TLL Week 4 Part2: Technology to teach Writing

In this week, I also learned about technology to teach writing. I got it, that actualy we can enable technology in each skill of learning language. Also, there are many technology that provide writing learning. The most familiar and popular is blog. Before that, I want to give brief explanation about the role of writing in SLA.  According to Chen (2010), writing and reading has similar function which both of them share the same cognitive and social process. 
In writing, students learn how to interpreting and constructing meaning from text. There are many specific areas of writing, for instance academic writing or relfective writing. Thus, in writing there also four main focuses; form-focused approach, process-foccused approach, content-based approach, reader/audience-dominated approach. Good writing is depend on what focus we want to concern.


In form-focused approach, the famous techniques is drill and practice. In the internet, there are a lot website that provide excersice of drill and practice. For instance, ESL Blue, Guide to Grammar and Writing.


Process focussed Approach concern more on process and emphasize learned-centered task in which students feel free to control their own writing, how they write it, and evaluate it. Here students are allowed to have multiple drafts and do many editing until they feel their writing is good. Students can use computer and email to ask for revision to the teachers. 


Content-based Approach focus on contents. There are also many website that provide many collection of good lesson plan, such as encyclopedia.com. The last is reader/audience-dominated approach. It means that put all the focuse above to get greater attention to the readers.


There are some blogs that can make students enjoy writing in the internet. For example are blogspot, wordpress, tumblr,  and wigg. Each of them has different characteristics. Blogspot is the easiest blog to facilitate a new begginer of bloger. It’s because there are a lot of choices and we can use simple html code. We put it anything in simple way, just click and it will appears. I use blogspot since I was in junior high school. The setting is not complicated and it can look like a professional blog if we add some widget there.


Writing with technology is more fun rather than write by pencils. Because there also some correction if we misspelled some words. That’s all about my reflection in this week. Sayonaraaa~

TLL Week4: Technology to Teach Language!

Welcome to my fourth TLL reflection! 

This week we learned about some fun techonology to enable listening, speaking, reading and writing comprehension. As stated by Chen (2010), listening comprehension which precede speaking skill make the learners more familiar with the new language. Hence, if we want to focus on enhance our students’listening skill we should emphasize meaning rather than grammar itself. 

There are two approaches to teach listening skills, the natural approach and the total physical response (TPR).  Krashen and Terrel (2983) said that in natural approach, language production is supposed to be step by step from nonverbal responses to complex sentences. The content itself should meet the students’interest. We can search about interactive audio-picture lesson in the internet, there are many of them. The interesting one that we found this week was from british council. In TPR, teacher ask the students to listen only. While speaking the target language, teacher give illustration. Teacher also can give students command and they will respond it by physically doing the action. We can use TPR games, the students listen the words and point out which picture is suitable based on the listening. There are also some live action of TPR.

According to Chen (2010), to teach speaking skills for beginners we can use Audiolingualism, TPR, Natural Approach, silent way, and suggestopedia. While for more advanced level we can use communicative language teahing. SchMOOze university is interesing to use. It uses MOOs (Multi-user domain and Object Oriented)

From the example above, there are limitation which is every technology only concern in their basic field. For instance, schMOOze only help in speaking, no listening or writing there. However, there is a program named VoiceThread. It can enhance all of the skills; listening, speaking, writing, and reading. You can upload your documents, slides, presentations, pictures, videos, and voice. The most interesting is you also can comment it using five ways; typing, recording, video, pictures, and via telphone. VoiceThread is related to all skills so I think it’s evective because packaged in one time. However, if we want to use it we have to pay. That’s the limitation.

References:

Chen, C.F.E. “Computer Assisted Language Learning and Teaching” retrieved August 12 2010, from http://www2.nkfust.edu.tw/~emchen/CALL as in TLL Module

TLL Week3: From CALL to MALL

In the session three, I learnt about Mobile Assisted Language Learning (MALL). Basically this way is more effective than CALL ─that we had learnt in the previous session. It shows on the great differences of them. We can use MALL anywhere and anytime we want. Otherwise CALL is not. According to Kukulska-Hulme and Shield (2008), “MALL differs from computer-assisted language learning in its use of personal, portable devices that enable new ways of learning, emphasizing continuity or spontaneity of access and interaction across different contexts of use.” 

There are iPod, PDA, and mobile phone as some examples of MALL. Based Kukulska-Hulme and Shield, MALL already applied at Duke University. The collage gives each student an iPod as a media to learn language. They do a recording to record their oral assignment, and listening material from native speaker. Indisputable, the existence of technology indeed make learning and teaching process more interesting and fun. For the resume, there are three advantages of MALL. First, it is cheaper than a computer. Second, we can use it anywhere we want as a portable tool. The last is we can manage to our own time whenever we want. Besides, it will help students much to receive direct feedback from teacher, other students, or tutor. 

As we know, technology grows rapidly from time to time. PDA is not really as popular as it used to be. Nowadays, there are Tablet and iPad that changes PDA. Besides all of these, MALL also has several disadvantages. The quality of MALL is not as good as CALL. We can’t have such a high quality of video or anything as CALL have. Sometimes, we can’t access some data because it is not prepared on MALL device. With the term of MALL, it makes us seem to have an autism syndrome. The basic reason is we have our own world in our hands, like autistic people. We will lack of social relationship in the real world. Students in the future will become a socially awkward people. They will do not know how to build a relationship with others.

