Week 11 autonomy

In the article Learner Autonomy and Tandem Learning, Schwienhorst talks about whether CALL development is techonolgy based of pedagogy based. He believes that both is involved in the CALL development and has focused on three different approches to learner autonomy. First he looked at the individual cognitive perspective, in which learners are always trying to improve their existing construct system, integration of new and already existing constructs can be difficult since the only person that can change their minds is themselves. They will always stick to what they believe in. The second perspective is called the social interactive. This view is based on Vygotsky's Zone of Proximal development approach, our learning, and social interactions builds up what we learn and what we believe in. It is linked to our enviornment and the people that we interact with. Social interaction is a tool for conscious awareness. The third approach is that learner autonomy can be viewed as an experimental participatory perspective. Theorists point out that learners should take control of their learning process. Vygotsky and Kelly both think that through experiments with tools and artefacts, learner's awareness can be raised. Ideas are encouraged to be written down so they can be reviewed over and over again to open up new possibilities.

Week 9 posting

In Can learners use concordance feedback for writing errors, Gaskell and Cobb talks about how concordance helps students with sentence-level written errors with feedbacks. Concordance refers to a list of words that are commonly used, in which they might all sound or look alike, so it makes it easier for users when writing, it saves time and leaners can also take this opportunity to learn new words. Gaskell and Cobb has advocated a system which is intended to help learners correct their own errors by the use of concordance and to learn from it. The study shows that there are progress in the student's grammar by the use of concordance and appropriate corrections were made. In my school I don't think we can ever have a system like that since I work at a kindergarten. Too much resources and manpower needs to be involved regarding the data input, uploading and creating applications. I think concordance can be a useful system to help elementary and secondary students though, it can help them by providing them with new vocabulary as well as help them with the use of grammar.

Week 8 posting

In Hong Kong's amended copyright law: A guide for teachers and students, it talks about how students and teachers use other's materials without the risk of breaking the law by plagerism. If quotes/materials are used then they must be cited correctly and given the author full credit of what they had written. The important part of this article is to for teachers and students to use other's materials fairly and not take credit for something they did not write themselves.

Technology in testing: the present and the future

In Alderson's article, he talks about how the use of IT for language testing is begining to emerge into this mulitimedia world. More and more tests are carried out using cd-roms, students can now learn and be assessed just by using the computer, this is most popular for distance learning students. I think one advantage of this is that it can accomodate many people's busy schedules, they can be assessed and complete assignments just by using their own computer which can save a lot of time. The downside of it is that it is hard to speak to classmates or even your teacher face to face. Sometimes people gets confused and may convey the wrong message just by communicating through the internet. And if any instant help is needed that could be a struggle too.

E blocks

Here is a picture of an equipment I use at work to teach English to my students in a fun and enjoyable way.

Week 7 posting

Liou's paper talks about using movies to make the classroom learning more interesting. Personally I believe this is true because students often find it boring to learn in the same enviornment everyday, its quite interesting how student's reactions can tell you so much on what they enjoy. Movies can give students an opportunity to learn without the strict and boring rules of the classroom, and most often they learn without noticing. I find that my students talk and play less with each other and is the time where they pay most attention in my classroom. I would pause in between scenes to ask them questions regarding what they have watched. It is an interesting excercise where I incorporate it into my lesson plan once a week.

Week 5 post

When using CALL, no set of theories are said to be solely associated with it, rather hands on exerience is more important. Activities such as MSN, facebook, online forums, who would look into the theories behind these applications, when everyone just learn as they are using it. Theories scare people off as something they need to learn and would easily associate them with work, rather if CALL was used in a laidback and non-formal way, learners would find it much easier to use.

Week 4 reading

I think most ESL learners would feel more comfortable expressing themselves in an online virtual enviornment. Since language learners are normally more concerned about their accents and are usually scared to speak in front of a crowd, it is easier for them to express themselves over the internet when they know no one is actually judging them or correcting them on their mistakes face to face. And sometimes when those barriers of fright is not around, the learner might be able to learn and adapt in a more effective way. Although there are disadvantages to online learning, such as students getting less attention from her classmates or less interaction from her teacher and friends, it does make a language learner less anxious, which sometimes might motivate the learner more.

Soulja Boy-Turn my swag on

new useful links

www.urbandictionary.com is a very useful link for ESL learners to learn everyday language which could be very useful since street English is very different from written English, this site can help learners to have a better understanding and to try to incorporate the language into their everyday lives.

E blocks

My students use a device called the E-blocks to learn at school. This device consists of an electronic board as well as electronic blocks for children to play and learn interactively at the same time. Children love this game because the animation is very attractive and also it gets the out of the classroom, whereas normal lessons are held in their normal classrooms and students find that very boring and it is harder for them to concentrate since their attention span is very short.

My experiences with technology in the language learning context

When I need some ideas for worksheets or activities for my students, then I would search the internet for help. Such as ERIC. I also use this site to locate suitable aritcles for my own studies.

Monday Jan 11th

Today is the first class of our last semester. Horray. I'm glad I met some great friends here.