This blog aims to share concepts, ideas, activities and tasks -especially with English teachers- to get to know what to design your own materials is like. So as to achieve this, we will keep this blog updated with didactic tools and information that can help you and us to plan English lessons in which students enjoy themselves and do not even notice are learning.
Picture taken from: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/45106433741523858/
As we have said in our previous posts,
technology is, nowadays, one of the main tools to include in the English
language teaching environment, since our students are totally surrounded by it,
and we cannot ignore this situation. Learners are more motivated when they are
taught through a ‘screen’ than when this is done by means of traditional
teaching.
Picture taken from: http://www.educacionenmovimiento.org/
However, as Sophie Partarrieu states (2015),
we still need face-to-face learning as students will never be able to empathise with a technological device. Besides,
she adds that trained teachers should begin to combine online learning and
traditional teaching; what is commonly known as blended learning.
There are many advantages when working with
blended learning as, in face-to-face teaching, students can negotiate meaning,
interact among themselves, receive immediate feedback from the teacher, and so
on. While, in online teaching, learners are able to practise at their own pace,
in a more personalised way, improving their language skills and encouraging
autonomous work.
Teachers and future teachers
should give it a try and find the way to implement this teaching method in your
English classroom. You won't regret it!
Last Monday September 28th, Nicky Hockly, Director of Pedagogy of The Consultants-E, gave
a talk at Hotel UNL ATE, in Santa Fe, Argentina. She presented her new book
“Going Mobile” and mainly spoke about the use of technology in the educational
context.
Nicky proposed different alternatives to include our mobile
phones in the classroom, so as to encourage students’ participation and
engagement in the English lesson. She suggested, for example, an activity in
which students have to take selfies at a set time and share them in a Facebook
or Whatsapp group, describing what they are/were doing, and, in this way,
practise the Present Continuous or the Past Continuous aspect. For instance “I’m
doing my homework” or “At 3 p.m. I was doing my homework.”
Another exercise consisted of taking photographs to
“things related to” water, for instance. The result would be to deal with new items,
so as to expand students’ vocabulary.
Moreover, Nicky taught the audience how to use Aurasma, a
free app which allows you to create and share virtual content in real contexts.
She proposed using Aurasma to describe known places in your city in English, as
a kind of project or group work. Or even descriptions of member of your family,
or parts of your house.
The options are unlimited; you only need to take your
time to let creativity flow.
Nicky Hockly’s talk was not only entertaining, funny and
innovative, but also a great opportunity for English teachers who are willing
to include technology in their classrooms in an engaging way, and do not find
the way. The only thing you need is… a mobile phone!
Images taken from: http://www.amazon.com/Nicky-Hockly/e/B005TIYHYI
The term web 2.0 is
used to refer to the second version of the World Wide Web. It focuses on a more
dynamic use of the internet, in which people can interact, generate content and
share information. Although it is not widely applied at schools, the benefits
of its implementation can mean a great improvement in the educational context.
Web 2.0 not only allows students and teachers to communicate outside the school
environment, but it also provides a motivating way to work and interact.
4shared and Quizlet are
two web 2.0 resources which can be used for learning purposes. The former is an
online storage site in which you can share videos, books, recordings, images
and information with other people. In an academic context, you can take
advantage of this by showing your students online materials you find useful.
Moreover, it is really easy to sign up, and start using it in a very practical
way.
After analysing
these 2.0 websites, we can see how the development of technology benefits the
learning process through the achievement of a continuous interaction. Students
and teacher should profit from these kinds of resources in order to teach and
learn in a more engaging way.
First image taken from: https://pame95.wordpress.com/2012/11/03/mi-ensayo-planeta-web-2-0-la-intercreatividad-y-web-2-0/
The acronym TPACK stands for Technological,
Pedagogical and Content Knowledge, and it is the name of a model whose aim
is to combine three central components for our lessons to be effective:
technology, pedagogy and content. According to this framework, these aspects
are expected to be combined in tasks and activities which will be developed in the
classroom.
We have designed a didactic unit using the TPACK model to encourage the
implementation oftechnology in the EFL classroom. Our
topic included the use of the structures “there is/there are,” withvocabulary
related to the different parts of the house and furniture. To start with it, we
decided to use a Prezi presentation to show our students a house created in the
famous game ‘The Sims’, which included a description of it recorded with our
own voice. This functioned as a model for learners to have an idea of what they
are expected to do, and to come back to it whenever they need it as they work
in the creation and description of an imaginary house.
In our didactic sequence, we can see how the three types of knowledge
interact in a positive way. Technological knowledge is applied by the use of
the computer game, the presentation program Prezi, and the LCD projector to
complete the final task. The reason why we chose ‘The Sims’ is that it contains
all the vocabulary items we will be working with: parts of the house, furniture
and domestic appliances. In this way, we can appreciate how Content knowledge
and Technological knowledge mix in only one exercise.
Moreover, including a game in our lessons encourages students to
participate as they learn while having fun, what is the result of the
implementation of Pedagogical knowledge. We consider Prezi the most appropriate
software since it allows users to zoom the images in and out, and thus,
together with the LCD projector, learners can show their classmates the parts
of the house and pieces of furniture they are mentioning. What is more, this
online program allows learners to record themselves and to add that to the
presentation.
Hence, we can see how Technology, Pedagogy and Knowledge are
interconnected in only one unit sequence.
So, English
teachers, TPACK can be fun! Do not be afraid of giving it a try!
In their article "Guidelines for Designing Effective English
Language Teaching Materials," Howard and Major (2005) provide readers
with a set of instructions about the best way to design your own materials
successfully.
