Please read the introductory post about the project.
The fourth task asked students to create their own heroes and describe it. To draw their heroes, students used artpad. Artpad is very similar to Paint. It lets users to draw a picture and add a text. It does not require registration and the final product can be printed or e-mailed.
Here is the hero created by one of the students:
Please read the introductory post about the project.
For this task, students created a comic strip and gave feedback for healthy food. To create their comics, they used the makebeliefscomix website. It is a website which lets the users create their comic strips using a range of characters with different moods. It is free and not difficult to use.
Here are some example comic strips created by the students in the project:
Please see the introductory post about the project.
The second task designed for the project was about daily routines. Students were supposed to take photos of themselves showing their daily routine and create a timeline with those photos and their descriptions. To create their timeline, they used the timeline page produced by readwritethink. It is free and very easy to use. When ready, students e-mailed their timelines to the teacher and we uploaded them on their blog.
The following is an example timeline created by one of the students. It is intentionally pixelated for privacy reasons.
Please see the introductory post about the project.
In the first task, students chose a character (an avatar) from Voki, a free podcast creating service, and described it recording their own voices. They answered the following questions for their descriptions.
The handout in Turkish (Vokikullanımı) gave step by step instruction to use Voki. The following products were created by the students, individually, and shared on their classroom blog- which we created for this study.
After a long break, in this post I am going to write about the project I conducted in a young learners classroom last term. Using technology-mediated tasks with young learners of English has always been in my mind. I contacted my former student from the MA program and shared my idea with her. She agreed to participate and we implemented the project collaboratively in her Grade 4 classroom in a private primary school in Istanbul. For 6 weeks, we created tasks to be completed by using various technological tools. The tasks were related to the topics covered in the English lessons. For each task, two handouts were prepared. One in English- to introduce the task and give the task instructions; one in Turkish- to instruct students on how to use the technological tool to be used for the task completion. I wrote a chapter about this study for the upcoming book, “Encyclopedia of Foreign Language Education in the Digital Age.” I will share it with you when it is published. In the next few posts, I will write about the tasks we used with young learners of English and share some of their products with you. You can also create and implement similar tasks in your own context.
Recently I have been interested in mobile learning and teaching and reading relevant sources. I came across an online available edited book: Mobile Learning: A handbook for educators and trainers. There are 20 chapters focusing on different aspects of mobile learning and teaching.
Inside the book, for its scope, the following is written:
“Emphasising the issues of usability, accessibility, evaluation and effectiveness,
and illustrated by case studies drawn from contemporary projects from around the
world, this book considers:
• the fundamentals of mobile technologies and devices
• the educational foundations of modern networked learning
• the issues that underpin mobile learning and make it accessible for all users
• the challenges of making mobile learning a substantial and sustainable component in colleges, universities and corporations.
• implications and issues for the future.”
Here is the second article from my dissertation on TPACK:
Abstract: The issue of what teachers need to know about technology for effective teaching has been the centre of intense debate in the recent past. Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) has been proposed as a conceptual framework to describe the knowledge base teachers need for effective technology integration. The present study aimed to investigate whether and/or how Turkish pre-service teachers of English reflected their TPACK, as developed in a design study integrating coursework and field experiences, on their lesson plans and implementation. Analysis of the data coming from the lesson plans and classroom observations of three cases revealed that pre-service teachers considered the relationship among content, pedagogy and technology while planning and implementing their lessons.
For the full paper, please click here.
In this post, I will introduce Teaching Channel, a website I have been using in my courses for the last few years. Teaching Channel provides teachers of various subject areas including English Language Arts with video-enhanced professional learning. Teachers can find various How-to videos such as how to write higher order questions or how to use videos to reflect on teaching and learning. Ideas presented in each video are illustrated in a real classroom setting by a real teacher. Teaching Channel explains its mission as revolutionizing how teachers learn, connect, and inspire each other. Though their target audience is the teachers in America’s schools, most of the videos shared might inspire teachers across the world.
If you have questions in your mind such as how I can design levelled questions, organize inquiry-based discussion, or activate my students background knowledge, visit the website and get some inspiring ideas.
I have been offering the Technology and Materials Design Course in the department for the last few years. As the requirement of the course, students (pre-service teachers of English) are supposed to open up their personal blogs and share course related materials there. Weekly, students have assignments such as creating a podcast, preparing an online poster, creating a digital story, etc. (I will write another post later explaining these tasks in detail.) Students upload their products on their blogs and me, as the instructor, and their peers view their posts regularly. Students are also supposed to write an entry for each post to explain the task and reflect on the task completion process. Keeping a blog has many benefits for students. For example:
When the course is over, I encourage the students to continue blogging. Some of them do. Here are the links to the blogs of Teodora Delibaşoğlu, Nazmi Dinçer, Halil İbrahim Aksakal and Yasin Kokarca. They all keep posting about ELT related issues. I follow them and feel very proud of them. I hope more and more students continue blogging after the course and I can share them with you.
Here is the list of some (free) ELT online journals. It might be sometimes difficult for ELT students and teachers to find free articles on topics relevant to language teaching and learning. Please feel free to add more to the list as a comment.
Scope of the journal: Theory and practice in English language teaching and learning, teaching English as a second or foreign language, English language teachers’ training and education.
Studies in English Language Teaching
Scope of the journal: English language teaching, second language acquisition, applied linguistics teaching and learning.
International Journal of English Language Teaching
Scope of the journal: Theory and practice in English language teaching and learning, teaching English as a second or foreign language, English language teachers’ training and education, English for special purpose, English linguistics and literature.
International Journal of English Studies
Scope of the journal: English Language and Linguistics, Applied English Linguistics, Literature in English and Culture of the English-speaking countries
The Journal of Linguistics and Language Teaching
Scope of the journal: Linguistics, foreign language methodology
Scope of the Journal: Using technology for language teaching
Scope of the journal: Language acquisition and language learning
International Journal of English Language Education
Scope of the journal: Theory and practice in English Language Teaching and Learning, Teaching English as a Second or Foreign Language, English language teachers’ training and education, Studies in English Culture and Literature
Scope of the journal: Foreign language reading and literacy
Computer Assisted Language Learning- Electronic Journal
Scope of the journal: Computer-assisted language learning
Language Learning and Technology
Scope of the journal: Second language acquisition and computer-assisted language learning
Teaching English as a Second or Foreign Language
Scope of the journal: Teaching English as a second or foreign language
Scope of the journal: Learning and teaching of official languages; second language teacher education; and the maintenance and development of minority, heritage, or Aboriginal languages.
Latin American Journal of Content and Language Integrated Learning
Scope of the journal: CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning), multilingualism, interculturalism, and CALL, throughout Latin America and around the world
English Language Teacher Education and Development
Scope of the journal: Theories of teacher education and development, Implementation and evaluation of teacher education theories, Design, development and evaluation of ELT teacher education programmes, Exploration of current issues in teacher education such as appraisal, supervision, mentoring, Staff development through institutional development and action research, Classroom centred research and its implications for English language teacher education.