The curriculum and the guidelines for computer assisted language learning for the Culture 2 class Mrs. Bowers was teaching emphasized the use of chat for discussion of culturally related topics. But so far her students, if not reluctant to being engaged in active chatting, were simply not willing to get out of the mode of simple two-three word exchanges that did little to improve their language skills.

Every week she would write questions related to the material they had talked about in class and post them on the online discussion board; but the results were not very encouraging: the students would often send each other a bunch of emoticons or smileys accompanied with a couple of words and then their discussion would die out, and the students would start checking their emails or chatting with their friends back in their home countries, and the worst – the chat was in the students’ native languages… they were claiming that they had finished the task and felt free to explore on their own the opportunities the computer lab offered.

Mrs. Bowers got up form her desk, she felt that a little stretching would help her concentrate; she looked at the posters hanged on the wall. She knew these posters very well and actually stopped noticing them a long time ago as we stop noticing the little details of our everyday environment. But now she did not want to go back to the computer so she started examining the photographs. Both of them presented the St. Petersburg pier but one picture was taken in the beginning of the 80s and the other was taken a couple of years ago; the photographs were very similar and yet different – the buildings were the same and the street was the same but the details – the trees, the people, the cars, the boats, the background… they were so different. Quite a lot has changed in the past two decades: on the more recent poster, the trees were bigger, there were more cars parked on the side curb, not to mention that the car models were different, more people were on the sidewalks, on the background the Vonoy’s silhouette was accompanied by the silhouettes of the new hotel wings built recently.

“Hum… That is interesting…”, Mrs. Bowers thought, “How about if I give a chat task to find the difference between two pictures that have the same main features but different details… I will assign dyads, each person will have a picture that is slightly different from the picture of his or her chat partner… And I can even give them a set of six pictures, and each dyad member will have only one picture that is matching in general the picture of the set that his or her peer has… Ok, they will first have to find out the pictures they will have to discuss – the similar ones, the others will be very very different. Then, after they identify the pictures they have to discuss, they will be assigned to find the details that differ. Ok, what else… Oh, I need to specify how many differences they should aim to discover; maybe about four in addition to identifying the common pictures each dyad has. And if I announce it as a competition between the dyads…they should be engaged and would have to have an exchange with quite specific details not simply agree with each other; they will have a task which would make their communication more alive and meaningful… It should keep them busy for about 20 minutes. This is great that our English Language Institute has recently signed up for the ESL Images website (http://www.esl-images.com/become.asp), I can print ready images from there and add the differences by myself and then just make the photocopies. I can even tie this to the grammar points they are discussing in their grammar class… We are discussing sports this week, and yesterday during the level meeting, the Grammar teacher mentioned that they were going over modal verbs ‘can/can’t’ and I can use the pictures of grammar images can/can’t (click for PDF file) from the ESL Images site, they are fairly simple and it might be a good idea to use these simple images for the first time we do this assignment. The target images with the differences will be the ones related to sports. I can color the pictures using different colors and draw some additional differences, like moustaches to the person who can swim and hair to the one that is drowning… Great, I guess my lesson plan is ready!”

Have you ever felt the way Mrs. Bowers felt in the beginning when she started planning for her computer lab class? Or may be you want to get some new ideas about how to engage your ESL students in more active synchronous computer mediated communication (chat). Here are some CMC chat tasks you may consider trying with your students in the computer lab.

(The following activities are adapted from Negotiation in Cyberspace, Jill Pellettieri, in Warschauer & Kern “Network-Based Language Teaching: Concepts and Practice”, 2000, and Computer Mediated Communication: A window to L2 Spanish interlanguage, in Language Learning and Technology, Vol 4(1), available at: http://llt.msu.edu)

I.  Looking for the best apartment.

You have discussed with your students different types of dwellings in the US. Now it is time for them to discuss what type of apartment/house they would like to rent for the next semester. Provide a different set of ads “For Rent” to each one of the dyad members. (You may also provide images of different apartments and houses – buildings and interiors to support the discussion)

 Assignment:

You are planning to rent a new apartment with your friend; you have to find an apartment that you both like.

1.       Describe three important features of an apartment. Explain why they are important for you.

2.       Read your partner’s suggestions of important features.

3.       Come up with a list of three to five features that both of you would agree on.

4.       Examine the ads “For Rent” (and the pictures if provided) and share the ones that offer apartments that you both would like to rent (according to the list you have composed).

5.       Decide which one you would like to rent.

Together compose an email to the landlord/landlady introducing yourselves and asking for an appointment to see the apartment. Send the email to your instructor.

(Average time on task: 35 minutes)

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CMC Activities for ESL Students