Using Podcasting in the class

    When I first heard about podcasting, I wondered why it’s so popular since there’re so many audio files on the internet. After browsing some information about it, I found it is unique because people can not only find a huge variety of new and interesting content but also can listen to what you want, when you want, and how you want. In addition, the audio files can be automatically downloaded to your computer and synced to your MP3 play. You also can create your own “radio”-style show and broadcast it to the world. It is really interesting.

    I chose one episode of podcasting English Café 498  in ESL Pod  as my teaching material. This audio material contains three part: introducing a famous movie, sharing a popular website, and answer some questions. When listening to the introduction of the movie Mary Poppins, we can not only hear the content of the movie. We can also know about the background of the movie. For example, women had no right to vote until 1920. Moreover, some words are spelled slowly and explained in detail such as nanny, nursery and so on. When listening to the question what the meaning of “oblivion” and “overwhelm” are, we can hear that the words were repeated twice and explained by a lot of examples.

    This is an interesting listening material that are suitable for students whose listening ability is “L.3.4.c Listen and respond appropriately to presentations and performances of peer or published works such as original essays or narratives, interpretations of poetry, or individual or group performances of scripts” according to Michigan EnglishLanguage Proficiency Standards. 

    I don’t think I will use all of them since it is so long that students cannot finish the listening and understand the content of the audio in the class. I can choose part of them such as the movie as my teaching material to teach my students how to get the main idea, how to get details and how to take notes when listening. In the class, I can ask my students to listen to the material and take notes. Then, I can talk with them about the movie to assess whether they get the plot of the movie, that is, the main idea of the listening. In addition, I can check them the words that are mentioned in the listening to see whether they can get the detail of the listening. I can ask them to explain the meaning of the words or ask them to make sentences using these words. Finally, to know whether they can take notes when listening, I can ask them to hand in their notes and score them.

     As a matter of fact, I think podcasting is very useful for students to improve their listening after class. They can choose what they like and listen in their spare time.

My comic strips class

  My comic strips can follow my last photo class. After they have known the new vocabulary and what is the healthy food, they can make their own dialogue according to the example in the comic strips.

  My students are still the beginners and according to Michigan English Language Proficiency Standards, they should be:

S.2.2.a Participate in social conversations with peers and adults on familiar topics by asking and answering questions and requesting information

R.3.3.d Recognize simple idioms and figures of speech

  In the class, after the students watch the comic strips, I can ask work in pairs to make their own dialogue to talk about what they have for breakfast , whether the food are healthy or unhealthy, if not, what they should do, meanwhile, I can expand some new words and sentence structure. For example, chocolate contains a lot of energy and you will put on weight if you eat too much.

  To check whether they can achieve the goal, I will ask them to perform their dialogue in pairs. Also, I can ask them to bring their own comic strips about the healthy eating to school next time.

My photo class

    When I was a teacher, I found that many students developed unhealthy eating habits for different reasons. So I think maybe it is a good chance for me to teach my students to keep a healthy diet as well as learning some new words about food.

    In my video, I introduced some reasons why students think little of their breakfast and tell them to choose food that are good for their health. This class can teach my students some words about food and also we can talk about health.

 I choose many pictures and short phrases, so the class is suitable for beginners. Based on MichiganEnglish Language Proficiency Standards, my language learning objective is:

S.1.3.a Participate in conversations on social topics by asking and requesting information

R.3.2.b Use meaning clues and language structure to expand vocabulary (pictures, background knowledge, context clues).

    After showing them the video, I can ask them what they usually have for breakfast and talk with them why they choose them and whether they are healthy or not.

To assess whether they learned the goal we wanted them to achieve, I can utilize the following method:

1.    Give them a sheet and ask them to fill in the blanks ( they are required to write down the words about food)

2.    Show them more pictures and ask them whether they are healthy or not and what they will choose for breakfast in order to keep health.

My TED Class

    My topic in TED class is about the hidden power of smiling and I think it is an interested topic that students are familiar with and have a lot to say. My language learning objective is based on MichiganEnglish Language Proficiency Standards and they should be:

1.       L.3.2.e Listen attentively to stories/information and identify key details and concepts using both verbal and non-verbal responses

2.       S.2.2.a Participate in social conversations with peers and adults on familiar topics by asking and answering questions and requesting information

3.       R.4.4.a Apply knowledge of complex syntax (sentence structure) and advanced grammatical features to derive meaning from content area texts

4.       W.4.3.a Independently create cohesive paragraphs that develop a central idea with consistent use of standard English grammatical forms, including a variety of sentence types

To test whether each individual student really learned the goal we wanted them to achieve, my assessment can be  

1.       Since the topic can be seen from the title, the two multiple-choices focus on details of the video and they can check whether get key details.

2.       Ask students to read two related articles in the Dig Dipper part. In the class, I will ask some students to retell the key points of the reading part to make sure they understand the meaning of the articles.

3.       In the discussion part, I can walk through the groups to check whether their discussion are around the topic or based on the questions I come up with in the discussion part. At last, I will ask some students to share their opinions, representing their own group.

4.       Ask students write a composition about the functions of the smile with personal experience independently according to what they discussed previously.

The flipped classroom

    In our traditional classroom, teachers teach and interact with students and students do their homework after class. Here comes the problem: sometimes, we thought we understood the concept being thought; however, when doing our homework alone, we felt frustrated since what we had learned did not work at that time. Flipped classroom changes the model of traditional classroom and make it possible for students to do their homework in classroom.

    Even though there is no single model for the flipped classroom, it leaves us an impression that Flipped classroom means that teacher asks the students to watch some short video lectures at home before the class session, so they can focus on exercises, projects, or discussion in the class. In the article three reasons to flip your class, Marshall mentioned that the flipped classroom can increases comprehension of the material since students can learn at their own pace with the help of video. Secondly, it can increases interaction with teacher and peers when they discuss in groups or teacher offers help in the class. Thirdly, it can increases critical thinking in the process of learning because it gives the students more opportunity to participate at their cognitive level rather than comprehending the content of the class. It seems that it is necessary for teachers to flip their class to improve the class efficiency.

    In my opinion, the first problem is what if students don’t watch the videos at home? I think it is the biggest problem that every teacher may face in their classroom. Fortunately, I got some useful ideas on the internet. Such as Gimbar thought that ask students to take notes, copy down the definitions, and copy down the examples when they are watching the videos. I think another way to encourage our students to watch videos at home is to teach them the importance of interaction in the class and to help them establish the sense of group honor. 

    Another problem for me is that since students are required to watch videos at home, it means that every students have access to computer. As a matter of fact, most students live in the dormitory where computers are not provided. In addition, parents and head teachers forbid students to use computer after school for fear that they are addicted to computer games. In my class, I think I may rarely use this teaching method unless they have a two-day or longer break to ensure all of them can watch the video after class.

A serious game----The Third World Farmer

  http://3rdworldfarmer.com/
  I chose the game called 3^rd World Farmer which can guide us to experience the real life of the peasant in the third world. At first, I treated it as a game and I thought the more crops (corn, wheat, cotton, peanut) I planted, the more money I would get. Unfortunately, I met with many hardships, and the whole family were died in the end. The second time I played the game, I paid attention to some other details, and I found that so many hardships that the peasant had to suffer, such as the corrupt officials, the weather disasters, the unstable market, and other unexceptional problems. I played this game for four times and only one time the whole family were alive and two children had access to school. In other three times, they could not go to school and hospital for lack of money. What’s worse, their farm would be occupied by the chemistry factory. I was totally shocked when I finished the game. This game provoke people to think about the tough life of people in the third world and the real topics happened in the game, thus, taking action to help people there. The reason why I chose this game is that I hope more people can realize this situation and more people can join in.

  The game is not precise in all details, but shows us a lot of topics I mentioned above. The students should be at Level 4 speaking skills in the class. Michigan English Language Proficiency Standards describes their ability like this: "S.4.4.a Exchange, support and discuss opinions and individual opinions and individual perspectives with peers on a variety of topics dealing with content area information or issues". The objective of the class is to teach students express opinions on certain topics. When they play the game, ask them pay attention to the topics that affect the income of the farmers. After they finish the game, we can hold the activities to access students by asking them describe their personal opinions of the topics and the consequence of the game (e.g.: what do you think of the Farming License? Is it fair for government to charge extra money?). Moreover, we can discuss the topics and find the solution to this situation (e.g.: which one do you think is more important, education or health insurance? How can we help more people go to school?). In addition , we can give students a certain and ask them to write a composition to express their opinions.

Polleke’s Blue Room

http://www.freakinrooms.com/games/pollekesblueroom/

    Since I like to play escape game when I was a student, so I chose Polleke’s Blue Room. It is a house with four rooms (four images), and you have to escape the house according to the clues you get. Maybe there is something wrong with my mouse, or maybe I am not familiar with this game, it took me nearly an hour to play this game.

 

    Even though the image is simple, the game is complex since not only should you be careful about every detail but also you should think about the relationship among the clues. I think it is a good game that can be used to teach students who are at early intermediate level. According to Michigan English Language Proficiency Standards,students who are at this level can start short conversations on simple topics,can understand basic narrative text and authentic materials,and can write simple notes and write short reports using basic vocabulary,and common language structures.I can make use of this game to teach them some vocabulary, try describe the procedure of a task (learn to use imperatives to give instructions and learn to express order such as first, next, then, finally…), and follow the instructions to complete a task.

     In the class, the teacher can be an instructor and assistor, and the students can be the game player and center of the class. My class can be divided into three stages. First, I will introduce the game to the students and ask them to play the games without the walk through in a limited time (about 40 minutes). Meanwhile, I will ask the students pay attention to the vocabulary on the top left corner. Students can memorize some words when they click on the objects in the game.

 

    It is impossible for all students to finish the game in the limited time. At this time, ask two or three students who perform better in the game to describe how they play the game to other students who fall behind. At this time, students must make use of the images of the game to explain the procedures of the game and use the word that appeared in the game. If students have difficulty in explaining, teacher and other student can give them a hand. 

 

    Finally, show students the walk through and ask them to finish the task according to the walk through. I don’t think all students can finish the game in the class because it requires extreme carefulness and patient. So they can play the game after class and discuss how they play it in the next class. Meanwhile, I can check whether they master the vocabulary, the imperatives by describing part of the procedure of the game.
    I think that assessment can be informal and formal in many different ways.  I can check their words according to their description of how to finish the game as well as giving them a quiz such as fill in the blanks or multiple-choice. When checking whether they can describe the procedure of the task, I can ask the students discuss the game strategies in the class or write short notes when they play the game.

    It is really an interesting game. It can help students learn something new as well as having the sense of achievement. I can still remember the great joy when I put the numbers I collected together.

Learning---- a joy, not a job

    In my opinion, gamification is using games to motivate learners to be involved in solving problems, and during the process of playing game, learners can develop their competence and skills, thus achieving their study goal. Just as 7 things youshould know about games and learning mentions, it has been long understood that games have the potential to be applied to teaching and will contribute to the improvement of students’ study. Meanwhile, games are increasing being employed at colleges and universities such as the Social Media Innovation Quest which can help students retain information and GradeCraft which can be used not only in supplying analytics data but also in political theory and information studies.

     Compared with adult learners, teenagers tend to be more difficult to focus on one thing for long and easy to shift their attention to other thing. Games can appeal to teenagers’ attention for longer time since they are more interesting than just finish the academic task. Should we employ games in teenagers’ class? In Technology—“Just”Playing Games? A Look at the Use of Digital Games for Language Learning, Julie considered that digital game principles offer a way to overcome challenges of the language classroom which are boring and less dynamic sometimes. As a matter of fact, I found my students were easy to be distracted and sleepy when I kept talking for about 20 minutes. Sometimes, I had to play games or use other activities to attract their attention. In addition, digital game design offers a new perspective to our overall understanding of language learning and teaching. I can still remember I taught a word “temple” to my students. One of the students shouted with joy” I know this word because I come across it when I play computer games”. All of us burst into laughter. However, I began to think why not combine games with language study? Maybe it can encourage more students engaged in learning English.

     It is no doubt that the educational game can motivate students develop their competence and skills. However, if not designed well, educational games may be viewed as silly by learners and will be waste a lot of time, which is dangerous. What should we do? In sculpting flow and fiero, Zac Hill considered that games are popular precisely because they address real human needs and evoke real human emotions. Flow and fiero are two of the most straightforward of those. So the educational games should also contain these two features. We can design “play” along something called an engagement curve, that is to say, to present challenges to people according to the teaching goal we want them to achiever. In fact, many language-learning APP can be found now on the internet, however, it is still a long way to design good educational games and apply them to the class successfully.

How will I use twitter in my future teaching

    Having chatted with some educators on twitter chat, I get an idea that twitter is a useful platform for teachers to express their thoughts, search for new theories, and exchange ideas and we teachers can strengthen communication through twitter chat. However, after reading the articles about how to apply twitter to classroom, I find a lot of new benefits of twitter.

    In the article “How Twitter can be used as a powerful educational tool”, what Mrs. Caviness did inspires me a lot. She could make use of twitter as a tool to organize her students together even though she was just a new user. She posted the content that she thought about suddenly and was related to the content in her class to twitter. I think it is really creative. For example, when she saw the baseball game, she posted “Do you remember where the perfect bunt is?” and promised to give a surprise to the student who answer the question first. Her action not only encourages students to recall what they learned in the class and try their best to figure out the answer but also motivates students so that they will be more interested in this class. Mrs. Caviness impressed me and inspired me to be more creative in my future teaching.

    Another article “UsingMicroblogging platforms for educational purpose” introduces some practical strategies that we can use in our future teaching, such as creating communities in classrooms, collaboration, managing your projects, polls and opinions, researching online, participation and word explorations. There is a good advantage is that you can follow people you are interested in. So I can encourage my students to follow some popular personalities to help students get a clear picture of the world around. Moreover, it is a perfect idea to use twitter collect polls and opinions. Even though we can only put in 140 words, it is enough for polls. 

    As a matter of fact, there are many strategies that we can make use of , however, I think I will just use some of them. I hope my students can express themselves freely and it is a challenge for students to express themselves clearly in 140 words.

Chatting on Twitter Chat

    The first impression twitter leaves on me is that it looks like Micro-blog in China. We also follow others on Micro-blog and know about the life or thoughts of people or organization that we are interested in. I also followed some people and organization on twitter to get some information about second language teaching and some strategies in the class. However, the most attraction is twitter chat that I have never known before. 

    Twitter chats are a place where educators meet at a set ‘meeting time’ to engage in conversations by sending out tweets on a topic using a designated hashtag during a specific time on a certain day.  Most twitter chats last for an hour. Today, I followed #langtag to discuss "How do you effectively time, sequence, and transition between activities in a class period?"

    Twitter chats offer a good platform for educators to connect with each other, exchange and discuss ideas, ask for help and provide assistance, find new resources and take action. I got a lot of good suggestions through this chatting. Such as setting a good lesson goal, paying attention to the first and last activities because students can memorize the first and last activities better. Also, I come up with my own questions and reply in the discussion. 

    There is also a concern that the words we put in are limited so that we have to minimize our words every time we post our thoughts. It can cause two bad results, first, we have to divide what we want to express into two or three pieces, which is very inconvenient. Secondly, some short words can not express ourselves appropriately,  which can confuse others. 

    I find that twitter chat is a good tool for educators and people who are interested in education to start a real conversation. Unfortunately,  It is the first time I use twitter chat and it costs me a lot of time to know how to join it, so I can not completely join in the chat from beginning to end. I think I can do better the next time. 

A larger classroom----ePals

    

    EPals is a website that connects thousands of millions of students and teachers from all over the world to share content and ideas and collaborate on projects. There are numerous classrooms which are interacting by discussion boards, teacher monitored email, language translation tool. So it is easy for teachers to search for partner classrooms by language, age, culture and so on, and teachers can connect the classroom together so that classes communicate through a private work-space or video chat or email. It is really a good tool for teachers and students to practice foreign language skills as well as developing international friendships.

    As a matter of fact, I think it is difficult for me to setting up a classroom and post announcements, assignments, and other items for my students because there should be a large classroom containing more than 70 students. I can only suggest some students joining in and help the students who are interested in learning languages to connect with students from other countries or other regions.

   

 

    However, I also found a lot of interesting and thrilling activities that can be used in my future class. The first one is writing center. Writings is the toughest part for my students since they think that they have nothing special to share with others or they cannot express themselves freely. The writing center offers students quantities of pictures and videos that inspire students to write more with so many topics. Then I will encourage my students post their writings in the site and I think it is also a special experience for the students.  In addition, there are some interesting games and quizzes of which students and make use to examine their grammar and vocabulary. I can hold a competition using these quizzes and games, which must motivate my students a lot.

    The next activity is students’ culturepedia. First, it shows a lot of global folklore stories that can help the students know more about the culture from other countries.  I looked through many stories which are very interesting, and I am sure that my students will like them. However, I did not find Chinese folk stories in the site. Fortunately, we can add our own story which can make others know more about China. Second, I can pick up some stories to ask discuss about them. I saw a story named “ Let no one snatch their joys” which talks about the different fortune of two girls. One girl married very early to meet her grandmothers demand that her grandmother wished her marriage to take place before her death so that she could not go to school but stay at home to do housework. Another girl could go to school to get her further education and decided to change the situation of the female in her city. In China, there are many similar examples, so it is really a good topic for students to discuss and they can talk a lot about it. Moreover, we can share our ideas with the writer and exchange our views.

