Saturday, 21 January 2012

"Only the curious will learn and only the resolute overcome the obstacles to learning" Eugine S. Wilson

This has been a crazy week, plenty of exams and papers to check! That's why most of my assignments were done at night time. It has already become a habit of mine to look at new posts and comments. I was curious to find out what other people were doing, to see their reaction to everything that happened in our class. But let me start from the very beginning.


On Monday I got my assignment for this week. I started reading and was rather puzzled. Now, when I think back I can't say why. Either because there was so much info or because I got lost in it, I don't know. As always, I started with the most difficult task, at least it seemed to me to be difficult. That was writing the ABCD objectives. I must admit that I never liked writing objectives. We used to discuss objectives at our department, but somehow I was not interested in them. That's why now, when I saw the task I realized that it's high time to clarify things and  see what is what. To my astonishment, it was not difficult at all, I just had to read attentively and to follow the instructions. The posts made by class participants were of great help. They made me realize I was on the right way. So, I guess now I'll have to review the objectives in my curricula. Having done what seemed most problematic to me, I left the "class", as there were plenty of papers to check and give marks. 
That's why, I was really grateful to Jodi for reminding us what we'd done and what was to be done. 


The second task was to try all the search engines and to comment on the one we like. It took me some time to figure out that not all of them are suitable for my particular needs. But I was very insistent and tried most of them. I really like http://www.twordy.com/search.php. It seems rather simple but it directed me to many useful pages. I was able to find interesting facts for the Linguistic Club that we have at our department. So I made a selection of new words and untranslatable words and presented them at the club. My colleagues liked the site, too. Exalead is the other search engine that I find useful for linguistic purposes.

Our third task was to describe a group of students with whom we would "experiment". I described my third year students, as I know them pretty well (I teach them for three years already). But just recently I found out that they are going to their teaching practice after the session. So now I don't know what to do. Well, I'll have another group of third year students from IT faculty, but I don't know anything about them yet. The only thing that I know is that there are 15 students and their English is fluent. I have to ask Jodi and Sherie if I can change the class for the project. 


That's all about this busy week. Despite the shortage of time and some frustration I enjoyed working in group. It really was "group work" as I learned a lot from the other participants.


N.B. I like the quotation i gave in the title, it tells us how we should be: curious to try everything in this course and resolute, 'cause not everything can be achieved with ease.

Best wishes, Ludmila.



4 comments:

  1. Hello Ludmila,

    I am happy to read your wonderful words. I like the way you present your ideas. I agree with you that we have to be curious to learn. Without learning there is no life! Enjoy!

    Thank you

    Salam

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yes we do learn a lot from each other that's why we there's a forum specifically for this class. I learnt a lot from you too!

    I hope I can contribute more to discussions next week!
    Cheers,
    Nur

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hi Ludmila,
    You summarised the week's activities excellently!
    Great Work.
    Vijay

    ReplyDelete
  4. Yes, you can most definitely change the class you want to use for the project, Ludmila. That's no problem.

    It's amazing to me how discussing the ABCD objectives and the other discussions really did feel like "group work" even though we were all in far corners of the earth.

    Jodi, Oregon

    ReplyDelete