ListServe: What English Should be Taught...

Since pronunciations do vary with teachers depending where they are from or where they learned their English, I believe it is important that the students have choices in choosing their teachers.  It depends what they will be using their L2 for:  work?  pleasure? travel? academia?  Testing? Teaching a language has to be very clear, enunciated clearly and correctly.  With this comes some flexibility with the pronunciation.  English is world-spoken and can have many dialects.  I had a USF Statistics teachers assistant teach attempt to be a good teacher. I had to drop the course and choose another math course to pass my state boards for the GKT.  When the pronunciation hinders learning, something is definitely wrong.  Hiring and placing these teachers has to be thoughtfully considered

Internet Reciprocal Teaching - for World Language Classrooms

This PPT covers how to teach our students about internet searches.  Very interesting about Boolean searching uses
OR- synonymous terms
AND- the more concepts we combine, the few results we will retrieve
NOT- excludes records from our search results.

I have a paper to prepare and will utilize this method to narrow down my searches so I can learn how to teach my students the same method.  I will DEFINITELY use this in my world (not foreign) language classrooms because I believe it will hold their attention and help them create thorough reports.  I will teach them note-taking strategies (important skill to use at their jobs), teach them how to be IRT operators and guide them through their Internet research, and watch for skills they might need to read the Internet well such as;
1- how to make up good questions,
2- how to select key words and web sites,
3- how to evaluate reliable and trustworthy web sites,
4- how to take good notes on sites, and
5- to make sure they post their reports correctly and share with their peers.
I will have to monitor their use very carefully and will collect the Internet permission slips beforehand. I'll circulate actively from table to table looking for quality dialogues and trustworthy Internet searches.

I learned not only to use the Boolean Logic, but practiced using the implied Boolean logic and was excited to use the space and the minus sign to retrieve specific searches.
Lot's to practice and learn!

Chapter 5 Review: Distance Learning

Before reviewing my chapter, I wanted to share that I have recently received feedback from two adolescent high school students who took a DL Spanish course.  Both opinions were the same: they thought it was a waste of time to learn to speak the language even if the grammar and writing skills were learned.  They felt the conversation was more important but were obligated to take these courses.  I doubt the efficiency of this teaching strategy. I would have to speak with Spanish teachers who have experience with this to have a more open view. 

Learning a foreign language through distance learning was covered in this chapter. I was surprised to learn that online learning has a 9.7 percent (specifically in the association institutions) growth rate versus the 1.5 percent growth in the rest of higher education. I don't think teaching a world language via DL will ever replace the face-to-face with native speakers in order to reach advanced proficiency levels.

The author believes the U.S. needs to produce more bilinguals and take advantage of the rich bilingualism that already exists among our international communities. I believe our country needs to work hard on wiping out prejudices that accept these communities as our neighbors. 

I believe it is imperative that universities push their study abroad programs because I witnessed advanced proficiency in my now 27 year old daughter who spent 5 weeks in Morelia, Mexico.  She lived with a family who had a 5 year old daughter that taught my daughter more Spanish than anyone had ever in the past and she comes from a bilingual home.

Enhancing the use of Technology for Teaching

This site provides hallmark information for using technology while teaching, the tools necessary, and projects they are currently working on from Carnegie Mellon University with access to course materials and content.  They show us how their Blackboard is set up, how they teach using “Clickers” and how to use valuable tools to prepare a lesson.  I can see how the students and teachers enjoy using clickers together.  There is positive feedback and provides a little more energy, more discussion and more interest.  The students seem to appreciate this from their teachers. Students seem to participate more.

A Reflection of Second Life; a virtual world for Education

My favorite line, "imagine what a seasoned teacher could make out of an engaging educational experience." This article covered a good definition of virtual schools and gave the opinion of nine teachers who use the system. Engaging students and social learning is crucial to the development of our students.  I agree that since most students find technology to be interesting, there is an increase in their level of engagement  and may likely retain information. Classes could become more interesting and motivating to students. Yet, virtual worlds are still unknown territory for many educators and administrators.  There exits obstacles such as monetary, public opinion, and teacher training. If virtual worlds became the only teaching tool, students would miss out on having mentors and role models. I did not see anyone give an experience with language learning but know that some classmates have told me you can tour for real in places like Barcelona, Spain and Sidney, Australia. The real beauty of playing in a virtual world is that you can choose your avatar's appearance without an indication of socioeconomic, political background or even gender. One teacher mentioned benefits such as resources and information often are needed to be shared in order to advance. These are a few of the benefits of social interaction on learning. Since most virtual worlds are graphic based, and allow other users to observe and imitate a certain culture found within the game, they are sharing and developing culture which is important to the maturation of young adults.

I would need to see more proof on how to work SecondLife to promote L2.  Since I could not find how to re-dress my avatar, find the Spanish-speaking islands or get someone to talk to me, I would prefer some teacher-training even before trying this on "real students". One would have to become pretty proficient before promoting this to students for the first time. I am interested in learning and welcome the opportunity. I believe it can become a tool of the future for educational purposes.

ListServe: Effects of Foreign Language Budget Cut from 2011 budget

1st Post:  Regents exams are being cut this year.  Even thought it costs only $700,000 to fund this assessment, a bar was set for these students in a state that recognized the importance of learning languages.  We, as a nation, receive so much more value from this small amount of money.  Who are the victims:  the students and future communities. We need to be able to communicate with our neighbors, negotiate in business and be prepared with security for our nation.  Then there are the potential friends of the world we will not meet.  Go to this radio interview to hear comments and opinions. 


http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/wxxi/news.newsmain/article/6650/0/1812593/Education/Budget.Cut.Victims.Foreign.Language.Regents.Exams

2nd Post:  Because of the 2011 $1 billion cut, foreign language classes will no longer fall under the class size amendment.  Florida foreign language teachers can expect more students in their classes in 2011.  This was not a good idea even though Florida voters chose this because it took away stability from the local school system.  It makes it law everywhere and takes away the flexibility from a principal or school district.

Chapter 4 Review: CMC

This chapter gives a clear distinction and all the benefits between real time, synchronous (SCMC) and delayed time,  asynchronous (ACMC) collaborative interactions through network-based language teaching.  I can appreciate the author sharing that the use of this learning strategy does not stimulate the process of SLA better than the face-to-face interactions with a teacher.

Next, we learned about first and second generation CMT tools.  First generation includes e-mail, electronic mailing lists, and discussion forums where second generation includes all of the above plus wikis (a Hawaiian word) and blogs.

Listserves impressed me when they are directly accessed through our internet because I am guilty of not checking our USF BlackBoard as often as my Gmail account.  I would like to see Voice Board working as I feel it will help me teach proper pronunciation to my ELL students. Maybe I am wrong because maybe they are just for assessment and testing.

I have an ELL grad student that I make him iChat with me so he practices his writing discourse.  I know this helps his oral discourse immensely.   

I am going to go to our iTeach Lounge at USF and see if I can see task based learner learner CMC, Voice Board, and SkypeCast (iChat) programs work.