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- 1. Bringing the Second Language Classroom into the 21 st Century: Infusing a Cultural Perspective and Technology
- 19. Wordle
Editor's Notes
- Blanca and I would like to welcome you all today to our presentation and thank you so much for choosing to spend half an hour of your day with us. We are so excited to be part of this conference. Chat is enabled for everyone so please post any questions, comments or URLs in the chat. We very much encourage you to do this, as your participation is very important. Your mics will be turned off until the Q and A session at the end of the presentation at which time you can raise your hand and your mic will be enabled.
- Julie My name is Julie Elkan I’m a technology integration specialist in Holliston. I’m passionate about integrating technology into the learning process. For me the pedagogy is always of paramount importance. This is a common theme throughout our presentation. I was excited to hear Alan November’s keynote where he spoke at length on the topic. I would highly recommend listening to the recording which is available on the conference website. Blanca I am a Spanish teacher at the Robert Adams Middle School in Holliston. I have been teaching here for 11 years. I teach grades 6, 7 and 8. I firmly believe in keeping the instruction in the target language when we teach a second language. From my own experience learning English I know that this is best practices. I believe if we want our students to be functional 21 st century learners we not only have to teach them the grammar but they have to leave our classroom with deep and enduring understanding of the target culture. Deep and enduring understanding does not imply learning facts and information about a culture, but an understanding of the Perspectives, Practices and Products associated with that culture . In order to do that we must first ensure their acquisition of fluency of reading, writing, listening and speaking in the target language. We do need to remember that developing real fluency takes time and motivation in the part of the learner but, we can certainly help our students get there and today we will share some ideas with you.
- Blanca Julie and I teach in Holliston MA. It’s about 25 miles west of Boston. Last year wHolliston Public Schools received The Melba D. Woodruff Award for Exemplary Elementary Foreign Language Program from the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Language. We have a successful French Immersion program that has been running for over 20 years which is quite unusual for a small town like ours.
- Blanca We recently underwent a world language curriculum review. It was coordinated by our world languages coordinator: Mrs. Theresa Caccavale. All the details of the review are available on our website you’ll see the URL on this slide. It is a very thorough research –based review. As an outcome and recommendation of the curriculum review we have started to implement cultural thematic units in grade 6 with the hope of continuing to the other grades in the years to come. Another recommendation was to include more readings about cultural topics in authentic formats whenever possible.
- Blanca In Holliston we aligning our curriculum with the national standards for foreign language education.
- Holliston we are working hard to incorporate 21 st century skills with the help of a 21 st century skills map. This skills map was developed through a year-long collaborative process, spear-headed by the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) and P21, it reflects the collective effort of hundreds of World Language teachers and illustrates the integration of World Languages and 21st Century Skills. I really like this map as it is concise, well laid out and provides teachers with concrete examples of how 21st Century Skills can be integrated into World Languages. Our focus for our lesson plans is on backward design with the end goal in mind. Clearly technology certainly makes it far easier to use authentic resources, for example the ease of searching sites in the target language and also using Google translate. You will see an example of this later on. Foreign Language Learning is no longer confined to the classroom, the internet, Skype, blogs, wikis, podcasts, video, Xtranormal, Voicethread to mention just a few, are all tools that makes providing opportunities for learners to use language beyond the Classroom easily achievable.
- So today Blanca and I will share with you projects our students have completed and other examples, and we will illustrate how we are using the skills map to help us integrate 21 st century skills into the our classroom. You will see and hear some examples of technology being used in interesting, creative ways. However, we will explain that on reflection, some projects may be falling into the old paradigm of using technology as a cool tool to motivate and engage students, whereas what we really need to do is integrate technology to enhance learning. We will give you concrete examples of how we are modifying the assignments to do just this using the skills map We hope you will see in this presentation, in our classrooms there is an emphasis on the learner as a “doer” and “creator” and also Integrating technology into instruction to enhance learning. We have also tried hard to move away from isolated cultural factoids towards an emphasis on the relationship among the perspectives, practices, and products of the culture. Blanca will provide an example of this through childrens literature
- Of course, assessment that is closely linked to the learning objectives, is an integral part of backwards design. In the 21 st century classroom it is important to consider assessing 21 st century Skills and if technology is to be integrated as a meaningful instructional tool to enhance learning then we need rubrics for digital stories, podcasts, Voicethread etc. Today we will provide links to rubrics for many different multimedia tools, project based learning rubrics and also links to sites where you can create your own rubrics. Lastly, technology enables students to publish for an authentic audience and we will share with you examples of multi media products like, Talking Tom, enhanced podcasts made in Garage Band, and Voki. We will highlight the importance of the learning process. We used the same format for the process for all the projects, what ever the multimedia tool that was being used: We planned the learning objectives We decided on the best tool for students to demonstrate their learning We developed the assessment criteria for the content, and multimedia tool and then created the rubric We planned the activity and required a certain performance level before any student started recording I’m sure you have experienced what happens to the levels of engagement when students create and publish for an authentic audience. Many students also feel driven to produce a higher quality product, as they feel their work has a real purpose. We’ll show you some examples and explain how the process we followed supported higher levels of engagement and improved the learning.
