Teaching L2 Culture

In your view, what is culture? Is it important to teach L2 culture? Why? Is it possible to teach L2 culture in the classroom setting? What are the limitations? How should culture be learned or taught? Use examples to support your points of view. 

Culture is one of these terms that many might find easy to understand, but hard to put into words. I would define culture as the collective art, customs, and institutions of a particular group of people - basically, if it is a defining characteristic of native L2 speakers, you can file it under culture. An L2's culture can be a motivating factor for many students to study a second language in the first place, so I think it is important that teachers incorporate culture into their lesson plans as best they can. 

Teaching culture is an important, but also challenging aspect of foreign language teaching. I think that teaching culture should start early on in language courses, even if it is as simple as the teacher relaying her/his personal experiences to the class through short anecdotes. Most language teachers should have plenty of personal stories about their experiences in the target culture to share with the class. In my own teaching, I found that most often I would not need to have anything planned the mention something cultural in class. A story would come arise organically from the lesson plan for the day. As long as these types of asides do not bring the class off track, a personal story about the L2 culture helps to keep the class lively and engaging for the student. A 1-2 minute break from a lesson on grammar is usually welcome.

Culture teaching can also be placed more deliberately into language curriculum by including authentic cultural material into lessons plans. For example, a teacher could use poetry, music, or other authentic works of art to teach a certain grammar point or create a listening/reading comprehension lesson. These types of lessons would then accomplish two things at once - helping students to acquire the L2 while at the same time learning about C2. When appropriately integrated into classroom learning, I think showing films in the L2 is also a great idea once students obtain at least intermediate listening skills. Almost all of my German teachers from throughout my life took special advantage of film to teach both culture and listening comprehension. I would even argue that my language classes made me appreciate the medium of film on a much deeper level than I previously had, because lessons based around films would force me to think critically and analyze film in a way that I hadn't before. Even if students are not able to discuss films completely in the L2, I think the cultural value of certain films in language learning can make language learning much more fun and help foster a lifelong interest in the L2.

There are of course limitations to teaching culture in the classroom and no lesson on culture can quite compare to actually being immersed in the C2. Although a language teacher can offer some limited exposure to the target culture, a language learner would ultimately learn more about the culture by experiencing it themselves. That is not to say that teachers should ignore culture completely though. Language instruction that connects the learning of a language to authentic materials produced in that language is most certainly valuable and should not be ignored in the less-than-ideal setting of the classroom.

Discussion #6: Teaching Culture

In your view, what is culture? Is it important to teach L2 culture? Why? Is it possible to teach L2 culture in the classroom setting? What are the limitations? How should culture be learned or taught? Use examples to support your points of view. 

Discussion #5: Free topic - Duration and frequency of FL classes

Last week in class we talked a little bit about the advantages and disadvantages of different class lengths and frequencies for foreign language classes.  In high school I taught 80 minute classes on alternating days, meaning I had one group of students 3 days a week and the next week I’d have them 2 days a week.  I think an 80-minute class in high school is just too much.  It was really challenging, in both planning and execution.  I would often devote about a half an hour to a game in many classes, because I couldn’t have the students sitting down for that long, especially my college-prep freshman.  Putting that much time into a game has its advantages and disadvantages.  It means students get really invested in the game and have enough rounds to really apply their skills; but if students are not engaged or really trying then it quickly becomes a waste of time.  On the weeks in high school when I only saw students twice, it was really hard to reinforce the concepts we were learning that week.  And on this alternating schedule, if students didn’t do their homework, they were routinely lost in class because they just weren’t practicing enough in or out of class. 

In Spanish 401 at UNH we have four 50-minute classes a week (Wednesday off).  Although college students are better equipped to sit for an 80-minute class than my high school students were, I like this schedule much better.  50 minutes is not a lot and I often run out of time, but now I feel that I use my time much more wisely.  With the online homework, students get a lot of practice outside of class, so I only do things in class that the students otherwise couldn’t do alone, or without their peers.  If I try to play a game, we usually only can do so for about 10 minutes, plus I have to explain the directions.  Sometimes I would like to have a little bit more time to devote to games because I honestly believe they are effective teaching tools.  On the whole, though, I feel it’s an efficient schedule.  We plan 401 in 10-minute increments tops, so in theory we are changing the activity enough to keep students engaged.  I do a lot fewer filler activities this way and I get to see the students 4 times a week.

