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2010
Task-Based Language Learning
The Incorporation of ICTs into




                                                Distinguished Fulbright Awards
                                                                   in Teaching




                                                                                 This document presents the process as well as the final
                                                                                 product of my inquiry carried out throughout the 2010
                                                                                 Fall semester at University of Maryland and three Publics
                                                                                 Schools as part of the Fulbright program for
                                                                                 Distinguished Awards in Teaching. I have focused my
                                                                                 research on how New Technologies of Information and
                                                                                 Communication are being incorporated to the teaching of
                                                                                 languages in general and to Task-Based Learning
                                                                                 specifically.

                                    Aurelia García
                                 aure.garcia09@gmail.com

                                 home country: ARGENTINA
                                        host country: USA
AURELIA M. GARCIA




ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

       I am grateful to the Fulbright Commission, Bureau of Educational and
Cultural affairs, the US Department of State, and the Academy of Educational
Development (AED) staff for giving me the opportunity to be a part of the
Distinguished Award in Teaching Program.

       At the University of Maryland, Dr James Greenberg, Mrs. Letitia Williams
and Dr Lea Ann Christenson as well as my teachers and mentors Dr Roberta
Lavine and Dr Jennifer Turner are among the special people who have been
supportive in this memorable experience.

       I want to mention the thoughtful input from my roommates and all my
other Fulbright colleagues who have been generously sharing their experiences
and projects, enlightening my own.

       I am grateful to my PDS coordinators, Mrs. Peggy Wilson and Mrs. Stacy
Pritchett, school administrators, teachers and students from Samuel Ogle
Middle School and Montgomery Blair High School, where I could make
observations and interviews and take photos and field notes that substantially
contributed to my collection of data.

       A great deal of support has come from my dear children, mother, family,
friends and colleagues from Argentina who have encouraged me in the
fulfillment of this lifelong dream.




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Distinguished Fulbright Awards in Teaching Program     UMD
                         The Incorporation of ICTs into Task-Based Language Learning   2010



RESEARCH PAPER
                                    The Incorporation of ICTs
                           Into Task-Based Language Learning

LITERATURE REVIEW
   • WEB-BASED LEARNING
   In the last decade, we have been witnessing a shift in the nature of Internet.
It has changed from a static, information-provider environment in which
students and teachers were able to explore, select and adapt the content they
found useful and transform it within the context of their interest, to a dynamic
social environment in which everyone can participate in an interactive sphere,
becoming not only consumers, but also producers of content.

   Computers and electronic technologies have come to permeate our daily
lives, our homes and our schools. As a consequence, integrating them into the
classroom pedagogy is becoming a reality for teachers who are supplying
students with the possibility of learning a specific content at the same time as
they are incorporating technology skills.

   Becoming techno-teachers is not an easy task. In the first stages, they
generally have to find support from their institutional environments, to allow
them to share the school or University virtual platform. After that, they will have
to be able to satisfy their special requirements according to the language
learning experience they want to propose - an instance in which lab technicians
and administrators become involved.

   After dealing with all the administrative and technical issues, the real work
starts: planning the course or activity, looking for Web resources, moderating
and tutoring, solving students technical problems (with patience and positive
feedback, so that they start feeling confident with the proposal as well), creating
WebPages (google groups, blogs, forums, google sites) where all the
productions can be shared.
AURELIA M. GARCIA


   As Hanson-Smith and Rilling (2006) state the available technological tools
have made impact in teachers’ practices in three different areas:

   1- Administrative: teachers use the computer to keep records of students’
      assignments, attendance, mailing to parents, lesson plan presentations,
      online professional development. This use of technologies has proved to
      make teachers and administrators work more efficient.

   2- Blended: teachers and students use computers to complement
      classroom activities with a computerized activity. They sometimes share
      two or three computers which are connected in one corner f the
      classroom or they move to a computers lab where, in general, they have
      more computers available and a technician. Blended learning can also
      take place while using home or public computers outside schools.

   3- Distance: teachers also use computers to support distant learning,
      where students and teachers only meet in virtual environments and
      computers become the only means of communication and instruction.




   Placing the focus of this inquiry on the blended use mentioned above, it can
be assumed that new technologies are reshaping learning as a two-way
process. Instead of presenting content in a linear, sequential manner, learners
are provided with a rich array of tools and information resources to use in
creating their own learning pathway. (Arena & Crubinel, 2010)

   Technology-rich environment provides two options to language learners:

1 - Internet Software Resources which are delivered over the internet through
school platforms and where students can access for some specific practice
purposes. In general they are more teacher-controlled and the software itself
gives incentives or rewards to students who go on through different phases or
stages of a game-like practice. Examples of these are:       Kidspiration, a K-5
learner’s oriented software that develops thinking, literacy and numeracy skills
using proven visual learning principles. In reading and writing, Kidspiration
strengthens   word   recognition,   vocabulary,   comprehension     and   written



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Distinguished Fulbright Awards in Teaching Program     UMD
                          The Incorporation of ICTs into Task-Based Language Learning   2010


expression. With some new visual math tools, students can build reasoning and
problem solving skills. Another example is Study Island, a Web-based
instruction, practice, assessment and reporting software, built for different states
´ standards over rigorous academic content that is both fun and engaging.

2 - Internet Communications Resources which allow students to manipulate
language skills such as reading, listening, speaking and writing, interact
collaboratively, or share Web-based project from their own classmates or
students from different parts of the world as well. This communication can take
the form of synchronic, in real time, o asynchronic, or not in real time. Teachers
can profit more for the development of an integrated-skills approach using a
variety of collaborative resources – blog, email, wiki, podcast.




   This new cooperative and participative environment offers teachers a
whole realm of possibilities that could really make a difference in the teaching
setting. Then the question now is:

   How can teachers effectively use these online spaces…

   a) to engage students in meaningful, cultural connections,

   b) through collaborative interactive projects

   c) that promote authentic, contextualized, culturally enriched exchanges,

   d) having English as a tool for communication and learning?

Web 2.0 tools –defined as World Wide Web technology and web design that
enhance creativity, communications, information sharing, and collaboration- not
only have the power to revolutionize our classrooms and schools, they also
have special value for English language learners. Our students are now
empowered to create content, publish it and share it with others. Needless to
say, when students write or speak for a broader and more international
audience, they tend to pay more attention to revising.
   In addition, Web 2.0 tools also prepare students to meet the demands of the
21st Century Skills, delineated by the Partnership for 21st Century Skills, which
AURELIA M. GARCIA


suggest students need to develop additional skills apart from the acquisitions of
the increasing subject areas contents. These skills are referred to as the 4 Cs:
critical thinking and problem solving, cross-cultural communication,
collaboration and creativity and innovation skills.
   Based on the premise anticipated by John Dewey (1997) that language is a
social and cognitive phenomenon, teachers should foster communicative and
sociolinguistic competence through a range of activities that require interaction
and negotiation of meaning for their completion. Wiki contexts, threads of
discussion -whether written or voiced-, or chatting are significant means of
achieving these competences and of taking students a step forwards the
electronics media consumption industry.

