podcards on Edinburgh with lesson plan

Time	Course of the class (phase/content)	Activity	Media/ Material	Objectives
8 min	Introduction of the website and task	Presenting through teacher	Eslpodcards website	Motivation and introduction, task setting
20 min	Pupils listen to the podcard	Listening comprehension	Internet, headphones	Informing about the topic, improving of comprehension skills
15 min	Working through the activities	Answering questions about the content	Worksheet of the internet, podcard	Secure findings through worksheet, ensure understanding of the listening
40 min	Researching on specific topics and producing a page for a tourist guide	Group work (3-4)	Internet, search engines	Specialize knowledge on the city, media competence, producing a tourist brochure
5 min	Cleaning up and handing over the pages to the teacher	Group work		Preparing for next lesson, teacher has to correct texts before “publishing”
45 min	Presenting the pages/ tourism guide to the others	Group work, presentation to the group	tourism guide	Securing the findings of all students, handing out a guide to each student

11 grade, 3 hours for the project

Task 6 „My Dream Project“

According to the German curriculum for secondary schools, applied geography and cultural studies should be dealt with throughout the pupil’s academic career. In particular intercultural communication in terms of “Begegnung mit dem anderen” – encounters with others is significant and can play an immense role in a student’s life.  However, simple learning of facts and numbers should not be the only part of the studies. This approach should be enhanced by additional components such as information about everyday life and culture, as well as the traditions and main thinking patterns of the target culture. One way of dealing with this important topic in school is through the usage of new media in order to connect two countries with two schools and their pupils.

In my year long project the students are in their grade 12 advanced English course and have the wish to encounter native speakers of an English speaking country. To achieve this goal, the students will partner with a school in an English speaking country, like Canada. Of course it would be beneficial if this relationship has already been established and such projects are organised on a regular basis. Therefore, my project would be co-organized by a teacher of our partner school in Vancouver, Canada. My pupils would have a partner class learning German and would be roughly the same age. Both classes would converse using various mediums in a multimedia classroom once a week for about one hour. Topics from the news or specific school topics concerning social, cultural, economical, political and historical themes can be discussed. Big screens or smart boards including web cameras are used to communicate and to allow pupils to see each other. Also blogging can be a good medium to connect both worlds, where students of both countries can publish their own blogs or comment on others. Chat rooms can be even used to communicate in pupil’s spare time, to build up a better understanding of each other or even develop a friendship, and besides all that to practise the target language.

The rest of the English lessons, where there is no direct connection to the other classroom, can be uses to teach various topics, which could occur in the Abitur or to prepare for the next encounter. However, also WebQuest on various topics on Canada like on the geographical, cultural, political or traditional aspects have to be fulfilled, in order to get a background knowledge of the country and its culture.

 Moreover due to the fact that in both countries some of the same topics are taught, for instance Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, it can be productive to have a connected classroom, after having a separate short introduction and reading his plays in class. It would be beneficial if both classes could communicate on the same topic. The Canadian pupils could help the Germans with their English, where conversational as well as academic English could be practised. The Students could learn from each other and get a better understanding of the others culture. Also, dealing with the foreign culture but also with your own, including problems and social processes, can enrich the pupils knowledge and character.

 All in all this is just a short introduction to my project, which can be adapted to the specific needs of different pupils. The communication between both groups of pupils stands in the centre, where as dealing with same topics, like Shakespeare, can be helpful in initiating the communication. In this project new media is used as a supportive medium to connect both classrooms and to allow the students to gain an insight into the others country through various small projects like WebQuest.

Task 5b: Answers to the Questions

Here are the answers to my two questions from last week:

 1.    Our guide confirmed that by using new media in class the teaching differs in comparison to the “traditional book lessons”. Now project oriented lessons can be done more frequently, where the students research various topics on the internet or watching a movie with a projector rather than a TV. But he concluded that often the preparation for such class projects can be more time consuming than that of traditional lessons. However the in-class work of a teacher can be more relaxing, due to the fact that the students work more on their own.

