the course, she had been thinking about the relationship between language and content. Then she decided to use “CALLA” as a textbook. I read “CALLA” handbook before for the other ESL class. “CALLA” is an instructional model that develops to meet the academic needs of ESL students. I think the author’s choice is right.
In this article, the author’s main goal is for students to be able to function competently and autonomously in the mainstream classroom smoothly. This goal encompasses the three areas of language, content, and strategies. I think this course design is quite well designed. I understand that the students in a content-ESL program are faced with a formidable task: learning academic content and learning academic language at the same time. I think the author’s idea and efforts of this course design will work well with careful execution (teaching) to ease the ESL students’ heavy burden.
Show parent

In this article, the author emphasizes the importance of reading and writing skills for her teen students. Through my experience I agree with the author. I had English education in Japan through 7th grade up to sophomore of university. Most of my English lessons in my schools were reading and writing. And this makes me feel more confidence about English.
When the author design a writing supplement, the topics are of interest to the students and something new. I really agree about the way of choice of topics.
In the writing supplement the author thought quite important for the engagement of her students in the writing process was interaction or collaboration.
“Writing Folder” of Appendix A, shows the writing process of three drafts. The first draft is written by the writer then the students exchange their draft and the writer make the necessary change based on the peers’ comments, this is the second draft, then the third draft is reviewed by the teacher and rewrite by the writer again. This writing process makes the students develop new ideas about a certain topic and learn new vocabulary.
I agree that this writing process will interact to share students’ ideas and build their knowledge, and through the successive drafts the writers refine their thoughts, structures, and grammar.
I am also interested in Appendix B: Symbols for Error Correction and Checklist for Peer Feedback. I may use “Symbols for Error Correction” when I teach in future. This article is instructive as the other five articles in the textbook. I could get new idea for designing syllabus.

Attention: Bloggers

Fujiwara's article focuses on providing student perceptions on work done in class. In other words, her consideration was geared toward keeping students interested and motivated by having them submit reflections so that the instructor can make adjustments to the curriculum. So where is everyone's input? We should be taking advantage of this element of communication in the form of this blog so that we learn from each other and provide considerable feedback. Remember, our input is valuable to our learning process.

Article 7 - Planning an advanced listening comprehension elective for Japanese college students

As I was reading this article, Barbara Fujiwara stated that this was going to be hard to do because she would have to design a whole years course in abstract. He planning process would have to come from layers and layers of assumptions, experiences, and knowledge.
Barbara's aim was for her students to leave the course with an interest in and ideas for using English-language listening materials to maintain and improve their language skills. She also considered providing a rich and deep context for language learning. Another consideration was to keep students in the course.
She did a mindmap with four objectives: increasing students' listening comprehension, increasing learner responsibility for understanding, learning the language through listening, and learning about contemporary lifestyles and issues in the United Kingdom and the United States. Some other topic areas which she felt were important were multicultural society, female and male roles and relationships, education, changes in family structure, and social problems.
Two Goals:

• Learning how to learn through listening
  
• Increasing understanding of life in the English-speaking countries.

Four requirements:

• Attendance and punctuality
• completing the homework assignments
• keeping a daily listening diary
• doing a group project each semester

All-in-all, Barbara had learned that five topics were too much and had cut it down to three. One was boring, the talk radio show was good because it discussed real conversations on topics her students' were interested in and in return, had two callers for each topic which provided more context.
I think a lot of how she did her planning of her courses came from the feed back of her students. This I feel was a way for her to add, delete or adjust her courses.

Reflection on article 6

As I was reading this chapter, it dawned on me that I kind of started out this year in my new class room, almost the same way. It's my first year to teach SPED. I teach second and third graders English and language, and fourth and fifth graders, math. In the beginning of the year, I was given the lesson the my students were suppose to start with, but I had to do my own assessment to find out how much they knew and and where they were at. I tried to follow what was given to me but I had to test each student individually to see exactly where they were at. As Maria did with her students, I did the something similar to what she did. For example, I started my reading students on reading mastery level two, lesson one. As I was moving on to the next chapter, I noticed that out of my 5 students, two were on task, one did not comprehend, one was autistic and couldn't read, and the other one has ADHD and wasn't paying attention. That was a mistake when the D.I. coordinators expected me to start everyone on the same lesson at the same time. Well, as time progressed, I separated my students into two groups. I wish I could have done a "mind mapping" with my students. It would have made things go a little smoother in my class. Now that I have finally separated my students into two groups, I'm able to progress faster with the one group that can do more than one lesson a day. My student that has ADHD is not in a group anymore and has a one to one who focuses on life skills. If I am given the chance to work with SPED students next year, I will tell the coordinators of D.I. that I will do my own assessment and do my own "mind mapping" before I start them on any program. As Maria had done with her students, I would like to do the same strategy.