       The gift of time, as Lori Langer de Ramirez (2010) describes, is
something schools cannot give English language learners in the amount they
would need; so by using these new technological tools teachers are offering
students a learning maximizer. Web 2.0 can provide extra opportunities to
engage in meaningful language-learning tasks from the comforts of their homes,
libraries or cybercafes.

       Both advanced and beginning learners can profit from Web 2.0 tools. It is
in general easier to see its benefits when we focus on advanced learners since
they can skillfully manage a wider variety of language tasks; however,
beginners can equally benefit from being in a more anonymous atmosphere.
They sometimes may feel reticent to speaking in public or reading out loud their
work; nevertheless, Internet offers them the possibility of drafting, editing, peer
correcting – to improve their writing skill - and recording, checking and
rerecording themselves – to improve their speaking skill-, until they feel
confident enough to share their creations.




   • TASK- BASED LEARNING
   Communicative language teaching has been the umbrella approach under
which many other approaches and techniques have developed. Among them
Task-Based Language Learning (Nunan 2001, Willis 1996 Norris 2009) has



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Distinguished Fulbright Awards in Teaching Program     UMD
                         The Incorporation of ICTs into Task-Based Language Learning   2010


lately become the most prominent. This methodological approach focuses on
students using the language to solve tasks, placing an important emphasis on
meaningful real life situations over form and knowledge of the language system.

   This problem-solving methodology allows not only learning skills but mainly
procedures and concept learning. Working with problems and tasks facilitates
understanding of reality through the use of some methods such as solving
strategies, experimental or observational techniques. Teachers have three main
roles within this approach:

       1. selecting, adapting and designing tasks;

       2. facilitating their implementation and

       3. creating techniques to help students become aware of the form of the
          language being required to solve the task, without making of these
          grammar points the focus of the design.

      There are a number of researchers who have defined what a task is in the
language learning context from a psycholinguistic, sociolinguistic or pedagogic
viewpoint. Yet Candlin´s (2009) definition adjusts quite well to the use
suggested in this paper from a teacher´s and practitioner´s standpoint.




                 A language learning task is a set of differentiated,
             sequencable, problem-posing activities involving learners and
             teachers in some joint selection from a varied cognitive and
             communicative procedures applied to existing and new knowledge
             in a collective exploration and pursuance of foreseen or emerging
             goals within a social milieu. (Candlin, 2009)



      Whatever definition is adopted, since teachers are concerned with
learning, certain pedagogical goals should guide their task-based curriculum
design. Among them Candlin mentions: awareness, responsibility, tolerance,
self-realization and self confidence.
AURELIA M. GARCIA


   As students carry out the task, they become aware not only of the language
forms involved in the resolution of the situation, but also of the sociolinguistic
factors that intervene in the interactions. Furthermore, students become
independent users of the language when deciding how to solve a task when
they must feel responsible for the choices they make and the challenges they
accept as learners. At the same time, cultural tolerance is another goal task-
based learning pursues, when showing learners a range of situations in which
they have to face cultural diversity and multi-cultural contexts.

   Task designing is a major task in itself, since teachers should provide
students with situations they can acknowledge as challenges rather than threats
and situations that can develop their sense of self-confidence and self-
realizations.

   The purpose of a task in the classroom is to stimulate real communication,
creating an authentic purpose for language use while providing a natural
context for the study analysis and reflection on it. Students prepare to solve a
specific problematic situation, solve it, and report on their findings; and only
then, they then focus on the study of language that emerged in the situation.




       All that the teacher plans to develop and everything that happens in the
teaching-learning process translates into activities. Each activity has a number
of features, and here are three moments in this program of activities appropriate
to the teaching of English under the TBL as follows:



           Activities related to the search, recognition, identification and
                formulation of problems:

The problem should not be considered only as an initial condition but a process
that is developing, reshaping and diversifying in parallel to the process of
implementation of the methodology for learning English. Another key aspect of
this methodology is clear in advance that there is not always a single correct
solution, but that the resolution is open to multiple learning opportunities of
emerging issues around the main shaft.


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Distinguished Fulbright Awards in Teaching Program     UMD
                         The Incorporation of ICTs into Task-Based Language Learning   2010


           Activities that facilitate the resolution of the problem:

This is achieved through interaction between students' conceptions regarding
the use of language, as evidenced by the problem, and new information from
other sources. Looking at the constructivist conception of learning we must
admit that it is produced by interaction between the knowledge available to the
student and the new information he/she receives. Conceptions that students
have about academic subjects sometimes differ from the contents of the
curriculum. The curriculum tends to be deeply rooted in the individual and is
very resistant to change. It is necessary then, as a first step, to help students
explain these concepts so that the teacher gets an overview of which may affect
the learning process and students - being aware of their own ideas - put them in
a position to reflect upon them and confront them with new information which
will lead to its possible restructuring, and the construction of new knowledge.

           Activities that facilitate the synthesis of the work, drawing
             conclusions and expressing the results.

The English language at this stage becomes the vehicle for solving a task, but
the emphasis is on meaning and communication rather than in the production of
grammatically correct utterances. Drawing conclusions is closely related to the
construction of knowledge that the student is achieving. But the final review
promotes knowledge restructuring and conceptual clarification. Stating in detail
the task of synthesizing the results helps to establish learning. Moreover, if it
provides students with the opportunity to implement their new learning it will
encourage students´ confidence in their abilities.




   By teaching through problem solving the teacher becomes a researcher
and connoisseur of reality along with the student. Assessment is made naturally
in contact with the student, supervised by the experience and the analysis done
with the teacher. Student and teacher, in a really close relationship, both are
involved in the task, reporting on the progress being made; both of them are
actually reading and understanding the whole process.
AURELIA M. GARCIA




   Tasks can take different forms and there is a wide range of tasks that
teachers can design depending on the context, level and needs of the students.
Though many authors have suggested different task classification, Willis (1996)
organizes them in a very complete manner that can guide teachers and inspire
them as regards the most suitable task to implement. However, teachers are
encouraged to understand Willis´ taxonomy as a flexible guide since tasks may
be planned under one format, but as students develop it, teachers may realize
some other format is more suitable and she must feel free to change it.




