World Language and Mobile Learning Apps (Technology)

Do world language students use technology? Do teachers have their students use technology just for drill and practice for vocabulary and grammar?

Students do not need to have fifty, forty, thirty, twenty or even ten apps. Technology is not about collecting apps but about improving student learning through apps. Any app should help the students to reach the higher levels of language use.

Students can use laptops and mobile devices to hear authentic language, read authentic texts, send audio and text messages to native speakers and video chat with native speakers. Technology can bring up-to-the-moment culture of the target language area directly to the students.

The language learners can use their tablet or phone to take pictures of their family, their house,or their outside events so that they can talk about their own lives in class.

Technology should promote language communication (Tuttle, 90 Mobile Learning Modern Language Activities, 2013)

How do you use technology in your world language classroom?

90 Mobile Learning Modern Language Activities by Harry Grover Tuttle

Equal distribution of questions for world language students

Do world language teachers engage all students equally? Do they have an equitable distribution of questions for all students as indicated in the Teacher Expectations and Student Achievement model? The research shows that teachers consistently call on those students with higher ability more often than students of lower ability. (Teacher Expectations for Student Achievement: TESA and GESA, http://schoolfile.org/index_files/u4/tesa.pdf). Those students who do not get called on as often feel inferior to the other students. Often those of lower ability need as much if not more teacher time as students of higher ability.

Teachers can assess if they do equitable distribution by using a paper or online seating chart. Each time they call on a student, the teachers record a slash for that student. At the end of the class, they can analyze if they did call on all students equally. Teachers may ask a colleague to do this observation as teachers do in the TESA model.

Teachers who want to do equitable distribution can use several techniques. In one technique, they use their seating chart. They may start on the left side from the back to front, go on to the next row from back to front, until they have called on all students. Likewise, teachers can write the students’ names on 3×5 cards, mix up the cards, and then call on students based on the card. The teachers do not call on any student a second time until they have called all students. When the teachers have gone through all the cards once, they mix up the cards and continue to ask students questions.

Teachers can vary the type of questions asked to students: yes-no (Do you eat pizza?); either or (Do you drink soda or water?); factual (When do you eat supper?); or evaluation (Why do you eat at Roberto’s?). Teachers can insure that all students can be successful in answering questions by modifying the type of question.

Although technically not equitable distribution by the teacher, simultaneous pair work ensures that all students get equal opportunities to participate.

How do you guarantee equal distribution of questions to all your world language students?

There are many pair language activities at http://bit.ly/mlcomcult for beginning to advanced students. These activities are for all world languages and specifically for Spanish.

A Sentence a Day For Improved World Language Communication

Every class world language teachers can teach their students at least one different sentence or question that the students will need to carry on a meaningful conversation. The teachers move the students beyond learning vocabulary lists to learning a critical statement or question. The teachers select sentences for the meaning that they convey, not for the grammar or for the specific vocabulary. The world language teachers select sentences that have high frequency in the language. and are of high interest to the students. These sentences or questions will be ones that can be easily modified such as “Where is the restaurant?”; students can easily substitute any location word for the word “restaurant”. If the teachers teach a question, then they will also teach at least one typical answer such as “The restaurant is on Main Street.”

The critical sentence may or may not be in the present textbook unit. For example, during a food unit, teachers may teach the statement of “I like hamburgers.” or the question of “What do you want to eat?” and a typical response of “I want to eat pizza.” Even if the food unit does not involve prices, the teachers may include “How much does the sandwich cost?” since it is a common question associated with eating out. Likewise, the teachers may teach “Do you cook much?” and “Yes, I do cook much.”

Over the school year, their students will have learned one hundred and eighty critical different sentences or questions. Their students can have an in-depth conversation about many topics with another person.

Do your students learn at least one new and different sentence or question each day?

http://bit.ly/mlcomcult has many activities that allow beginning and advanced students to say sentences and ask questions. There are activities for all world languages and specifically for Spanish.