SNHU EFL 537 CALL by Lyra Riabov

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SNHU EFL 537 CALLby Lyra Riabov

• Authentic Tasks
• Internet and Language Learning

Presented by Ozlem Durmus Lynette Chen Cindy Yu
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Topics Overview

• Authentic Language Learning Tasks (Ozlem)
• Communicative Skill Building Tasks (Cindy)
• Content Area Tasks (Cindy)
• Instructional Aspects of Software Evaluation
  (Ozlem)
• Technology and Second Language Teaching (Lynette)
• Computers and Language Learning (Lynette)

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Authentic Language Learning Tasks
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What is a task?

• Classroom activity
• Must have a goal
• Carried out through engagement in goal-oriented
  behavior

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Task in the language classroom

• Learners must use the target language to
  accomplish the task
• Communicative task involves construction and
  interpretation of linguistic meanings
• Example finding out about prices of plane
  tickets to a specific destination

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Authenticity

• Language and tasks that are likely to be
  encountered out of class
• Authentic language in classroom? (teachers decide
  and assign grades)
• Classroom tasks are more narrowly focused than
  out-of class tasks

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Frames of a Second Language Task

• Goal
• Process
• Topic
• Location
• Duration
• Examples
• http//webquest.org/
• http//www.ardecol.ac-grenoble.fr/english/ellisisl
  andwebquest.htm

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Empirical Investigation of Oral Texts

• Describing students classroom language and
  behavior
• Mainly oral language is examined

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Aspects of InvestigationL2 Task-based Texts

• Input to the learner comprehension of messages,
  acquisition of L2 forms, pragmatics
• ? Comprehensible Input (Krashen, 1982)
• Learners output morphology and syntax
• Interaction between learner and interlocutor

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Benefits of output

• Comprehensible output production of language in
  order to achieve a communicative task goal
• Output? feedback ? modification ?
• Internalization of new forms, and
• Improvement of accuracy

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Interaction

• Modification requests
• Clarification request
• Restatement
• Definition
• Explanation
• ? Enhancing understanding

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Descriptive Categories for ELL

• Pragmatic function
• Linguistic characteristics
• Quantity
• Nonlinguistic moves and forms
• Medium

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Ex Oral interaction during jigsaw activity
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Communicative Skill-building and Content-area
Tasks
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Communicative Skill-building Tasks in CALL
Environments

• Teaching Reading Skills with Technology
• Teaching Writing Skills with Technology
• Teaching Listening Skills with Technology
• Teaching Speaking Skills with Technology
• Teaching Grammar with Technology
• Vocabulary Teaching with Technology

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Reading Skills of Finding Information
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Teaching Writing Skills with Technology

• Teachers are constantly looking for ways to
  motivate writers to reach inside themselves,
  connect to what they are writing and touch their
  audience so that they can make writing a
  communicative and authentic task.

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Increase Motivation

• Have students write E-mail to Keypal
• Class projects can be put in public space, such
  as newsletter distributed in the library or
  published on the World Wide Web
• Students can participate in mailing lists or
  newsgroups or post a message to a class newsgroup.

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Improving Communication

• Prewriting
• Establishing and visualizing the audience
• Writing to expectations, particularly academic
  and business expectations
• Using peer review
• Revising
• Editing

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Example Website and Software

• Website
• Online Writing Lab http//owl.english.purdue.edu
  /owl/
• Software
• Audio Recording
• Online dictionaries, thesauruses, and style and
  grammar checkers

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Teaching Listening Skills with Technology
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Teaching Speaking Skills with Technology
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Teaching Grammar with Technology
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Content-area Tasks in CALL Environments

• The software of both liberal arts and science
  that support authentic task and activities for
  the language learn at a wide variety of levels in
  all content areas.

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Games for Language and Strategy

• Games that Improve estimating abilities,
  deductive and inductive reasoning, and prediction
  strategies, such as Thinkin Things Collections,
  meet many criteria for authentic tasks.
• Word games, such as Hangman or Hangman Plus, and
  crossword puzzle software can help students
  practice vocabulary.
• Language games can be used in content courses to
  help students practice definitions, collocations.
  part-to-whole relations, and so on.

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Simulations for the Social Sciences

• Low level-The goal of SimCity is to handle the
  results of the council's decisions during
  construction.
• Advanced level- extend the concept of the case
  study by providing enormous amounts of data with
  experiment and offering changes based on
  students input, such as Capitalist Pig and
  American Online.
• Tom Snyder Productions (TSP) and Decisions,
  Decisions, suitable for high school students,
  encourage them think via decide-making process.

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Search and Research in the Sciences

• The best programs with the multimedia support
  makes students appropriate to a sheltered
  language context.
• TSP and cultural debates, mainly for Grades K-12
  but adaptable for adult learners, are
  particularly good sources of science materials.
• Steck-Vaughn/Edunetics product, Message in a
  Fossil and Destination Rain Forest (Ocean) for
  middle schoolers, can be enjoyed in a whole
  language approach.

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The
Arts

• Music
• Art
• Literature

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Reference Software and Web Sites for Content
Searches

• Teachers must develop lesson plans incorporating
  authentic tasks that will motivate students to
  seek the information of reference software and
  website.