TYPE                                   SAMPLE TASK

Listing       Make a list of the items they would need for a weekend
              camping by the river. They complete their lists in pairs and
              choose among themselves the most sensible list.
Ordering      Sts. Choose from the show page of the local newspaper two
or sorting    events they would like to attend over the weekend. They
              persuade each other until they finally agree on only two for the
              whole group.
Comparing     Sts. design in groups an itinerary for a group of foreign middle
              school students who come into town for the weekend. All
              groups present their reports and the whole class compares and
              finds differences among the proposals.
Problem-      Our school´s 100 years anniversary is next month and students
solving       have been invited to participate in the organization of the
              commemorative dinner. In groups of four make a list of
              suggestions for that event. Share your ideas with the rest of the
              class and decide on a formal proposal to be given on the
              school´s parent´s day.
Experience    Childhood memories always awake memorable stories from
sharing       students. The task would be telling the scariest childhood
              memory /most memorable moment of childhood glory and



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Distinguished Fulbright Awards in Teaching Program     UMD
                         The Incorporation of ICTs into Task-Based Language Learning   2010


              writing a book including all the stories to he handed in to
              parents in school parents’ day.
Creative      Students are given the blueprints of the school plan and they
              have to make any necessary alterations so that the building
              can be transformed into a cultural centre/hospital/street
              children´s home. All the new blueprints should be exhibited in
              the school´s hall ways.



   Perhaps one of the most interesting aspects about task-based learning is
the discrepancy that we sometimes face between teachers intentions when
planning a task and what students final outcomes results in. In general teachers
spend quite lot of time designing a task, putting restrictions on it and setting
limits for possible language forms, linguistic contents and final products. Part of
the magic of this approach relies on how much we can teach that is beyond our
planning, just out of our students’ ideas. Students’ reinterpretation of the task
should allow teachers to reformulate and evaluate permanently their task
proposals making them richer and more motivating and challenging.




   • EMBEDDED TASK-BASED LANGUAGE LEARNING
   With this new web 2.0 online environment English language teachers are
faced with a great challenge: finding ways to promote students interaction and
communication in the target language through carefully designed tasks. Once
the need for connection is needed students will be solving the task by
negotiating meaning, debating and arriving to conclusions.

   There is no magic formula or templates that can assure successful
interventions because projects can take multiple shapes. Nevertheless, Arena &
Cruvinel (2010) suggest a number of steps that could be used as a guideline.
Teachers will have to remember that educational settings and pedagogical
needs are their priority, so adaptations to these guidelines are welcomed.
AURELIA M. GARCIA


   First, teachers should identify needs, topics and decide on concrete goals
that will guide their practice. Then, they should come up with the most suitable
tools and the design of the specific task. Finally, they should implement the task
and start immediate evaluation of the process so as to make the necessary
adjustments before the final product is achieved. A final evaluation of the project
is equally advisable to allow teachers and students to reflect on the design and
technical changes that might be needed so as to bring the possibility of future
adaptations.

   It can be assumed that the possibilities computers offer as regards types of
tasks can be infinitely multiplied. Teachers can engage students in authentic
learning contexts that will give students the opportunity of learning with pleasure
and commitment, validating students initiative as well as the groups
collaboration, characteristics which are, more often than not, absent from our
school realities.




   Blake (2008) makes an interesting distinction between first-generation and
second-generation Computer-mediated Communication (CMC) tools. First-
generation tools include mainly two resources: email and discussion boards,
both of them have evolved and changed format throughout the years with the
development of accessories such as the possibility of adding images, graphics,
sound and video to the original text-only format. The main pedagogical benefits
from this category are that students became autonomous users of the language
through a simple friendly technology interface, participating in exchange
projects with students in other parts of the world.

   Second-generation tools, on which I particularly focus in my best practices
proposals, are exemplified by resources such as blogs and wikis. These tools
allow students to publish their own voice, as individuals or as groups, and take
responsibility for their productions as well as over the feedback, comments or
editing they do on someone else´s piece.

   At a receptive level (Langer de Ramirez, 2010) they can sign into a podcast
website that provides extra listening practice or watch some instructive video in



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Distinguished Fulbright Awards in Teaching Program     UMD
                                   The Incorporation of ICTs into Task-Based Language Learning   2010


YouTube. However, Web 2.0 tools work at their best when students are asked
to develop, create and share their own work online. It is in this way that students
are active learners negotiating meanings and creating media for a worldwide
audience. Students can meet virtually with classmates via the Web creating
blog entries, videos or comments on a classmate´s work1.

       The web provides primary source materials, as Blake (2008) calls them in a
breakdown of inquiry-oriented activities such as webquests tasks, treasure
hunts, hot potatoes- in which students get involved in small scale research
projects or guided discovery to learn about a specific topic through real or
hypothetical solving problem situations and simulations. Each L2 student needs
to become a researcher on the Web, an interpreter of the culture, a careful
analyzer of cultural differences and an ambassador of diversity.

       Blake cites ten methodological principles or language teachers’ universals
that teachers should follow when integrating web 2.0 tools into their practice.
Out of these ten, I mention here the five that I also consider apply to Task-
Based Teaching methodology. This provides the basis for a proposal for
integrated embedded task based language teaching:

           •   Use tasks not texts.

           •   Promote learning by doing.

           •   Encourage inductive learning.

           •   Focus on meaning rather than on form.

           •   Promote cooperative/collaborative learning.




       Another illuminating theoretical model that can help us understand the
phenomenon is Kearsly´s Engagement theory. Its principle suggests that when
students are swallowed up in meaningful interactive tasks, they will feel
engaged in their learning process and progress. The author believes that
technology can have a relevant role in students’ engagement in learning tasks if
1
    Appendix: Best Practices: Photo Blog Project
AURELIA M. GARCIA


they involve active cognitive processes such as creating, problem-solving,
reasoning, decision-making, and evaluation.

   Engagement theory is based upon the idea of creating successful
collaborative teams that work on ambitious projects that are meaningful to
someone outside the classroom. These three components, summarized by
Relate-Create-Donate, imply that learning activities should:




   1. Occur in a group context (i.e., collaborative teams): Research on
collaborative learning suggests that in the process of collaboration, students are
forced to clarify and verbalize their problems, thereby facilitating solutions

   2. Be project-based: making learning a creative, purposeful activity.
Students have to define the project (problem domain) and focus their efforts on
application of ideas to a specific context.

   3. Have an outside (authentic) focus: stressing the value of making a
useful contribution while learning. Ideally each task has an outside "customer"
that the project is being conducted for. The customer could be a campus group,
community organization, school, church, library, museum, government agency,
local business, or needy individual. The authentic learning context of the project
increases student motivation and satisfaction.

