KWL

WİKİS
Before I didn't know how to use wiki. Now, I want to use it more interactively with my friends because it is a beneficial site for colloborative work.I think that this tool can be used between students and teachers effectivelsand can cretae more attractive environment and provide the chance for the teachers to give studentsn more feedback and exercises.

How could you use wikis in teaching

The wikis is interactive, collaborative, up-dated, easy-to-use, and attractive tool for both students and teachers . A teacher can provide practices, assign students, and can check whether students complete a homework on the wikis and laso the studenst can reach easily what the teachers send for them. Also, wikis is also beneficila for colloborative group work. For example, in collaborative group work, students can share their ideas about a subject and build cloud and at the end by analyzing the information, they can reach the results. I haven't still used the wikis in detail, so I couldn't say many things before I use it more in detail.
This wikis is like blogger, but ı think that there are more sources for students to reach and benefit .In teaching, the wikis can be used in group work. For example, as a teacher , I would assign my students to make brainstorming about a topic and share their ideas about the topic and make an outline for writing. I think that many activities that are different form this example can be applied for teaching and learning  in the wikis.

Web 2.0 Tool - Forvo

An Introduction Video



Another Introduction

      

When you firstly enter www.Forvo.com  , you will see Home, Language, Categories, Pronounce and Users sections under them, you can see the language of day and its pronunciations under the right of the page and at the left of the page, you can see Categories (which includes pronunciations of the words that belong to a category) and Hot Category which shows the most pronounced words. Moreover, at the left of the page, you can also see your username, pronunciations and words that you added and there is ‘’ Add new words’’ button. In addition, at the top of the page, you can see how many words and language in the text and also at the left top of the page, you see ‘’Add words, Pronounce, Listen & Learn’’ sections. With these sections, you can add new words, pronounce words and learn listen and learn random words from different languages.

Next to the Home section, there is ‘’Languages’’ section. In the section, the languages are ordered according to alphabetical order and popularity. In addition, under the page, there is a link that shows all the languages in Forvo with their international codes and native names.

Beside ‘’Languages’ section, there is ’’Categories’’ section. In this section, you can find words with their pronunciations and see which category such as people, music, medicine, holiday etc. the words belong to. Under the categories, you can find the latest pronounced words and also by clicking on ‘’Complete Categories list’’ which is above, you can reach all the categories in Forvo.

By the categories, you can see ‘’Pronunciation’’ Section. In this section, you can provide the pronunciations of the words that have not pronounced by selecting the language that you know.

Beside Pronounce section, you can see Users section. In this section, you can see the number of overall users and total editors and also you can see the people who added lots of words and pronunciations.

More Detailed Video

      In order to use Forvo more effectively, you firstly need to register yourself. When you write your keywords on the search engine in Forvo, you can find key words that are related to your word from the different parts of the World and also you can download the different pronunciations of the some words from Forvo. While you are looking the different pronunciations of the words, you can vote the quality (whether they are good or bad) of them. If you are not satisfied with your pronunciations, you can repeat the pronunciations by recording them again. In addition, by writing a word whose pronunciations you don’t know, you can want someone to provide its pronunciation.

     If we want to use Forvo in Education, there are some ways for both teachers and students.

Example,

-         -  By forming groups in the classroom, teachers can assign students to find different pronunciations of a word according to countries or regions (in a country).

-         - A student can add words and want people to pronounce them. When s/he hears different pronunciations of words, s/he becomes more knowledgeable about the words that are used in the daily life.

-       -   Teachers can show different pronunciations of a word in the Classroom and help the learners to become aware of variability in the pronunciations of words in different languages.

o   In addition, there are some issues that should be considered.

-          While using Forvo with aim of learning the different pronunciation of a word, we should careful about which word we are learning because somebody can randomly say something that may not be the pronunciation of the word, so we should be careful about the pronunciations the words in order to learn in Forvo

-          In Forvo, many people can share  pronunciations. Although people give correct pronunciation of a word, listeners may not understand to which dialect the pronunciation  belongs to

-          A person who look for academic language may not find what s/he is looking for in Forvo

Applying Critical Thinking Activities in EFL classes

The application of critical thinking activities in EFL classes has become debatable issue for a long time for educators because the critical thinking activities provide a great deal of benefits to the learners such as using language communicatively and using cognitive skills like analytical and skeptical skills etc. actively while using language, but there are some limitations such as not having similarities with the classical education system about the assessment of the students, not having enough time for the application of the activities. Before I go further, I want to explain what critical thinking is.

