Transcript ppt - National Capital Language Resource Center

Using Technology to Meet the
Needs of At-Risk Students &
Students with Learning
Disabilities Learning in the
Foreign Language Classroom
Sixth International Conference on
Language Teacher Education
2009
Eve Leons, Associate Professor, Landmark College
[email protected]
Why Some Students Struggle

The ease at which a student will learn a foreign
language is closely related to their native language
skills.

Students with weak native language skills have poor
appreciation for the “rule systems” of language:
phonology, morphology and syntax. This weakness can
make decoding and understanding grammatical
explanations difficult.

There are connections between weakness in
phonological working memory and both short-term and
long-term language learning.
Why Some Students Struggle

Difficulties with verbal working memory seem to be
strongly associated with both AD/HD and language
based learning disabilities.

It is not uncommon for this group of students to have
issues with “executive functioning.” This means that
students will have difficulty with materials management,
time management, setting priorities, meeting deadlines
and studying independently.
Why computer based practice?

Students with weaker language processing and
memory abilities benefit from getting information
via multiple sensory pathways and multiple
formats.

Students with learning disabilities & those
classified “at-risk” need ways in which they can
study more efficiently and have access to the
sounds of the language outside of class time.
Students benefit from:

the ability to self-pace

rapid feedback

increased opportunity to practice
language in ways that are structured and
multimodal. (Stevens & Marsh, 2005).
Overview of Tools




Course Management
Tools
On-line Practice
Materials
Useful Language Lab
Features
Reading Support




Accessible Textbooks
Text-to-Speech
programs
On-line/electronic
dictionaries
Speech-to-Text
programs
Universal Design

While these tools can be instrumental in
the success of struggling students, they
work equally well for students of all ability
levels.
Most of these tools can be used in the study
of other academic areas as well.
Problem

Students have difficulty
keeping track of assignments,
prioritizing, organizing their
time & materials

Students may not have an
accurate picture of how they
are performing academically in
class. They may think they are
doing much better or much
worse than they actually are.
Solution

Course management
tools such as Moodle allow
teachers to help students stay
organized by posting
assignments, deadlines, and
electronic copies of course
materials.

On-line grade books help
students keep track of missing
assignments, prioritize &
understand their current grade.
Some students use on-line
grade books as a way to keep
themselves motivated.
Ex. On-line Course
Management (Moodle)
Problem

Students lose materials,
study inefficiently, and
require practice materials
which are multi-modal.
Solution

On-line practice materials can
be easier to manage than
paper materials, CD’s, CDROMS etc. because they are
available from any computer,
24 hours a day.

With on-line materials,
students can practice in a
structured, multi-modal
environment that provides
support and feedback.

Links can be integrated into a
course management system.
Problem

Students with weaker
language processing
abilities often
experience textbooks
& textbook practice
materials as an
overwhelming flood of
information.
Solution


Teacher created
practice materials
allow individual
instructors to highlight
the information they
want students to
prioritize.
They also give
teachers the ability to
present information in
a way that meshes
with how content is
presented in class.
Examples of On-line resources that allow
teachers to make their own practice materials
easily
http://www.quia.com
http://conjuguemos.com
http://www.byki.com
http://clear.msu.edu
http://www.wordchamp.com
http://flashcardmachine.com
On-line Vocabulary Practice
Programs such as Quia, WordChamp, and
BYKI flashcards allow students to:

•
•
•
hear & see the language simultaneously
control how much material they are
working with at any given time
practice at their own speed
practice in a way that is hands on & fun.
Ex. On-line vocabulary practice:
Quia
Ex. On-line Vocabulary Practice:
BYKI (note integration of mnemonic)
On-line Verb Conjugation Practice:
Example – conjuguemos.com
Conjuguemos allows students to self-pace &
control how much material they want to
practice. It gives students access to a
grammatical reference and gives teachers
the ability to view student work.
Ex. On-line Verb Practice:
Conjugemos.com
Conjuguemos.com – Note the ability for
students to control amount of material to be
practiced
Mash-ups: MSU CLEAR
Mash-ups – Ex. MSU Center for
Language Education & Research
The term "mash-up" refers to the combination of
data from one or more web services with
customized functionality or data. In the case of
CLEAR's mash-ups, the term refers to the
combination of an audio or video clips with an
exercise and additional text. The idea is to
combine media elements to create a new
resource for language teaching.
Mash-ups put it all together

Mash-ups give teachers
the ability to easily
integrate audio, video,
text & practice materials
in a variety of formats.

