ESL Podcasting

It seems that podcasting is a great tool to practice using listening skills. At ESLpod, many podcasts are uploaded daily to help students not only practice listening skills, but also learn practical phrases and vocabulary. Each episode has an audio file that can be downloaded, a transcript of a conversation, additional explanation.   

'

I chose a particular episode which is “Kitchen Appliance” from ESL Pod. In order to use this episode a classroom, first, teacher explains the key vocabulary and phrases in a conversation so that students can listen to the conversation more comprehensively. And then, teacher let students repeat after to a conversation by each sentence. Afterward, Students practice the conversation in pairs. For next activity, teacher gives students a worksheet that has blanks, and students will fill in the blanks by listening to the conversation from the podcast. Teacher then checks the answers with students by listening to the conversation again. Finally, teacher gives students another worksheet has word puzzle using the key vocabulary and phrases. Through these activities, Students will be able to memorize the key vocabulary in the conversation “Kitchen Appliances,” and practice speaking and listening skills.

ePals

It seems that ePals provides safe collaborative technology for schools to connect and learn in a protected way by offering great products such as “Global Community” and “Learning Space.” Through learning space which is a safe virtual workspace in ePals, students and teachers could engage in relevant issues while learning, motivating each other, and enhancing skills in a collaborative learning setting. ePals also could allows students to connect to the other students around world safely through Global Community section. For example, a high school student studying Korean, might use ePlas to connect to a students studying English in Korea. These types of connections can benefit students as well as teachers making language classroom more social and efficient. 

Digital storytelling using Animoto

           What I created for digital storytelling with Animoto is a video presenting key vocabulary with photographs. The key words are "passport," "visa," "boarding pass," "security checkpoint," "luggage," "information desk," and "currency exchange" which are  things to know for traveling abroad. These key words in the video will be used for practicing listening and speaking English skills with a conversation which might be used when students travel abroad. 
           If the language used by the teacher or in materials is not comprehensible, students can lose interest, become anxious or frustrated, and sometimes go into a passive mode. Thus, introduction of key words of the conversation using pictures helps to understand the conversation more easily before they listen to the conversation and practice the conversation in pairs. They will listen to and speak the conversation more comprehensively by knowing the key words. 

Digital storytelling using Bookr

           What I created for a digital storytelling using Bookr is that presenting the different types of foods in the other countries. In  multicultural classroom, students will see the pictures of the other countries' tradition foods and discuss the difference between their own traditional foods and the other countries' foods. Then students will present their own traditional food using Bookr in groups or pairs. Therefore, this storytelling is a basis for their own digital storytelling using Bookr. I hope that students get interested in using this tool so that they can  participate in classroom actively. Also, there will be a lot of interaction between students which encourage students to practice speaking, listening, reading, and writing skills by completing their own digital storytelling. 
I

Digital Storytelling

Digital Storytelling 2011 welcome screen designed by Marius Renberg.
Photo byJeff Mottle (Flickr)

Digital storytelling is telling stories with multimedia tools such as graphics, audio, video animation, and Web publishing. It seems that teachers could use digital storytelling to prompt students to participate in and outside of classroom effectively.

According to 7 Things You should Know About Digital Storytelling, “Creating and watching digital stories has the potential to increase the information literacy of a wide range of students.”  I think that using digital storytelling will be an effective teaching strategy with students who are visual learners or digital learners. Digital storytelling will be able to help students to develop their abilities of presenting self- expression, autobiography, or historical events, especially, in multicultural classroom.

A website “Center for digital storytelling” stated that “Digital Storytelling is currently being used in more than 80 countries with many different applications, including education, marketing, and self-expression, among others.” It seems to reflect that students who are digital learners getting more and more nowadays. Therefore, digital storytelling will be a good tool for teachers to teach, reach, and engage their students more effectively in digital era.

Twitter for teachers and learners

Before I read articles about twitters in classroom, I did not know that it could be a great tool to teach and learn. Also, I did not even know why people use twitter. However, articles from Joe Dale and Scott Akerson provided a good insight on how I could use twitter or microblogging for my own professional development and for my future students.  

Twitter allows students to interact with the other students in classrooms across the country so that students can learn from each other. Scott Akerson said that  twitter provides opportunities for connection, communication and collaboration to help the students’ learning experiences better and gives more motivation for students to prepare great presentation

For teachers, Joe Dale offers practical tips and advice on using twitter via video clips. The video clips explain how to use twitter for professional development. I have noticed that Twitter is a great tool to stay current with news and communication in general. It allows people to search for topics or people that might interest them in their field very easily. This is good for professional development because I can contact those who can give me good advice or search for information that will improve my teaching skills via twitter. 

Social Networking Group

This website shows that connecting to other people in order to learn the knowledge of the field in which is interested is important in learning in digital era. Technology allows people to have a community on internet website.

EFL Classroom 2.0 is community of many of English teachers and learners. It seems to be very useful to current teachers in EFL context or those who are planning to teach English in EFL context. People can get a lot of useful resources, materials, and ideas for their classroom through this website. Also, they can experience indirectly through many teachers who are having or had teaching experience in EFL context. In addition, through this web site, teachers can share ideas with other teachers and discuss teaching strategies or skills. Even for learners, they can get helpful materials for learning English as well.

