My Reflections on Week 1

Dear all,

Welcome to my blog!

My name is Tania Belyayeva.

I would like to start my blog with two sayings which describe the profession of a teacher best of all, to my mind.

"A teacher takes a hand, opens a mind and touches a heart". 

(Author is Unknown)

"The best teachers teach from the heart, not from the book". 

(Author is Unknown)

I think that the profession of a teacher is very important. We do not only teach. We help students make discoveries with every second of every day. We help them realise what they are capable of and help them believe that they can achieve anything they want, they just need to try. We touch their hearts as well as they touch ours. We encourage and inspire them. They give us their love, respect and positive emotions in return.

To tell you the truth, I have never written a blog in my life, so this is my first experience. I am a bit nervous, I don't even know why. May be because it's a new step in my development and I am writing a blog for the first time in my life, and everything new and unknown makes you feel like that.

I can't believe the first week of the course is coming to an end. It was full of new discoveries for me, personally. I learnt how to use Nicenet. I used to participate in forums structured a bit diffently, so it took me  just a little bit of time to get used to the way Nicenet works. After 2 days I felt like I'd been using Nicenet all my life :) 

I learnt how to create a blog. I have never thought about blogging as a teaching tool before I read the articles presented on the course. As it is mentioned in the article http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/think/articles/blogging-elt 

there are 3 types of blogs - The Tutor Blog, The Class Blog and The Learner Blog. I think all of them are very important, but The Class Blog and The Learner Blog are the most useful. They involve students into work more. The Class Blog helps to create a more friendly atmosphere in the class and helps students to communicate online, outside the class. It involves technology, so it will be very motivating and interesting for students. The Learner Blog can take up a little bit more of teacher's time and effors, but it will concentrate and be devoted to one student only. Using such type of a blog a student can create a blog which would involve his interests and preferences. It can turn into his/her own studying world where all the interesting information can be stored, thoughts can be recorded and sharing can be made. 

I think that I would like to try creating a class blog with my students. I am sure it will motivate them and will be a new interesting and exciting step in their learning :)

I am looking forward to the beginning of Week 2 of our course. I am sure it will bring new discoveries, new challenges and will teach me a lot :)

Tania