Reading Prompt #12

Computer based testing is definitely going to be more and more common in the future, however for now, there are still some factors limit its development. The author mentioned its necessary psychometric assumptions, which I don’t really get the meaning, but I think it’s one of the reasons. In the CAT part, there’s a theory called Item Response Theory (IRT). This theory assumes that all the questions can be graded from easy to hard and the test takers have a particular amount of ability to be assessed on the language trait. Grading questions will take extra time to the testing system and it is not certain that the difficulty of the questions is appropriate. For example, the same question may be difficult for one student but be easy for another student. IRT has a model called unidimensionality which is commonly used. It states that all questions on the test assess the same construct. But it is hard to applied in the real world, questions are hard to be made for only one goal, such as fluency or accuracy assessing only in the speaking test. Usually they were mixed in one question, which may violate the assumption of unidimensionality. Another assumption is local independence. It states that each question is independent, if two questions relate to one same passage, then this assumption is violated. With these two violations, the test takers’ ability cannot accurately be assessed. That may cause unfairness. Then the controversy over an appropriate scoring algorithm and the impractical of large bank of test questions also limit the computer based test. I agree with the author’s points because besides all the reasons above, I think computer based test requires a lot of money to develop the hardware and the software, especially for those developing countries or areas.

For the Cummins&Davesne’s reading, I think it is more interesting for me than CBT. To assess a language learners’ progress, the best way is to compare their current level to former achievement. I still remember that several years ago, school used to post the students’ position of ranking among the whole class in the front wall of the classroom. This was thought to be a good way to show the students how much progress you’ve achieved, and stimulate them. However, it turned out that horizontal comparison only worked for some of the students, most of who keep in the top all the time, vertical comparison is better and the progress were no long be post to the whole class.

Reading Prompt #11

RICHARDSON Ch. 6. The Social Web: Learning Together

BLACKBOARD - Warschauer, M., Knobel, M., & Stone, L. (2004).

Technology and equity in schooling: Deconstructing the Digital Divide. Educational Policy, 18(4), 562-588.

Share an idea of two about how you could use the ideas from Richardson with ESL students.

What is the "digital divide?' And why do Warschauer et al argue that this term may longer be applicable. What are the issues they found regarding differences in technology use with ELLs and other low socioeconomic students. What are some ways you could address this in your own schools or programs?

Twitter is really popular because of the convince, and I think its befit to education is getting more and more obvious, especially in out classroom activities. Like the example Richardson gave in the book, one physics teacher did a field with his students in Wisconsin, and he asked his students to use their cell phones to send journal updates to their Twitter accounts. Then the students who couldn’t make the trip can enjoy a trip through Twitter in real time. So for ESL students, if they have a Twitter account and can access to the internet, wherever they are, they can have the real time learning experience.

However, I personally like the social bookmarking services better, especially the Diigo. Tagging the site is amazing! If I find something related to TESL, I can tag the tags I choose, and see what others have tagged. To see the tags made by others may give me a different perspective to an issue, and the annotation is also awesome. What’s more, the teachers can have their students subscribe the feed of a particular tag he or she created for a subject. Through that way, the students can automatically get the linking or comment which the teachers do on some websites. But teachers can do more specifically, like choosing some students who need the information most to update automatically.

The digital divide is the gap between people who have the access to computers and internet and people who don’t have such access. Warschauer et al argue that “these gaps are gradually being narrowed” because of the development of the society, that computers and internet are more and more common these days. However, there are still differences about how technology is used between high-SES students and low-SES students. For example, in language arts, low-SES students tend to do common things like PowerPoint presentations and essay writing, but for the high-SES students, they do something more such as internet-based research, planning, writing, editing, and analyzing essays. Then we have a new issue about the ELL students. Because of their poor English, they do use grammar checkers which the low-SES don’t to review their writing, but they simply accept the suggestion gave by the checkers, which make their paper works hard to understanding. I would like to say that if in my class there are lots of English language learners, I will suggest them not to use those grammar checkers at first. Those beginners will be given individual instruction about their English. This may be heavy the burden of the teachers, but that’s the essence of “teacher”, to teach. And that will not last a long time ,once the proficient level is improved, teachers can let them start to use grammar or vocabulary checkers gradually.

