Final Portfolio

See the majority of my CALL work from this semester in one place: LiveBinders!

Busuu Review

Busuu is a language learning website that lets you choose a language and take fun vocabulary, grammar, reading and writing, and listening and speaking lessons. It also lets you connect with native speakers of the language, like a social networking website. It allows you to make friends with people, similar to Facebook. You can form groups with different users. There are also games. It appears to be more academically oriented and is based on the common European framework of reference. When you sign up, it asks you what language you speak and which language you would like to learn. The website itself will be in the language you speak. Lesson levels only go up to B2, which is intermediate. The topics are fairly random. For example, a learner of Brazilian Portuguese would learn the vocabulary for skiing, even though skiing is not a common hobby in Brazil. The website tries hard to get you to buy and upgrade. The layout is fun and simple. The best aspect of the website is the ability to connect to and communicate with native speakers. They also have separate lessons for business, travel, and special courses in the language you are learning. When you participate in the exercises, you get something called Busuuberries. With Busuuberries, you can get discounts and buy learning items. Here's a fun video to watch about Busuu:

Materials Development 3

Overview
Lesson Plan
Tools:
Jeopardy Game
Jeopardy Sheet

Week 13 Reflection: Testing and CALL

One topic that I found interesting from this week's readings and discussions is whether or not testing students' English through technology privileges some students over others. The fact that it does privilege some students was made obvious during the PIE's placement test last summer. We had two new students from southern Africa who were completing their speaking tests in the CALL lab and it was apparent that this was their first time ever interacting with a computer. They did not know how to type or use a mouse or navigate electronic folders. The TA's administering the speaking tests waited until the other students in the group, who were mostly from Saudi Arabia and needed almost no instruction on opening files, using the mouse, pressing record, etc., had finished recording their tests to give personal help to the two new students. They did not understand what was going on and the language barrier made the situation even more difficult to explain. Luckily, we were in a situation where we could take the time to give individual help to them. I helped to administer the listening test to the same group of students, and filling in bubbles on the scantron was also a new concept. As much as we tried to explain, the students did not see the connection between the tiny circles with letters on the scantron, the questions on their paper test, and the passages they were listening to. When you think about it, that type of testing is so ingrained in Western culture that it is second nature for us, but is really a bizarre and complicated way to test, all for the sake of expediting the process. Our two new students were placed in the lowest level, despite having decent English skills, due largely to the complications that the technology caused. As I've tried to add technology to my lessons here and there, I've found that it becomes less about learning language and more about learning technology. This becomes very dangerous when it involves testing. A student who has never used a computer in their life is, of course, going to experience additional stress and difficulties during a computerized test than one who has grown up around technology, and in this way, the test is unfairly assessing their technology skills on top of their English skills. It's like asking someone who only knows how to drive an automatic to take their driving test on a stick shift.        

Week 12 Reflection: Culture

The main way that I learn about culture these days is through the internet, especially now that I am looking at jobs abroad. One of my favorite hobbies has become finding tiny, random cities in remote places on Google Maps, and then looking the name of the city up on Google. I first look at pictures of the city and if it looks interesting,  I'll look at the Wikipedia page about that city and try to learn about what life there is like. I'm doing something similar this semester with my CBI students. Our unit now is on maps and their main project is to choose a city that they have been to and are familiar with and to make a map of the 4 most interesting points in that city. About half the class chose their home cities, but the other half chose cities here in America or in Europe. Through making the map and doing a small amount of research on the cities and points of interest, the students are gaining a better understanding of what life in that city is like. One of the main ways students learn about culture today, especially in the EFL setting, is through the internet. The moment I found out that I was going to Romania for two years, I got on the internet and buried myself in research on the country, and it was research that never really stopped, even when I got there. That's the thing with learning about culture, instead of language items, via the internet - one topic can lead to another, which can lead to another, which can lead to another, so that the research and learning never ends. Such internet searches on language items would eventually get boring. As a teacher, I like the ideas that Guth and Helm presented with regards to teaching culture. I have used the access and produce strand numerous times - especially when I was teaching abroad, but I have never had the chance to put my students in contact with native speakers of the target language. It seems like a wonderful, yet potentially time consuming and difficult to monitor process. The idea of bridging is iffy for me. I think it's important for students, as well as teachers, to maintain separate spheres of life. I certainly would not want to bring my facebook page into my teaching, and would not expect students to be interested in bringing their facebook accounts into their classrooms. Learning goes on all the time, in and out of the classroom, and the students' social lives are learning opportunities that do not need to mingle with their classroom learning lives, in my opinion.

Culture CALL Activity

Joe, Erin S., and I came up with this activity in class on Wednesday. Joe typed it up and I am copying and pasting it below.

Our group's idea is to have adult or advanced level students explore the culture of the United States by browsing dating websites.  This would expose students to the great variety of personalities, values, and wants of individuals in the U.S.  Here is what we would do:

1. Give students a worksheet.
2. Have students join three dating websites (tall friends, farmer's, and okcupid).
3. The worksheet would guide them in searching for individuals in a certain range.  We would pre-screen the search parameters to avoid explicit posts. Students would search for individuals who are:
1. the same age as them
2. older than them
3. younger than them
4. from different parts of the country
4. The students would select a few people and describe:
1. What their interests are.
2. What their religious views are.
3. What their hobbies are.
4. What they want from a partner.
5. Students would then be asked to compare their home countries' values to what they have found; compare the similarities and differences between the age groups for their home country and what they have found.
6. Present their findings on a discussion forum.

Week 11 Reflection - Writing

Second language writing acquisition through the use of technology is probably my favorite form of CALL and the form that I can envision using the most easily in a classroom. Elola and Oskoz described the benefits of using blogs as a form of free expression that promotes creativity over the acquisition of perfect grammar, which is what I feel my students currently need the most (although there needs to be a definite balance). One thing I struggle with with my own students this semester is that most of them don't like reading and writing, even in their native language. It's laborious and boring to them because they have not been brought up in a culture that values the art of writing and the joy of reading. Add to this a focus on grammar and accuracy and their interest wanes even further. So an introduction to creative, free writing through the form of a blog might be an avenue to increasing student interest in and enjoyment of writing. One thing I wish that I'd had time to try in my reading and writing classes is a blog as a weekly "check in" of sorts for the students, where they could write about anything they wanted and did not have to worry about perfect grammar and accuracy. I think the fact that the world could read their work would increase the students' motivation to put something decent up, but the anonymity of it would also allow them a freer and more open voice. As a person who has kept a variety of personal blogs throughout the years, I've also grown to value their documentative nature. A lot of reflection and inspiration can come from looking back at entries from 5 years ago and seeing how much has changed in my life. I imagine it would be impressive for students to look back at the blogs they kept while attending the PIE and see how far they've come with their language ability and cultural adaptability.   

Materials Development 2

1. Lesson plan
2. Overview

Writing Project

Writing Project: Students will collaboratively create a google site tourist brochure for one city, selected as a class. Phase 1: train students on using google docs, research specific topics, and using google sites; selecting the city, topics, and groups Phase 2: researching and gathering information Phase 3: launch the google docs (one per topic group) and each person adds information about their topic; teacher provides content feedback throughout Phase 4: topic document is shared with a different group, which provides feedback on grammar, spelling, and mechanics Phase 5: transfer the google docs to the google site and launch; wind up project

Week 10 Reflection - Podcasting

Having created audio files for listening and speaking tests at the PIE and for my assessment project last semester, I've shied away from the idea of podcasting for teaching. For me, it takes much more work to prepare, record, fine-tune, and edit a five minute audio file than it does to create a 2 page written piece. Furthermore, I don't like the sound of my own voice in recordings. This week's readings and Bek's presentation, however, have made me reweigh the work involved in vs. the value of podcasting as an English teaching tool. Bek's podcast was great and I hope that someone continues the project. The podcast provided multiple exposures to one academic vocabulary word, as well as several different uses, and multiple forms of input. By providing the visual input in combination with the audio, the podcasting experience became linguistically richer and clearer. I wondered, though, if the addition of video, even though it was mostly written text in the video, made it less of a podcast and more of a vodcast. There was some discussion of the length of the podcast, and I think that's one of the most important aspects, one that Corbeil and Corbeil also discussed. If I remember correctly, Bek's podcast was about 5 minutes long, which is what Corbeil and Corbeil recommended. Anything longer and the students will lose interest, but anything much shorter and the students won't get as much out of it. I was surprised by how long the 5-minute podcast felt while sitting through it, and somebody in class mentioned that it seemed too long. I think, though, that for a second language learner who could at least understand the main ideas, this amount of time would be just about right because it allowed for so many different exposures to the word and answered many of the questions that second language learners often have about words. It's difficult to believe the amount of time involved, though, for only 5 minutes of learning. After his presentation, I asked Bek about how long it took him to make one podcast and he said it was a weekend project, meaning it took basically one whole weekend. Granted, his podcast sounded very professional. As a teacher, I can envision creating simple, short podcasts as a way to provide additional exposure to vocabulary words, to recap weekly lessons, and to remind students of their homework. Especially in a listening and speaking class.

Week 9 Reflection

One of the take-aways from our entire program, I think, is the importance of vocabulary. I have been to several presentations and listened to several lectures on the importance of vocabulary and will not soon forget that at least 98% of the words on a page need to be known for a text to be accurately comprehended. Also, as some of us discussed in SLA last semester, lexical mistakes can be more detrimental to communication than grammatical mistakes because grammatical errors are more obvious and interfere with meaning less than saying the wrong word. For example, if an ESL student said "I buy three book yesterday" we know that he meant "I bought three books yesterday" and very little meaning is lost. However, if the learner said "I buy three book yesterday" but actually meant "sold", the true meaning of the sentence is lost and we have no way of knowing. Vocabulary, however, is tricky to teach because there is no way that a student could learn the thousands of words they will need to become a fluent communicator within the confines of a classroom, even if vocabulary words are dutifully assigned as homework. Also, knowing how well a student understands a word is very hard to determine because there are several different levels of knowing a word. But, as we read this past week, computer applications can provide an excellent resource for vocabulary learning and reading activities. CALL programs can easily recycle vocabulary, create flashcards to enhance student practice, and provide vocabulary exposure through fun and interactive games. The steps that Loucky provided (attending to and assessing important words, accessing word forms, meanings, and usages, archiving, analyzing, anchoring, activating, reviewing/recycling, reassessing, and relearning) make up a helpful list of steps to take when planning computer-aided vocabulary activities.

Week 8 Reflection - Asynchronous CMC on Audioboo

Despite my voice saying that this is the week 9 reflection, it's actually the week 8 reflection. It rambles, as I prefer having lots of planning, editing, and revising time, but I tried.

listen to ‘CALL Week 8 Reflection - ACMC’ on Audioboo

Week 7 Reflection - Synchronous CMC

Two things that struck me from our readings this week about synchronous CMC (SCMC) are the benefits arising from anonymity during text-based SCMC exchanges and the turn-taking balancing mechanisms that occur among participants. As DuBravac mentioned in chapter 7, students can enter a chat room and simply observe native speakers virtually interacting with one another without having to contribute or participate, or even be noticed. This fly-on-the-wall option allows second language learners to pick up on some of the pragmatics and norms of native-speaker interaction (although whether or not the other participants are native speakers might be indeterminable) in real time and in the online realm. Then, with time and as they feel more confident, they can begin to contribute and interact, as well. If I were learning a second language, I would really like this option. Simple observation is beneficial because it provides authentic input and exposure to the language, but it is rare when a person can comfortably sit in on a conversation without being expected to contribute. SCMC chat rooms allow that option. Additionally, as Lai and Li mentioned, the anonymity of text-based CMC may help to lower affective filters during tasks, increasing the chances for a greater amount of language production. A lower affective filter means less anxiety about communicating in a second language, increasing motivation and allowing for a more open, free-flowing conversation.