In guideline 1 the authors propose that the materials should be contextualized.
Some of the things they mention is that the topics and themes we propose
need to bemeaningful to our
students. In this perspective, technology can help us as it represents one of
the most relevant aspects in learners' every day life, which makes it a
significant context for students to work with.
In guideline 3 Howard and Major speak about the relevance of developing learning
skills and strategies in learners. ‘It is essential
that language teaching materials also teach their target learners how to learn,
and that they help them to take advantage of language learning opportunities
outside the classroom‘ (Howard and Major, 2005, p. 105).
Students can use technology to be in constant
contact with the foreign language and put what they learned into practice.
Nowadays, many websites allow us to do online activities which adolescents
enjoy a lot, and which can function as an absolutely entertaining tool for them
to learn informally.
We, as future English teachers and digital natives at the same time,
would like to focus on three important points to bear in mind when dealing with
materials that are designed through technology.
The last guideline we would like to concentrate on
is number 8, in which the authors suggest that the materials we design should
be attractive. Here, the use of technology becomes essential; the
idea of working with computers, cellphones or tablets while learning is
absolutely advisable.
We have to admit that these days the use of technological appliances is part
of our routines and learning cannot be ignored; we should try to give it a
place in this modern movement.
Images taken from: http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2012/01/03/the-frontier-of-classroom-technology http://www.parentvoice.ca/tag/technology-in-the-classroom/
Nowadays, it is absolutely common to look for different websites when we
need to gather information about a certain topic, but we should be aware that
not all sites can be trusted. In order to know if a webpage is reliable, there
are some key points to bear in mind that will help us in our decision to use it
or not.
Purpose: A webpage can have different objectives; for instance, it could
be educational, informative, commercial, entertaining, institutional,
personal, and persuasive. In the case of the BBC website, the purpose is
an educational one because it contains materials such as audio, videos and
texts for teachers and learners of English to improve their skills in the
foreign language. Besides, ESL Kid Stuff is a commercial and educational
webpage. It is commercial because you have to become a member to have
complete access to the content, but it is also educational because it
provides the audience with lesson plans, worksheets, activities,
flashcards, games, and so on for using in a classroom.
Reliability:
what it is useful to consider here are the sections “Contact us” and
“About us” in which you can find information about the authors of the page
and sometimes even their credentials. As in ESL Kid Stuff, the “Contact
us” section gives us more confidence to rely on the site because the
authors provide not only an email address but also an address in case we
want to write a letter to them. Moreover, the “About us” part gives us
details about the English teachers who created the website, how they met,
how they decided to do the webpage and the current participants of the
project.
Currency: this is related to the update of websites and the possible
emergence of dead link; two essential characteristics to be considered
when trusting the net. In the BBC webpage you will see that the authors
keep it absolutely up-to-date: they upload new materials almost every day,
and there is no evidence of any broken link, which inspires complete
confidence.
From: http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish
Appropriateness and relevance: when using a website, especially if we are
teachers, we have to pay attention if the content of the web would be
suitable for our learners or not. In ESL Kid Stuff, for example, it would
be quite difficult to adapt its content to advanced learners of English
because it contains materials and resources for primary level or
beginners.
From: http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish
Clarity: this criterion is related to legibility. We have to consider
if the text is clear and neat, whether the graphics can distract the
audience or help them to understand the meanings, and also if the presence
of advertisements results obtrusive to the readers. In the case
of the BBC page, the materials are well-organised, the texts are
completely clear and the pictures help to convey the meaning of what the
audience is going to read about. The absence of advertisements gives more
credits to the authenticity of the website.
So, next time you seek for information on the web, these criteria will
give you a hand when deciding which webpage is authentic or not.
Wednesday, 27 May 2015
Digital natives and
digital immigrants: students vs. teachers
After reading Prensky’s article "Digital natives, digital
immigrants" (2001), we found several points which we agree with as
regards the present differences between students and teachers considering the
use of technology.
As future English teachers, we are aware that these dissimilarities are
of paramount importance to get to know how our students learn; having in mind
their interests, needs and motivation. If we consider what they care about,
both learning and teaching can become enjoyable, entertaining and
encouraging.
Digital natives constitute a new generation, absolutely different from
the one our parents were part of. Being a digital native means to be constantly
in contact with technological devices and tools, which constitute a part of
digital native’s life. In Prensky’s words:“Our students today are all
‘native speakers’ of the digital language of computers, videogames, and the
internet.” (Prensky, 2001, p. 1)
This new language he mentions is the one which digital immigrants are
not always able to speak. But who are digital immigrants? And what makes them
different from digital natives? They are the ones who grew up learning from
books, their notebook or the blackboard and who might use
technology successfully, but generally preferring the way they
were taught.
For many years, digital immigrants have been teaching with a book and a
blackboard. When technology spread, teaching became a great challenge for them.
Nowadays, teenagers use technology much more naturally than them, and with such
an ease that they feel the need to work harder to adapt their teaching to
students’ preferences: “We need to reconsider both our methodology and our
content.” (Prensky; 2001, p.3)
This reconsideration implies a modification in attitude and teaching
style on the part of the educator, which is not easy to achieve. They need to
accept that generations and the way they learn have changed.
Teachers should take advantage of this technological widening, and learn from
their students so as to create a comfortable environment in the classroom.
In conclusion, as future teachers we think that digital immigrants
should open their mind regarding the use of technology in the classroom so as
to engage students in their learning process, always considering their
interests and needs in order to follow their learning styles.
This video shows a summary of what we've been talking about:
