I am
Niangoran Thierry Martial from Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, West Africa. I currently
teach ESP in a public professional high school (CBCG Cocody).
I have been posted in this school by the ministry for professional
education after my graduation from the national teachers’ training college
(ENS) in 2002.
 |
| My school the CBCG of COCODY, Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire, West Africa. |
I teach English for business and management, for finance and accounting,
for transport and transit, for tourism and leisure, for executive secretaries. My
students are teenagers aged between 15 and 25. French is their main language and most of them are preparing the national professional certificate (BTS). I
also teach adults and workers preparing the BTS in the continued education
section of the CBCG twice every week, in the evening.
My classes
are large, with about 50 students in each. There are no air conditioner in the classes which are consequently very hot and the
main teaching tools are black boards and chalk. The administration has just set
up a little cyber-coffee to allow students to cope with the lack of documents.
However, despite these difficult conditions, I love my job as a teacher because I believe with Nelson Mandela that “education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world”.
However, despite these difficult conditions, I love my job as a teacher because I believe with Nelson Mandela that “education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world”.
My expectation while taking this
course is to learn how to lead changes for the introduction of ICTs in English teaching
practices in my school. As a teacher, I
can see that nowadays, most teachers and students in my school have access to
the internet through cyber-coffees but also through mobile phones
which have a lot of success in Côte d’Ivoire. I want to learn how best we might
use these innovative tools to support and improve learning in our large classes
where it is getting more and more difficult to arouse students’ interest
through memorization of vocabulary and learning of structures.
Hello Thierry Martial: I enjoyed reading your first post. Thanks for the picture of your school!
ReplyDeleteWe have a similar situation in Mexico: lots of students have cell phones that apparently are more "interesting" than paying attention to the class or sitting at home to study a language formally (with or without a computer). I think that new technologies are extremely useful when a person is self-disciplined and really wants to learn... when someone is not disciplined at all, the latest technology will not perform the miracle. Discipline and motivation are equally applicable whether they are related to old technology like black boards and chalk, or to new technology, like the latest electronic gadgets.
As teacher, along with employing the use of new technologies, we have to encourage learner autonomy and help the students to increase their own motivation. This week I read an article called "Motivation and good language learners: 2008 " by Ema Ushioda (Cambrigde University Press) which says that motivation "...concerns what moves a person to make certain choices, to engage in action, and to persist in action...". The author explains that the Student-regulated motivation is extremely important for a language learning successful experience. She concludes by saying that, besides teaching and providing tools and real opportunities for learning, we also have to foster feelings of personal responsibility, importance of learner´s motivation, collaborative learning and "...lead learners to reflect on and evaluate their own achievements and learning experience in a constructive manner,... to analyze problems experienced and their underlying clauses and to identify positive steps they can take to address these areas".
What's your take on that?
Hello David.
DeleteThank you for your contribution to this first post. I totally go along with you that the use of new technology for education purpose must obey some rules among which discipline is the most important. Is there any link to the article you are mentioning? If so, please drop it on Nicenet in the "link sharing" area or the "documents" area This will allow us all to profit by that document and to enrich the discussion about motivation and personal responsibility in language teaching. Thanks again.