Tuesday, 29 April 2014


CLICK ON  THE FOLLOWING LINK: http://iatefl.britishcouncil.org/2014/sessions/2014-04-04/pearson-sig-event-v2

Test Teach Test

What tools do teachers currently have at their fingertips to be able to objectively and accurately measure a student’s level of English? How can teachers identify what they need to focus on in order to help students make progress? How can they test their students again using the same standard assessment to see the impact of their teaching on students’ progression?
Currently, teachers often use self-prepared tests that they need to create and grade themselves, which is very time intensive and difficult to replicate. The alternative is to use practice tests from internationally recognised tests which are not self-scoring, or for students to take high-stakes tests, which is not a cost-effective solution to use solely as a progress measure, or informative about remediation.
In this session, David Hill, item writer for Progress, Pearson’s new and innovative all skills test, and Antonia Clare, author of Speakout, will discuss the merits of using an automated testing tool like Progress to objectively and accurately assess students’ competence and progress across a given course. They will look at how teachers can use the results from this test and apply them in a classroom setting with a coursebook to inform teaching and learning and improve learning outcomes.
[Please Note: There is a gap in this video between 17:57 and 19:46. Please fast-forward at this point in the video]

Tuesday, 8 April 2014


   I have elected to incorporate multimedia into the  curriculum by using
    my website  http://saponar.blogspot.com  to create an online course
   which is tailored on my students needs.   The primary benefits of
   this methodology are to:
- Develop a community of learners through online activities, like videolessons and interactive tests and quizzes (http://quizlet.com)

- Help students visualize concepts more easily, with dynamic mindmaps (http://ExamTime.com)

- Provide authentic assignments, like reading a CNN article on "virtual reality", followed by a video and a discussion in class

- Enhance accessibility, ie. absent students can keep up to date on what we have done in class

- Encourage collaboration and feedback (http://socrative.com)

- Help students document and present their learning through authentic assessments


Using multimedia has proved to have many advantages:
- Multimedia in class boosts motivation and self esteem.  Students take pride in learning new technology and enjoy using it in a creative way

- Students enjoy the instant feedback of multimedia and the relevance to their everyday lives

- Using multimedia gives students active, participatory roles in the classroom. They make decisions and control technology

- Multimedia encourages students to collaborate, hence develop teamwork and learning skills from their peers

- While using multimedia students often think more critically about their own progress and abilities

- Presentation is just as crucial as the content.  It is important for students to express themselves 
through video, audio or animation. Students can learn these design skills through first hand experience with educational multimedia.

Incorporating multimedia into my classes has also helped me adopt engaging teaching/learning approaches such as:
1. Collaborative learning:  Digital collaboration in learning activities is a fun, engaging way to learn that prepares students for success in the  work place.
2. Competency Based Learning:  This approach allows students to advance at their own pace, based on their ability to master a skill or competency. I have tailored my online course saponar.blogspot.com to meet different learning abilities; this has lead to more successful student outcomes.
3. Social Learning:  Many of today’s digital learning tools and techniques incorporate a social element: blogs, Facebook, etc.
4. Flipped Teaching and Learning:    Although the "Flipped" method of  instruction is not a revolutionary approach (it is rather relabeling of many existing and accepted teaching strategies),  it has definitely proved to be a successful and fun way to teach and learn: removing the traditional class teaching from the process has freed up time for both teacher and student, allowing everyone to get on with in-depth, creative projects that are driven by personal interests.