For those that are registered for the NOVASTARTALK 2012 Summer Institute, please introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about what you would like to do during the workshop. In a perfect world, where will you be with technology by the end of the session?
Before you begin, listen to an introduction from the Program Director of NOVASTARTALK, Dr. Laura Franklin, using the program Vocaroo.
My name is Sayed S Jaffar and I am a senior training specialist with L-3 Communications. Currently, I am training students on AfPak languages with primary focus on Urdu and Punjabi.
I have found student to be engaged when he or she is asking specific questions about the topic or wants to obtain more information.
@sayedjaffar Welcome, Sayed!
It would be interesting to consider the types of tasks that encourage students to ask those questions that they only ask when engaged and which technologies particularly lend themselves to their participation. I invite you and others to discuss this…
My name is Shiang Yun Wu and I’ m a certified Mandarin and Spanish teacher in CA. I have six years experience of teaching and four years experience of being a FLAP director for ABC USD. Now I’m a Mandarin teacher at Gahr HS, Spanish teacher at Tetzlaff MS, and the Mandarin specialist for the ABC USD.
I have found my students to be really engaged in learning when they were producing the target language spontaneously. When your students are focusing on listening/speaking/reading/writing the target language, you know that they are engaging in learning.
I am looking forward to learning some educational technology which can improve my performance in the class and can create fun/effective group activities. I have some disadvantage students; therefore, I need to learn the most popular/inexpensive programs which teens normally use. Better tools to help language teachers to better assess their students’ four skills. Please join me to discuss …
My name is Yuan Zhai and I’m teaching the after-school program at Washington YuYing Public Charter School. I talk and teach in Chinese with my students. I’m expecting to learn more teaching techniques from this session, like how to keep the student’s attention and how to have their interests for a longer time.
I found out that when my student are truly engaged, they usually make frequent eye contacts with me, ask for detailed instruction, and participate actively.
My name is Ridhima Puri and I am a very novice teacher with experience of teaching only in India.
With the help of this workshop I intend to learn some techniques which would help me to make my classes interesting and effective.
I have generally seen that students develop interest when you relate the language to their life and also teach the language in relation to history, geography, mathematics and other subjects. For eg while teaching Hindi to non hindi speaking students it is very important to make them aware of the culture, history of hindi speaking countries (say India) to be able to develop a proper understanding of the language being taught to them.
Taking up group activities in the class is also another effective way of gauging their interest and keeping them truly engaged.
My name is Crystal Myhre. I was born and grew up in Taiwan and have lived in the United States for nearly 30 years. I obtained a B.A. in Business Administration from Fu Jen Catholic University, Taipei, Taiwan, and earned my M.A. in Education, with an emphasis on Teaching English as a Second Language, from the University of Kansas. I had teaching experience as a college instructor and as a bilingual teacher at the Defense Language Institute in Taiwan. I am a certified teacher for teaching Mandarin Chinese grades PK-12 by the Ohio Department of Education. I am currently teaching Chinese I & II at St. Edward High School and Westlake High School, respectively. Both schools are located in the suburb of Cleveland, Ohio.
To engage students means to facilitate a learner-centered classroom and encourage students to be active learners by providing them opportunities to explore with hands-on activities. Get the students moving, talking and practice with the knowledge and skills they have learned. Engage them in purposeful cooperative learning activities by using pairs or group work. Design activities that foster interaction among students and between teacher and students.
I know when my students are fully engaged when they are paying attention and interacting with their peers and me thoughtfully and actively while having fun. When we had a lesson topic on sports/pastimes, I had each student interview two of his/her fellow classmates and find out what they like to do on weekends. Students also needed to present their findings in Mandarin Chinese in class. We also watched YouTube and learned to sing 2008 Olympic Theme Song in Mandarin Chinese. Role-playing also makes learning more meaningful to students. Students worked in small groups and role played to invite someone for a sports event or to do something together. It was a fun & engaging lesson!
My name is Lillian Kao. I’m teaching Chinese at a language institute now.I have found that my students are engaged in learning most when they were doing an activity or group projec instead of just a lecture and going through a text. For example some of the activities I’ve incorporated include bingo, spelling, typing Chinese game, role playing, making food, developing a traveling project etc.
How do I know the students are engaged? When they are brain storming , talking and disscussing the topics, they just never want to stop even after I say, time is up.
