Podcasting for language learning

The video Podcasting in Plain English mentioned that anyone can do podcating, subscribe other's podcast and download it onto a computer or portable devices. Students could listen to the podcast to learn a language when they are walking, waiting, eating or doing other things as many times as they want. There are so many educational podcasts in all kinds of websites. But personally I prefer iTunes. Nowadays Apple's products are so popular that many have downloaded iTunes. You can search for podcasts and probably you will find your desire ones.

 

I found lots of great episodes on iTunes. I listened to one called "ESL-Gerunds as Subjects" The learning objectives for advanced students, according to Maryland Content Standards for Adult ESL/ESOL, would be able to write a detailed paragraph with topic sentence, and know how to use gerunds. The episode is short and sweet. It gives some examples of writing topic sentences with gerunds as the subject. It explains clearly what gerund is and how to use it in a sentence. It also claims that there are other ways to express the same meaning, but using the simple form of the verb should be avoided. I could use the examples in the video to teach how to write a topic sentence. A topic sentence should be not too broad or too specific. And then I would let students to brainstorm some evidence to support the topic sentence. Besides of using a gerund as the subject, I would also teach using a gerund as the complement, or the object of a sentence. I would ask the students to use gerunds to write about their hobbies.

Comic strips

I created a story "Let's go to New York" on Storybird. The website's pictures are beautiful, but I found it hard to save the pictures I wanted and used them for the story. I can use the pictures around the selected one. Students can use Storybird to create their own story. Based on students' level, it can be one sentence or a paragraph on each page. With the lovely pictures, students would be motivated to write compositions and more willing to read others' stories.

Performance Indicator
High Intermediate Language Skills Writing Indicators: Draft, organize, write and edit a short paragraph using a topic sentence, supporting details and transitions.

Assessment
Two students read each other's story and write down the structure of the paragraph and the transitions. Peer helps to revise the paragraph, including correct grammar errors and make the expression more effective. They then exchange their composition and write another paragraph to continue the story.

Photo show video

Let the students use their own photos to create a photo show video is a great way to learn the target language. It can be used to keep a journal, create a story, talk about hobbies and interests, and also learn new words with related pictures. Due to the formal limit of the captions, students need to summarize their ideas in a short sentence, or they would need to add text in another scene. Animoto is a user-friendly tool for this purpose. It has many styles to choose and has further functionality in the pro version.

I created my video to show some photos of my spring break. I used the simple past tense to narrate the story. The teacher can ask the students to write a journal or talk about their interests and give rubric to train certain grammar points such as simple past tense and conjunctions.

Performance Indicator
ESL.I.5-8.1.1.12: Students convey information and ideas through spoken and written language, using conventions and features of American English appropriate to audience and purpose.

ESL.I.5-8.4.1.2:  Students describe, read about, participate in, or recommend a favourite activity, book, song, or other interest to various audience.

Assessment
The teacher gives a rubric before the assignment. In class activities: 1. Randomly form groups with two students. 2. Let them watch each other's video. 3. The creator illustrates the video while playing. 4. The listener gives feedback and helps the creator revise the video based on the rubric. 5. Ask a few students to narrate their partners' video. After class activities: Let the students write a self-evaluation of the task. Including the creating process, difficulties they met, their partner's opinions, what they learned from others' video, etc.

My TEDed lesson: 3 ways to speak English

I created a TEDed lesson called "3 ways to speak English". The presenter is a black girl. She uses three distinct ways to speak English when she talking to different kinds of people.

Objectives:
Students would be able to understand the main idea of the video
Students would be able to express their opinions with others

Assessment:
I give two multiple choice questions to assess whether the students understand the main idea of the video. After letting the students discuss their opinions of the video in class, I will let them watch another TED talk which is related to the issue. The TED talk is the second link in Dig Deeper. The students discuss the main idea of the talk in groups and then I will stop by to listen. Eventually, I will ask one student to talk about his/her ideas in front of the class and then everyone can jump in to give comments.

