domenica 16 maggio 2010
Italiano in gioco: dire, fare e giocare in SL - La salute
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My SecondLife and... my students
EBABEL Classes
Italian Lessons (free E-learning Classes in Second Life)
The EBABEL Classes (free E-learning Classes in Second Life) are starting even before the end of the year. The first project will be developed by the Professor Carmela Dell'Aria (Misy Ferraris in Second Life) from the Università degli Studi di Palermo, who will be giving free Italian Lessons, which permit taking a beginner to a general autonomy level in 40 lessons. The virtual classroom of Italian EBabel in Second Life is in Avalon Isle. If you are interested in participating in these events, but you are not a Second Life user yet, please fill the form bellow (copy/paste it to email) and send it to irah_anatine@hotmail.com. If you are already a Second Life user, please drop us your application at: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Avalon Isle/89/111/22 |
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Languagelab_Progetto 1
LanguageLab_ Progetto 2
| Vi presento il Progetto 1 realizzato dal mio gruppo di lavoro durante il "teacher training" presso la scuola di lingue LanguageLab. Il percorso di formazione è stato svolto da Ottobre a Dicembre 2007 e si è concluso con la realizzazione di un progetto. Il mio gruppo doveva realizzare il materiale per un corso di lingua di livello intermedio. Il progetto è stato realizzato interamente in lingua inglese ma con l'obiettivo di essere adattato alle altre lingue. Il gruppo aveva la possibilità di scegliere l'ambito lessicale su cui lavorare. In un primo momento sono stati scelti due ambiti: il cibo e l'abbigliamento. Sono state così progettate le lezioni con attività diverse. Successivamente è stato individuato un solo ambito lessicale per la realizzazione di due lezioni con gli stessi oggetti 3D. Un fase importante è stata quella della scelta lessicale per la realizzazione degli oggetti 3D: questi contengono un file audio con la pronuncia del nome dell'oggetto e prevedono anche l'inserimento di una nota informativa con il significato e i possibili usi del termine. Lo studente, anche in situazione di apprendimento autonomo, con un semplice click del mouse sull'oggetto può ascoltare la pronuncia e ricevere la spiegazione del termine e del suo uso. Ecco il rapporto sul progetto redatto dal mio team. |
Report on LL Teacher Training Project#1:
Rezzable objects in the classroom
Mentor: Iffaf Ling
Team:
Beatrice / Bees Despres
Stepanka / Stefi Kohime
Wlodek / Wlodek Barbosa
Carmen / Misy Ferraris
Contents:
· Introduction
· Some methodological considerations
· The choice of lexical set
· The choice of activities
· The definition of the object vocabulary
· The trialing of the objects
· Comments
Introduction
This report is aimed at sharing the experience and reflection of our team after taking part in a project developed from November 12 to December 17 by Language Lab in order to “explore a variety of ways in which bank of rezzable objects could be drawn on by the teacher in a 'formal' teaching situation.” Knowing that such a “bank is something under development by Language Lab and will consist of the most common words in English along with common lexical sets across a range of levels.”
Some methodological considerations
The theme of the project (rezzable objects for the classroom) and the composition of the team were stated by Language Lab. So, our first task was to get to know each other and decide all together on guidelines for our approach of the matter.
Setting up a team meeting was quite challenging due to different time zones and real life impositions so e-mailing to report on two-member or three-member encounters was the privileged channel.
Even so, the team managed to perform the first task, i.e. choosing 2 lexical sets out of three options to work on. Each member had the opportunity to express and justify their will and when the whole team meeting finally happened, it was very easy to reach a consensus on Food and Clothes. From then, a common frame was designed for each one to drop his/her ideas of activities related to these two sets through the Yahoo Group channel and from the sharing of these lists emerged a common document with selected activities: one of each lexical set from each participant .
During a meeting with our mentor Iffaf, the list was discussed and it was decided that the efforts would be focused on the pronunciation and grammar (passive voice) activities to trial the objects. So the list of objects was handed to Language Lab for rezzing .
While they were being produced we worked on the lesson plans. At first, we were supposed to present twice the same class; however, since the objects were so flexible and the purpose was to show they could be used in a great variety of ways, we ended preparing two completely different classes in two sub-teams .
