He Inspires

At the beginning of the year I was disappointed because the teacher refused to let me use my Arabic either inside or outside the class. I felt sad but gradually with the help of my Mac laptop I managed to improve my speaking. Learning  new vocabulary by looking at pictures and using online translation tools became fun after some time. I thought I would never be able to teach myself  because it seemed very hard. Not only on me but also on everybody but when you have a goal you can achieve what is impossible. My goal for the first and second learning cycles was to learn how to learn English. Every student tried to do his best to help other students. I am not saying it was easy but after we have done it, I found out that the whole English class makes sense. As Ahmed Moustafa was saying it was when the student becomes a teacher and the teacher becomes a student. What I found good about the class was the discussions during the presentations where students correct each other and the teacher makes his greatest comments. Before I join this class I heard good reviews of Ahmed Moustafa but at the beginning I felt the heat of the difficult tasks and I was worried about the grades. Now when I look at the great time I spent at that class everything started to make sense and I knew that I made the right choice by staying in his class.


Ahmed Saeed Al Jenaibi
Grade 9

 

Now I hate the Holidays

My name is Saif Ali Juma Al kaabi and I am a student at Al Ain Applied Technology School before I join this school, I studied in public schools where we used paper books and notebooks. I did not like this way because it’s boring. All my friends hated  going to school after finishing grade 8. But now I am studying at Al Ain Applied Technology School. I first thought it would be like the old school but I found that it was really different. I did not believe that we can do all the work on the laptop with no books or notebooks. We used to hate the old school but now I like going to school and I hate the holiday. My English teacher is Ahmed Mustafa. He is a good teacher. He is rarely angry but when he is angry, he looks funny and all students love his class. I like him a lot. When he asks us to do something, all students respect him and they do all work that he asks for.

Saif Ali Juma Al kaabi

Grade 9:03

Collaboration is no Longer Painful

The learner portfolio is a helpful tool for English learning. We learned many things from the learner portfolio such as grammar skills. For example, we use our books to make power points of grammar so we can learn the grammar rule. When we create the power point, we can review it any time on our iPhones. The problems that we faced when we created the learner portfolio were so many. It was the first time for us to use MAC laptops, so we faced some problems with the laptops but now we can solve it. Another problem that we faced is hacking. Some students learned a way to hack on us , so we suffered for some time. In my old school, English learning was poor. They taught us using an old way. It was so boring. Now we learn English using laptops so every day we learn new things. It is interesting to learn English using laptops. The students in our class help each other. Every one who needs help they will help him. One day the teacher asked us to do activities and take screen shots of the results. Because of my neglect, I didn’t hear the teacher when he spoke, so I asked my friend to help me and teach me the way to take a screen shot and so he did. The class is so helpful and the atmosphere of the school is beautiful.


Rashed Khalaf Saeed Al Shebli
Grade 9

The Teacher is More Important Than the Method

At the beginning of the year I felt that the English class will be a boring class and I thought that the way of teaching will be the same as other schools but it was totally different from other schools. The English teacher has asked us to document what we learn in the English class. So we created a folder called the learner portfolio that contained about nine folders. When we completed an activity we saved it inside the folder. For example, for listening we used a web site called ESL-lab. The teacher asked every student to bring a headphone and use his computer to listen. The website has many listening exercises that are divided according to the level. The student can choose the exercises they want to answer. I believe that I learned a lot of new words and grammatical points from the learner portfolio project but I think that learning can be better if the teacher uses a mix of the old and the new way of teaching.

Saeed Sultan Al Kaabi

9:03

Prepare Students for the Future

In the English Class, every student has to build a learner portfolio. It is both lessons in the school English textbook and other online exercises . The learner portfolio contains of eleven main folders. The grammar log, homework log, writing log, reading log, speaking log, listening log, projects, quizzes, We use websites like vocabulary log and skills check. Inside every folder, we save the exercises we complete. www.ESL-lab.com and VOA special English.com for the listening exercises and www.A4esl.com and www.grammarkids.com for the grammar exercises, and www.manythings.com for the vocabulary, and ESL conversation questions for the speaking exercises, and the writing electronic books for the writing practice , and digital stories for the reading. When we finished the exercises, we saved the files and linked them all to one word document. I found the learner portfolio to be very useful to learn English using a laptop. I know it is the way for the future.

