Hfam09's Blog

Happy & Effective Teaching by using CALL!!

Dear all

From my reflection on CALL in September, I wrote that I usually use technology (computer and projector), as teaching aids for convenience, to show documents such as worksheet and teaching notes.  After attending this course, lots of surprise/unexpected attainment have been acquired from this course.  My current knowledge and skills are greatly enhanced which can benefit my students and me a lot.  Learning and teaching effectiveness are maximized in the following ways: 

Podcasts: I’ve used podcasting to help students giving directions and instructions.  Collaborate learning were encouraged via group work; whereas more drilling and practice were generated via individual recording.  Interactive feedback was also provided by students.  It’s extremely effective that students enjoyed the activities whose language usage also improved a lot.

Other useful and practical technologies for English language teaching are:

Wiki – for teaching process writing;

PPT such as mind maps, cool Iris or “Who want to be a millionaire?”; Hot Potato tasks – for teaching grammar rules or vocabulary;

Audacity – for recording with sound effect like story telling, radio drama;

Window Movie Maker and Photo Story 3 – for producing digital stories etc. 

All of the above technologies are not only for computer-assisted grammar drills, but also for achieving communicative language teaching, example, interactive jigsaw activity like the story reordering for “Mr Bean” or some discussion topics via Hot Potatoes Tasks, group competition activities via “Who wants to be millionaire, process writing via Wiki etc. Students should be able to learn English with fun, creativity can also be cultivated like creating digital stories or radio drama etc.

Technology not only good language teaching but also integrating many values on personal development:

 As many of my students are low-achievers academically, digital stories can provide a useful platform to share meaningful and touching stories with students, especially for the difficult ones.  Personal development such as positive attitudes, values on life and morale etc can be shared and cultivated.  These would be very useful tools in my teaching context. 

All in all, enormous values and benefits were generated from joining this course.  It’s incredible that the above valuable and useful teaching resources can be produced without very much difficulty, I will say at least manageable.  Though it’s quite time-consuming especially for the beginners like me and needs thorough preparation beforehand, in view of the great learning and teaching effectiveness generated from the technologies, it’s worthwhile and meaningful to make this effort.  Trust you will agree with me, won’t you? 

One more thing, I hereby would like to extend my greatest thanks to Professor Paul Sze who delivered us these valuable and useful teaching resources effectively.  With his comprehensible input, I, who was very scared in using technology previously, at least find these tools manageable and workable.  Million thanks to you, Paul!

Cheers

Kitty

Reflection on Digital Story

 1. Reasons for choosing the topic

I chose to write this topic as I was really deeply impressed and touched by the story of my students.  I felt sorry about her mishaps.  After helping her out in different means, she recovered mentally and improved her academic performances at the same time which make me feel rewarding, fruitful and meaningful. 

2. The process on producing the digital story and effects brought by digital story

At the very beginning, it’s hard to start as I’d no idea to write anything.  As long as I decided to write the mentioned story, I drafted the script before looking for pictures.  Next, I selected the pictures to match with the development of the plots, but not vice versa, i.e. not revising the script to match the pictures.  To tell the story with recording, pictures and background music, the mood, feeling and thinking can be brought out by these audio and visual effects.  Listeners will find it more interesting, impressed and memorable.  

3. Easy to produce digital story?

To be honest, I can’t imagine I could produce a digital story by myself.  Previously, I thought making DST could be very complicated with the advanced technology that I should never be capable of creating it.  To my surprise, the knowledge and skills of producing digital stories is one of the biggest benefits I acquired from this course.  After producing the DST, it was found that it was not as complicated and difficult as I thought before.  Thanks Paul for everything he introduced in this course. 

4.  Reflection on digital story activity – a reflective, or creative…. one

Yes, DST activity is a kind of reflective activity for me.  The process of writing and recording the story becomes a platform to share my feeling, thinking and values of teaching.  Hence, DST activity is good for teachers’ reflection and sharing so as to interactively support each other.  For students, it can also be a creative activity that they can write their stories with interesting and creative plots, which could be matched with suitable background music and photos/pictures out of their creativity.

