Wednesday, September 25, 2013

Nowadays, there are many tools to help a teacher justify his/her choices in class. Bloom’s Taxonomy is a useful tool that helps us reflect upon our classroom practices and learn any content area. The revised version is really speaking to a lot of educators who use it, and it seems to be useful because it links a variety of technologies  that address different levels of educational objectives. A wise start is to look at the activities I am already implementing and see what objectives they touch on. With that in mind, I can aim at the right direction and deepen my learning to higher brain processesMost of the tasks I have used in class so far fall into the bottom of the Taxonomy (remember and understand). Although these tasks  help students practice basic skills, there are other options I need to address to make sure I use the iPads to reach the higher levels of the Taxonomy.  I designed a chart to help me visualize all the apps I have available and how they can be used for each category. The following image might help me apply The revised Bloom`s Taxonomy in my practice because they give me some basic ideas on very broad objectives for each category.




Using AppsAt the bottom of Bloom`s Taxonomy


Remembering

Apps that fit into the ‘remembering’ concept include those that improve a student’s ability to recall facts or words, list, retrieve, find, name, recognize, identify, locate, and define terms or concepts.


Repeat

WordFoto is an easy and fun app for the language classroom. Students take pictures and write words and sentences that will appear all over the image. The app is light and students do not need more than 5 minutes to get the work done. The app only accepts up to 10 words.
Teachers are usually very creative and we all can surely find many fun ways to explore the pictures, but here are three ideas.
1 - Relay race - students make lines facing the board. The last student in line has an image and has to whisper the sentences to the student in front of him. Students keep whispering till first student in line hears it and writes the sentence down on the board. 
2. Put all the images on a presentation and have a silent dictation.
3. Show all the pictures and take them away. Play some music and let students write down all the sentences they can remember. Stop the music and check students` work. 









Recall






Flashcards are no longer tied to paper. Now with the help of flashcard makers we can give our students the chance of recalling vocabulary items easily. We can prepare the flashcards with the app and make sets, or we can import sets from a site called - Quizlet. We can ask students to take the quiz as warmers to games, writing or speaking tasks. 


Describe


We can use the camera native app for a number of activities, but I like the simplicity of memory games. I was teaching "going to", and there was a picture in the book that students had to describe all the about to actions people in the picture were doing. I asked students to pose for a picture to have a similar task and motivate them to practice the target structure and have fun. They love working with their own pictures! Screen Chomp is basically a doodling app with markers.



I was teaching adverbs of frequency and frequency words to talk about routine. To transition from sentence level to discourse level, I used an activity suggested on Cleide Nascimento`s blog - Draw My Attention to contextualize the topic, and asked students to reorder the activities according to their daily routines and narrate the slides. I `ll use their work as resource for follow up activities.




 Draw


With Screen Chomp students can record audios or videos or upload a file, and then use the drawings tools to jolt down ideas, label, point out, etc. I have used it as a way to brainstorm ideas as a pre-writing activity.

Educreations is a useful tool that can be used in many different ways. I used it to practice vocabulary items in a simple way. I asked students to draw clothing items with the app and then used their work to practice the words.





Coming soon, moving up towards higher thinking skills 
Undestanding




Wednesday, September 18, 2013

Role Playing to Prompt Writing Tasks


App: IMovie
Number of iPads: one per group 
Level Teens 4

I have a very creative and hectic group of teens, who is into technology and loves playing games. My students engage really easily in tasks that have a digital component, but they tend to disconnect whenever they have to deal with more traditional ones. I decided to bring some of their creativity into play and asked them to roleplay the dialogues in unit 5. I gave each group an iPad and asked them to record themselves roleplaying the dialogues. I played the video with the sound off, and asked students to write the dialogues down as a graded exercise. In the following classes, they asked me to watch the videos again and again. I believe this repetition helped them internalize the structure because they have all done really well in this part of the oral test this morning.


By teacher Dani Lyra


Wednesday, September 11, 2013

Appitivity - Young Learners and Educreations


http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7008/6660141777_f3c5978a8e.jpg
The young learners we have in our classrooms nowadays are digital natives. It means that they were born during or after the general introduction of digital technology.  They are familiar with computers, mobile devices and internet from an early age.  I have been using the Ipads in my Kids group and they simply love it!
For the first activity I used Educreations. We were practicing vocabulary related to the beach, but the teacher can adapt and use this activity for any kind of vocabulary practice. 

