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Content Type: 1
Title: The Best Online Resources For “Information Gap” Activities
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Teacher and blogger Larry Ferlazzo writes, “Information Gap activities are often used in second language classrooms. They are generally designed as partner exercises where one student has to get information from the other — speaking the target language — in order to complete the assignment.”
Access an annotated list of online resources for these effective interactive tasks at http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/2011/09/06/the-best-online-resources-for-information-gap-activities/
Source: Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day
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Title: Two Way "Tech" Tasks
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Here is a nice article about how to enhance information gap activities (a typical interactive task) with technology: http://community.eflclassroom.com/profiles/blogs/two-way-tech-tasks
Source: EFL Classroom 2.0
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Title: Study Abroad Courses for Competitive Soccer Players
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From http://www.digitaljournal.com/pr/2079048
EduKick offers 2014/15 academic year study abroad courses for footballers. Since 2001 EduKick International Soccer & Education Academies offers academic year football academy boarding schools in SPAIN, ENGLAND, GERMANY, FRANCE, ITALY, BRAZIL, USA & MEXICO with full-time educational options including, ESL, EFL, BTEC Sports Science, Foreign Language Study, IGCSE and A-Level, and USA 8-12 Online Distance Learning.
EduKick International Football Academies are intensive soccer training and language immersion or academic programs, typically designed for students aged 13 to 23 years of age.
Read more: http://www.digitaljournal.com/pr/2079048
Source: Digital Journal
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Title: Ideas for Pairing or Grouping Students
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Here are some different ideas for getting your students into groups or pairs: http://evasimkesyan.com/2014/07/29/how-to-pair-or-group-students/
Source: A Journey in TEFL
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Content Type: 3
Title: Steps to Facilitating Interaction via Communicative Activities
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Kai Liu is an MA student in the Language Teaching Specialization Program at the University of Oregon.
Facilitating interaction in the classroom enables learning and supports development of communicative competence. In a communicative activity, the teacher is often considered a facilitator, guide, and resource. With careful attention to task design, feedback, and facilitation, student-student (S-S) interaction can increase the quantity and quality of interactional opportunities. In addition, expert-student interactions can be included to provide comprehensive opportunities for communication. Drawing on previous work, the following presents steps to facilitating interaction in the classroom.
Before class:
- Establish learning objectives and select a task accordingly (e.g., role plays, info-gap, interviews, decision making, games). The task should always match the communicative objective.
- Determine the dimensions of interaction. Think about the following questions: Will there be E-S and S-S interaction? When and how will each type of interaction occur?
- Choose a grouping technique/strategy. Think about the following questions: Is pair work or group work better? Do I need to pre-assign groups based on, for example, students' proficiency levels, L1 background, learning styles?
During class:
- Initiate interaction by asking display and/or referential questions to activate students' existing knowledge.
- Set-up the activity with explicit instructions and models. You may want to tell students the purpose of the activity, time limit, tasks, rules, and how to debrief in the end. Asking students to restate the rules or respond to a model is a good way to ensure understanding.
- Model the task. If the task is complex or new to students, be sure to model the task by demonstrating the steps yourself or with the help of a couple of students.
- Monitor the activity. Circulate among groups to make sure all groups are on task. Pay attention to the target feature you want students to focus on. You can make a few suggestions but do not correct errors during the task.
- Debrief. Ask each group to report on their progress. Tell students if you only want one group leader or all the group members to present. Before one group presents, tell other groups to what to pay attention to (e.g., differences to your group finding, what you agree and disagree). If time permits, students can also share the challenges they encountered and the strategies they used. The whole-class discussion is also a great time for the teacher to provide corrective and affective feedback.
After class:
- Reflection: Did students interact with each other the way you expected them to? If not, what caused the problem? How to solve them next time?
- Revise: What modifications would you like to make to the task to improve interaction?
References
Brown, H. D. (2007). Teaching by principles: An interactive approach to language pedagogy. (3rd ed.). (pp. 211-240). White Plains, NY: Pearson Education.
Long, M., & Porter, P. (1985). Group work, interlanguage talk, and second language acquisition. TESOL Quarterly, 19, 207-228.
McDonough, K. (2004). Learner-learner interaction during pair and small group activities in a Thai EFL context. System, 32, 207-224.
Ortega, L. (2009). Understanding second language acquisition. (pp. 60-62). London: Hodder Education.
Source:
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Content Type: 4
Title: Using Comic Books
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by Kai Liu
Comic books can serve as authentic materials for learning about a target culture. The interesting visual aids and brief texts in comic books could be used to initiate classroom interaction and spark discussion about a certain topic. The activity below aims to help intermediate-high learners of Chinese review the Chinese philosophy Taoism they have learned and gain a deeper understanding of Taoism by sequencing the pictures of stories and interpreting the stories in comic books. Although it is targeted towards Chinese learners, it could be adapted to any similar language and culture learning activity in the target language.
