Language Labs vs. Teachers for Foreign Language Learning

                      In this blog post, I would like to talk about the use of language labs to teach Foreign Language. In my opinion, Language Labs are a great tool to be used for foreign language learning because not only are there so many different activities that one can work on from a variety of topics, levels, skills, etc. but also, some websites are self-grading like Quia. From my own personal experiences in high school, once a week our Spanish class would go to the language lab to use different websites/programs like Quia, etc. Personally I liked going to the lab a lot, along with many of the other students, however I do think that language labs only work good as a supplementary source to be combined with traditional teaching from a teacher. Many people and even articles have talked about language labs possibly being able to replace foreign language educators, and I do not think this is a good idea. Apart from the loss of jobs, websites like Quia, and different language programs are great as I said, however they are unable to connect with the student on a more personal level. How can a program or a website properly determine what specific problems the students are having, if they cannot fully interact with the student? Programs like these can give simple explanations to a wrong answer, and explain why the correct answer is correct, however if a student has a specific question about a lesson, how can they possibly go about asking the website and finding an answer? Technological resources like language labs need to be COMBINED with the teaching from educators in the classroom. These resources can be used as great practice and review to a lesson already introduced by the educator, however by just relying solely on the programs to do all the teaching, would be far less efficient than using both traditional AND technological teaching strategies together. What do you guys think?

A creative use of PowerPoint!

            I was continuing to research how as a future French teacher I can use different technological resources in my classroom to aid in my teaching. I found a little article written by a French teacher herself and game that she created using Microsoft PowerPoint. In this PowerPoint presentation, the teacher had made different boxes all with numbers on them. The students will then pick a number, and when the teacher clicks on a number, it will lead the PowerPoint to a question slide. Here, there will be a question that can either be multiple choice or just a short response question, depending what the teacher prefers. An example could even be having the question just be a picture of a cake for example. The slide can literally just be a picture of a cake and say "Le ..........." This question would then be asking for students to come up with the word for cake by then saying "Le gâteau." This PowerPoint game resembles closely to Jeopardy which many of us have even played a Jeopardy-like game in our past classes when we were younger. I think that this game that this teacher invented is an excellent idea to take a more simple and user-friendly technology like PowerPoint and make something more creative out of it! This incorporates the technology in the classroom, aids in the lessons being taught, AND is even more fun and exciting for the students as you can even divide the classroom up into little teams and have them play against each other. I think I may use this idea in one of my future classes to give my students a more fun and engaging way to learn French rather than just lecturing them and doing all the work up front all by myself. What do you guys think of this creative game?

YouTube for Foreign Language Education? Good or Bad?

                When you think of YouTube, I am sure most of you wouldn't think, "Oh! A great educational source!" however why can't it be? On YouTube, one can find videos about almost anything. I realized while doing the canvas inter-activities that YouTube can be a great technology to use in the classroom. In my own canvas I posted a YouTube video that briefly shows different travel places in Switzerland, to show my students that France is not the only French speaking country in the world, and to learn about different cultures. YouTube however can be used to find videos that would help my students with a whole variety of different aspects in my subject area. For example, besides the most common use we may see, which is using YouTube to show a movie to our students (which can definitely be helpful to our students,) YouTube can also be used to show videos that might better explain verb conjugation for example. I have used YouTube tutorial-like videos in the past to help me with my homework in a bunch of different content areas, so why not use YouTube as a teacher too? YouTube could also be used to listen to different pronunciations for students to work on, such as showing the students a YouTube video on how to properly pronounce the French "nasal vowels" which could be difficult for my students as these sounds do not exist in the English language. I think that YouTube CAN and SHOULD be used in the classroom as it can help in not only foreign language classes, but all different classes for a multitude of different lessons. Would you consider using YouTube in your classrooms?

Wordle

               While doing some research on different technologies I can use in my future French classes, I came across a program that I have never heard of called "Wordle." Wordle is a free technological tool where it will take a text, and then form a "word cloud" of the most common words and arranges them in the cloud by size and frequency. With this cloud, students can do a number of things! The first idea that the article talked about is a word association activity. A teacher can give the students a Wordle word cloud and ask them to brainstorm about what the text could possibly be about by looking at these most common seen words in the text. This will force the students to really think about these words they are seeing in the cloud and put them to use. Another activity students can do with Wordle is to give your students Wordle cloud in the target language, and also a Wordle cloud made by the teacher in English. The students can then do a vocabulary matching activity and work on matching the target language word with its English translation. This is a great exercise to work on the students' vocabulary. Other activities with the Wordle cloud generator are things such as word grouping where you can have the students group the words by noun gender, or by different groups such as nouns, verbs, etc. I think Wordle seems like a great simple technology that can be a springboard for so many activities! With a simple Wordle cloud, a teacher can have the students in their class do numerous activities either in a group or by themselves! I definitely want to try this technique in my future classes just as a way for my students to reinforce their vocabulary in a different way than usual.

