M11 PLN & PD Discussion

I wish I had taken this course earlier when I did my student teaching because I taught at
a typical urban school with very limited technologies available. I have learned to use
Work-arounds Strategies like creating centers or stations. With station rotation, all
students would be able to use the limited amount of Chromebooks/laptops available in
class. I should also provide task cards so that students would know the exact
expectations of how to execute station rotation. The coolest thing about electronic task
cards (e.g., generated with Google Slides) is that I can add on audio/voice with ​Vocaroo
on them rather than limiting the instruction with texts only. This brings more diversity in
teaching approaches. This way, although even there is only one computer in the
classroom available, students can use their own mobiles to get access to the
expectations/instructions whenever they need it. Sometimes students could go to the
school’s computer lab to use computers. I used to struggle with having students to type
long URLs to finish tasks. In the future, I will use ​Bitly​ to customize and simply Urls so
that students can easily type in the websites. “Flipped Classroom” is inspirational as
well. I should talk less in class. Instead, I will use online resources, like showing
students online videos or having students do research and present to one another.

Storytelling is a very effective approach to teach and practice the target language in
world language classes. It provides interesting context for the language that enables
students to easily understand and remember the foreign language without translation.
Asking students to create their own stories enables them to apply what they have
learned in creative ways (higher-order thinking in Bloom’s Taxonomy). This module
opened my eyes in terms of technologies applied in the storytelling teaching approach.
For example, besides creating a storyboard in the traditional way, students can also use
storyboard generators such as ​Storyboard That​ (for Chromebook users)​ and ​Storyboard
Generator​. Storyboard That enables students to simply choose the characters and
scenes of their created stories online. They no longer need to worry about bad drawing
or painting skills. Storyboard Generator not only provides storyboard templates but also
gives teachers and students specific tutorials of digital storytelling geared to the
technology levels (lessons for beginners and the advanced) of the teachers/students.
There are many animation creators such as ​Wideo​ (has 7 days free trial) and ​Powtoon
available as well. These two are similar, ​Powtoon​ is free and it provides various video
types (e.g., Presentation and Ads, etc.) for students. Students also love to learn foreign
languages through comics. ​Pixton​ provides instructions in English, Spanish and French.
Students in these three types of language classes can learn to create comics in the
target languages, which generates an excellent language acquisition environment. With
Comic Creator, students can easily choose story backgrounds, characters, props and to
compose related dialogue. It has versatile tools that fit the skill levels and needs of K-12
students. Moreover, it provides ​Professional Development​ recourse such as ​Strategy
Guides​ for teachers.

One of the best ways to learn a foreign language is to have meaningful and purposeful
communications with others, native speakers in particular. Online surveys or feedback
tools enable students to interact with native speakers in the classroom without traveling
to the target language country. Students could use the ​Google Form/Survey​ to create
their own surveys according to the learning topics, then collect feedback by emailing the
link to native speakers in the target language country. other online surveys/feedback
options such as ​Flipgrid​ enables teachers and students to create and add discussions
with classmates and other students around the world. ​Kahoot​ allows teachers to create
interactive online games on any topic and in any language.

As social media enables me to learn and improve just-in-time, my PLN should be a

mixture of various social media tools including ​Twitter​, ​Facebook​, ​Pinterest​, ​Linkedin​, as
well as other social networking ways such as eGroups/Communities, forums specialized
for world language educators (will be illustrated in details in the following paragraphs).
With these tools, I can build my networks with many other language teachers (beyond
geography) online by sharing and communicating ideas regarding world language
education.

As a Chinese language teacher, I have found that the following resources are crucial for
keeping me updated in terms of theories and strategies regarding how to teach a
foreign language. Being members of these organizations enables me to build PLN with
world language teachers (especially Chinese teachers in MI and other states) and to get
access to up-to-date world language news, most recent research, teaching theories,
methodologies, and strategies from their e-news and e-journals/magazines/articles.

National/USA: ​ACTFL​ (American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages).

