Tech EDGE - Teaching World Language with Technology Introduction

Tech EDGE Author

04/05/2023 Added

2 Plays

Description

Introduction to Teaching World Language with Technology

Searchable Transcript

Search:

[00:00:00.640](uplifting music)
[00:00:04.980]We're starting a new series.
[00:00:06.780]And in this series,
[00:00:07.830]we're exploring how technology can help
[00:00:10.800]teaching world language.
[00:00:12.330]And we've got Chrystal with us.
[00:00:13.560]And my first question to Chrystal is really,
[00:00:16.050]why do we want to use technology
[00:00:18.930]in the world language classroom?
[00:00:21.540]Technology brings new possibilities
[00:00:24.720]to the world language classroom.
[00:00:26.910]It provides innovative ways for teachers to engage students
[00:00:31.650]and also it helps teachers to motivate learners,
[00:00:34.470]especially those learners who are not very
[00:00:37.620]into world language learning at the very beginning.
[00:00:40.380]And the teachers can create games, technology platforms,
[00:00:46.350]so that learners can play while they're learning
[00:00:50.520]without being aware of the learning part.
[00:00:53.580]So that's pretty cool.
[00:00:56.070]Okay, so learning is one of these things
[00:00:59.670]that we talk a lot about, gamification, making games,
[00:01:03.720]and making just the learning process a little bit more fun.
[00:01:07.590]And the other thing is obviously,
[00:01:10.080]that we're orienting kids to use things
[00:01:13.170]they're using anyway.
[00:01:14.850]And especially here in the United States
[00:01:17.010]when we're teaching world language really in high school.
[00:01:19.650]In other countries, we start a lot earlier.
[00:01:21.960]In the United States, in some places,
[00:01:23.580]we start earlier but not always.
[00:01:25.800]And so it is really at that age
[00:01:29.310]where most of them, not all,
[00:01:30.930]but many, many of them have access to technology,
[00:01:33.630]whether it's school supply technology.
[00:01:35.700]For example, in the school districts my kids go to,
[00:01:38.940]it's a Chromebook, but it can be a personal device,
[00:01:42.030]it can be an iPad, my favorite device,
[00:01:44.550]or it can be other devices as well.
[00:01:47.670]They also have their phones very often.
[00:01:49.830]So providing them something they have access to
[00:01:52.530]and can be playful in things
[00:01:54.450]that are more used to it usually helps.
[00:01:58.800]What else works in the classroom with technology?
[00:02:02.220]I think it also helps teachers to save time
[00:02:05.730]because, you know, once you create a game
[00:02:08.610]or some activities on the platform,
[00:02:12.000]it's easier for teachers to, you know, adapt
[00:02:14.820]to a different situation, different classroom
[00:02:18.540]for different group of students.
[00:02:20.760]And also, it saves designing time and grading time
[00:02:24.840]because a lot of platforms
[00:02:26.100]actually provide feedback on the spot.
[00:02:29.310]When students finish everything,
[00:02:30.840]the feedback is there for them to review.
[00:02:33.840]But this really helps teachers
[00:02:35.640]because teachers do not have to grade everything
[00:02:39.270]they assign to students.
[00:02:41.070]So when I think about that,
[00:02:43.110]I think about what is the barrier?
[00:02:45.570]And the barrier often,
[00:02:47.100]there are a few barriers to teachers using technology,
[00:02:49.950]and I think the first of them is finding the right things
[00:02:52.950]to use in the language classroom.
[00:02:54.990]And this is why we're here.
[00:02:56.220]We're gonna help you find the right things
[00:02:58.680]you can can use in your classroom.
[00:03:00.180]It's not gonna be everything that's possible,
[00:03:02.370]but it's gonna give you some tools that you can start using.
[00:03:05.970]The second thing is there is a cost at the beginning.
[00:03:08.730]You have to select, you have to find activities
[00:03:11.430]or to create the activities,
[00:03:13.230]and that's a little bit of a barrier,
[00:03:15.000]but you have to think about it, I think,