The link to the mash-up
itself can be added to the
class website or course
management page.

Mash-ups can house a
learning sequence. For
example, students can click
on a link that takes them to
Quia to review vocabulary,
then Conjuguemos to
review tricky verbs and then
back to the mash-up where
they can enter a teacher
created dialog, record their
responses and submit the
recording.
On-line dialog practice: Students
can listen to the question, record
their response, & submit recording.
The free, web-based BBC materials such a Talk
Spanish or Mi Vida Loca are good examples of
“pre-made” materials that work well for students
of all ability levels.


They combine visual & auditory input with the
ability to see written text in both English and the
target language. Audio is high quality, without
background noise.
Practice activities are simple, clear, and fun.
On-line BBC materials
Problem
Solution

Students may have phonological
processing issues or attention
issues which make it difficult to
work with auditory input. They
may have difficulty parsing speech
and catching individual words,
even cognates and familiar words,
in a stream of speech.

Students may benefit from the
ability to self-pace and slow down
sound as needed. They may also
benefit from having audio and
video materials paired with
subtitles in the L2. Language labs
such as Sony Soloist offer
students this feature. Teachers
can also “bookmark” very specific
segments of video or audio for
students to work with. These tools
give students an effective way to
process auditory input.

Students who are slowprocessors may have difficulty
formulating their thoughts and
retrieving language quickly. This
can make in-class participation
challenging.

Consider A-synchronous “chat” to
have students generate language.
Slow processors benefit from the
opportunity to take language
slightly out of “real time” in order
to gather their thoughts and create
the language they want to use to
express their ideas. The Sony
Soloist Lab also offers this feature.
Language Lab: Sony Soloist
(audio is paired with text, students can use the Varispeed tool to slow down the audio, &
use the bookmark tool to listen to very specific segments of the audio content.)
Problem

Students may have
difficulty decoding and
reading text in the second
language and potentially
their first as well.
Solution

Students receiving
services under IDEA
2004 and who are unable
to read standard print
materials due to physical
limitations (blindness, low
vision, physical disability,
or organically-based
reading disability) are
eligible for accessible
textbooks.

Kurzweil is one text-tospeech program that can
work with a number of
foreign languages.
Text-to-Speech
(Kurzweil)
Text-to-Speech

Text-to-speech programs, such as
Kurzweil 3000, give students the ability to
hear written text, get easy access to a
word’s definition, make voice/written
notes, etc.

FREE Text-to-Speech Software
Click, Speak – a Mozilla Firefox add-on that uses your
system voices to read back text automatically or by
selection. http://clickspeak.clcworld.net/

WordTalk – an inconspicuous and easy to use add-on
for MS Word that will read back your document while
highlighting each word. http://www.wordtalk.org.uk/
Problem

Students may have
difficulty with
comprehension due to a
lack of fluidity in their
reading. They may lose
their train of thought if
they get stuck on
unknown vocabulary.
Solution

WordChamp web reader
allows students to read
an on-line text and get
definitions for unknown
words quickly by
highlighting a word.
Text-to-Speech programs
such as Kurzweil offer
similar capability.
Reading Support: ex. WordChamp
Web Reader
Reading Support: ex.WordChamp
web reader
Problem

Students have difficulty
with paper dictionaries
because they lack a
sound component and
because of the time it
takes to look up a word.
Solution

Students benefit from
electronic dictionaries
because they can quickly
get a definition which
helps them stay on track
with their language task.
Access to sound is also a
clear benefit. Web-based
dictionaries & hand-held
electronic talking
dictionaries such as those
produced by Franklin are
more user friendly.
On-line dictionary: ex.
WordReference.com
Ex. WordReference.com definition
w/ sound available
Problem

Written out-put can be
difficult for students for a
wide variety of reasons
including difficulty organizing
thoughts, spelling, and for
some difficulty typing or
writing by hand.
Solution

Students can benefit from a
variety of support tools such the
spelling/grammar tools within word
processing programs, as well as
the electronic dictionaries
mentioned earlier. Software such
as “Inspiration” can help students
organize their ideas.

Speech-to-text programs such as
Dragon Naturally Speaking, Via
Voice, iListen, QPointer Voice,
SpeakQ, and Microsoft) can be
useful to some students with
written output difficulties.
However, most of these programs
have been designed for English.
Speech-to-Text: ex. Dragon
Naturally Speaking available in Dutch,
English, French, German, Italian & Spanish
Thanks for taking the time to think about
integrating some of these ideas into your
teaching.
Please feel free to contact me with
questions or comments.