Another reason why SCMC appeals to me is, as DuBravac discussed, the way it naturally moderates turn-taking. Conversing face-to-face with aggressive speakers is intimidating and unfruitful for quieter, more reserved students, and being able to formulate a response and type it out and put it forth in a chat room regardless of the more aggressive speaker's long-winded turn is comforting. No matter what, in the SCMC realm, if a person has something that she wants to contribute, she can. And she can do so without having to interrupt or feel rude. In my experience, though, this can also lead to disjointed and confusing conversations that bounce back and forth between topics as every speaker tries to get their opinion out about something said 3 minutes ago. Another drawback is that without the facial and vocal cues provided during face-to-face interaction, messages often get misconstrued or are interpreted incorrectly, leading to conversational break-downs and potential negative feelings. This can be especially difficult for non-native speakers who might not understand some of the more hidden cultural norms when it comes to interacting. Despite these drawbacks, SCMC is becoming a more and more necessary form of communication, whether native or non-native speaking, and gaining some competence in this kind of interaction is necessary to become a fluent speaker of a language.            

Materials Development 1

For materials development 1, I designed an introduction-to-maps class that I will be using in a few weeks with my CBI level 3 students. You can access it by clicking on the below links.

Part 1: Lesson Plan

Part 2: Tools (explanation and use, as well as additional tools, provided in Part 1: Lesson Plan)
Grockit Video Comprehension: How to Read a Map
Google My Maps: Our Cities

Part 3: Overview

Week 6 Reflection - Corpora in the Classroom

This week's article on applying corpus linguistics to pedagogy by Lynne Flowerdew reminded me of a presentation at the AACL conference in San Diego this year that I really liked and got the most from. The presentation was by Maggie Charles from Oxford University and was on building learner corpora. Not building a corpus of student language, but instead having students build their own corpora of research articles within their field of study. Maggie's class was an academic writing course for international graduate students who needed more practice in formal, academic writing according to their discipline. Her research and presentation were on the effectiveness of having students build their own corpora to improve their writing. In the early stages of the course, her students conducted their own research to find interesting, appropriate, and recent research articles from their own disciplines, and then loaded the chosen articles into their personal, field-specific, and searchable corpus. They then used this corpus as a reference tool to find appropriate expressions, make their writing more professional, check their grammar and wording, and get help with writing in the academic genre of their discipline. In questionnaires she distributed after the course, 94% of the students felt that creating and referring to their own corpus improved their writing ability. Additionally, 86% of the students would recommend using a self-constructed corpus to learn how to write in an academic manner. Furthermore, many of the students continued to refer to their corpus after the class was over, getting continual help in their academic writing endeavors. In the end, Maggie concluded that student-built corpora become valuable long-term tools for students, especially in the EAP setting, engender learner autonomy, and provide for both current and future needs. Much of what we have read and learned about for using corpora have been from the teacher or researcher perspective. I was reminded of Maggie's interesting research and presentation through the Flowerdew article and decided to revisit it for this week's reflection, as other classmates might be interested in a more student-based perspective on using corpora. Of course, Maggie's students were very advanced EAP learners, but it gave me a solid idea of what a corpus-focused classroom could look like and do for the students.

Wordle!

Week 5 Reflection

The technology I tried out this week felt like a bit of a failure. I wanted to create a Grockit activity in which my students would watch a video on a trash item they have been assigned (plastic bottles, cigarette butts, paper cups, or soda cans) and learn about how the item is created, used, and discarded, but I could find no suitable videos that were short and simple enough. After hours of searching, I decided to go with my original plan of finding suitable reading material for them on the internet (so still technology based, but not as fun). The Socrative activity I made did not work on my students' cell phones, and I felt mildly frustrated in class that I could not participate in the online survey questions because the application would not load on my phone. I guess the lesson from this week's attempts is that technology is not perfect and in many cases is not needed when other suitable, tech-free options are available. All of these applications and technologies seem so interesting, fun, and useful, and I am excited by their existence and promise, but I don't think our classrooms, teaching techniques, students, or ourselves are quite at the stage where we can take all of these apps and successfully use them in a meaningful way on a daily basis. As time passes, though, and the technologies improve, the classrooms get better equipped, and the people (teachers and students alike) become even more tech-savvy, I think my experiences of the past week will become rare occurrences and technology will become more seamlessly woven into classroom life. That's my hope, at least.