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Content-based Tasks for On-line Learning

• On-line learning can not only enhance students
  language practice but also gain extracurricular
  knowledge on it.

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Instructions of Content-based Multimedia Task

• Define a topic, describing what you already know
  and what you hope to discover.
• Perform research within certain parameters.
  Describe how and where you searched and what
  resources were most useful.
• Present the results of the search.

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Curricular Exchanges at a Distance

• The success of the project depends less on the
  technology than on teachers communicating clearly
  about goals, scheduling , and the content of the
  curriculum.

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Discussion Question

• How can EFL teachers use all of technologies in
  reading, writing, listening, speaking, grammar,
  and vocabulary in the CALL environment?
• Self-correct is a process on learning language.
  How can these software boost students evaluating
  their own learning?

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Instructional Aspects of Software Evaluation
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Points to consider

• Replacing the human teacher???
• Setting independent lab study, at home,
  classroom, computer lab
• Determine goals
• Examine the presentation audio, video,
  vocabulary, context, etc.

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Criteria for Software Evaluation- FEASIBILITY

• Will the software run on your computer and
  platform? (operating system, RAM, CD-ROM drive,
  etc. )
• Will the software run on your network? (network
  or stand-alone version)
• Can the software be made available to many
  students?
• Does the software require internet access?
  (plug-ins Shockwave, etc.)
• Can you afford the software?

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Criteria for Software Evaluation- QUALITY

• CONTENT
• What is the goal of the software? Is it
  consistent with yours and that of your students?
• Is the level appropriate?
• Is the content accurate?
• Is the material culturally appropriate?
• Does the software accommodate the students
  learning styles and preferences?
• Is the software interesting?
• How flexible is the sofware?

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Criteria for Software Evaluation- QUALITY

• FORMAT
• Is the interface consistent?
• Is the screen display effective?
• In drill software, are the motivational devices
  effective?

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Criteria for Software Evaluation- QUALITY

• OPERATION
• Is the software easy to use? Are the tasks and
  directions clear?
• Does the software allow text and graphics to be
  printed?
• How much control are the learners allowed?
• Are the quality and degree of feedback adequate?
• What kinds of records does the software keep?

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Technology and Second Language Teaching by
Mark Warschauer and Carla Meskill

• Presented by
• Lynette Li-hui Chen
• Date January 26, 2006

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Networked multimedia computing and the Internet

• What have students done with technology in
  language learning ?
• Use e-mail with counterparts to plan a bilingual
  Web site.
• Conduct online news groups to learn background
  cultural.
• Use real-time computer-assisted discussion to
  gain additional writing practice in class.

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A Brief History of Technology and Language
Learning

• The grammar-translation method have made some
  changes
• from blackboard? overhead projector ? early
  computer software programs.
• The audiolingual method - repetition drills - the
  1970s and '80s .
• By the late 1970s, repetitive drills which
  focused only on language form and ignored
  communicative meaning achieved poor results.
• The 1980s and 1990s - Communicative Language
  Teaching.
• - emphasizes student engagement in
  authentic, meaningful interaction.
• - There are two distinct
  perspectives are emphasized
• (1) Cognitive Approaches
• (2) Sociocognitive Approaches.

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Cognitive Approaches

• An individual psycholinguistic act.
• A mental model of a language system.
• Errors are seen as natural by-products.
• Learners can construct their own cognitive models
  of the language.

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How Do Technologies Support a Cognitive Approach
to Language Learning ?

• Allow learners maximum opportunity to be exposed
  to language in meaningful context.
• Construct learners own individual knowledge.
• Examples
• What types of technologies are mentioned?
• a. Text-reconstruction software.
• b. Concordancing software.
• c. Multimedia simulation software.

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• a. Text-reconstruction Software
• - allows teachers to provide students
  various texts in which letters or words are
  either missing or scrambled. Students work alone
  or in groups to complete or re-arrange the texts,
  thus supporting a process of mental construction
  of the linguistic system.
• Example
• Missing Letters of the Alphabet
• http//www.kidport.com/Grade1/LanguageArts/Workbo
  ok/Lang1_MissingLetter.htm
• Unscramble the Words
• http//www.kidport.com/Grade1/LanguageArt
  s/Workbook/Lang1_Unscramble.htm

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• b. Concordancing Software
• allows teachers or students to search through
  small or large texts to
• look for instances of the actual use of
  particular words.
• Concordancers are supplements to dictionaries in
  that they help
• illustrate the usage of a word, rather than
  just its definition.
• Example
• The Free Dictionary By Farlex
• http//www.thefreedictionary.com/regardless
• WordReference.com
• http//forum.wordreference.com/showthread.ph
  p?t18988

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• c. Multimedia Simulation Software
• - allows learners to enter into computerized
  microworlds with
• exposure to language and culture in a
  meaningful audio-
• visual context.
• Example
• Latest News In Video and Audio ????
• http//www.ftvn.com.tw/
• FTV English News Edition (Formosa News)
• http//englishnews.ftv.com.tw/index.asp

