Week 3: Haiku

For the last week's discussion thread, I had explored various sites and struck at Haiku for next lesson to my class. Its not a new term to me, rather I was introduced to it when I was attending a teacher training course in 2004. I wrote my first Haiku then.
I have seen Fifth grade students in private English-medium schools successfully composing these three line poems in 5-7-5 syllable pattern. May be for some readers it would be a new term still, but in my opinion writing Haiku can be a good lesson in writing skills focusing on boosting their creativity.
My students, who are at intermediate level, were able to produce some very interesting Haiku. I would like to share them with you here:
                                             Autumn Leaf
       It is Autumn time
       A leaf no longer green, falls!
       Softly kissing earth.
 
                                         Love
      Love like a deep ocean
      Has large and small stormy waves,
      And it flows and goes.

                                       Blossoms
        The fallen blossoms
        Seemed to fly up to their branch!
        They were butterflies.

                                     Friends
Friends are those beans, which
Seldom ripe to change the taste
Of your life for good!

Though I have specialized in ELT as a teacher but the appeal that I found in literature as a reader and researcher is immense. The joy that comes through reading such thoughts adds to the satisfaction that comes with teaching. The objectives of teaching this lesson were successfully achieved with exception to some syllable mistakes in some poems that I had to correct and recommend for revision.
today I have preserved them by writing in this reflective blog.
A far better substitute to students' port folio in hard copy.

I hope you will enjoy reading these pieces.




     

Week 2 Reflection/s:

Its my first time to attend an internet class.

When my other classmates, who belong to different parts of the world, discuss about their class population, audience and the facilities available to them; I could not help but draw comparisons.

I have had the opportunity of studying and teaching for a limited time in the UK and on coming home I tried to improvise in my teaching methodologies to make the learners more independent. I always encouraged them to rely more on resources like (library, internet etc) other than on teachers alone.

Today, I  feel the IT facilities that they do not have access to.

Most of them do not have net access at their home.

Ours is a Government run college with very limited funds. There is no IT center available for the use of all the students. The computer lab is there, but only for the students whose elective subject is computer sciences. 

Even if the teachers are well- qualified and up-to-date, they need the resources to inculcate the web skills in their lessons.

I keep on thinking that I will work on a small group of students and take my laptop for the projects of this E-Teaching course. 

I do take my laptop and USB Internet to college usually and that helps in lesson preparation for the topics new to me.

Its a teacher's resource for me.

I wish to make the ;earners more resourceful too.

Creating a blog:

Dear All,
Creating a blog had been difficult. I had created a blog with the same address and title in Week 1.
I had published my first post there too. Yet, I could nt put it to Blog Roll.
I am going to try for yet another time.
I hope the blog doesnt disappear after I close the page.
Best to all,
Yusra