Spring 2005

Online teaching & learning

ICT and languages

Technology is making it easier for teachers of modern languages to bring the rest of the world to Australia. HILARY HUGHES argues that technology can help make repetitive tasks more interesting, complex tasks more manageable and marking a lot less time consuming.

OUR GEOGRAPHICAL ISOLATION is becoming less and less of a restriction. With Internet sites, online courses, CD-ROMs, DVDs and voice–recognition technology, it is possible for students to access upto-date information about other countries and cultures, listen to a variety of native speaker voices and practise their skills with other speakers around the world.

Access to more purpose developed resources

Language teachers can now access a wealth of activities that cater for different learning styles and offer added opportunities for personalised learning in mixed ability classes. The NSW Department of Education and Training (DET) Languages Unit, in collaboration with Curriculum Corporation, has provided teachers with interactive CD-ROMs in seven languages. These have graded language learning activities on 16 topics for students in the middle years.

The NSW DET has also developed online readers called Quirky Comics. These animated short stories in Chinese, French, German, Japanese, Indonesian and Italian are presented at two or three different levels of language learning. There is a word list and a set of activities that accompany each story. Each activity targets specific language structures or vocabulary used in the story. The games all have a stopwatch built in, so that students can replay the games to try to improve their speed or compete with their friends.

Textbooks are still a major tool in classrooms. Many textbooks now come with their own CD and accompanying online activities.

Publishers are updating interactive language CD-ROMs, some with voice recognition technology, so that students can perfect their pronunciation using visual and audio feedback.

DVDs are also opening up new ways to study. For instance, students can now watch Amélie in French with English subtitles or in English with French subtitles, and the director’s narration makes a great listening comprehension.

The World Wide Web

A quick search of the Internet will throw up hundreds of lessons plans, worksheets, WebQuests and online activities shared by language teachers all over the world. While there is a need to be discerning, it is possible for teachers to find items just right for their classes. Imagine setting homework for students by giving them a URL for online activities to be completed at home or in the library.

Textbook publishers and professional organisations, such as the BBC and the Japan Foundation, deliver online listening, reading and writing resources for language teachers. Commercial sites, such as French department stores and fast food restaurants in Japan, can be used to give students authentic reading and listening opportunities.

Using sites with virtual shopping streets in Japan virtual tours of European castles and Chinese museums can give students the feel of visiting the country, instead of just hearing their teacher talk about it.

The NSW Teaching and Learning Exchange (TaLE), the Victorian Sofweb IdeaBank and similar portals have catalogues of language learning objects made in Australia, including those from The Le@rning Federation.

Online courses

There are also complete online courses designed for Australian students. Zou ba!, developed for Stage 4 students of Chinese by the NSW DET and Curriculum Corporation, is an example. Teachers can use it as the core or as a supplementary component for their Chinese lessons either in a classroom or for distance education. There are interactive online tasks as well as offline tasks for students to complete.

For students studying the NSW Japanese Higher School Certificate (HSC) Continuers course, the Languages Unit of the NSW DET and the Centre for Learning Innovation (CLI) have developed interactive materials to support the Mirai 5 and 6 Japanese course books. This eHSC Japanese course includes motivating self-correcting activities as well as open-ended tasks to be forwarded to the teacher. Discussion boards and email are built into the structure.

The NSW DET is also currently completing online materials for Stage 3 Indonesian, Stage 4 German, Italian and Japanese, and Stage 5 French, German, Italian and Japanese.

What else?

If your students are keen on SMS text messaging, why not take advantage of the craze and motivate subliminal vocabulary building!

The idea of text messaging is to use as few keystrokes as possible to get the information across. Initials or contractions make message sending faster. Foreign language words can be shortened for text messaging too.

As in English, numbers can be used to replace similar sounding words:

German:

acht=8. 8UNG=achtung

French:

un=1, deux=2. A2M1= à demain

Italian:

sei=6 MQ6B=ma quanto sei bono/a bello/a

Then there are the contractions of commonly used phrases:

German:

schreib schnell zurück=SSZ

French:

à la prochaine=ALP

Students enjoy composing messages for each other using these fun foreign language words, and it’s a valuable exercise for students to create their own shortcuts while increasing and reinforcing their target language vocabulary.

Another great motivator is using commercial games. PlayStation, Xbox and PC games such as Gran Turismo and The Sims come with French, German, Spanish and Italian already loaded. In a bid to encourage boys in languages, get them racing in Italy, Japan, Germany and France, reading all of the instructions in the target language. Players need to choose the car, colour, engine specifications, fuel, brakes, suspension and even email the racing team to make suggestions or complaints. Students are excited to learn the required vocabulary so that they can compete.

DIY

Sufficiently stimulated teachers can also create their own interactive online activities.

• PowerPoint can be used to make dialogue templates so that students need only type in and record the target language. Sites such as Quia and Puzzlemaker allow teachers to quickly create resources specific to their learners’ needs.
• Hot Potatoes software is designed specifically for language teachers to create self-correcting matching, short answer, sequencing, cloze, multiple choice and crossword activities. These can be saved to disk and loaded onto the school intranet. Pictures, sound files and even movie clips can be used as clues, answers and stimulus material.
• Students who submit homework electronically can have their work emailed back to them with all of the corrections showing. Teachers need only turn on ‘Track Changes’ or ‘Comment’ in Microsoft Word and students can see the amendments immediately.

Technology is making an incredible mark. It is giving language teachers new options for meeting the goals of intellectual quality, a quality learning environment and significance in students’ daily lives.

Hilary Hughes is a senior learning design officer in Learning Design and Resource Development with the Centre for Learning Innovation in New South Wales.

The author owns the copyright in this article. For information related to the reuse of this work in any form please contact the publisher denise.quinn@curriculum.edu.au