    

    Maybe there are some other good features that I did not find in this site. I think it is really a good tool for teachers since it not only provides abundant teaching sources for teachers to manage their class but also offers a chance for students to know more about the culture and peers from other countries, thus, motivating them to study harder.

Let's join Teachers for Interactive Language Learning (TILL)

    I join a social networking site named Teachers for Interactive Language Learning(TILL) which is a group on Google + Communities. This is a community for those who are interested in sharing opinions and experiences related to helping other acquire English as the second or an additional language. We can find adequate information such as video and recording about TESOL and TEFL. Moreover, there is plenty of valuable links and free app that can be found in this community.

    This community benefits me a lot. Through this community, I can get abundant experience and ideas about others who are interested in TESOL or TEFL and these approaches, methods, techniques and materials are good examples that I can apply to my future teaching. The free app can not only improve the teaching efficiency but also save a lot of money. On the other hand, I can share my own experience on this community and discuss with others by commenting on each other. Commenting is really useful for stimulating the interaction of  people in the community so that we can get new ideas and thoughts in this field.

    In my opinion, the community is not only can provide me with useful information about the second language teaching to broaden my horizon, it also help me get into good habit of using high technology to equip myself so that I can keeping learning rather than stay in my own small world to be a nerd.

Stay learning, stay touching

    Siemens (2005) introduced a new learning theory----connectivism to which we should attach importance at this digital age. Siemets considered that Behaviorism, cognitivism, and constructivism are three old theories that separates learning process from the connection with the outside world.  Siemens said “Learning is a process that occurs within nebulous environments of shifting core elements – not entirely under the control of the individual.”  (Siemens, 2005. Connectivism: A Learning Theory for the Digital Age). The new theory, connectivisim, puts individuals in the social context to get new knowledge. Learners are like an receiver prepared to receive signals in all directions. Living in this age when technology is highly developed, individuals have to change learning approaches and use new tools to adapt to the new environment. Internet is one of the most beneficial tools that people can make good use of. Individuals can express their thoughts, can exchange ideas with others, and can get new views through Internet , so that they can keep up with others.

    In the video----The network is the learning, Siemens emphasized the importance of learning skills. In his video, he stated: “The way we connected to other individuals is largely responsible for our ability to stay current with individuals.” In his examples, he talked about that  he could keep in close touch with his colleagues from all over the world through the Internet, and if there was something new in their field, they could share the information,  discuss and exchange their thoughts through some tools such as Blog, so that all people can get new theories in their field instantly. Because of the rapidly change of knowledge, what we know today may be out of date tomorrow.  The ability to stay current is more important than the knowledge we mastered. 

 I' d like to share some other videos from Siemens so that we can know more about his theory.

DIIGO and Pinterest, which one is your favorite?

    This week, I am very happy to know two useful tools Diigo and Pinterest which are helpful for our daily life as well as our recent study and future work.

    Diigo and Pinterest are multi-tools for personal knowledge management dramatically improve efficiency of our life and work. Much of our information consumption, either at home or at work, has shifted online. Internet provides us abundant resources, including every aspect such as health, shopping, career and so on. For some careless and unplanned person who cannot put things in order, too much information will make them in a mess. Diigo and Pinterest can not only help people save the useful websites but also sort them into categories. People can add tags and descriptions on it and follow others you are interested in. In addition, people can get related articles automatically when they click some related links. All of these simplify the procedures to finding information people need and save quantities of time.

    Diigo and pinterest have their own features.  Diigo can annotate websites with highlighting sticky notes and message the people I follow, thus, building up the interaction with them.As for Printerset, people can create and share the collections of visual boards which contains many pins. They can copy and paste from original article to appear in comments about site, which is very convenient and easy to operate. Also, others can post comments on my site so that I can get opinions and thoughts from others.

    Diigo and Pinterest are so useful that I will continue utilize them in the future and introduce them to others. As a matter of fact , I like Pinterest better since it contains more images and vivid pictures which can attract my attention to read more. Moreover, I can get information directly from the picture which can save a lot of time. In addition , I found it is easier to find resources on Pinterest. However, I hope everyone takes full advantage of these two tools.