Week 10: Vocabulary and Reading Comprehension with Technology

As we know, vocabulary plays an important role in the acquisition of a new language. The articles required for this week, gave us an important point of view about vocabulary and the use of Online Dictionaries in the second/foreign language.

The first article “Using Technology to Assist in Vocabulary Acquisition and Reading Comprehension”, present possibilities to enhance vocabulary and reading comprehension with the help of technology. The author shows in the article an overview of the relationship between vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension. Tozcu and Coady (2004:473) claimed that “learning vocabulary is an important aspect of L2/FL acquisition and academic achievement and it is vital to reading comprehension and profiency, to which it is closely linked”. The closely relationship of this important aspects into the learning process helps students to enhance their goals as learners. Moreover, as was mentioned in past post in the Blog, technology helps in the reading skills and this articles show principles and aids to enhance reading comprehension and vocabulary with the help of technology.

The second article “Online English-English Learner Dictionaries Boost Word Learning”, claimed about the use of monolingual online dictionaries that are not the best option for a learner. The author explained that we as teachers should teach and introduce the several excellent online dictionaries with features especially designed for learners. Also, we need to trained students in the use of online dictionaries in order to get the maximum benefit in the classroom.

In conclusion, as we know the technology help us to teach different skills to our students and it is our responsibility as teachers involve our students with technology in order to get good benefits in the learning process. 

Week 9: Writing Throught the Technology

The articles required for this week, introduce new ways of using technology to teach second language writing skills: Blogs, Wikis and Collaborative Writing.

The first article: “Process Writing and the Internet: Blogs and Ning Networks”, shows how these technological tools can be useful to teach writing skills. A blog is a website with different entries that students can use to practice their writing skill. As personal experience using blogs for writing these entries every week for my Instructional Technology class, I have to say that the use of Blogs in the classroom is very useful to enhance writing skills. I have seen how I enhance my writing skills in a good way. After this class, it was difficult for me try to write a big writing task, even a short task could be a short challenge, but now I write fluently and I can organize my ideas in a clearly way. Also, the article mentioned the use of Ning which is a social networking site, similar to a blog, with the difference that this side has more technological resources, such as multimedia.

In the second article “Online Collaborative Writing Using Wikis”, the author claimed the use of wikis to enhance the writing and collaborative skills of the learners. In this article, I found an example of Collaborative Writing task. The teacher assigned a group of students to write in a wiki, which is an online platform where anyone can add or edit information that has been add for others. Something that really like from the article, was the fact that the teachers provides a clearly description of the task, the steps of the creative process, the prompts and the responses of the students to a challenging task.

In conclusion, I really enjoy reading these week’s articles that shows new techniques to enhance writing and collaborative skills, and I have to say that these articles encourage me to use one of these techniques with my future students. 

Week 8: Teaching Writing and Reading Skills with Internet

After reading the two articles required for this week, “Using the Internet in ESL writing Instruction” and “Using Internet-Based Children’s Literature to Teach EFL”, I learned significant things about teaching writing and reading skills using the Internet.

The first article presents the Internet as a useful tool for teaching writing. Also, the article proposed three basic elements to help to teach writing: Web pages, e-mail connection and creating class websites, these elements have received a lot of attention from CALL researchers in the past. This article help me to understand how to use technology in order to practice writing skills, which in my opinion in one of the most challenging skills to achieve for second language learners. It mentions that is a good option that students practice genres of writing such as essays, letters, description, etc., in order to enhance their writing skills in a good way.

The second article explains how the Internet is useful at the time to teach reading skills because Internet has helped to overcome problems of access and expense. As we know, with the Internet we have a lot of resources, and it is easy to have access to websites where we can find interesting articles for our students. If we want that our students read a book, we can look for a website when we can download the book in a PDF File in order to provide with the students with the material required for the class.

As a conclusion, with the Internet we have a lot of sources to enhance writing and reading skills in our students and it is our responsibility take advantage of these resources. 

Week 7: Employment of CALL for Teaching Different Skills

After reading the articles required for this week, I acquire new significant things in the use of CALL for teaching specific skills in a second/foreign language.

My personal opinion about the articles is that there are useful because it shows us the theory on how CALL is useful to teach speaking to second or foreign language learners. As we know, we can use computers to improve students’ skills, but the article written by Julia Gong, explain the advantages of the use of CALL in teaching speaking skills. We can see how the use of CALL in a second/foreign language classroom creates situations that stimulate interest, allows dialogue and communication, enhances reactivity, etc. these situations made a perfect environment to develop in a good way the speaking skills of our students, because sometimes students are afraid to make mistakes in front of others when there are practicing with someone else; in that way when their practice speaking with a computer they leave their fears behind and develop in a better way their skills.

Another thing that caught my attention from the articles, was the fact that it provides some examples about how us as teachers can use the technology to develop our own material, and also the author mention how a common TV show, like The Simpsoms, can be useful to teach grammar or listening to our students.

In conclusion, we as teachers have the tools to make our classes more comfortable and entertaining for our students using the technology, in order to every student, develops in a good way every skill of a second/foreign language class.