Опис досвіду

Oksana Hryhorivna Kolomiets

A teacher of the English language

Of Lokhvytsia Gymnasium #1

The teaching experience description

Graduated from Horlivka State Pedagogical Institute of Foreign Languages named after N. K. Krups’ka in 1994.

Pedagogical working experience – 20 years

Category – highest

The last attestation provided by Poltava institute of after diploma education – 2014

The pedagogical problem under investigation:

“Information and Communication Technology For Effective Teaching and Learning”.

“The international organization UNESCO defined the XXI century as the century of polyglots.

  The American historian Henry Adams wrote in one of his works:

 “A teacher changes eternity, he never says where his influence ends”. So, what is necessary to be a real teacher? I will try and answer. You need conscience, but it is not enough to be a teacher; you need boldness, but it is not enough to be a teacher; you must have a great love to your Motherland in your heart, love to people, to the world we live in, but that is still not enough to be a teacher; you need to be a psychologist, but if you don’t possess all the previous qualities, that will not be enough either.

  The contemporary process of studying demands from a teacher deep knowledge of psychology, the ability to combine pedagogical technologies of teaching with the psychology of a child’s growth and his or her creative potential and to be increasingly supported by ICT. Among the main directions of my work and the tasks of my pedagogical activities I define the following ones:  integrity, interactivity, personally-oriented approach and the formation of the pupils’ competence.

    No doubt may be the fact that globalization, together with the development and fast spread of the new information and communication technologies have caused significant social, economic and educational changes all over the world.

The term ICT means Information Communications Technology, and it is often used to talk about computers and other technology use in schools. There are many ways to involve ICT in language teaching and this work deals with how to use ICT within the teaching of English. The interest to involve computers in teaching was awakened in the 1970s and has since then grown. Three of the major advantages of ICT are that it helps learners to gain control of their own learning and that it can help teachers individualise teaching.

    The impact of the digital wave has influenced a fully integral part of our lives integrating the IC technologies to our routines at high speed. Studying and managing a foreign language in this new context is a way of meeting a need in order to be apt and gain access to education and employment possibilities rather than being just a mere pleasing pastime to cater for leisure time.

    In the field of education, the introduction of the ICTs has brought about a paradigm shift in the teaching-learning process. Nowadays, our students are harnessing the new technologies and thus they learn in a new manner: they create knowledge rather than memorize and repeat content. Within this new digital environment, we, teachers, must provide our students with lessons where the outside world of emerging technologies is bridged to the classroom and act as guides. Learners should feel that they can have an online identity in networking spaces in order to increase opportunities for learning, to foster collaboration, motivation and knowledge-sharing.

The actuality of my work, in my opinion, lies in importance of using ICT to support traditional learning methods in which students are ‘passive learners of knowledge instead of ‘active producers‘able to take part in the learning process. ICT can change the lessons’ pace. Children in modern society need to develop sufficient potentials and skills that enable them to take full advantage from the new opportunities that ICT offer. Technological tools can enhance the quality of teaching and learning in schools, and so help learners to achieve better outcomes.

Furthermore, it has been proved that new technologies have lots of benefits on the students.

  The novelty of approach is that ICT allow for a higher quality lessons through collaboration with teachers in planning and preparing resources. Students learn new skills: analytical, including improvements in reading comprehension. ICT also develop some writing skills: spelling, grammar, punctuation, editing and re-drafting. Still new technologies encourage independent and active learning, and students’ responsibility for their own learning. ICT proves that students who used educational technology felt more successful in school they are more motivated to learn more and have increased self- confidence and self-esteem. It is also confirmed that many students found learning in a technology-enhanced setting more stimulating and much better than in a traditional classroom environment .

    Teaching English is certainly a joy to me and gives me immense satisfaction both on a personal and professional level. Since I obtained the English Teachers Diploma, this gave me a deeper insight as to the various and newest English teaching mechanisms available.

I have been teaching English for the past 20 years in Lokhvytsia Gymnasium #1 which taught me how to adapt my teaching style to suit the student’s requirements.

    I have an opportunity to teach English for children ranging from 6 years to teenagers. Although there is a great gap in the teaching style that should be used to teach this age range, I find it a challenge to match my techniques of teaching English with the students’ capabilities.

