Computer’s Technology to Assessed Language

Rate 3.5

I read the article “Assessing language using computer technology” and I would like to focus on the construction of computer assisted language tests (CALT’s) because this is a very useful tool at the time of evaluating students’ English skills and knowledge because of its suitability when getting scores and creating the tests. Some of the advantages of CALT are that teachers are able to control the time that the test will take, select multiple choices questions, and add audios and videos to the exams in order to make it interactive. There are some things to improve in the listening and writing skills on CALT at the time of measuring and also the high cost of implementing computer assisted language tests (CALT’s) in schools is a disadvantage; however there are more positive characteristics such as the ones mentioned above. To conclude, I would like to say that as a teacher I strongly believe that by applying the computer assisted language tests (CALT’s) we have a suitable way to score our students grade, to save time and to control the tests.

Making a group work significant.

Rate 4

According to what I read in the articles “Maximizing the Benefits of Project Work in Foreign Language Classrooms” and “Seven Essentials for Project-Based Learning” I can say that working in groups can be meaningful for students; however, the educator has to do this work meaningful by applying the group work correct in order to reach that goal I would like to quote something from the reading, Lamer and Mergendoller stated that “A project is meaningful if it fulfills two criteria. First, students must perceive the work as personally meaningful, as a task that matters and that they want to do well. Second, a meaningful project fulfills an educational purpose. Well-designed and well-implemented project-based learning is meaningful in both ways” (p. 1). As we can see creating a significant group work is not that easy; first, students need to be somehow motivated to feel this work like a personally meaningful task. Second, there must be a purpose on that work because we cannot have students doing work group without any sense. A good example of a meaningful work group will be:

Work group: students need to form groups of 5 students (they can work with whoever they want), they will research about the most important news around the world in the last month (students will be free to choose the kind of news that they will be looking). Then, students will have to work in groups and write the new that they like the most in past tense. After that, students have to send the new to my email. Teacher will send feedback with comments and corrections after revising the homework.

I think that this will be a good work group because students are free to choose what they like so their opinion counts; second, they can choose the people that they will be working on it in order to be comfortable; also, students will cooperate with each other and choose the new that the like the most on order to write it in past tense. In this homework students will be using technology to look for the most recent news (innovation will be applied). At the end, students will get their feedback to realize their mistakes and correct them so they will be getting a significant learning through cooperation and the application of technology.

Interaction, a very powerful tool to enhance student’s participation.

Rate 5

According to what I read in the articles “10 benefits of getting students to participate in classroom discussion”, “Increase students interaction with think pair shares and circle chats” and also in the presentation interactive power point, I would like to say that participation is one of the most important factor throughout the learning process; that is why we have some techniques to enhance the students’ participation such as blank slide, Quick Quiz: ConcepTest, Think, Pair, Share technique and some others. Even though we have a lot of techniques to interact, I think that the most effective ones are: Think-Pair-Share and the Circle Chat because in these two techniques we can see a very good interaction between students and teachers. First, The Think-Pair-Share technique students are given time to think, process the information, think in the correct way to share this information and share it; thus, the Think-Pair-Share technique is a very effective tool to enhance interaction. Second, we have the Circle Chat which is an activity that applies a student-student interaction, what I really like about this technique is that each student have the opportunity to speak and share his/her thoughts. Concluding, I would like to say that applying these techniques students will be able to develop an interaction in the classroom that will help them to share information and also they will be encouraged to practice a cooperative learning.

Four out of Twenty Ideas for Using Mobile Devices in the Second Language Classroom.

Rate 5

According to what I read in the article “Twenty Ideas for Using Mobile Phones in the Language Classroom” I can say that this is a very interesting article which provides some inquisitive ways to apply mobile devices to education; however, there are a lot of ideas that I do not agree with because I do not see them as a meaningful tool to learn a language. I would like to focus on ideas number 12, 16, 19 and 20. First of all, on idea number 12 which is “Use the mobile phone for social networking” I think that social networking is a very useful tool to put in practice every kid of language; furthermore, mobile devices give us the option to do some social networking. Second, on idea number 16 which is “Use mobile phone memory to distribute reading material” I strongly believe that mobile devices are a great help to read and having reading materials in our mobile devices really help us to read everywhere we are and to save time as well. Then, on idea number 19 that is “Use the mobile phone to check student comprehension and get feedback” as you may know there are a lot of websites, applications, etc. that allow teachers and student to interact, in that way students are able to get feedback from their teacher among other activities. To finish, we have idea number 20 that is “mobile phone memory for research and data collection” Obviously with the technology that we have access nowadays, mobile devices are an easy tool to have easy access to internet that is why students are able to search for meaningful information about whatever topic they want. Although there are 20 ideas about the application of mobile devices, I only focused on 4 which are the ones that I consider help a lot to students.

