Journal #14 CALL Class Synthesis

Embarking on this journey into CALL-land, I was excited but anxious. I would say that I now have a rudimentary knowledge of several CALL tools that would be useful in ES/FL learning, depending on the level of the students and access to technology of course. It is advantageous for intermediate to advanced learners, and is certainly helpful for ESP courses. Voice Thread (my favorite for Beginning High and on up) for community combined skills practice, Wikispaces for posting research or ideas throughout a semester or as a culminating event (Intermediate or Advanced), Blogspot for keeping up on topics and reading/writing practice and for teacher-student or student-to-student contact, Nicenet where Blackboard is not available, Lextutor and Word Champ for building vocabulary while reading online (my second favorite for intermediate or advanced levels), Survey Monkey for research projects when collecting data in the form of questionnaires, Photo Shop 3 for building Voice Thread or other viewing/listening practice, Podcasting for some dynamic listening activities, Youtube listening and viewing practice lists, Google Groups for collaborative team projects that would be great for writing practice, VoIP venues such as Google Chat or Skype or Meebo for conversation practice.

I am even more convinced now of the three keys to utilizing technology effectively and efficiently: 1) Instructor knowledge and ability to train students. 2) Time to train and use the tool in class must be built into the course syllabus. 3) The tool has to be an asset to the SLA process, and should be viewed as part of a task-based approach.

Going forward I am looking forward to using at least one or two CALL tools -in addition to Blackboard- in each of my FL classes, each semester, as enhancements, change of pace, and improved collaborative learning. I have benefitted greatly from the collaborative environment, the excellent instruction and support, and the great ideas from my colleagues. All around, it has been a great, encouraging learning experience. Thanks to all!

Journal #13 Second Life

Second Life is certainly inventive and is practice for eye-hand coordination. The occasional conversation that might occur is not going to be deep, thoughtful, inventive, or -in my extremely humble opinion- useful. I would never use this in class. I would only suggest this as an out of class practice, and have students report on a regular journal or blog if they made a good contact. I think that Voice thread is far more community oriented and beneficial for language practice if one requires visuals.

Journal #12 Video Conferencing

Depending on what the purpose of the meeting or teaching situation is, I would recommend the following:
MegaMeeting: Classes of up to 16 folks. It's adaptable on three browsers, Windows, Mac OSx, Linux; Integrated VoiP, screen sharing, Individual and SMBs versions.
Wengomeeting: Classes of smaller groups, audio & video conferencing both, 3 browsers, Flash technology.
Webex or PaiBee: Teacher with Learner, 1 to 1; online whiteboard; record a video conference (nice for a student to review a lesson.) Widget enables you to embed recorded conferences on blog or page, which would be handy for the teacher to do to archive lesson by lesson for the student on a special blog set up for this purpose.
Skype or Ichat: Learner to Learner; Use of familiar videoware might make it easier for the students to focus on the conversation.

Meebo and Tokbox appear to be very slick.

I envision using video conferencing on a bi-weekly basis to practice conversation, pronunciation, student skits/situations that can be recorded and embedded for a grade and for peer editing.

Journal #11 E-journaling, TBLT & Distance Learning

E-journaling can be a vehicle for 'practicing' what we 'think' as we write. It is a task that requires writing about what's in our heads, our "head voice". So as we think personal thoughts, we are actually hearing ourselves 'speak', to ourselves, in the language in which we are writing. For the ESL student, this will hopefully be in English, and as they write they can formulate their ideas. E-journaling ideas is comparable to conversational style, so it can conceivably assist the NNS 'practice' what they might say in a conversation. I think this is a process we all go through at times. Sometimes writing things down (in this case in a relaxed style) helps us to clarify what's in our heads, what we really think or feel about something, thereby preparing us for the moment when we are asked to speak on the same topic.

