Week3 Reflections about Skill-building Websites for Aural/Oral Skills

 We had four assignments this week: a discussion, a task, and a course task on Nicenet, and a reflective post on the blog as usual.  

1)    First we were to explain how technology could be helpful in improving our students' aural/oral skills.

Some notes about CALL:

Today, with the high development of computer technology, computers can capture,analyze, and present data on second language students' performances during the learning process. Many different types of technology can be used to support and enhance learning. Everything from video content and digital movie-making to laptop computing and hand-held technologies (Marshall, 2002) have been used in classrooms, and new uses of technology such as podcasting are constantly emerging. 

Technologies available in classrooms today range greatly. Even the cell phones that many students now carry with them can be used to learn (Prensky, 2005).

 Each technology is likely to play a different role in students' learning. Students can learn "from" computers—where technology used essentially as tutors and serves to increase students basic skills and knowledge; and can learn "with" computers—where technology is used as a tool that can be applied to a variety of goals in the learning process and can serve as a resource to help develop higher order thinking, creativity and research skills (Reeves, 1998; Ringstaff & Kelley, 2002).

The use of technology in the classroom improves students' motivation and attitudes about themselves and about learning. Through various communicative and interactive activities, computer technology can help second language learners strengthen their linguistic skills, affect their learning attitude, and build their self-instruction strategies and self-confidence. Computer and its attached language learning programs could provide second language learners more independence from classrooms and allowing learners the option to work on their learning material at any time of the day.

          2)    Then we had to discuss Aural/oral skill-building looking at two or more of the skill-building websites for our classes.Listening in a foreign language is a complex process. Students have to be able to understand the main idea of what is said as well as specific details. They may need to check any predictions they have made, and understand the speaker's meaning, emotions and opinions.   

I wanted to add here some useful techniques to use when teaching listening by Miles Craven:

Pre-listening

Tell your students they shouldn't     worry that they have to understand every word they hear. Not every word is important!

Where possible, make sure students know what they are listening for before you start listening. Explain they should focus only on the information they need.

Give two or three general questions to check students' comprehension of  the basic details.

If possible, check for any words that your students may not know.  Pre-teach these so they do not interfere with understanding.

Brainstorm students' ideas on the topic they are going to listen to.  This will help focus them.

Don't choose a listening that is too long. If necessary, stop the recording at certain points and review what students have understood so far.

While listening

As a general principle, try to play the recording once for overall comprehension. Then play the recording again for specific details. 

Tell students to note any dates, people or places they hear. 

Divide students into groups and give each group a different listening task (e.g. different questions). Then swap their answers and have students listen again and check their classmates' answers. 

Don't be afraid to repeat the recording… especially the parts students have most trouble understanding.

 Post-listening

Tell students to compare their notes and discuss what they understood in pairs or small groups. 

Encourage students to respond to what they heard. For example, where possible ask questions like Do you agree? and encourage debate. 

Tell pairs to write a summary of the main points. Then have them compare their summaries and check if they covered all the main points. 

Play the recording again and tell students to call out ‘Stop!’ when they hear the answers they were listening for. 

Put students into groups and tell them to make a list of comprehension questions to ask each other. 

Tell students to make a list in their notebooks of any new vocabulary they feel is useful.

Remember, it's important to give students a lot of variety in what they listen to. Try to use as many different sources of listening material as you can: advertisements, news programs, poetry, songs, extracts from plays, speeches, lectures, telephone conversations, informal dialogues… the more varied and authentic the listening practice you offer them, the more fun you'll all have!

After exploring several sites individually we had hot discussions about their advantages and shared lots of our favorite sites. There was no end to new exploration and the task became infinite. 

Here are the links to numerous interesting sites proposed by Deborah Healey and Larry Ferlazzo:   http://www.uoregon.edu/~dhealey/138/pronlinks.html

http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/2008/03/17/the-best-sites-to-practice-speaking-english/ 

And I bookmarked some more suggested by my colleagues to my Delicious page.

Now I have a feeling of fear to be lost in this diversity of new sites! What about you? Do you feel the same?