Rae Sterret’s Lesson

  • School/Institution: North Salinas High School
  • Grade/Level:   Ninth-Twelfth
  • Language:       English
  • Course:            ELD 1
  • Previous Day’s Summary: The Ss had previously learned about Anki and had practiced viewing flashcards on Anki to practice vocabulary. This lesson would take place during the first 2 weeks of school, to begin the students’ training in utilizing different apps on their cell phones, as well as teach them about the vocabulary for their cell phone.

Objectives

 

Content Objectives Language Objectives

SWBAT describe 2 language learning websites and analyze at least one service each site offers.

SWBAT create captions for pictures to practice the vocabulary words they wish to review for the next class.

SWBAT say commands for powering up and down computer devices.

SWBAT compare their cell phone with others and describe similarities and differences. (“This phone has a larger menu than that phone”, “These phones are both black” and “Your phone has more contacts than my phone.”)

SWBAT ask questions about search items for an Internet search on their cell phones.

SWBAT compare two language learning websites and determine at least one difference between the two on their cell phones.

Materials

  • Projector to make verbal instructions easier to follow
  • Easel paper and posterboard for objectives and prompts
  • Students’ and teacher’s mobile phones (T should already have downloaded the apps onto his/her phone)
  • Textbook, pens and papers for each student

Procedures

 

Pre-Activities:  Description Time Frame Objective(s) Targeted
Ss will turn in their homework and review the vocabulary from the previous class by viewing the word bank on the wall as well as reviewing on their cell phone with Anki flash cards (they will have been introduced to Anki in the previous lesson). Whole class will repeat the vocabulary vocally to ensure that all have grasped the new items, then Ss will work in pairs on pages 190-191 in the textbook. 10 minutes Language Objective 1
Ss will get out their cell phones. T will review the hardware and software components of a cell phone, and the whole class will review by calling out the appropriate words on the new Anki flashcards that the teacher has made. Ss will then compare their cell phone with that of a neighbor, naming 1-3 things that are similar and 1-3 that are different. (Differentiation) 10 minutes Language Objectives
During activities:  Description Time Frame Objective(s) Targete
Ss will write their paragraphs about their website and state whether or not they would use the website in their own learning. They would have to state whether or not they thought the site they explored was better than the other one and why. (Differentiated instruction with forms- example on posterboard) The first example will be done as a class, which students can copy if they wish (for very beginning levels). The more advanced students will be asked to write one or two additional sentences. 15 minutes Language Objective 4
Ss will have a homework assignment to walk around town that evening and take pictures of cell phone advertisements. They will post the pictures to the class website with a one-sentence description of one hardware item on the phone that they like. (It has a big screen, a lot of menu items, a long power cord, etc.) 20 minutes Language Objective 2, Content Objective 2
Post Activities: Description Time Frame Objective(s) Targeted
Ss will write their paragraphs about their website and state whether or not they would use the website in their own learning. They would have to state whether or not they thought the site they explored was better than the other one and why. (Differentiated instruction with forms- example on posterboard) The first example will be done as a class, which students can copy if they wish (for very beginning levels). The more advanced students will be asked to write one or two additional sentences. 15 minutes Language Objective 4
Ss will have a homework assignment to walk around town that evening and take pictures of cell phone advertisements. They will post the pictures to the class website with a one-sentence description of one hardware item on the phone that they like. (It has a big screen, a lot of menu items, a long power cord, etc.) 20 minutes Language Objective 2, Content Objective 2

The students will be looking at their own cell phone and that of their neighbors to compare. The vocabulary words they will have been introduced to are as follows: app, browser, tabs, search bar, keywords, menu, contact, text message (SMS), power cord, power button, volume control, earphones and keyboard.

Content-delivery- Students will be looking at specific websites that we will touch on in another class. I see this lesson as being at the start of a semester, so that I can integrate Duolingo and LiveMocha as a part of the curriculum. I see this class as the introductory class, getting the students familiar with the websites and what they can do on them with their phones.

Tutorial- The Anki flashcard use at the beginning of class would be used as a tutorial model.

Creation- The fact that the students have to use their cell phones to provide content about cell phones themselves and create flashcards for vocabulary words (potentially on their phones but could also be done on a computer).

Communication- The fact that the students will be posting their pictures on a website for the class makes it communicative in my book, because the students can see what others post. I think that I will use what they create on the website for other classes.

Assessment

  • Students will be assessed on their abilities to navigate a language-learning website using English vocabulary. The T will provide a lot of scaffolding for helping the students use the website for the first time.
  • Students will be assessed on their vocabulary acquisition through the creation of the pictures and captions for mobile hardware/software vocabulary.

Handout

Say these items with your partner and find an example on one of your phones.

  • Menu
  • Screen
  • Power cord
  • Power button
  • App
  • Browser
  • Volume control
  • Earphones
  • Earphone jack

Battery

 Rationale

The first question a researcher must answer is why a teacher is even utilizing technology in the classroom to teach a target language. “…[U]sing technology is a challenge that language professionals must squarely face and to which they must endeavor to find pedagogically principled responses” (Blake, 2013, p. 23). The second question is why the teacher is using certain technology to do particular activities with the students. In this context, the six different ecosystems where Mobile–Assisted Language Learning (MALL) operates will provide a framework for why each of the different lesson activities were used.

In utilizing the different websites and applications on mobile phones in this lesson, the teacher is endeavoring to give the students the content that they will need in order to supplement their language learning in the classroom. The use of the technology itself in learning about technology occurs to give students another form of educational support in learning about the topic. By leading students to learn about the tools that can assist their own language learning, these activities are not only empowering students with their content, they are giving them guided support in developing their understanding for how to use these tools within the six Mobile- Assisted Language Learning ecosystems that they are inhabiting during the lesson. This guided support assists in making the information more salient and therefore helps the students to learn the language to discuss technology. The goals of this lesson are to teach students how to use MALL apps that will be used throughout the course in the setting of a suburban high school. The goals and setting will heavily influence whether or not the use of the technology will be successful, and these are often determined by the constraints of the six ecosystems within MALL.