Connectivism

Since human beings can no longer personally experience everything to learn what they need, they need to gain information from formed information. In George Siemens’ article, “Connectivism: A Learning Theory for the Digital Age“ he used Karen Stephenson’ statement “Experience has long been considered the best teacher of knowledge. Since we cannot experience everything, other people’s experiences, and hence other people, become the surrogate for knowledge. ‘I store my knowledge in my friends’ is an axiom for collecting knowledge through collecting people (undated).” Therefore, focusing on connecting to formed information allows learners to learn more from the other people who have the knowledge of their field that they need or want to learn, especially in a digital era.            
However, today, knowledge is growing exponentially and quickly. Therefore, in terms of learning in the theory of connectivism, the needed skills is to draw information outside of our primary knowledge through connection with techonology as well as to recognize whether information is important or not.  That is why educators help learners how to access to more important information. In addition, George Siemens on the video clip “The Conflict of Learning Theories with Human Nature,“  he mentioned that "educators need to find a way to help learners to express their own ideas so that they are able to communicate with the other people." In digital era, as  a educator, it is important what to teach, but, at the same time, it is also important to teach how to learn from the other people through connection and use technology to assess to the people in the world.

Resources:

http://www.itdl.org/Journal/Jan_05/article01.htm
Siemens, G.  (2005, January).  Connectivism: A Learning Theory for the Digital Age.  International Journal of Instructional Technology and Distance Learning, Retrieved November 20, 2005

The Conflict of Learning Theories with Human Nature (4:13 minutes)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTgWt4Uzr54&feature=PlayList&p=3E43054A8703F57A&index=2 Retrieved January 10, 2009.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connectivism

Tell A Story Using Google Maps

I got a very good idea for teaching storytelling using Google map from Graham Wegner's blog. He said that this is a great tool for creating narratives, histories, mathematical journeys etc. I really liked the idea of using Google map for his story of journey as an educator using Google map. Here’s the link to the story he created as the example of a storytelling.  I think, if students use this tool for making a storytelling, they can present their autobiography or a story of journey very effectively, especially, in a multicultural classroom. Also, I believe that this tool will be very good to get students interested in a classroom.

http://gwegner.edublogs.org/

click for my comment

Pay attention

       It seems what this video is trying to say is that today’s people can’t live without technology and use technology for almost human activity, especially in teaching. I could realize how much students who are digital learners spend time on using technology by looking at the statistics through this video. Also, it made me think about how much I need to use technology in my future classroom. After watching this video, I felt that I need to use technology to teach, reach, and  engage students more effectively.

SLA, Language Teaching, and Technology

Chapter 1 in his book, Blake pointed out that “the process of learning second language other than the mother tongue is an intensive and time-consuming activity” (Blake 2008, 1) by showing the Foreign Service Institute (FSI)’ s estimate. According to FSI, it takes from four to six years to reach functional proficiency in a second language. Most SLA theorists agree on that, in order to make the process of L2 faster and more effective, L2 learners need to contact with the target language more, and formal L2 teaching is often unsuccessful because learners did not received sufficient input in the target language in EFL context or even in ESL context. Therefore, Blake suggested that technology can offer not only efficiency, but also sufficient input in both ESL and EFL context.

Blake argued that learning language is best learned and taught through social interaction. For example, interaction of learners and their interlocutors, and mutual comprehension of each other’s message meaning assist language learning. Therefore, he suggested that online websites, applications and CDs and computer-mediated communications (CMC) via networking functionality and technology will be good tools to assist learning language.

I also agree with Blake’s argument that L2 learners need to contact with the target language as much as possible through social interaction of their peers and instructors with technology tools. When I compare my current English proficiency with that of past four years, it has been improved a lot. I could learn English from Facebook, text messaging, online website, and movies etc. As a person who is planning to teach English in Korea, I am willing to use technology in my future class so that my students can contact with English as much as possible. I believe that it will help students learn English effectively.   


Blake, Robert J.  & Dorothy M. Chun.  (2008)  Brave New Digital Classroom: Technology and Foreign Language Learning.  Washington, D.C. :Georgetown University Press

Three ways that teachers could use blogs in their teaching

TESOL Standard: English language learners communicate for social, intercultural, and instructional purposes within the school setting. 1. Teachers could provide extra reading practice for students.

Usually, the teacher is the only person who reads students writing. With weblog, students can learn from their peers’ writings which are well written. Also, they can help each other by positing their comments.

2. Teachers could encourage students participate in class and build relationship between students.

Sometimes students spend time on just studying with the same people without getting to know them well in a large class. A blog is another tool that can help bring students together. Students who are quiet in class can get opportunity to express themselves in a blog.

3. Teachers could provide a place to discuss their opinion out of class.

Students can write about their opinion in a blog. Having a discussion in a blog can promote discussion in class.

http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/articles/blogging-elt

WEB SAFTY TIPS

-       Be careful in joining mailing lists, some may make your personal information public. Don't provide an address or phone number. The information for which you are signing up is sent to the e-mail address you provide, so they don't need your address or phone number

-       Be careful to give out your personal information, your real name, address, or phone number, or any personal information about your family or friends without their permission.

-       Be aware of offers for free items, get rich quick, or weight loss offers. They may be a scam.

-       Be aware of e-mail from people you don't know or e-mail you weren't expecting. It may contain a virus designed to damage your computer or send your account name and password back to the sender.

You can get more information here:

http://www.commonsense.com/internet-safety-tips/tips-for-kids.php

http://www.qcc.mass.edu/safety/Internet%20Safety%20Guidlines.htm

http://kidshealth.org/teen/safety/safebasics/internet_safety.html