Personalising English Language Teaching in Secondary Schools through Technology

3 Teaching Cases

Why Personalising?

• The higher the students move up the grade level spectrum, the bigger will be the gap of achievement in English.

• Students become more mature thinkers. • Differences in learning styles.

Using Sound Editing Software and a Class Blog to Enhance Students’ Oral

Presentation Skills

Yeung Li Wa, Jenny,Sha Tin Government Secondary

School

Personalising and Rekindling Interest in English Language Learning through Digital Storytelling

Wong Sze Long, ArmstrongHo Fung College

Blogfolios for the Professional Development of English Language

Teachers

Paul SzeDepartment of Curriculum and

Instruction, CUHK

Using Adacity and Weblog to enhance students’ speaking skills

Jenny YeungSha Tin Government Secondary School

Overview

• Rationale• Objectives• The Design • Benefits• Reminders and Advice• Further exploration • Questions and Answers

Why using CALL?

• A class size of 35 – minimal individual attention to students’ performance

• Ineffective peer and self assessment in previous lessons

Objectives

• To enhance learning effectiveness• To conduct effective self and peer assessment • To help learners become active participants in

the learning process• To offer a platform for students to learn from

each other • To provide an authentic environment for

students to do reflections and express their views in the target language

CALL lessons – the design (1)

• Sound recording Audacity • Weblog Wordpress.com

Lesson One

Do a 1.5-2 minute Individual presentations

Conduct self & peer assessment

Lesson Two

Focused practice: accuracy in pronunciation(Dictation)

1-minute Individual response

CALL lessons – the design (2)Before the lesson • Created a class blog – Wordpress.com• Wrote a post

-- stated the purposes of the class blog -- laid down the regulations

• Prepared a lesson outline -- learning objectives, tools needed, procedures

In the lesson • Explained the goals and introduced the tasks • Did a demo of how to record a sound file using Audacity • Introduced the class blog

-- the requirements and steps of uploading a file and writing a post• Went through the self and peer assessment form • Recording and uploading• Conducted peer assessment

Students’ Work Individual Presentation 1Connie (32)

Individual Presentation 2Dick (3)

Individual Presentation 3Chloe (28)

Dictation 1Tiffany (29)

Dictation 2Jaco (7)Derek (15)

Individual ResponseGrace (31)

Speech for a public speaking contestYan (30)

Benefits

• Learning effectiveness -- allows feedback to all-- conducts self and peer assessment meaningfully

• Learner autonomy -- involves students in procedural and learning choices

• A stress-free environment -- minimizes anxiety

• Focused practice in speaking• Sustaining interest in language learning

Reminders and Advice

• ‘Aim less’ - time constraint- task design

• Maintaining the class blog - appropriate use of language & the blog itself- file types, storage space

Exploring the other uses of a class blog

• Dictations• Announcements• A forum for discussing current affairs• An archive for essays and speeches for public

competitions • Sharing and recommending teaching resources • Other focused practice

e.g. pronunciation, intonation, pace, grammatical accuracy

‘Computers are basically an attractive nuisance.’ (Healey, 2000)

Healey. Deborah (2000) Changing Teaching with Technology. ELI, Oregon State University

Time for Professional Exchange

Digital StorytellingMotivating Remedial Students

Wong Sze Long, ArmstrongHo Fung College (Sponsored by Sik Sik Yuen)

Digital Storytelling

• Enhances learner engagement (through a highly personalized task)

Subject and School

Subjects• 36 S. 2 students• All of them were from classes

School• EMI• Government-aided Secondary school

Teaching Procedures

1. Introducing DST and relevant language features (Lesson 1)

2. Developing ideas for the digital stories3. Script/ Storyboard writing4. Producing a digital story

Pros

• Meaning focus • More than a language task• Passive learners became active learners• Personalizing language tasks

Cons

• Managing a DST classroom• Limited language input and output• Practicality

All these should have been eliminated

• there were not enough headsets• some of the microphones available did not

work• the students’ pictures could not be imported• the Internet connection went down • the MMLC was occupied

The End~Thank You~

Background

A professional development course for 33 serving teachers of English in primary and

secondary schools interested in using technology in English language teaching

My concerns

• How can I put together a convenient platform for the teachers’ ongoing displaying of the teaching ideas and resources that they will be creating?

• How can I encourage them to inspire and learn from each other?

Prof. Yang Hao’s Blogfolio

http://edu595.wordpress.com/course-blogfolios/

My Attempt

• The teachers will display the teaching ideas and resources that they will produce.

• I will provide feedback, reminders, etc. through the class blogfolio.

• The teachers will be put in groups, and encouraged to view and give feedback to each other’s work.

• I will demonstrate to them my own ongoing project through the course.

Experience gained

• A useful, convenient, platform, for everyone concerned.

• The teachers were highly motivated to create and display their teaching ideas and resources.

• There was substantial mutual support and peer learning.