Tan's SLS 418 Blog
Hello, welcome to my Blog. I have learned about blogging and how it can be an effective tool to represent myself and my skills that I have obtained throughout my educational career. I am taking Second Language Studies 418 Instructional Media to get a better understanding of what media is available to us as educators that can benefit students in their second language learning experience.
"E lauhoe mai na wa'a; i ke ka, i ka hoe; i ka hoe, i ke ka; pae aku i ka 'aina."
("Paddle together, bail, paddle; paddle, bail; paddle towards the land.")
("Paddle together, bail, paddle; paddle, bail; paddle towards the land.")
Blog 1 Week ending 2/3/2012:Podcasting Presentation
I think podcasting can be an effective tool for second language learning and pronunciation if we use it in ways that will be interesting to our students and have a purpose in mind. We have to decide if we think it will benefit our students to use podcasting to teach pronunciation since every student is different and have different learning styles. Besides just repeating and listening we can incorporate activities and creativity into the podcasts. I agree with Kelly that most times in public schools there isn't enough funding to provide the technical equipment to do the activities mentioned in Ducate and Lomicka's article. On the other hand, we can use other ways to make the materials available through downloading them on the computer or use of CD's I think someone mentioned. I thought about what Professor Zheng said about learning-to-be and what we would like our students to become in society. Overall, I think the point of the article was to give us more ideas on how to help teach second language learners so that we don't feel limited to just pen and paper and allow students to use creativity and develop or improve skills needed not only in the classroom but outside the classroom too.
Resources:
Ducate, L., & Lomicka, L. (2009) Podcasting: An effective tool for honing language students’ Pronunciation. Language Learning & Technology 13(3), 66-86. Retrieved January 25, 2010, from http://llt.msu.edu/vol13num3/ducatelomicka.pdf
Resources:
Ducate, L., & Lomicka, L. (2009) Podcasting: An effective tool for honing language students’ Pronunciation. Language Learning & Technology 13(3), 66-86. Retrieved January 25, 2010, from http://llt.msu.edu/vol13num3/ducatelomicka.pdf
Blog 2 Week ending 2/10/2012:Multimedia Presentation
I thought the presentation of Mayer's 2008 article discussed some valuable suggestions to help us when we decide to use multimedia in teaching our students. I thought the principles helped me to get some idea of what I should do or not do when showing media or creating media. Some principles I never had given any thought to until we discussed them in class. For instance, the Redundancy Principle, I always thought the more examples the better, but it makes sense we don't want to overwhelm our learners with too much information and words. It's best to keep is simple and personable. In addition to that, the Modality Principle was interesting too because its goal is to present words in spoken form rather than written. Mayer also discussed some other principles that I thought was interesting. For example, the Personalization Principle and Voice Principle. We want our students to be engaged in what they are learning and excited to learn about it, so I can see how making media personable is important. For example, we can choose topics that we have discussed in class so it can reiterate what they have learned, or choose topics of interest to our students. If we are going to be narrating we should speak to them as if they are present using pronouns such as "you" instead of "they" or it should be more like a conversation instead of a presentation. Also, the Voice Principle was interesting to me because I never thought it wouldn't be a good idea to use computer generated voicing. This makes me think of when I was in elementary school and we had to use the computer to work on reading or reading comprehension and I remember most times it being a computer's voice and not a human's voice. If a human is speaking you can hear the normal intonation or pronunciation of the vocabulary. I am still trying to understand all of the principles but I think these were the ones that stuck out to me that I would like to focus on when I create or use multimedia literacy in teaching second language learners.
Resources:
Mayer, R (2008). Multimedia Literacy. In Coiro, J., M. Knobel, C. Lankshear, and D. J. Leu, (eds.). Handbook of
Research on New Literacies. Philadelphia, PA: Lawrence Erlbaum
Resources:
Mayer, R (2008). Multimedia Literacy. In Coiro, J., M. Knobel, C. Lankshear, and D. J. Leu, (eds.). Handbook of
Research on New Literacies. Philadelphia, PA: Lawrence Erlbaum
Blog 3 Week ending 2/17/2012:Creating a Podcast and the Learning Process
http://www.clker.com/clipart-4612.html
This week we created our own podcast about any topic our hearts desired with the goal of engaging our audience in that topic. We were prompted to think about how the whole process of creating a podcast can benefit language learners. Learning a language isn't just black or white as I think Professor Zheng would like us to view it since we have been engaging in various projects through our class sessions. The more we do certain projects such as the podcast, the more I can see how this is true. Sitting in front of a desk and writing out worksheets is a thing of the past in a sense that we have much more technology and opportunities to engage our learners in the topics we discuss; as well as teaching a language and making use of it. This process helps our learners to become learners-to-be than just learning about.
