GSE Symposium 2013

[“I do not know the word, withered!”: ?English learners' second language? writing strategies]
Study and presentation for GSE Student Research Symposium 2013 with Chris Yanggi Seo
about English lexicon usage and writing strategies of English learners, according to our designed interview and data analysis, we presented our understanding of prior study and our findings

Podcast: one thing in a French day

  More and more multimedia publishings on the Web are self made entertainment.  It's much easier to create one's own podcast online as well. Since Apple has incorporated support for listening and subscribing to podcast into iTunes, which make listening to the podcast from all over the world, with different topics and in different languages easier to get. No specific technologies are needed, while everyone could subscribe, or make a podcast by themselves.

 

  I used to listen to podcast of music each week, I liked it so much and it was made by an individual who was a big fan of music, and I also listened to the ESLpod ,these days, which has different topics every a couple of days. It offers a variety of topics, like business, social, cultural... and it speaks in a lower speed in cater to the language proficiency to ESL learners, to learn the language in a context of learning cultural. This podcast is really interesting for ESL learners, especially for those beginners or intermediate level students who are in a EFL environment, where they could not have much exposure to the English.

         

  Meanwhile, I found another one which is really interesting,  which helps me to learn French,One Thing In A French Day , it is made and produced by an individual each week, she talked about the tourist attractions, cultural issues of France, and with a natural speed of speaking, the best thing is it has the text on the website, which could be taken as the reading or dictation materials.  If I teach English or French, I would like my students to listen to these more natural podcast which relate to cultural issue, and make them interested in learning this languages. I can also expand the topic.  For example, one podcast of it is about the vacation plans,Les prochaines vacances, I could let students to dictate it, and talk about their own vacation plans as an oral practice or let them write with some target vocabulary as a writing exercises.

ePals- Connect the students

   Epals is a global teaching and learning community which connects more than 200 countries and territories. It's a great platform which promotes a meaningful and secure web 2.0 environment, and also it helps teachers and students from different age to reach  other learners of different background and reach different online sources for learning. Epals projects are centered around content and experience require teamwork, brainstorm and communication. By learning about relevant issues, students, teachers work together, and different people share their ideas. It's a communicative way to learn and teach, and  this learning experience motivates students for self-study, and helps their future career as well.

  I love the Global community products of ePals. It helps students and teachers to connect the others to cooperate and learn through communication. For example, Class in USA Seeks Email Exchange in Chinese , the teacher is asking for exchange of emails and skype for the students who learn Chinese in the states. It's a great way for students to learn the original languages, and to motivate their interests. I cannot help but thinking that if I were younger and I know to use ePals, I would have more connection to the English native speakers as well. Technology Class in Texas, USA Seeks Partners for Countries Around the World Project

is also a good project, which help students around the world to communicate based on the exploration of the Internet, and it also requires the learning of powerpoint, and students can learn the public presenting skills through the project.

  I'd like to apply the use of ePals in my future classroom, and I will start the project for the objects of letting Chinese students connect to the native English speakers of the same age, and letting my students to change the emails and skypes to communicate with others, and gain knowledge of both cultural and linguistic.

  

Voice thread in teaching

 Voice Thread is a popular online tool for teaching.
 T he best thing of it is that it provides students and teacher a place to have direct interactions, and to comment by different types of media on an artifact.
  Besides, it can be a great online classroom, because no matter where the students or teachers are,they can communicate with Voice Thread instantly and frequently. They can hear and watch each other to know the peers' thinking and the teacher's feedback/
 Also, Voice Thread can help to record the progress of study,or even build an e-portfolio on it.
 This week, I tried to make a Voice Thread class on the topic of language use in Quebec, it's quite interesting to hear myself, and see the class content I designed. I commented on 2 peers.Erin's and Yuechen's, I find they clearly explain how to use Voice Thread, and chose an interesting topic to let students talk more.

Interesting comic strip makers

Ele's sad news by Qinchun on GoAnimate

Animation Software - Powered by GoAnimate.

  I used GoAnimate to make a little comic strip story. To insert a daily dialogue and an issue about the animal protection.On one hand,for a teacher, it has some benefits:
1. Time saving for curriculum-related classroom activities.
2. Interesting content make students hooked on reading comics, helps to engage students
3.Dialogue form is easy for students to learn target language especially daily use language.
  On the other hand, for students, if they are assigned to make a comic strip, they will probably find it's great fun. By make comic strips, they can spark their creativity to express themselves. Students can also learn some serious social issues by reading or making funny comics.
  Besides, I made a little video about Beijing winter by Animoto, which is also very vivid and interesting digital story telling tool. These tools can both help teacher to make classroom activated and help students to spark their creativity and learning motivation.