How to teach English with technology by Dudeney and Hockly (2007:15 - 70); A Summary of a Reading Report

How to teach English with technology

by Dudeney and Hockly (2007:15 - 70)

A Summary of a Reading Report

Submitted as the Requirement to Fulfill an Assignment of

Designing ICT-Based Language Teaching Course

Under the Direction of Pupung Punawarman, M.S.Ed., Ph.D.

Written by:

Rezki Firdaus

1407335

ENGLISH EDUCATION DEPARTMENT

SCHOOL OF POSTGRADUATE STUDIES

INDONESIA UNIVERSITY OF EDUCATION

2015

How to... teach English with technology

This summary written is a reading report of chapter 2, 3, 4, and 5 in how to... teach English with technology book by Gavin Dudeney & Nicky Hockly (2007). It was written to fulfil the Designing ICT-Based Language Teaching course assessment. In writing this summary, the writer will make a summary of a second chapter entitled Word processors in the classroom: Why use word processors?, Word processors for teachers: creating materials, Word processing activities for learners, and Using word processors: considerations. Then, a third chapter is about Using websites: Using websites in the classroom, ELT websites or authentic websites?, How to find useful websites, How to evaluate websites, Planning lessons using the Internet, Working with lower levels of language proficiency, and Web teaching dos and don’ts. Next, a fourth chapter is about Internet-based project work: Why do Internet-based project work?, Basic projects, Internet-based simulation, Webquests, and Webquest creation. The last was a fifth chapter is about How to use email: The benefits of email, Basic email skills, Using email with learners out of the class, Using email with learners during the class, and Keypal projects.

1.             A summary of the chapter 2, 3 , 4 and 5 of Dudeney and Hockly books’

1.1         Summary of chapter 2: Word Processors in the classroom

1.1.1   Why use word processors?

Word processors is a part of technology. The word processors mostly used by teachers and learners is Microsoft Word. So, both teachers and students can used word processors (Microsoft word) creatively. By using a Microsoft word program teacher can prepare, create, store, and share materials for their classes, and learners can use the word processing program either inside or outside the classroom, to practice writing skills, grammar and other language points, as well as to present their work.

1.1.2   Word processors for teachers: creating materials

Word processors mostly used by teachers to create a material for teaching. As a teacher, the word processor used for prepare such as: lesson plan (teaching and learning activities), worksheet, correcting, editing and provide an evaluation feedback on learners’ or digital written assignment. Creating materials can optimized by teacher. These four ways should help teachers to enrich their knowledge about word processors. First, by inserting images and links. These two things probably will help teacher to create materials more interesting to use in classroom activities. Image can be used in a worksheet or a lesson plan during a class. Moreover, presenting the links also help the learners to go further research or practice.

Second, creating forms. A form is a word document which has interactive elements in it, resembling closely the kinds of simple exercise that might find on the internet. To create a form, there are two kind of form which is an active form and locked form. An active form means that the learner can used it directly. It’s variably with locked form, its need to be printed to done this work. There are three useful elements by using the form: 1) we can adding a text box, 2) adding a check box, and 3) adding a drop-down menu. Form can be very useful for making collections of basic exercise, and are solid introduction to the more complex area of making web-based interactive materials. The advantages of creating a form is easily and simple. The disadvantages is we cannot give some feedback to students work.

Third, using trackchanges. Teacher can use TrackChanges to provide feedback on learner’s written work. The learner’s text can be corrected by the teacher by using trackchanges, or comments added suggesting how the learner might improve their own work. Trackchanges also offers possibilities in terms of peer review and correction of written work.

The last, using markin. Markin can replace the trackchanges tool. Markin was developed by the teacher, and is therefore both more teacher-friendly, and more suitable for teaching purposes, than Trackchanges, which is an all–purpose tool. The advantages of Trackchanges is obviously that it is build in, and does not cost anything. Markin costs £20 at the time of writing.

1.1.3   Word processing activities for learners

It is particularly important when using word processors for teaching that certain system are implemented – and skill taught – that make life easier for everybody. These are tips worth bearing in mind and sharing to our learners in a simple word processing: Encouraging to save their documents in a consistent way, naming them with their own name and a description of what the document contains,  with the piece of external USB pen drives falling rapidly, it is advisable for learners to keep a copy of their work on one for themselves, so that copy of master copy keep safely in another computer, make sure that we have check with who ever looks after the center computers, be prepared to deal with some computing terminology: hard drive, c drive, printer, word processor, save, print. Try to identify the computer-related vocabulary occur and the students easily to understand it.

