Last CALL

To my mind, the most useful CALL tools possess the following properties: accessibility, ease of use, a justifiable purpose, and popularity. Accessibility and ease of use as criteria should be self-evident; as instructors, our primary focus should be on language instruction, not promoting technological fluency for its own sake. In the same vein, any technology used as an instructional tool should justify its own use beyond a fascination with gadgetry or virtual settings. Popularity should never be overlooked, in considering that those tools that are already in wide use by students should, by association, already be accessible and easy to use, thereby cutting down on time wasted on acclimating them to the tool of choice.

I will certainly be using CALL in the future (if it’s available where I teach) but I will do so only following the above criteria and caveats. Still, there’s a lot to be said for using technology for what we do, and I can only imagine we will become more reliant on it with time.

This Here CALL deally

So I'm not sold on wikis just because I'm not sure what they do. I like real-time peer editing setups, like googledocs, because I've seen their uses in a professional setting. It seems to me that a good deal of learning hwo to use these applications has to do with personal preference. Obviously ease of use and access should be priorities, and I am partial to podcasts, but I haven't quite made the jump to being able to visualize using a lot of this stuff in class. Hopefully my collaborative mega-project, being assembled this weekend, will open my eyes.

Second Life is interesting, or would be if I ever saw anyone on there. Even when I go to supposedly populated areas, like the massive ESL ho-downs that show up in a search, I can't find anyone--or, if I do, they don't seem interested in talking to me. Maybe it's my avatar--I know he's a little rakish, one might even say dashing, but does that mean he can't be an effective instructor? I should think not.

Meebo, Youboo, Weallboo

So I think Meebo is a good conferencing tool and I would probably use it for suprasegmental instruction if the connection was fast enough. I'm not sure I see value in having multiple people signed in at the same time, but with some practice I believe that some practical applications would avail themselves. Video conferencing in L2, however, just sounds like a recipe for confusion.

Online Discussion

The use of online discussion tools, while practical in some settings, is a good way to exchange ideas and information, but I’m not sure a real-time discussion is the best way to facilitate an academic conversation. One of my classes uses threads on blackboard as a way to clarify the issues behind student presentations, and it’s remarkably valuable, but I don’t think a mandatory real-time discussion will necessarily elicit valuable output—I have experience in that environment too and it always felt really forced.

Project Proposal

Twitterface


Aja Gorham
Jay Grahovac
Jesse Ackles



CALL Project Proposal: Making Simple Requests



Set up:



· You are going to dinner with your boss or the father of your significant other. How would you pass them the butter?

· You are going for coffee with a friend you have not seen in a while. How would you ask the barista for your drink?

· Making a request in English can have gradations of politeness that speakers use depending on who they are talking to. Your job is to go out and collect data! Find out how native speakers use different polite markers to make a request.


CALL Activity: Using Twitter.com, record native speakers making requests in public spaces, such as:



· Starbucks - "Can I have a grande mocha no whip?"

· The cafeteria - "May I have a diet coke?"

· The movie theater - "Two tickets for Avatar, please."



Text a request you hear to twitter via a pre-established account or record the request you hear and post no less than 6 tweets; one request per tweet. The tweets will be displayed in front of the class and discussed as a group. The discussion will revolve around common usage and ask students to make guesses as to the context of the situation. With guesses regarding the context of the situations students will be assigned a situation:



· Dinner with the in-laws

· Asking for directions from a stranger

· Asking a good friend for a loan

· Etc.


The students will then be asked to write a series of requests, including in their list a tweeted request. These results will be posted on the class blog for student references and an online catalog of phrases.



CALL Activity: Podcast. In the theme of Mission: Impossible



· A daily podcast modeled after the famous TV show, Mission: Impossible will be used to inform the students of their “mission” for that day.

· "Your mission, should you chose to accept it, is to go lurk around some strangers and tweet what they say but don't look like a terrorist. This message will self-destruct in 10 seconds."



Call Activity: Blog

· The class blog will be used to tie the two above activities together and report on the success of the students’ progress.

IMing in L2

I think there is a lot of value in the potential of real-time communication to facilitate language acquisition. I've always enjoyed polishing up one of my super-rusty L2s in IRC or similar media.

In the interest of accountability, I think a mechanism should be implemented to give the activity some long-term value. Editing a printout or something might be one solution, maybe peer editing on googledocs or something like that.

And, IM works well for English but a lot of other languages have diacritical marks that aren't convenient or even available in most real-time exchanges.

Everyday Expressions: Exploring Common Phrases Defying the Dictionary

http://matesol.podbean.com/

Immersed in the English language and American culture as ESL students, advanced level students are seeking to step beyond manuals to grasp a large, but difficult to teach, concept: idioms. In this ESL podcast, speakers Aja Gorham and Jesse Ackles, examine how common phrases or expressions are used in speech, as well as possible meaning for these expressions, and a helpful tip for thinking about the use of expressions. This podcast steps away from English as theory to transition into decoding the cultural puzzles that define expressions.

While students do not need a particular vocabulary set, it is important to understand phrases as a lexical unit, and not just as individual words. For classroom use it may be helpful to reacquaint students with phrases such are “ how are you” “ I’m fine” “ what’s up,” etc. Reminding students of units acquired as phrases may prove helpful in introducing expressions as a collective unit. Though the abstract nature of most idiomatic expressions make the units impossible for common translation, it is important that students be introduced to non-literal phrases as a means of gaining fluency and confidence in exchanges with native speakers.


For more information regarding the abstract nature of expressions or definition of common idioms please visit the websites below.


http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/

http://www.usingenglish.com/reference/idioms/

http://dictionary.cambridge.org/Default.asp?dict=I (you can even follow this one on TWITTER!!!! omg!)

