Belinda Harrington aims to improve her teaching of foreign language by increasing cultural authenticity and using technology tools. Her goals are to help students succeed in learning the four communicative components of a foreign language: speaking, listening, reading and writing. She wants to create a virtual learning environment to offer an alternative for students who struggle in a traditional classroom, with the long term goals of providing culturally authentic speaking, listening, reading and writing practice through a virtual format.

1. Foreign Language
Learning Environment
Objectives
BELINDA HARRINGTON

2. • My goal is to improve familiarity with and knowledge of
technology tools to help increase the level of cultural
authenticity and effectiveness in teaching the four
communicative components to learning a foreign
language.
Speaking
Listening
Reading
Writing

3. Many students
for various
reasons struggle
to succeed in a
traditional
classroom
• Despite being in a small
school with relatively small
class sizes there are still
students who are unable to
pass Spanish 1 and are in
danger of not graduating
high school.
• In the long term, I am
interested in creating a
virtual learning environment
that provides students a
viable way to earn foreign
language credits in high
school

4. Long term goal of a virtual
environment to offer to students
Culturally authentic
speaking and listening
opportunities
Culturally authentic
reading and writing
practice
Traditional
Classroom
Objectives for
beginning
second language
learners
Virtual environment
would need to mirror
or improve upon
speaking and listening
opportunities
Virtual classroom
would need to provide
same level of reading
and writing practice to
grow communicative
skills
Potential virtual
environment
opportunity for
students who
struggle in a
traditional
classroom setting

5. Ultimate goals
 The high school that I teach at has currently a very high drop out rate (in
recent years as high as 60%) and 97% of the student population is below
the poverty line.
 While technology is not a cure-all I believe there are many ways I could be
improving the quality of instruction and increase student engagement
through developing skills and a higher level of proficiency with current and
developing technologies.