Additionally, as we learned earlier in the semester through articles such as Brown's (2006) New Learning Environments for the 21st Century, media can provide a new context for learning. So, after making my own podcast for the first time in life, I could see how a language learner could benefit from creating one themselves. Brown (2006) used another term, Legitimate Peripheral Participation (LPP) which podcasting in itself makes it more real and engages a real-life audience. As Brown (2006) mentioned, "Students are legitimately engaged in real work, fully participating in the technical and social interchanges." The process of planning, editing, and negotiating helps build the learners skills and become organized and focus on main ideas. We only had 3-5 minutes so we had to figure out what was important to say and what wasn't. It also could help learners use their own creativity as we all did in our class. Everyone had different ideas and imaginations of what their final podcast would be. This helped me to imagine my own classroom of students using their creative ideas to make an audio podcast engaging in some way or another. Everyone has creative strengths and ideas so we can take that in consideration when we ask our students' to create their own podcasts. Not only does podcasting help with vocabulary usage but it helps with conversation and presentation. For example, when we presented our podcasts to our classmates we had to speak a little about it and present it to them. We could do this with our own students in smaller groups as well.
Finally, the final production and presentation of our podcasts helped with social interaction. The students aren't just talking to the instructor but each other. Well, these are just a few things I noticed through my own experience of the process of creating a podcast and how it can be beneficial for second language learners. Even though hearing our voices or even seeing ourselves in our own creations was a embarrassing, I am glad we did it so that I can be in the shoes of a language learner and really meditate on the process of how the use of media isn't just black or white, there are all of the things in between too that could help language learners.
Resources:
Brown, J.S. (2006). New learning environments for the 21st century. Retrieved January 9, 2012, from www.johnseelybrown.com/newlearning.pdf
*See the "More" tab and click Videos and podcasts to view my video.
Additionally, as we learned earlier in the semester through articles such as Brown's (2006) New Learning Environments for the 21st Century, media can provide a new context for learning. So, after making my own podcast for the first time in life, I could see how a language learner could benefit from creating one themselves. Brown (2006) used another term, Legitimate Peripheral Participation (LPP) which podcasting in itself makes it more real and engages a real-life audience. As Brown (2006) mentioned, "Students are legitimately engaged in real work, fully participating in the technical and social interchanges." The process of planning, editing, and negotiating helps build the learners skills and become organized and focus on main ideas. We only had 3-5 minutes so we had to figure out what was important to say and what wasn't. It also could help learners use their own creativity as we all did in our class. Everyone had different ideas and imaginations of what their final podcast would be. This helped me to imagine my own classroom of students using their creative ideas to make an audio podcast engaging in some way or another. Everyone has creative strengths and ideas so we can take that in consideration when we ask our students' to create their own podcasts. Not only does podcasting help with vocabulary usage but it helps with conversation and presentation. For example, when we presented our podcasts to our classmates we had to speak a little about it and present it to them. We could do this with our own students in smaller groups as well.
Finally, the final production and presentation of our podcasts helped with social interaction. The students aren't just talking to the instructor but each other. Well, these are just a few things I noticed through my own experience of the process of creating a podcast and how it can be beneficial for second language learners. Even though hearing our voices or even seeing ourselves in our own creations was a embarrassing, I am glad we did it so that I can be in the shoes of a language learner and really meditate on the process of how the use of media isn't just black or white, there are all of the things in between too that could help language learners.
Resources:
Brown, J.S. (2006). New learning environments for the 21st century. Retrieved January 9, 2012, from www.johnseelybrown.com/newlearning.pdf
*See the "More" tab and click Videos and podcasts to view my video.
Blog 4 Week ending 2/24/2012:Fan Fiction, Affinity Spaces, Participatory Culture what does it all mean???
· So, I took Professor Zheng's advice and re-read Black's article about online fiction sites for English Language Learners with a different set of eyes so-to-speak, so that I can really understand it. I thought Kelly's presentation was great and informative and it helped me to appreciate the article more so than just reading to read; but instead, reading to see how we can use this as educators. If we want our student's to learn to be critical thinkers, experimenters, investigators and creators then we have to do the same to understand the whole process that goes into using media to teach language learners.
So, despite all of the negative things with the internet, there are a host of positive things such as the fanfiction.net and other websites that promote media literacies. I once mentioned that today's world the classroom doesn't have to be just pen and paper, and I think it was mentioned in our discussion Thursday that it doesn't have to be just worksheets. Even I think that could be quite boring so I can imagine one of my students' feeling the same. I never heard of fan fiction.net so before writing this blog, I went ahead and checked it out. Just from what I have seen so far, I can tell that the writers have put a lot of thought into what they have written. Even though the site is plain as far as decor or graphic, I think Kelly even mentioned that; but, it was very engaging for me because they have a wealth of topics to choose from and people re-create stories or create their own original stories. I think I will even suggest this website for my sister who loves anime and comics.