     Critical thinking has been differently defined for years by many educators. according to Michael Scriven & Richard Paul (1987), critical thinking is cognitively  structured process of dynamically and effectively perceiving, understanding, visualizing mentally, analyzing, synthesizing and interpreting the information which is gained from ‘’ observation, experience, reflection, reasoning or communication’’ as a way to reach a belief and action. When we look at the characteristics of critical thinking in the definition, we can predict how critical thinking can be beneficial for language and thinking skills. When a person has critical thinking skills, s/he has the characteristics such as being skeptical and active thinker, being open-minded etc. My discussion pointing in this blog is that depending on the definition of the critical thinking how the application of critical thinking activities in EFL classes can be beneficial for the learners.

     There are many critical thinking activities that can be applied in EFL classes. Project Work, Dialogue Journals, Reading Log and Structured Controversial Dialogue are some of them. Critical thinking activities in language classes urge the students to participate actively and creatively and give the chance of using existing knowledge and communicative skills. Depending on critical thinking, we can say that critical thinking activities provide the chance of meaningful practice  and using existing knowledge, the students’ involvement in the activities both emotionally and cognitively, the use of the language apprehensively and productively, taking feedback for the students. (Gaskaree, Mashhady, Dousti, 2010, 38-39)There are several processes in the application of critical thinking activities. At the beginning, a problem that attracts the attention of the students is determined and discussed and then the reasons of the problem are analyzed and the possible solutions are explored. During these processes, the students have the opportunity of practicing and applying activities (Richards and Schmidt, 2002, p 420-421). Also, while these processes are applied, open-ended questions about the problem are asked to the students and they study on the problem by negotiating the meaning. As a result of the problem posing and problem solving process, the students become autonomous learners and realize the potential of their intellectual capacity and also their thinking and language skills with communication skills can be integrated.i

Videos related to critical thinking and critical thinking activities

One teacher bring critical into her classes. Her students are learning to take a "think locally and act globally” approach to problem-solving and new areas of inquiry in their learning as they develop their language skills. In the activities, the students actively involved in collaborative group work and they are open-minded and use their existing knowledge. Also, in this activity, the students analyze, synthesize and interpret the knowledge that they collected. Moreover, in the activities, they took role plays. As a result of these activities, their language, higher order thinking and communication skills develop and these skills are integrated.







Students form opinions about certain issues and demonstrate these opinions by selecting and then moving to a corner. In this critical thinking activity, the students work in collaborative groups or pairs and they use their thinking and communication skills. Also, as they use these skills, they are always active and open-minded.

I chose this topic in order to show the importance of the application of the critical thinking activities in EFL classes  and the according to me , critical thinking activities are important because in my learning environment such as high school , old teaching techniques are  still applied and this lead to lack of  effective and meaningful learning skills and this also lead to not able to use thinking ability more effective , so this situation may lead to the devastation of the students’  future education life and becoming poor learners and thinkers.

What do you know about critical thinking?

According to you, what is the importance of critical thinking activities for you?

What kind of activities would you apply in the EFL classes?

When I read your comments, I saw that all of you connected the critical thinking activities with the activities that we applied in our some courses. In brief, I can say that all of you are aware of how you learn meaningfully. I don’t need to say many things because some of your comments reflect what the importance of the application of the critical thinking activities in EFL classes. However, although some critical thinking activities or activities that seem as critical thinking activities are applied in classes, not applying critical thinking activities during whole classes and not teaching to the students how critically think, listen, read and see the life  aren’t completely taught with regard to me.

References

1- http://ehis.ebscohost.com/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=248f389b-4dfa-4ba1-acaf-362aa4ba1c3b%40sessionmgr4&vid=3&hid=2

2- http://neltachoutari.wordpress.com/2011/11/01/critical-thinking-in-esl-classrooms/

3- http://www.criticalreading.com/critical_thinking.htm

Evren Studying on Quizlet: animals in Turkish

My podomatic Conversation

KWL

Before I didn’t know what pod cast is. Now, I learned what a pod cast can be. I want to use it in my studies and share ideas (by this way, meeting new people). And also, I want to learn to what extend I can use Podcast.