5. Benefits on using digital stories in language teaching and learning

• As shared before, computer technology is too advanced for me, not to say producing the digital story, which I thought should need strong IT skills.  It’s absolutely incredible for me to make even one by myself.  After learning and experiencing the production of DST, it was discovered that it can be one of the most valuable teaching resources that students will surely be motivated by it. 
• Students can also be taught and trained to produce the digital stories themselves, which should be able to improve the English proficiency.  Reading and writing skills can be enhanced from the process of collaborative writing among students and reading each other’s scripts.  
• Simultaneously, listening and speaking skills can be enhanced too, such that they need to practice the pronunciation and intonation etc to their satisfaction before recording.  When required to provide feedbacks to classmates’ stories, they will be highly motivated in listening to others’ spoken stories.  And, more exposure to listen to authentic recording can be helpful to strengthen students’ listening skills.  
• Self-confidence and self-esteem can also be enhanced when sharing their successful products with others ultimately, especially for the less confident students who can also bring the best from their abilities that they can perform the tasks ‘behind the scenes’ without fear of speaking in front of the audience.

 6. Values on using digital stories for sharing with other people/teachers

This medium of sharing can be a convenient platform for teachers to share their thought and reflection on teaching, life or any particular incidents.  By this kind of interactive sharing and spiritual mutual support, teaching moral could be boosted up from the current common hectic teaching life.

Digital story on meanings of teacher’s roles:

http://ihome.cuhk.edu.hk/~b253727/Teacher_Role_Kitty2.wmv

Good evening, everybody,

It’s wonderful to learn how to create a digital story tonight.  It seems not as complicated as I imagined but it really brings significant learning effectiveness.

1. Students could improve their writing by writing scripts.  Special language features could be integrated that students can practice using past tense and learn how to organize a story and different episodes.  Forms and functions of writing can be achieved.
2. Speaking skills, such as pronunciation and fluency, can also be enhanced that students can practice multiple times before recording. 
3. Creativity can be cultivated that they will be motivated to create a story they like, which is also conducive to arouse learning motivation and active participation. 
4. While listening to the digital stories, students can learn by giving and receiving feedbacks on speaking skills and writing skills.  So interactive feedbacks among students can be promoted so as to improve the language proficiency. 

Every class in this course is fresh, new and useful to me that I feel excited and enjoyable which I can apply in my daily teaching.

Here is the artifact:

Lego Boy Story Board_kitty

Hi everybody,

There were 2 main speech improvement activities, Radio Drama and Podcasting, introduced last Thur, which make use of teachnology. 

For Podcasting, I think it’s very useful that teachers can use it to create or design different interactive activities for students.  Students can create their own podcasts to do the speaking tasks, which then should involve other classmates to listen and give feedbacks.  After completion of these activities, students should be able to improve their speaking skills, such that they would check if the language patterns are correct, and do multiple recordings to their satisfaction at their own free times before posting to the podcast.  As we know, more practice makes perfect / better performance.  On the other hand, podcast also provides convenience for peers to listen and evaluate the performance of the speakers at their leisure times, which may not feasible to do the same inside classroom. Thus, podcasts will be a valuable alternative to practice and do revision out of the limited lesson times.  It can also motivate students’ learning and working attitudes.

 I’m glad to try recording digital story last Thur, too.  Creating digital story with background music is exciting and interesting, and managable that I thought it was very complicated and difficult to me previously.

Thanks Paul for introducing these tools and activities to us, it should bring much benefits to both teachers and students.

How about your thought?

Kitty

Try this digital story!

Last Thurs, we learnt to use PPT to assist our teaching.  I’ve tried the following PPT during my speaking lesson – Giving directions.  The effect is fantastic that my students like it very much.

How is the PPT conducted?

Students were formed into groups of 4; each group contained both the stronger and weaker students.  They could decide to send any group mates to participate the game of “Who wants to be a millionaire?”  However, each student could not attempt twice in the game.  Participants had to choose the correct prepositions to complete the expressions for giving directions.

Reflection

This PPT is an alternative but valuable teaching resource.  As we know, drilling of speaking skill may be very boring and mechanical.  However, this game adds much value to the teaching context that it creates a sparking effect. 

1. Learning motivation – My students with low learning motivation were excited and actively participated the activities. 
2. Encouraging co-operative learning – Group mates took initiative to support each other in order to win my prize – highlighters. Thus, students who can learn L2 in a stress-free and interactive environment will maximize the learning effectiveness.
3. Providing positive but not negative evaluation – it can boost up students self-confidence.  Instead of providing error correction directly by teachers, acquisition of the usage can be achieved subconsciously or indirectly through activities.  Students become more alert / aware of the proper use of prepositions, positive reinforcement of the language can be achieved.