The flipped classroom

What is flipped classroom? Generally speaking, it has three parts: students watch instructional videos at home, teacher scaffolds students' homework in class, teacher gives feedback and assessment after class. The videos should truely provide the comprehensible input for the students to help them finish the homework. Teacher need to control the time in class to make every minute valuable. In the flipped classroom, teacher does not need to explain everything to every student. Instead, the teacher provide help for individuals based on their own problems.

 

 

Why we want to flip the classroom? Some students may find it difficult to finish the homework by themselves. Although they feel like they understand what the teacher said, and took notes in class, homework can still be challenging. Group study is a way to change the scenario, but it also has many problems. For example, the advanced students may not want to waste their time to help others, or unwilling to help their competitors. The opinions from peers are likely to be wrong also. However, if the students discuss their homework in class, they will have chances to ask for help from the teacher directly. They do not have to write down their questions and struggle all night with their homework. Having a question and receive help right away will surely make them feel less frastrated.

 

According to Three Reasons to Flip Your Classroom, a flipped classroom can (1) increases comprehension of the material; (2) increases interaction with instructor and peers; and (3) increases critical thinking as a natural part of the learning process. The students can control their learning pace by pausing and repeating the videos. Therefore, they can understand the materials better. The teacher, although s/he does not truly teach the class, s/he still need to "lead the class from behind".

A serious game: The Migrant Trail

 

The Migrant Trail based on the background that every year the undocumented Mexicans steal into the U.S. In the game, you can play as a migrant or a patrol. You can see everyone has his/her own story and motivations. The game is telling us "Although the migrants have many reasons to do that, they should always respect the law".

I played every individual on both side. There are nine migrants and three patrols. As a migrant, I need to head north to the pickup before I run out of supplies and I must avoid getting caught by the patrols. The group will encounter many difficulties which are the real scenarios for the migrants. I only made it once among nine characters. The patrol side is much easier. All you need to do is follow the evidence the migrants left and you will catch them eventually.

Maryland Content Standards for Adult ESL/ESOL says that high intermediate ESL/ESOL learners will be able to read simple descriptions and narratives on authentic topics; follow specific written directions/instructions to perform an activity; identify fact and opinion in a text. Therefore, the learning objectives for high intermediate learners should be follow the instructions and understand the culture background.

 

There are lots of readings in the game. To be honest, if the students do not read the introductions and instructions, they are missing a valuable part of the game. The readings provide the basic information of the whole event. The students would know where is Mexico, Sonoran desert, and Arizona. What would the migrants do before they go into the desert? What is their motivations? The game provide adequate characters to let the player experience the migrants' feelings and the patrols' attitude. The player would feel the desperate of the migrants. When a group member twist his/her ankle or get sick on the way, s/he will be left behind. It is really hard to avoid the patrols in the game. Although a migrant once arrived at the pickup, it says the character now lives in fear that he could be deported at any time. I feel really sad about that. If the player do not pay attention at the readings, s/he would not have the strong feeling of the issue.

 

 

The teacher's job is to make sure the students have read the introductions carefully. For me, I will ask some questions to help they understand the readings better. For example, "What is the desert the migrants have to cross?" "How much the migrants have to pay for the party?" "How many found bodies or skeletons each year?" In addition, I will let them share their opinions of the game with their group members. Ask them "Do you agree with the Patrol C that the migrants should do it in a right way?" "What would you do if you tried VISA but failed? Would you risk your life in the desert?" By playing and discussing the game, students will have a better understanding of the issue.

 

 

Assessment: The assessment will be paper work. The teacher print out another migrant's file in the game that they did not read before, followed a few questions about the main idea and details in the reading. And then ask them to write a brief essay to argue with the migrant pretending they are a patroller.

A casual game: Sound Factory

In Sound Factory you play a role of a bored worker who wants to please his co-workers by making music from the old factory machinery. You need to unlock all the instruments in the limited time, in the meanwhile, you have to finish the work quota and turn off all the items when the boss is coming. I played the little game over ten times but stuck by the level three since it has a bug. My co-worker's satisfaction degree just stopped after the boss came and gone. I could not unlock items if they were not happy. Anyway, students would love to get involved in the game since creating music is really interesting, especially when they can keep unlocking amazing instruments. No matter you are an adult or a child, you will have much fun.

