Traditional (or not?

) ESL materials
[4.1] How to study this unit

[4.2] Printed textbooks, CDs, DVDs…

[4.3] Digital text

[4.4] Somewhere in the web

[4.5] Teacher’s creativity versus software

[4.6] Learning English through technology: CALL, TELL

4 UNIT
 ICT Tools Applied to the Learning of English Language

Key ideas

4.1. How to study this unit

To study this unit, you need to study the key ideas. Also read and study:

For section 4.5 → From the article “ICT in English”: ‘ICT in the English
classroom’ (p. 6-13). You studied it in unit 1, but you need to revise it again.
Remember: the article is available in the following link:

http://es.scribd.com/doc/73502262/Unit-1-WH-ICT-in-English

For section 4.5 → For IWB: “Making the most of your interactive whiteboard”. It
is available in the following link:

http://moe.eun.org/c/document_library/get_file?uuid=f4a9e773-b50a-4327-a164-
46d209e93eaa&groupId=10620

For section 4.6 → For CALL and IWB: “Introduction to Computer Assisted
Language Learning (CALL)”, by Graham Davies. The article is available in the
following link:

http://www.ict4lt.org/en/en_mod1-4.htm

For section 4.6 → For TELL: “Implementing Technology-Enhanced Language-

Learning (TELL) in an increasingly globalised world”. The article is available in the
following link:

http://www.andrewlian.com/andrewlian/prowww/itua/index.html

Read these documents thoroughly to learn all about CALL, TELL, how to use IWB, etc.
But you don’t need to study them all by heart, as this course and the evaluation
criteria will be based on how you take your knowledge into practice and apply it in
your ESL classes.

UNIT 4 – Key ideas

 ICT Tools Applied to the Learning of English Language

4.2. Printed textbooks, CDs, DVDs...

CD-player/MP3 device

Receptive skills are difficult for students for all ages due to the lack of opportunities to
listen to authentic material in our daily lives. All textbooks come with a set of CDS
with songs, stories teachers use to engage the student and to help improving their
listening skills.

Some of the uses of listening material through the traditional CD-player are:
Use of songs to develop grammar points, vocabulary, pronunciation and spelling.
Gap-fill exercise: gaps that students need to fill in with a word provided (or not,
depending on the age of the student) from a list.
Spelling mistakes: provide the students with a list of key words to revise
vocabulary and spelling. The list contains some mistakes student needs to correct
when listening to the CD.
Cut out small chunks of language: teacher provides the students with
laminated words taken from different sentences. Each pair of students needs to
organize and order the sentence. At the same time they need to organize the text
with all the sentences handed out to the students.

Video/movies

Video is a valuable and sometimes underused

classroom tool. The temptation of just playing a video
to “fill” time at the end of a semester or course is
enormous especially when all the topics have been
covered and children start missing the last days of
class.

However, video is a listening tool but with the addition of images students have a
more complete idea of the setting action, emotions and gestures of different characters.
Furthermore, it is another tool which provides visual stimulus to the student.

UNIT 4 – Key ideas

 ICT Tools Applied to the Learning of English Language

Let’s see some activities you can do with your students. Once again, having into account
their age and their proficiency in the language:

Divide the group in pairs. Some students will see the images and some
others will just hear it. The students watching the video will tell the
Split viewing “blind” student what they have seen. The information formed by the
sounds, voices and noises student have seen or heard can be quite
different. We tend to create a visual image of what we cannot see.

Teacher may present some vocabulary with images from the movies or
Vocabulary with definitions and the students need to look for the object that
search appears in the video. A good exercise with cartoons and children would
be searching for colors, clothes, feelings.

Students watch a movie scene or a clip of a movie (hopefully new to

Vision on/off them) and they need to predict the title, the main characters, the action
and what´s going to happen.

Students watch a scene and then they write a newspaper article about
Witness game what took place in the scene they watched (it would be really helpful if
there were a lot of actions taking place at the same time).

