ESL Podcasts

      The development of language skills requires immersive experiences involving a culturally rich environment of interactions among a variety of people and media. Specifically, podcasts are an effective approach to growing language. There are a variety of topics and genres that are covered with podcasts to interest any student and are conveniently available anytime and anywhere on any mobile device. Podcasts can be audio only or audiovisual adding to the differentiation of possibilities to meet individual learning styles.  Students can also create their own podcasts on any subject that interests them. This fosters personalization and increases the engagement level to develop languages skills and students feel a healthy level of ownership in the creation of their podcasts. Podcasts also allow language learners to share their podcasts with teachers and peers to gain valuable evaluative feedback. According to Phillips (2017), "The use of podcasts inside and outside of the classroom is one such innovative tool that has garnered increased interest in the field of tertiary level language learning" (Phillips, 2017).
     Educators can use podcasts  in a number of ways. Podcasts can be used as a challenging tool by involving students in a podcast competition that can be voted on by teachers and student body. Also, students can create a digital story on a topic they choose that are within the lesson objectives and guidelines. Another option with podcasts is to have students share a brief bio about themselves to help peers to know them better and to create a supportive environment conducive to learning. 
     Podcasts have opened the door to possibilities to grow language and engagement levels in growing learning outcomes that meet a variety of learning styles to foster 21st century skills in preparing for a world that is yet to exist. I'm excited about the possibilities of podcasts to share with my students...and the world. 
     


Source

Lynch, Matthew. “How Teachers Can Use Podcasts to Promote Learning.” The Tech Edvocate, 20 Mar. 2018, www.thetechedvocate.org/teachers-can-use-podcasts-promote-learning/. 

Ph     Phillips Birgit. (2017) Student-Produced Podcasts in Language Learning – Exploring Student 

                    Perceptions of Podcast Activities Retrieved on July 31st, 2019 from 

                     https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1162673.pdf

Image Source
https://pixabay.com/photos/microphone-tablet-podcast-2469295/

FAKE NEWS!

Actor Denzel Washington said, “If you don’t watch the news, you’re uninformed. If you watch the news, you’re misinformed.” Is this true of our news media today? Is journalism alive or is it dead? There is always a rebuttal. We face the challenging question… “What is true?” This seems to sum up the situation in our world today with the challenges of seeking out reliable sources and information. If this is the challenge among us educators, how more challenging is it for our students. 

Our current technological world has offered up a variety of Web 2.0 tools that help grow our understanding of the world around us. We can learn about any topic at any time in any media. However, trying to guide students through a sea of resources is challenging. Many of these resources are good, but many are just bad. Some are just full of fake news!

Fortunately, Google has recently expanded its digital safety and citizenship curriculum for children. This expansion by Google involves media literacy. This assists students in spotting fake news and other false content. Perez (2019) states, “The company is launching six new media literacy activities for the curriculum that will help teach kids things like how to avoid a phishing attack, what bots are, how to verify that information is credible, how to evaluate sources, how to identify disinformation online, spot fake URLs, and more” (Perez, 2019).

Involving such educational content to help students in the effective and proper use of technology tools can better prepare students to make the most of the technologies available. This is so especially critical today with phishing scams, bots, suspicious emails or texts, and click bate tactics by many counterfeits.

Providing good and effective training to recognize valid sources and information can better assist students in their seeking out reliable sources that are as unbiased as possible and backed by other reliable sources to produce informed minds fostering an environment that is highly credible. 

Source:

Perez, Sarah. “Google's New Media Literacy Program Teaches Kids How to Spot Disinformation and Fake News.” TechCrunch, TechCrunch, 24 June 2019, techcrunch.com/2019/06/24/googles-new-media-literacy-program-teaches-kids-how-to-spot-disinformation-and-fake-news/.

Lost in Translation

Technology continues to assist and resolve many issues and challenges in our modern-day lives. There are advances in assistive and adaptive technologies to foster learning mastery and tools to grow skills. We use technology to develop learning management systems and calculate distances throughout the galaxies. However, technology can’t always predict nor evaluate effectively the areas that are amiss. Fortunately, technology has human beings as collaborators to foster reasoning and intelligent assessments of analytical understandings to the data that is gathered, evaluated, and synthesized.