   What I find different in the Engagement theory model from other older
models of computer-based learning in which the emphasis was on
individualized instruction and interactivity, is that ET promotes human
interaction in the context of group tasks, rather than individual interaction with
an instructional program.




   •   TEACHERS´ PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
   It is essential that as teachers we start learning to communicate, collaborate
and celebrate via Internet and Web 2.0. With our students -through classrooms
proposals that bring us altogether into a challenging common environment-, and



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Distinguished Fulbright Awards in Teaching Program     UMD
                          The Incorporation of ICTs into Task-Based Language Learning   2010


with other colleagues -whether technophobes or technophiles- in online
communities of teachers’ development, who have decided to take a step
forward, just as we have. Robert Blake (2008) states that the rapidly changing
parameters of the technological field have made first-time entry into using
technology in service of foreign languages curriculum a worrying task for many.
(pxiii)

     Research on language learning with and through technology is definitely
resulting in new research methodologies. As a consequence, it is the role of
teacher trainers in educational training centers and colleges to bridge the gap
between traditional and XXI century methodologies. This will facilitate facilitating
instances of professional development allow teachers to become aware of the
educational changes taking place outside their everyday practice.

    The need for post graduation support is described by Dahlman & Tahtinen
(2006) when they depict the first few years of teachers’ careers, as being
consumed by many duties: struggling to know the curriculum, developing lesson
plans and materials while, at the same time, having to deal with school issues
outside the class. Meetings with pairs and parents, as well as catering for
students needs, represent a great challenge since they do not count on the
mastery of veteran teachers who have already developed a skill.

    Following the “teach what you preach” approach, Van den Branden (2009)
suggests giving greater credit to the in-service training offered on site, in
schools where teachers can find themselves at home, using their own computer
labs and becoming aware of their own schools possibilities. Such formats could
range from Schools-based or team-based coaching in which experts are invited
to visit schools on regular basis to offer teachers practice                   and coaching
according to their needs and demands.

    In this context teachers need to create and join communities of practice for
continuous peer mentoring and experimentation with collaborative practices
supported and enhanced, precisely, by new technologies. Immersion in these
collaborative environments can provide teachers with academic and
emotional support, create tasks collaboratively that they can later use in their
AURELIA M. GARCIA


own teaching environment and be encouraged to scan the contents of online
journals which can inform them about current best practices.

   A successful network should be aware of the participants’ variables. Such
variables as perceptions, teaching contexts, feelings, beliefs and imposed
standards, will define the characteristics of the network and its effectiveness.
These professional development courses should put together knowledge and
practice into an integrated plan to allow, in a collaborative and cooperative
environment, sharing new insights of their teaching practices now embedded
with technology.

   One of the most difficult challenges is to design and implement an
embedded or fully online learning environment that can keep pace with
teachers’ specific needs and demands as well as new technological
applications which keep flooding the educational field. The professional
development proposal should provide the means by which teachers develop
their technological skills supported by peers´ feedback and suggestions. A
postmethod methodological perspective will enlighten these newly informed
teachers as regards which tools and resources to apply, when and where.

   Still another enlightening proposal that has proved enriching for the less
novice teachers who want to share their favorite tools and learn about new ones
on the web are the Online Communities of Practice, such as Webheads. Its
founder has been able to explore since early 2000´s how teachers use
computer-mediated communication (CMC) in a constructivist setting, sharing
their approaches and pedagogical views on the issue, fostering the community
professional development. Communities find different tools to sustain
themselves together: internet chat software, blogs, photo galleries, email of text,
audio or video files are among the most successfully welcomed by teachers.

   From this discussion it can be said that teachers’ development programs run
a gamut of options to allow novice teachers gain expertise in technology. This
can be achieved through different workshop designs depending on the amount
of face to face – online exposure they receive. The 4 or 5 days of immersion of
tsunami speed holds one extreme and the fully online distance home slippers
and warm soup being on the other.


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Distinguished Fulbright Awards in Teaching Program     UMD
                          The Incorporation of ICTs into Task-Based Language Learning   2010


       Both extremes show advantages and disadvantages; however, an
embedded methodology seems to assemble the most outstanding benefits of
both. Alternating face to face meetings with online networking, teachers
gradually start feeling confident with the virtual platform and they return to it
informed and inspired, invigorated by others ‘experiences and comments
interwoven by technology. Technology makes us want to be permanent
learners.

   Furthermore, when the policy is carried out under the Action Research
paradigm, teacher development will lead both: teachers and their students to
become critically reflective practitioners and computer assertive users. The
building of learning communities suggested in this paper will provide teachers
with a myriad of tools that both trainer and trainees can explore together,
followed by a critical reflection which will allow externalizing thoughts and
feelings.




BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Arena, C. and Cruvinel, E. (2010) Learning Through CALLaborative Projects Using
Web 2.0 Tools. In A. Shehadeh and C. Coombe (Eds), Applications of Task-Based
Learning in TESOL (pp. 111-121). Alexandria, VA: Teachers of English to Speakers
of Other Languages, Inc. (TESOL)

Blake, R. (2008) Brave New Digital Classroom Technology and Foreign Language
Learning. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press

Brown, D. (2007) Teaching by Principles. An Interactive Approach to Language
pedagogy. White Plains, NY: Pearson Education Inc.

Candlin, C. (2009) Towards task-based language learning. In Van den Branden, K.,
Bygate, M. & Norris, J. (Eds), Task-Based Language Teaching A reader.Philadelphia,
PA: John Benjamins Oublishing Company.

Dahlman, A. and Tahtinen S. (2006) Virtual Basegroup: E_Mentoring in a Reflective
Electronic Support Network. In Hanson-Smith E. and Rilling S. (Eds), Learning
Through Technology(pp. 1-7). Alexandria, VA: Teachers of English to Speakers of
Other Languages, Inc. (TESOL)

Dewey, J. (1997) Experience & Education. New York, NY: Touchstone

García Pérez, F. y García Díaz, J. (1997) Aprender Investigando. Sevilla, España:
Diada Editora S. L.
AURELIA M. GARCIA


Hanson-Smith E. and Rilling S. (2006) Introduction: Using Technology in Teaching
Languages. In Hanson-Smith E. and Rilling S. (Eds), Learning Through
Technology(pp. 1-7). Alexandria, VA: Teachers of English to Speakers of Other
Languages, Inc. (TESOL)

Kearsley G.& Shneiderman B. (2000) Engagement Theory: A for technology-based
teaching and learning http://home.sprynet.com/~gkearsley/engage.htm

Lnager de Ramirez,L. (2010) Empowering English Language Learners with Tools
from the Web. United States of America: Corwin

Peters M. & Desjardines F. (2007) Single course Aproach vs a program Approach to
Develop Technological Competencies in Preservice language teachers. inKassen M.,
Lavine R., Murphy-Judy K. & Petres M (Eds), Preparing and Developing Technology-
prficient L2 Teachers. (pp.3-20). USA: CALICO Monograph Series.

