Week 9. Online Tools and Softwares for Reading and Vocabulary in Second Language Learners.

By Vanesa Paniagua

Articles: Online English-English Learners Dictionaries Boost Word Learning.

Rate:3

Article: Using Technology to Assist in Vocabulary Acquisition and Reading Comprenhension.

Rate:3

When learning a new language it is necessary to develop each language learning skill in order to acquire and produce the language properly. Moreover, one of the skills that we as teachers should improve in our students is reading and vocabulary and a way to help students with this it is using Internet tools. For example, teachers must encouraged students to use online dictionaries but taking into consideration some aspects:

1.Corpus based compilation of words: which means the content based on real –world spoken and written.

2.Word frequency data: high words frequency and low words frequency.

3.Collocation guides: the use of Corpora, which is the word combination that normally go together.
4.Authentic examples of how words are use: the abundance of examples sentences.

      5.Topical vocabulary: indicates how the words relate semantically to different categories.

However, multimedia can be use as well for vocabulary-building, since it is a central component of good computer-assisted skill-building software. One example is CAVOCA which is an interactive program where students have different stages “deduction, consolidation, long term retention”, when acquiring new vocabulary.

To sum up, reading and vocabulary are very important abilities that needs to be developed in students and can be accomplished by implementing different software and internet tools in second language classes. 

Week 8 Online Tools for the Improvement of Students Writing Competences.

By Vanesa Paniagua
Article: Online Collaborative Writing Using Wikis.
Rate: 2

Learning English sometimes could be a pain in some students since they face problems with writing skill because as we know when pronouncing English it is totally different as it is written and for this reason, second language learners need to be careful with this.

Moreover, the information that was presented in the article for this week  was king of interesting, since it is focused in the writing skill while using technology and the tool that they mentioned was “Wiki”, which is a website where anyone can edit anything anytime that it is necessary.  Beside, wikis are useful for students to practice and develop writing by creating books report, poetry, class blogs, short stories, and others.

Therefore, Wiki it is a great tool to practice online writing as it is showed in the article, which was focused in a writing lesson and students needed to create a collaborative writing by using different prompts related with school, and this article was required to pass  through many stages like to revise carefully each paragraph to then publish it. In my opinion, it is a good idea to design wiki writing projects because promotes the use of technology and the improvement of students'  writing competences.

Week 7 Internet's tool for the improvement of students' reading and writing skills.

By Vanesa Paniagua

Articles: Using the Internet in ESL Writing Instruction.

Rate: 4

Article: Using Internet-Based Children's Literature to Teach EFL.

Rate: 3

Nowadays technology has become very popular mainly in kids and teenagers and for this education should take advantage of this fact in order to implement technology tool to improve different students’ skills. Moreover, for this week was related with the use of Internet tools for writing and reading skills. Also, in the article it is stated that for a reading lesson students must be given with text related to meaningful issues for the present days, since Internet provides a number of sites to choose and in this way students will be encouraged to do something different and then share their ideas during the class, rather than assign the same reading for the whole class.

Furthermore, for the improvement of writing we can encourage students to find different styles for writing a document.  Besides, in the text it is been presented a lot of awesome and useful links where students can practice their writing by creating a letter to a friend, a bibliography, a description of a person and even an argumentative essay.

Otherwise, when using Internet tools in education teachers have to prepare carefully all the materials, taking in consideration the advantages and disadvantages, as well as the time management for each activity developed online and the most important to be heedful that students make a good use of the Internet during the classes.