- We also trying to work towards answering the essential question: How can we motivate students to make language learning relevant? I think to answer that question we have to connect language and culture in a way that is meaningful to the students we teach. Here are some suggestions and a video that has some examples; Video
- One resource and support community to find this type of information is the Global Workplace Skills Ning. There are also videos on YouTube So we have lots of projects to share with you today
- So let’s start with a poll to see what languages we all teach. If you fall into the other category, please post in the chat what language it is. That will be interesting. Blanca I’ll hand the mic over to you.
- Blanca I think one of the challenges teachers face every year are the students who may not be interested or do not care about our subject. I have tried to change this by including more literature and children’s books into my instruction and giving them an opportunity to share and publish their work using different computer programs. Julie- How do you choose the books? I first select books by the topic we are currently studying. For example for the “body parts unit” I selected these three books ( izquierdo derecho, Gabriela tu si puedes, and los cinco sentidos ) they are all very different and at different levels to suit my diverse learners.
- Julie Can you give us and example of this? Blanca Yes, well in the book Gabriela tú si puedes , Gabriela is a little girl who does not eat healthy foods and as a consequence she looses a race at school. Her parents decide to make dietary changes, they go for walks together and at the end, Gabriela ends up improving her time and wining the race. When I read this story with my students we talked about the three P’s of culture. We talked about the products presented in the book; mainly the Mexican foods, the practices of Gabriela and her family and we compared them to our own society and we discovered that they were not so different. Finally we came up some perspectives. And the perspectives was challenging for them because it requires some higher order thinking skills. They come up with things like: Gabriella and her family did not eat very healthy because both of her parents had to work a lot. Society bombards us with unhealthy eating habits and food choices. Sometimes it is not easy to make healthy choices because fast food restaurants are everywhere.
- Blanca The following are some examples of the books that I use. Some of these just have poetry others are short stories and tongue twisters. All my students really enjoy the tongue twisters! They like challenging each other.
- Blanca Poems/ tongue twisters I think it is very useful for students to memorize short passages. They learn to say things correctly, it helps them with pronunciation and it will stay with them forever. I find it best to keep it simple. I will only assign about 5 simple poems. If your students are more advance and have more language, you can certainly assign each student a different poem. I use a couple of books and I select a few simple poems for my students to memorize. I assign the same poem to a small group and I review the poem with each group so they know what he poem is about. Once they understand the poem they begin to create a digital story. This is where digital literacy comes in as they have to select pictures that support the poems meaning. They have to also select background music that supports the mood of the poem. The voice over is very important too. The students read the poem with expression that again enhances the meaning of the poem. Here is an example in English: Video http://vimeo.com/32156865 . Kids love to be creative and this allows them to put images to the poems. One of the things that they like best is not to stand in front of the class. They have plenty of time on their own, to rehearse and feel comfortable. Assessment: I evaluate how well they are able to say their poem and how well they can captivate their audience. This includes pronunciation, intonation and the fluidity of their speech. Outcomes: I do see a tremendous improvement in their pronunciation.
- Julie How do you use them in the classroom? Blanca Because these books are all in Spanish my students will not understand them if I do not scaffold. I usually read it to them and as I go along, I will stop to discuss and explain vocabulary that they do not understand. I always try to make the cultural connections and have my students pull out the products, practices and perspectives. Many times with these books they can see that these stories or characters are not very different from themselves. They can identify with situations or people from other cultures and then they become more sensitive and Feel empathy for others
- Julie One idea on the skills map is to use a word cloud generator like Wordle, to present students with a graphic visualization of a text in this case it’s a poem, (song, rhyme, fable) and have them predict (whole class, groups or pairs) the main theme, idea or key concepts.
- Julie Again as I said at the beginning of our presentation, we had clear learning objectives for all our projects which were supported by rubrics. Here is an enhanced podcast in which students read a children’s story book, and add music and sound effects Play Video In this project again the process was key for enhancing the learning and by that I mean the technology was merely instrumental in allowing students to demonstrate their learning in an engaging, fun way. In this project students selected a children’s picture book and practiced reading it over several days at home until they decided that they were reading it at what we called ‘performance level’. This meant that they were reading it Fluently, with expression and relevant animated voices. It was remarkable to see the difference between the first reading and the final performance. 8 th grade students were coming in at 7 am to read to Blanca so they could pass the quality approval test. If they had reached the required performance level they were then able to start the recording process. When they were recording students naturally monitored their own quality of performance. This was a successful project as it was not only fun and engaging for the students but certainly improved their fluency, intonation and understanding of vocabulary. One student remarked he couldn’t get certain phrases out of his head as he’d read them so much and he would never forget the word for duck in Spanish for the rest of his life. How will we modify this project next year? We’ll publish the podcasts on YouTube, a wiki or Vimeo and play them for an authentic audience of younger students either in our school district or abroad and get their feedback.
