My impression of nowadays’ CALL materials

My impression towards computer-assisted learning materials currently available is that they are more  for testing rather than teaching.   Nevertheless, they can be very good platforms for the easy access of self-motivated students to do self-learning exercises.

In case of teaching, to a very large extent, I think it’s up to the teacher’s own preference and ability to adapt the available materials to their own teaching.  Apart from this, I think the materials on the Internet can be very good sources for inspiration and use in our daily teaching.  For example, I can use videos like songs on Youtube to create integrated tasks for my students. (Refer to my page called CALL and Music for further details).  Actually, these resources online help save much of our time in preparing teaching materials and they are also authentic enough to arouse and engage students’ interest and attention respectively.

For improvement in using computer technology, I think it’s quite difficult as it concerns about business running, money making and markets availability.  Most importantly, those who are good at designing softwares for CALL msy not be experts in language teaching, it’s hard for them to really design something suitable to meet the real needs of both teachers and students.  For those experts in language teaching, it’s ironic that they may not have time and resources or expertise in designing softwares or to work with software experts for CALL (as most English teachers are exhausted in dealing NSS curriculum or latest education reform of all sorts!)  As a result, it’s quite a “stagnant situation” for having suitable CALL materials for teaching!

Today’s Artefact:  A hot-potato constructivist task

This session, we are asked to create a task online using Hot Potato (HP) again.  I think it’s interesting!  But I need to remind myself of logging on to the FTP at ihome.cuhk.edu.hk before uploading the files!

I’ve just created a quiz using HP to test your ability in figuring out a grammar rule. 

Try it now by clicking here–>http://ihome.cuhk.edu.hk/~s0803018/sally.htm

I would teach “make + B.I.” to my S. 2 students every year and I think this short quiz can be used as a quick recap in class.

Hot Potatoes–A tool worth-exploring

Artefacts Today  Here are 3 tasks I made from the first time using Hot Potatoes.  

1st Task: A matching exercise based on an article entitled “Drugs test a toothless tiger” from South China Morning Post.

 http://ihome.cuhk.edu.hk/~s0803018/drugstestsally.htm

I think this software is useful for having quick recap of different grammar items with students in class.

2nd Task: A cloze exercise entitled ”Arctic ice may disappear in a decade” from breakingnewsenglish.com

 http://ihome.cuhk.edu.hk/~s0803018/arcticice.htm

3rd Task:  Listen to a song and fill in gaps. (Use “tab” for filling in the next blank.)

 http://ihome.cuhk.edu.hk/~s0803018/cloze1.htm

 Two suggested websites using HP for English teaching and learning: 

I think HotPotatoes (HP) is a very practical, user-friendly tool which is worth for teachers’ further exploration so as to facilitate teaching and learning in class.  I’ve just found two websites which use HP for reading activities at different levels and grammar practice respectively.

1. English Language Centre Study Zone from the University of Victoria Web site: http://web2.uvcs.uvic.ca/courses/elc/studyzone/490/

How I might use it?

Actually, HP is created by this university.  And I’ll definitely make good use of it for teaching different reading skills like skimming, scanning, understanding referencing ina a text and so on as interactive reading activities with my students in class. 

Advantages: 

• have interactive activities to activate students’ schemata
• enable discussion among students related to the reading topic rather than just clicking “go” or “next exercise”. 
• help teachers brainstorm more ideas in designing interactive tasks using HP for reading exercises
• some of the exercises are “timed” which creates a sense of challenge to students 
• it is free! 

Go to “Wild Children” exercise which demonstrates how it can be made interactive.

2. A website for learning phrasal verbs

http://www.churchillhouse.com/english/exercises/phrasals/index.html

How I might use it?

I’ll use it for revising grammar items, phrasal verbs in particular with senior secondary students or enabling their’ autonomous learning in grammar. 

Advantages:

• it’s theme-based
• in context
• help facilitate students’ memory of different phrasal verbs