Week 4: Making Me Think Critically

               This week felt like in a jail, closed in my apartment, not able to go out because of the hard frost (difficult to breathe in icy cold air and fog, no classes even for university students, people were let out of work two hours earlier, cars not allowed to leave the city, shops are running out of some products, such as milk and meat, because there is no communication between the city and the country). And then this mysterious way my sonny fell ill never going out, I spent several sleepless nights by his bed, that is why many of my posts seem rather stupid.
               Week 4 Nicenet discussion was a kind of a vent, a link connecting me to the civilization. Unfortunately, the connection with the Nicenet was very slow, or did not work at all most of the week.  And I felt like many people were not taking part in discussions – mid-term blues, as Sherie says…
What I personally find useful about the week is the discussion thread. Sherie asked us to have the ABCD objective for each link we shared, which we did not have to do in the discussion of Week 3. This requirement made me think a lot, I would look at each new site not like, “Wow, it is great!”, but “What use will it be to me, other teachers of English, or students?” There were a lot of sites I bookmarked, but did not share in the discussion, because looking at them with a critical eye, I can see no practical value.
               Now I have a great many sites bookmarked on all the four skills, one should be happy about that, but the number does not make the quality, I will not be able to use all of them in my class this year, or the following year. And then I ask myself, why bookmark the things you are not planning to use this year? And then there is the answer – I am going to share with my university colleagues! I know someday I will rediscover something on my delicious page, that is why I write notes on the bookmarks, like from Salam, from Val, from Hassan, etc. – to say thank you the day I find the bookmark once again.
               One more challenging thing was the lesson plan, because I had to present it the way everyone could understand what it was about. In our university nobody checks whether I have  a plan for my class, or have not, thus I know some people, not me, go to their class without any plans at all (you might get shocked here). Writing a plan is necessary it somehow disciplines a teacher, and then it makes you think, What is your objective? Is it clear to you, your students? Is it logical? What will you do to achieve it? How will you check you achieved the goal? What is the next logical step? Only this way our teaching will bring some use.
                Happy to be a teacher,