Here is the activity:
  -  Take the Ipads beforehand and open the app (Educreations).
·         - Make it ready-to-use (click on “new project” and you’ll see a blank page).
·         - Make sure Educreations is logged in (branch’s account). So, it’s easier to access the students’ projects later and share or embed it on the web.
·         - After doing the activities you have prepared for the Circle Time (songs and chants) use the Ipads to review content. In this case: vocabulary.
·         - The children are already on the floor.
·         - Divide them into pairs and explain they are going to work together, taking turns.
·         - Open your Ipad (before giving the kids their devices) and show them how they have to proceed.
·         - Tell them you’re going to speak up a word and they´ll have to draw it. (model)
·         - After drawing they have to touch the REC button and say the sentence using the word. (model)
·         - They have to pause touching the REC button again. (model)
·         - On the bottom of the page, right side, they touch the arrow that goes to the next blank page. (model)
·         - Everybody waits for the second word.
·         - Use the same procedure for the rest of the words.
·         - After the last slide you have to save their projects. (Ask your aid for help)
·         - Save the project with the students’ names and the class. (e.g.: Maria and Julia – K02)
·         - Save it public.

EXAMPLE:
·         - Teacher: “It’s a bucket.”
·         - Students: draw the bucket.
·         - Students record their voices saying: “It’s a bucket.”
·         - They pause.
·         - They go to the next slide.

Educreations puts the slides all together and makes a short video. They really enjoy watching their project and their classmates’ projects. Below you can see one example:




After class, the teacher can access the branch’s account and click on ‘Welcome, CTJ’. You’ll see all the projects saved. Click on the project you want to use and you’ll be able to share or embed it.

I have created a digital portfolio using the free pbworks WIKI - http://kidsteacherika.pbworks.com. On the WIKI, I created a page for each student and embedded their projects there. In the end of the month, I sent the link to the parents. Another idea (from Carla Arena) is to create a page for each project and send the link through “Registro Escolar” to all parents at once. This is a screenshot from one of my student’s page:





Monday, September 09, 2013

Teacher Talking Quality


Robert O’Neill has questioned a basic idea of EFL teaching that too much teacher talk is bad and therefore more 'student talk' can be achieved by reducing teacher talking time. In contrast, he introduces the idea of teacher talking quality; it’s not the time the teacher spends talking, but the quality of the teacher’s talk*. O’Neill certainly makes a valid point, yet it requires further elaboration.
First, the idea that decreasing teacher talking time (TTT) will increase student talking time (STT) needs to be addressed. One can imagine a teacher doing various things, e.g., telling stories, partaking in speaking activities, and giving instructions. Should a teacher avoid talking when it comes to piquing students’ interest; relaying some culturally relevant anecdotes; explaining how an activity is going to work?  I don’t see how a seasoned teacher could argue that TTT should be avoided when it comes to these situations.  TTT versus STT becomes important when considering speech which does not result in student learning. Such speech from teachers would therefore be lacking in quality and efficiency, but what does that look like?
STT and TTT have to do with time, which is easily measured. O’Neill has proposed the acronym TTQ (teacher talking quality). Quality in comparison to time is not quite as objective, which is why I believe the discussion of TTT x STT seems to be a recurrent theme in TEFL.  That’s not to say that quality can’t be measured. One could design a rubric for scoring the quality of teacher talk just as we’ve developed a scoring rubric for the writing assignments we give to our students. This TTT rubric should give points to a teacher who uses elicitation, gives practical and clear explanations, checks for understanding by asking concept questions, allows students to be responsible for their self-directing their speech, organizes students into speaking pairs or groups, and tolerates silence long enough to give students time to formulate a response. Likewise, this TTT rubric should take points away for a teacher who speaks for many minutes without elicitation, gives explanations full of terminology, transitions to an activity without first asking questions that check student comprehension, controls or dominates discussion to the point where students have limited involvement in the learning process, or impatiently reinitiates talk without giving students time to process so as to formulate a proper response.
Above all, teachers need to be humanistic and understand that although silence can be used as a technique in specific instances (allowing the student time to find their words), being silent all the time is not natural and doesn’t cater to everyone’s learning needs. Students who seek clarification or wish to share their experiences with the class should be welcomed with a warm response from the teacher. In fact, teacher talk can include current issues in comparison to dated textbooks or audio, disseminate relevant content, and fine-tune language to a level that is readily comprehensible based on that student’s level of language development. We also can’t forget that the teacher’s English is a source of input for our students to process both consciously and unconsciously.
 To summarize, it’s safe to say that there are some strong points to O’Neill’s argument for TTQ. When TTT is dry and monotonous, void of elicitation, or needlessly complicated, it becomes obvious why TTQ is so crucial.  That is not to say that TTT shouldn’t be limited at times when students are capable of some learner autonomy; they can guide their own discussions, which both further involves students in the learning process and develops their speaking skills when it comes to turn-taking or discovering the meaning of vocabulary or grammar rules for themselves. English classes can’t be all about the vocabulary and grammar, however.  Teacher talk is needed to build rapport with our students so that they not only learn the language but are given opportunities to use the language in ways that are meaningful and humanistic. In the end, it bodes well for the teacher who recognizes when it is necessary and not necessary to talk during class, duly combined with the idea that when TTT is warranted, it is done with our students’ learning needs in mind.


