3 Language Teaching Methods I

Dr Shravan Kumar

epgp books

 

 

 

 

Content 

  • Learning Outcomes
  • Introduction
  • What is CALL?
  • Types of CALL
  • Technology: A tool to improve LSRW skills
  • What is MALL?
  • Importance of Technologies
  • Reference

Learning Outcomes

  1. Computer assisted Language Learning and their types
  2. Use of websites and few new websites
  3. Usage of Mobile applications
  4. mportance of Technologies

Introduction

 

“I think technology has the potential to unlock new approaches to assessment that will change what and how we teach. I believe that the current curriculum shape and form that we see around the world with subjects taught in silos has to change.”– Jim Wynn

 

As   per   Wikipedia,   “Language is   the   ability   to   acquire   and   use   complex   systems    of communication, particularly the human ability to do so, and a language is any specific example of such a system. The scientific study of language is called linguistics.” There are many ways to learn anything; it actually depends on the approach of the learner. As we all are living in the age of technology so most of our things have been changed as per the technology. English language skills or academic subjects, enhancing and increasing non-verbal input can be more easily achieved by the means of technology. Technology can improve comprehensibility of the subject matter through enhanced context and target verbal input as per the learner’s proficiency level.

 

Technologies aim to support learners’ acquisition of English and nourish learners’ mastery of the content. We can achieve language skills or academic subjects to enhance and increase non-verbal input. Technology improves clarity of content due to enhanced context and target verbal input to the learner’s proficiency level and it can also be used by interacting with others in the form of team or pairs with the help of computer assisted online communication for better results. Latest methods of language learning through technology can be:

 

CALL : Computer Assisted Language Learning

MALL: Mobile Assisted Language Learning

WALL: Website Assisted Language Learning

 

Language learning technologies are teacher-directed in the classroom because the use of computers, projectors or interactive whiteboards always gives opportunities to be unified with lectures and other teacher-directed instructions.

 

Computer Assisted Language Learning

 

Computer  assisted  classes  (CAC)  can  be  teacher-selected  or  student-directed  by  providing tailored or one to one practice sessions, remediation or extension of the lesson content. Use of  technology can shape skills that are not being taught in the classrooms but that support what is taught  in  the  class,  such  as  computer-based  grammar  drills  related  to  the  content  of  a conversation class. The teacher selects the technology and directs students to use it independently   which    becomes    Self-directed   technology.

 

  Finally,  there  are numerous technological resources for self-directed study, ranging from comprehensive language development software programs to distance learning language courses. Learners can select materials according to their goals and needs and can learn individually at their own pace.

 

Types of Computer assisted Language Learning

 

The Computer-assisted language learning (CALL) is not new for us. Mark Warschauer (1996) identified three periods in CALL evolution.

  1. Behaviorist (early CALL)
  2. Communicative (traditional CALL)
  3. Integrative (multimedia CALL)

Since these periods have been identified by him, CALL is further developed with Web-based CALL and hybrid CALL that encompasses elements of all these phases, and continues to expand, primarily due to many technologies of the Web and the Internet.

 

The behaviorist CALL was based on behaviorist pedagogy. They followed a programmed instruction format with fill-in the-blank drills. For example: “He saw a snake. The snake was cobra. Karan saw the snake. was python. Earlier the computer responded as the programme installed. For example “If the learner typed “it” the computer answered “correct.” Otherwise the PC responded “incorrect” or “try again.” After few years some interactive softwares were developed which came under communicative CALL register and were based on text and with the advancement  of  time  and  technology the  CALL  became  integrative  with  the  use  of present pictures, video, audio, text, and interactive exercises in one program which greatly expanded the kinds of activities. Using the power of multimedia software language learning simulations, in which the learner assumes a role, became popular in the late 1980s.

 

Electronic  mail,  most  commonly  referred  to  as email or e-mail since  1993 is  a  method  of exchanging digital messages from an author to one or more recipients.iModern email operates across the Internet or other computer networks. Today’s email systems are based on a store-and- forward model. Email servers accept, forward, deliver and store messages. This tool is very effective to improve the writing skill of any learner. A teacher can assign a debate topic and ask the students to discuss it via e-mail. Teachers can create a discussion topic and send it to the students via e-mail and after receiving the e-mail students write compositions or essays in English and discuss the work and then send back to teacher. This helps them to improve writing skills and vocabulary as well as their ability to practice analyzing a literary work Now-a-days   hyperlinks   have    become    a    prominent    tool    of    CALL.    Hyperlink    is  a reference to data that the reader can directly follow either by clicking or by hovering or it is followed automatically.ii A hyperlink points to the whole document or to a specific element within a document. Hypertext is the text with hyperlinks. A hyperlink has an anchor, which is the location within a certain type of a document from which the hyperlink can be followed only from the homepage; the document containing a hyperlink is known as its source code document. For example, in an online reference work such as Wikipedia, many words and terms in the text are hyperlinked to definitions of those terms. Hyperlinks are often used to implement reference mechanisms, such as table of contents, footnotes, bibliographies, indexes, letters, and glossaries. The CALL now incorporates not only softwares but also other global technology tools that can be used for language development, such as e-mail, blog and other websites that provide authentic language for classroom, group, pairs, and individual activities. Some useful websites are:

  • http://americanenglish.state.gov,
  • http://esl-wow.org,
  • http://evosessions.pbworks.com,
  • http://learning2gether.pbworks.com,
  • http://academics.smcvt.edu/cbauer-ramazani/,
  • http://academics.smcvt.edu/cbauer-ramazani/,
  • Links/esl_vocabulary.htm#Vocabulary%20Exercises

Web page editors have also become most important to acquire the writing register because it opens a way for students to write for a purpose and publish their results online or over a network. Students can work in pairs or small groups to explore a topic and publish a Web page about it. Teachers can also create Web pages to post information by which students can access information about a particular topic. Any learner can create web page with the help of http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/frontpage/default.aspx

 

A wiki is least expensive often free  tool  which  people use to  add,  modify,  or delete content  in collaboration with others. Text is usually written using a simplified markup language or a rich- text editor.iiiWikis are great organizing spaces for two or more people to work together on any project. The writer of a wiki can create a password to modify the wiki site and can give the password to anyone who can edit that particular work. Learners in a group working on projects can create a wiki to upload and store each person’s work, revise and edit it, and keep everything together in the form of a report.

 

A blog (a truncation of the expression web log) is a discussion or informational site published on  the World Wide Web and consisting of discrete entries (“posts”) typically displayed in reverse chronological order (the most recent post appears first).ivEnglish language learners can create their own blogs to develop writing fluency. Facilitators can suggest themes for learners to write about on their blogs, such as corruption, love vs arranged marriages, the power of Common man.

 

Any    learner    can    create    his/her    own    blog    with    the    help    of    http://www.free-esl blogs.com/default.asp.

 

As per Wikipedia, “A podcast is  a  form  of digital  media that  consists  of  an episodic series  of audio, video, digital radio, PDF, or ePub files subscribed to and downloaded through web  syndication or streamed online to a computer or mobile device.” The Merriam Webster Tenth International Collegiate defines “podcast” as: a program (as of music or talk) made available in digital format for automatic download over the Internet.

 

These files can be found through the Internet for downloading or streaming (continuously received and displayed files that are not downloaded onto the user’s computer). They are typically broadcasted on a regular basis, and users can subscribe to them for recurring downloading. They can be played on iPods (or their equivalents) or computers. Any student can create podcasts of audio or video files. With the help of these techniques the students can hone their skills of speaking and listening. Students can upload their poems by reading and they can get the feedback by their teachers or friends which can always give new approach of learning. Students can upload the videos of their skits/speech/recitation or news broadcasts and which can be assessed by the teachers or friends and I think these kind of activities can encourage the students to perform better. Anyone can create a podcast by recording audio, MP3 or video files, which can be done on the computer with a microphone or with a digital recorder or Mobile phones. These files should be prepared for podcasting by using special sound editing software, such as Adobe Audition, Audacity (a great and popular free option when you’re just starting a podcast), Apple’s Garageband at http://www.apple.com/ilife/garageband/ or the free, open source software. For more detailed information on developing podcasts, see the Audacity podcasting guidelines at http://www.podcastingnews.com/articles/How-to-Podcast.html or the Garageband podcasting guidelines at http://www.apple.com/support/garageband/podcasts/recording/.

 

The multiple demands on teachers seem to increase almost daily. One of the most pressing demands is teaching classes full of students who have a broad range of needs and abilities. Trying to balance these competing interests would be almost impossible without technology.

 

Technology: A tool to improve LSRW skills

 

A child when comes in this world then s/he hears sounds of their near and dear ones and from  that particular moment the development of listening skills takes place and with the help of their  eyes and ears they try to comprehend the things by the scenic effects and voice. It is understood that things can be better understood by Visuals and audio and to achieve this goal, students can use the multimedia books. These books provide the platform of learning in an interactive manner. Many multimedia books are available like:

 

sunearthday.nasa.gov/2006/multimedia/books.php.

www.starfall.com

www.eurotalk.co.uk/

 

These websites can help to improve the listening skills. Listening to and reading text at the same time gives an innovative way where a learner feels that s/he is indulged in a live canvas. Kindle’s Whispersync for Voice technology is being used for the same which includes audio with selected books, so anyone can listen and follow the text as s/he reads.