Look at some examples in this webpage: English as 2nd Language.

https://www.thoughtco.com/esl-4133095

These are some ideas about using resources you shouldn’t forget about. The way
you use them and how you implement them in class depends a lot on your
experience, your students and the resources you have. And of course:

It mainly depends on your imagination and creativity.

UNIT 4 – Key ideas

 ICT Tools Applied to the Learning of English Language

Here are some examples of games used in ESL classrooms. In the web page Teaching
English Games.

http://www.teachingenglishgames.com/

4.3. Digital text

Word

Although the course is intended to present new ICT tools for the ESL classroom, it is
really helpful to revise some simple IT resources we may have available in our
classroom but we sometimes forget because we are too concerned about using the
latest technology when we even do not know how to use it, the “wow” effect as Pete
Sharma calls it.

Some of the activities and tools may have been studied in the first level of this subject,
so these ideas are just a revision.

Teachers can prepare, save and share material created by using a Word
document or an OpenOffice document (OpenOffice is an office suite similar to
Microsoft Office but free). On the other hand, learners, even younger ones, can practice
writing, spelling and listening skills.

http://es.openoffice.org/

UNIT 4 – Key ideas

 ICT Tools Applied to the Learning of English Language

The teacher can:

Inserting images and links: add visual imagery into your worksheets to enhance
your presentation of vocabulary, and young learners will retain the information
more easily. We can also provide controlled-teacher websites we want our students
to visit in order to practice a language item, do a listening activity or play an
educational game.
Creating shapes: insert shapes to add different interactive activities. Do it by
clicking on Insert > Shapes.

Shapes are useful for basic questions and exercises. With this tool you can:

Add a text box to your form

Add a check box to your form

Add a drop-down menu to your form

The student can:

Drag and drop pieces of language from two columns to match synonyms, pictures
with the word it stands for; Cut and paste information from a listening script and
exercise.
Dictation: simple word activity which can substitute the traditional pen and paper.
Noticing activity: great for grammar points. For instance we want our students to
notice the 3rd person singular verbs. They produce a short text describing an animal
(we can also have in the word document a picture from the animal to make it more
visual). We organize them in pairs to work in the computers.
o For instance: Elephant →This animal is very big, It
lives in Africa and India. It has long ears and a short
tail. It eats grass.
o Different groups may write different descriptions.
Pairs exchanged computers and changing the color of
the 3rd personal singular –s or highlighting it or
underlining it. Therefore, they reinforced the concept
of the –s for the Simple present in a simple, fun and
engaging activity.

UNIT 4 – Key ideas

 ICT Tools Applied to the Learning of English Language

Collaborative writing: you can have a pair of students in each computer. Each
document has a different picture from the same story. They need to write under the
picture what they see or what they are saying. When exchanging computers,
students add more information. Once every group has written in each picture, you
put pictures in order according to the story. This may be printed and put on the
walls

Here is an example of creative writing worksheets: “Creative writing”.

http://bogglesworldesl.com/creativewriting.htm

Slide shows

PowerPoint has become widely used in education due to its capability to present
information in an attractive, engaging and visual way. Here you have some ideas:

Create slideshows of vocabulary words appearing with

Create slideshows definitions to use them as flashcards. You can even add the
pronunciation of the word exposed

Practise spelling by making letter to appear one by one.

Practise spelling Bear in mind, it would be a great tool for young learners
with reading problems

Create a story with different pictures similar to the one we

Create a story
have explained in the previous part

Divide students in pairs. Ask Student A to watch the

Information gap presentation and B to give their back to the screen. Give a
activity handout with a gapped text to B, who has to ask the right
questions to Student A

Students’ creation
It will enhance collaborative work among them and it
of slideshows with
provide a great activity for writing
topics

UNIT 4 – Key ideas

 ICT Tools Applied to the Learning of English Language

Look at this example, “PowerPoint resources”, of what you can

do with presentations in your ESL classroom. These
presentations may be downloaded and saved to your disk and
may also be viewed online by clicking the link beside the gold
star.

http://classroom.jc-schools.net/la/activities/pptresources.html

4.4. Somewhere in the web

You can share your documents with your students and colleagues from your school or
other schools.

