Underprepared Students

Infusing Technology into ESL and

Developmental Classes

December 5, 2007

Julie Gray Glendale Community College

Why Infuse Technology into Our ESL and Developmental Classes?

•Communities

•Institutions

•Teachers

•Learners

Technology in Our Community

Technology has become central in modern communities

Technology in Our Community

• Careers• Current News/Information• Government Services• Comparison Shopping• Social Connections• Business Opportunities• Life-long Learning

Technology in the Community

• Technology, in general, is no longer a personal choice, or preference; it has become a cultural phenomenon tied to social and economic opportunity

Technology in Educational Institutions

It is one of the roles of the educational institution is to help prepare learners to thrive in their communities

Technology in Educational Institutions

The access and utilization of information, computers, and Internet is necessary throughout professional and civic life; therefore, competence in information technology and literacy is essential to success. A student skilled in the use of information technology will be able to:

• Choose technology appropriate to a given assignment or activity.

• Master the use of common computer and Internet technology.

• Learn new technologies confidently and independently.

• Locate, evaluate, and use information.

• Understand the ethical policy and accessibility issues associated with information technology.

New Century CollegeInformation Technology Competencies

Technology in Educational Institutions

ESL and developmental education programs serve students developing language and literacy skills for personal, social, vocational, academic, and professional, applications

Technology in Educational Institutions

• Preparing students to be successful in academic and professional settings of the 21st Century requires the development of technology, language, and literacy skills

Technology in Educational Institutions

Student surveys and antidotal evidence have underscored the fact that computer skills are not only necessary for student success, but access to these skills is highly desired by our ESL and developmental education populations

Technology in Educational Institutions

Unfortunately, many of our ESL and developmental students do not have the English skills required to support their enrollment and success in mainstream computer application courses, and often the course curricula do not consider the needs of under-prepared learners

Technology in Educational Institutions

The solution is to infuse technological literacy development into the current curriculum of ESL and developmental education classes

Technology Benefits Learning and Teaching

• Fluency and proficiency oriented and communicative by nature

• Promotes use of authentic, content specific language resources for comprehensible input

• Often provides on-going and meaningful feedback

Technology Benefits Learning and Teaching

• Provides multi-modal cues• Leads to student-centered

instruction• Often increases learner

interest and motivation

Technology Benefits Learning and Teaching

• Allows for inter-text literacy development

• Gives opportunity for self-paced, distance, and supplemental instruction

• Promotes higher-order, critical thinking skills in productive and receptive unrehearsed contexts

Technology Benefits Learning and Teaching

• Creates high challenge with low threat learning

• Supports content and skills-based instruction

• Helps learners transfer skills from one knowledge base to a new context or new knowledge base

Technology Benefits Learning and Teaching

Current Research consistently finds that educational technology can allow educators and learners to enhance and enrich educational experiences in and out of the classroom

Educational research, teaching practice, and learning theory come together to illustrate how computers can be utilized as

•Tutor - to deliver programs designed to improve specific skills: drill and practice or supplemental work Behaviorism

•Tool- to gather, arrange, present information Cognitivism

•Tutee – to aid in the tutoring of others and, through the process, improve the student’s own language and literacy skills Constructivism

Infusing Technology in Classes

Infusing Technology in Classes

“OPIE”

“ANDY”

“BARNEY”

THE ANDY GRIFFITH SHOW

“OPIE AND THE BULLY”

1. What should Andy do?2. If you were Opie’s father, what would you tell him

to do?3. What should Opie do?4. What should Barney do?

QuickTime™ and aGraphics decompressor

are needed to see this picture.

P O SS I B L E R ESP ON S E S:

I ag r ee w it h you becau s e…

I t h i nk you a r e ri gh t b e caus e …

I d is agr e e w it h you be c ause…

I don ’t s ee i t t ha t w a y. I t h i nk…

I s ee you r po i nt , bu t …

Synchronous Chat Lesson

Infusing Technology in Classes

Internet Text/Graphics Importing Activity

Matvey

Подосиновик Mushroom

Infusing Technology in Classes

Excerpt from a student’s Paraphrasing Essay Completed as a Word Document

World War Two in Europe

The Reichstag burns in city Berlin in February 1933. This helps Adolph Hitler becomes Chancellor of Germany. Hitler rise fast. Nazi party gives Hitler all power. He is Dictator Germany. Hitler has a Dream he will conquer all World. Nazis open Dacha concentration camp. The best people are sending in concentration camp. Nazis burn books in Germany and destroy Jews, intellectual’s people, patriots. Hitler creature the Army and begin prepare the War. Adolph Hitler becomes Fuhrer of Germany in 1934.

Infusing Technology in Classes

Excerpts from a beginning level student’s PowerPoint presentation

Frank Sinatra Frank Sinatra was a

very great and important American entertainer

He was a singer

He was an actor

Childhood

Born December 12, 1915

Frank was the only child of a firefighter and housewife

His parents wanted him to be a Civil Engineer.

Infusing Technology in Classes

An ESL student’s Text and Graphics Paragraph

Infusing Technology in Classes

An ESL student’s PowerPoint Presentation

Infusing Technology in Classes

A Web Search Partner Activity for Beginning Level ESL

Infusing Technology in Classes

A Web Search Partner Activity for High Intermediate Level ESL

Implications• In support of student success, teachers at the college-

level need to accommodate the personal and academic learning goals of the extremely diverse population served.

• Recognizing the needs of students from various cultural and experiential backgrounds is critical to the development, design, and delivery of skills-based courses.

• The infusion of computer technology into ESL and developmental education classes has the potential to enhance the learning environment.

• It is the responsibility of educators, administrators, and policy makers to help students develop language and literacy that will provide educational, civic, and social opportunities for today and in the future.

• Technology helps make this possible.

BehaviorismKey principles: www.kihd.gmu.edu/immersion/knowledgebase• Learning happens when a correct response is demonstrated

following the presentation of a specific environmental stimulus.• Emphasis is on observable and measurable behaviors.

The goals of instruction are:• Transfer behaviors representing knowledge and skills to the

learner.• Instruction is to elicit the desired response from the learner who

is presented with a target stimulus.• Learner must know how to execute the proper response as well

as the conditions under which the response is made.• Instruction utilizes consequences and reinforcement of learned

behaviors.

CognitivismKey principles: www.kihd.gmu.edu/immersion/knowledgebase• Learning is a change of knowledge state.• Knowledge acquisition is a mental activity that entails internal coding and

structuring by the learner.• Learner is an active participant in the learning process.• Emphasis is on the building blocks of knowledge.• Emphasis on structuring, organizing, and sequencing information to

facilitate optimal information processing.

The goals of instruction are:• Communicate/transfer knowledge most efficiently and effectively.• Focus of instruction is to create learning by encouraging the learner to use

appropriate learning strategies.• Learning results when information is stored in an organized way.• Teachers are responsible for assisting learners in organizing information in

a optimal way so that it is readily available.

Constructivism

Key principles: www.kihd.gmu.edu/immersion/knowledgebase.• Learners build personal interpretations of the world based on

experiences and interactions.• Knowledge is embedded in authentic tasks meaningful realistic settings.• Understandings created by “assembling” knowledge from diverse

sources appropriate to the problem at hand.

The goals of instruction are:• Build personal interpretations of the world based on individual

experiences and interactions, constantly open to change, cannot achieve a predetermined, “correct” meaning, knowledge emerges in relevant contexts.

• Learning is an active process of construction • Instruction is a process of supporting knowledge construction • Learning is not constructed for the task, but engages learner in the

actual use of the tools in real-world situations.