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Title: Using Google Voice for Speaking Tests
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From http://jalensteachingblog.blogspot.com
Do you do oral assessments with your students? So does teacher and blogger Jalen, and she does it with Google Voice so that she and her students don't lose a lot of class time in individual interviews with the teacher.
Read how she does it at http://jalensteachingblog.blogspot.com/2014/12/how-to-do-your-speaking-tests-in-15.html
Source: Jalen's Teaching Blog
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Title: Instead of Cutting Texts into Strips, Try Sorting
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From http://tekhnologic.wordpress.com
The Tekhnologic blog is written by an English teacher who likes to find ways that technology can help with teaching and learning. Do you sometimes cut texts (such as song lyrics) into strips for students to sort into the proper order? Do you find it time-consuming and logistically challenging to keep the strips together? Try sorting on a word processor instead! Learn how, and how you can apply this tech trick in several different ways, in this blog post: http://tekhnologic.wordpress.com/2014/12/11/christmas-songs-tired-of-cutting-try-sorting/
Source: Tekhnologic
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Title: Oral Language Game
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From http://www.ready-set-read.com/
Here is a game idea for preschoolers and young children to practice language.
"How to Play: Fill large container with small objects from around the home. Screw on the lid. Show the item to the tub to your child and say, ‘I spy something (object) and you use it to (description).’ When the child guesses the correct object, unscrew the lid and let that child hold the item. For added challenge, let your child try giving clues to you."
Access this resource: http://www.ready-set-read.com/2012/10/oral-language-game.html
Source: Ready-Set-Read.com
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Title: Stick It! Activity
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From http://letslassothemoon.com/
Here is an activity idea for younger children or low level language students involving brainstorming body parts, writing them on post-it notes, and then having the child stick the post-it notes to the child's corresponding body part.
Access this resource: http://letslassothemoon.com/2012/05/29/head-shoulders-knees-and-post-its-huh/
Source: Playdough to Plato
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Title: 14 Ways to Help Kids Learn Vocabulary in a New Language
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Here is a list of 14 different ways to help language students learn vocabulary with short explanations for each: http://marocmama.com/2013/10/14-ways-to-help-kids-learn-vocabulary-in-a-new-language.html
Source: Marocmama
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Title: Listening to Authentic Material: Purpose, Interest, and Materials
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Clara Vaz Bauler is an Assistant Professor in the TESOL/Bilingual Program at Adelphi University. Her research interests include Second Language Teaching and Learning Practices, Second Language Writing, Teacher Collaboration, and Technologies as Educational Environments in social settings inside and outside of formal instruction.
There are a number of reasons why one engages in listening; however, very frequently, world language students spend most of their efforts in listening for specific information in order to perform on test-like situations. Although students need to be prepared for listening for testing, this is not the only reason people engage in listening for, especially if we consider communication in the real world. Given the many reasons for listening, in what ways can language teachers create meaningful and purposeful opportunities for students to listen in world language classrooms? To design authentic listening tasks for communication, Willis & Willis (2007) as well as Vandergrift (2012) recommend that teachers bear in mind three important components: purpose, interest, and materials.
Purpose
There are many purposes for listening, including listening for directions, listening for information, listening to music for fun, listening to what a friend has to say, and listening to develop core skills, such as pronunciation. Often times, conventional listening activities mix up these different purposes for listening, leading students to feel confused about what to listen for. It is important for language teachers to choose and focus on one listening purpose per task or to break down the task according to different listening purposes so that students can engage in the listening task successfully. For example, when designing a task for listening for information, teachers can ask students to fill out a graphic organizer outlining the main pieces of information of a short clip of a newscast program. Teachers can also have students collaborate on an information gap task in which one of the students says the directions to a specific destination and the other listens, tracing the route on a map.
Interest
Recent research in cognitive psychology has pointed out the importance of tapping into students’ prior knowledge, experiences and interest by encouraging students to make connections between known and new information (Shatz & Wikinson, 2013). In order for students to maximize their listening experience and outcomes, it is very important that before a listening task is executed, language teachers do pre-listening activities that will build on students’ background and interest. One example of a pre-listening activity is to ask students to brainstorm on what they know about the topic of the listening segment by doing a concept map or by having them share and take notes in pairs. Teachers can also make connections across different cultural backgrounds by first engaging students in comparing and contrasting food-related cultural practices using a Venn Diagram before listening to a video clip about typical dishes of the target culture(s).
Materials
Finally, for language teachers to design meaningful listening tasks, the choice of authentic materials is imperative. Nowadays it is possible for virtually any language teacher to find authentic listening materials in a variety of world languages on the Internet, including pod casts, films, newscast programs, documentaries, animated movies, etc. Having to listen for programs, shows, and films that are made for real audiences in the real world, that is, not for classroom or teaching purposes specifically, affords students a genuine listening experience for communication. In the 21st century, authentic materials also include successful models of second language speakers using the target language, not only native speakers (Cook, 2008). Having a successful model of second language speaker might provide students with the right amount of motivation to persist in learning the target language. One example of authentic material can be interviews, in which one native speaker interviews a second language writer, scientist, or entrepreneur that can successfully speak the target language.