In the game, the player need to understand the instructions to pass the level. When the boss is coming, the player need to stop all the instruments quickly. If failed, the player also need to read the instruction to find out which part was not completed so that he/she could play better in the second try. Every instrument has a name, such as "Radio", "Whistle", Xylophone", etc. The students are expected to remember all the names of the instruments. According to Maryland Content Standards for Adult ESL/ESOL(p.11), the reading indicators of low intermediate ESL/ESOL learners can be: apply simple context clues to determine the meaning of new words; comprehend simple and compound sentences in authentic materials; identify main idea, chronological order, and simple transitions in texts on familiar subjects. The grammar indicators include future tense, present perfect tense, adverbs, conjunctions and so on. Therefore, I think Sound Factory is suitable for the low intermediate level or above.

The teacher could teach the words in the game. For the game itself, it is simple enough. Students should not have any problems to pass the levels. However, for the low intermediate learners, they might have questions about the names of the instruments. I will teach the prefixes, suffixes and the roots when teaching words. For example, the root "xylo" of "xylophone" means "wood"; and "phone" can indicate musical instruments. The students can remember the word easily once they understand the root. Then I will provide some words with the same root, such as "saxophone", and introduce a new instrument "water phone". Also, I will use the images from the game to teach vocabulary since students are familiar with them in the game.

Although I believe the walkthrough is not crucial for the game, I would give some tips to help the students. One tip is that you can click on the instrument's icon at the bottom to toggle them on and off immediately.

To assess whether the learning objectives had been met, I will give the students orders to see if they are able to response correctly. For instance, the students need to compose the xylophone when I say "xylophone"; when I say "stop the tea cup" they need to do the same thing. When the students are familiar with the vocabulary, I will show them the images of the instruments and ask them to say the words. In addition, the students can practice the simple past tense by telling what he/she did in the game. They may say "I composed the mouse choir, and then I turned on the radio..." For the higher level, the students may use some conjunctions to make it more clearer. The open-ended exercise will ensure every student has something to say.

Gamification in language learning

Gamification, as I see it, is using games to let users get involved and make progress when they focus on the activities. There are several features of game that can be used for other fields according to Tom Chatfield, such as measuring progress, rewards for effort, clear feedback, etc. Some elements were also mentioned in A Comparison of Computer Game and Language-Learning Task Design Using Flow Theory. The author believes the key points for a sucessful game/task should be (1)goals, (2) feedback, and (3) a skill/difficulty balance. Educators can use such features to motivate students to overcome challenges.

Gamification seems dominant in early childhood education. For the young kids, they cannot focus on the study for a long time. Therefore, playing games is the best way to teach kids. One common way to review words is to ramdomly point the word and the students say it out loud. I think one of the game's feature, the element of uncertainty, is the factor that interest the kids. In addition, many teachers love to sent out stickers to praise the kids. In the end of the semester, they children will get little presents according to the number of the stickers. It is the "reward" and "feedback" in the gamification. So I think gamification is not just playing games, but use the game's feature to teach.

Some think that playing commercial games is wasting time. However, Julie M. Syke argues that both educational and commercial games as potentially useful for language teaching and learning. Only, teachers need to aware that if the game can corresponde to the desired learning outcome. The games in the classroom should not be designed for purely entertainment purpose. In the article 7 Things You Should Know About Games and Learning, it says that nowadays games and game mechanics are increasingly being employed at colleges and universities. Teachers need to learn gamification and apply it in the classroom.

Twitter in ESL classroom

Unfortunately, Chinese government blocked Twitter as well as Facebook, Youtube, etc. Though we have Chinese version of Twitter, they are different in some ways. If China no longer block Twitter, how can I use Twitter in teaching English?

