Final Portfolio

     My final portfolio can be found in my LiveBinder. Here is the link:
http://www.livebinders.com/play/play?id=867169

The LiveBinder has six tabs: Rationale, Philosophy on Technology in Language Teaching, MD#1, MD#2, MD#3, CV.

Materials Development #3

     The following Materials Development uses online gaming, online testing, and Google Drawing to get students in a Reading Lab class interested in learning. The students are in a high-tech ESL IEP which offers each student Kindles and iPads. The students play a Word Recognition Game, take a quiz on Socrative, and draw--or post pictures--on Google Drawing. The activity is designed to keep learners engaged and active as they read. It also is designed to keep students' interests, as reading is not always a fun subject for everyone.

Lesson Plan: Reading Lab Intermediate Level
https://docs.google.com/a/nau.edu/file/d/0B4oeg2ERlMDZUUh5NjFiNmozTTg/edit?usp=sharing

Appendix A - Sample Kindle Blurbs
https://docs.google.com/a/nau.edu/file/d/0B4oeg2ERlMDZa2ptUUdZSnNMckU/edit?usp=sharing

Appendix B - Sample Word Recognition Game
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B4oeg2ERlMDZTUJZeDloeW9EbnM/edit?usp=sharing

Appendix C - Sample Socrative Quiz
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B4oeg2ERlMDZbjByUUtpdzRkRzQ/edit?usp=sharing

Appendix D - Panda Bears in China Kindle Read
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B4oeg2ERlMDZcWVHQzV5NFRFS0U/edit?usp=sharing

Google Drawing Activity
https://docs.google.com/drawings/d/1DdwaIkzCdXJmVONK7HxfUHGaeHLbTQeGr7zthvGYs7Q/edit?usp=sharing

Week 15: Panultimate

     Time is nearing end in this CALL course and in this M.A. TESL graduate degree program. The CALL course has opened my eyes to the ways of teaching ESL and other foreign languages online and through computer programs. It has been an exciting and fun course. I feel as though I have learned a lot and that it is useful. It is a great base for me; as I interview with universities abroad, they ask about my experience in teaching Computer-Assisted Language Learning. I am able to speak on the websites and programs that came from this course as well as the three software programs I use in my ESL course at PIE (Understanding and Using English Grammar, Longman English Interactive, and Connected Speech). This course was a great and positive experience, overall. I have enjoyed this course and hope to learn more about CALL in teaching as I continue in my teaching career.


MOOC: Massive Open Online Course
Have been in development over the last decade. Recent pilot MOOCs at Stanford and MIT.
Basically, it is great scholars in certain fields giving courses online. Thousands enroll and perhaps tens of thousands pass the  course on.

Controversy with MOOCs:
Reduces the teacher-student relationship
Too learner-centered
Grouping is not entirely possible
It's free, and some people have an issue with that.

Big names and prestigious universities are what attracts enrollments of tens of thousands of people.
- Stanford University Math Professor

Making a MOOC is like making a movie. The lecture must be scripted, as well as recorded.

Online Chat-type Websites
Mixxer
Busuu
Palabea
VoxSwap
MyLanguage Exchange
LiveMocha
ITalki
Lang-8
My Happy Planet
xLingo 
Duolingo 

     Hongbo and I visited Mixxer. Here we created an account and found some friends who spoke Japanese. Hongbo can read Japanese and so I can I. We found someone from Japan and e-mailed him on Mixxer. His blog greeting was "Ohayou Gozaimasu" which mean "Good Morning!" in Japanese. I also found a native English speaker who desired to learn Spanish and I e-mailed him saying that I want to learn his language, not realizing that his native language is actually English. Mixxer seems like a great website to create a blog and begin the process of making online penpals from across the world.

Week 14: Gaming for Language Learning

     Games and virtual environments can be used to foster language learnnig, especially spontaneous communication. It's not that you should use online virtual environments, but how do we use them to engage learners and foster language?

Virtual Environments
- Second Life: There's no specific goal or objective, it's an environment open and virtual. It's more engaging than other modes (e.g., SCMC, ACMC). Second Life's been used for virtual classrooms, quests, and for finding L2 conversants. Similar to other forms of CMC, it can lead to more involved and confident students.
- I think virtual environments are fun. I experienced with virtual environments a great deal from ages 11-15 years. By the time I turned 18, I had experienced almost every online virtual environment there was to experience. It is interactive, but after some time, it gets old. Perhaps there is time for something new. Google is thinking of virtual realities; people don't put on eye goggles, but can actually touch and feel through certain electronic devices. It seems like this sort of technology is near.

Game Environments
- Video games foster collaboration, as well.
- MMORPGs (e.g., World of Warcraft, EverQuest2) have been the focus of much language learning research.
- Mobile games: vocabulary teaching(ARIS, Mentira)
- Interpersonal games: SpaceTeam, Timeline

Some of these virtual and game environments are free, some are paid. From my experience, it is never worth paying for them. There exist good ones for free, and money only gets you, usually, more virtual "dollars" or something else to make your "status" higher than others.

Week 13: General Test, CALT

This week is about online testing. Nour opened class with the program wiZiQ. It is a form of synchronous online testing. The program is constantly being updated.

Nour's link: wiZiQ Nour

Later during class, we gathered ideas and compare/contrasted general test and CALT.