References
Cook, Vivian. (2008). Second Language Learning and Language Teaching. United Kingdom: Hooder Education.
Shatz, M. & Wilkinson, L. C. (2013). Understanding language in diverse classrooms: a primer for all teachers. New York: Routledge.
Vandergrift, L. G. & Goh, C. C. M. (2012). Teaching and learning second language listening: metacognition in action. London: Routledge.
Willis, Dave & Willis, Jane. (2007). Doing task-based teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Source: CASLS Topic of the Week
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Title: Project-Based Language Learning: The Basics
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By the Staff of the National Foreign Language Resource Center (nflrc@hawaii.edu) 
Project-based language learning (PBLL) may strike you as a recent buzzword, but its history can be traced back to the early 1900s (see, for instance, Stevenson, 1921). Nowadays we know more about how people learn languages, and new technology enables us to put together highly engaging language learning experiences. So what exactly is PBLL now? We define PBLL as an articulated series of activities, motivated by real-world needs and driven by the learners' interest, whose common goal is to improve language learners’ communicative competence in the target language through the construction of products. PBLL should provide a high level of learner autonomy; invite critique and revision; promote the use of skills such as critical thinking, collaboration, creativity, and intercultural communication (also described as 21st Century Skills, Partnership for 21st Century Skills, 2014); and include the sharing of the constructed product with a target audience. The six tenets explained below constitute the backbone of PBLL.
Projects bring learners face-to-face with real-world situations that have a real audience and require the use of the target language. That is, learning is organized around real world activities. The starting point of a project is an engaging central question (Blumenfeld et al., 1991) which learners can relate to and feel motivated to address. In ideal cases, the central or driving question is crafted by the learners themselves. Related to this idea is the notion that thematic content should be significant, that is, of interest to the learners and guided by standards. Language learning is facilitated by giving learners just-in-time instruction addressing the language learners’ need to successfully complete the project task at hand.
Just-in-time instruction is related to the second tenet: PBLL instruction is learner-centered. Because content is student-driven and language is taught on a need-to-know basis, instruction becomes an activity that is centered on the needs of the learners. Specifically, language learning focuses on the language knowledge that the learners need to acquire in order to complete the project. This is related to the idea that PBLL content should be significant, that is, perceived as important for the learners to learn.
Collaboration is an integral part of learning. As human endeavor becomes more and more technically complex and knowledge-intensive, collaboration becomes ever more critical. This is why collaboration (along with critical thinking, communication, and creativity) is listed as one of the 21st century skills. When teachers incorporate collaboration in instructional design, language learning becomes a more cooperative and social undertaking, and the instructor takes on a more facilitative role. Projects that incorporate structured international collaboration offer the potential to foster intercultural competence (Godwin-Jones, 2013). The concept of collaboration in PBLL not only implies engagement in the process but also in assessment.
Because PBLL is a process defined by a sequence of learning activities, assessment has a dual purpose: guide the process and measure progress. PBLL assessment is typically collaborative (participants and their audience are involved), formative (occurs periodically and informs learning) and multidimensional (encompasses the entire experience, including both the process that learners engage in as well as the resulting product).
In PBLL, the role of the instructor is that of a knowledgeable participant and facilitator. The instructor provides different types of scaffolding to ensure that learners can successfully complete the project. Typically, four types of scaffolding are needed in a project: project process scaffolds (for example, providing students an outline of the phases of the project; see Nekrasova & Becker, 2012), content scaffolds (for example, engaging learners in activities that activate prior knowledge of a topic), language scaffolds (for example, providing just-in-time instruction or glossaries of key words to understand authentic materials), and final product scaffolds (for example, providing a template for the final product). Keep in mind that the learners themselves can be given the role of the knowledgeable participant at different points in the process and be charged with providing scaffolding for other learners.
Modern technologies now make it possible to provide an unprecedented level of authenticity in PBLL as language learners can connect with peers around the globe and interact with worldwide communities in rich and engaging learning experiences. Authenticity in PBLL is propelled by two requirements: projects entail the creation of a real-world product and involve a real audience. Project authenticity can range from the political, such as addressing social or environmental injustice in a community, to the personal, such as examining spending habits or time management.
If you would like to learn more about PBLL, please consider participating in the University of Hawai‘i National Foreign Language Resource Center’s 2015 PBLL Online Institute (http://nflrc.hawaii.edu/events/view/75) and Intensive Summer Institute (http://nflrc.hawaii.edu/events/view/74).
Blumenfeld, P. C., Soloway, E., Marx, R. W., Krajcik, J. S., Guzdial, M., & Palincsar, A. (1991). Motivating project-based learning: Sustaining the doing, supporting the learning. Educational Psychologist, 26, 369–398.
Godwin-Jones, R. (2013). Integrating intercultural competence into language learning through technology. Language Learning & Technology, 17(2), 1–11. Retrieved from http://llt.msu.edu/issues/june2013/emerging.pdf.