What has been everyone else’s experience with class duration and frequency of foreign language classes?  Do you have a preference for how often and long classes should be?

Study Abroad Requirements (or: Why Every Student Should Study Abroad)

As dedicated language learners and aspiring language teachers, we all see the value in and opportunity afforded by any extended stay abroad. Having first gone abroad during my junior year of high school, I've spent a combined three years of my life living in German speaking countries. Those experiences have shaped the person that I am in a big way, and I'm sure my worldview would be very different had I not chosen to go abroad. I realize I am very fortunate to have had the opportunity to do this. I also realize that not every person is able to afford to travel abroad, but at times I feel that some kind of required study abroad experience, if organized the correct way and made affordable to all students, would only enhance the post-secondary education experience overall. The experience has the potential to be extremely formative and helps to increase a person's cultural sensitivity and global awareness.

Although we are living in a world connected by digital communication and a globalized economy, it is sometimes difficult to realize this from the vantage point of one cultural perspective. Travel to foreign cultures, especially those that speak a different language, can have a powerful effect on a developing mind. By traveling abroad, the cultures and places that you might read about on Wikipedia or in a documentary on Netflix become real, tangible, and personal. As some of us in this class can say from experience, "nothing beats actually being there." Furthermore, studying abroad can be a real boon to college graduates when they enter the work force. My experience in dealing with novel and foreign situations can be seen as a real asset by potential employers. Knowing a foreign language is also generally seen as an asset as well, even if it does not directly apply to a potential job's description. I believe that people who go abroad for an extended period of time and learn the local language are generally viewed as passionate, forward-thinking, and adaptable. Is this not exactly the types of people we need our educational system to produce going forward? The next century is going to be filled with challenges on a global scale, and it would serve us well to be educating young people be better global citizens. This is why I see so much value in studying abroad and I would love to see us work toward a higher education system that offers this opportunity to all students in a way that is affordable and sustainable.

What would a study abroad requirement look like? Would such a thing be feasible? Would it be better to work toward a nationalized study abroad program akin to the ERASMUS program in Europe? I invite you to share your thoughts in the comments below.

For more food for thought on this subject, check out this short series of articles on study abroad that appeared last year in the New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2013/10/17/should-more-americans-study-abroad

Speaking the Target Language in Class

As a foreign language teacher, what is your position on students speaking the target language in the classroom?

At first, I thought the answer to this question was fairly simple: of course I want the students to speak French in class. My cooperating teacher for my internship agrees with me, as she wants the students to speak ONLY the target language. However, this has been more challenging than I thought. When we hear the students speaking English in class, we prompt them to speak French. We tell them that i our classroom they need to speak only French, especially since that is the most effective way to learn a foreign language.

Some students in particular like to challenge us, as some refuse to speak French. If students ask to say something in English, sometimes we allow them to. But a couple of students in particular say "I'm just going to say this in English because I cannot say it in French." It has gotten to the point where I tell the students if they can't say it in French then they can't say it. If a student has a relevant question then I am a little more lenient, but would like them to at least make the effort in the target language.

We have tried to incorporate methods that make the students want to speak the target language. For instance, I went skydiving over the summer and I have a video of the experience. We made a deal with one of our classes that if they speak only French in class for an entire week, then we would show them the short video. Unfortunately the class spoke some English, so they will have to try again, but we were very impressed by their effort. I have been thinking of incentives for the students to speak only French. For instance giving the each student five poker chips at the beginning of the week. If they speak English then you take a poker chip away. At the end of the week the number of poker chips that they have left can equal extra credit or points towards something.

I wonder though how other foreign language teachers approach this situation. I observed a Spanish class on Friday because they were giving presentations about Barcelona. In between the presentations the students were speaking some English, and the teacher didn't seem to mind. If the students spoke to her in English, she replied back to them in Spanish. She didn't say anything to them about speaking only Spanish, but many students chose to only speak the target language.

I want to know your takes on this subject. Is it better to be lenient about speaking the target language, or strict about enforcing it? How do you think the students respond to each method?

Foreign languages in the elementary school

As an elementary student, I was lucky  enough to attend a school at which we were exposed to foreign-language education at a young age. I feel as though this is had a profound impact on my life long love ot languages. Although my Spanish education was not formally graded until sixth grade, I do feel as though I had benefits over some of my other friends who attended other elementary schools. The early exposure to foreign languages may give a student who is weak in the other areas another avenue where they can excel.