Internet offers places where you can upload and download text documents, slide
show presentations, images or music and video files, for example.

Share documents

Create and share your work with con Google Docs: documents, presentations,
spreadsheets, forms, drawings and tables:

Upload your files: it’s an easy and quick process.

Access your documents at any moment: you can edit your documents and
modify them.
Share your work: you can modify other people’s documents and create
collaborative work.

To start using Google Docs, you just need an email account.

UNIT 4 – Key ideas

 ICT Tools Applied to the Learning of English Language

Go to www.google.com. Then, click on Más (More) > Docs:

This is the screen you should see:

Create or upload documents just by clicking on one of the two left tabs, on “Create
new”:

Or on “Upload”:

UNIT 4 – Key ideas

 ICT Tools Applied to the Learning of English Language

Modify anything you want (it works as a normal word processor) and save it
(sometimes you should rename it if you want to keep different versions of the same
document).

When you save it, you need to indicate if it’s going to be visible for everybody or only
for some people you choose (for example your students or other teachers). This means
you need to decide if you want to share it with people, making it public, or if you prefer
to keep it private.

You can do this at the same time as you’re uploading the document, by answering a
specific question, or afterwards by clicking on “More options” and selecting an option
under “Visibility”.

If you want to share your work, you only need to give the web address to them. For
example: we wanted to share this document, named “Google docs”, with you and we
uploaded here in this web address:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/10BvU_fbefNME79yAO8ZveIwLy4wDNlqdDo7
uUYg9Z1Y/edit?hl=en_US&pli=1#

You can also change the settings for the ownership of the page by clicking on
“Ownership”:

UNIT 4 – Key ideas

 ICT Tools Applied to the Learning of English Language

An advantage about this tool is the possibility of sharing the documents and working
on them at the same time, as it shows who’s connected at that moment; and you
can send comments and chat.

You can use this tool to upload some exercises for your students to answer, or to create
collaborative work, for example: if you want your students to write a story in pairs or in
groups.

And remember you can download the documents as well.

Create and share your work with con Google Docs: documents, presentations,
spreadsheets, forms, drawings and tables:

SlideShare

SlideShare is an easy way to share presentations, documents and videos.

You don’t need an account when searching other people’s presentations. For example,
go to the web page http://www.slideshare.net/ and type “ICT in English” on the search
bar:

UNIT 4 – Key ideas

 ICT Tools Applied to the Learning of English Language

Choose any of the presentations listed there and watch it or download it; for
example, this one named “ICT applied to English teaching”:

But you do need an account to upload and share presentations, although it’s a free
account.

Share images and photos

One web site which offers image hosting and free photo sharing is Google Photos.

Google Photos can help you to organize your digital photos in a combination of picture
sharing/photo editing package.

You can easily post pictures, quickly make collages and movies, tag pictures to
locations with Google Earth, or edit the photo that users have already uploaded.

Google Photos is really useful for your English classroom to enhance what you are
teaching and students are learning.

Other web sites which offer image hosting and free photo sharing are Photobucket,
Flickr and Shutterfly.

Find the links for these websites in the “More about” section.

Share music

Songs are one of the most traditional resources for the language classes.

UNIT 4 – Key ideas

 ICT Tools Applied to the Learning of English Language

Use Internet not only for downloading songs but also for uploading any music file
to be used in your ESL classroom: songs created in English by your students, music
with exercises, etc.

The most popular web site where you can upload music files is MySpace, but there are
other free sites like The Internet Archive, where you can easily store your own music
tracks for people to download.

Share videos

As for videos, apart from Youtube, you can use DailyMotion.