    There is a generation gap in how youth and adults view the value of online activity. Young people see social value in online activity. Youth are navigating complex social and technical worlds by participating online. They are learning the basic social and technical skills that they need to fully participate in contemporary society. They are navigating more dynamic social worlds, as online socializing blurs the line between public and private. Young people are motivated to learn from their peers online. The Internet provides new kinds of public spaces for youth to interact and receive feedback from each other, and young people respect each other’s authority online. Most youth are not taking full advantage of the Internet. They use the Internet socially, though other learning opportunities are abundant. Youth can connect with people from around the world and of different ages to pursue interests they do not share with their local peer groups.

    I use a variety of English teaching methods using different ICTs according to the student’s personality, knowledge level and experience. The aim of this work is to describe three of them – Learning Chocolate, Wordle and WordSift.

     Learners like Learning Chocolate Activities for Learning English. Learning Chocolate is a nice little resource for students. Learning Chocolate offers six learning activities in dozens of word categories.  Learner picks a word category such as animals or clothing then listen to the pronunciations of the words in that category. After reviewing the pronunciations students can choose from five different activities. Each word category offers three matching games, a fill in the blank game, and dictation activity in which students spell the words as they're read to them.

    Learning Chocolate could be a good resource for teachers in search of activities that students can do independently or at home with parents. Learning Chocolate also offers teachers the option to build activities using their own word banks.

    Another useful tool I have discovered is Wordle, which is a really useful site for creating word clouds.  You simply copy and paste the text into the word cloud generator and it gives you a word cloud . It can be used for differnt purposes in the classroom (Appendix 1). I have really enjoyed trying out this site and creating word clouds.

    WordSift helps anyone easily sift through texts – just cut and paste any text into WordSift and you can engage in a verbal quick-capture! The program helps to quickly identify important words that appear in the text. This function is widely available in various Tag Cloud programs on the web, there ia an ability to mark and sort different lists of words important to educators. There are also few other functions, such as visualization of word thesaurus relationships (incorporating the amazing Visual Thesaurus  and Google searches of images and videos. With just a click on any word in the Tag Cloud, the program displays instances of sentences in which that word is used in the text.

Creative teachers will find an endless variety of uses for WordSift  (Appendix 2).

    So, WordSift enables teachers to create an environment where language is "talked about" as richly as possible. Much of language cannot be taught directly, but much of language is learned through active talk, so why not have a way of talking about language?

           The most important my achievement during the last years is Anna Mits, a pupil of the eleventh form, who has become the alumnus of the Future Leaders Exchange Program (FLEX), which is a US government-sponsored program for secondary school students. During last 5 years I have three winners in the III stage of the Ukrainian olympiad of the English language in Poltava.

  I do my best in involving the pupils to the participating of the English language weeks at the Gymnasium, as well as thematic parties, different festivals and other afterclass activities conducted in English.

  Last summer I worked in Summer Language Camp held on the basis of Gymnasium #1. The programme offered engaging language learning experience for children, with fun activities and atmosphere of summer camp. ICT was a great helper in creating programme with the variety of exciting activities for campers, espessially the youngest ones (Appendix 3).

  Clearly, self-education is the key to my personal development. Learning is what helps people understand their world, participate in that world, and make good judgments about what they see. Self-education and the embrace of lifelong learning is becoming a critical mindset to navigate our rapidly changing world. Fortunately, the Internet has made it easier than ever to find the right resources to spark our curiosity and learn what we need to know. I am a participant of numerous seminars, webinars and trainings held by company «Лінгвіст» and MM PUBLICATIONS, Cambridge University Press, National Geographic Learning Cengage Learning, Delta Professional Development.

  I have been awarded by some diplomas from Lokhvytsia district educational department of the District Authorities for active work with gifted pupils and qualitative preparation for English contests and for successful work and organizing activities in Summer Language Camp.

  I am happy to have been a member of a large Gymnasium’s #1 staff for almost twenty years, the head of the methodical society, a class teacher and just a teacher.

   As a teacher I'm challenged to think strategically , nurturent, and most of all patient. I believe that teaching though stressful as it could be but a rewarding career too. I'm deeply interested in the fields of ICT, education and communication.

The method of ICT encourages me as a teacher to master my professional skill constantly and develop this method for the future. My creative credo helps me in this, those are the words by Y.A. Komensky: “The mysteries of fast and reliable success are hidden in personal practice”.