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Technology in the Chinese Classroom: Creating a 21st Century Learning Space

Elizabeth TredeauAmy ChangHaiyun Lu

Qi Li

NCLC 2013 Boston

+Part I: Twitter in

the Chinese

Classroom

Elizabeth Tredeau, 钱莉琪Graduate Student, Middlebury College

MA Chinese, Teaching Chinese as a Foreign LanguageNational Chinese Language Conference

April 8, 2013Flickr CC user mkhmarketing

+ Presentation

I. Kingswood Oxford School: The Chinese Twitter Project, Spring 2012

II. What Is Social Media

III. Why Twitter?

IV. What Happens in Cyberspace? How Technology Helps Teachers Meet Pedagogical Goals

V. Precautions and Troubleshooting

VI. Do This In Your Classroom: The First Three Steps

Sources

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I. Kingswood Oxford School: The Chinese Twitter Project

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Detailed Chinese I Student Profile: Profile Photo, Tweets, Twit Pics

+II. What Is Social Media?

A category of sites that is based on: user participation user-generated

content. includes any site

centered on user interaction.

(Search Engine Watch, 2008 from McCarty, S., 2011, p. 92)

Image from Flickr CC user ChrisL_AK

SNS: Social Networking Sites

+Our Population:

Millennial students (Elam, Stratton & Gibson, 2007)

Neomillennials (Baird & Fisher, 2005)

Digital natives (Prensky, 2001)

Generation M(e) (Roberts & Foehr, 2005)

Net Generation (Tapscott, 2009)

80-90% of students have profiles on SNS. (Lampe, et al. 37)

Image Source Flickr CC user Yutaka Tsutano

+Exploration of Identity:

Acquiring an L2 is another experience that involves experimentation with and the development of new identities. (McBride, 2009 p. 39)

Adolescents: internal and external influences on

their emerging identities they are at a developmental stage

where they are cultivating abstract thought

incorporating their responses to events as well as personal traits into their conception of self, figuring out who they are and how they fit into the world. (MacIntyre et al., 2011)

Experiment with multiple identities more safely because the experimentation takes place somewhere other than a single, monolithic world. (McBride, 2011, Sykes et al., 2008, p. 39)

Image source: Flickr CC user fotologic

+Geography:

Pre-1980’s Chinese teachers would have to take their students to China/Taiwan/Singapore/Hong Kong to have extended lessons on Chinese culture. Not so anymore: bring that to your classroom in America. (Kubler, 2011, p. 70)

Image Source: Flickr CC user NASA Earth Observatory

+Teachers and technology: generational and

other sociocultural barriers can be surmounted.” (McCarty, 2011, p.104)

“If the teacher utilizes cutting-edge technologies that students would like to learn, a motivational sense of challenge can be kindled. The teacher can thereby become a model of technological empowerment as well as of bilingualism.” (McCarty, 2011, p.104)

+ III. Why Twitter?

basic text font + ability to shorten URL links

= easy to learn and simple to use.

(Antenos-Conforti, 2009 p. 61)

+ The four features of the web that make it ripe with opportunities for language teaching and learning:

Participatory

Authentic

Immediate

Engages the community

(Antenos-Conforti, 2009 p. 59)

+Participatory

+ Asynchronous: allow students time to plan their

writing, edit spelling, grammar and punctuation and make longer contributions. (Sotillo, 2000, p. 106, in Antenos-Conforti p. 62)

Synchronous: contributing to conversations, increasing output, and advancing L2 inter-language development. (de la Fuente, 2003 in Antenos-Conforti p 62)

Authentic

+Immediate

Focus needs to be put on the process, not the product

+Engages the Community “Provides learners a forum in which to represent

themselves in the L2 to their fellow community members.”

