An interesting article about a teacher who wrote an essay for his fourth grade class about how badly they behaved and then asked them to complete an assignment: "Make sure you tell me why I need to treat you a certain way," the assignment reads. "I want to make sure that I no longer cheat and act unfairly."
Apparently he was mad because the 4th graders thought he was cheating to help another class win a spelling bee. I think the teacher has to look at what he did to be perceived as a cheater rather than place the blame on students.
Which click to doante sites do you trust? Freedonation.com claims on their "how it works" page:
FreeDonation.com is a web site with the mission of making the world a better place. At FreeDonation.com, you can make donations free of charge to important causes such as AIDS and cancer research, food for the hungry, shelter for the homeless, vaccines for children and more. All you have to do is to click on the donation button and our sponsors will pay for your donation. The entire process takes only a few seconds.
Our sponsors pay a few cents every time you donate. While this does not sound like a large amount of money, a few cents will provide a cup of food for a hungry person or vaccinate a young child against tuberculosis. With each free donation, you will be making a real difference in someone's life.
Well which is it? A few cents or about a fraction of a cent (about a fraction? - never heard that before). Finally, the "sponsors" are affilaite links. With affiliate links the web site gets paid when someone makes a purchase. This leads me to believe that your click does absolutely nothing unless you buy from one of the sponsors.
I. Implications of using CALL
II. CALL and SLA theory
III. My approach (this should put the activities I discuss into context)
1. Affective filterIV. Activities
2. Cognitive factors
3. Sociocultural considerations
1. Epals: www.eslgo.com/forum/sayhi/index.cgi, www.learn-english-grammar.com/viewforum.php?f=11
2. Vocabulary message boards: www.learn-english-vocabulary.com/viewtopic.php?t=362
Egbert, Chao, and Hanson-Smith (1999) state this idea clearly: “A theory of CALL is a theory of language acquisition” (p.3) and go on to explain “Educators do not need a discrete theory of CALL to understand the role of technology in the classroom; a clear theory of SLA and its implications for the learning environment serves this goal” (p.3).
Vale, Scarino, and McKay (1991), for example, write that the Australian Language Levels (ALL) project is based on eight principles of language learning:
Learners learn a language best when:
1. they are treated as individuals with their own needs and interests.
2. they are provided with opportunities to participate in communicative use of the target language in a wide range of activities.
3. they are exposed to communicative data which is comprehensible and relevant to their own needs and interests
4. they focus deliberately on various language forms, skills, and strategies in order to support the process of language acquisition
5. they are exposed to sociocultural data and direct experience of the culture(s) embedded within the target language
6. they become aware of the role and nature of language and culture
7. they are provided with appropriate feedback about their progress
8. they are provided with opportunities to manage their own learning. (p.28)
1. Learners have opportunities to interact and negotiate meaning.
2. Learners interact in the target language with an authentic audience.
3. Learners are involved in authentic tasks.
4. Learners are exposed to and encouraged to produce varied and creative language.
5. Learners have enough time and feedback.
6. Learners are guided to attend mindfully to the learning process.
7. Learners work in an atmosphere with an ideal stress/anxiety level.
8. Learner autonomy is supported. (Egbert et al., 1999, p.4)
Chapelle (2001) writes about students’ willingness to communicate (WTC): “a crucial goal of the learning process as developing learner’s interest in seeking out opportunities for communication and their willingness to communicate in these situations” (p.50
Schumann (1986) argues:
I also propose that any learner can be placed on a continuum that ranges from social and psychological distance to social and psychological proximity with speakers of the TL, and that the learner will acquire the second language only to the degree that he acculturates. (p.379)
Student A: ...whenever talk with her and become to know about her, I become so happy and think that we can develop our friendship more deeper. I'll continue to correspond with her, and it will be a good time both she and I.
Student B: I found a beautiful pen pal… We became so close to each other recently, and we exchanged our pictures…Recently, we started voice chatting on MSN so I could hear her voice. Her voice is so lovely… Anyway I really like her and hope we can keep in touch for a long time.