Due to the combination of technology and humans working together, innovation and information continues to grow. However, much is presented and translated in English in many cultures. This is a growing concern over language learners lack of opportunities in their native languages. Specifically, this is more prevalent among India’s regional language learners facing a moving away from their own language due to high translation costs. Technology alone has not recognized this, but Rian has. Rian is a company that has resolved this dilemma by reducing translation cost and simplifying this problem quickly while fostering job possibilities of local languages.

According to Ani (2019), “Rikaian Technology Pvt Ltd is a Pune based company, which innovated Rian as a means to create jobs by simplifying the end-to-end translation process. Rian is an AI-powered platform that speeds up the translation process by automatically translating the body of the text, leaving only refinements to be completed with the high-quality human review” (Ani, 2019).

Rian seeks to address these language issues globally and locally by developing tools through affordable and available intelligent translation technology to anyone. Rian believes this is the answer to the industry's unprecedented potential for growth of the translation industry. Gautam Kulkarni, COO of Rian states, “(Rian) is providing holistic end-to-end solutions, streamlining the best combination of people, processes, tools, and data.” 

Rian translation software allows users to convert 40 languages including major Indian and foreign languages. According to Ani, “It converts Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Videos and more (over 20 file formats) inside their native applications and from the original languages in which they were created” (Ani, 2019). Currently, Rian has 3,000 users and over 50 million words have been translated. These numbers continue grow rapidly with high expectations of reaching the company’s goal of changing 100 million lives.

Source:

Ani. (2019, June 19). Rian's new translation platform powered by Artificial Intelligence (AI). Retrieved June 20, 2019, from https://www.business-standard.com/article/news-ani/rian-s-new-translation-platform-powered-by-artificial-intelligence-ai-119061900991_1.html

Pixabay. (n.d.). Free Image on Pixabay -The Digital Artist. Retrieved June 9, 2019,   

       from https://pixabay.com/illustrations/translate-keyboard-internet-button-110777/

Growing Language with These Four Apps!

Developing ways to foster a supportive and nurturing environment for students where English is not their first language is vital to their development. Specifically, L2 students can benefit greatly with technology that assist their language skills. Fortunately, QSI News blogged about 4 apps that can help students learn English. These apps assist in the syntax, pronunciation, memorization, and the translation of language. How beneficial are these technologies? Quite beneficial! Students can easily download these apps to their mobile device and access these helpful apps to quickly trigger their memory bank or complete necessary assignments. These apps are also versatile to fit with individual learning needs and styles. For example, these apps offer multi intelligence approaches with content. L2 students can access videos, audio, images, and a flash cards to help with recall and support connections. FluentU, specifically, provides a number of videos in real time to assist L2 students with the English culture and English spoken language. 

To download or learn more about these exciting apps travel to: https://www.studyinternational.com/news/4-apps-to-help-international-students-learn-english-effectively/

Sources:

Study International Staff. (2019, June 12). 4 Apps to Help International Students Learn English Effectively. Retrieved June 13, 2019, from https://www.studyinternational.com/news/4-apps-to-help-international-students-learn-english-effectively/

Pixabay. (n.d.). Free Image on Pixabay -The Digital Artist. Retrieved June 9, 2019,   

       from https://pixabay.com/photos/english-english-language-language-2724442/

Modern Ways to Use Technology in ESL Instruction

We live in a digital age, and it is ever growing in ways that are hard to foresee its full potential. Involving ESL students in the world of technology with best practices will only intrigue them to pursue information that will grow their learning. They only need to be shown how to use it.

Fudin (2016) states: “Computers, tablets and e-readers can all be instrumental in learning English, offering interactive and motivating activities for students of all ages” (Fudin, 2016).  ESL students can benefit from these technologies as wells as the technologies that will soon to be to assist them in their language skills development. These technologies not only should be appropriate, but also should be utilized in ways that are effective. I recently read a website that shares ten ways for ESL teachers to use technology to support the ESL students. In addition, this website shares a number of resources that will prove helpful for the ESL student and instructor. 

When engaging ESL students in the creation of any projects, it is critical to keep in mind, for the instructor, to implement tools that allow the learner to share their unique voice and perspectives while fostering a platform that engages ESL students to be creative and analytical. This approach is complimented by supportive feedback from peers and instructor. 