Anyway, this goes along with the term mentioned by Black (2007) "affinity spaces" and "participatory culture" because language learners who go to websites such as Fan Fiction can experiment with their writing and reading skills. It is a good way to use written communication skills too give positive feedback, which helps them to be critical thinkers and give constructive criticism. This makes me wish when I learned other languages that I had something like this to practice what I learned in the classroom. In my own experience even in college, we do not use media to help with our language learning. Well, not in this way. We do watch videos, or go online to animated websites, but it's usually at home by ourselves and interaction with another human being. This helps me to reflect on Professor Zheng's statement "we need to understand our students and their affinity spaces" or "teach children to make judgments and evaluations." I thought both of those quotes were interesting because it is true we should teach according to our students needs not our own wants or needs. If we notice they are really good at something we should allow them to experiment more. For instance, if we notice they love to write and are great poets we can use websites like Fan fiction to assign writing, reading, and feedback assignments which can help them to use the language and learn new vocabulary.
Resources:
Black, R. W. (2007). Digital design: English language learners and reader feedback in online fanfiction. In M. Knobel & C. Lankshear (Eds.), A New Literacies Sampler. Peter Lang.
So, despite all of the negative things with the internet, there are a host of positive things such as the fanfiction.net and other websites that promote media literacies. I once mentioned that today's world the classroom doesn't have to be just pen and paper, and I think it was mentioned in our discussion Thursday that it doesn't have to be just worksheets. Even I think that could be quite boring so I can imagine one of my students' feeling the same. I never heard of fan fiction.net so before writing this blog, I went ahead and checked it out. Just from what I have seen so far, I can tell that the writers have put a lot of thought into what they have written. Even though the site is plain as far as decor or graphic, I think Kelly even mentioned that; but, it was very engaging for me because they have a wealth of topics to choose from and people re-create stories or create their own original stories. I think I will even suggest this website for my sister who loves anime and comics.
Anyway, this goes along with the term mentioned by Black (2007) "affinity spaces" and "participatory culture" because language learners who go to websites such as Fan Fiction can experiment with their writing and reading skills. It is a good way to use written communication skills too give positive feedback, which helps them to be critical thinkers and give constructive criticism. This makes me wish when I learned other languages that I had something like this to practice what I learned in the classroom. In my own experience even in college, we do not use media to help with our language learning. Well, not in this way. We do watch videos, or go online to animated websites, but it's usually at home by ourselves and interaction with another human being. This helps me to reflect on Professor Zheng's statement "we need to understand our students and their affinity spaces" or "teach children to make judgments and evaluations." I thought both of those quotes were interesting because it is true we should teach according to our students needs not our own wants or needs. If we notice they are really good at something we should allow them to experiment more. For instance, if we notice they love to write and are great poets we can use websites like Fan fiction to assign writing, reading, and feedback assignments which can help them to use the language and learn new vocabulary.
Resources:
Black, R. W. (2007). Digital design: English language learners and reader feedback in online fanfiction. In M. Knobel & C. Lankshear (Eds.), A New Literacies Sampler. Peter Lang.
Blog 5 Week ending 2/24/2012 Part II: Video podcast Ideas
For my video podcast, I hope to capture dance. I am thinking of capturing belly dancing (Tribal Fusion) which is really popular in the United States now, Hula dancing and Hip-Hop. I even thought about doing a little interview with it of the dancers who either have their own dance classes or are involved in dancing. But, if that's too much for one video podcast, I will just focus on one. It depends who is willing to let me record them and if anyone has any ideas or want to join me please feel free to comment. When I discussed my idea with my group they suggested that I could talk about the dance steps or the types of dancing which will be part of language learning. I love music and dance so I think I am more motivated to do something like this for a video podcast. I don't have a video camera but I do have my phone and my ipod which captures video pretty good. Well, that's about it for now.
Blog 6 Week ending 3/2/2012:Language Learning through Quest Atlantis
On Tuesday this week I had my first try with 3-D virtual online gaming. It wasn’t too bad. I liked how we could talk or see our classmates’ avatars and sometimes if we had questions we could chat in the box. I got stuck under some steps and one of my classmate's noticed it and he tried to help me. I thought it was fun to see how everyone’s avatar can move, dance and walk. The environment seemed safe for the most part because we were with our classmates. I think it is a good idea that teachers have to get permission from the students’ parents and it seems like it is a private community and a good way to monitor students’ in the virtual world.
