Week 4: Technology and SLA

Hello,

I found interesting Yeh’s (2018) reading Exploring the perceived benefits of the process of multimodal video making in developing multiliteracies because in Spring 2017 my students at Changzhou University (China) created a video comparing elements of multiculturality between China and a given number of Spanish-speaking countries and then submitted it to a worldwide contest called “Con c de Cine -Spanish in a Day.”

In the end, a group of my students won the contest and was invited to Spain—all expenses paid—to study a Spanish course. You can watch the video and read their experiences in Spain (I apologize because it is written in Spanish).

Before they settled on their final topics, they spent time searching for information. As Yeh (2018) explained most students went through three principal processes to produce the video: composing the scripts, enacting the scripts, and editing the videos. Everyone in the group collaborated and had different roles. This is an example of learning by doing and task-based language teaching. This task involved writing, reading, speaking and listening. At the same time notions of pragmatic and sociolinguistics.

From the result, the students indicated positive effects of writing scripts on their Spanish learning (vocabulary, pronunciation, intonation, grammar, etc.). Also, they mentioned that this project was important to learn about their own culture.

I would like to create at UCSB opportunities for students to do this kind of projects, but we have to follow the syllabus.

I have also found really interesting Gabe Baker's website, which is a collaborative virtual world. You can use Frame as a collaboration space or meeting room, you can make it "multi-user" and then anyone who visits your Frame at the same time will be able to interact as avatars. I am excited to develop my own Frame for pedagogical uses. One advantage is that the language instructor can toggle whether other people are able to permanently edit your Frame or not.

Finally, when I read Blake’s article (2016) Technology and the Four Skills it came up to my mind two interesting websites to practice Spanish in different ways:

1-  Video ELE: which has interesting videos and activities (pre-listening, listening and post-listening).

2-  Practica español: which has original news (reading and listening).

We can always adapt the activities from these websites and create a TBLT.

I look forward to your comments.

Best,
Samanta 

WEEK 2: Technology and SLA

This post is going to be related to two of the readings of this week, Language and culture learning in higher education via telecollaboration (Chun, 2015) and Emerging Trends and New Directions in Telecollaborative Learning (O'Dowd, 2016), the leader discussion and the connection of them with my field of study which is Second Language Acquisition/ Teaching: 

Our classmate John talked about the concept of "coexistence". As John said: "first it is important to recognize yourself and then you will be able to recognize other cultures". This is how students can realize about the diversity. For example, I have seen this in my field presenting this activity in class which is in the textbook Pura vida (Norma López-Burton, Laura Marqués Pascual, Cristina Pardo Ballester, 2013). In this activity the students first have to recognize the culture of the United States to be able to understand other cultures:

I would like to remark another moment when my classmate John asked in class: “How does technology become a bridge to get the goals for learning language and culture?” It came up to my mind that I thought that I had done in the past an Online Intercultural Exchange (OIE) using the App “Hello Talk” or doing e-tandems on “Conversation Exchange”, but now I realized that most of the times (it depended of the people who I talked with) it was just a language exchange, not a cultural one. In that sense, I completely agree with Chun (2015) when she mentioned the fact that “simply connecting learners with each other online does not ensure a successful intercultural exchange.” If we export this definition into our face-to-face classes, it can also happen with drilling activities in which students talk without any communicative purpose (i.e.: just to fill the blanks to share irrelevant information).

I have really liked Agar’s (1994) concept of “languaculture” because I believe that language and culture are inseparable. As Chun (2015) mentioned: “It is necessary to develop speakers with a translingual and transcultural competence” because they will develop an effective communication, effective interaction and understanding of culture. John gave an example in class where there is a lack of understanding when in the United Stated sometimes they do not understand the Colombian sense of humor.

I agree with Chun (2015) when she indicated that “culture cannot be “taught” in the traditional sense of teachers imparting knowledge to students, but must be experienced by the learners, as they co-construct cultural knowledge with others.” We are going to experience culture doing an OIE in a few weeks, but we can encounter misunderstandings in the online interaction. In that sense, we will need to think that conflicts are opportunities to learn through interaction and negotiation. If there is a conflict during the OIE we could stop for a moment and think about what kind of feelings are causing that? or what can I reflect on that?

Finally, we will start our exchange in about one week and we will be interacting with our telecollaborative partners for approximately 8 weeks. Do you think this period is enough for an OIE?

I will appreciate any suggestion :)

Best,

Samanta