Eissa Mohamed Saleh Abdullah Al Zarouni
Grade 9:03

He Surprised Everyone

My name is Abdulla Hasan Al Dhaheri. I am 15 years old. Our English teacher, Ahmed Moustafa wanted us to create a folder and link files for every activity we did using our laptops and name that folder the learner portfolio. In the English class, I don’t recall having many challenges. At the beginning when I first got into this class, I got shocked because the teacher didn’t teach us like the old schools that we were in. Everything was hands on using the Mac laptop and it was unlike anything that I have done before. But now I feel the difference as I can handle any task in the English class. I am not afraid of technology anymore. The teacher gave us some websites that would help us do the work. I built my portfolio using Microsoft office and then created links to an index page placed in the portfolio. We documented the work sometimes by saving the information about the tasks or even recording screen shots and put them in a word document inside the portfolio. 


Abdulla Hasan Al Dhaheri
Grade 9:03

Every Hour in Class Counts

I’m Abdulla Mohammed AL shebli.I am a student at Al Ain Applied Technology High School and I am in grade 09.03. I am fifteen years old. I live in Al Ain city. Building a learner portfolio helped me to learn so many words and so many grammar points.  I am happy that my English has improved.  At the beginning I felt that there is not enough time to complete all the work. I solved that problem by working at home and a cup of  coffee at four everyday. I felt at the beginning that it is impossible but Ahmed Moustafa reminded me that UAE does not the meaning of that word. During this year I have done a lot but I learnt more. I learnt listening from a website called ESL-lab. I did flash grammar activities  at A4esl.org. The teacher even encouraged me to try some online CEPA quizzes. Those websites helped me a lot.


Abdulla Mohammed AL shebli
Grade 9:03

Ahmed Moustafa Opened the Door

Hi my name is Ahmed Saeed Salah Al Jenaibi. I am in 9.06 and I love English very much, also I like other things like playing video games and sometimes watching TV . My hobby is playing basketball and some times I go swimming. I am a student at Al Ain school of Technology. It is the best place if you plan to be an engineer. My teacher is Ahmed Moustafa. He teaches us English. He is a good teacher and I will remember him when I grow up because he is my favorite teacher. My favorite subject is science, because it is the way of future.In my old class, I was with another teacher. He got me all bored as he started explaining vocabulary and grammar.  Sometimes we understand and many times we didn’t.  In my last English class, we did not use the laptop for studying; we used it as playing tool. Most of the class did not know what the teacher was talking about, but after they put me in Ahmed Moustafa’s class I started improving and becoming better and better, because the teacher helped us to become independent learners. If we want him to explain, he would tell us to go online and start searching for answers. Building a learner Portfolio was the greatest project this year.  It took us the whole year to put together, yet it is not complete.

Ahmed Saeed Salah Al Jenaibi

Grade 9:06   

UAE First

Hi my name is Ahmed Abdul Hai Al Hashmi.  I am 15 years old and I am in grade 9.06 at Al Ain Applied Technology High School. After they handed us the laptops, Ahmed Moustafa asked us to create a folder called “learner portfolio”. In this folder there are about different sections, vocabulary, grammar, writing, reading,projects, and homework. In the vocabulary section, the teacher gave us a soft copy of the book, in the end of it there is a comprehensive list of all the new vocabulary for each unit. We used the words to create power point presentations paired with their meaning and an example sentence. The grammar log is kind of the same; we have the grammar point and type it on a power point presentation and link it to any material we could download from the internet and we feel it could help make the meaning of the lesson clearer. But the writing is a little bit different , we wrote reflections, summaries of stories and newspaper articles. The reading is another story, we go home or maybe even in the class we read a story and write about it, but wait as I said it’s another story. We don’t write a summary we write what we understand from the story, what we liked, and above all what we learnt.