Washback 
When a teacher instruction changes according to the test

General Test
Hybrid answers
Washback (instruction changes according to the test)
Reliability
Raters
Purpose/type
Practicality
Timing
Use
Impact
Feedback
Paper shuffling
Interpretation of scores
Presentation
Item types
Construct underrepresentation
Construct irrelevance

CALT
Computer-assisted Language Testing
Delivery and presentation; audio and video easy. Presentation is presented through the computer.
You type the word and spell it wrong: "Did you mean ___?" Natural language processing where computers can predict/know what you're thinking. 
Computers measure your sentences and how many different words you use.
Using surveys (similar to asynchronous CMC; e.g. clickers like Socrative)
Adaptive/non
Multimedies
Objective scoring
Interactivity
Flexibility
Item banks
IRT - Item Response Theory
NLP - National Language Processing
LSA - Latent Semantic Analysis
Resources
Authenticity
Computer Raters
Indirect tEST

Assessment
Reliability is answering the question; if the same student takes the same test again, will the get the same score? Whereas validity is asking, does the test evaluate what it seeks out to?

Lecture and Exam - How to examine a test
What delivery system does the test use?
What is the purpose of the test?
What characteristics may threaten or improve reliability?
Does the test appear to have any threats to validiy?
Is there any potential washback?
Multidimensional? Authentic?

Week 12: How do I define culture?

Please take a few minutes and write out your definition of culture, especially in regards to language learning. Does culture learning mean more than just having knowledge? What else? What is the role of inter-cultural competence in the classroom? How can CALL be used to facilitate learners' cultural understanding or competencies?

Once you have finished, take a look at the answers provided by your classmates and engage them in a discussion.

 

Definition of Culture

 

Culture is the set of traditions and expectations that a group of people live under, live for, and replicate for generation after generation. Culture is music, language, skills (cooking, sewing, dancing), and "innate" abilities (e.g. understanding what someone means according to body language or specific words). Culture is not simply observing that the people of Vanuatu use bamboo stamping tubes in their traditional dance, but understanding why bamboo is used and why they dance and what for. When you become a language teacher, one of your many responsibilities is to get learners to see beyond what they observe and open their minds to the reasons and ideas behind what they see.

This week was about culture. Capital C is literature, art, music. Lower-case C is people's attitudes, beliefs, and values. Culture includes groups and groups are permeable; we belong to many groups.

No one, essentially, belongs only to one culture. Let's not use culture to separate us, but conjoin/gather us.

We must beware not to generalize an entire culture to one stereotype. Not all French people love berets and saccharine romance.

Our Team Teach Project
By: Cynthia Ahlers, Hongbo Zhu, Taichi Hardiman

PURPOSE: Chinese culture and language reading and writing class

Spring Festival, Celebration, Family, Traditions, and Expectations

Email pen pals (Asynchronous Computer-Mediated Communication - ACMC) that will include Chinese language characters and Chinese culture

 

LEVEL OF STUDENTS:

High-intermediate level Chinese as a Second Language

b. American 11-13-year-olds

 

3) END PRODUCT: The students will get more out of the culture

4) ACCOUNTABILITY:

a. Write down the answers to all of the questions in Chinese, then e-mail it to the teacher for credit

 

Ask Chinese partner:

 

SPRING FESTIVAL AND CELEBRATIONS

How do you celebrate Spring Festival?

What clothes do you wear to celebrate?

What kind of music is played to enhance the festivities?

How do you decorate your room during this time of year?

What kind of food do you eat when you celebrate?

 

FAMILY AND TRADITIONS

How many people are in your family?

Do you have aunts, uncles, and grandparents?

How do you celebrate your birthday?

Could you send an attachment photo of your family?

Do you look like your father or your mother?

What was your favorite gift you got for your birthday last year?

 

EXPECTATIONS

When did you start learning a second language?

What is your second language?

What activities do you do on your spare time?

Do you play a musical instrument?

Do you play sports?

Do you want to go to university?

What do you want to be when you grow up?

 

Materials Development #2

     The following lesson plan was designed for an Advanced level, Content-Based Instruction (CBI) ESL course, for learners in the PIE (Program in Intensive English) at Northern Arizona University. The course met three days per week for two hours each day. The course content was American protests from the early 1700s to the present. Students were developing a digital story (an electronic Power Point presentation) for their culminating assignment. Students were nearing the final weeks of this 10-week course. The Reading Quiz and Digital Story Handout, as noted in the lesson plan, can be seen in Appendices A and B, respectively, at the end of this document. Students were each equipped with iPads to make the learning process more engaging and interactive with the recent addition of CALL-focused activities and teaching equipment. There are 8 students in the two-hour course, and the students come from Saudi Arabian and Kuwaiti backgrounds.

Lesson Plan:
ttps://docs.google.com/file/d/0B4oeg2ERlMDZajRadFdnb2hpSFU/edit?usp=sharing

Iraq War Podcast:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2YD-nv2xYcI

Global Warming Good Audience Practice Video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AY_03Y4dOPs

Google Doc for Collaborative Writing Assignment:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1MBoVaJp0JpA-yJi97qYQE3LIh0UCQZVeP7s4R0Feiko/edit?usp=sharing