*Robert O'Neill – IATEFL, April 2004

Sunday, September 08, 2013

Compositions and iPads in the Classroom

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http://www.flickr.com/photos/smemon/
I would like to start by pointing out that this post does not refer to essays, since they are too long and it would take forever to type 5 paragraphs on an iPad (at least for an old dog like me). However, if we are dealing with single paragraphs or shorter compositions, it works brilliantly. 

Let’s take the first composition topic of 3B, for example. The students are supposed to write about a place that they would recommend to tourists. The example in the book is the Great Wall of China, but students can choose any place they have visited, be it in Brazil or anywhere else in the world.

After handing out the iPads, you could start by asking them to find a picture of that place (using Flickr – creative commons pictures, for example). After that, they can start writing their paragraphs. They can check spelling and find alternative words using a Thesaurus dictionary. Also, they need to write about the history of the place and give suggestions to tourists. This could easily be done with the travel apps that we already have in our iPads, and/or with the help of Wikipedia.

In the end, they can send their final product straight to your email account. This activity will keep the students focused and they will have fun doing it. What a great way to refute the students’ preconception that compositions are boring.

By teacher André

Friday, September 06, 2013

iPad Tip of the Week - Kids Apps

Many teachers report that they fear taking the iPads to use with their kids because they might get wild, ipads might get dirty, might break... In fact, from what I´ve observed, it is quite the opposite. With a good lesson plan and classroom management, iPad classes with kids are a tremendous success with engaged and excited kids.

iPadProject_ (51)
Teacher Fernanda Mello with a group of enthusiastic students using ipads for the first time

When teachers dare and take the iPads to class, they always mention how fun their classes were and how enthusiastic kids became with the mobile devices. Some of the little ones innocently even ask if they can take the iPads home!

 Did you know that we have a Kids folder in all iPads? We have apps to practice colors, the alphabet, shapes, stories, animals, numbers, transportation, food, besides the other ones for students to draw and write.

CTJ iPad Kids Folder 


Some classroom management tricks to work with ipads in a kids´ classroom:

- think of your pedagogical goal for the activity and check the choices of apps you are going to use
- test the app before your class

In class:
- Ask students to sit on the floor
- Give instructions and project on the board the steps to access the app 
- set the rules for good ipad use
- hand in the ipads
- carry out the activity
- consider the kind of follow up activity you will do with the students. It could be just asking questions and practicing with them, or if it is a drawing/project, there could be a show and tell moment. In this case, make sure everybody puts the ipads on the floor and close them as they listen to their peers. 

iPadProject_ iPadProject_ (48)


By taking these steps, your class will be a smashing hit!

So, I´d like to invite all of you to consider including an ipad activity the next time you prepare a class for your Kids, Kids Fun, Top Kids and Junior classes. Remember that the Ed Tech Monitors at your branch are ready to give you a hand to plan for an effective approach to using iPads in the classroom. 



Tuesday, September 03, 2013

App of the Week - Educreations


Educreations is one of those apps that are king in the classroom.
It is easy to use, really intuitive, and it gives a blank screen for students and teachers to record, draw, insert images.

Some activities that you can use Educreations for:

- students record examples of what they´ve learned
- students can talk about likes/dislikes, physical description of characters they draw...
- students can tell a story
- students can have a map in Educreations, one gives the directions, the other draws the way as they record the instructions to get to a place
- students can practice a dialogue
- students can interview each other and add images as they go along
- students can work on their book projects, drawing and recording a scene of the book
- teachers can use the app as an interactive whiteboard, even recording what they did as they explained something and then send it to the students
- teachers can record a lesson (explanations, tutorials) and send it to students

Learn how to use the tool and schedule some time during your lesson to add some Educreations fun to your classes:




Here are some examples of what teachers did with their students using educreations. Browse through the lessons our students and teachers have worked on in Educreations: http://www.educreations.com/profile/894009/?page=1

Browse through lessons from other teachers and students to get inspired at http://www.educreations.com/browse/

APPtivity of the Day - Using Dictionaries in the Classroom


Sometimes we think that we can only schedule to use the iPads when we feel confident enough, have practiced many times how to open, close, use the features in certain apps. We practice so much that we give up as insecurity increases exponentially when we give a thought about the students we have, the little time we have in our schedules, added to the responsibility of those devices in nervous hands.