Using word processors for creative writing. Word processors lend themselves well to create creative writing both in and outside the classroom. Learners can work together with documents that can be exchanged easily between pair or group of learners, and between learner and teachers, encouraging both teacher correction, and peer correction and revision. Using the spell-checker on a piece of written work can make a learner more aware of errors, and provide a chance for self-correction. When using a spell-checker, learner need to ensure that they have set the language properly. The basic advantage of using word processors in writing is the ability to model texts, share texts, produce them collaboratively and engage in peer and the teacher editing on a more interactive level. Word processing activities will put emphasis on the process of writing rather than on the final written product, i.e. brainstorming, note-taking and revising, all of which makes for a more creative use of language.

Using word processors for language practice. The ability of move words and chunks of text around the page easily can guide learners towards deeper understanding of how the language works. Building up a collection of worksheets and activities like the ones above will allow them to give further practice, extra homework or examination preparation materials.

Further activities. Dictation. This should be treated as a standard dictation, and the learners should input (type) the text as they listen. There is a lot of activity in this kind of process, from dictation and text modelling, through peer correction, reading, use of narrative structures and sequencing to final text production, and the combination of these techniques and skills can have a significant effect on the quality of learners’ writing.

Noticing activity, the activity which encourages noticing of structures at lower level, and for young learners. This activity usually used for pair activity for learners to produce something with a text.

Collaborative writing activity, is a well-known writing activity by one or pair learners. Teacher prompt to use an evocative series of sounds, or a painting, etc. in teaching and learning activities.

Using word processors for presenting work. Word processors facilitate correction and redrafting, and ease the pressure to produce “good copy” in the finalized piece. They also encourage learners to take more pride in their written work, often with surprising result for those teacher used to encountering motivational difficulties when trying to get students to write.  This can be form as a part of students’ electronic portfolio, a format that is becoming increasingly important for learners in a mobile working and learning environment.

1.1.4   Using word processors: consideration

As a consideration when using word processors have to play a part in a performance anxiety. Then not putting too much pressure on the learners to perform too quickly. Moreover, not expected that peer correction and cycles of revision become a great success. Doing too much activities with computer but some students are not used also strictly for them. Starting with a simple one is better.

1.2         Summary of chapter 3: Using websites

1.2.1   Using websites in the classroom

Using websites is one of the easiest and least stressful ways of getting started with technology. We can choose from authentic source or ELT-specific sites (made by, and for, teachers), monolingual or multilingual sites, sites with multimedia, or just simple text, for those on slower connection. The web is a source of content which can be used as a window on the wider world outside the class, and is – of course – a readily available collection of authentic material. The technology needed to use the internet for etching is relatively limited and the chance of something going wrong are greatly reduced over more complex technology approaches such as attempting to carry out live chat or video-conferencing sessions.

The advantages of using websites is we don’t necessarily have to rely on a constant internet connection if we bear in mind that it is possible to save local copies of websites on computer, or print out potentially useful pages for later use. We can use web pages in the classroom in a variety of ways: as printed pages, with no computer, with one computer with an internet connection, or in a computer lab with a set of networked and connected computers.

1.2.2   ELT websites or authentic websites?

There are plenty of ELT websites which provide content that learners can use, i.e. language practice activities they can do on their own. They valuable opportunities for more controlled language work and are often a great help to learner who need to brush up on certain aspect of language or to prepare for an exam. Authentic sites can be chosen to fit learners’ interest. Authentic sites also provide an ideal opportunity to work through the issues of ‘total comprehension’ that plenty of learners have to deal with at some point in their studies. By using authentic material will be guided them become comfortable with understanding the content of a site and identifying what they need to know or find out without getting bogged down having to understand every word on the screen.