Through using Anki (a vocabulary-building tool), Duolingo (a translation website) and Live Mocha (a platform for communicating with other speakers of the target language), students are given supplemental instruction in the target language, English. In using these apps to complete tasks within the particular lesson described here, as well as future lessons, students are able to use a multimodal platform to engage in learning a language both within and outside of the classroom. Each of these apps allow students to complete tasks using the target language, but Anki and Duolingo focus on using smaller chunks of the language to build accurate understanding, while Live Mocha engages users with language speakers to utilize communication strategies. I will examine the use of mobile technology in the lesson first through the acquisition ecosystem.

The six ecosystems for MALL are the acquisition ecosystem, the pedagogical ecosystem, the institutional ecosystem, the technological ecosystem, the sociocultural ecosystem and the linguistic ecosystem. These ecosystems are frameworks for viewing MALL use in the classroom. In the acquisition ecosystem students are able to review vocabulary words that they will need for the lesson using Anki flashcards, and students will be able to practice memorizing the different words. The goal is to assist the students with acquiring the language they will need to use later in the lesson. Since it is accessible to the students on their phones whenever they want them, this offers the opportunity for the students to learn outside of class. The accessibility allows students to review vocabulary more often, which allows for more input and thus more acquisition of the language. (Ellis & Shintani, 2014). With Duolingo and LiveMocha, the students review the previously learned vocabulary for finding websites through a search engine, then incorporate the previously learned vocabulary from the lesson to look for ways the websites can help with language learning. The students’ learning is scaffolded through the Anki flashcards and in class discussions with realia to acquire new words and structures. Scaffolding is important so that students are able to build their comprehension of both the language and the content before they are asked to complete tasks using those constructs (Lantolf, 1994). This makes the use of LiveMocha and Duolingo both tutorial and augmented (Puentedura, 2012), because it is assisting students with learning content for the course.

The pedagogical ecosystem for this class is supported by theories of Communicative Language Teaching and Task-Based Instruction. According to sociocultural theory, students must interact with other interlocutors in authentic ways to negotiate meaning in another language (Lantolf, 1994). Within Communicative Language Teaching, students must communicate with each other in order to negotiate for meaning. In Task-Based Instruction, students are required to use the language to complete authentic tasks. For this lesson, the students are given individual tasks to discover information about the different websites, but they are also given opportunities to practice their language with a partner to develop their ideas before writing the final paragraph.

The institutional ecosystem for this lesson is one which requires teachers to use a textbook, but also encourages teachers to supplement the materials within the textbook. The students will take summative examinations which cover the information in the textbooks provided, but the methods of teaching the information contained in the textbooks is at the teachers’ discretion. The students will need to know the different vocabulary and grammatical structures covered in the lesson to complete standardized tests within the school system as well, so the technology not only provides a medium of instruction, it also provides content to grant students language practice in using comparative forms.

The technological ecosystem employs in-class availability of wi-fi and the students’ own mobile devices, as well as a projector for all students to see an example of the technological tasks being demonstrated. The sociocultural ecosystem is made up of a teacher, an aide and 18-20 ESL learners of high school age in the U.S. Given the age of the learners, they are assumed to be natives of the digital culture. Despite their lack of English language knowledge, they are nevertheless very savvy with technology and mobile phone use, which is an incentive for the teacher to offer opportunities for mobile language learning.

Finally, the linguistic ecosystem includes several different languages. Most of the learners have Spanish as their L1, which can provide scaffolding for students of lower proficiency in the activities, particularly in the pair work before the written prompt is required. Moreover, this group of learners, with their background in digital culture, are already very familiar with mobile phone use in their native language. They are in need of the English vocabulary and more specifically language apps for their mobile phones so that they can supplement their language learning outside of the classroom. The students have only two hours of sheltered English instruction each school day, and the rest of the time they are in content courses in which English is used as the medium of instruction. As a result they do not have adequate vocabulary (3,000-5,000 words) to easily read for comprehension in their academic coursework and need additional time outside of class to learn English (Hedgcock & Ferris, 2009). As both of these websites will be used in the course to supplement students’ language learning outside of class, it is important that the students are all familiar with the language apps themselves as well as the linguistic tools for how to talk about the apps.

In Egbert’s 2007 article, she talks about the nine uses for technology in the language learning classroom. For the teacher, using Duolingo and LiveMocha to allow for endless repetitive practice and supplement authentic input for students. Anki also offers students the opportunity for endless practice of specific vocabulary, so all three of the apps used in this lesson provide additional input for students as they practice English in their new country.

References

Blake, R.J. (2013). Brave New Digital Classroom. Georgetown University Press: Washington D.C.

Ellis, R. & Shintani, N. (2014). Exploring language pedagogy through second language acquisition research. New York: Routledge

Egbert, J. (2007). Asking useful questions: Goals, engagement, and differentiation in technology-enhanced language learning. Teaching English with Technology, 7(1).

Hedgcock, J., & Ferris, D. R. (2009). Teaching readers of English: Students, texts, and contexts. Routledge.

Lantolf, J. P. (1994). Sociocultural theory and second language learning: Introduction to the special issue. Modern Language Journal, 418-420.

Pegrum, M. (2014). Mobile learning: Languages, literacies and cultures. Palgrave Macmillan: Hampshire, England.

Puentedura, R. R. (2012). Building upon SAMR.