Reading Prompt #10

Flickr is another technology which is totally new to me and what Richardson said in his book is really amazing! Using images and programs like Flickr will definitely help language learners. If I am teaching Chinese, I would like to use Flickr as my teaching tool. For language learners, vocabulary and grammar are the most “annoying” parts as learning a new language, especially for adult learners. However, there are situations that the teacher and the students don’t have a language to communicate, for example, I teach Chinese in a none-English speaking country outside China, English doesn’t help, so what am I going to do? I can use Flicker! Such as the word “地球” which mean the globe, if I show my students a picture of the globe, then the problem is solved, I bet every knows the meaning after that. And I can also ask the learners to write a short sentence on the picture, which is the annotation feature of the Flickr, using “…是…”, it means “…is…”, for example, “地球是圆的”(the globe is round). Of course those examples are for the very beginners, but, isn’t that good for both the teachers and students? What’s more, they can subscribe the RSS feed about that picture and know what other students is writing on this picture.

We cannot deny that because of the development of the technology, Computer-mediated language learning is becoming more and more popular. However, we should always bear in mind that teachers are the most important in this learning process, computer technologies are just learning tools; they can never replace the role of teachers. Especially when the language learners are communicate with the natives speakers of the language they are learning, there must have some trouble about the culture, sometimes two totally different kinds of culture may cause misunderstanding. Well, computers or the internet can’t help to solve this problem, only the teachers who know both kinds of culture will make the learners communicate better.

Moreover, lots of students would like the use simple or abbreviation words when write Emails or text messages among peers. But this will cause a big problem to language learners if they receive messages like that. To a language, be aware of the use of formal and informal language is important, especially for the beginners. What the natives do will confuse the learners, taking them extra time to fix these mistakes when they use the target language in the future. That’s another job teachers should do, they should stop the native speakers use such words when they communicate with language learners.

Reading Prompt #9

Corpus linguistics is defined as the study of language relying on computer-assisted techniques to analyze large, principled databases of naturally occurring language. Because of the development of technology in the 21st century, this computer-assisted corpus linguistics begin to play a important role in pedagogy.

The most well-known use of corpus linguistics in the language classroom is concordance. It will help teachers to look at corpus instances of the searched words or phrases, observing patterns of use that they would not notice otherwise. And as Susan Conrad said in her paper, corpus linguistics made language professionals know that grammatical study needs to take place within the context of a register or by comparing registers. What’s more, the corpus-based research substantially improves the lists which are given by the traditional grammar books. That’s because the information is no longer based on the intuition or anecdotal evidence. These new lists will not omit important items. And in addition, frequency information can help teachers decide which items they should emphasize or what kind of activities are the most appropriate. Corpus linguistics can also make grammar teaching more focused on conditions of use. When teachers use the finding of corpus database, they don’t even have to approach a native speaker.

I never used a corpus database before, so I know nothing about the corpus linguistics. However, I think that with the corpus linguistics, I will know the typical language use patterns of Chinese, without doing the survey myself. And the frustrated situation for language teachers which is mentioned in Susan Conrad’s paper is that something that is grammatically acceptable but doesn’t sound right will be changed by corpus linguistics. That will be a great help.

Reading Prompt #8

Some kinds of technologies which are used for CMC are introduced in Levy’s book, like Email/SMS, chat, MOOs, conferencing and mailing lists/BBS. They are different from each other, but share some commons at the same time. They can be great helps for language learning.

For learners in the same class or the same time zone, synchronous forms of CAC are good choices. They can use text-based chat or videoconferencing and don’t even have to meet each other. For learners who cannot be online at the same time, they can use asynchronous forms of CMC to facilitate their language learning, such as emails. Researchers also find out that CMC does play a role in second language learning. CMC has a ability to provide learners with a forum through which to negotiate meaning. According to Skehan, “the negotiation of meaning that occurs through interactions is seen as an ideal mechanism through which learners can identify where their interlanguage is limited and needs to be further extended”.

