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Wednesday, May 5, 2010
Writing Tips by Chapelle and Jamieson Overview
Below is a PowerPoint presentation that I gave on the Writing Tips (chapter 4) in Tips for Teaching with CALL: Practical Approaches to Computer-Assisted Language Learning. This book was written by Carol Chapelle and Joan Jamieson.
uLearn Module
Below is a video created from an edited version of the Vocabulary podcast listed previously on the blog. This was made for my uLearn module.
Below you will see screen shots of my actual uLearn module. I made 1 week's worth of materials for an SAT PREP Writing and Vocabulary course.
Below you will see screen shots of my actual uLearn module. I made 1 week's worth of materials for an SAT PREP Writing and Vocabulary course.
Interview Tips for ESL Learners
Below are two videos created for ESL learners who are seeking employment in the United States. It provides 10 total tips for the interviewees to follow during their interviews. The videos also provide the interviewer's perspective, and the interviewee's perspective. Lastly, the videos provide the opportunity for the ESL learners to test what they've learned by watching an example interview. This was a group project created by myself, Elizabeth Nighman, Michelle Kleinhans, and Nina Sarkisyan.
Vocabulary Podcast
Below is my podcast, and a description for its audience.
http://www.box.net/shared/nb9lme8dpc
My podcast focuses on SAT words, and my target audience is high school students in an ESL setting. I chose to do a podcast that is essentially the introduction to new material of ten SAT words. I would assign listening to the podcast before ever discussing the words in class. I have taught high school students before, and vocabulary was one of their weakest areas. I actually focused about one-fourth of the class on SAT vocabulary, and at first it was really hard to get them motivated. I learned quickly that if they heard the words in songs that they liked, their interest improved tremendously. As a teacher, I learned you can never be afraid to put yourself out there, and to capture your audience. I intended for this podcast to give the students the initial SAT vocabulary exposure. In which in class, I would follow it up with many activities, and ultimately an assessment. I think showing that these words appear in music that the current high school generation enjoys listening to (and some they would find funny) is a great way to expand their horizons.
Within the podcast each of the ten words were pronounced in citation form, spelled, defined, given a synonym, and pronounced in context: a sentence and a song. Before, my students never had the opportunity to hear the words outside of class. Unfortunately that meant many of them learned the words, but pronounced them incorrectly. That is essentially why I think this podcast could be of great use to the students. Also, my students frequently had problems with spelling and I thought especially because they could not see the words they should hear the spelling. I decided to define the word, and then give a synonym because many times on the SAT all the students will see are synonyms. However, one of the issues I ran into in my classroom was the students did not understand the meaning of the synonym. That is why I decided to define them in a sentence first in order to make sure the meaning was clear, and then give them an easy one-word definition. Overall, my intention was to provide a new level of exposure and opportunity for learning in an enriched fun sort of way.
http://www.box.net/shared/nb9lme8dpc
My podcast focuses on SAT words, and my target audience is high school students in an ESL setting. I chose to do a podcast that is essentially the introduction to new material of ten SAT words. I would assign listening to the podcast before ever discussing the words in class. I have taught high school students before, and vocabulary was one of their weakest areas. I actually focused about one-fourth of the class on SAT vocabulary, and at first it was really hard to get them motivated. I learned quickly that if they heard the words in songs that they liked, their interest improved tremendously. As a teacher, I learned you can never be afraid to put yourself out there, and to capture your audience. I intended for this podcast to give the students the initial SAT vocabulary exposure. In which in class, I would follow it up with many activities, and ultimately an assessment. I think showing that these words appear in music that the current high school generation enjoys listening to (and some they would find funny) is a great way to expand their horizons.
Within the podcast each of the ten words were pronounced in citation form, spelled, defined, given a synonym, and pronounced in context: a sentence and a song. Before, my students never had the opportunity to hear the words outside of class. Unfortunately that meant many of them learned the words, but pronounced them incorrectly. That is essentially why I think this podcast could be of great use to the students. Also, my students frequently had problems with spelling and I thought especially because they could not see the words they should hear the spelling. I decided to define the word, and then give a synonym because many times on the SAT all the students will see are synonyms. However, one of the issues I ran into in my classroom was the students did not understand the meaning of the synonym. That is why I decided to define them in a sentence first in order to make sure the meaning was clear, and then give them an easy one-word definition. Overall, my intention was to provide a new level of exposure and opportunity for learning in an enriched fun sort of way.
Website Critiques
The following are six critiques. The first four are websites that can be used for ESL instruction, and my opinion on their effectiveness. The fifth critique is my overall opinion of "clickers" and their usefulness. The sixth critique is my opinion on a specific technology book. Enjoy!
