Wednesday, February 7, 2007
Reading Prompt #4
EGBERT Ch. 4. Communication & CollaborationRICHARDSON Ch. 5. RSS: The New Killer App for Educators
Why is communication and collaboration so important in the language learning classroom? What ideas did you gain from the Egbert chapter about how computers and technology can be used to faciliate greater communication and collaboration for students? Give any personal examples you have had using these or other ideas.
Note the etymology of the word collaboration--working together. This refers to the students and teachers negotiating and clarifying meaning, and working to understand the materials at hand. Rather than passivity and top-down aspects of the "transmission" form of education, 1) learners are active, and 2) listen and respond to material presented, working together or autonomously. When there is an information gap, the teacher is called for assistance, who then is able to clarify and suggest further means of pursuit of information.
Most of my experience comes from teaching adults (executives and professors). Being handed the power tool of an interactive work sheet made a huge difference in the success I achieved in pronunciation work just last week. The objective of the lesson was to help a foreign speaker of English with pronunciation difficulties, which he felt impeded him even after so many years in this country. I created a worksheet with audio versions of a text which was also written, and then asked my learner to make a recording of the same text. As he read, I asked him what was different from the way I had pronounced the sounds. We then circled letters and words on the worksheet, and using the aid of a phonetics website, were able to work specifically on problem areas. He re-recorded his readings until he was satisfied, and then we went on to the next line of text.
The summary and conclusions to this work were very positive. I compared his voice reading the entire text to a recording I had made earlier in the week, and the clarity of our practice text was astounding. Further, I sent him the electronic worksheet, so that he could listen again to any parts he wanted to further practice. He was very motivated and pleased with the methodology, and felt he was making progress.
There is an old saying in the motivational field, "People don't argue with their own data." My client could hear the difference in his pronunciation before and after our practice, and thanks to Dr. Wright, this happened through a tool that was efficient for this purpose and a good example of technology as handmaiden to language confidence enhancement.
Reading Prompt #4
EGBERT Ch. 4. Communication & CollaborationRICHARDSON Ch. 5. RSS: The New Killer App for Educators
Why is communication and collaboration so important in the language learning classroom? What ideas did you gain from the Egbert chapter about how computers and technology can be used to faciliate greater communication and collaboration for students? Give any personal examples you have had using these or other ideas.
Note the etymology of the word collaboration--working together. This refers to the students and teachers negotiating and clarifying meaning, and working to understand the materials at hand. Rather than passivity and top-down aspects of the "transmission" form of education, 1) learners are active, and 2) listen and respond to material presented, working together or autonomously. When there is an information gap, the teacher is called for assistance, who then is able to clarify and suggest further means of pursuit of information.
Most of my experience comes from teaching adults (executives and professors). Being handed the power tool of an interactive work sheet made a huge difference in the success I achieved in pronunciation work just last week. The objective of the lesson was to help a foreign speaker of English with pronunciation difficulties, which he felt impeded him even after so many years in this country. I created a worksheet with audio versions of a text which was also written, and then asked my learner to make a recording of the same text. As he read, I asked him what was different from the way I had pronounced the sounds. We then circled letters and words on the worksheet, and using the aid of a phonetics website, were able to work specifically on problem areas. He re-recorded his readings until he was satisfied, and then we went on to the next line of text.
The summary and conclusions to this work were very positive. I compared his voice reading the entire text to a recording I had made earlier in the week, and the clarity of our practice text was astounding. Further, I sent him the electronic worksheet, so that he could listen again to any parts he wanted to further practice. He was very motivated and pleased with the methodology, and felt he was making progress.
There is an old saying in the motivational field, "People don't argue with their own data." My client could hear the difference in his pronunciation before and after our practice, and thanks to Dr. Wright, this happened through a tool that was efficient for this purpose and a good example of technology as handmaiden to language confidence enhancement.