1.2.3   How to find useful websites

The ability to search through internet content, and quickly and efficiently find suitable resources is perhaps the most underrated, and yet most useful, skill that both teachers and learners can acquire. There are three basic ways of searching on the internet: search engines, subject guides, and real language searches. Search engines. A search engines almost directly analogous to a telephone directory, or any other database of stored information. The most well-know search engines is Google, which currently indexes over twelve billion web pages. The other technique which you may find useful is to use the ‘phrase’ search technique which involves wrapping part of a phrase in inverted commas, thus ensuring that Google will treat the words not as individual entities, but will actually look for sentences on web pages which contain those words in that particular order. Subject Guide. Description of subject guide from the fact that it divides its content into subject areas, and subdivision of those areas. Instead of a keyword search from the main page, users browse the section which best reflect students’ interest, and then search. Real language searches. A real language search such as Ask (www.ask.com) allows the user to type simple questions as search queries. A search on Ask should give you a result page with the answer to our question at the top, and links to relevant sites below that. A simple way of introducing the topic searching the internet in class is to produce a trivia quiz or short ‘treasure hunt’ type activity for your learners to do.

1.2.4   How to evaluate websites

There are various standard criteria for judging websites which can serve as a starting point for evaluation: 1) accuracy, 2) currency, 3) content, 4) functionality. Accuracy and currency might be the most important criteria if learners are taking notes and interpreting information in preparation for producing a project. As far as content is concerned, note that criteria such as ease-of-use and interest are taken into account, but you may also want to consider adding a further set of criteria here along the lines of appropriateness. Functionality will be a category with consequences for all teachers. Not only can it be very frustrating to follow through the content of a site to be met with broken links and missing information, but it can be equally frustrating to wait twenty minutes for a short video to download due to speed of our connection.

1.2.5   Planning lessons using the internet

The first thing in planning lessons using the internet is to plan your session well: visit the websites you intend to use and make sure you know your way around them properly. Try to use sites which appear to have a potentially long ‘self life’ – ones made by large institutions and commercial organizations, rather than personal homepages, which have a tendency to come and go with alarming frequency. Planning a web-based lesson, rather than one where the web content plays an ancillary role, is not intrinsically different from planning a more traditional one. To drive a typical web-based session into three parts (www): warmer, web, what next. The warmer part of the lesson is the kind of thing we all do as a matter of course, with introductory activities, interest-generating ideas, and so on. Prepares your learners for what they are going to be doing in the web part of the lesson. This part of the lesson is the best done in familiar environtment of the normal classroom. In the web section of the lesson, it’s important to spend only as much time as we need working with the computers. The double advantage of allowing more groups to use the room and of keeping learners focused during their time there. A lesson plan can be used a movie stars. This is an upper-intermediate to advance lesson concentrating on famous movie stars and their lives and work. te language area covered are: asking and answering questions, reacting to information, and showing interest.

1.2.6   Working with lower levels of language proficiency

Lower-level learners often feel they have to understand everything and this will lead to problems, if not dealt with borehand. Choosing the right websites can go some way toward raising comford levels, though we may need to have shorter lessons than the higher level. Websites which are more suitable for lower level will include: websites with simple, clearly present text, websites with non-linguistic data which is easy to interpret, websites with visual- a task can be based around the visual only, ELT websites, where the content has been written, edited and prepared with this audience in mind. Borrowed words, concentrating on different languages and the words they have contributed to English. The language area covered are countries and languages. Warmer,  ask learners if they know of any words in their own language that have come from other languages or build up a chart on the board. Web, use the website to complete our part of the table. What next, an additional follow-up project ideasis for the learners to ‘collect’ English words they find in their environtment, if they live in a non-English speaking country, e.g. English words on TV, or on billboards and sign.

1.2.7   Web teaching dos and don’ts.

Here are a few considerations and some contingency plans: 1) whenever we use technology always have a back up plan in a piece. 2) use the knowledge of other teachers abd of your learners to help us with the technical side of the lesson. 3) If it’s a lessonthat involves relatively few web pages, try saving them to our computer hard disk. 4) unless we are working on something like an email pen pal exchange, it is rarely conductive to ave learners working alone on computers. 5) Try to arrange the computer room in such a way that you can easily maintain control over learner activities.6) not all the content that you come across with your learners will necessarily be suitable for the students.