The typical curriculum in a foreign  language classroom includes much more of then being able to effectively communicate in the language. We all know of the importance of bringing culture into the foreign language classroom but I wonder if this is even more important at the elementary level? For me, it's hard to generate ideas about activities that would be appropriate for elementary level students surrounding target culture except for songs and games which I feel can have a certain amount of variety and effectiveness amongst elementary students.  One particular activity that I remember in my elementary school was fiesta night: a sort of carnival like atmosphere where foreign language students would have activities for the entire school community to learn about the target culture.  These kind of events can can create lasting memories for students and made pique  an interest in foreign languages

Disengaged Language Students

How can introductory language instructors at the university level manage students with very varying degrees of interest in and commitment to the course?

As a Spanish 401 instructor who has a relatively large class (22 students) I often feel frustrated by some of my students’ lack of interest in the course and lack of motivation to participate in class. I would guess that about a third of my class is very often disengaged, a third makes an effort to pay attention but rarely participates, and a final third really enjoys language learning and consistently participates. With such varying degrees of interest and engagement in the class, I often feel as though I end up teaching to one extreme or the other, depending on how my students are reacting to the lesson plan on that particular day. Given the large number of students, it is often difficult to single out every individual who consistently avoids participating, and when I do randomly call on such students, they sometimes have no idea what is going on and I end up feeling slightly guilty for potentially embarrassing them.

I have inferred that a small number of my quiet and sometimes disengaged students may be behaving in such a way out of anxiety, but others are obviously just disinterested. These disinterested students are taking my course out of necessity (i.e. to fulfill a discovery requirement), never come to office hours for extra help, and tend to fall behind on exams. Many just cram to memorize material for the test or quiz, but then make no effort to retain such information. This becomes problematic when I discover that some students, for example, are trying to learn more complex grammatical structures like “gustar” and “ir,” and yet have not yet committed to memory somewhat basic, yet ESCENTIAL concepts like how to conjugate regular “-ar,” “-er,” and “-ir” verbs. I obviously feel responsible for the success or failure of my students, yet it is very difficult to teach/help those who do not help themselves.

My disengaged students and their general lack of effort certainly make me nervous, but they also make it difficult to teach those students who truly want to learn Spanish. When the same 4 or 5 students are the only ones to participate in class, it makes the classroom dynamic somewhat awkward and I end up spending too much class time trying to encourage others to join in, or waiting for those who I have called on to figure out what page we are on or which question we are reviewing. I can tell that this becomes quite annoying to my very motivated students, who are eager to learn more and actually practice the language. I am more than happy to slow down the class for individuals who have questions, which obviously happens, but I am always frustrated when I have to waste time forcing students to participate.

My experience teaching 401 makes me wonder if UNH should implement some sort of alternative language class that caters to those students who are only taking a language to fulfill a discovery requirement. I would assume that other universities may have similar systems, in which students who only want to learn the bare minimum can do so without enrolling in such a fast-paced language course, which our Spanish 401 truly is. Perhaps there could be a class like “Spanish for travelers” or “Spanish basics,” where students who do not really want to learn a language could develop some basic conversational or “survival” language skills. This would save such students from having to enroll in a more serious language course, and would also make regular Spanish or French 401 courses more interesting for those students who truly do want to learn. University language courses are obviously easier to teach that those taught in high schools, in that instructors rarely have to address behavioral issues, but the lack of “levels” at the university level can sometimes be challenging, as I explained above. 

Elementary Foreign Language Education

There are tons of articles that debate whether starting foreign language education in elementary school is a better model than waiting until high school. As someone who loves foreign languages, I am super jealous of my peers who learned two languages from birth because their family was bilingual. I am also super jealous of many European countries where students learn two languages throughout school or the people who are decent with 5 or so languages by the time they graduate high school. I have read that learning 2 languages from birth makes it easier to learn foreign languages later on with a bunch of different theories explaining why, maybe this applies to younger children as well. For those reasons and many others, having foreign language education in the curriculum for elementary schools may be much more beneficial than having just foreign language courses in high school.

A few years ago in my hometown of Rochester, they started what is called a Magnet school. One of the key components of this school is that there is daily instruction in French. One of my high school French teachers was in charge of planning the curriculum and I asked her a lot of questions about it. I was curious as to what equivalent level of French they would be at by the end of 5th grade and she said only French 1 which shocked me. That not only did not make sense to me, but also seemed like a waste of time then if they were having DAILY instruction in French from K-5. However, she sort of explained it by saying that this is how elementary foreign language education works and that they would be able to learn more French much more quickly and proficiently than their high school counterparts.