In the article How Twitter Can Be Used as a Powerful Educational Tool, it mentions hashtags. By searching hashtags, we are able to see what the world are saying about the topics. Also, we can join the discussion by adding hashtags. As a teacher, I will tweet a question with a hashtag and then ask my students to answer it with the same hashtag. It could be asking their opions towards a event, or finding solutions to a problem. In addition, I will let my students attend some Twitterchats, such as #21stedchat, #ESL. They will be able to share their ideas from a student's aspect with the world.

 Teaching with Twitter says that students can give instant feedback of a presentation or a video on Twitter. I think it is a great idea for those who unwilling to give opions in class. Students have to summarize their ideas in 140 characters, which is challenging. But for those have not much to say in a foreign language, it could actually release their pressure and encourage them to express ideas.

Twitterchats

I attended a Twitterchat whose hashtag is #asiaED. It is a slow flow chat with one question a day so that members could write down their opions without one-hour time limit. I checked out other Twitterchats and I think this one is the best for me.

This week's topic is about computering. I found it difficult to understand the abbreviation in other attendants' Twitters:

Then I realized abbreviation is so important due to the 140-character format when I wrote my answer.

 

Some of the attendants gave links of their blog or other websites to express their ideas. I would say it is a better way than tweeting several times to answer one question. I do think Twitterchats is a good way to communicate with other educators even experts, but attendants should find the best suitable group for them. Some enjoy the fast flow discussion while some believe a good answer should be well considerated.

 

I think Twitterchats could be a good form of professional development for me. It provoks thoughts and expands horizons. Discussing different topics encourages me to think deeper and wider. Exchanging ideas with educators from all over helps me see things in different aspects.

ePals

 

ePals is a community connects students and teachers all over the world for interactive projects. It develops the Peer-Assisted Learning Theory. Students would feel more comfortable to communicate with peers instead of teachers. Students from different countries can help each other in language learning, culture understanding and many other projects by sending emails. It is also a great opportunity to make friends. There are many wonderful projects in ePals, I would like to introduce three educational projects:

Who Are We? A McGraw-Hill World Languages Project
This project is designed for native speakers of English who are learning Spanish, and native-Spanish speakers who are learning English. Only classes that meet this description will be accepted! Classes will be paired together for project collaboration so that students have the opportunity to practice the target language with native speakers.

 The Way We Are--A National Geographic Project
In this introductory project, students will engage in a collaborative learning experience. Through email exchanges, students will build friendships and learn about the daily lives and characteristics of the local environment of students who live in another region of the world.

Let's Paint the Globe Green!
This project aims at connecting the eco-clubs of various schools and providing them with a platform where they can share their green practices in their cultural and environmental surroundings. It will not only help develop friendships across the globe, provide an understanding of various cultures, but also give them a global understanding of the Go Green concept.

Apart from the projects, I found that the in2Books program very useful. The program has students from around the world talking about their books and authors, posting their comments, writings, and reviews. However, the in2Books program is only available for schools in the U.S. If I have a chance to teach in the U.S. I will encourage my students to join the program. Students would develop deeper comprehension and thoughtful writing in the program.

 

 

Classroom 2.0

The networking website I chose is classroom2.0.

I think it is a great tool for new teachers like me.

I did not find the forum section helpful. Most of them were not very active. Most of them are from last year or even older.

However, I do think the member section is helpful. I can easily get access to other teachers' blog and learn from their skills and experiences. There are blogs and videos for you to chose. I think it is a very good platform for us to get to know other teachers who are more experienced. Seeing what they have been doing in their classrooms can inspire us or give us tips on similar situations.

http://www.classroom20.com/

A Learner is like a spider

After reading the Connectivism: A Learning Theory for the Digital Age and watching the video "the network is the learning", the first thing that can be compared to a learner popped in my head was a spider.

As mentioned in Siemen's video, the network is the learning. In that sense, learners are like spiders working on their webs that connects to others and other sources. Learning is no longer an isolated activity thanks to the technologies we developed. Learning is continuous and associated with many other aspects. Nowadays, learners are facing the challenge of getting the ability to see connections between fields, ideas, and concepts.


