Successful distance learning strategies

So, what needs to be done to ensure that a distance learning course is a success, in a nutshell, treat it like a project. In this project, the project team is made up of you the student, the provider and their back up team and resources, the tutor that will work with you, and some important stakeholders. If you are the student, appoint yourself as the project manager. If you are an employer, appoint yourself as the client and behave like a major stakeholder in this project. It is important that you research potential providers. Look at the range of courses they offer. If it is massive, everything from dog handling to nuclear physics, then back away. If it is focused, with a core area of expertise, investigate that provider further, they are more likely to be serious and knowledgeable in that area of expertise. Check out the potential providers’ accreditations. In the UK and most developed countries, there are government appointed, or approved, accreditation bodies, sometimes known as validation bodies. If the provider is nationally accredited, in their field of expertise, by that county’s recognised accreditation bodies, that is a very positive sign. Once you have selected your provider and course, you need to prepare. This means thinking about what your planned course of study will mean to your lifestyle, your time, your social life, your domestic situation, your workload. With all these in mind, start preparing for your course of study by thinking. Think about the implications, think about what resources you will need. This includes computer equipment, almost certainly broadband access, and a physical study area. Although most of these can be found outside the home, most distance learning students do study at home. Think about what changes you will have to make, some small, some major, to successfully complete the course. This can include changes to your lifestyle, your social life, your domestic life, your work patterns, your hobbies and interests, there may, not always but often, need to be changes in some or all of these areas. Think about all the people who will be affected by your decision to take up a course of studies, see Stakeholders, below. Stakeholders, these, as in project management terms, are any people who have a legitimate interest in the project. In the case of a student taking a distance learning course, this means, partner, family, social friends, work colleagues, managers, employer, all have an interest in your decision and your study project, this means they are stakeholders in your project. Treat them in the same way that professional project managers treat their stakeholders. Think about their needs, think about their concerns, keep them informed appropriately, of your progress, treat them as partners in your project. Planning: plan how, and when, and what with, you will study. Draw up a timetable, if this is not already laid down by the demands of the course of its assignment or examination deadlines. Break it down into manageable periods. The course requirements, units, modules, assignments, examinations, will usually give you this structure. Plan when you will study, where you will study, how you will study. Plan time for reading, going on the internet, visiting the library, writing up assignments, traveling to sit examinations, all these need careful planning. Your course Tutor will often be able to help with this. She/he will have experience of assisting new students in planning their studies. Monitoring: monitor your progress on a regular, usually weekly, no less than monthly, basis. Use your tutor, she/he will be happy to give you deadlines, objectives, advice and guidance, that will help you manage the course and stay on target. Respond to changing circumstances. One of the most attractive features of studying by distance learning is that it is a flexible, adaptable, method of studying. All human beings, run into personal problems, illnesses, difficulties at work, family crises, become temporarily disenchanted, temporarily lose interest in the course. The bonus is that as a distance learning student, on most courses, you can manage these difficulties by slowing down, stopping, starting up again, speeding up, as often as it takes, because you are on a distance learning course. At the end of a project, professional project managers make sure that they carry out a close down routine. Make sure that you have successfully completed all the assignments, passed all the examinations, if any, and studied the course materials fully. Inform all the stakeholders that you have successfully completed the course, and achieved the qualification. Receive confirmation of completion, a certificate of achievement, a letter confirming your examination successes, for example. Thank all the people who have helped you succeed!.