[00:03:17.310]in a way that is connected to your goals.
[00:03:21.000]We want kids to learn and that will help them learn better.
[00:03:23.550]And the second one, and that is really important,
[00:03:26.100]is there will be some work at the beginning,
[00:03:28.200]but as you get used to it
[00:03:30.420]and as you create these activities,
[00:03:32.550]you can just use them again and again and again.
[00:03:35.310]And you don't have to create them
[00:03:37.500]every semester from scratch.
[00:03:39.060]Just like anything else you're creating for your classroom,
[00:03:41.370]once you have it, you can change it a little bit
[00:03:43.890]but it's there, ready to be used.
[00:03:46.380]So what else is happening in using technology?
[00:03:50.850]I think, nowadays, we are trying to include
[00:03:53.370]as many students as possible in the classroom.
[00:03:56.460]And, you know, most of them have,
[00:03:58.260]like, a different background,
[00:04:01.500]ethnic background, linguistic background,
[00:04:03.570]family background, you know,
[00:04:05.490]and educational background in some situations.
[00:04:09.270]And technology actually provide some tools
[00:04:15.330]to make inclusion and equity real and easier
[00:04:19.500]in world language classrooms.
[00:04:21.060]So we can have different versions of the same activity
[00:04:25.590]and adapt it to student level.
[00:04:27.300]So in this way, it's easier for teachers
[00:04:30.960]to differentiate in their instruction
[00:04:34.230]and it's also easier for students to follow along.
[00:04:36.990]They can't just, you know,
[00:04:38.970]practice with the ones that are created for them.
[00:04:42.510]I mean, modified for them.
[00:04:46.080]So it's easier for inclusion.
[00:04:49.080]And I think about inclusion also in a few different ways.
[00:04:52.380]When we think about, for example,
[00:04:53.760]students who have problems showing up to school
[00:04:59.550]for health reasons, for family reasons, for other reasons,
[00:05:03.630]you're providing them another access point to the material
[00:05:06.990]that allows them more than just somebody's notes.
[00:05:10.350]And I know somebody's notes is really helpful
[00:05:12.750]maybe in social studies, maybe not,
[00:05:15.180]but it is not really helpful
[00:05:20.138]when you talk about foreign language
[00:05:21.660]or studying world language,
[00:05:23.040]because those single words and a few spellings
[00:05:26.610]does not really help you understand what happened.
[00:05:29.700]But technology can help deliver
[00:05:31.740]the vocabulary, the syntactic structure,
[00:05:33.960]whatever you're teaching that day, comprehension,
[00:05:37.890]because it has a full activity with context and everything.
[00:05:41.640]So that's one way to make inclusion and equity.
[00:05:45.120]I think that the other thing
[00:05:46.590]is students can articulate their knowledge
[00:05:51.750]in different ways that is appropriate to them.
[00:05:55.770]And maybe the most important,
[00:05:57.180]especially for early learners,
[00:05:58.860]and that is that sense of safety.
[00:06:04.500]And really, we talk about the emotional filter,
[00:06:08.820]to borrow the phrase from research.
[00:06:12.150]You feel really insecure speaking
[00:06:14.340]in a new language at the beginning.
[00:06:16.650]And you don't want to sound
[00:06:19.230]like you don't know what you're doing.
[00:06:20.670]It makes you feel really uncomfortable at times.
[00:06:24.600]And technology helps negotiate that, especially early on,
[00:06:27.750]because you're potentially talking to a machine.
[00:06:29.670]You're recording yourself, you're creating a video,
[00:06:31.650]you're creating an audio, you're drawing.
[00:06:35.100]So it's a way to be actively using the language
[00:06:39.090]without that sense of judgment.
[00:06:40.920]And then when you're ready, you can articulate that wider.
[00:06:44.730]So especially if you're shy, if you are not very confident,
[00:06:49.350]it does allow you to have another access point
[00:06:52.770]to actually actively pronouncing the language.
[00:06:55.560]And we know from our language
