The document discusses how integrating emerging technologies and the internet can support foreign language instruction in many areas. Readily available tools like social networking, video, and website development can be used to reduce distance in language learning. Students can study and immerse themselves in other languages and cultures online. Instructors can provide complex, stimulating experiences beyond textbooks by having students interact and communicate and demonstrate language growth through videos and websites. An educational framework is needed to support including these tools to encourage interpersonal interactions and communications in language instruction.
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Reducing Distance in Language Learning (using technologies)
1. Reducing Distance in Language Learning
through Social Networking, Video
Development, and Website Integration
Eileen O’Connor, Ph.D.
Eileen.oconnor@esc.edu
Empire State College / State
University of New York (USA)
June 2014
2. Reducing Distance in Language
Learning through Social
Networking, Video Development,
and Website Integration
Reducing Distance in Language Learning through Social Networking, Video-Development, and Website
Integration
The need for global communications and interactions in the fast-shrinking world requires 21st century
skills and understanding. Language and linguistics instructors are essential educators who provide
students with opportunities to develop strong foreign-language communication and cultural skills. In
this paper, resources for documenting, sharing and across-geography interacting that can strengthen
communication skills and encourage cross-cultural connections will be considered. Readily available
tools for social networking (such as Facebook), video incorporation, and website development will be
presented and suggestions for their use and integration into and across courses be will be highlighted.
With ready access to global information and communication, language instructors can now have their
students study, analyze, reflect-on, and immerse-themselves in different languages and cultures.
Students can demonstrate their growing use of language through integration of video and audio in the
works that they develop; readily accessible e-media can make this form of expression easily mastered.
By providing students with a complex, stimulating, and memorable experiences of language, linguistics,
and culture, students can be moved far beyond textbook, grammar, and language-lab studies. A
conceptual / academic framework that can support and justify the inclusion of these tools that
encourage interpersonal interactions and communications will be addressed as well.
3. The role &
importance of
foreign language
instruction
Address global
demand
• 21st century skills
• Commerce & trade
Develop cultural
understanding &
awareness
• Present/ popular culture
• Economics, geography, history
Develop foreign
language
fluency
• Learning through
integration of usage
with technology
4. Motivators to
improve foreign
language acquisition
Ways to ensure &
monitor success
• Self video (easy /
private)
• eJournals, websites
& Facebook (growth
over time)
Quick access to foreign
languages & cultures
• Internet in other languages
• Social networks / virtual
meetings
• Sharing & support
Digital natives
preferences
• Interactivity
• More than text
• Multiple
intelligences
5. Integrating emerging tech & internet can support
foreign language instruction in many areas
Emerging
Technologies
& Internet
Language
Performance
Cultural
understanding
Teacher
resources
All technologies can be
adapted to support these
different areas
6. Ways to use internet-accessible
resources in language instruction
Educational Framework
7. Educational frameworks – and possible
example applications
Immersion / usage / communication (from language and linguistics literature)
Community of Practice (Lave & Wenger) in the target language
Zone of Proximal Development (Vygotsky)
Sharing the learning experience - YouTube
Motivation for the learners
Safe ways to try – can listen and learn before speaking
Technologies with which students are comfortable already
Analysis and study
Comparing different events & cultures
Assessment that are authentic
Live recordings of language usage
Embedded assessments in the portfolio or Facebook; observe growth over time
Visiting peers / badge
8. Ways to use internet-accessible
resources in language instruction
Websites & Facebook
9. Facebook / Websites – can store student
work, as will be seen in the next slides
Website Facebook
Text Unlimited More restrictions
Images can be uploaded? Yes Yes
Videos can be uploaded? Yes Yes
Make links to other sites? Unlimited Through Likes / somewhat
limited but easy
Ease of creation Can be more
challenging, but
new methods are
improving quickly
Easy
Today, many of the
suggestions for foreign
language instructors can be
addressed by both platforms
10. Easy to develop & free website tools –
many templates available
Consider:
www.wix.com or
www.webbly.com
11. Robust, but more involved, websites
from Google are available too
12. Even translation programs built into
web-site building features
Have your students test and see the accuracy & quality of these
services
13. Facebook & Website – authored by the students
Quick development & updating
Easy integrating & storing e-resources
Videos can be uploaded
Post of ongoing learning
Can be shared with the world – but after a safe time
Sharing with the class & with groups
Have students analyze examples from other countries
Live cultural studies possible
Students will need to understand and interact with other cultures for
jobs, trade, and interactions
14. Ways to start students using
Facebook, an example . . .