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Sociocognitive Approaches

• emphasize the social aspect of language
  acquisition
• learning a language is viewed as a process of
  apprenticeship or socialization into particular
  discourse communities (Schieffelin Ochs, 1986
  Gee, 1996).
• Lesson 1 Making Breakfast ???
• http//www.liveabc.com/site/Online_Store/resource/
  essential_english/essential_dialog.asp?sort????l
  esson01courseMaking20Breakfast20???seq1
• http//www.liveabc.com/index.asp
• students need to be given maximum opportunity for
  authentic social interaction, not only to provide
  comprehensible input but also to give students
  practice in the kinds of communication they will
  later engage in outside the classroom.
• Advantages of using LiveABCs CD-ROM learning
  programs
• http//www.liveabc.com/english/cd.asp

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Why is the Internet a powerful tool for assisting
a sociocognitive approach to language teaching?

• The Internet is a vast interactive medium which
  can be used in a myriad of ways.
• (1) Computer-Mediated Communication in a
  Classroom
• - using the Internet to facilitate
  interaction within and across
• discourse communities.
• How does it work?
• a. Through computer-assisted classroom
  discussion, such as
• Daedalus Interchange by Daedalus,
  Inc. It is a program that
• mimics other on-line chat or
  discussion environments.
• (http//cai.ucdavis.edu/instruction/
  guide/chapter4.html)
• The class
• (1) meets in a networked computer
  lab,
• (2) communicates through writing,
• (3) types in their messages,
• (4) and hits a key to instantly send
  the message to the rest of the class.
• All the messages are listed
  chronologically on the top half of the screen and
  
• can be easily scrolled through and
  re-read.
• b. Through outside-of-class discussion.
  For example E-MAIL or
• conferencing systems. Special lists
  can be set up so that

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• (2) Computer-Mediated Communication for Long
  Distance
• Exchange
• - it allows students the opportunity for
  target language
• practice in situations where such practice
  might
• otherwise be difficult.
• - using e-mail and Web-based conferencing
  systems or
• various types of software for synchronous
  chatting.
• - the most effective exchange projects are
  ones that are
• well-integrated into the course goals and
  are based on
• purposeful investigation such as joint
  exploration of
• culture, social conditions, film, or
  literature and often
• result in some kind of collaborative
  publication (for
• examples and discussion, see Cummins
  Sayers,
• 1997 Sayers, 1993 Warschauer, 1995a
  1995b).

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• (3) Accessing Resources and Publishing on the
  World Wide Web
• - The World Wide Web offers a vast array of
  resources from
• throughout the world.
• - in language education, it supports a
  sociocognitive approach by helping immerse
  students in discourses that extend well beyond
  the classroom, their immediate communities, and
  their language textbook.
• - Students can use Web pages as authentic
  materials for conducting research on culture and
  current events (see for example Lixl-Purcell,
  1995 Osuna Meskill, 1998) or for gathering
  material for class projects and simulations (see
  for example Deguchi, 1995 Rosen, 1995).
• - Students can also publish their own work on
  the World Wide Web, thus enabling writing for a
  real audience.

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Whether or not technologies truly "work?

• Advantages
• 1.The world of online communication is a
• vast new medium
• 2. New communications technologies are part
• of the broader ecology of life at the turn
• of the century.
• 3. The computer is a powerful tool for this
• process as it allows students access to
• online environments of international
• communication.

• Disadvantages
• 1. Investment of Money
• Implementing new technologies in
• education is expensive, such as
• expenses for hardware, software,
• staff training, and computer
• laboratory maintenance.
• 2. Investment of Time
• Spending enormous amounts of
• time learning constantly-changing
• software programs and trying to
• figure out the best way to use
• them in the classroom.
• Taichung Municipal Hui-wen High School
• http//mail.hwsh.tc.edu.tw/93web/students/index1.
  htm
• 3. Uncertainty of Result

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Conclusions

• When appropriately implemented, new technologies
  provide the means to help reshape both the
  content and processes of language education.
• Appropriate use of new technologies allows for a
  more thorough integration of language, content,
  and culture than ever before and provides
  students with unprecedented opportunities for
  autonomous learning.
• Siomon
• http//www.hwsh.tc.edu.tw/teaching/english/in
  dex.htm
• The key to successful use of technology in
  language teaching lies not in hardware or
  software but in "humanware"? (our human capacity
  as teachers to plan, design, and implement
  effective educational activity.)

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QUESTIONS

• How can out-of-class (speaking) tasks be
  evaluated in terms of effectiveness?
• How valuable are student- created language tasks?
• What type/parts of software can you imagine
  integrating into your syllabus?
• How can EFL teachers use all of the technologies
  in reading, writing, listening, speaking,
  grammar, and vocabulary in the CALL environment?
• Self-correction is a process in language
  learning. How can these software boost students
  evaluation of their own learning?
• What can we do if some of our students dont have
  a computer at home or dont have an access to go
  online to do their assignment?
• Do you have an approach or suggestions to
  evaluate the improvement of students four skills
  in learning a language? Listening, speaking,
  reading, and writing?