Technology to enhance the students´ reading and vocabulary

Rate 5

According to what I read in the articles “Using Technology to Assist in Vocabulary Acquisition and Reading Comprehension” and “ Online English – English learner dictionaries boost word learning” I realized that by applying technology to vocabulary and reading comprehension, students can get a significant knowledge in these two aspects of language. Although reading is an important skill that involves the reader, the reader needs to know the vocabulary of what he/she is reading; so, why don’t we use technology to enhance these two important aspects of language? Technology has a lot of benefit at the time of learning but this time we are focusing on reading comprehension and vocabulary, so here we have some ways to enhance the reader’s skill. When students are reading, technology can reinforce their vocabulary through the application of online dictionaries because this can be very useful at the time of reinforcing the learning o words; in order to do that, teachers have to encourage students to be more strategic word learners by selecting dictionaries with the best word frequency features. Moreover, we have more techniques that teachers can apply on students in order to reinforce their vocabulary such as collocations, using authentic examples and topical vocabulary. Despites all that, we have the use of multimedia for vocabulary acquisition and reading comprehension, there are some ways to enhance the students’ vocabulary and reading skill such as using multimedia glosses which is interaction of a media software with learners in order to improve the vocabulary acquisition. To conclude, we can say that technology is such a useful tool to enhance the reading and vocabulary that teachers should apply these techniques in their classrooms.

Cooperative Learning and online tools to enhance the writing skill

Rate 5

According to what I read in the articles “Process Writing and the Internet: Blogs and Ning Networks in the Classroom” and “Online Collaborative Writing Using Wikis” I realized that there are a lot of ways to enhance the writing skill in students such as blogs that are used to post information by authors. Also, we can apply networking sites in order to enhance students’ writing skill, the networking provides tools that allows the users to upload videos, photos, etc. to their profile. I personally think that updating information either by blogs or networking is very useful to motivate students to write and share the writings in an interactive way which is something interesting and motivating for students. Moreover, we have the wiki that is a website that allows students to edit the information posted at any time they want; therefore, students are able to practice a cooperative learning by writing because students have the opportunity to modify and correct what have been written; therefore, everybody cooperates in order to get a good result.

Internet resources as an alternative to motivate and encourage students to write

Rate 5

According to what I read in the articles “ Using the internet in the ESL classroom” and “Using internet-based children’s literature to teach EFL” I can say that by applying internet resources in English second language classroom we can improve students’ writing skills by encouraging them to write very interest writings such as letters, paragraphs, essays, reviews, etc. writing might be a complicated skill for students because they do not feel motivated to write but by applying internet resources we can enhance the students’ writing. Internet resources applied to writing may be a convenient way because students have some interesting options such as publishing their writings in a classrooms’ website which may motivate students as well. Also, we there are a lot of resources that teachers could use in an English Second Language Classroom that might change students’ point of view about writing because those resources are an alternative to make the reading experience a rewarding activity. Even though internet resources may be a big help to encourage students to write, I think that web resources should not be used all the time because teachers have the ability to enrich the class’ context

The importance of using video and audio technology in the second language classroom and its effects on the speaking skill.

Rate 5

According to what I have read in the articles “Using original video and sound effects to teach English” and “The employment of CALL in teaching/foreign language speaking skills”, I can say that by applying media tools into the second language classroom, students have the opportunity to do a meaningful improvement on his/her speaking and listening skills. The application of media in listening and speaking exercises may intensify the student’s practice therefore the students will be confident and engaged at the time of participating in a conversation which is one of the most important aspect of a language. Moreover, students have the option to practice speaking through pronouncing dictionaries that uses a voice recognition software in which words and sentences are pronounced by native speakers. Also, we have the option to use videos in the second language classroom will not only entertain the students but it will engaged the students into the topic by creating an interactive classroom which includes videos with creative context. To conclude, I would like to infer that as a teachers we have the chance to apply a lot of technological tools into the classroom but videos and audios are a suitable way to make students participate and practice in the second language classroom.