Reflect the UnReflected

As I was writing my Reaction Paper #1, I had this sudden realization that I could be in a situation like one of our course developers in which I will pilot a course of my own. My initial reaction was fear. Will I be ready for this leap into space? Will my experiences hold me down and keep me sane? Shortly after all the questions and "what if's" I realized something. I am not alone. Most of the developmental successes and blunders sit here in front of me, embedded in this book I am reading. These pioneers have run their ideas and concepts through the ringer of course development and have provided a path - what to do and what not to do. I believe that the more we, as a class, immerse ourselves in the idea of piloting a course, similar to these articles, then we will be more prepared when the time comes. We are the predecessors, let us take advantage of the road already taken.

A Friendly Reminder

Image source: http://ftcneiu1.tripod.com/

Dear ED661 Students,

I hope all is well. I am pleased with the article postings you've submitted in our ED661 Moodleroom, as well as as the entries in our ED661 Blog. As a reminder, blog entries must be grammatically correct. Refrain from any slang messages, as this online journal is further reinforcement for you to practice your writing skills, and essentially reflect on the ED661 assignments you've engaged in. As a result, this further enhances your learning experience.

Keep in mind that you must also respond to at least a couple of your classmates' entries by simply clicking on "comments" and then the "publish your comment" button. If you haven't posted a comment yet, be sure to revisit our ED661 Blog and post your entries. Due to copyright issues, don't forget to also include the source of the images you upload.

Our next face-to-face class session will be held Saturday, Sept. 29, 12:00 p.m. - 1:00 p.m., at the UOG Computer Center Lab, Rm. 107B. Refer to our revised Calendar of Events for further details. Keep up the good work, and feel free to contact me anytime.

Best Regards,
Dr. Rivera

Reflection on Article 4 Designing a seventh-grade...

As I stated in my response earlier, I practice many of the ideas/methodologies, and other skills related to my teaching practices-both at the elementary and post-secondary levels. I have found that many of the ideas mirror my own practices. I've realized that I "do" have some pretty sound practices established especially for the EN085 classes. I like to think that these ideas are shared universally. However, in the wonderful world of education, many of us seem to have missed the boat (myself included) at the most crucial times. I speak of our human nature and how we get self-absorbed in our neat and tidy little classrooms...and we tend to get wrapped up with the day-to-day stresses. As a result, we are too tired to continue out "professional growth" work. Thus, we miss the boat on great new and refreshing idea, methods, strategies and as Fisher so perfectly stated when referencing her goals for the pilot program, "they didn't say anything" about what or how to teach... I think I have been down that lane too. I, on many occasions, have created something so broad or inexact that even I had a hard time figuring out what to do. So, what did I gain from this activity? Pay attention! Listen (actively), become more aware of what others are doing...who knows maybe (we) can pick up a few new ideas!

as always...
I remain
Si' Maria

"Don't walk in front of me, I may not follow; Don't walk behind me, I may not lead; Walk beside me, and just be my friend."--Albert Camus,Nobel Prize-winning French writer

Reflection ED 661

My reflection on Fisher's chapter of designing a seventh-grade social studies course for ESL students at an international school was interesting. She had to create a course from classes that she was already teaching. By keeping in contact with her students, she would identify skills they were lacking and what their needs were to meet the demands of other classes in the curriculum. She needed to know her students very well in order for her to design a curriculum and know how to go about implementing them in order for her students to be successful. I believe that her pinwheel image was what helped her tremendously to achieve her goals.
Fisher also had to raise the performance level of students so they could function successfully in the mainstream academic social studies course, to orient students to the particular skills, vocabulary, and rhetorical styles of the social sciences. She also had to elevate general language skills in both academic and social settings, and to use the course as much as possible for future development work of content teaching.
Fisher had gone through quite a few obstacles but had successfully created a design to fit her students needs.