I am highly anticipating to learn new educational technology which can improve my student’s interest and increase the tools that I can use to help my classes.
Hello! My name is Umida Khikmatillaeva. I am originally from Uzbekistan and currently live in Bloomington, Indiana. I taught Turkish back in my country, here I taught the Uzbek language. Now I am working for the Turkish Flagship program where I am developing a unique textbook for the Turkish-Uzbek bridge course.
I agree with Crystal, when students are active and engaged with learning materials, when they stay motivated and become creative, critical, and practical. They love to be involved with hands on activities, role plays, that makes sense for them when the material is meaningful for them.
Therefore, we should try to make materials more authentic and make our students more active by giving them authentic tasks. Students can engage materials in class and online. In this digital era, they love to use e-learning materials, be involved with different projects etc. Our task is to create “effective, engaging, and efficient” (Merrill, 2002) materials.
My students mostly enjoyed when they perform,ed an authentic task. When I started teaching there were no textbooks or dictionaries for teaching Turkish in Uzbekistan. Everything had to be learned through Russian. In fact, Turkish and Uzbek languages are from the same family and if one learns them directly through these languages it speeds up the learning. We were lucky to be asked to help to Uzbek Radio with translating, broadcasting, and editing materials. My students became part-time student workers and learned the language in six-nine months. It was incredible! We all were stressed to make any mistake at the beginning, because all of it was real and we all were learning. With the help of experienced people our environment became very friendly and international, we had some guests from Turkey and they were amazed to see these students.
My name is Madhu Maheshwari and and have been teaching Hindi since 1990 at various places. I cover a board spectrum of students from 5 years old to 58 years old. Basically I have been teaching Hindi at universities Sunday schools and many language schools in VA.Through NOVASTARTALK I want to orient my teaching style towards 21st century. I love teaching thorough Hindi plays as well. My students they love acting in Hindi plays.
@madhumaheshwari1022 Many applications exist to showcase your plays, not to mention the ubiquitous iPad and iPhone. Welcome to our workshop.
Glad to be part of this learning experience-Thanks for having me. Thanks to Madhu for introducing to this unusal program. I am a small meduium enterprises (business) advisor and a champion for entrepreneurs. In sophisticated language I am a Management Consultant and I like to get paid!
Travel, cultural education, preparing good food and relishing what others cook (no Disney characters for me-certified vegetarian), people, and photography is very appealing and starting today i find using technology in education could become a hobby.
I am Nalin Jain and affiliated with India International School and Cultural Center. This program would help me to understand the effective use of technology in teaching methods.
@NalinJain I am a vegetarian, too, Nalin. I am sure this is a good topic for the creation of language materials.
Dr. Franklin
In my experience students are engaged when one has something interesting to communicate, when students are get a feeling they are learning a new idea that they can run with, when they are responsive to questions, and little humor eases the two way non verbal communication in most instances.
Specifically, students whom we work with in Hindi plays respond more favorably if they see images, a brief presentation or snips from the films related to their character they are portraying.
My name is Yu Marshall and I’ve been teaching Chinese for the past 10 years. I’m interested in this program because I’m always looking for new and innovative ways to engage my students and to try and keep ahead of them on the technology curve. I’d like to get a lot of new ideas and engage with other instructors on some of their best practices for using technology with their students. Ideally, I’d like to find that ‘killer app’ by the end of the session that will plug into my students brain and download the language to them :).
@YuMarshall What was your killer app, Yu?
My name is Keyuan Bian and now I am teaching Chinese to students from 1st grade through 5th grade in both Meadowview and Deerfield elemntary schools which are located in Oak creek, suburb of Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
For elementary students, they like to move around in classroom and it is hard for them to sit there and listen to me for more than 10 minutes. So i always design some activities involve kinesthetic intellegence. And they also like competitions, in which they are very engaged and motivated and try to be the best.Beside, cooperative learning works well and they like to be in the team with other students to accomplish the tasks.
I would like to find more technologies suitable for elementary school students’ learning and cognitive abilities and to make theri learning more interesting and effective.
@Keyuan Bian Always a pleasure to work with you. Hope you will share your view on what works best with the young learners.
My name is William Kanyi and a Swahili instructor and graduate student from Indiana University Bloomington. I have been teaching Swahili for 5yrs, teaching upward bound program, Swahili Flagship, IU-SWA101/2 elementary and STARTALK!