There were some problems with the objects and their delivery and with Second Life itself but both classes happened and yielded some interesting information on the use of rezzed objects in a SL structured teaching and on pedagogical issues such as classroom management. We will focus here on the objects and the pedagogical feedback.
The choice of lexical set
The rationale behind the decision of working on food and clothes rather than leisure was:
(a) they appear to involve more easily tangible, manipulable, rezzable objects than leisure,
(b) they are relatively culture-neutral, hence better fit the multicultural environment of SL,
(c) they offer a certain number of items varying across cultures in interesting ways – hence a pedagogical potential in a multicultural classroom,
(d) clothing remains in the centre of avatar interest, for newbies and experienced residents alike,
(e) food is obviously essential in learning a foreign language, whatever the purpose of the students.
The choice of activities
The team invented a variety of situations and activities to be created and exploited in the SL classroom. Most activities could be carried on in RL classroom with realia. However, the possibilities offered by SL and the fact that customized objects would be rezzed, with features unthinkable in RL, added value to the teaching/learning process.
A variety of communicative functions (complaining, ordering, reporting, describing, etc.) and grammatical structures (countability, passive voice, modal + perfect infinitive, etc.) would be employed at different times of the class (warm up, presentation, practice, follow up). At the same time, various pronunciation-focused activities were devised with the aim of raising the phonetic awareness of the learners .
A quick look at the lists developed in this project by a team with little time and little experience, demonstrates how flexible rezzed objects can be. It seems there could be an infinity of uses for a single item or series, the limit being pedagogical team’s imagination and creativity.
The definition of the object vocabulary
The vocabulary had to meet the following criteria:
(a) be appropriate for learners at all levels,
(b) be easily rezzable (hence – concrete/imageable/tangible),
(c) be relatively common in English,
(d) be relevant for the situations selected,
(e) add value to the activities selected,
(d) be limited in number (for practical reasons of rezzing deadlines),
(e) suit not only one, but a series of activities.
That’s why most objects were gathered in Groups so that the same group could be used for a wide range of activities. For instance, the Group 4 in Clothes category can serve elementary to upper intermediate students for grammar and speaking activities ranging from Present continuous to discussing relationship between clothing and personality and could also serve phonetic purposes .
The resultant list answered all these requirements, represented a group and, although relatively short, let itself to varied use in the context of the lesson, on all linguistic levels: lexical, grammatical, cultural, and phonetic. For example, the lexical item orange juice can be exploited phonetically (e.g. geminate voiced affricate in sandhi position), lexically and morpho-syntactically (uncountable, needs containers, special meaning of juices) and grammatically (oranges are grown, orange juice is produced, should have bought more oranges, etc.).
The real plus compared to RL realia was that these objects incorporated audio and were self-teaching: when touched they would tell their name.
The trialing of the objects
The vocabulary lists, activities, situations and lesson scenarios were tried out in two lessons on Dec 10th and Dec 12th 2007. Both lessons were team-prepared and team-taught, although not all members of the team took active teaching part in both.
First trialing
On Monday the lesson took place on the lawn near the car-park in the LL Business sim. The rezzed objects were lying around on the ground to make it easier for the learners to approach them and navigate the terrain for the phonetic activity, which involved touching the objects in turn to hear their names and answering some questions about their phonetic structure.
Other teaching aids were used as well, specifically a whiteboard to display grammar notes and comments (the contents of these are provided in the Appendix 4). Some SL object rights problems arose here which were resolved with the help of LL staff standing by.
The rezzed objects were used mostly in the phonetic warm-up part of the lesson. In the ensuing activities (for example in the food categorization activity) no significant recourse was made to them directly, which was a notable deficiency, because the activities could have gained in communicative relevance, affective appeal and tempo. This deficiency reinforces how important it is to use rezzed objects in SL classes :
- to get students’ attention and participation by adding an emotional dimension. For example, the student living in a desert would probably never have the opportunity of manipulating blueberries in a real life class,
- to give the class a more appropriate pace,
- to reduce teacher’s instruction time and increase learner’s speaking time,
- to apply the “learn by manipulating and doing” approach,
thus reaching a higher level of achievement in the teaching/learning process.