[00:06:57.120]is written skill is really important.
[00:07:00.060]Reading and writing are critical skills,
[00:07:02.490]but the oral skills are just as important
[00:07:04.650]to listening and speaking,
[00:07:06.900]and speaking is that critical element
[00:07:09.600]that is so, so hard.
[00:07:11.550]I mean, I've been to China,
[00:07:12.630]I've tried to say a few words in Chinese.
[00:07:15.383]I am not very good at that,
[00:07:17.220]although we're both operating right now
[00:07:18.780]in our second language.
[00:07:20.070]So that is also true.
[00:07:22.140]So these are, again, ways to think
[00:07:25.140]about how do we make this a tool of inclusion and equity,
[00:07:29.430]and that's really important,
[00:07:31.050]because technology can, on the other side,
[00:07:33.660]also be a tool of separating and keeping people out.
[00:07:37.770]So we need to make sure that that technology
[00:07:40.350]is truly accessible, that we're really thinking about them.
[00:07:43.890]Yes, I 100% agree with you.
[00:07:49.650]Yeah, and also I would like to point out,
[00:07:51.930]like, a lot of teachers and students
[00:07:54.480]are using, like, now it's called Flip.
[00:07:59.025]Yeah.
[00:07:59.858]Yeah, students actually can,
[00:08:01.620]those students who are not comfortable,
[00:08:04.110]they can record their voices and they can delete
[00:08:08.100]and redo it until they're ready
[00:08:10.980]to share it with their teachers and, you know, friends,
[00:08:14.520]instead of doing it, you know on the spot in the classroom.
[00:08:19.140]That's a much easier way for them to do it, yes.
[00:08:22.080]And so again, going back to that point
[00:08:24.330]that speaking is one of those critical skills
[00:08:26.760]that is one of the hardest
[00:08:28.320]for world language teachers to get to
[00:08:31.170]is that these technologies
[00:08:33.870]actually allow a new access point.
[00:08:36.150]And we often talk about affordances.
[00:08:38.010]I mean, we write together occasionally about this topic.
[00:08:40.980]And we do research about this topic.
[00:08:42.840]And one of the things that we are highly aware of
[00:08:46.410]is how is technology really innovating?
[00:08:48.510]Because we're not saying,
[00:08:51.120]do what you're doing on paper just on the technology.
[00:08:53.880]Because if that's all you're doing
[00:08:55.350]and it's not making it more efficient
[00:08:57.270]or more productive learning, then it's pointless.
[00:09:00.720]I mean, we can use paper, paper is fine,
[00:09:03.510]but one of the affordances here
[00:09:06.120]and that's a term we like to use,
[00:09:07.560]it's like, what is it about this design
[00:09:10.140]that makes it inherently different?
[00:09:11.880]And the affordance here is the ability
[00:09:13.980]to record video or audio that allows a lot of practice.
[00:09:19.050]And if you think about the classroom of 20,
[00:09:21.360]if everybody's doing practice in front of the teachers,
[00:09:24.450]you've got two or three kids practicing
[00:09:26.370]at any point in time.
[00:09:27.990]But if you're using technology,
[00:09:30.330]all 20 can be each producing speech
[00:09:33.450]at the same time and practicing.
[00:09:35.580]That is a lot more practice
[00:09:37.920]in that very, very difficult realm
[00:09:40.500]of speaking and listening.
[00:09:43.080]So what are we gonna do?
[00:09:45.000]We're gonna have a series of about HOs
[00:09:47.400]where we're going to really bring technologies
[00:09:52.110]that we think are ready to be used in the classroom,
[00:09:55.020]in the world language classroom specifically,
[00:09:57.690]although some of them are technologies
[00:09:59.160]that are available, you know, across multiple domains.
[00:10:02.220]And we're gonna have fun doing it.
[00:10:04.294](uplifting music)

The screen size you are trying to search captions on is too small!

You can always jump over to MediaHub and check it out there.

Comments

0 Comments

Tech EDGE - Teaching World Language with Technology Introduction

Description

Searchable Transcript

Comments icon comment

Related Channels

Comments