Should foreign language be taught much earlier on, particularly here in the USA? My foreign language loving side says yes, as the research seems to be on that side. However, I still think there are many other important things that need to be taught that there is not enough time for already. Another component of the Magnet school in Rochester is that the school year is 200 days instead of the usual 180, so they have made time for the French instruction. With all this said, I would totally be for getting rid of the art or music special and adding a foreign language special perhaps, but I do not think the rest of America, or even Rochester, would agree with me.

Free Topic

So often I remember sitting in Spanish class and hearing people complain about the class. They did not see the point and were not engaged. I personally think that the teachers that I had were pretty good, but they could not engage everyone. Another thing is that most of the engaged students were only engaged because they wanted a good grade, not because they enjoyed the subject matter. So my question is how do we get students interested in the languages we are teaching for the sake of learning the language?

Obviously languages are not for everyone, and you will never get everyone to like them, but I would like to find ways to get more students engaged for the sake of learning the language versus just getting a good grade. My main thought is to expose them to the culture associated to the language as much as possible and show them that it is something that exists outside of the classroom. To me as a language student this is the best part about learning a language, making connections with a different part of the world.

The question that stems from that is how do we make these connections without it seeming like a chore for the students. I know lots of teachers try to use the pop culture of the target culture, which does work, along with showing students places they could go to. These work, and I will use them, but I want to learn some new ways to get students interested. There are so many aspects to a foreign culture that could attract the attention of students, but which ones are the most effective, and the most teachable? Ideally we would all just take our students to the countries of our target languages but we can not do that. Photos of interesting aspects of the cultures help, but are not the same either. Bringing in native speakers would help, but can be difficult to arrange, especially for multiple classes. So what other methods can you guys think of?

#5 Free Topic: The greatest limitations in FL teaching

My question is as followed: As a learner or a teacher, what are the greatest limitations of success in learning/teaching a foreign language?

Personally, I believe that time is one of the greatest limitations on FL teaching and learning.  How can we expect a teacher to teach students to comprehend and produce a language proficiently in a few 50-90 minute sessions a week for a few months? Can students truly pick up on a language with any sort of mastery in this amount of time?  Even for students who take a language each school year, the break in between their study can be detrimental.

On average, my answer would be no.  There simply is not enough quality time spent learning and interacting with a language in most school settings (High-schools or university classes that meet a few hours each week per semester.)  Even students who learn the language in an immersed setting (like a study-abroad, or if they have moved to a new country) take many months of nearly 24/7 practice to become skilled in the language.

Students need to spend class-time learning new grammar forms and complex vocabulary, about which they probably have many questions and truly require the input of an instructor.  There is hardly enough time to cover this material, which leaves little time for instructors to review or practice the material in a meaningful, interactive way.

I believe that assigning homework is one way that instructors can supplement and review the material they have learned in class, but it is difficult to make up for face-to-face learning.  Languages are interactive, and though homework can be beneficial to comprehension/memorization of form and vocabulary, it is almost impossible to replicate in-person instruction.  Though technology might be able to bridge some of these gaps, some still seem to wide.

Though I am not sure whether or not there is any way to change the fact that classroom time is too limited to produce effective communicators in a FL under normal teaching conditions, perhaps our expectations should change.  Education administrators/evaluators often seem surprised to learn that most students retain little of their FL instruction, and that few become actually proficient in the language after they finish their studies (especially at the HS level).

I would attribute the success of some students to master a language during their educational career to their own supplemental learning—for it is nearly impossible to achieve within the classroom.

I made a quick survey on SurveyMonkey, please share your thoughts:
https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/GR6P92Q

Technology in the Classroom

I enjoyed watching this week’s video, mostly because it was not what I had expected. I had assumed that the video would focus on techniques that teachers are already using in the classroom, but instead the creator (of the video) decided to allow student’s the opportunity to express their own opinions related to the use of technology. Although I agree with Audrey’s comment that the video is very aesthetically pleasing, I also have to acknowledge the validity of Troy’s skepticism. I have a hard time believing that the children featured came up with the tagline “engage me,” and question the “authenticity” of their written comments. Surely, these students may actually have developed the concept of this video themselves, but I think that this is highly unlikely. I do not, however, question the clear “facts” presented in this video related to individual student achievements. I am sure that the student who said he blogs actually does blog, and that the boy who claimed to have shared his podcast at a national conference truly did so.