Stenens,V. (2006) Issue: Tools for Online Teacher Communities of Practice. In
Hanson-Smith E. and Rilling S. (Eds), Learning Through Technology (pp. 1-7).
Alexandria, VA: Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages, Inc. (TESOL)

The Partnership for 21st Century Skills(2004) Framework for 21st Century Skills
retrieved from http://www.p21.org/

Van den Branden, K., Bygate, M., and Norris, J. M. (Eds.) (2009). Task-based
language teaching: A reader. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.




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Literature review

  • 1. 2010 Task-Based Language Learning The Incorporation of ICTs into Distinguished Fulbright Awards in Teaching This document presents the process as well as the final product of my inquiry carried out throughout the 2010 Fall semester at University of Maryland and three Publics Schools as part of the Fulbright program for Distinguished Awards in Teaching. I have focused my research on how New Technologies of Information and Communication are being incorporated to the teaching of languages in general and to Task-Based Learning specifically. Aurelia García aure.garcia09@gmail.com home country: ARGENTINA host country: USA
  • 2. AURELIA M. GARCIA ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am grateful to the Fulbright Commission, Bureau of Educational and Cultural affairs, the US Department of State, and the Academy of Educational Development (AED) staff for giving me the opportunity to be a part of the Distinguished Award in Teaching Program. At the University of Maryland, Dr James Greenberg, Mrs. Letitia Williams and Dr Lea Ann Christenson as well as my teachers and mentors Dr Roberta Lavine and Dr Jennifer Turner are among the special people who have been supportive in this memorable experience. I want to mention the thoughtful input from my roommates and all my other Fulbright colleagues who have been generously sharing their experiences and projects, enlightening my own. I am grateful to my PDS coordinators, Mrs. Peggy Wilson and Mrs. Stacy Pritchett, school administrators, teachers and students from Samuel Ogle Middle School and Montgomery Blair High School, where I could make observations and interviews and take photos and field notes that substantially contributed to my collection of data. A great deal of support has come from my dear children, mother, family, friends and colleagues from Argentina who have encouraged me in the fulfillment of this lifelong dream. 16
  • 3. Distinguished Fulbright Awards in Teaching Program UMD The Incorporation of ICTs into Task-Based Language Learning 2010 RESEARCH PAPER The Incorporation of ICTs Into Task-Based Language Learning LITERATURE REVIEW • WEB-BASED LEARNING In the last decade, we have been witnessing a shift in the nature of Internet. It has changed from a static, information-provider environment in which students and teachers were able to explore, select and adapt the content they found useful and transform it within the context of their interest, to a dynamic social environment in which everyone can participate in an interactive sphere, becoming not only consumers, but also producers of content. Computers and electronic technologies have come to permeate our daily lives, our homes and our schools. As a consequence, integrating them into the classroom pedagogy is becoming a reality for teachers who are supplying students with the possibility of learning a specific content at the same time as they are incorporating technology skills. Becoming techno-teachers is not an easy task. In the first stages, they generally have to find support from their institutional environments, to allow them to share the school or University virtual platform. After that, they will have to be able to satisfy their special requirements according to the language learning experience they want to propose - an instance in which lab technicians and administrators become involved. After dealing with all the administrative and technical issues, the real work starts: planning the course or activity, looking for Web resources, moderating and tutoring, solving students technical problems (with patience and positive feedback, so that they start feeling confident with the proposal as well), creating WebPages (google groups, blogs, forums, google sites) where all the productions can be shared.
  • 4. AURELIA M. GARCIA As Hanson-Smith and Rilling (2006) state the available technological tools have made impact in teachers’ practices in three different areas: 1- Administrative: teachers use the computer to keep records of students’ assignments, attendance, mailing to parents, lesson plan presentations, online professional development. This use of technologies has proved to make teachers and administrators work more efficient. 2- Blended: teachers and students use computers to complement classroom activities with a computerized activity. They sometimes share two or three computers which are connected in one corner f the classroom or they move to a computers lab where, in general, they have more computers available and a technician. Blended learning can also take place while using home or public computers outside schools. 3- Distance: teachers also use computers to support distant learning, where students and teachers only meet in virtual environments and computers become the only means of communication and instruction. Placing the focus of this inquiry on the blended use mentioned above, it can be assumed that new technologies are reshaping learning as a two-way process. Instead of presenting content in a linear, sequential manner, learners are provided with a rich array of tools and information resources to use in creating their own learning pathway. (Arena & Crubinel, 2010) Technology-rich environment provides two options to language learners: 1 - Internet Software Resources which are delivered over the internet through school platforms and where students can access for some specific practice purposes. In general they are more teacher-controlled and the software itself gives incentives or rewards to students who go on through different phases or stages of a game-like practice. Examples of these are: Kidspiration, a K-5 learner’s oriented software that develops thinking, literacy and numeracy skills using proven visual learning principles. In reading and writing, Kidspiration strengthens word recognition, vocabulary, comprehension and written 16
  • 5. Distinguished Fulbright Awards in Teaching Program UMD The Incorporation of ICTs into Task-Based Language Learning 2010 expression. With some new visual math tools, students can build reasoning and problem solving skills. Another example is Study Island, a Web-based instruction, practice, assessment and reporting software, built for different states ´ standards over rigorous academic content that is both fun and engaging. 2 - Internet Communications Resources which allow students to manipulate language skills such as reading, listening, speaking and writing, interact collaboratively, or share Web-based project from their own classmates or students from different parts of the world as well. This communication can take the form of synchronic, in real time, o asynchronic, or not in real time. Teachers can profit more for the development of an integrated-skills approach using a variety of collaborative resources – blog, email, wiki, podcast. This new cooperative and participative environment offers teachers a whole realm of possibilities that could really make a difference in the teaching setting. Then the question now is: How can teachers effectively use these online spaces… a) to engage students in meaningful, cultural connections, b) through collaborative interactive projects c) that promote authentic, contextualized, culturally enriched exchanges, d) having English as a tool for communication and learning? Web 2.0 tools –defined as World Wide Web technology and web design that enhance creativity, communications, information sharing, and collaboration- not only have the power to revolutionize our classrooms and schools, they also have special value for English language learners. Our students are now empowered to create content, publish it and share it with others. Needless to say, when students write or speak for a broader and more international audience, they tend to pay more attention to revising. In addition, Web 2.0 tools also prepare students to meet the demands of the 21st Century Skills, delineated by the Partnership for 21st Century Skills, which
