Online lessons and the school radio as components of teaching the mother tongue

Gohar Baljyan

As it is known each innovation, especially if it concerns high technologies, is implemented in our life to make our work easier. With the existing environment of media education the teachers and learners of "Mkhitar Sebastatsi" Educomplex have come to a new educational level with new prospects ahead. In addition to numorous innovative programs at our school, we have been using the method of online lessons for about one academic term. The form of the lesson is as follows: the teacher enters a teaching material with an attached assignment in the school subsite (the content of the teaching material depends on the school subject). The learners read the task and publish their answers in the "Opinion or Comment" section. They can also read their classmates' answers and make comments on their answers too. The attached assignment excludes any drilling or mechanical work and presupposes individual and creative work. Online lessons have some advantages:

1. They are conducted out of the classroom, saving class hours.

2. The teacher can choose a material from the infinite resources of the Internet the paper copies of which most likely do not exist or they are very difficult to obtain.

3. Presuposes student-student, teacher-student simultaneous communication.

4. Displays the learners' literacy level.

5. The students learn how to debate with their friends in a more civilized way.         

In terms of development of learners' oral speech I give much significance to the project "Basic School Radio".   

The learners form groups to participate in this project. Each group of learners chooses a course according to their preferences and continually presents interesting information. This promotes the learners' organizational abilities and collaborative skills. Listening to the recordings of  their own voices they begin to pay more attention to their pronunciation. To make radio materials the learners have to do research work and develop their media skills.      

The work is organized in this way: a group of learners with their note-books works in the reading hall. The theme of the online lesson is given on the school subsite. These learners take part in the online lesson. Then the learners are divided into four groups. One group works out questions and goes round the school to take interviews, the second group takes photos, the third group collects information on a given topic from the Internet, and the fourth group searches for some information on the given topic in paper books. The final product is made and presented on the school subsite by summarizing the work of all the groups.