Email is the most often used tool for me. Although I learned English in Chinese for 10 years, I didn’t really have chances to communicate with people in English, either spoken or written English. So when I started to write emails in English, I would spend an average time of 15 min on each email. I would write, think, rewrite, and rethink every sentence. But now, I spend much less time, I can say that this practice does improve my English. Then I want to talk something about chat. Last week, I had the chance to take a virtual class for ESL5013 and that was a disaster for me. Just like Lvey’s book says, in the chat or other synchronous environments, “other participants are not aware when one person starts to type a message and may continue with a topic, or else may change the direction of the discussion while a potential contributor to the discussion types his or her message”. My contribution to the discussion was often “out of step with what has gone before it”. I think my English is not good enough for chatting virtually with native speakers.

Dr. Sauro made a research about the two computer-mediated corrective feedbacks. According to her findings, both of these two types supported gains in target form knowledge in familiar contexts, but in immediate term or over time, neither of them was more effective than the other. And the metalinguistic group in the Time of Test Administration showed much more significant improvement than recast and control. Those help the teacher know what kind of feedbacks work best for their students. We know that feedback is important in language building because feedbacks can facilitate the occurrences of noticing and promote Le processing. With the appropriate feedbacks, learners will make their output work more effective in L2 acquisition than inappropriate or no feedback taken.

Reading Prompt #7

According to Grgurović and Hegelhimer, subtitles and transcript are both very helpful to listening. But they also found that the subtitles are more frequently used than the transcript. That may because when one is doing listening practice, he or she tends to use help options which are more familiar to them in daily life, like subtitles. And higher lever learners are predisposed to subtitles which are written in the target language than those are written in the native language, while the lower level learners are the opposite. However, there are some failures of the participants to make use of the help options. The reasons may be degree of control or time pressure. If a participant cannot skip the help after comprehending the context or is forced to finish the task in a specified time, there’s no way he all she will be go through the subtitles or the transcript thoroughly. The authors point additionally that external factors such as motivation and attitudes towards the task could also be the reasons of the failures. Then turn to the SLA theory, we found that modified input would help to improve comprehension. Thus, the modification available in the form of subtitles and transcripts are important. The research in the paper shows that “All of the other groups that made use of input modifications demonstrated better learning gains overall”.

Among all the aspects the CALL book mentioned about practice, I most interested in pronunciation. Pronunciation is an important part of language learning. Unfortunately, because teach pronunciation require the language teachers have good pronunciation and in country like China, the rate between good language teachers and students is not reasonable, so it is impossible for teachers to give tutorial. That why apply CALL technology on pronunciation will be a great help for improving the students’ pronunciation and alleviate the teachers’ burden. For example, the students can have vivid learning experienced about producing specific sounds either in the shape of graphic annotations or through video and images, just like learning from the teachers. I want to teach Chinese in the future, so I hope the Chinese version of such technology will be widely used in Chinese learning.

Reading Prompt #5

I have two mp3 players; one has a big screen while the other doesn’t. I bought my first mp3 player which has no screen at the second year of my college. I had a lot of English tests so I mostly used it to practice my listening. But I sometimes enjoy some music, still English. Then I bought my second mp3 player and I found it’s a better way to learn English using this then use the one before, because I can download videos. However, podcast, it is totally new to me, all that I know about it is from the book.

McQuillan has some really good points about podcasting in his paper. The “Audio diary” he mentions is very interesting. I believe that something one hears is more impressive than something he or she sees. So if a language learner keeps an audio diary, it will definitely help him or her to improve the proficiency of the target language. And if the learners turn in the diary to their teachers for evaluation, that will be even better, although we know that if it is not an assignment with a due date, learners preferred to keep the audio diary for themselves. They can also use portable device like iPod or mp3 to listen to the diary and find out the mistakes they made.

The “Narrow listening”, which “involves listening to several audio recordings on the same or a similar topic, recorded by different speakers of the target language” is interesting, too. It is like a advanced version of “read articles of the same topic in different languages”. For example, I am going to practice my English by listening to a short passage, and it has Chinese version. So if I don’t familiar with the topic, I can listen to the Chinese version first then go to the English; otherwise, I will listen the English version first and then the Chinese version, checking if I get all the meaning right.

Reading prompt#4

Levy and Stockwell talked about a focus on the learner. Designer should try to be sensitive about the learner’s characteristics and the learning context. It means that the designer is supposed to know well about the learner’s background, such as gender, physical abilities, education, cultural, goals and computing experience and what the design is made of or why it is made for. That’s the way the designer can make something attractive to learners. The better the designers know, the better design they can make. Learners are encouraged to be involved in the design, because they know themselves best and they know learners like them better than the designer. Like the example Levy told, students write Hot Potatoes for each other, or develop learning and review strategies to share with one another, the result must be better than the activity involves only the designer.

