Week 9 reflection

Well, it's about time that I get this posted. Like most of my colleagues, I spent last week in Dallas at TESOL. What an interesting culmination of MA-TESL coursework!

So, week 9 CALL reflections. We had readings and a test about using CMC in the classroom and teaching reading and vocabulary. These are two things I haven't done much of. As a Writing-turned-Listening-Speaking teacher, I had a harder time really sinking my teeth into some of the applications mentioned in the articles; however, since we are all indeed vocabulary teachers, I hope to get some use from those resources in the future. Regarding CMC, asynchronous CMC has played a large role in my life this semester, as I took an online class that did not take advantage of what ACMC can do for thinking and language. In my own teaching, I try to use ACMC with a purpose. I have students  recording short responses on Vocaroo that I grade similarly to the speaking tasks on larger assessments.

To me, CALL applications seem very appropriate for doing things that are too monotonous for humans, like generating word frequency lists or estimating difficulty level based on algorithmic things that I wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole. Maybe that's too strong. I'm really interested in the potential ability of a program to turn any online text into a learning tool. How awesome would that be? Students could pick any high-interest, authentic text, and this software would generate word lists, gloss words, and essentially make some "decisions" about what kind of information to follow up with to help the learner get through the text in a meaningful way. Clearly, major challenges of the push for authentic material are vocabulary and the mismatch in intended audience (i.e., native speakers have more shared background knowledge and cultural intuition). For students, these barriers could be decreased through advanced CALL software.

Audioboo Reflection for Week 8

This is my attempt to use Audioboo with remnants of a head cold. Enjoy!

listen to ‘Jena Audioboo’ on Audioboo

Week 7 Reflection

This week's discussion of TBLT helped me reflect on the teaching practices currently valued in this field.

Tasks are a big deal for sure.

Lai and Li (2011) discussed the interrelated nature of TBLT and technology. In CMC TBLT, learners typically produced more language, a wider variety of discourse functions, and more linguistically complex speech/text. Of interest to me is that some research shows that participation is equalized through CMC TBLT. Students who may be hesitant to speak up in class participated more equally with their more out-going peers over CMC. In my classroom, the majority of students are from Arabic-speaking countries, but I have three Chinese students. The Chinese students employ a very different (much more reserved) communication style, and because of this, sometimes get linguistically run over by the Arabic students who prefer to speak spontaneously as soon as they have an idea. I think that CMC might benefit my class in terms of equalizing participation for these groups of students.

Good task design is very important. Although I constantly read about TBLT and task design, in practice, I have to keep refining my knowledge about how to design tasks based on what actually happens in the classroom.

Having a clearly defined end point, that is, a goal for completion is most important to me. As a student, few things frustrated me more than not knowing when I'm done with an assignment (because I feel like I need to keep working on it). Task directions should include some kind of indication (e.g., 10 minutes, 5-7 sentences, 2-3 pages, etc.) of what and how much the teacher expects. In broader terms for TBLT, Folse (2006) advocates the closed task, in which a final "answer" is available. This stands in opposition to the open task, in which no "answer" exists.

From the teacher's perspective, a lack of end point results in difficultly in stopping or, conversely, maintaining, an activity; difficulty in assessment; and ambiguity in dealing with student complaints. I'm learning to delineate my tasks more carefully to avoid these pitfalls.

Until next week...