WORRY NOT!

Ruben Puentedura´s model for tech incorporation can be a relief for teachers in the sense that it is OK to start with substitution practices that enhance the learning experience towards a more informed and bold move towards transformative uses of tech in the classroom.


So, instead of the distress of considering tech possibilities and never having the fearlessness to try it, start with a fun and very simple activity and then move on to more challenging activities. 

Did you know that in our CTJ iPads we have fantastic dictionaries you can use with your groups?
Here are some:

The first one on the list (LDOCE 5) is an expensive paid app which is worth every penny for the quality of its digital version - Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English 5th Edition. 


You can´t imagine how much fun my teen students have had with this app. We searched for some words they were studying, I asked them to check the pronunciation of American x British English and to see if there was any relevant difference. They could see the words in use, including collocations and idiomatic expressions. 
The activity was nothing new, but the teens spent some minutes having fun with the language and exploring the possibilities of use. We then played a game in which I´d say the word, they needed to check the meaning and come up with an example different from the dictionary´s. 
Later in the semester, when they had to write paragraphs, they asked me if they could look up for synonyms in the dictionary! 

Now, if it worked with a rambunctious group of teens, imagine exploring the wonders of the dictionary use with our adult groups! You could explore high frequency words (identified in red in the app); you could have a treasure hunt, pronunciation work, definition game. The world of possibilities using digital dictionaries in class is simply limitless...In addition to making your lessons more engaging, your students will start noticing the possibilities of the devices they use in their daily lives to learn English. 

So, the first part of your tech integration ladder is done: substitution activities using a dictionary app. 
Ready for the challenge?
What kinds of activities with dictionaries do you envision with your groups?
Let us know when you plan a lesson using the dictionary apps and what the outcomes were. 


Tip: Dictionary.com is a very good free app that your students can download to their smartphones and tablets.


Tuesday, August 27, 2013

Setting Guidelines for IPad Usage in Class




I was browsing through my reader when I came across a short but relevant post on Eudemic. The author tells us  a short story to convey the message that every house has different practices, and that  teachers should not assume all our students will have been taught the same way to take care of the expensive devices we bring to class. One thing is for sure: we do want students to use the IPads to be creative and enjoy the lessons, but we also want them to be careful and keep the devices fully functioning. The solution? The post aforementioned suggests we clearly communicate device usage guidelines to students. I`ll download a larger sized version of the  graphic below available at Teachers Pay Teachers (free) because it is well designed and very informative, go over the rules with students and use the IPads happily ever after.





Sunday, August 11, 2013

L1 in the L2 classroom: from a sin to a possibility


 (cross-posted from http://isabelavillasboas.wordpress.com/)

As most people trained in the mid-80´s, I used to completely avoid using or referring to L1 in the L2 classroom. After all, as Scott Thornbury (2010) reminds us, the arguments against it are that:

  • translation encourages a dependence on the L1, at the expense of the learner constructing an independent L2 system;
  •  translation encourages the notion of equivalence between languages, yet no two languages are exactly alike (although languages from the same language family may be similar in lots of respects);
  •  the L1 system interferes with the development of the L2 system;
  • translation is the “easy” approach to conveying meaning, and is therefore less memorable than approaches that require more mental effort, such as working out meaning from context;
  •  the “natural” way of acquiring a language is through direct experience and exposure, not through translation.


I confess to having taught numerous groups of true beginners without ever, ever speaking a word in Portuguese, our common native language, in class. After all, what if they were in the U.S or the U.K, right? No one would speak their language there, so we had to simulate this L2 environment. At that time, I truly and naively believed that native speakers were the model for an L2 classroom and that students’ L1 was mostly an interference to be avoided. I’m sure this belief was also reinforced by the fact that English in regular schools in Brazil, public or private, was based solely on translation and was very ineffective, so doing anything similar to that should be avoided at all costs.

It was only in the mid-90’s, when I first read what would be one of my most cherished methodology bibles, Douglas Brown’s (2007) Teaching By Principles, that I came across the idea that “the judicious use of the L1” can be beneficial. Wow! That was already quite a stretch for me. But still, in the Methodology classes I taught, I always emphasized the word judiciously, and explained that it was really an exception, when there was no other way to explain a word or concept.



