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.