Concordance? But I'm a terrible dancer...

I think with concordance that it’s important to remember that conjunctive thinking is an acquired skill. We may be dealing with people that are unable to use the tools available for reasons that have very little to do with language processing. In fact, I’d like to open this issue up for general discussion, if anyone is willing.

Podcast Info

Tackling Tipping: A Discussion of Paying for Service

In this two-person podcast English Language Learners living in the United States will hear differing opinions on the act of tipping. Speakers, Aja Gorham and Jesse Ackles, present two different views on popular American practice of tipping to rouse class debate/discussion amongst beginning and intermediate students about tipping practices and beliefs in the classroom. These opinions do not represent rules about American practices, but two viewpoints on a large scale.

For more thorough, researched facts regarding tipping practices please consult the independent website listed below:

* http://www.tipping.org/tips/us.html
* http://www.essortment.com/all/tipping_rdef.htm

This podcast can be incorporated as the cultural competency component into a restaurant-themed lesson: set-up by the restaurant subject matter, used the crux of a listening activity with the question serving a follow up activity.

Vocabulary

While this podcast is intended for cultural competency purposes, students may need to know the following words:

* Waitress
* Job
* Service

Voicethread/Prehistoric Beasts

I can see how Voicethread could be a useful tool but I’m a little confused by the purposes of the demonstrations on the “Voicethreads 4 Teaching” site. I guess the idea of having a common theme around which to organize the students’ thoughts could have some relevance, but only if the purpose of the exercise is to encourage production. What is the theory behind this approach? It’s sort of a non-linear, theme-based brainstorming exercise, from what I can tell.

I think isolating the program for a specific purpose could work; it could be an excellent way to have students “turn in” their pronunciation assignments. Here we’re starting to see some real potential benefit to the internet as an alternative forum. I would think that Voicethread would still have to be relegated to one aspect of a multimedia course, however; the way it functions here is almost as an audio chat room. And I, too, would probably avoid walking by all those crocodiles if I could. I don’t even like driving near them unless there’s a glass wall between us, or if I know that they’ve recently eaten.

Good French Lesson, Questionable English Lesson

“Ma France” (L2 French)
This is part of the BBC series of language videos. This particular series is for French but they have dozens of others. They seem to have the bases pretty well covered; the lessons are interactive, allowing the user to navigate to vocabulary and grammar exercises in the course of the video. One can also choose to turn the French or English subtitles on or off at will—I think this is a good blend of interaction and passive learning, allowing the user to select the proper approach. There is also an overall choice of topic, but I found that within each theme there is a lot of material to cover.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/french/mafrance/flash/#

“Real English” (L2 English)
Um, what? This is a series of interviews with people on the street about their astrological signs. This is purportedly lower-mid-level L1 material, with the purpose of introducing the verb “like”. Problem #1: The introduction of terms like “Capricorn” and “Taurus” into L1 vocabulary doesn’t strike me as being terribly useful. Problem #2: the speakers they interview are often a little awkward and I don’t think their body language really matches what they are saying about their own personality traits. They simply should have some editorial restraint in choosing which videos to use—“dogmatic” is also not an L1 word, to name one example. Neither is “ostentatious.” I’ll stop there.
http://www.real-english.com/reo/7/unit7.html

Second Language Learners Stay Away!

http://eslbears.homestead.com/Contact_Info.html

In terms of "deep processing" i'm not sure anything on this website is helpful at all. These games look like they were probably created as a class assignment rather than in the interest of writing a useful tool for esl instruction. The first set of exercises is not so much a lesson as teaching by association/elimination. The "hangman" feature could be useful but not any more so than the original game. There is a series of homonym/synonym games and cloze exercises that strike me as being really trite and outdated. They are the equivalent of online flashcards.

Ha ha...ha?

I found a site that has an index of jokes in English written specifically for comprehension by ESL learners. Some of them even provide alternate versions depending on which tense is used. I can’t promise that you’ll do any gut-busting here, but I’m pretty impressed at what an effective tool this could be. As the majority of jokes, at least in English, are based on semantics, any of these could provide an effective tool for analysis by students—and what better watermark of fluency than to be able to understand jokes in one’s L2? Enjoy and have fun impressing your friends with your new arsenal of knee-slappers.

http://www.angelfire.com/on/topfen/jokes01.html

Educational Tool or Death of Humankind? Why Not Both?

My own acquaintance with Computer Assisted Language Learning comes in the form of various podcasts I have downloaded in order to enhance my own abilities. Like a lot of people, my expertise in any of the foreign languages I have been introduced to is fairly lopsided; this makes any particular format or lesson, in any media, insufficient to address all of my own shortcomings.

I have therefore sifted through quite a number of podcasts over the years, hoping to find one tailored to my needs in, say, French or Spanish. I have seen the quantity and variety of podcasts multiply substantially in the last year or so, which leads me to wonder if we won’t eventually reach a state where every second language learner on the planet is in possession of his or her own needs-based curriculum, available on the internet or some other unforeseen method of distribution.

My reservations are that this could seemingly lead to the creation of a dystopian “hive-mind” in which each of us represents a single cell in a unified organism—but, then, I am prone to consider such things. I only hope that we, as a species, are blessed with an enlightened and benevolent Queen.

As for the reading, I have long suspected that pedagogical texts require a certain quota of graphic insertion in order to present the illusion that they are embracing a multimedia approach to instruction. In the present article we are offered the conceptual benefit of triangles, as well as a set of concentric circles; in the next chapter I fully expect to be entertained by a trapezoid.

In the end, I guess the real question here is how to use CALL technology for good without making our roles as teachers (or our species) obsolete?