As time went by and a growing number of experts began defending the idea that the native language can be a facilitative tool, rather than just a hindrance or an interference (Atkinson, 1987; Auerbach, 1993; Cook, 2001; Nation, 2003), I slowly began to rethink my beliefs about this issue and, as a teacher, adopt a greater tolerance towards the idea that we can use this tool learners already have, their native language, to help them learn a second language. Rather than a hindrance, the L1 can sometimes be a springboard, or maybe the key to understanding. When teaching the present perfect, for example, I started to show my students that in Portuguese you say “I have read that book” and “I read that book yesterday” using the same verb (li), the reason why it was difficult for Brazilians to understand the concept of the present perfect. I would thus warn them that relating it to Portuguese wasn’t going to help. Conversely, when Portuguese could indeed help them understand something, I began signaling this to students, saying, “It’s just like in Portuguese.” With children, the idea of giving them a few minutes in the beginning of the class to share whatever they felt like sharing about their lives in the native language became more acceptable. After all, they weren’t proficient enough to express themselves the same way in English, yet they really needed the emotional bond.

Even so, my understanding of the debate about the role of L1 in the L2 classroom was still very pragmatic and “apolitical”. It was only when I became more familiarized with Critical Applied Linguistics (Pennycook, 2001), the Local Versus Global English debate and World Englishes, and the Non-native-English-Speaking-Teacher movement (Braine, 1999) that my view of the topic expanded. I began to understand all the historical, theoretical, and political reasons behind the “English-only” policy, clearly explained by Mahboob (2011) and summarized in an earlier post. The fact that sharing the same L1 with my students was a strength rather than a weakness really empowered me and made me rethink my role as a teacher and teacher trainer and developer. I also enhanced my understanding that there was a difference between using translation as a method and using the L1 system as a reference for students, a facilitator. 



Though I had “seen the light”, I also still had many doubts:

  •  How far should the teacher go in resorting to the L1 when it can be facilitative without transforming the communicative classroom into a translation-based one?
  • Might the teacher’s reference to students’ L1 make them feel more comfortable to use their L1 in class and not make as much effort to communicate in the L2, wasting the only time they have to do so (in the case of an EFL environment)?
  • Might an excessive comparison or reference to the L1 hinder the development of students’ automaticity in the foreign language, creating an unnecessary “L1 bypass” in their brains?


Paul Seligson’s plenary in an event recently held at my ELT Institute – the 2nd Alumni, CTJ, and Ibeu TEFL Conference – shed some light into this discussion and helped clarify it for me in certain ways. He reasonably argued that “L1 is a tool to be used appropriately like any other, and its use needn’t be verbal.”  It can involve parallel processing or systematic contrastive reflection, for example. He suggested a number of awareness-raising activities that involve students making comparisons between their L1 and EFL without having to say a word in their L1. For example, students can think about whether the stressed syllable in each of the months in English is the same or different from in Portuguese. This can be done between Portuguese and English because the months in the two languages are of Latin origin. Thus, we can capitalize on the fact that Portuguese is a Romance language, that as much as 60% of English is Latin-based, and that there are more cognates than false cognates between Portuguese and English. Students can be trained to notice cognates and near cognates and work out their meaning from context. This can be done without even using the L1 in the classroom, but rather, just asking students to think about it. Seligson (2013) also argues that if we capitalize on the vocabulary that is Latin-based when teaching beginners, we can speed up their learning and give them a sense of being able to communicate adequately sooner, even if the words they’re using aren’t necessarily the most frequently used by native speakers.

Some of the key ideas put forth by Seligson (2013) are:

  • Highlight, use, and build on students’ strong, existing linguistic intelligence, addressing them as “insiders”, knowers, not “empty vessels” or aliens from another language planet.
  • Consider making reference to L1 whenever it might help; celebrate and accelerate where things are similar, prioritize what’s harder, and make humorous links.
  • L1 is a tool to be used appropriately like any other, and its use needn’t be verbal, e.g. parallel processing, systematic contrastive reflection, etc.
  • Accelerate presentations using L1 contrast or references to give them more time for practice.
  • Anticipate mistakes early on in lessons to help students avoid them.
  • Use cognates to provide much richer text and input, and be explicit when you’re using cognates.
  • Make systematic use of contrastive pronunciation to help break the habits they have acquired from L1.
  • Our goal is to create successful language switchers, not just turn them into native speakers.


I opened this post with Thornbury’s (2010) list of arguments against the use of L1. Now here is his list of arguments in favor, which certainly inspired Seligson in his plenary:

  • New knowledge (e.g. of the L2) is constructed on the basis of existing knowledge (e.g. of the L1), and to ignore that is to deny learners a valuable resource.
  • Languages have more similarities than differences, and translation encourages the positive transfer of the similarities, as well as alerting learners to significant differences.
  • Translation is a time-efficient means of conveying meaning, compared, say, to demonstration, explanation, or working out meaning from context.
  •  Learners will use translation, even if covertly, as a strategy for making sense of the L2, so it may as well be used as an overt tool.
  • The skill of translation is an integral part of being a proficient L2 user, and contributes to overall pluralingualism.
  • Translation is a natural way of exploiting the inherent bilingualism of language classes, especially where the teacher is herself bilingual.

