What I learned on Oct. 29

Hot Potato seems kind of interesting to me. However, I still need to explore how we can collect students’ scores. Is it possible to set it up to automatically export the scores to EXCEL or something? If so, since I will have to teach large numbers of students, it will allow me to be lazy. Well, I mean it will allow me more time for other work. This software will be very useful for frequent small quizzes.

Presentation helped me visualize how I would be able to use WIKI for my teaching; however, while doing so, it told me that it is not very easy to use. It might cause a "DISASTER." Foreign language itself already gives students pressure, so we need to be super careful when we introduce technology. As the presenter said, it needed to be as simple as possible. Personally, I feel interacting with many people via WIKI is very demanding. It tells me all the time via email that there is a new posting. Even when I do not want to think about it, WIKI tells me as if one of my friends were telling me "Hey, one of your classmates posted something. So check it out!" I am not complaining either about the function that WIKI lets me know the new postings or the use of WIKI in this class, but I just think WIKI with small groups might work better for younger students.

From the readings for Oct. 29

Well, I have to admit that I was and still am not very familiar with copy right issues even though I had better be sensitive to them in Japan. It seems to be time teaching-licensure programs required pre-service teachers to take a course which deals with copy right issues, since it is almost inevitable to utilize those multimedia things to implement better education.

Chapter 4 of Szendeffy… If we can add more interactive, communicative purposes to writing by utilizing technology, I am very interested in it. And I have been interested in it because I have believed so. However, this chapter made me rethink about technology utilization for writing. Probably what I am expecting technology to do is to provide students with chances to communicate via written texts. I should clarify my interest. Perhaps I am interested in CMC as a means of communicative literacy development rather than general technology use for language teaching. This reconsideration led me to further consideration on the effectiveness of collaborative writing (e.g., Activity 5, p. 44). Maybe I am just against this activity. What can collaborative writing with technology do for my students? I might have to do a small research on this topic in order to familiarize myself with what collaboration in writing does to learners.

    Finally, I really like the idea of having students use corpus. As an L2 learner, I also use this as my strategy to figure out collocations.

What I learned on Oct. 22

This week was honestly a little bit hard to keep up with. The software "Elluminate" (?) has so much potential, but I was trying to figure out the difference between this software and Acrobat Connect, which Solen and I did for show-and-tell. The biggest difference I found was that Elluminate requires installing. I was wondering what kind of difference (function wise) this difference makes. I did not find what they were. I am also wondering if there is other software like them. I will look for Japanese one, too. I know some Japanese companies make conference software, so hopefully they have some free software, too. Thinking about using such software for teaching Japanese students, it would be useful to use Japanese version at first, where they would learn what kind of functions the software has. Afterward, when they use English version, they will learn some technical terms in the software.

From the readings for Oct. 22

What is interesting to me in Johnson’s chapter is Table 3 (p. 137), which reminds me that I once tried to conduct keypal project with the help of my friend in Minnesota. My friend was working at a middle school as a social worker. She asked me if my students are interested in exchange messages about culture via e-mail in English since her students were not Japanese language learners (As I mentioned in one of the previous postings, we ended up with not conducting this project.). I realized that this project would have been very unique because according to Table 3 in this chapter, English (send)-English (receive) would not give any advantage to my friends students. However, they wanted to learn culture rather than language. They would take some advantage of it if we tried. This thought makes me think if it is possible to find some non-language classes in English-speaking country which are interested in foreign cultures. If we can conduct keypal project with these classes, my students can fully utilize the opportunities.

Furthermore, of the four choices of Table 3, I prefer to use the first one (Spanish-Spanish) and the fourth one (English-English) while taking turns. In that way, they will be able to understand both places (feeling of talking to novice speaker as a native Japanese speaker and feeling of talking to native speaker as a novice English speaker.), which really helps them to learn the attitude toward foreign language communication.

What I learned on Oct. 15

It was interesting to know about virtual schooling and online language learning. Lily was saying that it was crucial that we as language teachers learn technology in order to utilize it for language teaching rather than technology itself. This reminded me of "teacher's hat." Lily was also suggesting that appropriate teacher preparation be conducted. By referring to the figure 1 and 2 provided in her PowerPoint, we can recognize how much we are prepared. However, I am afraid it is a bit subjective. I am still wondering when we can judge we are ready for online teaching. Furthermore, Lily stated that we have to know enough to support students rather than be an expert. Again, how can we decide if we know enough to support students? If I were not confident enough, should I not try and learn more to be confident, or still should I try any to become confident?