Since ACTFL is the umbrella national organization for language educators that
promotes teacher education, language instruction, and curriculum development, it is the
leading authority of providing instruction and language assessment for second language
learners and educators. Its conventions, workshops, courses, and publications (​Foreign
Language Annals​, ​The Language Educator​) are unparalleled. Its ​eBooks​ provide more
teaching resources specialized in the world language education field. Being a member
would keep me stay au courant with the leading research and development of second
language education. The ​Special Interest Groups (SIGs)​ or other ​eGroups​, in particular,
will provide more customized assistance in improving the specific areas of interest to
me and my weak points in teaching. The ​eCommunities​ are similar to social media such
as Twitter and Facebook. I can choose to join groups that are specialized in the topics
that I am interested in teaching foreign languages. For instance, I could learn
specifically how to ​integrate technologies​ in my language lessons by collaborating and
interacting with other language teachers online. ​ACTFL Webinars​ provide Virtual
Learning Module (VLM) that includes ​Video Lessons, Discussion Guides, PowerPoint
Slides and a final Certificate of Completion​ to keep me connected with the most
effective research-based practices in language learning. VLMs are ideal for either
individual study or for guiding collaborative exploration as a Professional Learning
Community. It also enables me to learn how to apply ​technology in class​ from the
lessons and collaboration with other world language teachers.

Language-Specific: ​CLASS​ (Chinese Language Association of Secondary-Elementary

Schools) focuses more on Chinese language teaching at PreK-12 schools in America. It
provides me ​resources​ more specifically in terms of Chinese language teaching
pedagogies and practical approaches. This is particularly helpful in my everyday
teaching as I could get insights and suggestions from other teachers who might share
similar difficulties/challenges in teaching Chinese in the USA. For example, the topics
include how to fit in the American education system and culture in order to teach
Chinese, how to teach Chinese characters more effectively, where and how to get good
authentic Chinese learning materials (textbooks, online resources, etc.) are current
issues that I have been dealing with in teaching as well. In addition, the offers of
scholarships and awards specially for Chinese language teachers encourage me to
further my education in this field.

Foreign Language Teaching Forum (​FLTEACH​) provides an integrated service for

language teachers. As it could work as social media, it highly encourages me to
communicate, share and collaborate with other world language educators just-in-time.
Language Resource Centers (​LRCs​) create language learning and teaching materials,
offer professional development opportunities for teachers, and conduct research on
foreign language learning. For instance, I could learn new technologies, e.g., ​Internet
communication technologies​ used in foreign language education environments,
comparing various most-recent technologies and analyzing the pros and cons of
application in my own Chinese lessons. I could also learn about creating ​web
environments​, wisely using online gaming in language education in order to motivate my
students to learn and use Chinese. ​Language Learning & Technology​ is a very helpful
resource focusing on providing me information on research to foreign and second
language educators in the US and around the world on issues related to technology and
language education.

To integrate technologies and increase diversity in teaching, I can use the Virtual Oral
Interview Classroom-based Exam System (​VOICES​) to assess or monitor my students’
progress in speaking. ​VOICES​ enables me to take two online virtual assessments per
semester. Students can take the online virtual assessments in class (on computers or
tablets) or can even be assigned to take the tests at home, which will be incredibly
helpful for students with special needs. As mentioned before, videos are essential in
“Flipped classroom”, ​VAULTT ​provides a collection of original videos (real classes and
staged) highlighting various aspects of language teaching in class. Each short video is
accompanied by supplementary information (PDF files) that explains the techniques and
relates them to best practices in language teaching. All of these materials are based on
current research in second language acquisition and they are produced at a level
accessible for teachers with little or no pedagogical training. I learned about VOICES
and VAULTT from ​CLEAR​ (Center for Language Education and Research). It is one of
the 15 Language Resource Centers (LRCs), promoting and supporting the teaching and
learning of world languages. As a world language teacher, it is vital to build and
maintain PLN at the global level. ​MERLOT​ provides a collection of online teaching and
learning materials as well as faculty-developed services contributed and used by an
international education community. MERLOT enables me to easily and effectively
communicate, share and learn original teaching materials (e.g., lesson plans, portfolios,
etc.) with language teachers all over the world. (Information cited from ​MIWLA​)
Edited by ​Luyan Zhang​ on Oct 13 at 4:04pm