However, for learning language, I still consider MALL as an effective device to be enabled at learning and teaching activity. The reason of portable itself make it easier than CALL. I will wait Indonesia use this device, not just a computer lab or language lab which is still debatable and can not work properly.

The Make A Difference Movie - The Teddy Stallard Story - by Mary Robinson Reynolds | The MasterMinding Maven® - Full Length Version

The Make A Difference Movie - The Teddy Stallard Story - by Mary Robinson Reynolds | The MasterMinding Maven® - Full Length Version

I found this on my dad's laptop when I got back home last holiday. This is such a great video to share. I cried all by myself when I watched this.
Couldn't stop my eavesdrop from falling. Hope this can be your inspiration to become a new generation of teacher. When I watched this for the first time, I told to my self.. I wanna be a teacher like her. A teacher who can leave a good footprint in their student's memory in the rest of their life.

Humanistic Week 2: My Name; A pray, An Identity.

          Name is a very important thing that all creatures in this world should have. As you see, there are many things different around us. A name will help much to recognize each of it. Like what written in Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami; “Kawamura is just name. I’ll call you. It doesn’t mean anything. Nakata gives name to each cat, so it’s easy to remember”  

However, my parents didn’t particularly means gave me name in reason so it’s easy to be remembered by other people. There’s a mixture of hope and pray in my name. A pray which always go with me wherever I am. Well, call me Risma, Harismaning Aulia in complete. So, here is what on my name.

“Pernah suatu hari adikku bertanya kenapa ia dan aku tidak ada yang diberi nama ‘putri’, padahal kami semua perempuan. Lalu ibuku menjawab, jelas-jelas kamu perempuan, buat apa kasih kamu nama putri!”

“Buat Mama dan Papa, nama itu bukan sekadar label perempuan atau laki-laki, bukan sekadar tanda kamu lahir di bulan apa, bukan petunjuk kamu itu anak keberapa. Nama-namamu itu adalah doa dari Mama Papa yang akan selalu melekat pada kalian sampai kapanpun”

“Harismaning Aulia, kamu tahu betapa indah namamu itu? Kharismanya orang-orang yang dekat dengan Allah! Mama Papa ingin dimanapun kamu, selalu memancarkan kharismamu. Orang-orang akan terpana, bukan hanya karena kamu cantik, tapi karena kamu memang punya kharisma. Dan, Mama Papa juga ingin kamu menjadi salah seorang yang dekat dengan Allah, seperti Auliya’, para wali. Kamu bisa menjadi orang seperti mereka; yang baik hatinya, baik sikapnya, dimuliakan kedudukannya, pintar, dan sholehah”

“Ingat Tegar? Anak yang kakinya dilindas kereta api karena perbuatan bapaknya sendiri? Salah sendiri kasih nama Tegar. Makanya dikasih cobaan berat sama Allah biar dia bisa tegar, seperti namanya. Atau Virginia, istri saiful jamil? Tuh kan dia meninggal setelah nggak perawan lagi, lagi-lagi seperti namanya. Mama dan papa kasih nama kamu itu nggak main-main. Bukan nama yang ecek-ecek, namamu itu berkualitas. Punya arti yang bagus banget. Itu doa mama papa untuk Risma yang nggak akan pernah berhenti”

“Apakah doa itu sudah terkabul, anakku?” Ibu tersenyum dan aku hanya menyeringai sambil berkata, “Amiin”.

First I was born, my mom wanted to give me name, Kharisma. But, my grandpa said that there’s a myth in Javanese culture that it’s forbidden gives a first kid name begin with K. If that so, the kid will have a bad luck in the rest of his/her life. That’s why; my name is Harisma not Kharisma. The most important point is, it has nothing to do with ‘maning’ which means ‘lagi’ in Java, because ‘ning’ is stands for ‘nya’ . So, it’s Harisma-ning Aulia. Not Haris-maning Aulia!.

You can recognize the identity I bring, Javanese and Muslim. I’m proud of it all! Don’t want to change a thing. Because since I was child, my mother always keeps telling me that I’ve such a very beautiful name and I believe that. I'll be a person like my name. But somehow, I'm still learning to be a person like my name. Thanks mom and dad for the beautiful name. Harismaning Aulia

TLL Week 2: Technology from the Viewpoint of Mine

This session was very exciting. We did a debate about the usage of computer lab and language lab. It was pretty fun because we still can’t decide which one is better. Indeed, deciding the technology to be applied at school is hard thing to do. There are many reasons, for instance, technology itself needs high budget and not all people can use it appropriately. However, like what Pa Teguh said, technology is only a tool. How far it’s useful depends on whose use it. For me, if we want to apply technology at school we should train the teacher first ─the one who teaches it. If teachers already be a master of technology, I think any kind of technology can be applied at school and will be an effective learning aid to students. As you recall, last week we also tried to explain about some cool sites whether can be applied to language class, such as: Facebook, YouTube, and blog. Amazingly, those sites that we think only for fun turn out to be useful media to learn language.

In this session also I learn about the terms, digital native and digital immigrant. People who were born after 1990 are called digital native. I don’t think so. I recall that around the beginning of millennium age, my father bought a mobile phone and computer. Thus, I could use computer around my age of nine. If we compare it to people in America, mostly already can use more sophisticated technology around 1990, the term of digital native is not really suitable for some of us in Indonesia. Many people here even were born after 1990 but if they can feel the technology in their adolescent or even more, it’s the same as they’re digital immigrant. And yet, indisputable, there also many people here who since kid born with technology. They’re the real digital native. As a teacher to be, we should be ready to teach them using technology which is wider and more sophisticated.