 

Students can be made to listen to the audio clippings through the lab software, especially dialogues in a neutral accent. Their understanding of the spoken language can be judged and the Movie Screening (English Movies) means that students can watch the movie and in the end they can be asked to summarize the movie in English and even Quiz based on the movie can also be asked to the students.

 

Teachers can divide students into groups. And each group should have 1 mentor who has good English speaking abilities. These mentors will facilitate sessions within the group and report the progress to the teacher with the help of google doc.

 

Students can record a short theme story on the softwares with the help of any recording software and later they will interchange their seats, teacher will ask them to listen to the story (recorded by another student)  and to  write it  down on a paper. Then, the student  who  has recorded the story can evaluate whether the written story (by his fellow student) is correct or not. This can be one of the best practices to learn the language.

 

Technology gives the platform to communicate in real-time conversations with English speakers. This kind of activity could be the most exciting and futuristic.  E-books are easily accessible  and we can access much more content without much cost. E-books allow data to be collected which can be highlighted. Annotations of the text are also useful characteristic of e-books which can be followed by hyperlinks and even consume videos. We can use technology in the form of Skype, messenger, video chats/video-conferencing which also provide teachers & learners both the opportunity to  link to  other classes  around the world which gives the extra motivation  to speak well. Kindle and other apps give the functions like click-to-define, vocabulary builders, and downloading whole texts in a single click which is really very interesting and one of the effective ways to improve their reading and writing skills in particular. It helps to enhance the vocabulary and expose to different sentence structures. Few websites are given below which are being used to improve writing skills:

 

Animoto: animoto.com, Glogster: edu.glogster.com, Google Docs: docs.google.com, Wikispaces: wikispaces.com, Wallwisher: wallwisher.com. There are many apps for effective oral communication skills such as Paper Telephone, Voice Thread, Voxer, Shake-a-phrase, WhQuestions and many more apps can be downloaded from https://techtalkacademy.wikispaces.com/file/view/Language+Apps+.pdf

 

These technological advancements can help one to advance in their English learning; Anyone just needs to take advantage of them and they’re right at their fingertips.

 

I would like to mention few more websites which can be used to chisel the grammatical skill:

  • http://www.edufind.com/english/grammar/index.cfm
  • http://www.usingenglish.com/glossary.html
  • http://www.iscribe.org/english/
  • http://www.edufind.com/english/grammar/toc.cfm
  • http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/errors.html
  • http://www.jobs.languagelink.ru/TEFL/grammar/index.php
  • http://www.ict4lt.org/en/en_mod2-4.htm
  • http://www.sussex.ac.uk/languages/1-6-6-2.html
  • http://iteslj.org/links/ESL/Grammar_and_English_Usage/
  • http://www.ohiou.edu/esl/english/grammar/activities.html
  • http://www.englishclub.com/grammar/

Students can directly check their grammatical skills by online drills. Any facilitator can observe errors that students make in writing and instruct them to improve their faults with the help of following websites:

  • http://www.roseofyork.co.uk/learning.html
  • http://wwwedu.ge.ch/cptic/prospective/projets/anglais/exercises/welcome.html
  • http://a4esl.org/q/h/grammar.html
  • http://www.englishforjapanese.com/exercises/prepositions/06%20preps.html
  • http://web2.uvcs.uvic.ca/elc/studyzone/330/grammar/index.htm

Mobile Assisted Language Learning

 

Mobile phone has become part and parcel of life. One cannot move outside the home without mobile phone. This technology can be used in the classroom. We can use applications like:

  1. WhatsApp
  2. Plickers
  3. Free dictionary
  4. American English

WhatsApp: This application can be used for the development of listening, speaking, reading and Writing skills. A teacher can create group of students on WA and he can send a word with its phonetic transcriptions and instruct students to learn correct pronunciation and write a sentence by using that word. Sentences written by students can be evaluated by teacher as well as students. With help of sentences, students can be asked to write a paragraph. This will certainly improve the writing skills of students. A teacher can upload a bite of any news on which a debate can be done. After uploading the video, students can be asked to comprehend the video and write a paragraph based on that video. Even, students can have a debate on that topic and I think these instructions can enhance the skills of listening and writing.

 

Plickers: This tool can be used to evaluate the Multiple choice questions by the camera. A teacher can take the pulse of the class. A teacher can ask your students, “do you get this?” (or a similar question) and ask them to have them hold up their cards to indicate yes or no. A teachers can do this with a saved class or a demo class in the app. Teacher can create a series of questions in the saved application of Plickers class of the moblie. To get the answers students have to hold up their cards to respond to each question and teacher can get to know how amny of them have responded. This app can be used to take attendance. In the app of saved Plickers class each student has a assigned card. At the start of class, Teacher can ask just to just to hold up their cards to check-in.