Critique 1: (http://iteslj.org/cw/)
The activity I would like to evaluate is Crossword Puzzles for ESL Students (http://iteslj.org/cw/). I felt the idea of using crosswords to help learn vocabulary is great! I’ve done so in my classroom, but I timed my students. I would suggest that others do so as well; it gives an extra level of motivation. I found a few problems with this particular site. First, I found the easy levels to be quite difficult and I’m a native speaker. Under “Parts of a House” puzzle there were several clues that I couldn’t determine the answer. For example, “it’s outside the entrance” was the clue. The answer is: porch. I have never lived in a house that had a porch and I would have never guessed this answer. I think that if this is true for me, what would it be like for an ESL learner? Needless to say I really feel that the clues need to be clarified and some completely changed. Second, I really do not appreciate the “hint” aspect; what the website does is give you the first two letters of the word. I don’t feel that this is the appropriate way to aid the learner. Why not take the hint section to elaborate on the already proposed clue? For example, the hint for the previous example could say, “many houses have them screened in.” I did find that the advanced levels were good for teaching idioms and other explicit nuances of English. Unfortunately there are not as many to choose from, and the teacher would have to ensure that all of the words/phrases in the puzzle had already been taught. I would suggest using: www.puzzle-maker.com where you can make your own. That would make it much more specific to the vocabulary that you want your students to learn.
Critique 2: (http://www.wordq.com)
I would like to evaluate WordQ. There are several potential issues with the program. The first issue is cost, which runs anywhere from $100-$200. Another issue is that the words are recorded in citation form without regard to its connected form, which means when they are read it sounds quite stilted and odd. This is then giving the learner nonnative-like input, which could be detrimental to the learner. The last issue is when WordQ recommends words they are out of context. So, it is up to the learner to use the program as a resource, and not as an answer key. Despite the minor issues, I feel this program has the potential to be an amazing aid for an emerging writer. The first issue mentioned was the cost, but there is a 30-day free trial. The second issue mentions the problem with fluency, but the recordings are of an actual native speaker. Also, the program has the potential to recognize punctuation marks and change its intonation accordingly. So, even though the rhythm may be a little off, it’s still intelligible. The last issue mentioned was the words that are recommended to the learner may not be correct. I think this isn’t an issue at all because it forces the learner to think specifically about that piece. Research shows that drawing emphasis to a form is extremely valuable for a learner. Also, giving the learner options could help the learner not get stuck, which would decrease the level of learner frustration. Overall I think that the good far outweighs the bad, and the program could be a valuable tool in the acquisition of writing.
Critique 3: (http://www.elllo.org/english/Songs.htm)
I decided to critique the ELLLO (http://www.elllo.org/english/Songs.htm) website. Research states that materials for students to listen to should have the appropriate affective, cognitive and linguistic dimensions. So I will critique the website according to those standards. As far as the affective dimension, I think this website gets an A+. I know when I was learning Spanish I really enjoyed listening to songs in Spanish, and I wanted to try and understand the words. I think that this will be true for many learners and activities with the lyrics could be a great way to build motivation. The next dimension is the cognitive one and I don’t think this website or any song listening activity would be very good. After looking at the songs on the website I noticed that it follows the same general trend that songs are not very easy to understand. I actually had a hard time trying to infer meaning from many of the songs on the website. With this true, the song becomes more about understanding what word is said and much less about what the words mean together. And trying to figure out what words are said goes right into the last dimension, linguistic. Songs do not follow the same suprasegmental or even syntactic level of normal English. With that being said, using songs as a material becomes a poor representative of what English actually is. Overall, I think that the website does a good job of splitting the lyrics up into readable chunks, and that it could help excite the learner. It also may provide some world knowledge and slang terms that would not otherwise be learned. However, I do think that this website should be used as a fun motivational-building activity, and not as an actual tool to teach English.
Critique 4: (www.eslhome.com/esl/esp)
I wanted to discuss www.eslhome.com/esl/esp. This website was mentioned as a great site for selecting content based materials. Teaching content specific material is difficult and time-consuming for the teacher so having one website that provides many links to other websites is excellent. The website had many great resources, but I found several aspects of the website problematic. The website hasn’t been updated in over a year, and as frequent as English changes this is a serious issue. Some of the links cost, like the business handouts website, but the prices seemed reasonable. The website was kind of unclear; I wish that beside each of the links there was some sort of description on what to expect or maybe how to use it. One of the categories they used was EAP, and then there were links for tons of different subjects. That seems to be a broad category that could have been broken down much better. Some links are to newspapers that change every day, and although it’s good to have variety it’s just not clear what the students should be able to get out of it. Prior explicit instruction or specific tasks would have to be given in order for much of the links to be effectively used. Also, some of the topics given only had one (or no) websites underneath it. For example, the Military English category only had one website. Also, when clicking on specific links, some of them did not go where they were supposed to. For example, when clicking on the “IPA for teens” it just went to a description of an undergraduate linguistics program for Tulane University. Overall I think the website is a great resource, but the teacher would have to guide the students through it in order for it to be useful.