Nekrasova, T., & Becker, A. (2012). Integrating STEM topics in the foreign language classroom promising practices for foreign language instruction 1. National Clearinghouse for English Language Acquisition. Retrieved from http://www.ncela.gwu.edu/files/uploads/promising_FL/ForeignLg_STEM.pdf.
Partnership for 21st Century Skills. (2014). Framework for 21st century learning. Retrieved from http://www.p21.org/our-work/p21-framework.
Stevenson, J. A. (1921). The project method of teaching. New York, NY: The Macmillan Company.
Weinstein, G. (2006). “Learners’ lives as curriculum:” An integrative project-based model for language learning. In G. H. Beckett & P.C. Miller (Eds.), Project-based second and foreign language education. Greenwich, CT: Information Age Publishing.
Source: CASLS Topic of the Week
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Title: Cuentos Infantiles (Children's Stories)
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By the Staff of the National Foreign Language Resource Center (nflrc@hawaii.edu)
A project for intermediate/advanced level language learners
Adapted from http://www.hightechhigh.org/unboxed/issue3/cards/8.php
The backbone of a project consists of a series of articulated activities leading to the creation of authentic products that are presented to a real audience (see this week's Topic of the Week article). After the project is launched, the role of the teacher is to guide learners through the project by helping them identify and learn what they need to know in order to successfully complete the project. With the end in mind, the teacher also facilitates the process by adapting activities or designing new ones and by scaffolding several aspects of the project, including the project process, content, language and the final product. Language learning activities suggested in previous CASLS InterCom issues are a valuable resource to help you structure a project such as the one we describe here.
“As beginning learners, how can we create stories that will impress and engage Spanish-speaking children?” That is the driving question in the Cuentos Infantiles (Children's Stories) project. US children learning Spanish write and publish a book of children’s stories (authentic product) in Spanish and share it with Spanish-speaking students (real audience) at a partner school in Mexico. Learners from the partner school read the book (stories) and create videos based on those stories, which are then shared with the learners of Spanish.
CASLS InterCom has a rich catalogue of existing activities. Click here for examples of how a teacher might compile InterCom activities and sequence them to support a project such as the one we described above.
Source: CASLS Activity of the Week
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Title: Getting Started with Project-Based Language Learning
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If you decide to use PBLL, this is a great time to start thinking about language learning projects for your students for next semester. In addition to this sample project, here are a few ideas that may help inspire you:
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Existing projects are always a good place to start. The Buck Institute for Education, for example, maintains a database of projects, some of which are language-learning specific. Projects such as Story Corps, One in 8 Million, and the TED Open Translation Project are also good models to create mini-projects that replicate their features. Existing media repositories, such as the MIT Open Documentary Lab are also a good place for inspiration.
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Websites with general project ideas often offer concepts that can be scaled to an international audience and multilingual purpose, for example this page from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, or this one from Global Youth Service Day. Ideas such as “Make cards or write letters - for kids in hospitals, troops and veterans, or senior citizens in local nursing homes” can be easily turned into a language project. Making contact with a hospital in a foreign country can result in a very authentic and meaningful language project.
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Look for opportunities in your local community. A project such as “Help prepare your family for a disaster – and make sure your neighbors are ready too!” (from: http://www.gysd.org/easyprojectideas) can target TL speakers in the local community by creating a product that is relevant and useful. Or a documentary such as this one may be replicated based on local immigrants’ stories.
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Explore connnections with sister cities (http://www.sister-cities.org/). They offer an authentic audience and projects may receive support from local governments or communities, which makes them more tangible and exciting to learners.
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Look into international organizations that might have existing projects and community connections (e.g., there may be a charter in your own community). For example, a project such as this one could include language materials such as a letter from L2 learners explaining the importance of vitamins to the recipients of the donations.
- Participate in the University of Hawai‘i National Foreign Language Resource Center’s 2015 PBLL Online Institute and Intensive Summer Institute to connect with colleagues interested in PBLL.
Source: NFLRC
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Title: TESOL’s Electronic Village Online
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From http://evosessions.pbworks.com/w/page/10708567/FrontPage
For five weeks in January and February, TESOL experts and participants from around the world engage in collaborative online discussions or hands-on virtual workshops of professional and scholarly benefit. These sessions bring together participants for a longer period of time than is permitted by land-based professional development conventions and allow a fuller development of ideas than is otherwise possible.
Sessions are free and open to anyone around the globe. It is not necessary to attend the TESOL Convention in order to participate. All you need is access to the Internet. Choose a session from this year's offerings, listed at http://evosessions.pbworks.com/w/page/10708567/FrontPage.
Of special note is a five-week online workshop about flipped learning, hosted on the University of Oregon’s ANVILL 2 platform (https://anvill.uoregon.edu/anvill7/community). Learn more about this workshop at http://evosessions.pbworks.com/w/page/90080195/2015_Flipped_Learning
Registration is from January 5 to January 11, 2015.
Source: TESOL
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