Critical thinking, a matter of the student

Rate 5

According to what I have read in the articles “Is technology producing a decline in critical thinking and analysis?” and “critical thinking and technology” I can say that technology is a great help for students to develop a critical thinking but only if we focus in students who learn independently because if students practice an autonomous learning, they will learn responsible; however, if students are not committed with their learning, they will not find technology as a very important tool to develop a critical thinking throughout the learning process. I would like to infer that a visual learning has a very significant purpose on students because by watching and interacting with visual learning such as videos, presentations, images, etc. we as teacher may get the students attention. As we know, one characteristic of human beings is that they are curious since they were born. Thus, curiosity could be a very influential factor at the time of getting students attention and I think that by engaging students into the classroom by visual learning, students can develop a critical thinking. Moreover, I would like to mention that technology is a very important tool in the learning process but we as teacher have to know how to encourage our students to use technology in a responsibly way in order to get not only a critical thinking but to learn and practice. To conclude, I can say that developing a critical thinking is up to the student it is not up to technology because I think that someone may have all the access to technology in the world; however, if that person does not use it correctly, technology would not make any difference.

Internet Integration in the learning process

Rate 5

By reading the article “CALL me… Maybe: A Framework for integrating the internet into the ELT”, I Realized that the internet is being seen in a lot of different ways such as a way to share and find information but it also has been said that the internet makes people stupid because it makes us less creative. I think that the internet changes people but I strongly believe that it depends on people if they want to use the internet as a mean to get knowledge or if they want to use it to loss their time. So, my personal opinion for this week’s article is that the internet has an important role on education because it is a tool that teachers can use to share information by podcasting, blogging, etc. Moreover, nowadays students can practice the four English macro skills that are listening, speaking, reading and writing; and its sub skills as well; for example: some students practicing their grammar in an online website, I visited the quickanddirtytips.com and I saw that this is a website that helps students to check their grammar,  punctuation and usage by giving some tips and developing some exercises as well, it can be used in all the English levels because it provides a lot of ways to practice English grammar no matter what level students are, here you have the link http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/grammar-girl; I would recommend this website because it has a lot of tools that students can use to improve their grammar.. Also, I would like to infer that now we have a lot of new technology such as mobile devices with 3G and 4G internet integrated, new gadgets, and as well as computers, all these allow almost everybody to have access to the internet therefore to educational tools that we as teachers can apply in our class.

The importance of podcasting in the second language learners

Rate 5

According to what I read in the articles Integrating CALL into the classroom: the Role of Podcasting in an ESL Listening Strategies Course and Blending technologies in ESL courses: A reflexive enquiry, I can say that with the access that we have to technology nowadays, we can use it as a very useful tool to learn a second language. I would like to focus in podcasting which I think is a very useful tool for teachers because we can use podcasting as a supplement to textbook materials, what I am trying to say is that by podcasting students have an easy access to files that includes PDF files, audios, books and even radio which means an easy access to educational contents. I strongly believe that with technology, education will overcome the traditional way of teaching because it will be substituting a classroom for blogs, websites, videoconferences, and of course podcasting.

Students’ responsibility and the contribution of ICTs in the learning process

rate 5

According to the article “Effectiveness of the Integration of ICT Tools and Activities to Foster Awareness as the First Stage to reach Learning Autonomy” I can say that the student’s responsibility is an important aspect that students face at the time of learning. Moreover, we know that the teachers are only a guide for students but at the end it will be up to students to learn or not. Also there are a lot of ways to educate students and we as teacher can use the ICTs to do it, what I am trying to say is that ICT tools help us to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of education, and to perform educational activities by using technology as well. I think that the ICT has the power to provide a universal access to education. Even though we have the ICTs as an option to teach, students need to be as responsible as possible at the time of learning. To wind up, I think that the purpose of this article is not only showing the use of the ICTs, but to encourage teachers to promote a self-study attitude in the students.

Technology, the most convenient way to educate by using online resources to interact

rate 5

Based on the information that I have read about Computer-Assisted Language Learning (CALL) I can state that using online resources to teach is a very useful and convenient way to provide education to online students. As a future teacher, I think that online classes are and will continue to be an alternative for people who do not have time to go to a physical classroom; however, people who only study take online courses as well. Also, by teaching or taking an online class, we have the opportunity to have access to the contents, exercises, lessons, homework, etc. from any place we may be. Moreover with CALL, the computer is not seen as a substitute for teachers; what I am trying to imply is that teachers have the chance to interact more with each student which is very important because the teacher should guide students all the time. In addition, by using synchronous communication, students have the opportunity to have real time communication by using software such as Daedalus Interchange which allows students to interact through messaging other online classmates. Also, we have Asynchronous Communication that use students' mailboxes, so they can receive information such as bulleting boards or news. As a conclusion I can infer that technology is totally involved with education and this is why we have to take advantage of all online resources available to use them in favor of education and students' development.