Socrative Attempt

I decided to go with a quiz on Socrative to help my students learn their vocabulary from last week. I'm teaching a level 3 CBI unit on garbage and recycling, so the students are getting a lot of new and not very frequent words. Because of the newness and the low frequency, I try to do a vocabulary activity every day and I thought Socrative would be a great way to let the students use their cell phones for a bit in the beginning of class and practice their words (recycle, reduce, reuse, garbage, trash, litter, waste, and decompose). When the students tried to get to the site on their cell phones, though, it did not work. It didn't work for me, either, when trying to access the site with my cell phone. Is it a computer only site? Instead, I read out the questions to them and they still had fun trying to figure out which word it was. Maybe Grockit would have been a better site to try. If you would like to import and view the quiz in the "import quizzes" section, the SOC number is SOC-839320. Maybe you'll have better luck with it than I did. Here's a screen shot of the quiz creation process:

Teaching Philosophy - the Rough Rough Rough Draft

As a teacher of English as a Second Language (ESL), I believe that it is my duty to create a safe, comfortable, positive, and productive environment in which all students can practice and learn English and life skills, as well as to provide students with effective instruction that is based on cutting-edge research and practices. I accept that some students will arrive already viewing ESL class as a beneficial, enriching addition to their lives, while others might initially view it as a burdensome and unnecessary hurdle. My goal is to give the students who recognize the benefits of my class every opportunity to engage in learning, discovering, and practicing, while also encouraging the more reluctant students to find value in their lessons through meaningful, appropriate, and inspiring activities. I also recognize that no two students are the same and that every student learns in his or her own unique way. To address the individuality of every student, I incorporate as many different types of activities into class as possible. This allows students to acquire language through various means, increasing their exposure not only to the material, but also to the diverse situations in which language occurs. Today, technology creates another avenue for learning, and also plays a huge factor in communicating in many parts of the world. Students are conversing through text messages instead of in person; friends are sending emails instead of dialing the phone; and educators are disseminating information through the internet instead of traditional lectures. As an ESL teacher, it is a challenge and a responsibility to have a thorough understanding of the technology that is available to me and my students and how that technology can enhance my ability to teach, as well as their ability to learn. The internet itself, as well as the multitude of language learning applications on the market today, create a bottomless mine of learning possibilities - some effective, some ineffective. Striking a balance between incorporating effective technologies into my lessons and not inundating students with trivial or ineffective applications for the sake of technology makes up a large part of that challenge. Although technology has a lot to offer educators and learners alike, it should always be used to enhance a lesson and a language point, and never vice-versa. Because of the various means of educating that are popular today, teachers have a formidable task in deciding what to teach, how to teach it, and when, but I have come to also view this task as an exhilarating one. One that allows for continual exploration into ESL research and teaching strategies, and growth as an educator. To me, being an ESL teacher means putting the students' educational needs first, never relying on one set way of teaching, and continually exploring, learning about, and applying information from this expanding and fascinating field.

Messin with Google Docs

Week 3 Reflection

The activities we did this week on digital storytelling are exactly the kinds of things that I am hoping to get out of this class - information on useful websites that can be adapted for ESL learners, hands-on practice using some of those websites, and then translating that practice into a teaching activity (see previous post) that I can envision one day using in class. Plus, I had a lot of fun creating the stories and activities. I mainly focused on Storybird because I ended up really liking it, but I'd also like to check out the GoAnimate and Domo sites.

I like the idea of a webquest, too, but it sounds like they take a lot of work to create. I found some pre-made webquests by searching QuestGarden, but the majority of them are for native speakers in elementary to middle school. These kinds of quests might work well for intermediate to advanced CBI classes, which are often designed to mimic middle school content courses.

Hot Potatoes did not work well for me and I've used websites in the past, such as Discovery's free puzzle maker to create similar activities, such as crossword and word-search puzzles, and have used Compleat Lexical Tutor to create cloze activities. I should, however, try out Hot Potatoes at home. It would be nice to have one application (instead of having to use the internet) on my computer that can do all of those things.

