Presentation Day 1 CALLing on Ethiopia at ASLU in Adama, Ethiopia.

1. CALLing on
Ethiopia:
Computer Assisted
Language
Learning at Sarah Guth, University
Adama University Language Center
Day 1 Francesca Helm, Dept. of
Political Science
University of Padova, Italy

2. Part 1
Personal Introductions
Brief History of CALL Theory & Practice

3. What are we doing here?

4. Introductions: Sarah‟s story
• Course websites: provide info
1999-2004
• Student group websites: share info
• Give students access to students in other parts of the
2005- world
present
• Use of Web 2.0 to give students access to authentic
contexts of use (e.g. blogs, forums, Facebook), updated
2007-
present information, and many different online resources

5. Introductions: Francesca‟s
story
•MA in TESOL by distance learning with Institute of Education,
University of London
1996-2000 •Online Education and Training Course, worked as facilitator
•Started doing exchanges between students in Italy and the
2000- US, then Guatemala, Jordan, Holland, Kuwait, Palestine
present
•Collaborate with Soliya as coordinator for Padova, facilitator
training, facilitator and now coach. Using blogs with
2008- students for English courses at Faculty of Political Science.
present

6. Introductions: your story?
• Do you use CALL? If so, how? Since
when?
• What benefits do you think it can offer?
• Why are you here? What do you hope
to learn during these workshops?

7. Why use CALL?
What „they „ say, or originally said:
 To cut costs
 To reduce number of teachers
 To cater for a growing number of students
What CALL practioners know:
 To increase access to education
 To enhance the learning experience
 To innovate and change
 Because technology is now part of our life

8. Key words in online education
authenticity
connectivity
flexibility
interactivity
exploration
accessibility
multisensory
collaboration
community
Adapted from G.Kearsley: Learning and Teaching in Cyberspace
http://home.sprynet.com?~gkearsley?chapts.htm

9. What can we use CALL for?
Some educational uses of technology:
 publishing and disseminating information
 retrieving information
 communicating
 collaborating
 developing online literacies

10. What is literacy?
 Basic human right: reading and writing
 In today‟s society we have new literacies:
 Computer literacy
 Internet literacy
 Information literacy
 Multimedia literacy
 Participation literacy

11. SLA/FL
RESEARCH
TECHNOLOGI
CAL
DEVELOPMENT
S
CALL

12. A brief history: stage 1
Computer as Tutor
technology •Mainframe computers, mostly available only at
institutions and not in people‟s homes
•Behaviouristic approach
research •learning takes place through mechanical
production, memorization and repetition of given
grammar patterns
•repetitive language drills which aimed at helping
practice learners master the foreign grammar and
vocabulary by responding to the stimuli made
available through technology

13. A brief history: stage 2
Computer as Tool to stimulate learning
technology •Advent of personal computers and increasing multimedia
capabilities of software programs
research •Communicative approach
•focus on the actual use of language forms in context
•computer as a means to access, gather and process
information through hands-on experiments, hypothesis
practice testing and problem-solving to stimulate students' discussion,
writing, or critical thinking: learner as researcher, teacher as
facilitator

14. A brief history: stage 3
Computer for communication
•Advent of the World Wide Web and the Internet in the 1990s
technology •Advent of Web 2.0 in the first decade of the 21st Century
•Greater access to computers and broadband
•Sociocognitive approach/socioconstructivism
research •learning takes place through social interaction in authentic
contexts
•NBLT : «language teaching that involves the use of
computers connected to one another in either local or
practice global networks»
•the machine serves to support collaborative activity and
enhance the learning process both on-line, during the
interaction, and off-line, in reflective practices

15. Today, in 2012?
 Although practices from all 3 stages are
still in use, during the next few days we will
focus on the types of activities that
characterized stages 2 and 3, i.e.:
 Using the computer to access resources
 Using the computer to access other people

16. PART 2
How to integrate CALL into the classroom:
Blends & Tools

17. Is blended coffee better?
 Many coffee manufacturers claim that
their blends of Ethiopian coffee with
beans from other places, such as Yemen
or Colombia, is „better‟ than pure
Ethiopian coffee.
Is the blend better?
We can‟t argue about coffee, but in the
foreign language classroom, it often is.

18. Blending classroom & lab
 What can you do in a lab that you can‟t
do in a classroom?
 What can you do better in a classroom
rather than in a lab?

19. Blending F2F and online
 Can your students only attend, let‟s say,
one F2F lesson a week? And do they have
Internet access?
 Or, are there things that are just as well
done autonomously online?
 Or, do you want to develop your
students‟ ability to communicate
effectively online?