I would like to learn new technology to facilitate creative learning in my teaching. At the end of the week, I hope to have learned at least two new technologies I can use to make class projects more interesting to the students.
@telekiexpe Hi William,
It is nice to hear that you are participating this program! I am going to attend the second week, are you going to be there too? If not, I will ask you for your experience and skills, how to use certain programs and software-I believe you will become an expert!
Good luck,
Umida
IUB
Turkish Flagship
@umidahikmat
Thanks for your message, am glad you will get an opportunity to come and learn all the interesting language learning technologies options on offer. I will be happy give you insight on what I learn when I get back in btown, but I doubt I will be an expert!
Thanks
@telekiexpe Please give me a report on how your projects have advanced since leaving us. We would love to have some great Swahili artifacts for our NOVASTARTALK gallery. Let us know if we can help with anything.
My name is Pearl Lin and I have been teaching Chinese for the past two years. I want to learn technology because that is the my weakest point and I want to learn as much as possible . I hope to have learned at least two to three new technologies I can use to make my students enjoy learning Chinese and being fully engaged . I want to learn from my colleagues since they know more and we can collaborate and exchange information.
I agree with Crystal and I want to incorporate technology into my classroom and for my next job, I need the school to offer me a classroom. Without the necessary environment and support from your admiinstators you cannot function effectively. To be fully engage is to be genuinely interested in the language you are teaching. My favorite song to teach is Long Life Noodle and I use Play Dough for students to make noodles and they love the tunes to the song. I think I will learn a lot from every one of you.
My name is Sherry Xu, I teach Chinese at Chinese Sunday school in New Jersey. I would like to learn the new tools and new technology to make learning Chinese more interest and fun. I understand learning new language need memorization. I hope some teaching methods could incorporate memorization in a more engaging and fun activities. I am very much liked Freer and Sackler museum visit. I think it will motivate students to learn foreign language little bit harder.
@Sherryxu When at the museum, be sure to imagine in advance what tasks you will give your students involving language, cuture and content- an integrated unit.
Greetings! My name is Mei-Yen Cracraft. I’ll be joining the program on session 2. I currently teach high school beginner Chinese courses as well as Chinese weekend school culture classes in Nashville, TN.
I have found my students to be mostly engaged when they are focused, and play the roles that I intended/designed for them. And when I call for a stop on an activity, they yelled: wait, more! Thus I know they are not only engaged, but enjoying the moments.
Here is my perfect world wish list – a Prezi presentation; an online/web-based language audio lab that can function like the old-school ones, a flipped classroom session prepped with my ipad, a blog that links all my works and function as exchange platform among students and their pen-paws, set up a broadcasting/podcasting program for class projects, and lots of new findings.
Greetings! My name is Mei-Yen Cracraft. I’ll be joining the program on session 2. I currently teach high school beginner Chinese courses as well as Chinese weekend school culture classes in Nashville, TN.
I have found my students to be mostly engaged when they are focused, and play the roles that I intended/designed for them. And when I call for a stop on an activity, they yelled: wait, more! Thus I know they are not only engaged, but enjoying the moments.
Here is my perfect world wish list — a Prezi presentation; an online/web-based language audio lab that can function like the old-school ones, a flipped classroom session prepped with my ipad, a blog that links all my works and functions as exchange platform among students and their pen-paws, set up a broadcasting/podcasting program for class projects, and lots of new findings.
Greetings! My name is Mei-Yen Cracraft. I’ll be joining the program on session 2. I currently teach high school beginner Chinese courses as well as weekend Chinese school culture classes in Nashville, TN.
I have found my students to be mostly engaged when they are focused, and play the roles that I intended/designed for them. And when I call for a stop on an activity, they yelled: wait, more! Thus I know they are not only engaged, but enjoying the moments.
Here is my perfect world wish list – a Prezi presentation; an online/web-based language audio lab that can function like the old-school ones, a flipped classroom session prepped with my ipad, a blog that links all my works and functions as exchange platform among students and their pen-paws, set up a broadcasting/podcasting program for class projects, and lots of new findings.
Dear Mei-Yen,
We welcome you to our NOVASTARTALK team of teachers committed to bringing our students the best in educational technology coupled with a standards based approach to lesson design. Our overarching goal is target language communication.