1.3         Summary of chapter 4: Internet-based project work

1.3.1   Why do Internet-based project work?

There are four reasons for using Internet-based project in the classroom: 1) they are structured way for teachers to begin to incorporate the internet into the language classroom, on both a short term and a long term basis. 2) more often than not, they are group activities and, as a result, lend themselves to communication and the sharing of knowledge, two principal goals of language teaching itself. 3) they can be used simply for language learning purposes, but can also be interdiciplinary, allowing for cross-over into other departments and subject areas. 4) they encourage critical thinking skills. Project work online can range from simple low-level project like making a poster presentation about something interesting. To prepare project for Internet-based project work, we need to do these: choose the project topic, make the task clear, find the resources, decide on the outcome.

1.3.2   Basic projects, Internet-based simulation

Basic project devide into two kinds of level project. 1) A low level project – my favorite actor. 2) high level-project – global warming. A low level project aims to provide the opportunity to focus on these language areas: countries, nationalities, dates, place, past tense, like and dislike and opinions. First lesson can be done for homework and then finished off with the collaborative ellement in the second lesson. The second lesson require a fair bit of work on the part of you, the teacher. Before the lesson teacher need to find useful sites to match the choice of actors our learners made. Make sure that they are simple enough for the level, and include as much of the information sought as possible. Third lesson, this third lesson making the final product. Learner will have collected all the information they need and will also have seen your model biography, so they should be in a position to come up with one of their own. A high level project aims to provide learners the opportunity of examining a serious issue in depth. Work beforehand on some of the language area useful for the activity, e.g. giving opinions, agreeing and disagreeing. Lowe level project focused on specific communication skills, but this project goes deeper into a topic and encourages more complex thinking and reasoning processes. First lesson would benefit more time for their research into the topic and for the subsequent discussion of their findings, if that time available. They may also use their own search skills to find out more, if there is time. The second lesson, give a depth and quality of their preparation will improve if they are given more time. In the third lesson they must prepare their section of the debate, so they must be prepare their section of the debate: presenter, scientists, environtmentalists, ans studio audience. Make sure that these stages of debate do not overrun. The worst thing that can happen is that you can run out of time to conclude the debate properly.

1.3.3   Internet-based simulation

Internet-based simulations bring real life context to the classroom, helping our learners to deal with situations that they may come aross during foreign travel or in encounters with other speakers of English. There are two kinds of simulation that were stated in this book: 1) A business English Simulation and 2) A general English simulation. A business English simulation is that uses real websites, and a potentially real situation, to further the learner’s reading , information processing, planning and communication skills. As an additional it also addresses technology skills that are used in this professional context. A general English simulation need to addresse potential real life situation in order to appeal to the learner. The activity could easily be adapted for general context by turning it into a holiday being planned by a group of friends, or even a school trip.

1.3.4   Webquests

Webquests are mini-project in which a large percentage of the input and material is supplied from the internet. Webquest can be teacher-made or learner-made, depanding on the learning activity the teacher decides on. Bernie Dodge identify two types of webquest: Short-term webquest and Long-term webquest. Short-term webquest, a learner will have grappled with a significant amount of new information and made sense of it. Long-term webquest, a learner will analysed a body of knowledge deeply, transforming it in some way. There are four main section to a webquest: Step 1 – Introduction. Normally used to introduce the overall theme of the webquest. It involves giving background information on the topic and, in the language learning context, often introduce key vocabulary and concepts which learners will need to understand in order to complete the task involved. Step 2 – Task. The webquest explains clearly and precisely what the learners will have to do as they work their way through the webquest. The task should obviously ne highly motivating and intrinsically interesting for the learners, and should be firmly anchored in real life situation. Step 3 – Process. Webquest guide the learners through a set of activities and research task, using a set of predefined resources. These resources are predominantly internet-based, and are usually presented in clickable form, this is, as a set of active links to websites within the task document. Step 4 – Evaluation. The evaluation stage can involve learners in self-evaluation, comparing and contrasting what they have produced with other learners, and giving feedback on what they feel they have learnt and achived. It also involved teacher evaluation, and good webquest will give guidance to the teacher for this particular part of the process.