Is teaching english challenging in korea

"A lot of people have said that Korea is one of the toughest places on Earth where you should be employed teaching English. When I hear this from teachers who have returned from Korea, I start getting a bit worried. English teachers in Korea have complained on a cross-section of issues. When I put down a list of these issues, I was shocked to see that none of them were pertaining to non-reception of the students or the audience. Demographically, Korea is divided into two parts – one the major cities and other the villages. Most of the complaints have come from people who have been teaching English in Korean villages. Their complaints are more on the subject of lack of basic amenities to teachers. Interestingly, a lot of teachers who have been teaching English in Korean villages have come up and said that they had to learn Korean (At least a little) to make the villagers understand. Teachers working in schools in major cities of Korea have complaints of a different category. Most of these guys say that they are made to work a lot extra than what was promised to them in their agreement. In employment terms, I could say that they do a lot of Overtime and yet not get paid. A major issue of teachers is that they just cannot adapt to the Korean lifestyle in order for them to save money of their salary. As it goes in Korea, if you adapt to their local lifestyle you would be able to save a lot of money. Else you could land up being seen as a spendthrift. A very minor percentage of Teachers of English as a foreign language in Korea said that they had been cheated off their jobs. Their complaints were direct accusations on the school management that they had been promised a salary of “x” won but not given the salary. Few of the English teachers have also come up and said that they were terribly insecure of their jobs. They say this as they had seen couple of teachers being fired right in front of their own eyes. More importantly, they were given just a day’s notice. All this should make you shudder at the thought of teaching English in Korea. My argument is – I have told you a list of challenges that you could face, at least given a gist of it. Why don’t you start preparing for the challenges to make your English teaching job memorable? As it has turned out, a teacher who goes well prepared to Korea has done well

Reading strategies for struggling readers

Struggling readers are simply individuals who have not learned effective reading strategies. Don't be too concerned if you aren't familiar with the term, "reading strategies;" most good readers never had to learn them; instead, they just use them naturally. Struggling readers, on the other hand, have no idea how their friends can finish their work before they make it through the first paragraph. Why is it that their friends are reading "Lord of the Rings" and they are still reading "Magic Tree House" books? How do their friends manage to read those really long and unfamiliar words with ease? Reading strategies can be organized into two distinct groups: decoding strategies and comprehension strategies. Decoding Strategies Without getting into a long debate over whether children should learn to read through phonics or whole language, the fact is that some students need to be taught explicitly phonemic awareness. Phonemic awareness is basically being able to pronounce the bits and pieces of words to turn them into words that the student knows or has heard. Even if the word is unfamiliar, students with good phonemic awareness can usually pronounce a reasonable representation of the word. Struggling readers need to be taught the sounds of the language--the phonemes--and to be given plenty of opportunity and coaching in their use. Some indicators that a student needs explicit instruction in phonemic awareness include: skipping words while reading, "sounding out" words incorrectly, attempting a pronunciation that doesn't make sense, and avoiding reading. It is helpful if students are able to recognize and spell a number of simple words. Dolch vocabulary words are great for younger students. For older students, try to get a list of the 1000 most common words in the English language. Phonemic awareness starts with letter sounds. Students learn how to pronounce various combinations of letters, and they learn that letters are not always pronounced the way they should be. Consider a simple example: the word, "the," is pronounced with a short u sound. Students compare unfamiliar words with words that they know; thus the necessity for a good repertoire of sight words. A common decoding strategy that is taught to struggling readers is called chunking. If students have developed some proficiency with phonemes, they can begin chunking unfamiliar words. Using their finger, they cover all but a chunk of the unfamiliar word. They pronounce it then move onto the next chunk. Once the student has pronounced all of the chunks, they try to put the chunks together and make it sound like a word they know or have heard. This strategy, again, requires a significant amount of practice and coaching. One school of thought considers the ability to decode words a precursor to reading comprehension. After all, if you can't understand the individual words, how can you understand the whole sentence? Often, a struggling reader will cope with their abilities by getting answers from other students, answering the text explicit questions (e. g. "The girl's red hair blew in the breeze." What color was the girl's hair?), or making excuses for not getting their work done--avoidance behaviors. Comprehension Strategies Good readers regularly re-read, predict, infer, conclude, question, compare, contrast; and the list goes on. Good readers don't usually realize what they were doing while reading unless someone forces them to reflect on it. Struggling readers do few of the things that good readers do. They generally have only one goal in reading--to get it over with. Understanding what was read is called comprehensionprehension strategies are those things that a reader does to understand a text. There is one main indicator that a student needs explicit instruction in comprehension strategies--they are good decoders, but they can't answer higher level questions about the text. Higher level questions are ones that involve more than just extracting words from the text. For example, a higher level question related to the last paragraph is, "What goals do good readers have in reading?" A reasonable answer would involve contrasting the goal that struggling readers have in reading, using the information about what good readers regularly do, and using prior knowledge or experience. There are many comprehension strategies that can be taught to struggling readers. Telling a struggling reader to just read it again won't cut it. They need direct support, explicit instruction, a lot of practice and coaching and many opportunities to experience success. Searching the Internet for reading strategies should garner a description of at least a dozen different tried and true strategies. Following is a brief description of just a few of them. Re-Reading - Not to be confused with "just read it again," re-reading is a deliberate attempt to find information. With the question in mind, students attempt to find relevant sections of the text to re-read. Once they zero in on a relevant section, they usually read a few sentences or paragraphs before and a few sentences or paragraphs after. Sometimes, it is necessary to re-read the entire text to get the desired information. Predicting - Using titles, pictures, or key words, students attempt to predict the content of a text. When the student reads the text, they make comparisons to what they predicted and what they read. Re-Stating - This strategy encourages students to look at main ideas. They re-state what they read in a shorter version. Sometimes this strategy involves restricting how long the summary can be. For example, can you re-state the description of predicting in only two words? The best support for struggling readers is individual and intensive. In my opinion, struggling readers make the most progress when they are given one-on-one support outside of the regular classroom. Individual support allows them to receive frequent and timely feedback on their efforts. Outside of the classroom means that the support is extra-curricular and does not interfere with their regular work. If you are a parent or a teacher of a struggling reader, find out what support is available at your school. Use the terms phonemic awareness and reading comprehension strategies to communicate what your child needs. If your school can't offer the support, look for commercial services. Even though it might cost money, the benefits will be outstanding; spend the money.