@mcracraft
We will do a good prezi and you can look at Anvil for an on;ine audio lab. Other applications that include podcasting possibilities are Vocaroo, Audiopal and Woices.
My name is Mohamed Abdel Rahman, I teach Arabic at Fordham University and New York University in New York City. Since I started using technology my classes have improved, I would definitely say student participation, motivation, and overall classroom dynamics. Technology helps me communicate better, and students are used to using and communicating with it – they feel at home using it.
@mabdelrahman1 Hi Mohamed. It is always a pleasure to have you here with us. I agree with your assessment about the role of technology in the increase of motivation among our students. This is an important factor in language study and perhaps even more crucial with the LCTLs.
Yan Xie
My name is Yan Xie. I am teaching Chinese 101 ,102, 201, 202 and independent study 495 at Liberty University, Lynchburg, VA. I have used movie project assignments to enhance the four skills of the students. They LOVE it.
What do I want to learn? Writing characters is the most difficult part for my students. I really want to learn how to use technologies to make character recognition and learning more effective and enjoyable. Also, I want to learn technologies I can use to deliver assignments and activities more interestingly and engagingly.
@yxie I think you will agree that Brainshark can be an interesting way to deliver assignments.Also, you can use Tagxedo to deliver vocabulary or Vocaroo to share voice assignments. You can also have your students deliver voice assignments via Voki.
Cartoons are great for language learning and you can make some good ones using Toondoo
Good Morning from your Director,
http://www.voki.com/php/viewmessage/?chsm=4a5e9a2ebed631f1f54f782881fdff77&mId=1337362
Pleased to meet you! Voki is a good way to decrease the anxiety of presentational and even interpersonal communication for your students.
http://www.voki.com/php/viewmessage/?chsm=4a5e9a2ebed631f1f54f782881fdff77&mId=1337362
<object width=”148″ height=”44″><param name=”movie” value=”http://vocaroo.com/player.swf?playMediaID=s03LOEEI3PfJ&autoplay=0″></param><param name=”wmode” value=”transparent”></param><embed src=”http://vocaroo.com/player.swf?playMediaID=s03LOEEI3PfJ&autoplay=0″ width=”148″ height=”44″ wmode=”transparent” type=”application/x-shockwave-flash”></embed></object><br><a href=”http://vocaroo.com” style=”font-size:xx-small;” title=”Vocaroo Voice Recorder”>Audio recording and upload >></a>
Hello! My name is Umida Khikmatillaeva. I am originally from Uzbekistan and currently live in Bloomington, Indiana. I taught Turkish back in my country, here I teach the Uzbek language. Now I am working for the Turkish Flagship program where I am developing a textbook for the Turkish-Uzbek bridge course.
@umidahikmat Welcome Umida. I know that one of your goals is to create apps. I would like to suggest the free Show me app on iPad for your students to create their own audio-visual flash cards. Dr.Chi has another app to show you called Screen chomp that is also very useful.
Also, you will want to check out Voice Thread for the iPhone or iPad.
<object width=”148″ height=”44″><param name=”movie” value=”http://vocaroo.com/player.swf?playMediaID=s00e7tjjNrhv&autoplay=0″></param><param name=”wmode” value=”transparent”></param><embed src=”http://vocaroo.com/player.swf?playMediaID=s00e7tjjNrhv&autoplay=0″ width=”148″ height=”44″ wmode=”transparent” type=”application/x-shockwave-flash”></embed></object><br><a href=”http://vocaroo.com” style=”font-size:xx-small;” title=”Vocaroo Voice Recorder”>Online recording software >></a>
http://vocaroo.com/i/s00e7tjjNrhv
The students will talk about their weekend in Arabic using the past tense. What did they do in the weekend? where did they go? and with whom?
Hello! My name is Gloria Po. I teach Chinese at two public high schools in Edmond, Oklahoma.
I like to learn new things and I like to apply the technologies to my teaching.
I found that my students are engaged when they are working with their friends for the projects. I am planning to use technologies to design more performance based tasks.
@GloriaPo We are delighted with the idea of creating performance-based tasks and we hope that you will take advantage of the activity banks from ESL that we shared with you all. I also would like to share a World Languages activity database from CALPER:
http://calper.la.psu.edu/cmc/database.php
And of course, please share your actvities in our Gallery on this website. Xie xie.