  • 6. AURELIA M. GARCIA suggest students need to develop additional skills apart from the acquisitions of the increasing subject areas contents. These skills are referred to as the 4 Cs: critical thinking and problem solving, cross-cultural communication, collaboration and creativity and innovation skills. Based on the premise anticipated by John Dewey (1997) that language is a social and cognitive phenomenon, teachers should foster communicative and sociolinguistic competence through a range of activities that require interaction and negotiation of meaning for their completion. Wiki contexts, threads of discussion -whether written or voiced-, or chatting are significant means of achieving these competences and of taking students a step forwards the electronics media consumption industry. The gift of time, as Lori Langer de Ramirez (2010) describes, is something schools cannot give English language learners in the amount they would need; so by using these new technological tools teachers are offering students a learning maximizer. Web 2.0 can provide extra opportunities to engage in meaningful language-learning tasks from the comforts of their homes, libraries or cybercafes. Both advanced and beginning learners can profit from Web 2.0 tools. It is in general easier to see its benefits when we focus on advanced learners since they can skillfully manage a wider variety of language tasks; however, beginners can equally benefit from being in a more anonymous atmosphere. They sometimes may feel reticent to speaking in public or reading out loud their work; nevertheless, Internet offers them the possibility of drafting, editing, peer correcting – to improve their writing skill - and recording, checking and rerecording themselves – to improve their speaking skill-, until they feel confident enough to share their creations. • TASK- BASED LEARNING Communicative language teaching has been the umbrella approach under which many other approaches and techniques have developed. Among them Task-Based Language Learning (Nunan 2001, Willis 1996 Norris 2009) has 16
  • 7. Distinguished Fulbright Awards in Teaching Program UMD The Incorporation of ICTs into Task-Based Language Learning 2010 lately become the most prominent. This methodological approach focuses on students using the language to solve tasks, placing an important emphasis on meaningful real life situations over form and knowledge of the language system. This problem-solving methodology allows not only learning skills but mainly procedures and concept learning. Working with problems and tasks facilitates understanding of reality through the use of some methods such as solving strategies, experimental or observational techniques. Teachers have three main roles within this approach: 1. selecting, adapting and designing tasks; 2. facilitating their implementation and 3. creating techniques to help students become aware of the form of the language being required to solve the task, without making of these grammar points the focus of the design. There are a number of researchers who have defined what a task is in the language learning context from a psycholinguistic, sociolinguistic or pedagogic viewpoint. Yet Candlin´s (2009) definition adjusts quite well to the use suggested in this paper from a teacher´s and practitioner´s standpoint. A language learning task is a set of differentiated, sequencable, problem-posing activities involving learners and teachers in some joint selection from a varied cognitive and communicative procedures applied to existing and new knowledge in a collective exploration and pursuance of foreseen or emerging goals within a social milieu. (Candlin, 2009) Whatever definition is adopted, since teachers are concerned with learning, certain pedagogical goals should guide their task-based curriculum design. Among them Candlin mentions: awareness, responsibility, tolerance, self-realization and self confidence.
  • 8. AURELIA M. GARCIA As students carry out the task, they become aware not only of the language forms involved in the resolution of the situation, but also of the sociolinguistic factors that intervene in the interactions. Furthermore, students become independent users of the language when deciding how to solve a task when they must feel responsible for the choices they make and the challenges they accept as learners. At the same time, cultural tolerance is another goal task- based learning pursues, when showing learners a range of situations in which they have to face cultural diversity and multi-cultural contexts. Task designing is a major task in itself, since teachers should provide students with situations they can acknowledge as challenges rather than threats and situations that can develop their sense of self-confidence and self- realizations. The purpose of a task in the classroom is to stimulate real communication, creating an authentic purpose for language use while providing a natural context for the study analysis and reflection on it. Students prepare to solve a specific problematic situation, solve it, and report on their findings; and only then, they then focus on the study of language that emerged in the situation. All that the teacher plans to develop and everything that happens in the teaching-learning process translates into activities. Each activity has a number of features, and here are three moments in this program of activities appropriate to the teaching of English under the TBL as follows:  Activities related to the search, recognition, identification and formulation of problems: The problem should not be considered only as an initial condition but a process that is developing, reshaping and diversifying in parallel to the process of implementation of the methodology for learning English. Another key aspect of this methodology is clear in advance that there is not always a single correct solution, but that the resolution is open to multiple learning opportunities of emerging issues around the main shaft. 16
  • 9. Distinguished Fulbright Awards in Teaching Program UMD The Incorporation of ICTs into Task-Based Language Learning 2010  Activities that facilitate the resolution of the problem: This is achieved through interaction between students' conceptions regarding the use of language, as evidenced by the problem, and new information from other sources. Looking at the constructivist conception of learning we must admit that it is produced by interaction between the knowledge available to the student and the new information he/she receives. Conceptions that students have about academic subjects sometimes differ from the contents of the curriculum. The curriculum tends to be deeply rooted in the individual and is very resistant to change. It is necessary then, as a first step, to help students explain these concepts so that the teacher gets an overview of which may affect the learning process and students - being aware of their own ideas - put them in a position to reflect upon them and confront them with new information which will lead to its possible restructuring, and the construction of new knowledge.  Activities that facilitate the synthesis of the work, drawing conclusions and expressing the results. The English language at this stage becomes the vehicle for solving a task, but the emphasis is on meaning and communication rather than in the production of grammatically correct utterances. Drawing conclusions is closely related to the construction of knowledge that the student is achieving. But the final review promotes knowledge restructuring and conceptual clarification. Stating in detail the task of synthesizing the results helps to establish learning. Moreover, if it provides students with the opportunity to implement their new learning it will encourage students´ confidence in their abilities. By teaching through problem solving the teacher becomes a researcher and connoisseur of reality along with the student. Assessment is made naturally in contact with the student, supervised by the experience and the analysis done with the teacher. Student and teacher, in a really close relationship, both are involved in the task, reporting on the progress being made; both of them are actually reading and understanding the whole process.