From the readings for Oct. 15

Of the assigned readings for this week, I was best impressed by CultureQuest, especially the example of Ghana. This teacher is dedicated to teaching and students' real experience in interacting with people from different cultures. She typed in letters of 150 people... This is extraordinary amount. When I was working at a Japanese high school, I actually had a chance to do such interaction with school from America (thanks to my friend from Minnesota). However, my friend did not have enough students for my 200 students (I could have divided students into groups of 4 or 5 or taken turn 40 students at a time etc., but such ways could cause issues on fair grading, which is one of the most important things in my teaching context [high school GPA could be a high-stakes issue in Japan]). Additionally, I did not know how to assess students' message, their engagement, and I was also worried about how frequently I would be able to have contact with the teacher in America to run this project effectively. Therefore, we could not try…

One of my friends said before, if you think something impossible, it will never be possible. This is true. I know it. But there is a risk to be too idealistic. Once you experience the real teaching job, it is very important for you to know what is possible and what is not. If you do something impossible, it would do harm to your coworkers or students. I recently have a strong dislike about idealistic thoughts. Even so, CulrueQuest is interesting to me. They have a guide (a more than 40-page long PDF file) which provides framework of conducting cultural interaction projects. I saw possibility for my students to do something that is real cultural exchange through adapting this program or participating in this program.

What I learned on Oct. 8

What I learned this session is of course how to use software to create a website. Honestly, I had an experience to help a small organization create its website by using FrontPage, and I was hoping that this session would remind me of something. But it didn’t. This is why I am always trying to relate technology to something that I must do, so that I can keep using it. I will not forget it unless I stop using it. Actually, I am really worried if I remember how to use Excel (using formulae, etc.) when I go back to high school next year.

It was interesting that people may have their learning style particuly for techology. I think visual learners tend to need someone familiar with technology to show how it works. I need to see how it will look like when I effectively use it before reading tutorial, manual, whatsoever. This thought applies to all of my learning. I cannot start with "0" or "1." I need to see "10" before getting things started.

From the readings for Oct. 8

-From Czendeffy Chapter 7-

 

I strongly disagree with his idea that "Everyone wants to make a web page." (p. 118).

 

NO, I DON'T.

 

At least at this moment.

 

It depends on what individuals have in mind. I once wanted to make a web site, but I realized that I had nothing to present in public. Additionally, I do not like saying something without my name because it allows me to be irresponsible for what I am saying in the website. If I am to make my website possible for visitors to trace the information about me, I do have to make something worth visiting. If I do not have anything worthy to present in public, why do I want to make a website? We can find tons of incredible or wrong information in cyber space. Making website requires that a teacher teach ethics beforehand. That is the Author's wrong, biased impression.

 

Purpose and audience analysis (Activity 2) sounds like it is a very useful activity for students to become effective users of websites. However, as for Activity 1 (Evaluating Web Sites) and 3 (Web Page Anatomy), in terms of language teaching, I am not certain if these are appropriate ways of teaching language. I feel that I would spend too much time for this preparation rather than the project coming afterward. In this regard, I do not think I would choose this project. Yet, I could utilize this activity if I am teaching an ESP course with students in the field of computer science or something.

 

 

-From the article of Smith and Lewrey-

The sample lesson plan which is provided in this article gives me many clues to give scaffoldings to learners when I use not only commercials but also TV shows or films. Even when I use a 5-minute video clip for my class (which King mentions as Short Sequence Approach), such questions as "Who are the people you see?"; "How do these people feel?"; How does the boy get well?" are helpful for guiding questions as well as checking their comprehensions. Since I am reconsidering proficiency level of the target students for my web-lesson (Activity #2), this article makes me think how I should provide scaffoldings for my students to tackle authentic spoken English in the short clip.

 

 

-From King's Article-

I have to disagree with one of the ideas on a whole film approach. He says "Fragment audio recordings accompanying with textbooks designed for EFL learners hardly prepare learners for full-length listening in advanced studies." Then, if we do not have time to let students listen or watch a whole story, does that mean we should not use it? Do we have to give up and use commercial, news, or something else? I do not think so. A story consists of the segments of sub-theme which are sequenced (like paragraphs in a given text). Unless we, as teachers, misinterpret the sub-theme segment, I believe there still is value to utilize in language classrooms. Therefore, I still like using short clip from a film or TV show. However, I strongly agree with Doye's idea that "using the wrong film in the wrong way can lead to utter frustration. Student may end up confused, depressed and convinced they will never understand 'real' English" (as cited in King, 1998).

What I learned on Oct. 1

I was amazed to know the free sound editor "Audacity."  Even though my personal aim with the software was oriented to music, it was great to know such free software. 

As for the implication for teaching, I remember I was thinking how we could create opportunities for students to practice for speech contest, which was annually held at my previous high school.  If we let students download this software, they can practice their speech by themselves at home and listen to their own speech.  After practicing as much as they want, they can send some of the works to teachers if their time does not permits face-to-face meeting (too many things are usually going on at the same time).   The teacher can comment through the same way (as somebody was mentioning in the discussion; sorry, I do not remember who said) or written massage via email.

I am still struggling to come up with using podcast…. Before using, I think I need to be familiar with it.

But I am really glad that I know Audacity very much. It allowed me to edit my recording. So, whenever I forget what I was going to say and made a long silence, I cut and shortened the silence. I'm loving it!