Sense of community, interaction bonding, changed classroom dynamics for the better (Parry, 2008 in Antenos-Conforti p. 73)

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IV. What Happens in Cyberspace?How Technology Helps Teachers Meet Pedagogical Goals

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“…access to a variety of technologies…will help students strengthen linguistic skills, establish interactions with peers and learn about contemporary culture and everyday life in the target country.” (ACTFL, 1999, p. 35 in Kubler, p. 70)

Image: ACTFL.org

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“What students might learn by engaging in SNS-based activities in their FL classes would be different from the pedagogical goals of extended reading and writing activities. Instead, students would be learning…the language involved in these speech acts within the L2 SNS environment” McBride, 2009 p. 41

+Swain (2005) Output HypothesisNoticing/triggering—notice the gap

(Schmidt & Frota, 1986)

Hypothesis testing—does this work?Metalinguistic function—reflection

The need to teach netiquette: students need to develop SNS skills as part of their personal and professional lives and doing it under the guidance of teachers can help them learn to critique and responsibly manage this media.

Producing language heightens awareness which encourages attention to learning (Swain & Suzuki, 2007)

Kramsch, 2006 and McBride 2009 in McBride, 2009 p. 41

+ This is really just another way to teach critical thinking where students are able to critically integrate new knowledge and other peoples’ perspectives into their own personal experiences and reflections.

(McBride, 2009 p. 41-42)

Flickr CC user IceSabre

+ V. Precautions and Troubleshooting

Spending too much time on “high tech” and not enough on “class prep.” (Kubler, 2011 p. 76)

Internet Security

Academic Relevancy

+ VI. Your Turn: The First Three Steps

1. Conduct a Needs Analysis: Is this something students are interested in?

2. Find trustworthy multimedia products (Bai, 2003)

3. Develop a comfort with an online platform

+“…technology is only a medium; instructional content and teaching methods are ultimately more important” (Beatty, 2003 & Lys, 1999 in Kubler, p. 75 )

+“…the textbook, blackboard, and computer are all tools. Tools should be used to help do a job, not do the job for us.” (Hoopingarner, 2005 p. 4 in Kubler, p. 83)

+Sources Antenos-Conforti, E. (2009). Microblogging on Twitter: Social networking in

intermediate Italian classes. . In Lomicka, L. & Lord, G. (Eds.), The next generation: Social networking and online collaboration in foreign language learning. (59-90). San Marcos, TX: Computer Assisted Language Instruction Consortium (CALICO).

Kubler, C. (2011). Promises an perils of educational technology in foreign language curriculum and materials development. In Chan, W., Chin, K. Nagami, M. Suthiwan, T. (Eds.), Media in foreign language teaching and learning (69-86). Boston, MA: Walter de Gruyter, Inc.

Luke, C. (2006). Fostering learner autonomy in a technology-enhanced, inquiry-based foreign language classroom. Foreign Language Annals, 39 (1), 71-86.

McBride, K. (2009). Social-networking sites in foreign language classes: Opportunities for re-creation. In Lomicka, L. & Lord, G. (Eds.), The next generation: Social networking and online collaboration in foreign language learning. (35-58). San Marcos, TX: Computer Assisted Language Instruction Consortium (CALICO).

McCarty, S. (2011). Social media to motivate language learners from before admission to after graduation. In Chan, W., Chin, K. Nagami, M. Suthiwan, T. (Eds.), Media in foreign language teaching and learning (87-108). Boston, MA: Walter de Gruyter, Inc.

+ McIntyre, P., Burns, C., & Jessome, A. (2011). Ambivalence

about communicating in a second language: A qualitative study of French immersion students’ willingness to communicate. The Modern Language Journal, 95, 81-96.

Ortega, L. (2009). Understanding second language acquisition. London: Hodder Education. [Chapter 9]

Shultz, D. & Willard-Holt, C. (2004). Promoting world languages in middle school: The achievement connection. Foreign Language Annals, 37(4), 623-629.

Swain, M. (2005). The output hypothesis: Theory and research. In E. Hinkel (Ed.), Handbook of research in second language learning and teaching Volume I (pp. 471-483). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Swain, M., & Suzuki, W. (2007). Interaction, output and communicative language learning, In B. Spolsky & F.M. Hult (Eds.), The handbook of educational linguistics (pp. 557-570). Malden, MA: Blackwell.

All images by Elizabeth Tredeau unless otherwise noted

+emtredeau.wordpress.co

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