Finally, I don't know where to begin with a teaching philosophy, or where to place technology in that philosophy. A teaching philosophy is something that has come up in several classes, but has never been fully addressed. I know I need to start working on one, especially because I'm now applying to job openings for next year. But I don't think I'll actually force myself to write one unless it is made an assignment, sadly.        

Teaching Activity Using Story Bird

This reading, writing, and story-telling activity is meant to go with a unit on animals for young, intermediate ESL students. It involves writing and telling progressively more parts of a story based on pictures of different animals on Storybird. The first picture provides an example of a full story. The second picture requires students to write the ending. The third picture requires students to write the middle and the ending. The final picture requires students to write the full story.

Detailed Procedure:
1. Explain to the students that they are going to look at pictures of animals and write parts of stories based on the pictures.
2. Open the Storybird story and have different students read the beginning (show them how the beginning is the first paragraph), middle (second paragraph), and end (third paragraph) of the story.
3. Ask a student to summarize the story. Ask students to think about other ways the story could have ended. What else might have happened? Write ideas on the board.
4. Explain that the next story has a beginning and a middle, but no ending. The students will write the ending.
5. Ask the students to take out a piece of paper and write their name in the upper left hand corner.
6. Go to the next picture in Storybird. Have different students read the beginning and middle aloud and ask for different ideas on the ending.
7. Give students 3-5 minutes to write the ending of the story on their paper. After they write the ending, they should come up with a title for the story.
8. Ask students to turn to a partner and share what they created.
9. If the class is small enough and time permitting, each student could read their story and the class could vote on most creative, funniest, happiest, saddest, etc.
10. Move to the next picture and explain that students will now write the middle and end.
11. Read the beginning of the third story and give the students 5 - 7 minutes to write the middle and end.
12. Repeat the story sharing process of steps 8 - 9.
13. Advance to the final picture. Tell the students that they need to write the full story - beginning, middle, and end.
14. Give the students 10 minutes to write the story.
15. Repeat the story sharing process of steps 8 - 9.

Storybird

Below is the link to a story I created in class today. It's for digital storytelling, however the site doesn't seem to allow for audio storytelling, only through pictures and words. The stories are created by selecting different pieces of art that are made by the same artist, and then creating the story based on the art. It was actually very fun and something I would definitely try to use in class.

http://storybird.com/books/bear-and-sunny-story-bird/

Week 2 Reflection

A sentence from this week's reading that stuck out to me was "Instructors should determine the use of the software or hardware for language learning and not vice versa." (pp. 31). It struck me because I think thus far I have been doing the opposite - trying to match the language practice to the few applications that I know about. Thinking this way, though, causes an evaluation of language forms against the applications and shifts the class objectives from tasks like learning the present perfect to tasks like learning how to use Moodle. It seems very easy for computers to become the center of learning, instead of language. The sentence reminded me that although technology can add a lot to a class, it should not be the driving force behind lesson planning. I have to admit, part of me is reluctant to incorporate technology into class because it seems that young people today are already so dependent on it and spend more time communicating via computers than face to face. A classroom is one of the few places where young people go and are expected to speak and listen and not press buttons. But perhaps it's time I let that idea go for the sake of keeping up with the times and not seeming old fashioned.

It was also helpful to read and learn in class about evaluating software. It put things into perspective. I have very little idea of the technology that's available and it seems overwhelming to try and choose an application, so it was nice to learn some guidelines. Lastly, despite reading through the copyright information and understanding that legal precautions need to be taken when copying information written by another entity, I think most teachers are too busy to spend extra time ensuring their legality. It was informative to read about the different laws, but when teachers are covering 30 hours a week and are desperate for material, the last thing on their minds is probably the Fair Use Guidelines.     

Website Evaluation - Listening

For our homework this week, I chose the StoryCorps website to evaluate using a selection of the listening criteria that Marianna, Guanya, Hongbo, and I came up with. StoryCorps’ mission is, as the website states, “to provide Americans of all backgrounds and beliefs with the opportunity to record, share, and preserve the stories of our lives.” The website features hundreds of stories from all over America and also includes an education section with a few lesson plans and activities. It is not focused in any way on second language learning. The criteria I’ve chosen to use for evaluating the website as an ESL listening resource include: 1. Listening content – length, topic, and difficulty; 2. Ability to pause, rewind, slow down, replay, download and edit the audio; 3. Teacher work required to create materials; and 4. Availability of transcripts or other visuals.