Just the other day I was teaching a group of low-intermediate adults and we came across the word “confident”, a false-cognate in Portuguese. Unhesitatingly, I pointed out that confident meant confiante, not confidente in Portuguese. Twenty years ago, I would probably not have resorted to translation and tried to explain the word in English. Maybe half of my students would have understood it, while half would still either be in doubt or think that it meant confidente.

As you can see, I’m now a believer and, as a teacher, I think I can make informed decisions about when to use or allow the use of L1 in my classroom. However, as a teacher trainer and developer in an ELT Institute with over 250 teachers, many of whom are novice, I confess I’m still reluctant to openly advocate the use of L1.  My fear is that the arguments above become an overgeneralization for any use of the L1 at any time, both by the teacher and the students. This would go against our institutional pedagogical principles, which emphasize the need to maximize L2 use in the classroom and authentic communication in L2 and, above all, our students’ expectations. Thus, apart from L1 use for classroom management purposes and others presented by Mahboob (2011), Seligson’s idea of having students think about their L1 rather than actually use it in class might be a sound suggestion.

And you? How do you feel about this issue as a teacher? And as a teacher trainer/developer?


References
Auerbach, E. (1993). Reexaming English only in the ESL classroom. TESOL Quarterly, 27, 1, pp.
9–32.

Atkinson, D. (1987). The mother tongue in the classroom: A neglected resource? ETL Journal, 41,
4, pp. 241–24.

Braine, G. (Ed.). (1999). Nonnative Educators in English Language Teaching. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Brown, H. D. (2007). Teaching by Principles – An Interactive Approach to Language Pedagogy – 3rd Edition. White Plains, NY: Pearson Education.

Cook, V. (2001). Using the First Language in the Classroom. Canadian Modern Language Review, 57(3).

Mahboob, A . (2011, August 31). Using local languages in English language classes [Web log post].  Retrieved from http://www.nnestblog.blogspot.com.br/

Nation, P. (2003) The role of the first language in foreign language learning. The Asian EFL Journal 5 (2). Retrieved from http://asian-efl-journal.com/quarterly-journal/2003/06/30/the-role-of-the-first-language-in-foreign-language-learning/#thethe-tabs-1-4 (August 04, 2013).

Pennycook, A. (2001). Critical Applied Linguistics – A Critical Introduction. Mahway, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Seligson, P. (2013). Advantaging Brazilian Learners. Plenary delivered at the 2nd Alumni, CTJ, and Ibeu TEFL Conference.

Thornbury, A. (2010, April 21). T is for translation [Web log post]. Retrieved from http://scottthornbury.wordpress.com/2010/04/21/t-is-for-translation/



 Images courtesy of www.freedigitalphotos.net

Tuesday, July 23, 2013

Practical Ways of Developing Fluency

What do you do when a student asks:

“How do I improve my fluency?”

I attended the 2nd Alumni, CTJ, & IBEU TEFL Conference last week.  One of the speakers, Michael McCarthy, talked about how fluency is one of these terms where everyone knows what it means, but have difficulty in defining it:  Think about readiness.  Think about spontaneity.  Does the speaker have their independent ideas about the subject at hand? Fluency means “not causing strain to either the person listening nor feeling strain while speaking”.

Ok, so what does that look like? Here are some terms you need to know:
  • Speed of delivery--how many words per hour does your student speak? Casual conversation is 10,000 words per hour!  Your student doesn’t have to speak that fast when it comes to giving speeches, however.
  • Pauses--your student should not pause for longer than half a second!  A big “NO NO” is pausing when it is your turn to speak or in the middle of fixed phrases such as “You know what I mean?”  You don’t want to say “You-- know-- what-- I mean.”
  • Dysfluency--getting lost in your thoughts.  You say, “What was I talking about?”
  • Automaticity--that knee-jerk reaction when it comes to having response to fire off right away.
  • Confluence--the ability to carry out a conversation in a way where you create opportunities for your listener to understand when your turn is almost over so that they are ready to start their turn--and they provide you with that same courtesy!

Let’s go back to the original question: “How do I improve my fluency?”