  • 10. AURELIA M. GARCIA Tasks can take different forms and there is a wide range of tasks that teachers can design depending on the context, level and needs of the students. Though many authors have suggested different task classification, Willis (1996) organizes them in a very complete manner that can guide teachers and inspire them as regards the most suitable task to implement. However, teachers are encouraged to understand Willis´ taxonomy as a flexible guide since tasks may be planned under one format, but as students develop it, teachers may realize some other format is more suitable and she must feel free to change it. TYPE SAMPLE TASK Listing Make a list of the items they would need for a weekend camping by the river. They complete their lists in pairs and choose among themselves the most sensible list. Ordering Sts. Choose from the show page of the local newspaper two or sorting events they would like to attend over the weekend. They persuade each other until they finally agree on only two for the whole group. Comparing Sts. design in groups an itinerary for a group of foreign middle school students who come into town for the weekend. All groups present their reports and the whole class compares and finds differences among the proposals. Problem- Our school´s 100 years anniversary is next month and students solving have been invited to participate in the organization of the commemorative dinner. In groups of four make a list of suggestions for that event. Share your ideas with the rest of the class and decide on a formal proposal to be given on the school´s parent´s day. Experience Childhood memories always awake memorable stories from sharing students. The task would be telling the scariest childhood memory /most memorable moment of childhood glory and 16
  • 11. Distinguished Fulbright Awards in Teaching Program UMD The Incorporation of ICTs into Task-Based Language Learning 2010 writing a book including all the stories to he handed in to parents in school parents’ day. Creative Students are given the blueprints of the school plan and they have to make any necessary alterations so that the building can be transformed into a cultural centre/hospital/street children´s home. All the new blueprints should be exhibited in the school´s hall ways. Perhaps one of the most interesting aspects about task-based learning is the discrepancy that we sometimes face between teachers intentions when planning a task and what students final outcomes results in. In general teachers spend quite lot of time designing a task, putting restrictions on it and setting limits for possible language forms, linguistic contents and final products. Part of the magic of this approach relies on how much we can teach that is beyond our planning, just out of our students’ ideas. Students’ reinterpretation of the task should allow teachers to reformulate and evaluate permanently their task proposals making them richer and more motivating and challenging. • EMBEDDED TASK-BASED LANGUAGE LEARNING With this new web 2.0 online environment English language teachers are faced with a great challenge: finding ways to promote students interaction and communication in the target language through carefully designed tasks. Once the need for connection is needed students will be solving the task by negotiating meaning, debating and arriving to conclusions. There is no magic formula or templates that can assure successful interventions because projects can take multiple shapes. Nevertheless, Arena & Cruvinel (2010) suggest a number of steps that could be used as a guideline. Teachers will have to remember that educational settings and pedagogical needs are their priority, so adaptations to these guidelines are welcomed.
  • 12. AURELIA M. GARCIA First, teachers should identify needs, topics and decide on concrete goals that will guide their practice. Then, they should come up with the most suitable tools and the design of the specific task. Finally, they should implement the task and start immediate evaluation of the process so as to make the necessary adjustments before the final product is achieved. A final evaluation of the project is equally advisable to allow teachers and students to reflect on the design and technical changes that might be needed so as to bring the possibility of future adaptations. It can be assumed that the possibilities computers offer as regards types of tasks can be infinitely multiplied. Teachers can engage students in authentic learning contexts that will give students the opportunity of learning with pleasure and commitment, validating students initiative as well as the groups collaboration, characteristics which are, more often than not, absent from our school realities. Blake (2008) makes an interesting distinction between first-generation and second-generation Computer-mediated Communication (CMC) tools. First- generation tools include mainly two resources: email and discussion boards, both of them have evolved and changed format throughout the years with the development of accessories such as the possibility of adding images, graphics, sound and video to the original text-only format. The main pedagogical benefits from this category are that students became autonomous users of the language through a simple friendly technology interface, participating in exchange projects with students in other parts of the world. Second-generation tools, on which I particularly focus in my best practices proposals, are exemplified by resources such as blogs and wikis. These tools allow students to publish their own voice, as individuals or as groups, and take responsibility for their productions as well as over the feedback, comments or editing they do on someone else´s piece. At a receptive level (Langer de Ramirez, 2010) they can sign into a podcast website that provides extra listening practice or watch some instructive video in 16
  • 13. Distinguished Fulbright Awards in Teaching Program UMD The Incorporation of ICTs into Task-Based Language Learning 2010 YouTube. However, Web 2.0 tools work at their best when students are asked to develop, create and share their own work online. It is in this way that students are active learners negotiating meanings and creating media for a worldwide audience. Students can meet virtually with classmates via the Web creating blog entries, videos or comments on a classmate´s work1. The web provides primary source materials, as Blake (2008) calls them in a breakdown of inquiry-oriented activities such as webquests tasks, treasure hunts, hot potatoes- in which students get involved in small scale research projects or guided discovery to learn about a specific topic through real or hypothetical solving problem situations and simulations. Each L2 student needs to become a researcher on the Web, an interpreter of the culture, a careful analyzer of cultural differences and an ambassador of diversity. Blake cites ten methodological principles or language teachers’ universals that teachers should follow when integrating web 2.0 tools into their practice. Out of these ten, I mention here the five that I also consider apply to Task- Based Teaching methodology. This provides the basis for a proposal for integrated embedded task based language teaching: • Use tasks not texts. • Promote learning by doing. • Encourage inductive learning. • Focus on meaning rather than on form. • Promote cooperative/collaborative learning. Another illuminating theoretical model that can help us understand the phenomenon is Kearsly´s Engagement theory. Its principle suggests that when students are swallowed up in meaningful interactive tasks, they will feel engaged in their learning process and progress. The author believes that technology can have a relevant role in students’ engagement in learning tasks if 1 Appendix: Best Practices: Photo Blog Project
  • 14. AURELIA M. GARCIA they involve active cognitive processes such as creating, problem-solving, reasoning, decision-making, and evaluation. Engagement theory is based upon the idea of creating successful collaborative teams that work on ambitious projects that are meaningful to someone outside the classroom. These three components, summarized by Relate-Create-Donate, imply that learning activities should: 1. Occur in a group context (i.e., collaborative teams): Research on collaborative learning suggests that in the process of collaboration, students are forced to clarify and verbalize their problems, thereby facilitating solutions 2. Be project-based: making learning a creative, purposeful activity. Students have to define the project (problem domain) and focus their efforts on application of ideas to a specific context. 3. Have an outside (authentic) focus: stressing the value of making a useful contribution while learning. Ideally each task has an outside "customer" that the project is being conducted for. The customer could be a campus group, community organization, school, church, library, museum, government agency, local business, or needy individual. The authentic learning context of the project increases student motivation and satisfaction. What I find different in the Engagement theory model from other older models of computer-based learning in which the emphasis was on individualized instruction and interactivity, is that ET promotes human interaction in the context of group tasks, rather than individual interaction with an instructional program. • TEACHERS´ PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT It is essential that as teachers we start learning to communicate, collaborate and celebrate via Internet and Web 2.0. With our students -through classrooms proposals that bring us altogether into a challenging common environment-, and 16