1.3.5   Webquest creation

Creating a webquest does not require much detailed technical knowledge. It is relatively easy to produce a professional-looking and workable design using any modern word processors. The skill set for producing a webquest is very similar to what we explored earlier for planning Internet-based lessons, and might be defined as follows: Research skills. It is essential to be able to search the internet and to quickly and accurately find resources. Analytical skills. It is also important to be able to cast a critical eye over the resources you do find when searching. Word processing skills. Teacher need to be able to use a word processors to combine text, images, and weblink into a finished document. There are three steps how the process in creating a webquest: 1) Exploring the possibilities stage, 2) Designing for success stage, and 3) creating your webquest stage. Let’s begin with the first one, Exploring the possibilities stage. We are going to base our webquest on, and start to find resources: Choose and chunk the topic, Identify learning gaps, Inventory resources, and uncover the questions. The next stages is Designing for success stage. In this stage, we further structure the webquest and ensure that learning outcomes and knowledge transformation satges are clearly delineated: Brainstorming transformation, identify real-world feedback, sort links into roles, and define the learning task. The last stages is Creating your webquest stage. In this stage, we move on the production of the webquest and its implementation such as: write the web page, engage learners, scaffold thinking, and decision: implement and evaluate.

1.4         Summary of chapter 5: How to use email

1.4.1   The benefits of email

Email is one of the most used and useful information and communication technology (ICT) tool around today. Email allows us to keep in touch with other teachers around the world via mailing lists and discussion groups, thus helping in our professional development. Reading and writing emails either in or outside class time gives a learner more exposure to the target language, and interaction is ‘real’ medium. One of the biggest advantages of using email with learners from the teacher’s point of view is that the technology is relatively simple to use, and most of our learner will already familiar with it.

1.4.2   Basic email skills

Basic skill may be consider in two groups: communication skills and technical skills. Communication skills, is a good idea to remind learners that, as in traditional letter writing, there are level of formality in email writing. An email written to enquire about a job vacancy will have a different level of formality to an email sent to a close friend. These are ‘rules’ for effective online communication. Well-known netiquette rules include: not using only capital letter, which is preceived as ‘shouting’ online. Being sure to respect other’ opinions, avoiding ‘flaming’- ongoing arguements which become increasingly personalised and possibly public. Making sure that files sent as email attachments are not too large, as the person receiving the email may not be able to download them. Technical skills, apart from basic word processing and typing skills, learners will need to have an email account. The best known are, Yahoo!, Hotmail or Google Mail, although Google Mail currently requires us to receive an invitation from an already registered Google Mail user for you to be able to open an account. If the email skills of the class are low, we should leave out references to virus and spam, and only concentrate on the most basic email sills of sending and receiving, and of sending and opening email attachments.

1.4.3   Using email with learners out of the class

Simple administrative tasks such as the submission of assignments or homework via email, to more complex email projects, involving classes in different countries over a number of weeks, a semester or even over an academic year. There are seven example related to using email with learners out of the class, such as: Learners can submit classwork as attachments by email, which can be mark by the teacher, and return by email, the teacher can email learners a summary of classwork, plus homework or extra material, or updates on classes, after each class or on regular basis, the teacher can email learners regular newsletters about the class and themselves, learner can use email to prepare before class, learner can use email to send queries about the topic, or grammar area, to the teacher before a class, a class emaling list can be set up for general discussions out of the classtime, email can be used as a collaborative writing tool.

1.4.4   Using email with learners during the class

Using email during the class time is worth doing if more complex projects are being set up and if the learners have limited access to computers outside the classroom. A data collection project require learners to send emails to real companies, individuals, organisation or websites to solicid information.

1.4.5   Keypal projects

Keypal is the term of pen palswho use email to communicate, and describe below is a project between two groups of keypals who learning English in different countries. Keypal should be started in class but thereafter could combine a mixture of in-class and out-class work. Keypal project issues. Here is a check list of things to bear in mind when playing a key palproject: Ensure that you agree on clear deadlines and time frames with your partner teacher for emails to arrive, and stick to these Negotiate groupings with your partner teacher, and decided whether emails will be written by individuals in one class to individuals in the other class, in pairs or in groups, or even as a whole class. Decide which languages will be used in emails, depanding on who the learners involves are. Ensure that all learners have the basic emailing skills and knowledge of email netiquette outlined earlier. Keep the keypal project short and focused. Discussed with your partner teacher to what extent there will be teacher involvement. Discuss with the learners the issue of possible misunderstandings across cultures. Interms of general email etiquette in email projects, it is worth reminding learners that it is always a good idea to remain polite, and to not respond to aggressive or insulting emails-although this is unlikely to be a problem if a keypal project is set up well, and monitored.

References

Dudeney, G and Hockly, N. (2007). How to... teach English with Technology. Malaysia: Pearson Education Limited