Here are some of my ideas:

  • Have your student find a reading passage that they really respect or enjoy and have them read the passage.  It should be a fairly decent length so that it can’t be done in two minutes.  Have them read the passage aloud for two minutes and mark where they stop. The following week, have them read aloud again for two minutes and mark it again.  How many words did they improve?
  • Have your students keep up with current events.  A great conversationalist knows what’s going on in pop culture, sports, science, politics, and art.  Have them reflect on what they read and talk about it.  Have them share their opinions with the class. Moderate a short debate!
  • Provide them some fixed phrases, 3 word chunks, and other fillers.  Ask them to insert these a few times during class discussions.  They can be things that open phrases such as “Well, basically...” and other words that will create the end of the turn such as “.. you know what I mean?”.  They have to use them quickly (speed of delivery) and automatically!
  • Also, teach them how to stall for time such as saying “The whatcha-ma-callit?” or “thinga-ma-bob” and other phrases that native speakers heavily use when they are trying to claw their way through a conversation.  Give them works such as YEAH, OH, RIGHT, WELL, and BASICALLY and teach them how to combine them in to “Oh, right” or “Yeah, that’s right” or “Well, yeah” or “Well, basically”. Use these to avoid pauses and stall for time to think! Other great words are “actually...” and “I mean...” when used to elaborate further on what you’ve already said.
  • Great speakers don’t think about what they’re going to say next while their partner is speaking. Instead, they listen to what is being said and react to some part of that.  Model how to do this for them and have them practice.  Give them useful phrases such as "I hate to disagree, but..." and "I see what you mean..." The better they are at creating flow, the more fluent they will become.

    What are your ideas? Post them in the comments!

Saturday, July 20, 2013

Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) – Why should you try?

                              
It is two thirty in the afternoon. The teacher is introducing a new and important topic and almost all students are attentively looking at and listening to him. A couple of students, however, seem to be somewhere else. A teenage boy is looking at his lap with a silly smile on his face. The teacher suspects this has nothing to do with his class because once he is not telling any jokes at the moment. A teenage girl on the other side has her right hand inside her bag and is also involved in some kind of very important task. The teacher also knows it is not part of the class because he has not assigned any task yet. He has not asked students to make any sort of inventory of the content of their school bags. This scene looks familiar, doesn't it? The two fictional students are definitely texting or checking their social networks on their mobile phones. How can a teacher handle such distractions? How to deal with the handheld devices our students are bringing into our classes? In this post I will try to give some hints on transforming these gadgets into our allies and discuss some of the benefits of doing so.


The first solution that comes to our minds when facing class distractions due to the use of portable devices is banning them completely from coming into the temple of our classrooms. Banning can range from not allowing students to bring such gadgets to class to collecting them upon their arrival to asking students to turn their gizmos off while in class. However, we can ask, is banning handheld devices the solution?
Since students have to carry their mobile phones to communicate with parents, it becomes practically impossible to forbid them from bringing portable devices into the classroom or asking them to turn their gadgets off. The option of collecting mobile devices upon arrival is not very practical either and adds one more throng into the challenging task of achieving effective classroom management.

Banning not being an option, one thing the teacher can do to avoid episodes of disconnection from class is to make a contract with students telling them when they will be allowed to check their phones. One idea would be telling learners to restrict such activities to a time when they are done with written tasks and are waiting for the remainder of the class to finish and do a peer to peer check out. In regard to this rule, it is important to inform them that they should not rush through tasks to have extra time to use their devices. Such rule would mean never using mobile gadgets while the teacher is explaining something or when the class is involved in communication activities.

Once the teacher has addressed the banning issue and established a contract with his or her students, it is time to look into some alternatives to have students use their devices for other things than checking their social networks, chatting in their native language or playing games. Doing so will make them really happy and will probably reduce their craving for using their devices for other things than getting engaged in learning activities while in class.


There are some activities in which a teacher can substitute paper and pencil for a more engaging and fun task done using a mobile device. Writing does not have necessarily to be done in notebooks. Consequently, paragraphs can be written using mobile phones and be sent immediately to the teacher or afterwards for correction. A teacher will probably be surprised with students dexterity in using a mobile phone tiny keyboard to write a paragraph or a short message. You can also suggest a tour around the school to investigate or catalog new vocabulary. Images can be used to construct narratives or to simply describe pictured objects. Besides that, learners can record themselves and by doing this improve their pronunciation and intonation once they have the opportunity to play back and see how they sound. As you can see, there are lots of opportunities to use handheld devices in class.

Using students' devices bring many advantages. First, we can say that it solves the logistic and economic problem of having one mobile device for student. Why does the school need to buy these gadgets when students already possess their own. Second, it saves time once the instructor does not need to instruct the class on specific features. Third, it allows diversity instead if the unification of class sets of laptops or tablets. Finally, it sends a strong message of acceptance and inclusion to students once the handheld device they carry with them almost everywhere is being valued by their teacher and transformed into a powerful learning tool.