 2.    This school does not evaluate students’ usage of new media. However our guide mentioned that through new media in the classroom more students can be reached. In general, the students seem to be more motivated and therefore work more thoroughly on the topic. The students who already have high levels of achievement will still receive good marks, but in comparison with the “normal” teaching methods the students with some problems can improve their learning results through the usage of new media.

 In general I can say that having well equipped class rooms, like the “Lernwerkstatt”, will always have a more positive impact on the learning environment than a run down classroom. Therefore it is important to create a good learning environment, which can be improved through investment in technology, but which can also be achieved by doing small things, such as painting the walls in attractive colours, or by students contributing to the decoration.

5th Task: Form Two Questions

For the fifth blog task we were asked to form two questions for our field trip on Wednesday the 17.06.2009.  

In which way are the teachers using new media and can they be assured that it makes the task of teaching easier?

Do students get better learning results through the usage of new media or is the learning process similar to the one by using traditional teaching methods?

4th Task. Report of a Teaching Project

For our fourth blog task we were asked to find a report about a teaching project which makes use of the New Media and which we believe to have a possibility of being successful.

After researching on the Internet, I found a really interesting idea for a teaching project. The idea came from the German magazine ”Der Spiegel” with the title “Der Maskenball” (Der Spiegel 08/ 2007). The author of the article “Second Life – Chancen und Grenzen einer virtuellen Welt” Thomas Reith, debated the idea of using the online game Second Life in the language classroom. I believe that the whole idea is quite interesting and something different for older students. He believes that because the game is so international, the pupils have the chance to communicate and interact in the target language, in our case English. By playing the game, the pupils get a feel of using the language for a real purpose, like getting ahead and communicating in the game.  I am aware that playing such an online game can not fill out whole language lessons, but I believe that this game could be used as a treat for the pupils for a good lesson or good achievements. Also if the kids enjoy the game and they enjoy communicating in real time with other people around the whole world, they can play more in their spare time and therefore further improve their language skills.  

In order to have a more intellectual output from the game, the pupils can also be asked by the teacher to write a Second Live Diary to log their adventures and experiences as one of the Avatars.

All in all, I think that this project has some great ideas and is something special. But nevertheless, I am aware that this idea needs to be thought out more in detail. However, by doing something kids enjoy and having fun while learning a language is one of my priorities as a teacher and therefore I could imagine using such a project in school.

3rd Task: comparing learning software

 Our activity in last weeks class was to compare two English learning computer programs. Due to the fact that we weren’t able to install most of the programs on the university computers, it was quite difficult to complete this task. Nevertheless, I had a look at the “Teen Talk” and the “Tell me more kids” programs and analysed them with the help of the internet.

The learning software “Teen Talk” was produced in 2000 for 4th grade students and up. It contains a wide range of different topics which teenagers in school might like, from bullying to favourite subjects. The graphical user interface is well done. Students can get a fast overview of the learning portal and click through each unit easily, also the layout and colours are ok and not too distracting. Also on the pro- side is the teachers room, were extra teaching material and worksheets can be found. Another immense plus is that the whole program is in English, so that the pupils hear native British English all the time. Hearing ability is trained intensively through authentic audio activities but nevertheless a couple of things are missing in order for this to be the perfect tool. Most of the exercises are rather traditional, quite repetitive and only in a drag and drop style. Typing in the answers is not required and therefore spelling and so on can’t be practised. Also some of the real time dialogs from the British pupils are rather fast and I don’t know how the younger pupils will cope with understanding them. I do not want to argue that real time conversations should be avoided but for beginners such a method could be frustrating and that does not suit the purpose.

 The other learning software “Tell me more kids” was produced 1997 for 10 to 12 year old pupils and comes with the choice of using the program in British or American English. Due to the fact that most of the time German is spoken learners are not exposed enough to the English language. The design of the software looks rather old and could use a ‘face lift’. Furthermore, most exercises are plain vocabulary exercises where the pupils have to click on a picture and hear the pronunciation of the word. I would have liked to learn more about the different exercises like the games, interactive cartoons or the karaoke, but because of the installation problems this was not possible.