Task Based Language Teaching appears to be the newest frontier of research in SLA. The CARLA site is replete with teaching resources, professional and for the classroom. The 'teaching speech acts' project with its phased approach is seemingly well-planned, but data is missing on the content of the modules used. I would like to get feedback from a student as to the efficacy of the program. The bibliographies by speech act shows the level of dedication UMN has to the Carla project. http://dev-carla.umn.edu/speechacts/bibliography/index.html

Three of the most outstanding articles I have read in the SLA forum are on TBLT. J. Lee, (2000) McGraw-Hill provided tacit definitions of task, which amount to everything we do on a daily basis, through survival tasks. Lee updates the notion of 'communicative' exercises, which can often be masked drills and discrete-point activities, to being the purposeful performance of an activity/instruction/command. Language is not the object to be studied, as Doughty and Long state explicitly in their psycholinguistic analysis of distance learning and TBLT, but it is the 'vehicle' for communication. Lee, p. 35, states that discussions in academic classes have stated purposes, whereas language classes are missing this link. That depends. On the teacher, on the curriculum, on the student level. I think that languages lend themselves to studies in literature, current events, history, sociology, anthropology IN the target language, whereby the interest level is high, and the target language IS the vehicle for communication. Many gaps of knowledge are realized (Skehan and Doughty/Long), meaning is negotiated to complete tasks be they coming to a consensus, preparing details for a report, simulating authentic situations. I liked the definition of 'negotiating meaning' offered by Skehan, "the way learners encounter communicational difficulties while completing tasks, and how they do something about those difficulties." Having interned in a completely TBLT ESL listening/speaking class, I found that there is an inordinate amount of time spent in getting students organized and re-organized. My experience was definitely one where the role of the teacher was "to react to whatever language emerged, and then to help address the gap." I'm not convinced that much learning occurred except for a few students. I would use a combination approach, planning well, having specific knowledge-constructing and activating tasks in mind. Both Skehan's and Doughty/Long's papers were gave helpful parameters in giving teachers tools to set up pertinent, successful, task based activities in the classroom or online. For me, a priori one must accurately assess the needs of the students first. The difference between research on this topic done in segments of 5 to 20 minutes versus what really happens in the classroom is PARAMOUNT. There are two different realities.

Project Post: Wikispaces and Luxtutor Dictionary & Concordance

My project target audience is high intermediate to low advanced university French conversation and/or composition classes. Students will each post their final projects to a class Wikispaces page. This will include a summarized text of their presentation, embedded power points, images. My first intent is for them to display and share their hard work with their colleagues. The second objective is for them to use the target language in negotiating the questions they will use for the jeopardy game, in what order they will list their projects, which special links or graphics or media they will include. The third objective is for them to 'teach' (i.e. communicate successfully to) each other, so there will be a short exam in the form of jeopardy to test salient points at the end of the semester based on the information they post to assess their success. Units of study from which they will present will be in business issues or current events, historical units such as Charles De Gaulle/WWII/the French Résistance, colonization (Indochina, Africa, Caribbean), francophone culture or history, New Wave film genre, contemporary film to name a few areas of research.

Journal #9 Computer Mediated Communication, a couple options

Linguistic Funland http://tesol.net/penpals/

This site allows teachers to do a post or a search by age group for other teachers' classes who are also looking for penpals. There is also an individual listing option, by language, by age group where students can post and search. Your specific requests can be made such as whether you are looking for native speakers. As for setting up chatting opportunities, the teacher would have to use another program. Not ideal because it's not full service, but it might yield a serious group of students to work with.

http://www.nicenet.org/

Teachers with Internet access but without Blackboard will be able to set up several thread topics at a time, can view all of the responses, can edit or delete entire asynchronous threads. The teachers are given a class code which they give to the students. This is not a slick site, but it does appear to be operational and it is free. It was very easy to sign up a class. Texts should be kept at a minimum.

Post #8 March 4, 2010 EAP Note-Taking Practice

Welcome to English for Academic Purposes

Note-Taking Practice!

In this podcast you will hear about the cyclonic windstorm 'Xynthia', which recently hit Western Europe. Please complete the pre-listening activities prior to taking notes from the podcast.

Activity 1. Pre-listening. Useful Terms. Click on the terms below to be linked to Encarta On-line Dictionary for the definitions and pronunciation. Read all definitions before deciding which one fits this context. To navigate back to this blog page, simply click on the return arrow. The terms are also recorded on the podcast.

Xynthia, Lothar

violent windstorm

France's Civil Defence

battering waves

hard-hit

mobile home park

sea wall

coastal development practices

For further word searches: Encarta On-line Dictionary

From the list of vocabulary, we can see that the context of this podcast report includes references to the country of France, windstorms and some of their characteristics, the French Civil Defence Ministry, coastal phenomena, and mobile homes.