My biggest issue, I guess, is that the students featured do NOT seem to represent the average primary school student, especially in this country. Each student pictured advocates for the use of technology in the classroom not because he or she simply wants to play on his or her iPad, but rather because he or she believe that the use of such devices will enhance his or her learning experience. Quickly think to yourself, how many primary school students that you know would ask to use their iPhones, Ipads, Gameboys, etc. so that they can become “world citizens” and enrich their overall academic experience? I can only think of a few. My point is that the video seems to present a rather elite group of primary school students who certainly benefit from the use of technology in the classroom, but such access to technological devices may not work for the “average” student let alone a below average student. Putting Ipads or tablets in students’ hands (especially elementary and middle school students) during class time seems like a distraction. I feel as though the majority of students will focus far more on the technology they are using than they will on the information that they are accessing with that technology.

My criticism of the video, however, does not mean that I am against using technology in the classroom. On the contrary, I think that technology can be an incredible asset to learning, and can help students connect to our now much globalized, network-heavy world. My article focuses on the use of wikis for collaborative writing, and stresses the idea that such practice can actually enhance second language learning by allowing students to form a network-enhanced learning community. By being able to write collaboratively (meaning that a group of students shares a communal writing space, like a wiki, and then can work to edit/revise that space as a group), students are able to learn from each other and help one another to improve language accuracy. Writing becomes a positive, lower-anxiety task, and students develop much more of a community than they would in a traditional classroom setting. I like the idea of the wiki, and imagine that using a wiki for collaborative writing may be a very interesting tool when conducting an online class, for example, especially when students may not be from the same state or even country. I cannot imagine how exciting it would be to work on a collaborative writing project with students from across the country and the world, in which each individual has an equal opportunity to contribute. Students would not only aid each other in improving language accuracy, but will also be able so share and discuss very diverse ideas.       

Technology in the Language Classroom

Given its immense variety of applications in the foreign language classroom, I think technology is a valuable tool when put in the hands of an experienced language teacher. The amount of tools widely available to people for the creation of creative content - be it music, video, or written content - and the ease with which that content can be shared with a global audience online, has ushered in a new age of creativity driven by "ordinary" people. As many of these tools (Audacity, iMovie, Garage Band) and publishing platforms (Blogger, Wiki, Twitter, Podcasts) are available for free or with minimal startup costs, language teachers should have little trouble integrating technology into their classrooms.

The article I read for this week dealt with a study of communicative collaboration between American and Spanish university students, who used blogs and podcasts to produce original content on a variety of discussion topics in their L2s, which were the subject to comment and discussion from their native target-language-speaking peers. Overall the study found that while the projects were very meaningful and productive to students in terms of cultural learning and careful language use, they also found that these kinds of projects tend to be far more time consuming than run-of-the-mill language class assignments. Some of the students had to put in time to learn new software in order to even produce the content needed to complete the assignment. It is therefore essential, the study found, that the appropriate amount of time be spent on learning how to use these tools prior to using them. For this reason, I feel that "tech-heavy" language teaching can only be really effective for longer-term projects that would continue for an entire semester or even over the course of an academic year. The time you need to get students comfortable with the technology is only well spent if the scope of the project is large enough. Given the large amount of training, these tools wouldn't be appropriate for one-off assignments. Instead, an appropriate amount of time needs to be given to get comfortable with the technology (perhaps through shorter practice assignments at the beginning) and to produce the content being asked of the students.

I could easily see myself using something like podcasts or blogs in my own classroom, especially at the higher levels when it is more appropriate to expect students to produce meaningful content in the L2. Lower level students might not have enough skills to make a 10 minute podcast on something like American Music or University Life. Instead, a lower level student might benefit from smaller scope projects using technology, such as using AudioBoo or VoiceThread to record some simple assignments to check mainly for pronunciation accuracy. For advanced or upper-intermediate students though, I could easily see myself planning a long term cross-cultural exchange project using technology. Having students interact with native speakers over a long period of time would encourage careful and accurate language use and promote cross cultural understanding in a way that is second only to traveling to the native culture. It is therefore an extremely valuable tool.

Technology in the foreign language classroom

I found the video to be somewhat ineffective because it didn't really provoke any outstanding thoughts in me.  I would've found it more interesting to see the students demonstrating the technology and how they thought it could be used in the classroom.  The fact that I am an audio learner may have had some affect on why I didn't find this video and effective tool for me. I watched the video twice to see if I missed something but it really didn't grab my attention. I did find it interesting to recognize how many different avenues of technology can be used in the classroom.