Siemens G. claims that Personal knowledge is comprised of a network, which feeds into organizations and institutions, which in turn feed back into the network, and then continue to provide learning to individual. A spider can sense everything through its web. Same with a learner who stays current by many different ways: networking, friends/family, the internet, books/journals, etc. A spider without a web can not survive. A learner without sources to stay current can't learn.

Diigo & Pinterest

How to manage tons of information? What's the efficient way for sharing them? Two tools named Diigo and Pinterest can help.

From the table we can see the differences between Diigo and Pinterest. In my point of view, Diigo is more academic. We can highlight text and make notes in sites. On the other hand, Pinterest is more visual. But that also means if a site do not have a good picture, we’ll overlook it. I like Pinterest better because it’s easy to use and it’s enjoyable to look through the colorful pin broad.

I would continue to use both tools for different purposes. When I am working on projects or writing essays, Diigo is definitely useful for managing the websites I need. However, when I want to look for ideas of the subjects that interest me, I would search in Pinterest. For example, I want to add a tattoo so I can search “tattoo” and the beautiful tattoo pictures would come out.

 

 

 

Embrace technology, 21st century teachers!

I would like to introduce two videos about technology. We can see teachers in this fast changing world would need to keep updating their technology knowledge in order to have a better teaching result.

 

1.Did You Know? Version 6 is an eye-catching video. The main point is "shift happens".

 

We are living in exponential times. The vocabulary we have now is five times as many as during Shakespeare's time. The amount of new technical information is doubling less than every 72 hours by now. Technology is growing faster than we thought. 

 

After watching the video, I feel pressure. It is impossible to know all the information. We are using the edge-cutting technologies which we do not know how they work. Every minute hundreds of babies are born. Maybe one day we will be a person who cannot catch up the trend just like some old people nowadays. When I tried to show my grandparents how to use smart phones they are reluctant to learn because it is "too complicated". I am not saying that watching TV and reading newspaper is not good, but when you know how to use the Internet you will open a door to the new world. Getting to know the newest technology is not just excited but also make life more convenient. So let's learn some technologies! Don't be left behind!

 

2.How can a  teacher in 21st century digitally empower the students? What would the students learn with technology as a tool? You can find the answers in the A Vision of 21st Century Teachers. Apart from that, the video says a 21st century teacher should keep learning. It encourages teachers to embrace techonology. As a teacher, we should make every ways to help teaching. I remember in my high school, there was an oral English teacher who's from London. In the first class he used a software to let us choose the right answer from four choices. The questions were about himself. We had fun with guessing the answers. It is an interesting and efficient way to made an self introduction. None of my Chinese teachers could use the technological tools like he did. From him, I understand how important can technology be. I believe 21st century teachers should make good use of the mordern technology to make their classes more vivid.

 

 So teachers, get invovled in the technological world. You will be glad you do so.



How blogging helps language learning

Young people are keen on Internet. Many have a blog. They post, make comments, log in everyday to see what is new. If teacher can connect blogging with learning, students would have more motivation.

 

Blogging, as a convenient way to express and communicate, can benefit language learning as well. Outside the traditional classroom, students would feel free to talk with each other and with teachers. If I post events and ask the students to give comments or think about solutions, students might have different point of views according to their backgrounds.  By viewing others' posts and adding comments, students can share the language and their different cultures. Someone outside the classroom can also make comments. Therefore, the interchanging of thoughts happens not only within the classroom but with the world.

 

Also, since blogs create a openly and frankly environment, students would be more careful when they post. They would think clearly and modify several times before they feel good to show to the audience. When teaching English, I would ask the students to post in English. They would care about the grammar and maybe look up a word in the dictionary or Google some sentences they are going to use. Writing is an efficient way to learn language, and the students are more likely to remember the knowledge when they try to figure it out by themselves.

 

High Intermediate Language Skills Writing Indicators: Draft, organize, write and edit a short paragraph using a topic sentence, supporting details and transitions.