To reinforce your understanding of the above terms, do this simple matching activity alone or with a partner. (Answers are below in reverse order.)

1. Xynthia, Lothar

2. violent windstorm

3. Civil Defence

4. battering waves

5. The town was hard-hit by the cyclone.

6. mobile home park

7. sea wall

8. coastal development practices

a. devastated, struck, where much was destroyed

b. names of cyclones

c. edifice that protects a coastline from high waves

d. organism of government that protects its citizens similar to the

U.S. Department of the Interior or Human Services

e. seaside construction and planning, especially near residences

f. cyclone or tornado are types of violent windstorms

g. huge tidal water swells that cause flooding

h. Neighborhood of homes that are on trailers and can be towed

[e c g a g d f b ]

Activity 2. Pre-listening.

A. Content: Weather Patterns

With a partner, please click on 'cyclones', and familiarize yourself with some of the terminology used in describing these natural wind phenomena. Make a list of new and/or additional terms or interesting facts that you would use in discussing or reading about cyclones.

B. Connecting: Your Personal Background & Knowledge

Discuss any knowledge that you have of where previous cyclones have hit, the damage to those regions, the kinds of aid these areas received from the global community. How many could you name? Did you know anyone personally who was touched by these natural disasters?

Now listen to the podcast. On note paper, leaving large margins to each side of your sheet, begin writing as you hear the report. Note dates, places, people, events. As you write, leave space between items so that you can listen a second time, adding notes to embellish your note-taking. After listening twice, please work on the follow-up activities below, alone or with your partner.

LISTEN NOW! <= Click here.

Activity 3. Post-listening. Search for details. Please answer the following questions. If you cannot find the answers in your notes, listen to the podcast until you hear them.

1. What dates did Xynthia hit Western Europe? Describe the cyclone activity in detail.

2. In what year did Lothar hit?

3. Which countries in Western Europe were hard-hit by the storm?

4. Describe the types of damage which occurred in those countries, including death toll, damage to dwellings.

5. What was it that reached a height of 7 meters?

6. During what era was the sea wall near St. Aiguille-sur-mer built?

7. What kind of coastal development practice is being criticized in this piece and why?

8. What did 1 million French and 1 million Portuguese households lose during the storm?

9. What kind of delays were experienced in France and northern Spain?

10. What is the name of the Paris airport, and what transpired there during Xynthia?

11. Give the three wind gust measurements and the country where they were recorded.

With your partners, compare answers. Listen again to the podcast if necessary.

Activity 4. Post-listening. Search for meaning. Write a synopsis in your own words of this report on Xynthia, then with your partner, practice presenting the report to each other as if your were a TV journalist reporting the story.

To verify your answers, you may read the text of this podcast.

Text taken from wikipedia.org

NOTE TO INSTRUCTORS OF ADVANCED ESL /EAP

Overall, the Wiki resource and others like it, would be beneficial for this type of weekly exercise for an EAP class. Topics could be geared to the schools, students' interests, scholastic needs, etc. It would take time for the instructor to set up every week, but if the topics are of high interest, contain lots of new vocabulary, or are provocative in nature, class discussions would be exciting. If several instructors are teaching the same section, the weekly duty of selecting and setting up the podcast could be shared. Obviously public radio and other emissions can be used, but making one's own podcast enables the teacher's knowledge of students' interests to be taken more into account.

Varieties of pre-listening and post-listening can be done by having students work individually, in pairs or in threes. The advantage of paired work is combined knowledge, using the vocabulary to communicate. The advantage of working alone is that students will more easily identify their weaknesses. A combination of paired and group work would bring more variety, and would make students accountable to each other.

Just start at wikipedia.org and search the latest articles.

An additional post-listening activity could be done if pairs of students are each given a separate podcast to listen and prepare for class 'broadcasts'. This would entail using of all skills, and they would be required to use their new vocabulary in their class 'broadcasts'.

Yet another post-listening activity could be that each week a different group could post their findings on a wiki page, or a blog. And even more engaging (and time-consuming) could be a weekly newspaper that would afford students the opportunity of setting up sections, focusing on various areas of THEIR interest, by groups. Their activities could be construed as a service to fellow students. Discussion threads could be begun on one article per week, for example, or on all the topics if students are willing to moniter/answer them!

