(Podcasting)Podcasts for ESL/EFL Classrooms

(Podcasting)Podcasts for ESL/EFL Classrooms

 

In his book “Recipe Exchange Podcasts for ESL/EFL” Jeff Mehring discusses how podcasting can be used as a beneficial tool teaching tool in EFL/ESL classrooms describing some activities that can be based on creating and listening to authentic recorded materials. According to Jeff Mehring, the podcasts can be used to elicit comments and continue the discussion of the topics discussed in the classroom. They are the combination of two words: IPod and Broadcasting. Podcasting includes only listening to a content instead of reading something on a screen of the computer which is aimed to develop Ss’ listening skills.

It is possible for people to download the podcasts made by different from the internet for free on their IPods or hard drives and listen to them.

It was very interesting for me to read about creating one’s own podcast so I would like to share the information about the instructions of making it. The podcast making “recipe” consists of two phases: Recording and Editing.

“Recording

1. Open Audacity window

2. Click the record button, the small red circle, and record a short

introduction, for example your name, and where you are from. Do not

worry about making mistakes, or having silent gaps. These can be fixed

later.

3. Click the stop button, the yellow square, when you are finished.

4. To hear what you said, click the play button, the green arrow.

Editing (Similar to editing a word document using Microsoft Word)

1. To cut out a silent part, spoken error or repetition, place the cursor on

the area to be corrected, left click and drag to highlight the section you

wish to delete. Then click edit, and then cut. The highlighted area will

disappear. If by mistake you deleted the wrong area, click edit, then

undo and it will be replaced. To hear the new segment, place the cursor

before that area click play and you will hear the edited audio. Continue

to edit the audio until you are satisfied.

2. To add audio into a section, place the cursor where you want to add it,

click record and begin speaking, click stop when finished. Again place

the cursor before that segment, click play and you will hear the audio

with the new segment added in.

3. To place a portion of your audio in a different area, left click it and drag

the area you wish to copy, click edit, and copy. Then place the cursor in

the new area and click edit, and paste.

4. When you are satisfied with your podcast and want to export it, click on

File and Export as MP3. Place it on your desktop.

5. Alternatively, you can save your file as a wave file (.wav) which is a

richer format than MP3 and most sound players and analyzers will take a wav file”.

Jeff Mehring

Blogging and Microblogging

Blogging and Microblogging

   Today’s topic for discussion is blogging and microblogging. It was important to find out for me whether it is worth using those Web tools in my EFL classroom or not.  I think that this is very arguable because every teacher has his own perceptions and methods of using them.

Will Richardson reflects about this topic in his “Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts and Other powerful Web tools for Classrooms” book. According to him, Weblogs brought revolution in journalism. People could share their ideas, perceptions and even corrections under the article posted on the internet thus helping the authors to make them more readable and proper to readers’ needs.

As for using blogs as a teaching tool, Richardson mentions that “Giving students their own Weblogs can change much about the traditional classroom”.

First of all, students get rid of papers and just post their work online waiting for peer and teacher feedback. I think that this is a great idea because not only students but also sometimes teachers are lost in papers. This problem vanishes in case of blogging.

Second, it’s easier for students to reflect one homework after another and then to see their progress.

Third, reading and being read by peers and teacher, commenting and being commented leads to development of their skills more and more.

I mostly liked Richardson’s idea about students’ having blogs from starting school until finishing it. This will be a personal work data throughout the years and can be used for student’s future career too. I understand that this is very responsible and hard work to keep having and reflecting blogs in Armenia but if I teach at school I would like try this out with my students because this will be interesting not only for me and people who will be reading their blogs, but also for students themselves because years will pass and they will be able to go back and read their thoughts that might have already changed during the years.

Although blogging will ease both Armenian students’ and teachers’ work, I am also concerned about something that Richardson mentions as a disadvantage of using blogs in the classroom. That is the threat of having a lot of unfiltered inappropriate info that will come along with useful one. In this case I think the CIPA will not help because we do not have special filtering programs that are used in Armenian schools.