- Julie This is an example of how we used to do things in the past and how we might modify the assignment to integrate more 21 st century skills, a cultural perspective, multimedia skills and publish for an authentic audience. Students made a wonderful children’s picture book with many flaps and moving parts: this student must have spent hours working on it, as you will see, she paid great attention to detail. The learning objectives were to practice and learn interrogatives. The students modeled their own books on Spanish children’s picture books. In the past we simply read the books to each other in class and that was it. Now we can do so much more! To illustrate this Blanca and I made this rough around the edges 1 minute video to show that by adding music and sound effects it really brings the book to life. We videoed just a few pages of the book in iMovie for you, then published directly to YouTube from iMovie. PLAY VIDEO Other than students making a video with music and sounds how can we modify this assignment even more to reflect the 21 st century world language classroom? A couple of ideas are: Have the students make the recordings and post them to YouTube or Vimeo and share them with another class of younger students. Students research and learn to use appropriate gestures and oral expressions for greetings, leave takings, and common classroom interactions from the target language culture and incorporate them into their story book. If you have any ideas please share them in the chat, we’d love to hear them.
- Blanca This is an example of using technology as a cool tool, but next time we want to incorporate more of a cultural perspective and perhaps higher level critical thinking skills. Let’s watch the video and then I’ll explain what I mean: Video We would like to focus on the product, practice sand perspectives by…………
- Julie Podcasts are another great tool which can be integrated into the learning process. This is an example of an ELL student creating an audio recording. Yuxiao was 11 years old. She was not confident speaking up in class. She wrote about playing her musical instrument, the guzheng. Let’s listen to a couple of minutes of the podcast. Yuxiao is speaking and playing the guzheng herself. Podcast What was so amazing about this project is that this podcast gave her a voice in a non threatening way. She was able to practice her spoken language until she was happy with the quality. She enjoyed writing the script as it was a subject she felt passionately about. When the other students heard the podcast they wanted to see the guzheng and asked Yuxiao to bring it in to the class and play for them. This was a break through as until then there had been very little communication between the other students and Yuxiao. This podcast really help overcome some barriers and helped start making connections and building relationships between Yuxiao and the other students. Podcasts are great collaborative tools too. Our students work on writing collaborative a script which is aligned to the assessment and learning objectives. Once again they have to reach a certain performance level before they are able to start the recording. We find that this process really motivates students, we publish the podcasts for a world wide audience which is very important.
- Julie You can use Tom to practice and demonstrate learning of language structures and grammar or in the 21 st century skills map it suggests creating an emergency text message. Talking Toms can be emailed, uploaded to Facebook or YouTube.
- Julie Using Voki you can create fun avatars to give speeches. This is an example of practicing the numbers and dates. Video It can be used for many different purposes. There are a wide choice of avatars including cute aliens and animes. We could improve this by incorporating cultural perspectives and practices or use a skills map suggestion: Students listen to an emergency weather report and create message
- Julie We used to create dialogues about ordering food at a restaurant. Then we used technology as a cool tool to and posted the dialogue. This Xtranormal video is an example of that. Now we can modify this project and integrate 21 st century skills such as problem solving and connect to real life issues and other subject areas. The skills map gives an example using the food pyramid. Students could explain their understanding of the food pyramid in a scene on Xtranormal.
- Julie After looking at the food pyramid Students could browse recipes from target language sites and work in pairs to change ingredients to a healthier alternative, which they incorporate into the script for Xtranormal. You could also bring in a cultural perspective too.
- Julie Or students could read several authentic menus and identify which would be appropriate for different people based on likes/dislikes and special dietary needs, which they incorporate into the script for Xtranormal.
- Julie I love this website. It’s a non-profit organization with a mission to connect people through lending to alleviate poverty. Kiva lets individuals lend as little as $25 to help entrepreneurs around the world. Kiva works with micro lending institutions. As the borrower repays the loan the money becomes available in your account. So how can we use this site in the classroom. Again it’s about the process and pedagogy: Firstly we can use Google translate to translate the Kiva web site into the target language. Then in small groups students review the entrepreneurs and their business ideas. They discuss the pros and cons of the businesses And then decide in their small groups which entrepreneur they will choose. They then participate in a presentation or debate or write a persuasive essay that puts forward their reasons for selecting this entrepreneur and why the class should vote for them. The class votes and decides on one entrepreneur to support as a class. The class raises the $25 and loans the money. This process involves not only higher level thinking skills but also persuasive writing and spoken language.
- Julie Throughout this presentation the theme has been that the process and pedagogy are key. It’s not about the technology. So it is important to keep the learning objectives in mind and align assessment to them. We need to be clear what the criteria are for assessing multi-media projects otherwise we risk just doing cool things with technology but not demonstrating the learning. We have to align the product to the learning objectives. Kathy Schrock offers a great selection of rubrics, including multimedia projects that can be modified to fit your needs. Blanca So that wraps it up for now, Thank you for taking the time to listen to our presentation we hope you have enjoyed it. We hope we have made our point that adding cultural perspectives and technology is important but so is the learning process. We’ll now open it up for questions and comments. Please raise your hand if you would like to ask a question