Happy podcasting!

Post #7 Feb 25, 2010 Concordances Lextutor.ca

Writing with an online concordance has its advantages in terms of ready resources for students to rely on. It can be a time-saving device, and once 'hooked' on the system and the real-time answers to vocabulary or grammar questions, I can see how students would not mind writing in this manner. BUT the online sessions should be timed periodically throughout a semester for both the students' and instructors' sakes. Having the actual documents posted on one site for the instructor eliminates the awkwardness of e-mailing documents, which I cannot tolerate myself, when faced with exorbitant amounts of students. The drawback is the learning curve for familiarizing oneself with the technology.

Luxtutor is amazingly academic, however, which is its strength. It's a maze of resources, best used for the advanced, or EAP writers. Just becoming familiar and even expert at navigating the concordance would be useful in the students' future academic writing. I'm smitten with this feature: concordance of both written and spoken language! The bonus for me, also a French instructor, is that Luxtutor has both English and French concordances. BINGO!

Journal #6 Podcast: Everyday Living in the USA! Schedule a Medical Appointment

WELCOME to EVERYDAY LIVING IN THE USA! Come, listen and learn with us!

Scheduling a Medical Appointment *** ESL / ESP Advanced Beginner or Low Intermediate Activity

Click on each of the words below for a link to Encarta Dictionary and the definition. To navigate back to this blog from the vocabulary site, click on the return arrow key of your server. Click on the above link to listen first to the vocabulary list below, and then to the podcast episode. Enjoy!

schedule an appointment
a checkup
medical
dental
health insurance
co-pay (copayment)

Pre-listening Activity 1. Test your vocabulary practice activity...Choose the correct definition for each word. (The answers are at the end of the activity.)

clinic

1. a medical center 2. an institution where children and teenagers are taught

dental

1. relating or belonging to the teeth 2. a building where goods are manufactured

schedule an appointment

1. a published work of literature 2. arrange to meet somebody

checkup

1. feeling or showing pleasure 2. to carry out detailed examination

medical

1. treatment given by doctors 2. used in education or by teachers

health insurance

1. financial protection for customers 2. medical expenses covered by employer

[ 1 1 2 2 1 2 ]

Now listen to the podcast by clicking on "Schedule a Medical Appointment" above.

Post-Listening Activity 2. Follow-up activity for comprehension…

After you’ve listened to this episode, take a look at the following comments. You will notice that the order of the following sentences are jumbled. Please put them back in order, according to the sequence of events in the episode you heard. The answer key is at the end of this activity, but try not to look until you’ve attempted to put the sentences in the correct order! Hint: You might want to review the meaning of your new vocabulary words.

A. The clinic appointment scheduler tells Mr. Kuma that they have a Japanese doctor on staff.
B. The clinic appointment scheduler asks Mr. Kuma to wait while she connects him to the medical department where he can schedule his appointment.
C. The clinic receptionist asks Mr. Kuma to state the purpose of his call.
D. The clinic appointment scheduler would like to know if Mr. Kuma has health insurance coverage.
E. The clinic scheduler tells Mr. Kuma when there is an opening in their calendar to schedule a checkup visit.
F. The clinic scheduler reminds Mr. Kuma to bring his UIC ID and his co-pay to his physical checkup.

[ C B E D F A ]

Post-Listening Activity 3. Group discussion questions. Spend a couple minutes brainstorming with your group and be ready to share your results.

1. There are many kinds of clinics, depending on their purpose. Name the kinds and purpose of a visit there.
Remember that some clinics are located inside hospitals. (Ex. Dental: when you have to get your teeth cleaned, or have a toothe ache.)

2. Imagine that you need to make a phone call to a hospital. What information will you prepare before you call? (Ex. your name, address, phone number, etc.)

3. Think about the hospitals in your own country. How are they different from those in the United States or other countries? Introduce the hospital system and admitting procedures in your own country to your group members, and discover the differences among other countries' systems.

Thank you for joining us and come back again soon!


Note to instructors. This episode is the first in a series for ESP medical/dental visits, which take place in both the doctor’s or dentist’s office as well as in the hospital. This first episode prepares the ESL/ESP student for questions that might be asked when scheduling their medical appointments. It will also allow the student to experience the turn taking and politeness features used in English that they can expect from the scheduler, and that they will be expected to use in return.

