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THOUGHTS DURING QUARANTINE

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A panoramic view of modern Kuala Lumpur skyline. While I was trapped in my hotel room during my mandatory quarantine, one of my favourite things to do is to stare outside my enormous glass wall and gaze at the magnificent skyline of modern Kuala Lumpur. My favourite building in this city is the iconic Petronas Twin Towers. Although I’m a Malaysian, I don't often go to Kuala Lumpur. The city was never a place for a ‘kampong’ boy like me. Life, however, always has a way of surprising you. Here I am, staying in a luxurious hotel with the best view of the concrete jungle (fully sponsored thanks to the generosity of my sponsor - the Hornby Trust) - alhamdulillah (all praise be to god) , what more could I have asked from you O’ Allah. This reminds me of a beautiful verse from Surah Ibrahim (Verse 7): "And ˹remember˺ when your Lord proclaimed, ‘If you are grateful, I will certainly give you more." A room with a view - The iconic Twin Towers of Petronas, Kuala Lumpur A BLESSING ...
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THE A.S. HORNBY EDUCATIONAL TRUST SCHOLARSHIPS

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ARE YOU THE NEXT HORNBY SCHOLAR? If you are an experienced English language teacher or a TESL/TESOL/TEFL practitioner looking for a postgraduate scholarship opportunity in the UK, you could be!    The A.S. Hornby Educational Trust logo [Source: British Council Bangladesh ] The A.S. Hornby Educational Trust Scholarship  is a highly esteemed international scholarship for ELT (English Language Teaching). The Trust was established by A.S. Hornby, a well-known ELT specialist who produced the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary , published by the Oxford University Press (OUP). The scholarship was initiated in 1961 and is dedicated to the teaching, and to all teachers, of the English language.   If you’re planning to do your Masters in ELT or TESOL in the UK, chances are you’ve already heard of the Hornby scholarship. The award scheme is highly prestigious due to its competitive selection process and the small number of recipients for the award every year (there were only ...
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Week 8: Mobile Apps For Language Learning

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Flipgrid - Your Voice Your Story! [Source: Flipgrid's logo from  Flipgrid.com] Hello and welcome back to my ICT in TESOL blog! I hope you enjoyed reading my previous entry on ‘ Blendspace ’ (if you haven’t then please do so – you will thank me for it!). If you are like me right now - stuck at home because you are trying to avoid crowded places since you are worried about the massive outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic and you don’t have anything good to watch on Netflix, then why not spend some of your time to read this post on  Flipgrid ? Who knows, perhaps by the time you have finished reading this post, you might even want to create your very own Flipgrid video too! The story of Flipgrid is the story of YOU!   [A s creenshot of Flipgrid website homepage]   What is Flipgrid? Flipgrid is a web-based platform that can be used by both teachers and students to create  a video-based discussion on a topic or 'grid' of thei...
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Week 7: Interactive online resources for blended learning classrooms

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Introducing Blendspace  Welcome back to my ICT in TESOL blog! I hope you enjoyed reading my previous entry on Screencast-O-Matic.  In this post, I would like to talk about a website that I think is very useful for interactive online resources for blended learning classroom – Blendspace! Blended learning  The tool that I will discuss in this post is useful for supporting “blended learning” so it is best that I first briefly talk about it before we look at Blendspace later in details. According to Gruba and Hinkelman (2012, as cited in Gruba et al. 2016, p.135), “blended approach” in ELT refers to the teaching and learning process that incorporates the use of modern technologies and media in a face-to-face situation. Thus, if a teacher uses an online platform such as Blendspace to share reading materials and notes for their students before they come to the actual class, it is considered as a blended course. Here is a YouTube video on ‘blended learning’ if y...
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