I was thinking about part of the presentation Thursday that Atsushi presented and how my experience related to the paper written by Professor Zheng and her colleagues. There was a lot I wanted to say about my experience and how it relates to language learning but I will just focus on our group discussion and some other comments made in the classroom. Unfortunately I forgot the exact questions that were asked of us, but my group came up with several benefits of Multi-User Virtual Environment or MUVE. I compared the classroom with the virtual world or video games based on the pictures that Atsushi had in his presentation. For example, in the classroom when we give group projects to students they have to work together or use teamwork to decide how to move forward in their project. This can also be said of the virtual world or gaming. I thought about children playing games with more than one player and how more meaningful it is than playing alone as one of my group members mentioned it's more fun that way. The players or in the case of our students have to work together or give each other advice on how to move to the next level or to get a better understanding of the task. It’s an example of NFA (Negotiation for Action) or Attunement (guidance to do well) and shows how the virtual world can bring students together and help them to learn from each other. It can be language or just basic gaming skills; such as trying to maneuver out of being stuck in some steps or finding the next clue in a Quest.
Another example and an example mentioned by another group was that of role-play bringing what students’ learn in the classroom to life. We cannot go everywhere in the world, or take our whole class on field trips every day; so it’s good to have this type of activity to give students’ better meaning or understanding of a topic through Quest Atlantis just to name one example. The experience of learning a language or culture is more rewarding and understandable if we role-play or even make our own stories and use our creativity.
One major observation from playing Quest Atlantis that does not seem to exist in many of the video games like Playstation or Xbox 360 is that of competition. I haven’t played Quest Atlantis long enough to see if there is competition later, but to me Quest Atlantis felt more like an environment that will help learners to learn and help learners to help each other instead of competing and putting pressure on each other to win something. so there is more focus on learning than on just getting through it to win or compete with others. For this reason, it seemed to have a purpose or meaning other than being the best gamer. So, overall I think the goal of Quest Atlantis was a positive one because it provides a variety of ways
to learn through interaction and exploration through text chat; which can help build vocabulary when students' chat with other speakers of their second language; visual avatar movements as well as improving reading skills by reading the directions to maneuver in the virtual world.
Resources:
www.questatlantis.org
Zheng, D., Young, M. F., Wagner, M., & Brewer, B. (2009). Negotiation for action: English language learning in game-based virtual worlds. The Modern Language Journal, 93(4), 489-511.
I was thinking about part of the presentation Thursday that Atsushi presented and how my experience related to the paper written by Professor Zheng and her colleagues. There was a lot I wanted to say about my experience and how it relates to language learning but I will just focus on our group discussion and some other comments made in the classroom. Unfortunately I forgot the exact questions that were asked of us, but my group came up with several benefits of Multi-User Virtual Environment or MUVE. I compared the classroom with the virtual world or video games based on the pictures that Atsushi had in his presentation. For example, in the classroom when we give group projects to students they have to work together or use teamwork to decide how to move forward in their project. This can also be said of the virtual world or gaming. I thought about children playing games with more than one player and how more meaningful it is than playing alone as one of my group members mentioned it's more fun that way. The players or in the case of our students have to work together or give each other advice on how to move to the next level or to get a better understanding of the task. It’s an example of NFA (Negotiation for Action) or Attunement (guidance to do well) and shows how the virtual world can bring students together and help them to learn from each other. It can be language or just basic gaming skills; such as trying to maneuver out of being stuck in some steps or finding the next clue in a Quest.
Another example and an example mentioned by another group was that of role-play bringing what students’ learn in the classroom to life. We cannot go everywhere in the world, or take our whole class on field trips every day; so it’s good to have this type of activity to give students’ better meaning or understanding of a topic through Quest Atlantis just to name one example. The experience of learning a language or culture is more rewarding and understandable if we role-play or even make our own stories and use our creativity.
One major observation from playing Quest Atlantis that does not seem to exist in many of the video games like Playstation or Xbox 360 is that of competition. I haven’t played Quest Atlantis long enough to see if there is competition later, but to me Quest Atlantis felt more like an environment that will help learners to learn and help learners to help each other instead of competing and putting pressure on each other to win something. so there is more focus on learning than on just getting through it to win or compete with others. For this reason, it seemed to have a purpose or meaning other than being the best gamer. So, overall I think the goal of Quest Atlantis was a positive one because it provides a variety of ways
to learn through interaction and exploration through text chat; which can help build vocabulary when students' chat with other speakers of their second language; visual avatar movements as well as improving reading skills by reading the directions to maneuver in the virtual world.
Resources:
www.questatlantis.org
Zheng, D., Young, M. F., Wagner, M., & Brewer, B. (2009). Negotiation for action: English language learning in game-based virtual worlds. The Modern Language Journal, 93(4), 489-511.