Student A: So, frequently , we talk about how Chinese is difficult to learn, how country where each people live now ...and so on. Throught that courses of conversation, we can understand each other more closer. And we shared many chinese cultures like famous songs, movies. Sometimes, she introduced to me some famous singers in India, and I told to her many korean movies like Old Boy, My wife is gangster.. etc.
Brown, H.D. (2001). Teaching by Principles: An Interactive Approach to Language Pedagogy. White Plains: Addison Wesley Longman Inc.
Chapelle, C. (2001). Computer Applications in Second Language Acquisition: Foundations for Teaching, Testing, and Research. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Egbert, J., Chao, C., & Hanson-Smith, E. (1999). Computer-enhanced language learning Environments: An overview. In J. Egbert & E. Hanson-Smith (Eds.), CALL environments: Research, practice, and critical issues (pp. 1-13). Alexandria, VA: Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages, Inc.
Krashen, S. (1982). Principles and practices in second language acquisition. Oxford: Pergamon.
Larsen-Freeman, D. (2000). Techniques and principles in language teaching. Oxford: Oxford university Press.
Pederson, K.M. (1987). Research on CALL. In W.F. Smith (Ed.), Modern media in foreign language education: Theory and implementation (pp. 99-131). Lincolnwood: NTC.
Schumann, J.H. (1986). Research of the acculturation model for second language acquisition. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 7(5), pp.379-392.
Skehan, P. (1998). A Cognitive Approach to Language Learning. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Vale, D., Scarino, A., & McKay, P. (1991). Pocket ALL. Carlton South Vic: Curriculum Corporation.
Warschauer, M., (2003, October 17). The Allures and Illusions of Modernity: Technology and Educational Reform in Egypt. Education Policy Analysis Archives, 11(38). Retrieved May 10, 2005 from http://epaa.asu.edu/epaa/v11n38/.
I found some interesting material here: http://www.dartmouth.edu/~writing/materials/about.shtml
There are some interesting resources, including one on teaching critical thinking in the teacher's section.
Finding examples of research papers that I want my students to emulate ahs been difficult, but I think these two introductions will be useful. I'm sharing them with one of my classes in a few minutes:
THE BIBLICAL BASIS FOR TEAM MINISTRY by WILLIAM B. BADKE
The concept of team ministry in the local church has become very popular in the past two decades. Instead of the individual pioneer missionary or church planter, we now more commonly have mission and church planting teams. The multiple staff church has become the norm, with even many small churches having more than one pastor, paid or unpaid.
A definition of team ministry, for our purposes, will be a team of two or more persons consciously engaged together in ministry on a full-time or significantly extensive part-time basis, usually in a paid capacity. This definition would not, of course, rule out lay ministry teams which use volunteers.
The key question to examine is whether evidence of team ministries exists in the Bible? If biblical examples or encouragements toward team ministry cannot be found, the current trend will have to be re-evaluated by Evangelicals.
Regulate Use of Cell Phones on the Road by Angela Daly
When a cell phone goes off in a classroom or at a concert, we are irritated, but at least our lives are not endangered. When we are on the road, however, irresponsible cell phone users are more than irritating: They are putting our lives at risk. Many of us have witnessed drivers so distracted by dialing and chatting that the resemble drunk drivers, weaving between lanes, for example, or nearly running down pedestrians in crosswalks. A number of bills to regulate use of cell phones on the road have been introduced in state legislatures, and the time has come to push for their passage. Regulation is needed because drivers using phones are seriously impaired and because laws on negligent and reckless driving are not sufficient to punish offenders.
I was hoping to find native speakers to talk with my students on my grammar message board, but now that I see not native speakers in conversation I'm having second thoughts. While the language used by Volcane in say this thread by my student, with replies from me and Volcane is not perfect, seeing the native speaker model doesn't instantly make my students experts so I wonder if any advanced speaker will do. What do you think?
One of my short term goals is to build a "click to donate site" like ecologyfund.com or theungersite.com. I don't have time to learn how to code one, so I will need to hire a designer to take care of everything. To raise money for the project I'm opening ESL Ad store, an Amazon store. Basically, people can browse Amazon products and when they buy something from Amazon after following a link from ESL Ad, Amazon gives me a small commission. This goes into my "click to doante" web design fund. The best part is that prices stay the same so no one has to pay extra to help fund the future ESL charity site.