References:
My colleague Erika Oya and I gave a presentation on the topic of BYOD in Brasilia at The 2nd Alumni CTJ and IBEU TEFL Conference. See our slides on Prezi 

Hockly,N.(October 2012). Tech-savvy teaching: BYOD. Modern English Teacher, volume 21(number 4). Retrieved from http://www.academia.edu/2065524/Tech-savvy_teaching_BYOD

Thursday, July 11, 2013

Technology in the Language Classroom

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                                           photo credit: Bent Kure via photopin cc


by Jose Antonio da Silva

According to an article on Wikipedia, the history of education if considered as passing down traditions from one generation to another is probably as old as the history of civilization. However, as developmental psychologist Peter Gray reviewing the history of education in a 2008 blog post reminds us, the idea of universal education arouse in the 17th century. It was then that, according to him, learning started being children’s “work” aided by the expertise of adults. If in the beginning of its history methods and techniques for teaching were mostly dictated by the adult in a position of power, as time went by the pendulum shifted to cater more and more to the needs of learners no matter how old they were. The advent of computer technology made this relationship even more complex once these machines gave tremendous power to students and placed higher and higher demands on teachers. So, the objective of this post is to address some issues related to the integration of technology into the EFL class.
An EFL teacher who started teaching in the early 90s in an institution that tried to keep up with the latest technological gadgetry would probably have at his disposal a slideshow projector, a tape recorder, and a TV set with a VCR on the corner. By the end of the decade, the only item remaining would be the TV set, the others would have been replaced by a computer on the teacher’s table connected to the TV set which still might be connected to a more modern VCR. Fast forward ten more years and changes in this area are dramatic. The 21st century has brought with itself a lot of progress in this field and things have not stopped evolving since then. Computer technology has miniaturized and thus become ubiquitous and accessible to almost anyone. In Brazil, according to a National Household Survey (PNAD) study, the number of Internet users in the country increased by 10 million between 2009 and 2011. As more and more technology makes its way into students’ lives and the classroom, teachers have more and more trouble coping with these demands. The solution to this problem may lie in finding ways to use this same technology not only as a means of delivering content, but as a way of practicing inside class, and lastly of extending learning beyond classroom and into students daily lives.
The first issue with such widespread use of computer devices and connectivity arises with students bringing their portable devices into class. If such devices are connected to the web, teachers are divided between asking students to turn their devices off or using them in class for practicing language and generating content. The argument for banning is reasonable and is supported by some educators (Yamamoto, 2007). Devices can be a distraction and really make students lose focus and let a teacher literally talking to the walls. However, as Nicky Hockly (2012) claims, adopting a BYOD (bring your device) approach gives students some autonomy and creates a ground for negotiation between teachers and students. Students can use the photos they have in their mobile phones to talk about themselves and show to classmates what matters to them. Alternatively, they can go around school on photo treasure hunts and do similar activities. The audio capabilities can be used to record conversations that can be replayed in class or used to assess pronunciation or other skills.

In contexts that are low tech and students do not carry fancy mobile devices there is always at least a computer lab. If such facility is not available, students can be encouraged to use their computers at home. The idea is to move from a push content mind set to a pull content one, an approach in which teachers see learners as active participants and producers or content. So, instead of adopting a closed LMS environment in which educators exert control and push content to students, a teacher can opt for the so called web 2.0 platforms that allow more freedom and customization, allowing the teacher to push content from learners. The flipped classroom (Gerstein, 2012) idea advocates exactly that, using blogs, wikis, podcasts, social networking and other media to get extended practice and student generated content. Once teachers connect students and their classes to the web, his initiative allows them to see themselves as 21st citizens that are no longer just consumers of content, but as creative and active participants in making their own learning, creating content, and contributing to the learning of others.

References

 Gerstein, J. (2012). The Flipped Classroom: The Full Picture. Kindle Edition. Gray, P. (August 2008). A Brief History of Education. Psychology Today. Retrieved from http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/freedom-learn/200808/brief-history-education

Hockly,N.(October 2012). Tech-savvy teaching: BYOD. Modern English Teacher, volume 21(number 4). Retrieved from http://www.academia.edu/2065524/Tech-savvy_teaching_BYOD

Yamamoto, K. (January 2008). Banning Laptops in the Classroom: Is it Worth the Hassles? Journal of Legal Education, Volume 57 (Number 4). Retrieved from http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1078740

Wikipedia, History of education, Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_education