Outcomes:
- Students will be able to sequence the pictures based on textual cues.
- Students will be able to retell the story in the comic book in their own words.
- Students will be able to interpret the story using Taoism principles learned in the previous class.
Resources:
- Stories selected from the Chinese Comic book: Cai, Z. (2009). Comics Taoism. Beijing: The Commercial Press.
- Scissors to cut the prints of comic books into separate pictures.
- Projector: groups use the projector to demonstrate the story they put together to the whole class
Procedure:
Before class
- Establish activity objectives (see outcomes above) and select a technique: problem-solving. Students will collaborate with work members to sequence the pictures given based on the visual cues and texts in each picture.
- Determine interaction types: before the task: T-S; during the task: S-S; debrief: S-S and T-S.
- Choose a grouping technique/strategy: divide students into groups of three to four people. Each group has a different set of pictures (a different story).
During class
- Initiate interaction. The teacher will review the basic principles of Taoism with students. To introduce the genre of comic books, the teacher could ask students if them have read comic books in English or Chinese.
- Give explicit instructions. The teacher can focus on the following aspects:
- Three tasks students need to complete: (1) Work in small groups to solve the “puzzle” by sequencing the pictures; (2) Retell the story in their own words; (3) Think about the Taoism philosophical principles behind the story/ how the Taoism philosophical principles can be applied to explaining these stories.
- Time limit for the tasks: 10 min.
- Rules: (1) Everybody needs to speak the target language in their groups; (2) When someone tries to sequence the pictures, he/she has to provide reasons to convince the others in the group; (3) Each group picks two representatives to present the story and philosophical principles to the whole class.
- Model the activity. The teacher can put a set of pictures under the projector and work with the whole class to figure out the first picture.
- Monitor the activity. After the task is set in motion, the teacher can circulate among groups making sure everyone is obeying the task rules. The teacher can provide suggestions to solving the puzzle and collect common errors for the debriefing.
- Debrief. Group will take turns to present their story to the whole class and share how they solved the puzzle in their group. Other groups can comment on the story and the application of the philosophical ideas. The teacher will also provide feedback on each group’s performance.
After class
Reflection: Think about the challenges students had during the task. What could you have done differently to change the situation? Were your questioning strategies and suggestions helpful for making the activity more interactive? Did students know how to infer, hypothesize, and suggest in target language when they worked together to solve the problem?
Source: CASLS Activity of the Week
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Content Type: 5
Title: Catching Up with Educational Software Developer Carl Burnstein by Deborah Cooke, CASLS Instructional Designer
Body:
CASLS Educational Software Developer Carl Burnstein began working for CASLS as a student employee in 2010. At that time, he helped with maintaining computer hardware maintenance, troubleshooting, coding LinguaFolio Online, and setting up a WordPress site for CASLS professional development program.
Carl has since grown to become an integral employee at CASLS. His project scope has developed to include all of CASLS' technology-related projects, including rewriting the InterCom website and email service, creating multiple mobile applications for language learning, updating LinguaFolio Online and its mobile application LFO To Go. Carl also supervises a student worker who assists him.
"LinguaFolio Online and LFO To Go have been my favorite projects to work on, because they were my first big steps into working as a major part of one of our biggest projects. I've also really been enjoying working on a mobile application for students living at the University of Oregon residence halls because I get to work with iOS and Xcode, which are some of my favorite tools to use," says Carl. He enjoys every aspect of working at CASLS, especially the people and the work culture.
When he's not working on CASLS projects, Carl shares, "I like to spend time with my girlfriend and my dog going outdoors for a hike or to the park to play with other dogs." If he could go anywhere in the universe, Carl would visit outer space one day, which might include a stop to the International Space Station or a destination further out among the planets!
Source: CASLS Spotlight
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Content Type: 3
Title: Social Media and Writing in a Second Language
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Greg Kessler is the Director of the Language Resource Center in the College of Arts & Sciences and Associate Professor of Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) in the Department of Linguistics at Ohio University where he teaches CALL practice and research courses. His research addresses the convergence of language, digital environments, language learning and associated human behavior.
Second language writing instruction has typically focused upon a very limited repertoire of academically oriented formats. However, we are likely to interact with text across a variety of tasks and contexts. Some have claimed that we are witnessing an increase in quantity and quality of writing solely due to the popularity of social media among students (Purcell, Buchanan, & Friedrich, 2013). With social media and the participatory culture it promotes, there are numerous new ways to think about writing activities, tasks, materials and contexts (Kessler, 2013).
