Podcasting in the ESL Classroom

Today I checked out a podcasting site called CUlips that creates podcast lessons for ESL learners. The site is based out of Canada but is still relevant to students learning American vernacular English because there are a wide variety of podcasts on many subjects that can be used by teachers. I listened to a specific episode titled "Home is Where the Heart is." The format of this podcast included two speakers, Andrew and Maura, who have a discussion about idioms that involve the word and concept of home. Some of the idioms they include are home sweet home, there's no place like home, hometown, house and home, etc.

I think that this podcast could be used in a higher level ESL class where students have a good base of vocabulary and grammar. The podcast itself is rather long, around 20 minutes, so it might be two extensive for students with limited listening abilities. I think that this could be a good at home listening homework assignment where students have a worksheet that requires them to answer questions about the main idea, dialogue details and getting meaning of new words from context. Also, the podcast could be paired with a unit on idioms in general or a unit on the meaning of home and culture. I think that this episode touches on a topic that students in an ESL class in the US could relate to because it talks about the experience of culture shock as well as common idioms. It is always a good idea to incorporate topics that students can relate to and share their experiences with in order to engage student interest and increase motivation.

Digital Storytelling with GoAnimate

This time I tried using GoAnimate to create an animated comic strip. In actuality I had never considered using comic strips in an EFL classroom so this was a great opportunity to try something new and see how it could be adapted for educational purposes. Again this is a site that offers a more limited free version but you still have options for picking out many background settings for the comic, as well as characters and props. This tool allows you to incorporate audio to make the characters speak or they can use text bubbles. I would like to have both options so that students could read and hear what is being said by the characters. The characters can move around the scenes as well which makes the comic strip come alive. I will say that this feature is slightly more complicated to incorporate so I think I would need some additional practice to master all the features and see how they can be used.

I chose to create a comic strip with characters modeling how to use modals in a social context. So, the teacher and student used the more formal version of modals to speak to each other and the two students addressed each other using informal modals. This is actually an area that EFL students can struggle with and I think that a comic strip would be helpful to model the correct uses in a way that is more engaging than a list of written examples. I think that comic strips can be quite helpful in the classroom because they can provide a visual reference for students. Comic strips could be used as hooks or lead ins as well, but I also see a role for them as a way to get students discussing what is occurring in the dialogue and giving them an opportunity to analyze and dissect the interaction.

Gamification & Serious Games

I tried out a serious game called 3rd World Farmer. I played the game twice and found it to be easy to navigate. Some of the other serious games I tried out were much more difficult to figure out, had more rules to learn and required a more extensive vocabulary. For this reason I think this game could be good for an EFL classroom. I might employ this in an EFL classroom as an autonomous learning tool for students. I think it could be paired with a unit on finances, the condition of farmers in developing countries and farming vocabulary.

My learning objectives would be for students to recognize farming vocabulary, to practice making financial decisions and to be able to make observations about the life of a farmer in a developing country. The students would be responsible for playing the game on their own. In order to assess that the learning objectives had been met I would ask the students to write two short observational paragraphs about their experience. I would ask them to include details of the game they played utilizing farming vocabulary, details of the financial decisions they had to make and their observations on the life of a farmer in a developing country.

Gamification in the EFL Classroom

According to Educause gamification is the application of game-like elements in non-game situations. The intension is to increase interest, motivation and participation. Stephan J. Franciosi discusses how using games in an educational setting can contribute to students' intrinsic motivation to learn. He defines Flow as a mental state where a person experiences the challenge of a task/game which is neither too easy or too hard. Flow Theory has three components which support the use of games, they are: goals, feedback and skill/difficulty balance. If a game has these three components then it is likely to increase students' experience of Flow and engagement and thereby increase intrinsic motivation.

I played an escape the room game named The Great Kitchen Escape. I played the game three times. If I were to utilize this game in class my learning objectives would be that students would be able to identify kitchen vocabulary items through listening to directions, they would be able to follow commands given by the teacher reading the walkthrough, and they would be able to recognize prepositions for the location of items in the game. I would most likely have the students work in groups of two depending on the size of the class and the number of computers available. I would write out a script for the walkthrough using kitchen vocabulary, command words and prepositions of place/location and read it to the students as they played the game. Throughout the game playing process I would carry out comprehension checks to make sure the students were understanding the vocabulary, commands and prepositions. As a follow-up to the activity I would make a worksheet with screenshot images from the game for the students to identify the vocabulary, commands and prepositions that were used.