I do think that technology can be a beneficial asset to any classroom no matter what the subject is.  in a foreign language classroom I think there are specific technologies that are more effective than others, for example I think that Skype is a fantastic tool an gives students an opportunity for face-to-face interactions with people who use that language in their daily lives, native speakers, or anyone fluent in the language.  As I have stated before I have several people that I Skype with to practice languages I consider them like a penpal only it's an audio language pal.

Twitter is technology I  actually have not used before and I found this article about Twitter use in intermediate Italian classes to be quite interesting as it spoke about microblogging which is the use of small audio or image clips into conversations about a specific topic. I wonder if this could be effective in bringing grammar into the technology by possibly having students listen to each other or read another's tweet and in turn give and receive feedback.

Overall, I do think the technology is an effective tool to be used in the foreign language classroom. Seeing as we live in a world that is becoming more and more technologically centered daily, I do believe that when teachers are planning their lessons they must take into account the latest technological trends and see if they can be easily applied to their class or lesson.

Technology Discussion

(1) View and comment on the video. 

(2) Based on the technology article you have read, do you feel that technology is an asset to teaching foreign languages or do you prefer not to use it? Why? How do you feel about using social networking tools, such as Blog, Wiki, Facebook, Twitter or Skype to supplement and support language teaching? Use examples to justify your answers. 


First of all, videos where they hold signs up like that bug me. Also, I love the ending where it says "Thank you to the children of Robin Hood School, Birmingham for sharing their thoughts with us." That is just a hoax. Clearly this was an adult's idea who put this entire thing together instructing the children what to do. Also, there are little if any 3rd-graders who are blogging, on wikis, or doing podcasts. Most of the other statements from the video seem valid however.

I do think technology should have a bigger role in school, both in the classroom and at home. Currently, most teachers are not taking advantage of all of the tools at their disposal. Of course the poorer the community the harder it is to fully utilize technology. While technology should have an increasing role in school, it naturally will have an increasing role as old teachers retire and new teachers who are more use to technology begin.

My technology article on podcasts and pronunciation was not very good for supporting technology in teaching foreign languages. The study involved 8 critiqued with feedback pronunciation podcasts from each student over the course of a semester at the college level and found hardly any improvement in pronunciation from the students.

With that said, I think technology in most classes is great. One of the greatest things about teaching foreign language is you can vary instruction greatly, and therefore make the class and learning more fun, unlike with teaching a subject like math, where there are really only a few different ways you can teach and run a classroom. Technology gives us a hundred more tools for varying our lesson plans and the homework that we give. As I have said before, it gives us great tools for teaching and learning the real 5 major components of foreign language which is listening, speaking, reading, writing, and culture.

I can mostly see myself using the blog of those 5 listed to supplement learning. I would use it in a way like this blog where everyone can post in the L2 and then comment on their peers' posts in the L2. Facebook would be cool to use for one of those buddy programs where you get paired up with someone from another country who is learning your L1 and speaks your L2. You could use the messaging tool for the letters and then the photos would be neat culturally. Also, because you would be messaging each other so much, each others' statuses/posts would near the top of your feed every time which would be good too.

I don't really see a very effective or practical use for Twitter; it seems to me there are probably better options for whatever you may want to use Twitter for. Skype is just awkward and I would never make my students do that. :)

Response to Discussion #4: Digital Technology for L2 Learning and Teaching

(1) View and comment on the video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZokqjjIy77Y
(2) Based on the technology article you have read, do you feel that technology is an asset to teaching foreign languages or do you prefer not to use it? Why? How do you feel about using social networking tools, such as Blog, Wiki, Facebook, Twitter or Skype to supplement and support language teaching? Use examples to justify your answers. 

From an aesthetic standpoint, I thought the video was a good way to use technology to advocate for technology, although in retrospect holding up cards was not very technologically-involved.  But in all seriousness, the video raises a good question – if kids are so involved with technology outside of school, why shouldn’t educators harness that for pedagogical purposes?  If kids are happy when they’re on their iPads or game consoles, why not have them use that to help them learn? 