  • 15. Distinguished Fulbright Awards in Teaching Program UMD The Incorporation of ICTs into Task-Based Language Learning 2010 with other colleagues -whether technophobes or technophiles- in online communities of teachers’ development, who have decided to take a step forward, just as we have. Robert Blake (2008) states that the rapidly changing parameters of the technological field have made first-time entry into using technology in service of foreign languages curriculum a worrying task for many. (pxiii) Research on language learning with and through technology is definitely resulting in new research methodologies. As a consequence, it is the role of teacher trainers in educational training centers and colleges to bridge the gap between traditional and XXI century methodologies. This will facilitate facilitating instances of professional development allow teachers to become aware of the educational changes taking place outside their everyday practice. The need for post graduation support is described by Dahlman & Tahtinen (2006) when they depict the first few years of teachers’ careers, as being consumed by many duties: struggling to know the curriculum, developing lesson plans and materials while, at the same time, having to deal with school issues outside the class. Meetings with pairs and parents, as well as catering for students needs, represent a great challenge since they do not count on the mastery of veteran teachers who have already developed a skill. Following the “teach what you preach” approach, Van den Branden (2009) suggests giving greater credit to the in-service training offered on site, in schools where teachers can find themselves at home, using their own computer labs and becoming aware of their own schools possibilities. Such formats could range from Schools-based or team-based coaching in which experts are invited to visit schools on regular basis to offer teachers practice and coaching according to their needs and demands. In this context teachers need to create and join communities of practice for continuous peer mentoring and experimentation with collaborative practices supported and enhanced, precisely, by new technologies. Immersion in these collaborative environments can provide teachers with academic and emotional support, create tasks collaboratively that they can later use in their
  • 16. AURELIA M. GARCIA own teaching environment and be encouraged to scan the contents of online journals which can inform them about current best practices. A successful network should be aware of the participants’ variables. Such variables as perceptions, teaching contexts, feelings, beliefs and imposed standards, will define the characteristics of the network and its effectiveness. These professional development courses should put together knowledge and practice into an integrated plan to allow, in a collaborative and cooperative environment, sharing new insights of their teaching practices now embedded with technology. One of the most difficult challenges is to design and implement an embedded or fully online learning environment that can keep pace with teachers’ specific needs and demands as well as new technological applications which keep flooding the educational field. The professional development proposal should provide the means by which teachers develop their technological skills supported by peers´ feedback and suggestions. A postmethod methodological perspective will enlighten these newly informed teachers as regards which tools and resources to apply, when and where. Still another enlightening proposal that has proved enriching for the less novice teachers who want to share their favorite tools and learn about new ones on the web are the Online Communities of Practice, such as Webheads. Its founder has been able to explore since early 2000´s how teachers use computer-mediated communication (CMC) in a constructivist setting, sharing their approaches and pedagogical views on the issue, fostering the community professional development. Communities find different tools to sustain themselves together: internet chat software, blogs, photo galleries, email of text, audio or video files are among the most successfully welcomed by teachers. From this discussion it can be said that teachers’ development programs run a gamut of options to allow novice teachers gain expertise in technology. This can be achieved through different workshop designs depending on the amount of face to face – online exposure they receive. The 4 or 5 days of immersion of tsunami speed holds one extreme and the fully online distance home slippers and warm soup being on the other. 16
  • 17. Distinguished Fulbright Awards in Teaching Program UMD The Incorporation of ICTs into Task-Based Language Learning 2010 Both extremes show advantages and disadvantages; however, an embedded methodology seems to assemble the most outstanding benefits of both. Alternating face to face meetings with online networking, teachers gradually start feeling confident with the virtual platform and they return to it informed and inspired, invigorated by others ‘experiences and comments interwoven by technology. Technology makes us want to be permanent learners. Furthermore, when the policy is carried out under the Action Research paradigm, teacher development will lead both: teachers and their students to become critically reflective practitioners and computer assertive users. The building of learning communities suggested in this paper will provide teachers with a myriad of tools that both trainer and trainees can explore together, followed by a critical reflection which will allow externalizing thoughts and feelings. BIBLIOGRAPHY: Arena, C. and Cruvinel, E. (2010) Learning Through CALLaborative Projects Using Web 2.0 Tools. In A. Shehadeh and C. Coombe (Eds), Applications of Task-Based Learning in TESOL (pp. 111-121). Alexandria, VA: Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages, Inc. (TESOL) Blake, R. (2008) Brave New Digital Classroom Technology and Foreign Language Learning. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press Brown, D. (2007) Teaching by Principles. An Interactive Approach to Language pedagogy. White Plains, NY: Pearson Education Inc. Candlin, C. (2009) Towards task-based language learning. In Van den Branden, K., Bygate, M. & Norris, J. (Eds), Task-Based Language Teaching A reader.Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins Oublishing Company. Dahlman, A. and Tahtinen S. (2006) Virtual Basegroup: E_Mentoring in a Reflective Electronic Support Network. In Hanson-Smith E. and Rilling S. (Eds), Learning Through Technology(pp. 1-7). Alexandria, VA: Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages, Inc. (TESOL) Dewey, J. (1997) Experience & Education. New York, NY: Touchstone García Pérez, F. y García Díaz, J. (1997) Aprender Investigando. Sevilla, España: Diada Editora S. L.
  • 18. AURELIA M. GARCIA Hanson-Smith E. and Rilling S. (2006) Introduction: Using Technology in Teaching Languages. In Hanson-Smith E. and Rilling S. (Eds), Learning Through Technology(pp. 1-7). Alexandria, VA: Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages, Inc. (TESOL) Kearsley G.& Shneiderman B. (2000) Engagement Theory: A for technology-based teaching and learning http://home.sprynet.com/~gkearsley/engage.htm Lnager de Ramirez,L. (2010) Empowering English Language Learners with Tools from the Web. United States of America: Corwin Peters M. & Desjardines F. (2007) Single course Aproach vs a program Approach to Develop Technological Competencies in Preservice language teachers. inKassen M., Lavine R., Murphy-Judy K. & Petres M (Eds), Preparing and Developing Technology- prficient L2 Teachers. (pp.3-20). USA: CALICO Monograph Series. Stenens,V. (2006) Issue: Tools for Online Teacher Communities of Practice. In Hanson-Smith E. and Rilling S. (Eds), Learning Through Technology (pp. 1-7). Alexandria, VA: Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages, Inc. (TESOL) The Partnership for 21st Century Skills(2004) Framework for 21st Century Skills retrieved from http://www.p21.org/ Van den Branden, K., Bygate, M., and Norris, J. M. (Eds.) (2009). Task-based language teaching: A reader. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 16