New View

I have been thinking a lot more about my course outlines, activities and evaluation methods in a more culturally sensitive perspective. The literature we have covered and the comments each of us have contributed to the forum on the MOODLE has really made me see teaching and course planning differently. I know that the research methods conducted by each author will be extremely valuable for my future as an ESL teacher in a foreign country. There is much to learn from the mistakes made by our pioneers.

testing

Article 4-Designing a Seventh-grade social studies course for ESL students at an international school

As I was reading this article, I could relate to what Fisher was trying to put together. I too, had learned a lot from the chapters of Chamot and O'Malley's CALLA book. This strategy of brainstorming and using a web graph is one of the best ways to compile ideas on a special topic and gather whatever resources you need to create a lesson and make sure that you are looking out for the ESLer's interest. It will be hard but if you have your main topic, in this case, social studies, you can web this type of strategy for any subject. So long as you always keep in mind of your ESLer's, their need (individually), and work out your web, it can be done. This technique can also be used technology. For example, you want to do social studies on the Micronesian culture. I found that PREL is very resourceful in that subject. PREL even goes as far as giving you common every day words or phrases in the different Micronesian languages. I might use language as part of one of the student's assignment, they would exchange phrases and words in their language and give it to a classmate who is from a different island. I could also have them share their culture, different kinds of food, clothing, religion, and what they like to do in their spare time for enjoyment. The students would learn a little more about their peers to where they won't feel too uncomfortable or too shy to share with each other.
Many students feel that because their are of a minority group, that they don't want to speak out in fear that they might be ridiculed or be intimidated. We as teachers would all learn by this experience. We are all learners too!

Here goes!
I had the hardest time blogging but here I am. Just to let you all know, if you weren't able to blog like me, I had to install firefox. I was having a cow because I couldn't do anything with my blog. I'm really glad to be back in the swing of things again. I know this course will teach us all some very valuable techniques that we will be able to use in our classrooms. I'm not one to use a computer too much but I'm going to make it a point to do as much as I can and to stay on top of things. I believe that with the help of my peers and Dr. Rivera, this semester will be great!
P.S. Check me out in my younger years as a surfer. Nah! Just Kidding!
Aloha, Maka

About today's class

Tga

About today's class

Tga

Off to a great start

Hafa Adai!

I would like to share my thoughts regarding the class and our group. I love the easy-going approach that the instructor and group has generated. The atmosphere is welcoming and I am happy and grateful to be a part this group.

As far as the reflections and readings, I think the idea of having us share our thoughts on line is a great idea. The insight well prove beneficial to all. I am an assessment person, so article eight will be fun for our group project. Becky and I are colleagues at Ulloa, needless to say, we will have ample opportunity to work on this together. (The Pun is when DI is over...which is when again?) Just a joke. Hopefully we will be afforded the time by our administrator to work on something that can be applied in the classrooms at Ulloa. To be continued...

FYI: I love quotes so you'll be seeing some pretty cool ones on this blog!

chow,

si' Maria

"It is every man's obligation to put back into the world at least the equivalent of what he takes out of it."

--Albert Einstein,
German-born Swiss-American physicist

"There are two types of people -- those who come into a room and say, 'Well, here I am!' and those who come in and say, 'Ah, there you are.'"

--Frederick Collin,
lawyer and judge

Hello Dr. Rivera and fellow classmates of ED661....It is a pleasure to be in this class...I am looking forward to working more with the internet and ESL...it is more a challenge for me because I am a face to face and more hands on with my learning. I look forward to our class discussions and learning more about Second Language Learners and learn from my fellow classmates...Becky

Buenas!

I am so stoked to be a part of this class. I wanted to test the blog and add an image. Article 2: due in a few. I will comply with my eye and my pet fly. Okay bye.

May the Knowledge Volcano spew forth and into our lap...tops. ;o)

P.s. It was a pleasure meeting everyone.

first meeting

Hi Dr. R, It was a pleasure to meet you. I am still trying to get you a few more students for the class. I'll let you know. :)
mary

We will learn about second language theory and development.