I think technology is a fantastic tool but that it should be used judiciously in an educational setting.  In the electronic literature class I am taking we are currently learning how electronic poetry is most effective when the technology used to make it enhances the effect of the poem.  If the poem works just as well in print as it does when presented through a software program, then there isn’t much point in drawing in the technology.  I think the same thing goes for technology in the classroom: if the lesson isn’t enhanced by technology and the same effect could be achieved with “old school” methods, then the technology is just a distraction. 

In my freshman year English class at UNH we had to create a Twitter account and tweet comments and links to articles we were reading.  The theme we had to focus on was healthy living at college.  I think some weekends we would have a minimum quota of tweets to complete.  At the time (five years ago), I hated this assignment, in part because at the time I was morally opposed to Twitter as a form of social media (a conviction I have since abandoned), but also because I was unaware of Twitter’s potential for idea sharing and networking.  At the time I thought it was mostly just a platform only for the equivalent of Facebook statuses, which I figured was of no use to anyone.  I guess you could argue that five years ago Twitter hadn’t really caught on like it has today, so many of my classmates felt the same as I did.  Surely we were instructed on how to use hashtags, but I wonder if we had done a little more exploring of the site and became more well-versed in the ins and outs of Twitter if we would have liked it any better…

I think I could write a lot more about this but I will restrict myself to one more example, and that is this blog, where I think technology has been well-integrated so far.  I have had several classes that had blogs or discussion boards, but none were so successful as this one.  I think it’s because we are required to make one post and 3 comments each week.  In other classes it was optional, or there were fewer required posts, and I could easily get away without reading my classmates’ discussion posts.  Because I have to make those 3 comments, I read everyone’s blog entry, and it’s pretty interesting, actually, because although we are all answering the same question, everyone comes up with different things.

What I would like to hear from you guys, though, is how do you think Facebook could be used to enhance teaching?  That is one form of social media that seems particularly social to me and I’m not sure how I would use it in an educational setting and not have it be an invasion of privacy.  Please comment below if you have thoughts. 

Blog Discussion #4

I found this video clip to be very interesting, and certainly relevant in the time that we will be teaching. After having read the article for this week, I find this to be even more intriguing than I found it to be before. My cooperating teacher has some very traditional methods that she uses in her classroom, and I have noticed that she uses less technology in her classroom than many of the other language teachers. I find that incorporating technology into the classroom, especially in FL classrooms, can be extremely beneficial to the students. I observed a French teacher at Exeter High School that incorporated technology into her homework assignments using the website: lingtlanguage.com. Standard and traditional homework assignments were restricted to mostly reading and writing, but many forms of technology now enable FL teachers to practice listening and speaking outside of class.

Another benefit of technology that I read about in the article was the ability to self-reflect in the use of online blogs or journals. Students find the blogs to be a good way to reflect on what they have learned, whether it be in class, or in a study-abroad situation. These documented learning moments are also shared with classmates, or made public depending on privacy settings, and are therefore available to many more people than if a student were simply to write an essay for a teacher. When I spent a semester in Dijon, France, I kept a blog mostly as a tool to update my friends and family back home in the US. However, I still find it useful to go back and look at what I experienced and learned while I was there. In these learning situations, these experiences can be shared or made public, and you can benefit from reading and learning about other people's experiences.

The part that touched me, perhaps the most, was when the student help up the sign that showed how a public blog post is accessible to more students, and more beneficial to those students. I had never really considered before how private homework assignments can be when they are simply handed in to the teacher. In the article that I read, a lot of the students admitted that they put more effort and thought into what they were writing when they knew that their peers were going to be reading their thoughts in addition to their teacher or professor.

One thing to keep in mind as the world of education becomes more technology based is that it isn't safe to make assumptions about the access that students have to technology, especially in high school. A teacher at EHS told me how she was reminding one of her students of something they had to do. She made the assumption that he had a smart phone and could simply set a reminder in his phone. When she suggested that, he responded by saying that he didn't own a cell phone. While I think that technology can do worlds of good in education, we have to be sure to provide the students with the technology that is necessary to complete the work. (Otherwise, we would need to provide the students with alternate assignments that are not technology based.)

Perhaps one of the largest advantages that technology has, that would be particularly useful in any FL classroom, is that it has the power to connect students across the world. American students in a French high school classroom can write to French students, and correspond with pen-pals. They are also able to connect through other modes of communication such as blogs. Although, I see no reason to incorporate medias such as Facebook and Twitter into lesson plans. I find that these two in particular, are a larger distraction than aid for the students. In addition, they can benefit in the exact same way using other, more useful forms of technology such as blogs.