Blog 7 Week ending 3/2/2012 Part II:Remixing
I watched Beyoncé’s new video and how it relates to communication and remixing ideas or traditions. Professor Zheng asked an interesting and deep question, “What about the notion of remixing speaking and writing, different genres and different media resources to express out multilingual identity, or simply, to express ourselves?”
Steven Thorne and Johnathon Reinhardt’s article, “Bridging Activities” under the Remixing heading actually discussed some interesting points about texting and the website fanfiction. That in itself remixes media, language, texts, creativity, etc. For example, I remember going to look at fanfiction and I saw stories re-written from comics or popular shows that enabled the writer to use their own creativity by writing their own endings to a particular series. I also agree that we remix a lot but we re-create media, speaking or writing using our own identity. Looking back at the video of Beyonce, she does remix or use other sounds from other artists and even her clothing is retro but I know that she is the only artists these days that can do what she is doing in the video, it matches her style perfectly. I hope this makes sense, but it goes along with the comment that Professor Zheng mentioned about Beyonce’s new video for “Countdown” and how it was a collage of retro dance pop culture and sampling of a diverse range of genres or actresses such as Audrey Hepburn. It’s true we don’t consider that to be plagiarism; but instead, sampling or upgrading so-to-speak.
Another idea I think about is taking something old and putting a new twist to it. In language learning and the theories we learn about in second language studies are often old ideas. We learn new ideas but we have to look at the past to either change or move on from those old ideas. So, media is like a new thing in the classroom and hopefully we can use this to help teachers who are set in one way of teaching to move on to a new way of teaching or being flexible to the students we are teaching. If we are not flexible teachers we cannot grow or allow our students to grow or progress; especially when it comes to learning a language. I have experienced myself learning a language the way the instructor prefers me to learn and it doesn’t work well with my learning style so I found myself struggling in the classroom many times. I think this goes along with our group discussion about providing workshop for teachers and how they need support to do this but the teacher also has to want to progress too and learn.
Resources:
Beyonce's video that was brought up while we were discussing about the notion of remixing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=whVgYQaEH4M
Thorne, S. L. & Reinhardt, J. (2008). “Bridging Activities,” New Media Literacies and Advanced Foreign Language Proficiency. CALICO Journal, 25(3): 558-572.
Steven Thorne and Johnathon Reinhardt’s article, “Bridging Activities” under the Remixing heading actually discussed some interesting points about texting and the website fanfiction. That in itself remixes media, language, texts, creativity, etc. For example, I remember going to look at fanfiction and I saw stories re-written from comics or popular shows that enabled the writer to use their own creativity by writing their own endings to a particular series. I also agree that we remix a lot but we re-create media, speaking or writing using our own identity. Looking back at the video of Beyonce, she does remix or use other sounds from other artists and even her clothing is retro but I know that she is the only artists these days that can do what she is doing in the video, it matches her style perfectly. I hope this makes sense, but it goes along with the comment that Professor Zheng mentioned about Beyonce’s new video for “Countdown” and how it was a collage of retro dance pop culture and sampling of a diverse range of genres or actresses such as Audrey Hepburn. It’s true we don’t consider that to be plagiarism; but instead, sampling or upgrading so-to-speak.
Another idea I think about is taking something old and putting a new twist to it. In language learning and the theories we learn about in second language studies are often old ideas. We learn new ideas but we have to look at the past to either change or move on from those old ideas. So, media is like a new thing in the classroom and hopefully we can use this to help teachers who are set in one way of teaching to move on to a new way of teaching or being flexible to the students we are teaching. If we are not flexible teachers we cannot grow or allow our students to grow or progress; especially when it comes to learning a language. I have experienced myself learning a language the way the instructor prefers me to learn and it doesn’t work well with my learning style so I found myself struggling in the classroom many times. I think this goes along with our group discussion about providing workshop for teachers and how they need support to do this but the teacher also has to want to progress too and learn.
Resources:
Beyonce's video that was brought up while we were discussing about the notion of remixing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=whVgYQaEH4M
Thorne, S. L. & Reinhardt, J. (2008). “Bridging Activities,” New Media Literacies and Advanced Foreign Language Proficiency. CALICO Journal, 25(3): 558-572.