Instructors may find this dialogue at Literacy Net Only minor back stepping has been added, and a few details such as dates have been changed. The exercises are original and are in keeping with the typical communicative pre-listening, listening and post-listening process. The students will recognize this progression towards ACQUISITION of USEFUL VOCABULARY and FOCUS on FUNCTIONAL LANGUAGE. For example, the follow-up comprehension exercise does not simply translate the statements from the dialogue. The statements are made such that the student will have to identify the function, not merely recognize the dialogue features. All of the stated vocabulary words are repeated in the jumbled statements, so that they first view the list, hear the audible list, may look up the meaning via the link provided to Encarta Dictionary, are given a chance to repeat the words, can catch the words in the actual hearing of the episode phase, then view the words embedded in the comprehension exercise based on our understanding that repetition aids in SLA.

ORAL post-listening activity. Follow-up questions in class might include: How does this experience compare with medical appointment scheduling in your country? What other types of information might you need to give or ask? After students complete the listening portion activity individually or in pairs, they can form groups and role play a similar scene for one another. This time they can go directly to an office to make the appointment. Perhaps one of the students might role-play taking his NNS grandmother to the office to navigate the scheduling of the appointment on her behalf? They could be asked to do the same for a dental visit, brainstorming as a whole group what additional words might be used for the dental office.

WRITING follow-up. To continue the follow-up above, the newly created dialogue can be written by the pairs or individually. An alternative writing assignment might be to write a journal entry about this event such as: Today I scheduled my first doctor appointment in the USA. … I was really nervous at first, but since I knew the questions that would be asked in advance, I managed quite well. OR, I bombed. I was so embarrassed. Oh well, better luck next time I have to schedule an appointment.

For a more personal or creative assignment, students may also write a narrative about a humorous or frightening medical mishap in their past. Instructors might ask them to describe a medical visit gone sour, or a humorous visit, some incident that has some connection to a medical visit. They can combine their new vocabulary and the functional use of the questions and answers, turn-taking and politeness features, combined with a review and practice of the past tenses in this assignment. Soon they'll be ready to play act Molière's 'Le Malade imaginaire' with flair! Here's to life in the USA. Thanks for stopping by.

Journal #5 Voicethread, Week 5

Voicethread has a global perspective in that it is available internationally. In terms of learning strategies for listening on line per Chapelle and Jamieson, it would adhere to their suggestions of need for motivation, modeling by other students, and a consistency or familiarity with the site. The fact that L2 can click on icons representing other students not only preserves the anonymity of the responders, but it makes it fun and kind of mysterious. These are engaging factors. Being able to 'point' to the items being discussed -as if on a white board- makes the visual component outstanding, easy to follow, and will certainly ease the anxiety factor that listening often causes. It might or might not be helpful to hear the other accents/grammar inaccuracies from the accuracy perspective, but it certainly would aid in improving fluency. That should be the aim of Voicethread.

Blog 4 February 4, 2010

feed//www.rfi.fr/radiofr/podcast/
For this blog I am giving the teacher's perspective of a popular podcast. Radio France network produces a news show daily at a slightly slower speed than normal French speech. This is indeed at minimum an intermediate (think 2nd or 3rd year college French) program. There is no written script, so the students who use this on a daily or weekly basis will have to listen numerous times. The repetition is a good thing to improve listening skills. It could be listened to in class, allowing the teacher to stop at any point to discuss the terminology or ideas. It would work quite well as content for reaction journals.

http://radiolingua.com/2010/01/lesson-73-coffee-break-french/
Let's switch to the student's perspective of this podcast. Students will love the idea of following a story, and learning how to converse, repeating after the instructor in a conversational manner. It is user friendly for English L1 students, who can follow episodes of this Scottish production at their own pace. The story line is conversational, and the explanations in Scottish English are excellent. The caveat is that the student will hear both English and French, which can be confusing. This is best for beginners to intermediates. It would be a good way for false beginners to review. This has a cost of 12BP/year.

