My Blog

It is much more than Web material in TEFL ….

Lifelong learning and EFL in Greek state schools

Posted by ΜΑΡΙΑ on May 18, 2010

With respect to previous blog posts, there is no need to mention that lifelong learning has assumed the value of a professional duty. This is not only limited to the content-knowledge of our field of study, but it is also extended to cross-curricular areas and new classroom practices.

ICT literacy skills, for instance, are considered a must since they can enrich the learning environment (multimodal information input) and enhance students’ motivation. To take advantage of these benefits, the National Ministry of Education, Lifelong Learning and Religious Affairs has initiated many actions since 2000. In my opinion, the most important are the services provided by the Greek School Network Sch.gr

As far as TEFL is concerned,e-yliko collection of lesson plans ideas and WWW resources are a useful point of reference too.

Also, the licence of the commercial software material “English+” has been bought for use in state schools. It is claimed to cater for Elementary and Intermediate level students’ needs. You can find technical and methodological guidelines or even some training material at this link

Moreover, the Pedagogical Institute has created their own computer-based software to complement classroom EFL resources. So, if you are interested to update your TEFL practices, you can find it online for Junior High Schools on these links:

English for Beginners

English for Intermediate-Advanced students

and for Primary Schools on the following web address:

English in 4th, 5th & 6th Grades

Finally, although these initiatives are difficult to be implemented extensively in the school timetable due to time constraints (especially in the secondary education), they can hopefully help EFL teachers meet their students’ profiles more effectively.

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RPLTL?

Posted by ΜΑΡΙΑ on May 5, 2010

Have a nice month!
In a week, classes in secondary schools officially end and the exams period of May-June begins. Everybody must be really working hard to meet his/ her deadlines and to round up the school year successfully. Nevertheless, I would like to keep publishing new posts in my blog. To tell the truth, I was running out of ideas to write about, but I got a helpful hand from the latest issue of “ASPECTS today”, that is PEKADE’s quarterly magazine (as a member of this association I can receive it free of extra charge to my home address). So, the good news I read is that an e-magazine has been released by the Hellenic Open University. It is called “Research Papers in Language Teaching and Learning” and its web address is http://rpltl.eap.gr/. The first issue was published in February 2010 and it contains 18 papers by EFL teachers in Greek state schools. The fact that professional development should complement our working life seems to be a reality for a growing number of practitioners in the field.
Well, let’s welcome and wish RPLTL a long e-publishing life!

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“5,000 wishes for the eTwinning” from Greece

Posted by ΜΑΡΙΑ on April 25, 2010

The Greek National Support Service has arranged to create “a book of wishes” to celebrate the eTwinning 5th anniversary.

Are they going to beat their target?

They have decided to make the biggest online “book of wishes” in Europe!
Everybody must write creative wishes in Greek or in any other foreign language so that they could show Europe how much supportive Greece is to eTwinning. Their target is to collect 5,000 birthday wishes by 5th May 2010.

Will you join in?
You can write your own wish on this webpage

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Happy birthday eTwinning!

Posted by ΜΑΡΙΑ on April 18, 2010

On 5th May 2010, eTwinning is turning five years old!
So, you can click on the picture

etwinning_cake_medium2.png

to find out more information about that day and sing with your friends, colleagues, classmates:

“Happy birthday to you,
Happy birthday to you,
Happy birthday, dear eTwinners,
Happy birthday to you!”

5 years old

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TEFL resources

Posted by ΜΑΡΙΑ on April 12, 2010

Here you can find some of my favourite bookmarks with a short description:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/ for crosscurricular material
http://www.britishcouncil.org/learnenglish.htm for teachers, learners and parents
http://www.britannica.com/ for encyclopedia entries
http://www.poetryarchive.org/poetryarchive/home.do for a great collection of poems
http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page for free electronic books
http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/ for autonomous languages’ learning
http://www.brainyquote.com/ for quotations
http://www.usingenglish.com/reference.html for English language reference
http://www.e-yliko.gr/default.aspx for the Official Educational Portal by the Hellenic Ministry of Education
http://www.edutv.gr/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=75&Itemid=159 for subtitled videos by the Greek EduT.V.

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eTwinning is possible for …

Posted by ΜΑΡΙΑ on April 9, 2010

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The underwater life

Posted by ΜΑΡΙΑ on April 9, 2010

The underwater life

Since summer holidays are near, I thought of taking this photo to make it real. Even if the underwater life for these fish is artificial, it reminds me of the hidden beauty in the sea. In my opinion, people cannot live away from nature so we always try to have it around us.

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“Introducing & Developing Educational Activities for Students” by PEKADE

Posted by ΜΑΡΙΑ on April 2, 2010

On Saturday February 27th, 2010 I attended the event organised by PEKADE in Athens. It had been some time since I participated in a similar venue, so I was excited about it. Generally speaking, the organisation of the event was quite good although the place (parallel presentations in two hotel conference halls) did not lend itself to this end. I mean that classrooms could do much better so that participants would feel more at home and get a better picture of the issues at hand. Fortunately, the presentations I chose to attend were well-prepared and thought-provoking. Although my choice was sometimes influenced by the fact that I would avoid changing rooms, PEKADE tried to do its best. Well done!

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My etwinning life

Posted by ΜΑΡΙΑ on April 2, 2010

logo_etwinning.gif

I have been registered to eTwinning portal since last autumn and I find it a much-promising experience. Apart from getting informed on current eTwinning partnerships, I had the opportunity to join some courses in the eTwinning Learning lab on various topics, such as “The Creative Use of Media”, “Multiple Intelligences, a challenge in eTwinning” and “Building a Successful Project”. The working environment is friendly and supportive. You can read various teachers’ profiles from all over Europe, collaborate with them in tasks,
post comments with your opinion and learn from each other. Moreover, it is a safe environment to establish partnerships with
colleagues and make your students aware of their European identity.

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