I’m glad to learn and know the tools and activities from this course which bring much benefit to me and my students.

 Try: Millionaire template_Kitty

With the introduction of Wiki last Thursday, it can benefit my students in different ways: 

Now, I am teaching Speaking 2, which is to give directions and instruction.  Wiki can provide a single place to keep all important notes/materials together.  All useful expressions and language focus, practices with tasks, keys and audio files can be placed there.  Practice and drilling are crucial for achieving high scores. With this convenience, it can encourage students to practice more at anytime they like.  Thus, Wiki provides alternative resources for English acquisition apart from traditional study materials such as textbook and handouts. 

Last year I conducted some collaborative writing activities for writing enquiry letters.  Students were formed into groups; each group would be responsible for writing a part of the letter or writing the complete letter.  They actively participated in reviewing other groups’ work and provided positive feedback with appreciation. The learning atmosphere is encouraging and positive.  With Wiki, I will change the activities into e-writing (writing wiki); group mates can edit their own writing as necessary before the due date.  They then would be asked to share views and give feedback on other groups’ work.  Active participation and plenty of writing exercises can be generated.  These activities can also become consolidated exercises to be conducted anytime they find it convenient outside the classroom.

Welcome to try my Wiki!

http://kittycheng.wikispaces.com/

After trying some Lingonet tasks, it is thought that this kind of computer-assisted language learning tools still needs rooms for improvement. My findings from the tasks are as below:

1) Gadgets in the office
Pictures of different computer devices, such as computer, mouse, keyboard etc, were provided. The clues provided in the “i” icon only give you meaning of the word mechanically without any explicit strategy instruction, so the input is not helpful enough, thus it’s very difficult for students to guess and try letters by letters in order to get the words correct. During the whole process, no input, i.e. no pre-reading activities, were provided. They are more for testing vocabulary rather than teaching vocabulary.

2. The other one I tried is Air Travel
This activity is even worse that there’re no pictures given; only different groups of vocabulary are categorized. Only the first letter of each word is provided. Students need to guess the words themselves. If they don’t know the answer, they can press the “-3” icon to get the answers directly. Again, no pre-task input is given, another kind of testing vocabulary, not teaching vocabulary.

It is suggested that the above activities can be supplemented with the following pre-task activities so as to get the greatest benefit from technology.

1. Using big books or flash cards can help students acquire sight vocabulary for the above “Computer Devices”, and the “People” such as pilot, captain…etc in the “Air Travel”.
2. Literature-based approach could be adopted – Talk Stories introduced during our last lesson (Oct 15) help students form connection between spoken and written language forms (eg. Vocabulary). Besides, contextual clues can be provided for learning new vocabulary of the “Air Travel” above.
3. Through negotiation the meaning of unknown words during in-class discussions in order to activate students’ background knowledge and motivate their word-awareness. New vocabulary can be dramatized in order to present the words in motivating ways, such as learning the vocabulary of “airsick” in “Air Travel”.

4. Online dictionaries and word definition with hyperlink can also be provided as tools for checking up the meaning when students encounter difficult words.

After the above pre-task activities, support can be provided while completing the computer exercises. Vocabulary with distracters can be provided in the computer programme for students to choose in order to build up foundation of word recognition. In addition, mind-mapping activities, like the one in the above link we did last Thursday, can be exercises to revise the learnt vocabulary.

Hope the above suggestions can maximize the benefit brought from technology. How about yours? Can you share with us?

Kitty

Task about determiners

Is it nice?

I had a good time in Korea during my last summer vacation. Is Korean costumn nice? It’s fresh to me that I would not try it in HK. Agree?

See you!

Kitty

Hi everybody,

It’s very challenging to create my first Hot Potatoes Tasks at the last lesson since I did try several attempts before achieving success at the end. However, I think it’s quite useful to arouse students’ learning interest as they will find something new. Besides, they can have repeated practice by serfing the URL, which they will find it convenient, too. I’m glad to learn something new that I never think of integrating them in my teaching before.
Cheers
KItty

Try:
http://ihome.cuhk.edu.hk/~s0802825/kitty_quiz(R).htm
http://ihome.cuhk.edu.hk/~s0802825/kitty_match_(R1).htm