Week 8: Games, Gaming for L/C Learning.

Hello all,

This post is going to be related to last week’s discussion: Games, Gaming for L/C Learning.

In this post I will summarize the main points of my presentation related to one of the readings: Use of a game-like application on a mobile device to improve accuracy in conjugating Spanish verbs (Daniel A. Castañeda & Moon-Heum Cho, 2016). Also, I will give my opinion about some ideas of this article.

First, I found really interesting how the authors present the key terms at the beginning of the article, such as, MALL (mobile-assisted language learning), game, and gamification. It is easy to understand what they are going to talk about.

Second, I like how they design the activities. From my point of view, the most important point is that they included peer learning in their activities. I think it is important to integrate this component because students can negotiate meaning using the app Conjugation Nation. Also, it can motivate them because it gives a sense of competition.  I would have liked to know more about how the students interact with each others. The article does not give details about it. During our Zoom, we realized that the authors should have added more information (e.g. quiz data, peer learning, etc.).

I have also enjoyed reading students experiences and it made me think that what works for some students, it does not work for others. For example: one student said that he enjoyed working with peers, but other student said that he did not enjoy working with less proficient speakers because it is not his job to teach them or correct them.  What would you say to this student? 

All in all, I think it is engaging to learn verb conjugations with an app (at least more than writing conjugations on paper until internalized). It can make learning fun. In my experience, I have learnt to conjugate verbs in Spanish and Romanian writing the verbs over and over, and it was boring. 

Finally, I do not believe that the feedback that Conjugations Nation offers is the best. As we have seen during the course, feedback and evaluation are complicated to address using online tools.

What are your thoughts about this app or this kind or learning?

Best,
Samanta.

Week 6: Technology and SLA

This post is going to be related to this week’s discussion: Second Language Speaking and Listening.

I want to start this post by saying that I have learnt a lot from my classmate Sam. I am really glad she mentioned that Ted Talks  offer the transcript and activities for free in her discussion. This is going to be really useful for me since I am not an English native speaker.

I have been using podcasts without transcript and sometimes it is hard to understand colloquialisms or vocabulary related to unfamiliar topics. McBride (2009) mentioned in her article that the Net Generation is good at multitasking. I think I am part of that generation since I can be cooking, walking or working out at the gym and at the same time I can be listening to a podcast.

Also, Sam mentioned that lifestyle videos are a good resource to learn languages. I really like to watch lifestyle videos to learn English (or just for fun) and it is addictive. In my Spanish 590 class, I have learnt that just because I like a video does not mean that my students are going to like it, or it is going to be convenient for them. For example, Sam said that she likes political videos/podcasts and that does not mean she is going to use them in class with her students.

It is important to highlight that we need to choose the appropriate video for our students considering different aspects: age, level of language, their likings, etc. If we do not keep in mind these aspects the class can be overwhelming for the students and instructors.

As McBride (2009), I think it is really important to use authentic listening materials in our classes for several reasons: it is exciting, we can choose topics interesting for our students, they can connect with the culture of study, etc.

Finally, from Yanguas (2010) reading I would like to highlight the concept of Negotiation of meaning. What is this? Negotiation of meaning is a process that speakers try to reach a clear understanding or agreement of each other asking clarification, defining, repeating, etc. I have seen this in my Spanish 1 class today. The students shared personal information about their likings:

1         A: ¿Cuál es tu color favorito?

                [What is your favorite color?]

2        B: ¿Calor?

               [Hot?]

3        A: No calor, tu COLOR favorito

              [Not hot, your favorite COLOR]

               

  

4        B: Oh sí, sí… Mi color favorito es el azul

              [Oh yeah… My favorite color is blue]

Best,
Samanta.