Blog 8 Week ending 3/16/2012:Videocasting Experience
My overall experience with the videocast project was good as far as seeing what I can do with I-movie. I have a new appreciation for those professionals in the entertainment industry who create movies, short films, etc. I think our professor mentioned commercials make a huge impact on us, but they are only a minute to seconds long. So, this was something I had to think about when I was editing. I had over 10 minutes of video and I wanted to include it all but I had to think about what was important for my audience; especially an English language learner. When I wanted to use dance to teach English, I thought about my audience, which were intermediate to advanced adult female English language learners. I enjoyed making the I-movie and I wish I could learn more. The major hassle of it all for me was the technical part of it. Since I do not own a Mac I had to use the Mac lab in Moore Hall. But, I didn’t have anyway to save it so I lost my edited data twice because each time I logged out the same day the data was gone. I didn’t want to skip my classes but I think next time I do a project like this I will make sure to have more knowledge about technology and just spend a day when I have nothing to do which is rare of most of us busy people, but I can try to do that. There is so much more I wanted to do with my video but because we are all still learning how to use it, I couldn’t really do what I wanted, but this has encouraged me to try making a full video with all the clips as a gift to my friend just for fun. She told me she edits video a lot so I hope she will like what I did and understand that I am a beginner. Hmm, actually, that statement makes me think about a language learner who is a beginner, as a teacher I will have to be understanding of my students abilities; but at the same time, encourage them to think critically and be creative.
Resources: *See the "More" tab and click Videos and podcasts to view my video.
Resources: *See the "More" tab and click Videos and podcasts to view my video.
Blog 9 Week ending 4/6/2012:Action/Project Based Learning (PBL)
Overall, I thought this week was interesting because it helped me to think about my own language learning experience. In our group we discussed how project-based learning can be valuable to second language learners versus just regular lectures or independent work.
Personally, I felt that I learned more from doing project-based activities than just listening to the teacher lecture or give us vocabulary words. I gave my experience when I took Maori one semester and how working with my classmates afforded me the opportunity to pick-up the language faster and use it in real contexts. For example, we would play card games and do skits, role-play and short songs and performances. Therefore, the same could be said for other second language learners who learn by doing or by action than by just sitting and listening. I appreciated the discussion Thursday when Professor Zheng compared the two phrases "reflection on actions" (after) and "reflection in action"(during). I had never looked at doing a project this way other than just reflecting on the process after. But, it is true that it's a process while we are doing a project and working together with others. We have to constantly change and come up with new ideas. We collaborate ideas with our classmates or come up with new strategies or new ways of doing things. We learn from each other. Through using the language in real-life settings we can see the practicality of it and it has more impact on our brain. I think this way is the most effective, not to say that lectures or learning vocabulary isn't but that is why we hear so many times "if you don't use it, you lose it."
Resources:
Van Lier, L. (2004). The ecology and semiotics of language learning: A sociocultural perspective. Norwell, MA: Kluwer Academic Publishers (Chapter 4: Emergence and affordances)
Stoller, F. (2006). Establishing a theorectical foundation for project-based learning in second and foreign language contexts. In G. H. Beckett & P. C. Miller. (Eds). Project-based second and foreign language education (pp. 19-40). Language Arts and Disciplines.
Personally, I felt that I learned more from doing project-based activities than just listening to the teacher lecture or give us vocabulary words. I gave my experience when I took Maori one semester and how working with my classmates afforded me the opportunity to pick-up the language faster and use it in real contexts. For example, we would play card games and do skits, role-play and short songs and performances. Therefore, the same could be said for other second language learners who learn by doing or by action than by just sitting and listening. I appreciated the discussion Thursday when Professor Zheng compared the two phrases "reflection on actions" (after) and "reflection in action"(during). I had never looked at doing a project this way other than just reflecting on the process after. But, it is true that it's a process while we are doing a project and working together with others. We have to constantly change and come up with new ideas. We collaborate ideas with our classmates or come up with new strategies or new ways of doing things. We learn from each other. Through using the language in real-life settings we can see the practicality of it and it has more impact on our brain. I think this way is the most effective, not to say that lectures or learning vocabulary isn't but that is why we hear so many times "if you don't use it, you lose it."
Resources:
Van Lier, L. (2004). The ecology and semiotics of language learning: A sociocultural perspective. Norwell, MA: Kluwer Academic Publishers (Chapter 4: Emergence and affordances)
Stoller, F. (2006). Establishing a theorectical foundation for project-based learning in second and foreign language contexts. In G. H. Beckett & P. C. Miller. (Eds). Project-based second and foreign language education (pp. 19-40). Language Arts and Disciplines.
Blog 10 Week ending 4/6/2012 Part II:Lesson Plan Ideas
I am not sure what I would like to do for my lesson plan, but I prefer to do one geared toward elementary students since I plan to teach elementary students ESL local in Hawaii or EFL in another country. But, I am open to any ideas or open to work with any group.
Blog 11 Week ending 4/6/2012 Part III:Restaurant Scenario
"Your students are learning about restaurants (food, taste, ordering, ect.) during this 3 week unit. Your PDL guidelines included that your students should create a fictitious restaurant in their target L2’s country. In what ways could you encourage your students to use social medias for their presentation and/or information gathering? Given what we have learned about social medias in class, what sites and/or medias would you recommend, and why?"