So while surfing the Net here students may quite often face this problem. I think in this case Armenian teachers should concern one of the two suggested solutions by Richardson, which is to inform and teach the students how to prevent viewing inappropriate files or pages and act correctly in case of their appearance.

Being totally new teaching tool in Armenia (I don’t think that any Armenian teacher uses them in their classrooms) blogs may bring a revolution into Armenian EFL classrooms and I will be happy to be one of the first teachers to implement this Web tool in my classroom because I think that it will help a lot my students not only to improve their writing skills but also to become more sociable expressing their ideas freely (which I think Armenian students need to improve the most).

As for microblogging, I don’t think that it is a good idea to use them while teaching because in comparison with blogs there can be fewer or no info to learn for students. I think that microblogs like Twitter or Facebook are totally good to use to communicate but obviously outside the classroom and class time. 

Here are some ways how I would use the blogs and twitter in an EFL classroom.

• My students should be at pre-intermefiate proficiency level, age:16-18, location: EFL classroom with the internet connection and limited access to the internet sources.
• In order to introduce my students blogging and twitter first of all I will create one sample account for me  in order for them to see how it is done. Secondly, I will write the instructions step by step, and finally, I will provide a video tutorial for them as an additional help.
• For blogging I will suggest from 2-3 topics we have covered on which the students will reflect on. As for twitter I will ask a specific question that was arguable in the class and  based on their opinion,  they will answer in their twitter account.
• I will check  the chronological   order, spelling and grammar.
• spelling and grammar are things that are needed to be corrected but in case of blogs the T should not give feedback in public just commenting under the post  but s/he should send a private message to the student giving comments about his mistakes.

Digital Youth Portraits and The World's Flatteners

Digital Youth Portraits and The World's Flatteners

In all videos that I watched from “Digital youth portrait” list, the children from different ages and grades have interesting skills and abilities to fascinate  older generation: they enjoy using technology and creating something with it. The thing that really stuck me in these stories is that all these children are computer geniuses, even though one of them (Olyvia) did not have a computer at home. I noticed that most of these children are interested in music and computer games too.

Mostly I am impressed with Dylan who has created his own website and in his thirteens  he helps his teachers and works with them in different projects. Also Nafiza, who creates animation movies about education and is aimed to make her own virtual video project working with people from different countries.

Based on these stories I can assume that I, as a teacher should be really ready to learn many things from my students about technology in future because nowadays younger generation  have much more advanced computer skills and advanced access to virtual life than elder ones.

It is a bit sad for me to say so, but in comparison to America and other technologically Developed countries in Armenia TEFL professionals do not use technology in their EFL classrooms very often. Maybe this is because of lack of technological information that they first need to receive and then to use, in order to teach.

Thomas Friedman was one of those people who discussed the topic of technology and internet access integration in our lives from its beginning till nowadays.  According to Friedman “there was a wall between web that came down and the windows came up” which led our world to become “Flat”.

 i.e. there was a wall between people from different edges of the world and as a result of its collapsing people can  see and collaborate with each other more easily. He discusses about some flatteners that totally changed our lives. One of them and the most fascinating for me was its very beginning (1995s) when the first internet browser was created. At that time people could first “touch” the flattened world. Then, I compare it to nowadays internet, that after many years it developed so much that people can work at airline companies and answer phone calls(working) from their homes,  in more comfortable conditions, because as we all know, we feel more comfortable when we are home and modern technology gives us that opportunity to work and feel comfortable at the same time.

There are some connections that we can find in the three following projects: “Digital Youth Portraits”, Sugata Mitra’s “The Hole in The Wall”, and Thomas Friedman’s “The World Is Flat”.We can see that all these three above mentioned projects connect people from different countries and continents letting them to work and collaborate with each other. Actually the most important part of the our world are children who are integrated in this process that makes us concern about some advantages (E.g. children acquire computer knowledge very quickly and can be aware of some more things than adults do and are able to learn over and over again from the global web). Also it has its disadvantages (sometimes they may lose the face to face interaction and the sense of reality by going deep into the virtual life).