 

Free Dictionaries: Students can be asked to download the dictionary in their mobile phones and learn and use a word daily with the help of that dictionary.

 

American English APP: students can be listening to many audio clips from this app and they can read paragraphs as a reading comprehension.

 

Importance of Technologies

 

Technologies provide nearly interminable resources that can easily fulfill the individual’s needs. The technologies provide new opportunities to the learners who are unable to cope up with time in the classroom. Now, the time cannot be taken up by slowing the pace of instruction and simplifying the language used in the explanations. When teaching English language skills or academic subjects, enhancing and increasing non-verbal input can be more easily achieved with the technology, then why to invest and spend more time on them. Technologies always improve comprehensibility of subject matter through enhanced context and target verbal input to the learner’s proficiency level. A great way to help ELL students develop reading skills through comprehending the main points of the text (i.e., written input) is to provide a concept map with visuals and key words of key points in the reading passage.

 

CALL can occur in written form, such as e-mail, bulletin boards, and instant or text messaging. It can also allow two students to speak with each other, via audio conferencing or videoconferencing. The language learning technology must be visible and/or audible to all students in the classroom. This is typically accomplished by displaying information from a computer, VCR or DVD player through a projector onto a blank screen or interactive whiteboard and by playing sound from external speakers. A less expensive option is connecting the computer, VCR or DVD player to a large screen television. Teachers can enliven lectures on academic content by showing associated websites with pictures, graphics and videos. This provides a variety of input to aid comprehension.

 

Students can use Soundtrap which provides a platform to create music online, quickly and easily. It helps in inculcating the habit of learning in an interesting manner. With the help of this tool, student can plug in their headphone and they can record a song directly using an external microphone. This online tool works with multiple devices and system platforms.

 

Any learner is always interested in stories and Storyboard That is a tool that offers templates for students to create stories. It can be one of the steps of learning or we can say that this tool can be used for storytelling. This tool offers outline of a story which includes scenes, characters, text bubbles which can be filled by the students. Storyboard That can be a good platform to inculcate the speaking skills. Students can create their stories with the help of Websites like Zooburst or Storybird.

 

Tackk is a free and simple way to create beautiful pages and collaborate in the classroom. We can use Tackk for assignments, presentations, blogs, discussions and more. It can be used like Google sign-in; tagging, built-in media search and app embed without needing tech or design skills. It is also very easy to embed, email and share on various social media networks.

 

The concept of a sage on the stage has changed due to today’s networked teachers and we can access any up to date information instantly with the flexibility of time. Due to technologies, books  and  figures  can  suddenly  become  alive  and  applicable  to  the  real  world,  Voice and multimedia presentations can also be delivered to a dispersed class with questions and answers taking place in real-time and above all teachers can also use computers to provide adapted lessons for students with disabilities. Computer assisted language learning is not a method however it is a learning process which opens up many vistas in the field of learning because it helps:

  • To tailor instructions specifically to individual learners: A teacher can give proper attention to all the students individually.
  • To provide authentic material in a quick, accessible way: Internet and technology is a kind of ocean where many learned people write about the various topics which can be accessed anytime and from anywhere which is the most evolutionary characteristic of technology. While using any internet content one needs to be very aware about its content and authenticity.
  • To improve comprehensibility of the subject matter: Technology mostly uses audio- visual mode and it is a known fact that 10% of what we learn is by hearing, 83% through sight & rest through the other senses.
  • To promote team work: Technology can also assist with structuring opportunities for ELLs to interact with others in meaningful ways, for example with team or pairs with computer-based activities and online communication.
  • No time bar: Any learner is free and flexible to spend five minutes or half an hour because s/he can pause the video, minimize the webpage and retrieve the link anytime.
  • Improves the ways of Practice: Any Learner can exercise his reading skills, look up for words in the dictionary, practice listening with or without reading aloud.
  • Interesting and dedicating Phase of learning: Learner feels motivated because s/he himself /herself chooses the content and if the content is self chosen then the learners will put their 100% efforts to learn anything and it is a known fact that we always give attention to our own domain and chosen field because we choose the things as per as our desires and thinking processes.
  • On the spot feedback: Any learner can get on the spot feedback by his/her teacher because it can be evaluated after submission of the answer/content because technology has crossed the boundaries of time and place.
  • Improves self Confidence: Sometimes students feel that asking simple and easy things can be an insult in the class and they keep themselves quiet. However, with the help of technology, even the most silent students can write an e-mail/sms to ask their queries without any hitch or hesitation.
you can view video on Language Teaching Methods I

Reference

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