As an example of what you can do with DailyMotion in your ESL teaching, have a look
at this web page named “Free ESL Songs And Music from Englights.com”.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xd4bc1_free-esl-songs-and-music-from-engli_music

Find the links of these websites in the “More about” section.

UNIT 4 – Key ideas

 ICT Tools Applied to the Learning of English Language

4.5. Teacher’s creativity versus software

ICT tools come in two categories: hardware and

software, and the first one can’t operate without the
second one.

Some input devices that are available to the English

class teacher are: keyboard, scanners, digital cameras,
video cameras and speech or voice input.

Some output devices that are available to the English class teacher are: the computer
monitor, screen or visual display unit, large format displays, interactive whiteboards,
large screen monitors, printers, software, CD-ROMs, Internet, Intranet and reference
material.

The range of software available for educational use is

growing fast. Many resources are also being made
available by teachers via Internet.

An effective ICT policy should start with a

departmental audit of existing knowledge of software
that is available.

But that wouldn’t be of any use without teachers and students’ imagination and
creativity, as we’ve already mentioned.

There are no limits when using traditional IT tools or the new tools, online and
software, available for the teachers.

The only limit is you: interest, motivation and curiosity should always be present
when preparing your classes.

Hot potatoes

The Hot Potatoes suite includes six applications, enabling you to create interactive
multiple-choice, short-answer, jumbled-sentence, crossword, matching/ordering and
gap-fill exercises for the World Wide Web.

UNIT 4 – Key ideas

 ICT Tools Applied to the Learning of English Language

Hot Potatoes is freeware. Remember you can download it from the Hot Potatoes home
page.

http://web.uvic.ca/hrd/hotpot/

Look at the following example of what you can do with Hot Potatoes in your ESL
classes; it’s been designed for the third level of Primary students.

http://calasanz.edu.gva.es/7_ejercicios/web_grupocefire/Envios/Adolfo/definitivos/a
do0.htm

IWB

An interactive whiteboard (IWB) is a large interactive display that connects to a

computer and projector.

A projector projects the computer's desktop onto the board's surface where users
control the computer using a pen, finger, stylus, or other device. The board is typically
mounted to a wall or floor stand.

To study more about interactive whiteboard, read related articles in “How to study this
unit”.

UNIT 4 – Key ideas

 ICT Tools Applied to the Learning of English Language

4.6. Learning English through technology: CALL, TELL

CALL (Computer Assisted Language Learning)

Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) is often perceived as an approach to

language teaching and learning in which the computer is used as an aid to the
presentation, reinforcement and assessment of material to be learned, usually
including a substantial interactive element.

Levy (1997:1) defines CALL more succinctly and more broadly as "the search for and
study of applications of the computer in language teaching and learning". Levy's
definition is in line with the view held by the majority of modern CALL practitioners.

For a comprehensive overview of CALL read the article, by Graham Davies:

“Introduction to Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL)”, mentioned in “How
to study this unit”.

TELL (Technology Enhanced Language Learning)

What has been the impact of technology on teaching and learning in the language
classroom? It seems clear that there are quite a lot of schools where technology has had
no impact at all. Is there potential waiting to be fulfilled?

Technology Enhanced Language Learning refers to the importance of using

technology in language learning in order to encourage students’ curiosity and guarantee
their integral development.

For a comprehensive overview of TELL, read the article “Implementing Technology-

Enhanced Language-Learning (TELL) in an increasingly globalised world”, mentioned
in “How to study this unit”.

UNIT 4 – Key ideas

 ICT Tools Applied to the Learning of English Language

In Depth

Computer Assisted Language Learning: Where are we now and where are
we going?