WEEK 3, vocab-related CALL sites

ULTRALINGUA.com
I accessed the Food.inc website and looked up an article on Haiti, placing the URL in the Ultralingua.com site dictionary. This was the result when I double-clicked on Haitian
"Haitian n.
A native or inhabitant of Haiti.
Haitian adj.
Of or relating to or characteristic of the republic of Haiti or its people: “Haitian shantytowns.”
phrases
Haitian centime n.
100 centimes equal 1 gourde.
Haitian Creole n.
A creole language spoken by most Haitians; based on French and various African languages.
Haitian monetary unit n.
The monetary unit in Haiti."

I find this option the best of all that were discussed in the FIVE articles for this week's activities. This enables the reader (and since when did reading STOP being a JOYFUL activity????? Ref. Gruba) to remain on the actual reading text site without flipping back and forth between sites. In short, it looks like a thorough definition and explanation are provided, in a very non-invasive manner. It will be possible for the students to have a fluid reading approach. These definitions in English can be used to formulate the mini-concordance by assigned groups, or by class in the event there is a small class size. Students can negotiate for the most important words to include in their concordance or corpus. After the teacher edits the list by eliminating the passive or low frequency terms to assist the students in paying attention to the most high frequency and utilized vocabulary, a test can be given to assess their acquisition of the terms. It would be interesting to do an initial quiz immediately after the reading and before the students begin to put together a concordance, then again immediately after they have assessed and assembled the mini-concordance, and then finally after they have studied their self-selected mini-concordance to see if there is a marked increase in the internalization of the information.

WORDCHAMP.com
Placing the same URL address in this READ site yielded less definition and explanation. Further, in order to put the words in a list for later use as flash cards, etc., one is required to be part of a class which the instructor can apparently set up for free. However, the students must pay $12.50. This is not a bad idea if the instructor wants the students to create a wordlist, or if they want to have their students chat online with penpals. This last option would be an interesting one to pursue, as long as the total expenses of the class permitted it.
This site provides the technology for students to create their mini-corpus or mini-concordances online, and the same process can be applied as for Ultralingua.

Blog 2 CALL January 19, 2010

Dear TESOL bloggers,

I found three great sites that contain short stories that can be used in K-8 classes.
http://www.indianchild.com/short_stories.htm This contains SHORT INSPIRING STORIES. The site is user-friendly and not slick, simply functional: scan list, select story and click, print text, read with kids and do your follow-up activities.

The second site is slicker, contemporary, is better indexed, but is basically a good resource for texts:
http://www.eastoftheweb.com/short-stories/childrenindex.html SHORT STORIES

These can be used as a text for cultural or ethical conversation courses, the point de départ for a writing or dialogue/role-play activity. I would suggest studying a genre such as the fable, then having the kids write individually or as a group to create their own fable. The fables could be copied and assembled into a book that would be distributed to the parents and kept for posterity. Students (people!) love to get published!!!! Great for parent teacher conferences or for the first parents' night of the scholastic year. The stories would make great displays, either all together in a display window in the hallway, or featured one story a week on a special board. The student would read their story either in the library (read "New York bookstore') or in the classroom for their peers.
So now you have reading, vocabulary building, discourse, literary genre, art of writing and editing, peer editing, group project, publishing, reading out loud, celebrating creativity!! IT'S WIN WIN WIN.

Blog 1 CALL January 14, 2010 Previous CALL experience

Dear TESOL bloggers,

It is January 12, 2010, the beginning of my last semester in the MA program in Applied Linguistics/TESOL at University of Illinois at Chicago. I will chronicle my journey into CALL-land for TESOL, bringing to the blog screen questions, concerns, debates and 'Aha! moments' as they occur. I not only appreciate, but I expect you, the readers, to contribute your own constructive comments, ideas and suggestions. All for one and one for all!

I have extensive experience with Blackboard Discussion Board, Voice Board, Grade Center, posting items and web links, as faculty in university courses. I've dabbled in Dreamweaver, Jing and Hot Potatoes. Clearly, I have a long way to go!

My primary concern in CALL class is to KISS *keep it simple schweetheart* so that CALL projects are user-friendly and allow for minimal interference when students are accessing the site and doing the project.

One of my main questions is how to set up EFFECTIVE group projects. What have you, my readers, experienced in terms of successful, or UNsuccessful group projects, or even solo CALL projects?

Looking forward to learning the software and sharing my observations and questions with you!