Are we waiting too long to teach our kids Foreign Language?

                        Most have us have heard it said that the best time to learn a second language is when we are younger. Many studies have been shown that learning a foreign language when we're older, though not impossible of course, is more difficult! Studies show that even children as young as three can begin learning a new language! Children are like sponges, and by introducing them to television shows in foreign languages, or even various language learning programs. A major change that I would like to see however, is the introduction of foreign language classes at an earlier age. From my own personal experience I started Spanish in middle school at the age of 10. I recently read an article in the newspaper and I remember the author mentioning that after the age of 7, children will begin to pass the stage of their life where language learning would come more easily to them. If we introduce foreign language classes in even younger grades, perhaps our students would come out of school knowing a language better than they do currently. Many schools already have language labs, and different language learning programs on the computers. Technologies such as these would work perfectly among younger students who would be excited to use the computer. As mentioned in my previous posts, websites such as Quia are very helpful for students and they are even self-grading and correcting which makes them perfect for language learning even at a younger age! If studies are showing that language learning is easier the younger we are, then why are our schools waiting so long to place students in foreign language classes at a younger grade level? What do you think?

Using online translators in Foreign Language Classes

              We've all done it despite the fact that we've all been told not to do it. Using an online translator such as Google Translate can be extremely tempting while doing foreign language homework, or even while doing in class assignments as well. While Google Translate if used correctly, can be beneficial to students in foreign language classes, it can also be a negative if used improperly. Many students think that they can just type sentences upon sentences into Google Translate and have it automatically decipher everything perfectly into whatever foreign language you choose! This is not the case. Google Translate will most likely not give you the correct translation if you use it in this way. This extremely common improper usage of the site is why so many students will hear their teachers ban them from using the site, which is unfortunate as it can be very helpful. Google Translate is to be used more a source to look up a word or maybe even a phrase, but not just sentences upon sentences. If Google Translate is used more as a dictionary to look up a word or two, the website will be much more likely to give you the correct translation. To reassure yourself that the translation is correct, another technique to do is to THEN write the word you need in a sentence to see if Google still uses the same translated word. From personal experience another step I then take afterwards is then to Google that new word I have learned in order to see more common uses and other references to reassure me that I have the correct word. A great source to supplement Google Translate is Word Reference. Word Reference is a great source because it not only gives you the word, but gives you synonyms, antonyms, examples of the word used in different sentences, verb conjugations, and it will tell you if a noun is masculine or feminine. I personally prefer Word Reference much more than Google Translate, however both need to be used properly and both are very helpful for students taking a Foreign Language if they are used in the way that I have just described. I think that as a future French teacher, I would like to show my students my methods of how I use Google Translate and Word Reference to model for them how they could use these online translators without running into trouble.

Foreign Language to take place of cursive?

                In an article I recently read entitled, "Schools should drop cursive classes in lieu of foreign language" the idea of possibly getting rid of teaching cursive in schools seemed to be the pressing issue. The article had mentioned that some schools across our nation have pondered at the idea of removing classes that teach cursive because cursive is a "writing style preference, not a life choice." The article talks about how "with modern day technology, learning to write in cursive is not necessary and therefore the time that it takes to teach a student to learn cursive, could be better used to teach them something more current such as computer programming or foreign language." Since more and more people are also relying on technology and computers, the schools again find that teaching cursive would be a waste of time. Their argument on why foreign language should be taught instead is that since our country is "a melting pot" of different cultures, learning a foreign language is a more needed skill.
                  I personally agree with this article and I think that although it would be a positive to be able to teach our students cursive, since time is not unlimited, it should be replaced with a more useful skill such as foreign language. The article had stated that "3/4 Americans cannot speak a second language." This is a problem because of the "melting pot" our country has been described as. Our country is a country of immigrants, and with that these immigrants bring all types of different languages that our country should begin to take note of so we can try to communicate. If not for a foreign language class, I do also believe that the cursive classes should be replaced by maybe a computer programming class. Technology is undoubtedly becoming more and more important in each of our daily lives and the knowledge to be able to use a computer is fundamental in this day and age. Cursive would be a great skill to teach our students if we had the time, but with such limited time, it is more important in my opinion to drop the extra toppings of the cake and first focus on the bigger and more important skills that the students will need to know in the future.