Ahmed Abdul Hai Al Hashmi
Grade 9:06

To Read is to Fly

Our new English teacher has asked one of the students named Mohammed to download some stories and put them on a folder so students can listen and read them on their computers. The student was successful and he gave the files to the rest of the class. Students saved the stories inside their learner portfolios. Student had about Fifteen different stories. Every story consists of a text file and an audio file. Students were asked earlier to buy headphones and listen in class. The students listened to a story called Robinson Crusoe .The story takes about one hour and thirty minutes of listening. One student believes that listening to stories has helped him improve his listening skills. Students were motivated to listen to stories and whenever they found a difficult word they used their online dictionaries to find the meaning. While listening students took notes of important events, characters and places. Every student was asked to give a presentation at the end of the class to tell students about his story. Finally, Students are asked to write summaries of the stories they read in class. The summaries that are written usually are shared with the rest of the class. 


Mohammed Saif Al shamsi
Grade 9:06

Help Me Discover

Our English Teacher, Ahmed Moustafa gave us a good idea to create a single file that links all our works. I liked the idea because it is a good idea to organize our work at the English class. We should read any English lesson and try to understand first on our own first. We had many problems first because some of the lessons were not clear. When we ran to the teacher for help he said that he does not have all the answers and he recommended that we try to find online help. After we downloaded many power points, flash games, videos and tutorials we presented everything to the whole class. Students rated the material downloaded. We  voted on the best files to teach a specific lesson then we shared the files.The difference between my class now and my old class is that at this class I use technology to learn and find out my own answers.

Faisal Abdullah Nasser Al Abdel Salam

Grade 9:06 

A New Idea Looks Crazy at First

Hi. My name is Mohammad Saif Al Alawi. I am in grade 9:06 . I study English in Ahmed Moustafa’s class and I love it. I was worried at the beginning because sometimes the teacher makes us work very hard but it’s ok now, I am comfortable with it . Ahmed Moustafa had an idea that we first thought that it was a crazy idea but later on it happened to be a great idea. That idea is the learner portfolio. When we started, I have faced a lot of difficulties but I was able to deal with them all successfully.Before joining Al Ain Applied technology High School (ATHS) I was good at English but I’m better now and I have learned so many new words I think more than 1000 new words. The projects are Always on iMovie and they are pure fun. I get ready to make a Movie and it feels that I’m a director of a real Movie. You have the freedom to choose your themes, visuals and then add music and sound effects. You have the option to publish it to iTunes or even Facebook. Many students all over the world can watch your movie. It is not about the task anymore, it is about what I cam do or say.

Mohammad Saif Al Alawi

Grade 9:06

Our Choices Show What We Truly Are

Projects, I love this word in Ahmed Moustafa’s English class. It means to me a time to have fun. The teacher asks us to do a number of projects using Mac software called iMovie. We are free to choose our homework assignments from a website called Manythings.org.  There are topics and every topic has different lists of words. We chose the topic we like and created mini dictionaries using Power Point presentations. My feelings at the beginning were negative, but I gradually started to fall in love with the new way of learning because It’s easier, more interesting, and at the same time we can have fun while doing the work. This idea of teaching is the best idea I have ever seen.


Ahmed Abdul Hai Al Hashmi
Grade 9:06

A New Way of Learning

I am Abdul Raheem Abdulla Al Zarouni. I’m 15 years old. I study at the Al Ain Applied Technology School in Grade 09.06. My favorite teacher is Ahmed Moustafa, and my favorite subject is English. Actually I like Ahmed Moustafa’s way of teaching because as he uses a learner portfolio so we learn grammar, writing, listening and reading. I see a very big difference between my old class and Ahmed Moustafa’s class. In the old class we study only in the book and notebook but in Ahmed Moustafa’s class, we study using our Mac laptops so it’s more fun. When I first came to this class I felt that it is very hard but now I wish that every class is similar to this class. I like his Beautiful class. In fact learned a lot of skills, including listening, reading, and writing skills.

Abdul Raheem Abdulla Al Zarouni

Grade 9:06