Source:

Fudin, S. (2016, August 22). 10 Modern Ways to Use Technology in ESL Instruction. Retrieved June 9, 2019, from https://busyteacher.org/13732-using-technology-esl-instruction-10-modern-ways.html

Pixabay. (n.d.). Free Image on Pixabay -The Digital Artist. Retrieved June 9, 2019,   

       from https://pixabay.com/illustrations/artificial-intelligence-brain-think-3382507/

Language Learning App

     In our world of mobile technologies, we use a variety of apps to assist us in solving everyday management dilemmas. We may even catch ourselves thinking, “I wish I had an app for that.” These ubiquitous technologies have become part of us in many ways to make life easier. We use apps for financial budgeting, lesson planning, exercising and health management, entertainment, social media, and many other areas of interest. We use apps to assist us in music theory, grow our artistic talent, and if we want to cook a gourmet meal, well there is an app for that as well. I’ve recently discovered that there is an app to help build language vocabulary using your smartphone. Microsoft’s new language learning app uses your phone’s camera and computer vision to teach vocabulary. It is called, Read My World. Just point at a specified object with your smartphone. Currently, this app has a library of 1,500 words in its database. Perez (2019) states, “It will then show the word’s spelling and speak the phonetic pronunciation of the identified vocabulary words. The photos corresponding to the identified words can also be saved to a personal dictionary in the app for later reference” (Perez, 2019). This app also provides a way of three built-in vocabulary games to assist in memory recall. 

     As an educator, involving technology in the classroom is a common practice to nurture an environment that engages students in the development of skills, knowledge, and understanding in effective and appropriate ways. This type of technology would benefit students that speak a language other than English. It is not to replace formal instruction for it has limits in its vocabulary words and it isn’t considered a teaching tool. However, it is best used as a training tool to assist throughout the day of ESL students. In addition, Read my World allows users to input photos of objects and their English word to the app’s library to grow ESL students’ language skills.

Source:

Perez, S. (2019, May 23). Microsoft's new language learning app uses your phone's camera  

     and computer vision to teach vocabulary – TechCrunch. Retrieved May 27, 2019, from  

     https://techcrunch.com/2019/05/23/microsofts-new-language-learning-app-uses-your-

     phones-camera-and-computer-vision-to-teach-vocabulary/

Image Source:

Pixabay. (n.d.). Free Image on Pixabay -The Digital Artist. Retrieved May 27, 2019,   

       from https://pixabay.com/photos/eye-information-technology-digital-3374462/

Culture Blind Spots

      We all have blind spots that prevent us from acknowledging those areas that need developed. This is a persistent challenge in the educational world among teachers and students in an environment that nurtures possibilities, but is limited by blind spots. Specifically, these blind spots are in our grammar, syntax, parts of speech, and use of slang. These can confuse ESL students, but with sensitivity to the direct needs of ESL students, the teacher can better assist the language skill development process. I recently read a blog that shares useful things for ESL teachers to find these blind spots within their culture through reflection and practice to more effectively grow ESL students especially LEP learners. To assist ESL teachers to foster an environment that is conducive to ESL students and LEP leaners is to generate curiosity. Magrath (2019) suggests: Peer Interactions, posting of broad questions, ask open ended questions that require thought, encourage self-reliant, involvement of cross disciplines, and the use of current technology to foster the development of language skills. 

     Through best practices and empowering learners, the ESL teacher can motivate ESL students and LEP leaner toward growth and mastery with the use of positivity, effective vision, and support systems. Additionally, creating an environment filled with imagery and "interesting things to talk about" will foster a language rich environment.  

Images Source:

Pixabay. (n.d.). Free Image on Pixabay - Blindfolded, Blind, Hair, Girl. Retrieved May 25, 2019,   

       from https://pixabay.com/photos/blindfolded-blind-hair-girl-woman-1732522/

Blog Source:

Magrath, D. (2019, May 23). Useful hints for ESL teachers: Part 2. Retrieved May 24, 2019,    

      from http://exclusive.multibriefs.com/content/useful-hints-for-esl-teachers-part-  

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