If my students are learning about restaurants (food, taste, ordering, etiquette, etc.) during a 3-week unit and I want them to develop a fictitious restaurant in their target L2's country; I would encourage them to use social media for their presentation and/or information gathering by suggesting they do research online on that country's customs or etiquette when going to a restaurant. For example, is there a particular seating arrangement or tipping requirements? If they are younger, I could guide them in their search on websites and for any age group I would provide a list of websites for them to go for their searches. Some other things I would encourage them to look for are menus of a particular restaurant, and with images available online they could even view how the food looks. For the actual presentation or role-play of the restaurant, I would have them choose 1-2 foods they found interesting and we could have a potluck day and use the food during the restaurant role-play assignment.
The very first website I would recommend for doing broader searches is Google.com because you can just type in one word or several phrases to get the desired search. Then from there it provides other websites to visit; in fact, you can probably get that country's website page for travel information or statistics. Some other good websites are http://www.fodors.com/ or travel sites such as AAA.com. Since we discussed Wikipedia (www.wikipedia.org/), I think this is a great site also for basic information and it leads to other searches as well. There are even encyclopedia websites online such as http://www.britannica.com/ and so on. I also think that Facebook has ways to find out about other countries by just searching for that country and reading their page. Some other media I would encourage my students to use is Skype or Quest Atlantis because you can meet others and ask them their customs too and get first-hand knowledge about it. Finally, some schools have their own library website they cold search to find out information about restaurants too.
Resources:
Stoller, F. (2006). Establishing a theorectical foundation for project-based learning in second and foreign language contexts. In G. H. Beckett & P. C. Miller. (Eds). Project-based second and foreign language education (pp. 19-40). Language Arts and Disciplines.
If my students are learning about restaurants (food, taste, ordering, etiquette, etc.) during a 3-week unit and I want them to develop a fictitious restaurant in their target L2's country; I would encourage them to use social media for their presentation and/or information gathering by suggesting they do research online on that country's customs or etiquette when going to a restaurant. For example, is there a particular seating arrangement or tipping requirements? If they are younger, I could guide them in their search on websites and for any age group I would provide a list of websites for them to go for their searches. Some other things I would encourage them to look for are menus of a particular restaurant, and with images available online they could even view how the food looks. For the actual presentation or role-play of the restaurant, I would have them choose 1-2 foods they found interesting and we could have a potluck day and use the food during the restaurant role-play assignment.
The very first website I would recommend for doing broader searches is Google.com because you can just type in one word or several phrases to get the desired search. Then from there it provides other websites to visit; in fact, you can probably get that country's website page for travel information or statistics. Some other good websites are http://www.fodors.com/ or travel sites such as AAA.com. Since we discussed Wikipedia (www.wikipedia.org/), I think this is a great site also for basic information and it leads to other searches as well. There are even encyclopedia websites online such as http://www.britannica.com/ and so on. I also think that Facebook has ways to find out about other countries by just searching for that country and reading their page. Some other media I would encourage my students to use is Skype or Quest Atlantis because you can meet others and ask them their customs too and get first-hand knowledge about it. Finally, some schools have their own library website they cold search to find out information about restaurants too.
Resources:
Stoller, F. (2006). Establishing a theorectical foundation for project-based learning in second and foreign language contexts. In G. H. Beckett & P. C. Miller. (Eds). Project-based second and foreign language education (pp. 19-40). Language Arts and Disciplines.
Blog 12 Week ending 4/13/2012:Unintended Outcomes in Second Life
In our group discussion, I learned that one of our classmates did play Second Life and he mentioned one unintended outcome was when he went to this club and this avatar came to him smoking and said "What's up!" I'm a guy and went away. So, that was a bit weird for him. Other than that, we didn't have any one else who played Second Life, but we had some who played other Online gaming or Virtual Reality activities. It's interesting to learn that there is a whole different world out there with different types of lingo or language. For example, camping was explained to me to mean just standing around in the same spot for a while which is connected to the literal word camp to set up tent etc. I found this interesting because a second language learner can not only learn English grammar; but also, English slang or words used in a particular community such as the gamer community. This can help a learner to feel connected to the culture and real-life interaction between first language and second language speakers.
Resources:
Diehl, W. C., & Prins, E. (2008). Unintended outcomes in Second Life: Intercultural literacy and cultural identity in a virtual world. Language and Intercultural Communication. 8(2). 101-118.
Resources:
Diehl, W. C., & Prins, E. (2008). Unintended outcomes in Second Life: Intercultural literacy and cultural identity in a virtual world. Language and Intercultural Communication. 8(2). 101-118.