American civil war

The American Civil War took place in 1861 to 1865 in the southern United States; also in eastern, central and southwestern regions. The outcome of this bloody civil battle was the defeat of the seceding CSA. The primary leaders in the War were the well known Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis. Both of these men were corageous leaders, and huge names of their time, as well as ours. Casualties of the war include: Killed in Action: 110,100 Total dead Toll: 359,500 Wounded: 275,200 The war claimed more American lives than any other conflict in history, with approximately 560,000 total killed which at the time was a stagerring 1.78% of population and over 970,000 casualties which again is a staggering 3.09% of the population. Often times debated, the causes of the civil war, and even the name of the war itself, are still really left up in the air. When Abraham Lincoln was elected in 1860 seven states existed: These states were: South Carolina (December 20, 1860), Mississippi (January 9, 1861), Florida (January 10, 1861), Alabama (January 11, 1861), Georgia (January 19, 1861), Louisiana (January 26, 1861), and Texas (February 1, 1861). Lincoln was not even on the ballot in nine states in the South. Several Leaders from South Carolina had long been waiting for an event that might unite the South against the anti-slavery forces. As soon as the election returns were certain, a special South Carolina convention declared "that the Union now subsisting between South Carolina and other states under the name of the 'United States of America' is hereby dissolved." By February 1, 1861, six more Southern states had seceded. As a result on February 7, the seven states adopted a provisional constitution for the Confederate States of America and established their capital at Montgomery, Alabama. On March 4, 1861, less than a month later, Abraham Lincoln was sworn in as President of the United States. He stated on this date that he had no intention to invade southern states, but would use force to maintain possession of federal property. The South, especially South Carolina, ignored this plea by Lincoln, and as a result on April 12, the South fired upon the Federal troops there were stationed at Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina. The firing continued until the troops surrendered. This significant event is what many feel was the start of the American Civial War.