I am interested in East Asia culture, especially the articles and comments wrote by western people. By reading those articles and comments, I will find out something new about my country and her neighbors, something I wouldn’t know in home. Besides, that makes my English improved. I found a website about learning English years ago. It provided me one word a day and all of these are frequently used American English. Since I first learned BrE and then learned AmE, that website really helped me a lot. Unfortunately, I know nothing about RSS at that time, so I’m trying to find it again. For using with students, I think follow some news is good. Whatever language on the news is up to date, that avoid the risk of using out-of-date word and make students be aware of what is happening all over the world. Language learning should not be separated from the real world.

Reading Prompt #3

The challenges which Soares had met are also the problems to the teachers who are the beginners of blogs. Students at this generation are immersed to lots of new technologies, so if a teacher wants to make a blog be attractive and valuable to the students, he or she should learn enough about blogging. However, even if the teachers have adequate knowledge, there’s still a question that if the blog really plays the role as a language learning tool in education. According to what Soares mentioned, students are motivated in class but reluctant at home, and she was disappointed that only half of the students turn in the assignment. A lot of students don’t even think about using the blog as a learning tool, or some just have computer problems. So for the future using of blogs with students, Soares thought that it is important to provide students the opportunity to express themselves and communicate with real readers in class (because the students tend to be interested in class work, not home work). Peer feedback and correction should be considered. She also suggested that when students are familiar with blogging, it’s a good way to communicate with people outside their class blog.

Levy describes several types of technologies, among which I am most interested in the Pronunciation-Training Technology. The best way to learn a new language is talking to native speakers of the target language. However, it’s impossible for people who live in where those languages are seemed as foreign languages. Thus, the pronunciation-training technology is a good choice for those language learners. They can have their own language tutors to make them improve the pronunciation. Nevertheless, when we use this technology, we should be aware that technology is merely a learning tool, it cannot replace the teachers, and we use it only because it satisfies the pedagogical needs of education.

Reading Prompt #2

Egbert talked about seven conditions for classroom language learning. For achieving most of the conditions, blogs can be a really good tool. First, blogs can bring authentic audiences and tasks to the language learners. Their learning activities are not limited in the classroom anymore thanks to the blogs. Teachers can create projects like the one Egbert said in Example 1 “ The students were asked to build Web pages for organizations in the community” or Example 2 “The students used the software to create word puzzles they could use to practice the focus vocabulary”. Although the students in these two groups have different language proficiency, they both have the opportunity to interact with teammates and people outside the classroom and have activities in the real world. Those are authentic audiences and tasks which cannot be achieved through traditional education methods.

Second, teachers should know that teaching is supposed to in accordance of the students’ educational and cultural backgrounds or aptitude, and that is possible through blogs. Students can get enough time to produce varied and creative language on blogs, receiving appropriate administering feedback from the teacher. Great feedbacks may motivate the students and get their attentions back.

Finally, blog has a work atmosphere with an ideal stress/anxiety level, which makes students feel comfortable to use the target language freely online, getting rid of the worrying of not being good enough to talk in front of others. Teacher can also make the students learn autonomously through blogs, like ask the learners to choose their own book to read and write short essays of the topics from those books. As Egbert said “Allowing learners to control some facets of their learning can help the teacher to provide for different language levels, interests, and learning styles.”

When I was creating my blog, I felt that everything is good except the title and the template of my blog. I picked a very poetic name for my blog in Chinese, so I tried to translate the words into English. Then I realized that it might not a proper way, because the culture between east and west are so different, there’s a chance that the translation might be misunderstood. About the template, I hope we can learn how to make our own template in the future; I want my blog to be attractive.

I’m not quite sure about what I am going to blog, but I do have some questions about learning a dialect and learning a language. I started to learn Chinese at the age of 8, before that, I spoke my dialect. But now, I speak Chinese even more proficiently than my dialect. What’s opposite, my English is far way worse than my Chinese, although I started to learn English just 6 years after I started to learn Chinese. So I think maybe I will post this on my blog.