20. Tools: what‟s changed
(expensive) proprietary software for
language practice
Resources on the Internet
(expensive) software for creating Web
contents
Resources on the Internet
Free Web-based tools for creating contents

21. The changing nature of the Web
Web 2.0
 users produce and share
content
 the „wisdom of the
crowds‟ (Surowiecki, 2005)
 websites where
knowledge and content
are created and shared

22. Benefits
 access and produce real language
 real audience: increased responsibility
 new tools: increased autonomy, competence and
confidence
In your opinion,
proactive learning
what might the

 improved information literacy
 improved reflective and criticalbe? skills
benefits thinking
 improved participation literacy
 potential for informal learning

23. Challenges
 technical challenges: broadband, computer access, etc.
 tools don‟t necessarily appeal to all students

In your opinion, what
time consuming for students and teachers
learning how to effectively collaborate
mightstable challenges
the

 not all tools are

be?
assessment: process or product? individual or group?
 teacher needs basic skills in e-tutoring
 empowering students means teacher giving up control

24. PART 3
How to develop CALL tasks

25. Have we forgotten anything?
 What is our main aim?
 To help students learn
 Don‟t be dazzled by technology
 Remember basic pedagogical practice
 In a structured institutional context, tasks
are a good way to ensure we are working
towards our main aim

26. A practical example
 Learning aims:
 improve listening for intermediate learners
 discuss and reflect on culture
 How:find a web-based audio/video
students can access on their own

27. Step 1: Explore
 Surf the Web for appropriate materials, this
involves:
 Choosing appropriate key words (such as…?)
 Evaluating the websites you find (based on what
criteria…?
 So, we eventually found a website which met
these criteria:
 Site hosted by a respectable organization that
openly shares inspiring talks on the Web
 Videos can be downloaded and embedded in
other webpages, such as blogs
 Subtitles available in numerous languages,
translation in some and interactive tapescript

28. Step 2: Develop a task
Word
association
& discussion
Listening
Discussion &
with guiding
writing
questions

29. Step 3: What tools?
 Word associations: google forms
 Comprehension and discussion questions:
course blog
 Video: embedded in course blog, link to
website (where it can also be
downloaded)
 Student reflection and discussion: first as
comments to the blog, then class
discussion

30. Recycling language
Listening skills
Reading questions/writing answers
Reading peer comments
Speaking during class discussion
Writing your own single story

31. Pre-
task

32. Africa Nigeria USA Pre-
task
Villaggi, savana, elefanti Guerra, calcio, petrolio Repubblicani,
povertà, terzo mondo, sud, Africa, nero hamburger, Wall Street
infibulazione africa, niger fastfood, gran canion, 11
deserto, povertà. egitto povertà, guerra, quarto settembre
deserto, safari, animali mondo obama, 4 luglio, football
selvatici miniere di diamanti, fastfood, NYC, obama,
Mandela, safari, piramidi guerre interne, Martin Luther King,
tanzania safari deserto dispotismo schiavitù, zio Sam
Gazzella, Povertà, guerra povertà quarto obama oceano world
Solidarietà mondo trade center
tribù, riti magici Povertà, Immigrazione, Statua della Libertà,
corno ghana Fango Dollaro, Obama
poverta' povertà, capanne mc donald's, new york
povertà,acqua,savana povertà stelle strisce hamburger
Colore, Leone, Sole guerra hamburger
Zebra, deserto, Marocco scuro,altezza,bandiera hot dog,new york,gossip
pelle scura, deserto, Poveri, Fame, Aids girl
povertà Aids, caldo, missioni NewYork, Disney,
Savana - Caldo - Animali rifugiati polaitci, Macchine
sahara persecuzioni New York, hamburger,
favelas, vestiti, capanne Fame - Povertà – California
Diversità orgoglio nazionale
nero baracche malaria

33. Pre-
task
Preparatory questions:
 What is a story teller?
 What kind of stories did you use to read?
 Do you remember any of them in particular?
 What is raffia? A roommate?
 What do the following verbs mean? to patronize, to
pity, to assume.

34. Task
Read these comprehension questions before you watch the
video, and then try to answer them:
What was Adichie‟s single story about books when she was a
child?
How did this change?
What was her single story about Fide, their domestic helper?
How did that change?
What was her university room mate‟s single story about Africa?
What is the origin of this single story about Africa that permeates
the US, according to Adichie?
When did she begin to identify herself as African?
What did the American professor say about her novel?
What was Adichie‟s single story about Mexicans? Where did it
originate?
“nkali” is an igbo word which relates to power. How does "nkali"
relate to a single story?
Why does she imply the American student seem to think that all
Nigerian men are physical abusers?
What is the problem with stereotypes?
What are the consequences of a single story?
How does she suggest we can reject the single story?
GO

35. Post-
task
Discussion and/or on the course blog …
Write your own 'single story' you have or had about a
place or people, or that you have experienced
from other people towards you. Where did this
single story originate?

37. Silvia 21 ottobre 2012 10:26
My single story is about the stereotypes of one of my Norwegian family
about the Italians.
I lived one year in Norway and there I had two host families. This summer
one of them came to visit my family and me.
They lived in my house for five days, they tried to live as if they where
Italians, they strongly wanted to try this experience; but they came here
with a single story of “the Italian family and the Italian way of live”. They
thought that Italian children where spoiled and not able to think by
themselves. They believed that all the Italian women were submitted by
their husbands, that all the Italian men were totally dependent from their
mothers also when they had left their family houses and so never ready
to become good fathers or responsible mates.
I could perceive that they felt pity for my mother just because she use to
cook dinner and to wash the dishes, they where abrupt with my father
and they where enables to see that he helped my mom in many other
ways. They were angry with my brother because in their opinion he was
spoiled just because my sister and I like to play with him and to cuddle
with him, he is just ten years old and we are over twenty both so for us its
normal to take care of him; in Norway parents don‟t have much
physical contact with their children and they not use to hug or kiss them
so they believed that to receive hug for my brother meant to never
became a strong man.