Converging
Computer Usage of Teachers
and Students
Computers
and EFL:
Teachers from Mars,
Students from Venus!
Presenters: Micki Zaritsky and Gail
Shuster-Bouskila
PRESENTATION for IATEFL 2006
also presented at TESOL 2005 and MOACH 2005
An article in The
Digital Disconnect, published
by Pew Internet and American Life Project on August 14, 2002 (http://www.pewinternet.org/),
reported that the most “Internet-savvy” students complain that their
teachers
don't use the Internet in class or
create assignments that exploit
possibilities of the Internet. The
students said they wanted to use the Internet for more of their
schoolwork.
However, teachers too often lacked the skills to use
it for
anything other than mundane tasks.
In addition to teaching
EFL in secondary school, we
have been giving in-service workshops for teachers in Computer-Assisted
Language Learning (CALL) for the past 3 years in a variety of venues in
Israel.
The teachers were from all levels of English teaching. All of this was
in
compliance with the new Bagrut
(Matriculation) format of project-based learning. The goal of these
courses was
to enable English teachers to create online performance-based tasks and
publish
them on the Internet.
The teachers who
participated in our workshops learned
how to evaluate websites and decide which are appropriate for their
students.
They learned how to create webpages with tasks that effectively use the
Internet in the English classroom. Moreover, they developed assessment
tools
according to the National English Curriculum in Israel. Finally, teams of
teachers uploaded
their activities on their school website or on websites they created as
part of
the course. These webpages were the beginning of websites for students
to work
on for school.
Each lesson designed by
participants in our course had
a different performance-based learning task which required the use of
the
Internet. Some of the teachers focused on topics in their textbooks and
others
chose topics that they thought would be of interest to their pupils.
Websites were
evaluated for appropriate level and content before pupils were sent
online to
explore and gather information. Many of
the elementary level tasks required students to complete tables with
information they found by using search engines or ready made-sites. High school students were often directed to
make comments on certain topics on forums set up for them by their
English teachers.
Working with students and
teachers made us aware that
there were significant differences in how each group approached using
computers. It seemed that there were many online activities popular
with pupils
that were not being integrated into the classrooms in the Israeli
school
system. We evaluated and reflected on
the material generated by the in-service workshops. Consequently, we
created a
national online SURVEY for both teachers and students to fill out. We
wanted to
understand the ways teachers and students use computers in school and
in
general. The online survey was completed by teachers from our
in-service
workshops and pupils in our own classrooms.
Based on this small
sample, we have found that there
are some major differences. For example, many more students participate
in
chats than the teachers. Teachers hardly ever play games online, but
most of
their pupils do on a regular basis.
Conversely, almost all of the teachers use news sites, compared
to only
a fraction of the students.
Our Goals….
Teachers create
CALL lessons that utilize
pupils'
computer skills and online activities
Teachers and pupils make the most
of school sites
Although these results are
very preliminary in nature,
they seem to have implications for classroom implementation. For
example, more
games should be integrated into English classes, since this is one of
the major
online activities of pupils. For example
an online "boggle" type game, Text Twist, (http://games.yahoo.com/games/downloads/tx.html
and on other casual game sites) where the players need to rearrange 6
letters
to make as many words as possible. The game is timed – and when the
time is up
the complete list of words is presented allowing the players to learn
new
words. Players can compete against each other for high scores.
Since pupils are attracted
to non-print material,
these could also be incorporated into computer lessons. One excellent
source
for such material is the site called Learning
Resources, which is a joint effort of Literacyworks
and CNN's San Francisco
bureau (http://literacynet.org/cnnsf/
).
Students read CNN news stories, on 3 different levels, as they listen
to audio
and/or video versions. Then they complete interactive vocabulary,
sequencing,
and comprehension activities. In addition, classes practicing debates can watch a variety of instructional videos online to help improve their techniques.
To make the most of the
interests that students
already have, they can listen to songs in English on streaming audio
sources
and look for lyrics to learn to improve vocabulary.
The songs and lyrics can be linked to student
created blogs or online magazines. They
can discuss their songs by chatting or sending email.
This will improve student writing and written
communication.
We feel that the results
of this SURVEY will lead us to new ways of implementing CALL in our classrooms. Visit our websites to see how we are working:
Gail Shuster-Bouskila – http://www.oocities.org/gailshb
Micki Zaritsky –
http://www.oocities.org/mickizaritsky/