As a matter of fact, not only the rezzed objects but also the teaching aids are essential in SL due to the specific features of this environment and the profile of those who frequent it.
The objects deployed on the sim were deleted on the following day by one member of the Team, with the exception of the few which turned out to be non-deletable (this is a BTW technical note to the LL rezzing personnel).
For all activities in the lesson a plan B for contingencies was in place, specifically notecards with food & drink vocabulary plus a few simple exercises (with and without audio) which could be performed by the learners with audio problems , or at times when the teacher is temporarily absent from the scene for technical reasons. Luckily, there were on the whole no such problems, although one learner's audio was deficient at times and text chat had to be used.
Second trialing
The second trial was designed for a low intermediate level. We tried to plan the lesson using the same lexical words for different aims. It was supposed to be given on the next day but, due to unexpected SL downtime, this had to be postponed. It created certain logistic problems, which were, however, ultimately resolved and, on Wednesday, the objects were used in a different classroom setting and lesson scenario.
Some problems with the objects had been resolved by deleting the mute objects. Phonetic activities had been prepared ahead of time in a notecard displayer by Wlodek Barbosa and handed over to the teacher in charge of that lesson, because the former could not attend in person.
The lesson was taken by Misy, Stefy and Captain Jay. The rezzed objects were put on the checkout counter inside McTeague's Finer Foods (Living 124, 11, 25).
Other objects, for a wider and more complete pronouncing activity, were put on another counter. These two groups of objects were matched by a projector displaying a written list. In this way, learners could read objects names on the display while they listened to their sounds by touching them. Other teaching aids were used such as a small display inside the shop and a big whiteboard to display grammar information and exercise’s key outside the shop. A table with chairs was put in the area outside the shop to manage better the activity. Objects and boards were used in the first part (warm-up) of the lesson and during the practise activities. Notecards were used to pass guidelines, grammar information and exercises. Activities were simple and guided so that they could be useful for self-access too. Their aims were to develop, as possible as they could, listening, writing, reading and speaking.
The lesson was based on the 3Ps (presentation, practice, production), multisensoriality (audio, visual and tactile), repetition and inductive learning. Learners should learn:
- how to pronounce words by touching rezzed objects;
- word meaning just by looking at rezzed objects;
- how to use words in different situations and for different purposes;
- how to manage difficulties when they don’t know particularities of words’ uses (such as we can use container or piece words when we don’t know if a noun is count or uncount);
- to practise different abilities in the same time: individuals (challenge, curiosity, control) and interpersonal (competition, cooperation and collaboration);
- to enhance: “edutainment” (play to learn, learning by doing and cooperative learning), “emotivity” (by playing the role of another in the role play, and problem solving that could be translated in being part of a group), convergence of different subjects and types of communication, “interactive challenge” that produces pleasure and gratification by increasing self-esteem and self-confidence;
- to investigate grammar items and focus on their use;
- to create interdisciplinary lesson;
- to test English listening comprehension.
All the objects and tools were deleted after the lesson by one member of the team. All of them were used during the trial because some technical problems happened included LL’s maintenance breakdown.
Comments
One obvious limitation in using objects for class activities are SL-imposed difficulties in handling objects in SL, which would have required additional EFL-unrelated time to instruct the learners in. But these disadvantages are outnumbered.
From the experiences described above, it is obvious that having at hand a set of rezzed objects, mostly self-teaching speaking ones, offers great advantages and leads to more meaningful and time-effective classes. They also help improve the communicative and social dimension of learning.
Their flexibility and multifunctional characteristics justify the time and energy put into their rezzing. Not only can they be used for different level groups (from beginner to upper advanced) but for all kinds of skill development (communication, pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar, culture, etc).
Due to their nature, most of them may also be used in self-access guided activities or free discovery (this is where Project 1 interfaces with other LL projects, such as "rezzable objects for self-access", or "adapting handbook for SL teaching"). They could also be gathered in an illustrated speaking dictionary, together with the standard lexicographic content, such as definitions and examples of usage.
More thought needs to be given to how the use of such object sets can be maximized in SL teaching and learning. It is clear that Project 1 Team have only been able to suggest some of the ways, rather than create a compendium.
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