http://iltl.wordpress.com/2010/11/11/using-facebook-for-language-learning/
• Practical suggestions for
starting quickly and reliably
with Facebook – a scaffolded
approach
• Students are guided through
things-to-find about another
country
• Has students finding videos in
the target language – an extra
boost to learning the language
17. Ways to use internet-accessible
resources in language instruction
Self-videotaping (ie. YouTube)
18. Video & self-video (YouTube) uses –
visual & audio together
Video /
Internet
Target
language
exposure
Cultural
exposure
Self video
Practice in
safe
environments
Demonstrate
growth over
time
19. Use video to have students demonstrate
increased language proficiency over time
Increased
fluency
Progressive taping
Stories, plays,
vignettes
Safe environment for
practice
20. Ways to use internet-accessible
resources in language instruction
Emerging ideas – based on technology
21. Using ideas surfacing from emerging
technologies, such as . . .
Badging & peer review
Have students review the web-posted work of their
peers
Offer student-offered best practice badges
Expands dedication, interest, and commitment
Can be separate from the course evaluation too
23. Ways to use internet-accessible
resources in language instruction
Virtual reality
24. Using Second Life – a collection of
virtual reality locations
Requiring actual visits to different cultures and
exhibits
Talking to avatars from other countries
Making machinima in other language
That is, videotape the avatar(s)
Demonstrate performance
27. Integrating language education through
the use of e-tools – ways to think
Across courses – create a learning journal / growth over
time / meeting individuals from other countries
Analyzing cultural examples – comparing to textbooks /
interview others from different countries
Gathering insights and writing papers that use info and
images from other websites, virtual location
Requiring communications with social networks, forums,
and virtual reality in other languages
28. Ways to use internet-accessible
resources in language instruction
Gathering ideas, resources, and professional
development from other language / linguistics
professionals
Some examples follow
29. Many language instructor resources
available
Materials and resources – via the web or Facebook
Instructor networks and social networks – join
communities on an ongoing basic
Attend conferences
34. Learn from links from these
trusted organizations
Get quickly to
quality, web-
accessible resource
35. Learning language
improvement through
video usage
http://sisaljournal.org/archives/sep12/hirschel_yamamoto_lee/
Initial results appear to indicate that student
videos are correlated with a positive effect upon
students’ interest in, enjoyment of, and
confidence in speaking English, but not with
perceptions of increased general English ability
or ability to interact in English.
. . . Taken together, the qualitative and
quantitative data point to a pattern whereby,
over the eight month course of study, students
appeared to be developing a greater interest in
and enjoyment of communicating in English.
36. Her research investigated what kept adult English
learners of Italian motivated during a beginners'
course. Though the students joined the classes for
a variety of reasons and were taught by different
teachers using different approaches, it quickly
became apparent that maintaining motivation was
closely connected to the social elements involved.
. . . "We found that those most likely to stick with
it were the ones who developed a social bond
within a group,“ . . . "For them, learning Italian
became part of their social identity: something
they do one evening a week with a group of
pleasant and like-minded people. For both groups
[in the study], social participation was the driving
force for sustaining motivation."
http://www.theguardian.com/education/2014/mar/19/language-learning-motivation-brain-teaching
37. Consider workshops in using technologies in
language instruction, created by and for
teachers
41. Ways to use internet-accessible
resources in language instruction
Making this happen
42. Planning & training
for technology
acquisition
Partner with
other disciplines
•Computer & writing
instructors
•Modules to share
among all disciplines
Students self-support
•Peer training
•Badging
•Students help other students
Integrate tutorials
•Place in your course
•Integrate the many
supports and links
available
43. Integrating
technologies can
help support the
VITAL role of
language
education
Address global
demand
• 21st century skills
• Commerce & trade
Develop cultural
understanding &
awareness
• Present/ popular culture
• Economics, geography, history
Develop foreign
language
fluency
• Learning through
integration of usage
with technology
Editor's Notes
Language acquisition and cultural understanding are keys to success in the complex, global world of today.
Instructors can use the tools of today and the propensities of younger populations to speed the acquisition of language and cultural skills. If you attend to the ways that psychology points out how we learn and how we are motivated, you will be able to start new and productive ways to help students acquire language.
Veletanios predicted the use in different ways for any technology – you will see some ways that teachers of linguistics can enhance their work with language & culture and ways they can get resources. Creativity and experimentation will be what you need as an instructor.
You can use a variety of readily available tools to hold and support the students work. There are some slight differences – but in terms of linguistic instruction, they are not that different.
By having students tape themselves over time, you can see the progression in their work, they can report stories and narratives, and they can work in a safe and comfortable environment
At some point, you will need to have strategies for the technology skills that the students will need. There are a number of ways to help students.
Language acquisition and cultural understanding are keys to success in the complex, global world of today.