The potential for collaborative, cooperative and other social activities in second language writing is vast. It is also an area that is largely just beginning to be explored. However, a few recent studies across a range of writing activities and contexts provide some suggestions for pedagogical practice. Among these, researchers have explored collaborative writing practices across a variety of tools, including blogs (Bloch, 2007; Sun & Chang, 2012), wikis (Elola & Oskoz, 2010; Kessler, 2009), web-based word processing (Kessler, Bikowski & Boggs, 2012) and text chat (Sauro & Smith, 2010). In recognition of the potential for collaborative practices in L2 writing, Storch (2005) has argued that we may need a "reconceptualization of classroom teaching" (p. 169). These studies reveal many shared characteristics. A synthesis of the literature reveals that collaborative writing practices can result in increased motivation and potential for engagement. There are also reports of increased awareness of issues related to form as well as insights into audience, purpose and tone which are often focal points of L2 writing instruction. However, it may be the potential to increase authenticity in classroom practice that is most compelling. Authenticity in language use, tasks, contexts, and materials can greatly enhance students' language learning experiences (Reinders & Hubbard, 2013).
Writing within today's social media landscape offers many new authentic opportunities. These new practices are commonplace in our daily lives and offer great potential for our classrooms as well. We are all quite accustomed to the participatory social dialogue of facebook status updates and microblog tweets. We also have many opportunities to engage with one another through location-based crowd sourced data aggregated contexts such as Foursquare, Google Maps, and Yelp. The writing (and reading) that takes place in these contexts can be coordinated around a variety of purposes. Students could provide actual or simulated reviews in any language. They could reply to reviews or create a synthesis of reviews. By relying on the engagement potential and authenticity of these practices, we can create interesting and meaningful experiences for students around varied emerging social writing practices. The opportunity to engage students in collaborative activities that take place in (or closely mimic) authentic social media language practices can range from a simple task of creating a single sentence meme to designing entire social mapping projects such as those supported by smap (http://www.smapapp.com/). Teachers, and students, are only limited by their own creativity.
References
Bloch, J. (2007). Abdullah's blogging: A generation 1.5 student enters the blogosphere. Language Learning & Technology, 11, 128-141.
Elola, I., & Oskoz, A. (2010). Collaborative writing: Fostering foreign language and writing conventions development. Language Learning & Technology, 14(3), 51–71.
Kessler, G. (2009). Student initiated attention to form in wiki based collaborative writing. Language Learning & Technology, 13(1), 79-95.
Kessler, G., Bikowski, D., & Boggs, J. (2012). Collaborative writing among second language learners in academic web-based projects. Language Learning & Technology, 16(1), 91-109.
Kessler, G. (2013). Collaborative language learning in co-constructed participatory culture. CALICO Journal, 30(3), 307-32
Purcell, K., Buchanan, J., Friedrich, L. (2013). The impact of digital tools on student writing and how writing is taught in schools [Internet & American Lift Project]. Washington, DC: PewResearch Center. Retrieved from http://www.pewinternet.org/files/old-media/Files/Reports/2013/PIP_NWP%20Writing%20and%20Tech.pdf
Reinders, H., & Hubbard, P. (2013). CALL and learner autonomy: Affordances and constraints. In M. Thomas, H. Reinders, and M. Warschauer (Eds.), Contemporary computer assisted language learning. London: Continuum Books.
Sauro, S., & Smith, B. (2010). Investigating L2 performance in text chat. Applied Linguistics, 31(4), 554-577. doi: 10.1093/applin/amq007
Storch, N. (2005). Collaborative writing: Product, process, and students' reflections. Journal of Second Language Writing, 14, 153–173. doi: 10.1016/j.jslw.2005.05.002
Sun, Y., & Chang, Y. (2012). Blogging to learn: Becoming EFL academic writers through collaborative dialogues. Language Learning & Technology, 16(1), 43–61.
Source: CASLS Topic of the Week
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Title: Eugene School District 4J is looking for a Full-Time Middle School French Immersion Teacher
Body:
Eugene school district 4J is seeking a French immersion teacher at Roosevelt Middle School. View the job posting at http://tinyurl.com/m399h86
Source: LIM-A
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Title: Free Access - International and Intercultural Communication Journal Articles
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Taylor & Francis is offering free access to articles from Communication Studies journals exploring the theme of International and Intercultural Communication through the end of August. This collection provides an important input to the latest research on the following key sub-sections:
- Education
- Language and Linguistics
- Media
- Relational Communication and Stereotypes
- Theory and Practice
Browse the entire collection for free today: http://explore.tandfonline.com/page/ah/communication-studies-totm/international-and-intercultural-communication#2
Source: Taylor & Francis
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