Using Twitter for Language Teaching

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Twitter-in-ESL

If you haven't considered using Twitter in your classes, I'd encourage you to think it over. Even in grad school, the idea of using Twitter for language teaching appealed to me, and I even did a few projects and lesson plans that incorporated Twitter.

It wasn't until my first year of teaching at the University of Oregon that I actually decided to try it out with students.  Initially, we used Twitter in class to talk about Extensive Reading selections.  I wanted to build classroom community and drum up some more enthusiasm about the books students were reading, and I thought that Twitter could be an excellent avenue for doing so.

This year, I've been using Twitter in the class with my Reading 100 students.  Twitter is especially useful for this population (mostly Saudi) because the majority of my students already used Twitter for personal reasons.  Their reading abilities are rather limited, so navigating a course management system like Moodle or Blackboard would be challenging for them.  Twitter is probably the easiest way that I can get them to access links and resources that I want them to use.  It's also a beneficial way to switch up a somewhat normal classroom activity like dictations or answer reading comprehension questions.  I think the one caveat when using any sort of technology in language teaching is to work hard to ensure technology is being used for its own sake, and that there is a greater pedagogical reason to choose to use a web 2.0 tools.  Often, I find with Twitter, the reason using it makes so much sense is because I am able to provide feedback more frequently and faster than if I didn't ask students to Tweet.

What can you envision using Twitter for in your classes?

P.S. A write-up by Jennifer ESL on some of the take-aways from my presentation with Nate Soelberg on using Twitter in the Classroom 

What motivates students?

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What motivates students?

This past semester, some of my colleagues and I at the Intensive English Institute participated in a book club.  We read a wonderful book---What the Best College Teachers Do by Ken Bain (2004). I had actually started to read this independently, and then I realized how much better it would be if I could relate it to language teaching by discussing it with others in the TESOL field.

Several chapters gave me lots to chew on---but one area that I'm really still puzzled about is student motivation.  Bain points to the research of Deci, Richard, and deCharms that suggests that if students suspect any sort of manipulation due to external reward, they might lose interest. But, at the same time, he mentions that without external motivation, intrinsic fascination might also diminish.  According to Bain, the most successful educators he has worked with aim to avoid extrinsic motivators and instead work to develop intrinsic motivators for students. 

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Cumulative Review Game

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Cumulative Review Game

As the school year winds down, many are probably searching for ways to remind students what they have learned.  I know that I was just a few weeks ago.  In addition to wanting to show students how much progress they made, I wanted to have students think about all that they had learned, but it was important to keep such a review student-centered.

Of course, there are the old standards, Jeopardy and Password.  These have been pretty successful in previous semesters.  But, this May, I was searching for something different. I needed something else--the class had entered in January with virtually no English.  After speaking to Maggie Courtright, my reading component leader, I had a solid plan for a review lesson.

Do you remember the game Outburst?  Well, this happens to lend itself very well to the language class.  It might actually work in several content areas. 

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Documenting student results using pre-tests & post-tests

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ZhaoHong Han, my Second Language Acquisition professor at Teachers College, was the first teacher I ever had that showed data to support her students' progress over the course semester.  It made a lasting impression on me, and since then, I've tried to do the same with my students.

At the beginning of the term in my Reading 100 class, I give pre-tests for both reading and vocabulary.  During the last week of the semester, students take the same test again.  Then, after the results are scored, I give them the results of the whole class and show the students' individual progress (anonymously, of course).  This is pretty easy to set-up in an excel spreadsheet to make a simple graph to display.  Students are always so pleased to see evidence of their learning.  I make a big deal of it and make sure to acknowledge their hard work.  I also emphasize how the small score increases are actually quite significant. (And they are--the test is quite difficult).

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Summer Reading

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If you're like me, you start a vacation with the best of intentions, plans to work on your professional development goals.  But suddenly, rather than curling up in an office, you're on the couch binge-watching a season of something you had no time to watch during the busy school year. (House of Cards, anyone?)

In addition to your plans being thwarted because of Netflix, you might be lacking motivation to get reading because you don't even know what you're teaching next semester.  I hear you.  So, with that in mind, I've thought of three topics that I could learn more about regardless of my upcoming teaching schedule. 

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2 apps for (almost) daily use

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Classes and teaching duties ended last week for the semester.  Whew--it's been a whirlwind of a year!  Over the past two days, I've attended Faculty Summer Institute; I'll be posting later on what I've gained from the conference.  This week, as I've reflected on the last semester and classes I taught, I've been thinking of the new tools that I used to help manage class.  Two of these are free apps that you might wish to use too.

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