Blog 13 4/21/2012: My experience at my first Languages Linguistics and Literature Conference at UH Manoa
Language and Community...it all connects
Saturday I attended and volunteered at the LLL Conference and it was a great experience. I think it was perfect to see how graduate students present their papers. A lot of what we learned in our Instructional Media class was reflected in this conference. I saw two presentations that talked about using media or online gaming to teach languages. I heard familiar terms and theories such as "affordances" "participatory" and "expert" versus a "lurker" just to name a few.
Here is the link to access the PowerPoint presentation regarding media and how it can further help language learning http://www2.hawaii.edu/~marta/resources.html#LLL2012
Please try the year 2000 it's super hilarious also Marta, the presenter suggested to try year 1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=eQtai7HMbuQ
Blog 14 Week ending 4/27/2012: Final Presentation Reflection using Media to build a "Virtual Field Trip" and incorporate language learning
It was a pleasure to work with my group mates Won and Kelly on our Virtual Field Trip Project. I really had the opportunity to see how much we could do in such a short time. Especially, Won who created a website that had active links students could press that would take them to a country of their choice. In our case it was Paris, France. The language learning aspect of the project would be to provide a few French words for a beginner French classroom. It was very interactive and well presented, as well as attractive I think for any level of language learners. Another activity that enhanced our project idea was adding voicethread.com to our project which pretty much lets us incorporate all of our materials into one place which makes it easier and less confusing for the learners. I think the fun part for me was exploring the pictures myself because it helped me to get the feel of how a language learner would feel searching websites for pictures and using their imagination while putting themselves in the setting. I think the project overall would not only allow them to learn language but also it would allow a language learner to experience how it would be to do research and explore through the virtual world and media, but at the same time encourage creativity and imagination.
Our Rationale for our "Virtual Field Trip" project
Technology has to help teachers to develop class materials easily and effectively regardless the level of student groups. Also, the students will gain an advantage with the support by media-based materials such as videos and audio, which are relevant to learning objectives or web-based materials such as searching up a specific topic via web search engines. Through this project, we wanted to present how students can work with their group members via action-based activity.
The target students, 6th graders will pick up a research topic and explore French cities to look up the topic they choose. They will use an interactive map, which is on a web page. When students click the hyperlink on a location such as Paris, they will be presented with a list of websites that they can visit. In other words, the teacher will pick the websites ahead of time to make sure they are age appropriate because there is too much explicit information for children on the web even if they try to search one of the topics.
In addition, the students will have an opportunity to access the webpages through touching or clicking particular city names. It means they are going to have an interaction with technology for their education. Also, they will see a video, which is relevant to the topic. It allows them to have strong impression of the theme or draws interesting to be motivated. Technology may encourage the students to learn as well as a teacher inspires the students in the traditional classroom setting.
Moreover, the students will build upon various smaller activities, such as researching their country of choice, or researching a particular landmark in a city. At this point, they will produce a final product, which will be a report through blogging, pictures or using Voice Thread. This activity can be adjusted depending on the age-level of the students. It can be referred as an independent work through based on action-based activity.
Website for our "Virtual Field Trip" Activity
http://sls418.netne.net/
http://sls418.netne.net/Main_Page.html
Our Rationale for our "Virtual Field Trip" project
Technology has to help teachers to develop class materials easily and effectively regardless the level of student groups. Also, the students will gain an advantage with the support by media-based materials such as videos and audio, which are relevant to learning objectives or web-based materials such as searching up a specific topic via web search engines. Through this project, we wanted to present how students can work with their group members via action-based activity.
The target students, 6th graders will pick up a research topic and explore French cities to look up the topic they choose. They will use an interactive map, which is on a web page. When students click the hyperlink on a location such as Paris, they will be presented with a list of websites that they can visit. In other words, the teacher will pick the websites ahead of time to make sure they are age appropriate because there is too much explicit information for children on the web even if they try to search one of the topics.
In addition, the students will have an opportunity to access the webpages through touching or clicking particular city names. It means they are going to have an interaction with technology for their education. Also, they will see a video, which is relevant to the topic. It allows them to have strong impression of the theme or draws interesting to be motivated. Technology may encourage the students to learn as well as a teacher inspires the students in the traditional classroom setting.
Moreover, the students will build upon various smaller activities, such as researching their country of choice, or researching a particular landmark in a city. At this point, they will produce a final product, which will be a report through blogging, pictures or using Voice Thread. This activity can be adjusted depending on the age-level of the students. It can be referred as an independent work through based on action-based activity.
Website for our "Virtual Field Trip" Activity
http://sls418.netne.net/
http://sls418.netne.net/Main_Page.html