Critique 5:
I believe it is all in how the teacher utilizes clickers in if they become useful or not. I choose to believe that there are more advantages than disadvantages, and those seemingly disadvantages can be shifted to advantages. In any teaching environment, including ESL, it is essential to know what your students are mastering and not mastering. With the use of clickers you could have a quick and efficient way to assess a baseline to what students understand throughout the lesson and/or at the end. In a bigger classroom many students can get lost, and clickers would be a way of ensuring that everyone has a voice. It would provide a way for full participation to occur without anyone feeling like they have been called out. In an ESL classroom feedback and the immediacy of it is key; clickers would provide just that. A student could take an assessment and immediately know if they understood the lesson, and what they need to work on. “Knowledge is Power” so if the student knows where they are then the control is in their hands to improve that. The unfortunate problem with clickers is that they are currently limited to one response answers. Especially in a communicatively based language-learning generation multiple- choice does not support the uniqueness or complexity of language. I do think this can and will change; an addition of full keyboards could completely obliterate this issue. I personally like the idea of designing an application that could run on students’ cell phones and/or computers as a practical solution. I definitely think I could use clickers in my future research. I think with interviews and DCTs it would be more time efficient and the standard deviation of error would diminish as the researcher would not have to calculate everything by hand.
Critique 6:
The book I am reviewing is “Technology-Mediated Learning Environments for Young English Learners: Connections in and out of School” edited by L. Leann Parker. The audience for this book is educators of elementary aged children who are immigrants from other countries. The book is a compilation of articles and reflections from various authors. This book would be good for teachers who have primarily Hispanic low-income students, and desire to understand what their needs are. Chapters in the book are extremely research driven and provide incredible rationale for why multilinguals and bilinguals should be treated differently. Some major issues were found in the book. One is that many times words are mentioned with the assumption that the reader understands them. However, I found myself (an educator) having to look up words, like “hypermedia,” to know what they mean. Another issue I had was that there is no real instruction on how to implement technology activities. Basically the articles state they should be used and occasionally state examples. What they fail to do is explain how to find the examples or how to actually use them in a classroom. For example, the author would state “get pen pals,” but not explain what exactly that would look like inside the classroom. I also didn’t like that no real “new” activities were given. The authors basically talked about past research projects that utilized certain computer activities and then stated how those activities should be used. It also really bothered me that the audience was so specific, and the book doesn’t really acknowledge that. Also, the book claims to focus on activities in and out of school, but there is only one chapter that address what a learner can do at home. And in that, the author says to use video game consoles, and internet. Many low-income learners do not have that opportunity so that frustrated me. Overall the book provides great data and ideas, but fails in instructing a teacher on how to use them.
Below is a PowerPoint presentation given on this book:
Critique 1: (http://iteslj.org/cw/)
The activity I would like to evaluate is Crossword Puzzles for ESL Students (http://iteslj.org/cw/). I felt the idea of using crosswords to help learn vocabulary is great! I’ve done so in my classroom, but I timed my students. I would suggest that others do so as well; it gives an extra level of motivation. I found a few problems with this particular site. First, I found the easy levels to be quite difficult and I’m a native speaker. Under “Parts of a House” puzzle there were several clues that I couldn’t determine the answer. For example, “it’s outside the entrance” was the clue. The answer is: porch. I have never lived in a house that had a porch and I would have never guessed this answer. I think that if this is true for me, what would it be like for an ESL learner? Needless to say I really feel that the clues need to be clarified and some completely changed. Second, I really do not appreciate the “hint” aspect; what the website does is give you the first two letters of the word. I don’t feel that this is the appropriate way to aid the learner. Why not take the hint section to elaborate on the already proposed clue? For example, the hint for the previous example could say, “many houses have them screened in.” I did find that the advanced levels were good for teaching idioms and other explicit nuances of English. Unfortunately there are not as many to choose from, and the teacher would have to ensure that all of the words/phrases in the puzzle had already been taught. I would suggest using: www.puzzle-maker.com where you can make your own. That would make it much more specific to the vocabulary that you want your students to learn.