Discussion Number Four

I personally have very mixed feelings about this video. I definitely agree that we should use a variety of methods to engage our students, and that more modern methods may make them more interested in the material that we are teaching. The problem is that it is very difficult to create new methods using technology, that are effective. I am not saying we should not, but that we need to be careful in how we construct our classrooms. I admit I am also very skeptical about the idea of students making their own homework or lessons. I know there are schools where this works, but I feel like some students would purposefully make their work way too easy. Plus, I feel like learning a foreign language specifically requires structure that individual learning has a hard time providing.

Despite this technology can provide experiences that traditional teaching could never provide. With technology students can be exposed to so much more of the language and culture than they ever could otherwise. My favorite example is a website from the University of Texas that has native speakers from a variety of Spanish speaking countries talking about various topics ranging from food to what life would be like without electricity. Language learners at any level can use this tool to work on their pronunciation, accent, and listening skills all at once.

http://www.laits.utexas.edu/spe/

There are countless online tools that can be used and they are great to engage the attention of students. Seeing the target language being used within the culture is an eye opening experience that students will enjoy, and validate their language learning with.

As for various forms of social media, I think blogging and skype are both useful. Blogging is good for writing and reading skills, while Skype can be used for speaking skills, listening skills, and for cultural exchange with native speakers. In the article I read blogging was used to reflect on the study abroad experiences of students in Spain, and I thought it was a great use of technology. Students were forced to talk to Native Speakers for interviews, evaluate the culture, and practice their writing skills.  I honestly can not think of how you could use Twitter or Facebook, so I would avoid them. I also feel like they could easily turn into distractions with their own personal accounts.

Technology being a distraction is honestly my biggest worry. There are so many factors that could make technology a hindrance in the classroom, including technological problems, students misusing it, and time spent trying to teach students how to use the technology are my first thoughts. Once again, teachers just have to very careful with what kind of technology they use, and how they use it.

Response to Discussion #4

Technology in the Classroom: An asset, or a distraction?

I believe that technology can be an asset FL teaching—though I believe it has both limits and disadvantages in some circumstances.  I believe that it is important to define "technology" more specifically.  Is a projector still considered "technology?" How about a power-point presentation?  

 I believe than in order to be an effective teacher who presents "authentic" material in the 21st century, one must provide a certain amount of tech-related information/activities to students.  Our world (regardless of nation or culture) becomes defined more and more each day by our interactions with "technology." In order to provide authentic, meaningful, material or achieve "real world skills," teaching techniques must reflect this.  I have one anecdote to highlight this fact:

During my study-abroad in Dijon, I took an art history class that focused on French architecture, sculptures and paintings.  It was a large lecture of about 100 students, all of whom were French, apart from myself and a few of my fellow anglophones.  It was a difficult course, not due to the material, but the way it was presented.  I took thirteen weeks of art history without seeing a single representation of a single piece of art: not on a slideshow, a transparency, a print out; not even a crudely sketched imitation on the blackboard.  My professor simply read from her script, which along with the historical context and information about the artist, included written descriptions of the works.  It was as if the class were geared toward the visually impaired.  

I would argue that this class would have been more palatable with the help of technology.  A few photos on a powerpoint; a video of a "tour" of a notable cathedral.  

I believe such visual aids are only the tip of the iceberg in terms of technology and its usefulness in the classroom.  I am very intrigued by the opportunities that programs such as Skype (and online interactions with speakers of the target language)can provide to cultural learning.  I think that Voicethread is a valuable resource for speaking, pronunciation and listening skills.  Blogs have a great potential for encouraging participation among students and engaging them to take responsibility for their learning.

But their downfalls are plentiful: 1. Potential for "technical difficulties;" 2. They can sometimes increase the time it takes to teach a certain point, or to complete a homework task because infallibly, one must "wait" for the computer/gadget/internet. 3. Too many tech-related assignments can spread a class too thin—making it too complex to follow, for students to remember assignments and where to complete them. 4. They sometimes create an interruption of the cohesiveness of the class, taking away from the material with their added complexity.

As for social media such as Twitter, Facebook and Instagram— I see little need to incorporate them into the classroom.  I believe that students already spend too much time/place too much importance on these medias already, and perhaps they should be left at home.  I think it is important to take into account how much "screen time" we all have in our lives already, and make certain that technology is truly a benefit that can not gained in some other way before we assign them to students.