Words, Dictionaries, Thesarus, Word Cloud

Dictionaries:-

I searched for the word "Economy":-

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, (OED):- The state of a country or region in terms of the production and consumption of goods and services and the supply of money.

According to Merriam-Webster:- the structure or conditions of economic life in a country, area, or period.

In Word Reference:- Economía

Word Reference is purely a translation dictionary, in this case between English and Spanish. Merriam-Webster gives a definition in the English language. OED gives the definition in a chosen language from amongst many languages.  My preference is that of the OED, not only because of the greater choices of language, but because fo the more formal definition.

In the Learner's Dictionary:- The process or system by which goods and services are produced, sold, and bought in a country or region.

The latter is a simpler definition, which would be of better use to students.

The Thesarus does not provide a definition for the word searched, but synonyms or antonyms.  Many options are offered and in order to chose the right ioption, I would suggest cross checking each one with a dictionary, so that we make sure we are using a word with the correct meaning or in the correct context.

In Corpora I searched the phrase "The world at large". Linguee not only offers uses of the phrase, but also the translation into Spanish, whereas the British National Corpus simply offers the use of the phrase in English examples.

All I consider to be of useful help.

Lingustic Exchanges in the Teaching of Initiation into Business and Entrepreneurial Culture in English as a Foreign Language

I have chosen the level of first to third grade of ESO (obligatory secondary education) and more specifically the third grade.  According to the levels of linguistic exchange specified I think that it will first be necessary to introduce concepts to the students.  I'm sure many of the terms will be familiar to them, however it is more than  probable that they will not be fully aware of the correct meaning of the terms, especially in the first grade, although they should be aware of most of them by third grade, but not to the level of the glossary prepared in the first task.

In terms of language the students are expected to be able to recognise the terminolgy specific to the subject and their school grade and use it correctly in written and oral activities and on a personal, academic, social or professional level.  However, this does not correspond with the A1 level of the foreign language used as the vehicle to teach the subject content. 

The advantage I can see with this subject asnd as I'm sure occurs in science based subjects, many of the terms are very similar, for example:
Economy - Economía
Salary - salario
Interest rate - tipo de interés

Of which there are many more examples, I'm sure we shall have the opportunity to experience more of these terms in following blogs.

Abracadabra and for my second entry .....!

The blogs we have been asked to visit are all related to education, languages, and ICT related to both the previous.

The first, http://ictsilviaartero.blogspot.com/, is used to establish the objectives for the use of English in infant education and how to use blogs and other ICT tools in the process. I find the outlay, practical and easy to follow.

The second, and actually my favorite of the 4, https://oupeltglobalblog.com/, Fun with Phonics by Charlotte Rance is set out more along the lines of a newspaper, with more technical content than the other blogs and aims to aide the teaching of English to secondary education students with practical teaching ideas and advice in the peculiarities of teaching English as a foreign language.

The third blog, http://clilforsuccess.blogspot.com/ explains bilingual teaching in schools and the blog itself is based on the use of videos. 

Finally, http://bibliopoemes.blogspot.com/ approaches poetry in teaching infants, and although I don´t think it would be directly useful for me, I think it would be for infant school teachers.  The layout of the blog is also more infantile in its design.

Here are 3 other examples of blogs that explain what a blog is:-

https://firstsiteguide.com/what-is-blog/

https://www.lifewire.com/what-is-a-blog-3476707

https://www.thebalancesmb.com/blogging-what-is-it-1794405

In my opinion, from previous experience and from the aforementioned material we have been asked to view, I think blogs can be a useful tool in teaching in many ways.  They can be used, as in the case of this course, for the handing in of coursework, for receiving feedback and to monitor the progress of a student in the given subject and at the same time in the use of ICT and perhaps more importantly, for encouraging student participation, which is often slow forthcoming in the classroom. As the contents of the blog are on public view, this can also encourage the student to maintain a standard of quality of publications.  Although at the same time, the whole process of learning to blog can be very time consuming and I think it is only fair that the students receive previous tuition in the classroom on the setup, design and other tools available, so as minimize the time they have to invest in the practicalities and can focus on the content to be published.  Another important point to be taken into consideration, especially when concerning secondary school students, is that set forth in the example of blogging policy in open lesson TS3 'Project Work Through Blogging' from Teaching Guidelines in the European Project LTE: Guidelines and Lesson Plans. This in itself can be used to teach and guide adolescents in communication in general in private and public media.