Critique 2: (http://www.wordq.com)
I would like to evaluate WordQ
Critique 3: (http://www.elllo.org/english/Songs.htm)
I decided to critique the ELLLO (http://www.elllo.org/english/Songs.htm) website. Research states that materials for students to listen to should have the appropriate affective, cognitive and linguistic dimensions. So I will critique the website according to those standards. As far as the affective dimension, I think this website gets an A+. I know when I was learning Spanish I really enjoyed listening to songs in Spanish, and I wanted to try and understand the words. I think that this will be true for many learners and activities with the lyrics could be a great way to build motivation. The next dimension is the cognitive one and I don’t think this website or any song listening activity would be very good. After looking at the songs on the website I noticed that it follows the same general trend that songs are not very easy to understand. I actually had a hard time trying to infer meaning from many of the songs on the website. With this true, the song becomes more about understanding what word is said and much less about what the words mean together. And trying to figure out what words are said goes right into the last dimension, linguistic. Songs do not follow the same suprasegmental or even syntactic level of normal English. With that being said, using songs as a material becomes a poor representative of what English actually is. Overall, I think that the website does a good job of splitting the lyrics up into readable chunks, and that it could help excite the learner. It also may provide some world knowledge and slang terms that would not otherwise be learned. However, I do think that this website should be used as a fun motivational-building activity, and not as an actual tool to teach English.
Critique 4: (www.eslhome.com/esl/esp)
I wanted to discuss www.eslhome.com/esl/esp. This website was mentioned as a great site for selecting content based materials. Teaching content specific material is difficult and time-consuming for the teacher so having one website that provides many links to other websites is excellent. The website had many great resources, but I found several aspects of the website problematic. The website hasn’t been updated in over a year, and as frequent as English changes this is a serious issue. Some of the links cost, like the business handouts website, but the prices seemed reasonable. The website was kind of unclear; I wish that beside each of the links there was some sort of description on what to expect or maybe how to use it. One of the categories they used was EAP, and then there were links for tons of different subjects. That seems to be a broad category that could have been broken down much better. Some links are to newspapers that change every day, and although it’s good to have variety it’s just not clear what the students should be able to get out of it. Prior explicit instruction or specific tasks would have to be given in order for much of the links to be effectively used. Also, some of the topics given only had one (or no) websites underneath it. For example, the Military English category only had one website. Also, when clicking on specific links, some of them did not go where they were supposed to. For example, when clicking on the “IPA for teens” it just went to a description of an undergraduate linguistics program for Tulane University. Overall I think the website is a great resource, but the teacher would have to guide the students through it in order for it to be useful.
Critique 5:
I believe it is all in how the teacher utilizes clickers in if they become useful or not. I choose to believe that there are more advantages than disadvantages, and those seemingly disadvantages can be shifted to advantages. In any teaching environment, including ESL, it is essential to know what your students are mastering and not mastering. With the use of clickers you could have a quick and efficient way to assess a baseline to what students understand throughout the lesson and/or at the end. In a bigger classroom many students can get lost, and clickers would be a way of ensuring that everyone has a voice. It would provide a way for full participation to occur without anyone feeling like they have been called out. In an ESL classroom feedback and the immediacy of it is key; clickers would provide just that. A student could take an assessment and immediately know if they understood the lesson, and what they need to work on. “Knowledge is Power” so if the student knows where they are then the control is in their hands to improve that. The unfortunate problem with clickers is that they are currently limited to one response answers. Especially in a communicatively based language-learning generation multiple- choice does not support the uniqueness or complexity of language. I do think this can and will change; an addition of full keyboards could completely obliterate this issue. I personally like the idea of designing an application that could run on students’ cell phones and/or computers as a practical solution. I definitely think I could use clickers in my future research. I think with interviews and DCTs it would be more time efficient and the standard deviation of error would diminish as the researcher would not have to calculate everything by hand.
Critique 6:
The book I am reviewing is “Technology-Mediated Learning Environments for Young English Learners: Connections in and out of School” edited by L. Leann Parker. The audience for this book is educators of elementary aged children who are immigrants from other countries. The book is a compilation of articles and reflections from various authors. This book would be good for teachers who have primarily Hispanic low-income students, and desire to understand what their needs are. Chapters in the book are extremely research driven and provide incredible rationale for why multilinguals and bilinguals should be treated differently. Some major issues were found in the book. One is that many times words are mentioned with the assumption that the reader understands them. However, I found myself (an educator) having to look up words, like “hypermedia,” to know what they mean. Another issue I had was that there is no real instruction on how to implement technology activities. Basically the articles state they should be used and occasionally state examples. What they fail to do is explain how to find the examples or how to actually use them in a classroom. For example, the author would state “get pen pals,” but not explain what exactly that would look like inside the classroom. I also didn’t like that no real “new” activities were given. The authors basically talked about past research projects that utilized certain computer activities and then stated how those activities should be used. It also really bothered me that the audience was so specific, and the book doesn’t really acknowledge that. Also, the book claims to focus on activities in and out of school, but there is only one chapter that address what a learner can do at home. And in that, the author says to use video game consoles, and internet. Many low-income learners do not have that opportunity so that frustrated me. Overall the book provides great data and ideas, but fails in instructing a teacher on how to use them.
Below is a PowerPoint presentation given on this book:
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