1.     Listening content – stories told by the people who experienced them.

a.     Length – most stories are short, from 1 – 5 minutes, which is a good length for beginning and intermediate students because it requires less cognitive demand to stay focused for shorter periods of time

b.    Topic – the topics are usually very personal to the person telling the story and are often related to interactions with other people, most painful memories, or happiest moments. There is a way to categorize the topics on the website, which is helpful for teachers looking for a certain subject. Some examples of topics include Military Voices, Friendship, Discovery, and Alzheimer’s. There is also a story search function.

c.     Difficulty – the recordings are professionally recorded and are of high quality. Because they are authentic and from all over America, the speakers have a vast range of accents, speeds, nativeness, language use, and speaking mannerisms. This degree of authenticity may make the StoryCorps too difficult for beginning and intermediate students, and perhaps even some advanced listeners.  

2.     Ability to pause, rewind, slow down, replay, download and edit the audio – When you click on the Listen button by each story, you can see the length of the story and also have the option to pause or stop the audio. However, there are no options for slowing down, rewinding, or downloading and editing the content. You can play the story as many times as you like, though. Without the ability to slow the authentic speech down, rewind, or manipulate the audio, beginning and intermediate listeners may understand very little of what they are hearing and may need to listen several times.

3.     Teacher work required to create materials. Depending on the level of the students, teachers would need to create supplemental materials to guide and facilitate comprehension. Even for advanced students, teachers would likely need to create vocabulary glosses for slang or region-specific words. The work required to make the recordings understandable for beginners would likely deem the site unsuitable. Additionally, the topics are not terribly broad and may not match the content of the rest of the class. As mentioned before, the site provides an educational section, but the materials are not aimed at second language learners and are not story specific.

4.     Availability of transcripts or other visuals. No transcripts could be found on the site. However, there is a section called Animated Shorts, which contains popular stories that have been animated. Visuals may help learners to understand what is being spoken about.

Overall, the StoryCorps website is a great website, but for very proficient speakers. Based on the above evaluation, I would recommend StoryCorps to ESL teachers who have very advanced students in a class that is focusing on American culture or the American experience. Listening to and reflecting on a story could add a nice weekly side activity that could compliment larger units on aspects of American life. I would not recommend the site to teachers of beginning or intermediate learners, or to teachers who have a specific subject matter outside of American culture.

Thanks for reading. I hope you’ll check out StoryCorps and listen to a few voices from around the country.    

               

First Blog Entry

Erin Aldrich. I'm a second year MA TESL student on the teaching track and will be graduating this Spring.

Despite having taught ESL for the past few years, I haven't used much technology or computer applications in the classroom. In fact, I have used none beyond Powerpoint for presentations and Word for lesson planning. That's the main reason why I am interested in this class - to learn about all the technologies that I have not yet utilized for teaching. I feel a little embarrassed that I have not taken more of an initiative in catching up with the technological side of teaching, as technology appeals to many students and younger learners seem to expect a high level of technology in their classrooms and lives. I have heard about and had brief introductions to several different language applications, but have never spent more than a few minutes brushing their surfaces.

Therefore, my goals for this class are to get comfortable with actually using computer technologies to help my students learn. I'd like to learn about teaching students through computers as well as improving my own lessons using technology. I would also like to start using corpora and concordance lines in my lesson plans, as well as creating activities in which students use sites like COCA or Words and Phrases to interact with real-world language use and enhance their learning.

As I have so little experience in this field, I do not yet know what kinds of applications I am interested in, beyond corpora sites and software. I am also curious about the usefulness of having students create their own websites and blogs, and the effectiveness of computer-driven learning vs. teacher-driven learning. For now, I'm looking forward to learning the basics of using computer applications in the classroom and knowing which technological resources to turn to in order to best help my students.  

First CALL Class Post!

This is my CALL class blog. Come back for more updates in the future!