Because of YouTube!

Sing along changing YouTube for MyBlogs, Twitter or Facebook.



Via eCuaderno

"Blogs vs. Wikis" JFK-Nixon fictional debate

7 groups of NBLT activities

Network Based Language Teaching (NBLT) is language teaching that involves the use of computers connected to one another in either local or global networks. Whereas CALL has traditionally been associated with self-contained, programmed applications such as tutorials, drills, simulations, instructional games, tests, and so on, NBLT represents a new and different side of CALL, where human-to-human communication is the focus. (Kern & Warschauer, 2000)

However, language learning activities which involve the use of the Internet needn't be limited to computer mediated human-to-human communication. Traditional CALL activities can also be developed in NBLT and are actually found in most LT sites.
As we know, the Web is full of authentic, reference and didactic materials useful for language learning. It also provides excellent tools for the interaction with those materials, processing information (input) and student production (output). And for linguistic contents and skills work, either integrated o specific.

Here is a list of 7 groups of LT activities using the Internet (or NBLT activities):

1. Lexical quizzes, games and other vocabulary learning specific activities (e.g. lexical maps, concordancers use, class dictionary building ...).
2. Grammar tutorials, exercises, simulations and games.
3. Listening and pronunciation virtual lab activities.
4. Reading and writing webtasks: treasure hunts, webquests, ...
5. Multimedia webtasks: scrapbooking, samplers, podcasting, tasks with authentic multimedia materials from social sites, ...
6. Computer Mediated Communication activities (email exchange, collaboration projects, CoP, ...)
7. Use of blogs and wikis for individual or group language learning e-portfolios.
   

CALL and its dimensions

M. Levy & G. Stockwell (2006) looks in depth at seven important dimensions of CALL:

1. design
2. evaluation
3. computer-mediated communication
4. theory
5. research
6. practice
7. technology

"There are 10 chapters in this book: an introduction, seven chapters that cover the dimensions of CALL, and two concluding chapters that complete the book."

The concluding chapters deal with ICT integration ("what integration really means and how it might be accomplished in institutional settings such as schools and universities") and the distinction between emergent CALL and established CALL.

"One of the real problems for the language teacher, software designer, or researcher who wishes to use technology in second -or foreign- language education is how to absorb and relate what has been achieved so far, and how to make sense of it. The kind of understanding that comes from a critical reading of a substantial literature in order to develop a balanced and detailed knowledge of the field is not easily achieved.
CALL Dimensions has been designed to address this problem."

It certainly does, with an excellent academic review of research done in the period 1995-2005, giving an accurate picture of the development and diversity of CALL in those years. Each chapter is divided into two sections: description and discussion. The description section reviews the recent literature of each dimension, identifying themes and selecting representative projects. The discussion section provides some analysis with further ideas and opinions from teachers.

However, as a teacher, don't expect ready to use materials, lesson or syllabus plans or even a selection of web resources. It isn't the aim of the book. This is mainly a research and theoretical review of CALL dimensions. But some important recent developments are missing or only just mentioned and not seen in depth: the educational use of wikis and its possibilities in language teaching, the use of blogs as language learning eportfolio, the use of new multimedia online tools and social web tools, podcasting and videocasting, the development of communities of practice (the important work developed by Webheads in Action is not mentioned) and the use of webquests in language teaching is only mentioned in a couple of pages. It seems that this rich dimension of emergent CALL is still to be developed or is being developed in the language teaching blogosphere and social networking.

Chinswing: creating conversations

Chinswing is a global message board where anyone can add voice messages to ongoing topical discussions.
You can listen to conversations about Classroom 2.0, Teaching and learning in virtual worlds, Dreams, How people dress or Your favourite sweet, among others. You can record your own message on the chosen topic.

Via Twitter/carlaarena

Guidelines for ideal language learning activities (& II)

Doughty and Long (2003) used Task-Based Language Teaching theory to derive ten methodological principles, or language teaching universals, which may guide the design of ideal tasks:

1. Use Task, Not Text, as the Unit of Analysis
2. Promote Learning by Doing
3. Elaborate Input
4. Provide Rich Input
5. Encourage Inductive ("Chunk") Learning
6. Focus on Form
7. Provide Negative Feedback
8. Respect Developmental Processes and "Learner Syllabuses"
9. Promote Co-Operative/Collaborative Learning
10. Individualize Instruction

• What is task based language teaching? a presentation by David Nunan.
• International Conference on Task-Based Language Teaching, 2005
  

Guidelines for ideal language learning activities (I)

Which are the elements or characteristics that describe optimal language learning activities and environments?

Joy Egbert (2005, CALL Essentials: Principles and Practice in CALL classrooms, TESOL) identifies the following conditions for classroom language learning:

Any language lesson should support conditions for optimal classroom language learning environments regardless of the tools used. These conditions based on research from a variety of literatures, have been characterized in different ways, but a general list (Egbert & Hanson-Smith, 1999) includes the following eight items:

1. Learners have opportunities to interact socially and negotiate meaning.
2. Learners interact in the target language with an authentic audience.
3. Learners are involved in authentic tasks.
4. Learners are exposed to and encouraged to produce varied and creative language.
5. Learners have enough time and feedback.
6. Learners are guided to attend mindfully to the learning process.
7. Learners work in an atmosphere with an ideal stress/anxiety level.
8. Learner autonomy is supported.

Now let's compare these optimal environmental conditions with Chapelle (1998) hypotheses, derived from the Interactionist Theory, for developing multimedia CALL:

1. The linguistic characteristics of the target language input need to be made salient.
2. Learners should receive help in comprehending semantic and syntactic aspects of linguistic input.
3. Learners need to have opportunities to produce target language output.
4. Learners need to notice errors in their own output.
5. Learners need to correct their linguistic output.
6. Learners need to engage in target language interaction whose structure can be modified for negotiation of meaning.
7. Learners should engage in L2 tasks designed to maximize opportunities for good interaction.

It seems that the focus on linguistic form (hypotheses 1 and 2) and learners error noticing and correction (hypotheses 4 and 5) are not present in Egbert's conditions (although "learners having feedback" is somehow related to "error noticing"), perhaps because these refer to environmental conditions and Chapelles's hypotheses refer to materials development. Another difference is that Egbert's emphasis on authentic tasks and audience is not present in Chapelle's list.

The characteristics of learning activities are mainly defined by the type of tasks learners are engaged in. Doughty and Long (2003) used Task-Based Language Teaching theory to derive ten methodological principles, or language teaching universals, which may guide the design of ideal tasks. ...