Contents

• Basic ICT training tasks for teachers of Modern Foreign Languages
  • Understanding generic software
• Task 1: Evaluating CALL software and websites
• Task 2: Creating an annotated list of Web links
• Task 3: Using discussion lists, blogs, wikis, social networking
• Task 4: Writing a lesson plan
• Multimedia training tasks for teachers of Modern Foreign Languages
  • A definition of multimedia
  • Pedagogy first, technology second
  • Gathering your assets
  • Editing image and sound files
  • Slotting your assets into an application
• Further reading

Understanding generic software

Before undertaking the following basic ICT tasks you should ensure that you are familiar with essential generic software. Such software is likely to have been supplied along with the hardware to which you have access, and it is a prerequisite for subsequent subject-specific training as many of the basic operations that you learn will be transferable.

Essential generic software includes:

• the Microsoft Windows operating system and accessories,
• a word processor, e.g. Microsoft Word,
• a browser, e.g. Internet Explorer,
• email software, e.g. Outlook or Eudora,
• presentation software, e.g. Microsoft PowerPoint.

See the ICT Can Do Lists document at the ICT4LT website. Download and print the pages of the document relating to the applications listed above and fill in the check boxes. This will help you assess your current level of expertise and the subsequent development of your experience and understanding of generic software.

CALL (Computer Assisted Language Learning) is used to describe the use of the computer in language learning and teaching in its widest possible sense. Other abbreviations include TELL (Technology Enhanced Language Learning), CALI (Computer Assisted Language Instruction), ELL (Electronic Language Learning), CELL (Computer Enhanced Language Learning), ICT/Modern Foreign Languages (Information and Communications Technology / Modern Foreign Languages). CALL is the internationally accepted acronym and features in the name of EUROCALL and many other professional associations dedicated to promoting the use of ICT in language learning and teaching. A definition of CALL and its different manifestations can be found in Module 1.4, Section 1, at the ICT4LT site.

Evaluating CALL software and websites is dealt with in these two sections at the ICT4LT website:

• Module 1.4, Section 3.8, Evaluating CALL software
• Module 1.5, Section 6, Evaluating websites

There is a link from both these modules to an evaluation form that you can download, print and use to evaluate a software package and a website of your own choice. Graham Davies's Favourite Websites page contains many categorised and annotated lists of links to websites relating to Modern Foreign Languages.

Using Microsoft Word, create a clickable list of websites that you can use for your own reference purposes or as an electronic worksheet for your students. Such a list is known as a webliography, a jump station or a portal. Your webliography can be saved in two different formats: DOC or HTML. If you save it in DOC format it can be loaded into Microsoft Word. If you save it in HTML format it can be loaded into Microsoft Word or into a Web browser. An example of a clickable list of annotated links in HTML format is Graham Davies's Favourite Websites page.

Step-by step creation of a webliography

• Start Microsoft Word and open a new document.
• Start your Web browser, e.g. Internet Explorer.
• Using Internet Explorer, find a website that interests you.
• When the site appears, it's full URL (Uniform Resource Locator - i.e. it's address) will appear in the Address box of your browser: e.g. http://www.ict4lt.org
• Left-click once anywhere on the URL in the Address box. It should then be highlighted in blue.
• Select Edit/Copy from the browser main menu bar.
• Minimise your browser and maximise Word.
• Select Edit/Paste from the Word main menu bar.
• The URL of the website that you have been browsing will now be pasted into your Word document.
• If you now press the Enter key - with the cursor positioned at the end of the URL - the URL should then be underlined and turn blue. This indicates that it is now a "live" link, i.e. once you have saved your Word document you can access this website again simply by calling up the Word document and clicking on the link - which will activate your browser automatically.
• An alternative way of making the URL "live" is:
  • Save your Word document.
  • Highlight the URL in your Word document - left-click and drag in the same way as you would normally highlight a word or phrase.
  • Select Insert/Hyperlink from the Word main menu bar.
  • A dialogue box should now appear, showing the link and its path. Just click OK.
  • The selected URL should now be underlined and blue.
• Type in a few lines of text to describe the website. A complete entry might look like this::
  • Language Skills: Interactive activities for teachers and learners of French, German, Spanish and Welsh, each of which has its own section of the site: French (Zut!), German (Gut!), Spanish (¡Oye!) and Welsh (Sut!) - plus a Junior Zut! section. The site includes exercises for the interactive whiteboard, PowerPoint presentations and pronunciation sections: http://www.languageskills.co.uk
• When you have completed a few entries like this save your Word document. This is your personal webliography, which you can continue adding to whenever you wish.
• You may wish to enhance your webliography with pictures and sound. See Module 2.3, Section 2.1, at the ICT4LT website, which tells you how to download and save texts, pictures, sound and video clips from the Web. See Module 1.3, Section 8, at the ICT4LT website, which tells you how to enhance your Word documents with pictures and sound.