In general, as far as I was able to analyse both programs, I prefer the “Teen Talk” software. This software, with its authentic pupil talk, could be used in class or by more advanced learners at home. Nevertheless, I would not build my teaching upon these programs, due to the fact that they still have some gaps which need to be filled by a real teacher.

2nd Task: my Comment on the Group 1 Task 8 Poster

For my second task, I’m asked to comment on one of the in-class created posters. Due to the fact, that I wasn’t in class when the posters were created, it is a little bit difficult to understand the main questions behind the posters. By looking through all of them, I choose the task 8 poster on multicultural and cooperative learning.

The topic is clearly presented in a mind map with some broad keywords. The main tools for multicultural and cooperative learning are included, such as communication tools like skype or facebook, research tools like search engines and presentation tools such as weblogs, homepages and so on.

Nevertheless, I believe that there are a lot more tools on the World Wide Web than just these examples. New media opens up an immense opportunity to interact globally. For examples, networks especially created to communicate with a partner school in different countries enrich the lessons and enable the pupils to widen their own points of view.

Of course, in creating such a poster you don’t want to go into too much detail, but some more examples or explanations of the given examples would have been nice. Also a better distinction between multicultural and cooperative learning would have been helpful. However in general I agree with the posters message.

One more thing which I really like on this poster is the drawing of the boomerang, or what I take to be a boomerang. If you learn in a multicultural and cooperative way, positive effects like a better understanding of different cultures and global knowledge will come back to you and expand your own personality. The little drawing is a clever idea to outline this fact.

Well done!

Why use new media in foreign language education?

Why use new media in foreign language education?

 Really good question… Well, if I look back to my dark memories of being a student in high school, I have to say that the usage of new media was nonexistent. Pretty sad, if you ask me! Of course we had a one year course on how to program a computer game (!!!) but how to create and give a good power point presentation or how to use a search engine effectively was not on the syllabus. Instead the usual learning method was: learning by heart and filling out a lot of blanks, very exiting.

Today, technology and new media in the classroom plays a lot bigger role than it did in my school years, or at least it should do. Nowadays children are brought up surrounded by technology. Usually a computer, mobile phone and Ipod can be seen in every child’s bedroom. For me- I remember my family not even having a telephone in the house; I’m not even starting on computers… In other words, my generation was brought up at a technological turning point. We were able to get a little glimpse of what today’s kids are exposed to from the start, a technological surrounding and understanding.

So why should we as teachers not include this understanding in our classroom? New media presented through different technologies enriches classes immensely, especially language classes. The vast amount of websites in your target language can lighten up classes. For instance, reading the news in the target language brings an authentic touch into the classroom or vocabulary can be learnt through a huge variety of learning websites. Watching little video clips or movies in your classroom and then talking about it is better than just reading a text and analysing it. Writing blogs instead of lame essays spices up a lesson and brings enjoyment into the language learning process. To bring it to a point, I believe that the most important point of working with new media is to bring the world into your classroom! In today’s teaching environment it is necessary to use new media to teach a language. What’s more, it is also fun. The World Wide Web contains immense potential which just needs to be exploited.

And herein lies the problem; most teachers do just not know how to use it. Not having the proper technological skills, teachers are unable to use the new technology required to bring new media into the classrooms. With this fear they rob their pupils of the chance of using new media properly and developing their technological skills.

I strongly believe that an understanding of the usage of new media in today’s world is essential. It helps the students to develop a broad knowledge of using media correctly and therefore it is beneficial for their further career progress.

A warm welcome to everybody!

 

Here you see my first attempt in the blogging business. I’m currently taking a media course in my university where I’m being introduced to this new tool of communication. Now and then I will post a blog on the usage of new media in language education and hope you will enjoy reading it.

 I’m open for any comments and until then wish you all a great summer.

Cheers!