How to catch a leprechaun

This is for anyone who wants to know how to catch a leprechaun! So you want to catch a leprechaun? Coming from the Emerlad Isle I will tell you a wee bit about the "little people" and the fastest way to catch a leprechaun. My advice will help you when you decide it's time to catch a leprechaun just be sure you send me a little portion of his gold. Well when you want the best way to catch a leprechaun in the begining you should realize that you need to learn a little about him. In Irish legend there is no mention of women leprechauns however they must be there or how else would the little leprechauns be born? All little people have a very special job and now you've decided to catch a leprechaun you should be aware what this job entails. A leprehaun's first job is as a shoe maker. A leprechaun is said to make the best shoes in all the lands. Leprechauns speak Gaelic to each other although they understand and can speak English. Some leprechauns left Ireland to live in America at the time of the Great Famine. A leprechaun usually wears fine green clothes with some gold buckles. He has a distinctive beard. Though it may be a popular view, all leprechauns do not have ginger hair (although many do). They have either green or blue eyes just like the larger inhabitants of Ireland. Leprechauns are fairy folk who love to cause mischief linking nothing more than creating caos for fun. Leprechauns love a wee sip of the hard stuff - poteen! Poitнn is brewed from potatoes (an Irish favourite) or barley and it ranges between 90 - 100% proof! So be sure you don't take the offer of a drink from a leprechaun if you do catch a leprechaun or you'll wake up with a sore head and no gold! As leprecahuns love musical sounds and songs and partying the first thing to do is to lilt a small tune such as The Hills of Connemara which is a song about poitнn. This will get the liitle people's attention. A leprechaun's most improtant possesion is his crock of gold. A leprechaun's crock of gold is usually hidden beneath rocks and it can be found at the end of a rainbow. A leprechaun is never far away from his crock of gold! So when you want to catch a leprechaun the end of a rainbow is the first place to look. Now you are ready to catch a leprechaun! Once he ventures forth from his fairy ring you need to catch his eye. When you look in the eye of a leprechaun he is unable to move or escape. But never remove your gaze as he will run off having the speed of a rabbit. Once you've captured him keep a tight hold of and demand that he inform you were he has hidden his crock of gold. Now you know the way to catch a leprechaun the only thing that remains is to venture into the country side and find one.

English as a second language

The English language is the most commonly spoken language on Earth, either by native speakers or by people who have learned it in addition to their first language. More and more people everyday have the desire to learn English as a second language. The type of people who wish to learn it run the gamut from children in other countries who are required to learn English as part of their school curriculum, business professionals that wish to be able to communicate with their English-speaking peers, to immigrants who come to English-speaking countries such as the Unites States who need to learn the native language in order to gain employment, citizenship, and acceptance in their new home country. If you decide to become certified to teach English as a second language (TESL), you could be providing an invaluable service to thousands of people. As an instructor of English as a second language, you have the option of going abroad and living in one of dozens of countries where there is a high demand for qualified instructors. You may also remain at home, and teach new residents of the United States how to speak, read, and write the language. Either way, you need to be certified to provide instruction. Because there is such a high demand for instructors who are qualified to teach English as a second language, language schools are highly selective when it comes to hiring new teachers. Receiving your certification exhibits your drive to potential employers and shows that you are serious in taking on this challenging new career. Certification can be earned by taking courses at one of several campuses nationwide, and there are also certification course programs available online. Receiving your certification for teaching English as a second language will unquestionably prepare you to be a more effective and successful teacher by instructing you on how to teach grammar, vocabulary, speaking, writing, how to motivate your students, how to manage a classroom, and how to construct lesson plans. If you decide to teach English as a second language in another country, obtaining your certification will also better prepare you for a move abroad, which can be intimidating and stressful. You will have the confidence in knowing that you are entirely qualified to perform your new job, which will help to alleviate some of the stress in immersing yourself into an entirely new country and culture. Teaching English as a second language has many personal benefits. If you teach abroad, you will have the opportunity to break down stereotypes regarding our own American culture. You will learn about new cultures and traditions. You will be able to travel to neighboring nations. You will become self-reliant and self-assured, and you will no doubt make many new friends. In teaching English as a second language, will be able to develop your communication skills, which will give you a confidence that will help you to excel professionally and personally. Teaching the English language to students in foreign nations can be exciting, fulfilling, and highly enjoyable. It is a mutually beneficial experience for you and your students. Not only are you representing your own country and culture, and imparting your personal knowledge of the English language and your culture onto others, but you are also learning about other individuals, their experiences, their traditions and their languages. While broadening your mind and experience something totally unique, you are also embarking on an exciting new career, one that has the opportunity to open many new doors for you professionally. You will find that teaching English as a second language is a mutually beneficial experience for you and your students. Not only are you representing your own country and culture if you teach abroad, and imparting your personal knowledge of the English language and your culture onto others, but you are also learning about other individuals and their experiences and their traditions and their language. And if you are teaching stateside, you are providing a precious service to new residents of the United States. You are giving them the power to communicate in their new homeland. This power will enable them to find jobs, seek educations, and possibly gain American citizenship. That makes for an exceptional experience to have in your memories. Find the essential information on where and how to learn a new or second language at English as a Second Language.