Focusing on Integration
by Annmarie Zoran

     
Welcome to Spring 2004! There are many exciting plans for the upcoming year. The most notable will be the full integration of the TELL/CALL Curriculum into all five levels. You can read more about it in this issue, where Barbara Smith-Palinkas, our very own Assistant Director of Curriculum and Instruction, reviews the development and future steps of the CALL curriculum. She also shares with us her own experience in learning and integrating Exam View Pro, a new software program acquired in the Fall 2003 semester. ExamView® Pro is an application that allows teachers to create various tests (printed, Internet, or computer-based tests) quickly and efficiently. It is most efficient with the supplemental Grammar in Context test banks. If you would like to review certain lessons or chapters with your students, than it is easy as 1,2, 3 and your test is generated. However, Barbara cautions on certain features of ExamView Pro that are not as efficient.
     
In the era of abundant (or as we sometimes know it as the overabundance) of information, it is extremely useful to have instructors recommend their favorite internet sites and how they integrate these in the classroom. One such example, is Deborah Mitchell's integration of Voice of America's Special English website and a quiz generator. She also highlights student reactions and further activities that can be used with these internet based sites.
     
Finally, the teachers’ page at http://www.cas.usf.edu/eliteachers is updated with an an additional link. For the past year instructors have been uploading through Nicenet weblinks and resources that they have used in their lessons. These links are especially useful because they have been tested and recommended by our colleagues. The purpose of sharing these resources is to collaborate among one another the strengths and weaknesses of electronic information that is out in cyberspace! These links are now available on the ELI Teachers' Webpage at http://www.cas.usf.edu/eliteachers. I would like to urge all of you to to continue submitting any new sites that you would like to share. It is a great resource to find activities that have been tried and used by teachers!
I want to express my sincere thanks to all who have contributed links to useful websites, their lesson plans, and especially to Barbara and Debbie for their submissions in this newsletter.

Voice of America’s Special English: Using Audio and Text with Cultural Themes
by Debbie Mitchell (Instructor)

     
"Teacher, this is really good.... it really helps me,” my students exclaim, especially those whose reading scores are low because they cannot identify a word’s orthography, yet they know the word if they hear it spoken.
To develop site/sound association, these students are reading along while listening to special reports from Voice of America that are spoken at a pace about two-thirds the speed of standard English. In addition, VOA’s Special English (http://www.voanews.com/specialenglish/) has a limited vocabulary of about 1500 words.
     
From this website, the students can go to live broadcasts or the teacher can select previously recorded features about American culture. Everyday there are new features published under various headings: This is America, People in America, American Mosaic, Making of a Nation, Business, Education or Science in the News. For example, the December 16th list included an agriculture report on Christmas tree sales and articles on Thomas Jefferson, Mickey Mouse’s 75th birthday and Charities in the U.S.
To make the most of this site, the teacher should not only use it as a listening/reading activity, but should also follow it with quizzes or games. To do this, you can create your own quiz (such as a cloze), or you can use any of the 100 or so interactive quizzes already made by Charles Kelly (www.manythings.org/voa/). From his website you can either choose among grammar/sentence completion quizzes, hangman, crossword puzzles, or vocabulary quizzes, which are all listed by either the title of the VOA article or the activity type.
     
Moreover, when planning a lesson using VOA’s Special English, you really should do a little preparation in advance. First, while it is possible for the students to download the audio file themselves, I suggest that you download the audio file to the shared network drive (x:// drive) before the lesson, which will not only save them a little time but more importantly keep you from doing the computer-station-dash in which you try to solve everyone’s technical problems synchronously. Second, you can use www.nicenet.org to create links to the VOA text page and Charles Kelly’s quiz.
     
If you want the students to turn something in to you, you can have them print the last page of the quiz. For example, here are a student’s quiz results for “The Man Who Wrote Jingle Bells”:
• Quiz Score: 94% (15 / 16)
• Remaining: 0 Correct: 15 Wrong: 1
• Game Points: 340 (out of a possible 400)
• Total Time: 50 seconds.