By Graham Davies. This article was first presented as a keynote paper at the UCALL
Conference, University of Ulster at Coleraine, 14-15 June 2005, and in then in revised
format at the conference on “E-Learning and Japanese Language Education: Pedagogy
and Practice, Oxford Brookes University”, 31 March to 1 April 2007. It was presented
again in revised format as a guest lecture at the University of Warwick, 3 October 2007.
This is the abstract:

“In this paper I begin by looking back at early developments in CALL, beginning with
my first contact with computers in the 1970s, and moving forward to the present day,
highlighting the key developments in Information and Communications Technologies
and how they have related to contemporary approaches to language teaching. I refer to
the various attempts to establish a CALL typology and to document the history of
CALL, and I discuss in which ways the advent of the Web changed approaches to CALL
and the lessons that should have or could have been learned from the past. I refer to the
large amount of money the UK government has invested in promoting e-learning and
question whether this has had the impact it should have had. The paper concludes with
a speculative look at possible future developments.”

The article is available in the virtual classroom or in the following link:

http://www.camsoftpartners.co.uk/docs/UCALL_Keynote.htm

UNIT 4 – In Depth
 ICT Tools Applied to the Learning of English Language

Creativity resource for teachers

Visit this website if you believe, as they do, in:

Using creativity of artists to inspire creativity in teachers and students.
Making life easier for teachers by providing downloadable art images, reliable
information, lesson plans and resources.

http://creativity.denverartmuseum.org/

OpenOffice

OpenOffice.org is both a product and an open-source project. Both have been in

existence since October 13, 2000. OpenOffice.org 1.0, the product, was released on
April 30, 2002

Learn more about this suit visiting the website; download it and learn how to use for
example OpenOffice Writer and OpenOffice Draw.

Why don’t you try to design some activities for your classes with this suite? It’s very
similar to Microsoft Office, with the advantage of being free.

http://es.openoffice.org/

UNIT 4 – In Depth
 ICT Tools Applied to the Learning of English Language

Share documents

Archive

The Internet Archive, a 501(c) (3) non-profit, is building a digital library of Internet
sites and other cultural artifacts in digital form. Like a paper library, we provide free
access to researchers, historians, scholars, and the general public.

http://www.archive.org/

Share images

Photobucket

Photobucket is the place to store, create and share photos and videos for life. Upload all
your best pictures, images, graphics, icons, and videos and share them by email or link
them to your favorite sites like Facebook and Twitter.

http://www.photobucket.com/

UNIT 4 – In Depth
 ICT Tools Applied to the Learning of English Language

IWB resources for English classroom

eBoard: eBoard is an easy to use, yet powerful, web site hosting solution used by
schools around the world - over 50,000 visits per day. Increase communication and
collaboration and integrate technology into the classroom by posting links, photos,
pod casts, streaming video, and other digital content in just minutes.

http://www.eboard.com/

UNIT 4 – In Depth
 ICT Tools Applied to the Learning of English Language

Test

1. The gap-fill exercise consists of:

A. Filling gaps with a word.
B. Making a card with a picture and a space where you write a word.
C. Filling a text with words you look for in an online dictionary.

2. Split viewing is:

A. An activity you can do in class by using a film.
B. Software to create visual activities.
C. A teaching strategy to make students discuss about a specific subject.

3. If the students watch a scene and then write an article about what took place in the
scene, they are doing an activity named “the witness game”.
A. True.
B. False.

4. An effective ICT policy should start with a departmental audit of existing knowledge
of software that is available.
A. True.
B. False.

5. Can English young learners practice listening skills with digital texts?
A. No, only writing skills.
B. Yes, as well as writing skills.

6. Link:

A. Google Docs 1. Documents

B. SlideShare 2. Presentations
C. Flickr 3. Music
D. MySpace 4. Videos
E. DailyMotion 5. Images

UNIT 4 – Test
 ICT Tools Applied to the Learning of English Language

7. TELL refers to:

A. Software.
B. Learning.
C. Web site.

8. Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) is an approach to language teaching

and learning in which the computer is used as an aid to the material to be learned
but without interactive elements.
A. True.
B. False.

9. An interactive whiteboard (IWB) is a large interactive display that connects to a

computer and projector.
A. True.
B. False.

10. Hot Potatoes is shareware:

A. True
B. False; it’s freeware.

UNIT 4 – Test