TELLing Plans at the ELI
by Barbara Smith-Palinkas (Assistant Director of Curriculum & Instruction)

     
Since 1997, with the inception of its computer lab, ELI faculty and staff have held and attended workshops, acquired materials, and conducted research related to Technology Enhanced Language Learning (TELL), all in an effort to integrate computers into the language learning process at the Institute.
     
Over the years, as faculty members increased their knowledge of and expertise in teaching English via computers, they have created lessons and designed activities for all levels of English and for a variety of classes including Culture, Listening/Speaking, Academic Writing, Strategies for Learning, University Experience, and Test Preparation electives. Lessons and activities were shared at swap shops held at the beginning of each semester, and efforts were made to keep copies of activities and make them accessible to all instructors passing through the doors of CPR 467. Although general goals and objectives were outlined for each class which met in the lab, no definitive Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) curriculum existed.
     
In the spring of 2003, the ELI Assistant Director for Curriculum and Instruction, Coordinator for Instructional Technology, and CALL Consultant met and declared their intent to address the lack of a structured CALL curriculum. This newly formed CALL Curriculum Committee immediately turned to the ELI faculty for input on computer-based skills the faculty felt students needed. After compiling a list of skills and conducting additional research, the CALL committee once again went to the faculty, this time asking them to indicate which skills listed they felt were appropriate for each of the five levels at the ELI.
     
The skills were then assigned to one of three applications—word processing, Internet, or software—in each of the five levels. To ensure all students were exposed to each of the three applications, the applications were then assigned to a specific class; for example, word processing was assigned to Academic Writing III, Internet to Listening/Speaking III, and software to Test Preparation electives.
     
Next, the computer skills were matched with class objectives. Activities which addressed both the computer skills and class objectives were pulled from the CALL lesson plans faculty had created or new activities were created to address the skills and objectives. Although ordinarily all computer lab classes use all three applications throughout the semester, it was decided to limit the first three weeks of each class to using a specific application. This ensured that all students would become familiar with the basic skills associated with word processing, Internet, and software applications.
     
Although faculty were given a packet of suggested activities to use during the first three weeks, they were free to design their own lessons and activities, as long as they stayed within the designated computer application. After three weeks, faculty were free to cross over into other applications.
     
Level I faculty were the first to pilot the new CALL objectives during fall 2003. All reported that they were able to complete the activities within the first two or three weeks in the lab. Faculty in Levels II and III will have a chance to pilot the new objectives during spring 2004. Faculty in Levels IV and V will follow in the summer of 2004.

ExamView Amateur
by Barbara Smith-Palinkas

     
This semester ELI faculty were treated to a new time-saving device in the form of ExamView Pro, a test generator published by Heinle & Heinle. After an in-service workshop led by Annmarie Zoran, ELI CALL consultant, I was ready to tackle the program on my own. What better way than to create an exam for my Grammar IVA class?
     
Having completed the chapter on real and unreal conditionals, the students were preparing oral presentations on natural disasters, the chapter theme, and writing questions for their classmates to answer based on the presentations. I collected the students’ questions and answers, headed for my office, sat down at my Dell, and clicked on “Programs,” then “ExamView Pro Test Generator,” and then “ExamView Pro.” I am about to create a new test, so I click on that option. Oops! I have to have a bank of questions to create a test. Let’s try clicking on that create-a-test-bank option—yes, yes, that works.
     
I begin entering students’ questions according to the type: true/false, matching, completion, etc. I notice that the students have generated a lot of short answer questions. This test will be a long one. Oh well, they can’t complain—they’re the ones who wrote it! Having entered everything, I generate the test, hold my breath, and—magically—the test appears. There are the students’ true/false questions, complete with directions. Same for matching. Same for short answer—all 19 of them! I print out the answers as well and head for the photocopy machine, pleased with myself for having mastered the program so quickly.
     
Filled with confidence, I volunteer to submit the Grammar IV final exam on ExamView Pro. After informing my colleague that he has also volunteered, we meet, divide responsibility for specific structures on the exam, and agree to put them in ExamView Pro. Days later, as I once again sit down at my Dell and begin entering the questions and answers, I discover that there is no way to separate the adjective clause completion questions from the adverb clause completion questions, i.e., all the completion questions are mixed together. And there’s no way for me to generate my own directions.
     
My colleague, in the meantime, has discovered the same thing. We put our heads together and decide to see if we can outwit the program. We each try various techniques: entering a set of adjective clause questions, entering the directions among the questions, and then entering a set of adverb clause questions. We can always cut and paste if we have to, right?
After some trial and error, we are able to keep sections together and finally export the test to Word, where I am able to cut and paste the directions and move some sections around. In the end, we were able to generate the final exam in the format we wanted by using a combination of ExamView Pro and Word.
     
So, did we save time? Probably not. We had to enter questions that were already on the computer in another Word document, but those questions are now in the ExamView Pro bank and can be easily edited. Did we learn how to navigate the program? Definitely. As with any new program, it takes time to become familiar with what it can and cannot do. Would I use it again? Certainly. I just happen to be teaching Grammar IV again next semester!

Last updated December 2003.
Direct any comments or suggestions to gorenczo@helios.acomp.usf.edu
Copyright © 2003, University of South Florida.

Inside this issue:

Voice of America
by Debbie Mitchell


TELLing Plans at the ELI
by B. Smith Palinkas


ExamView Amateur
by B. Smith Palinkas

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Interested in finding conferences and workshops on classroom pedagogy and other related topics. Visit the following links for conference calanders:

TESOL: http://www.tesol.org/isaffil/
calender/index.html

Sunshine State TESOL: http://www.sunshine-tesol.org/

Cochrun, Roy: http://www.toad.net/~
royfc/conference3
novdec.html#nov3

Linguist List: http://www.emich.edu/
~linguist/callconf/index.
html

AILA: http://www.solki.jyu.fi/
yhteinen/kongress/
start.htm

 

 

 

 

If you would like to integrate a new website, video tape your students and place it on the web or shared drive, use other technology or computer application (such as a scanner, digital camera, sound recorder, Excel, PowerPoint, etc.), but are hesitant, please contact me (the CALL consultant) and I will be more than happy to guide your through the process.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Proposal ideas for Sunshite State TESOL:

- Project based learning and technology

- Resourceful ways of using a specific computer application or software

- Using CMC (e.g. chat) in the language learning classroom

- Computer Assessments

- Using PowerPoint in the language learning classroom

- Reflective teaching on adapting technology in the language learning classroom

- Using asynchronous applications for collaborative writing tasks (or peer editing).

- Vocabulary development with online glosses

etc.

 

 

BLOG (n.). A weBLOG or journal kept by a 'blogger' online.
Blogging: The act of writing a blog.

Blogs can be updated quickly and easilty by using specific software that requries no technical expertise. If you use feed readers with your blogs, than you are able to receive current information on any changes of other blogs.
Kenneth Beare from esl.about.com notes:
"I can set up my feed reader to accept new business stories from Asia with these feeds: Asia Business Intelligence and AsiaOne. I can then add feeds from the Brain Connection, and the International Education Webzine for information concerning teaching techniques. I might also add the feed for this site to keep me posted on new content and general ESL teaching information. Of course, I've probably got other interests: tennis, technology, German culture, etc. - so I'll add feeds from sites providing information on those subjects. Once I've finished, I just open my feed reader and the new content gets pushed to me in easily digestible headlines (2003). More from Kenneth Beare at http://esl.about.com/cs/
teachingresources/
a/blfeed.htm