An alternative way of creating a list of links to websites is to use an application such as Delicious or Diigo. These are social bookmarking services that enable you to store links to your favourite websites online. You can also use these applications to see the interesting links that other people bookmark, and you can share links with them in return. Preview and evaluate websites carefully. Revisit websites regularly to ensure that links are not broken or - which has happened in a few cases - have been transformed into something undesirable. See Graham Davies's article on Dodgy links.

Copyright

When downloading materials or copying from another website, it is most important that you pay attention to copyright. Above all, don't assume that just because material is publicly available on the Web you can do whatever you like with it. See the General guidelines on copyright at the ICT4LT website.

Don't paste a list of links from a website into your own documents, especially if you wish to make your documents public. If someone has assembled a list of links at their website, the list itself may constitute an original work and be subject to database right and/or copyright. The same rule applies to bibliographies, lists of films, etc.

Many language teachers regularly exchange views via electronic discussion lists, blogs, wikis and social networking sites. These are essentially ways of sharing views with the members of a group of people with a common interest.

• Browse the messages that have been contributed to the discussion lists, blogs, wikis and social networking sites listed in Module 1.5, Section 12, at the ICT4LT website.
• Reply to any messages that interest you.
• Abide by the accepted code of behaviour - known as Netiquette - when using email. See Module 1.5, Section 14.1.4, at the ICT4LT website.

Before you begin to plan a lesson using ICT ask yourself a few questions:

• Do I really need ICT to deliver this lesson?
• Could I achieve the same effect using chalk and talk and pencil and paper?
• In what ways is ICT going to enhance this lesson?
• How can I evaluate the ways in which ICT has helped me prepare and deliver this lesson?
• How can I evaluate the effect that using ICT in this lesson has contributed to learning?

In other words, don't get carried away by the technology. I use a word processor and a Web authoring tool to create handouts like this, but I find a diary and a ball point pen much handier for noting down forthcoming engagements. Horses for courses...

A lesson plan should include the following points:

• Aim of the lesson: e.g. to teach a specific point of grammar or vocabulary, or to engage learners in role-plays.
• Hardware resources required: e.g. networked multimedia computer lab with Web access or interactive whiteboard for whole-class teaching.
• Software resources required: e.g. word processor, browser, a networked multimedia CALL package.
• Preparation required: e.g. printed handouts, electronic worksheets, review of a website.
• Learners’ activities during the lesson.
• Links to relevant websites.
• Expected outcomes and follow-up activities.

A few ideas to get you started

• Use a word processor to create a set of reinforcement and recognition exercises for your students. See Module 1.3, Section 3, at the ICT4LT website.
• Use a word processor to create a set of activities designed to help your students develop grammar patterns. See Module 1.3, Section 4, at the ICT4LT website.
• Use a word processor to mark students’ work and offer feedback. See Module 4.1, Section 4, at the ICT4LT website.
• Use a word processor to create structured writing activities for your students. These might take the form of an electronic worksheet containing a series of questions that have to be answered and combined into continuous prose with suggested vocabulary and useful phrases.

Using PowerPoint

• See Module 1.3, Section 7, at the ICT4LT website for ideas on using PowerPoint for whole-class teaching.
• See Module 1.4, Section 4, at the ICT4LT website for ideas on whole-class teaching with an interactive whiteboard (IWB).

Text manipulation packages such as Storyboard and Fun with Texts have been popular with language teachers since the early 1980s and have proved their ability to promote language learning in terms of the development of reading, preparation for writing, relationships between the sound of the spoken word and the spelling of the written word. Use a text manipulation package to help your students develop memory skills and to reinforce structures. Choose an authentic text, e.g. from the Web, or a set of texts appropriate to the level of your students.

• See Module 1.4, Section 8, at the ICT4LT website.

• See also Camsoft's page on Fun with Texts. This page includes a link to a free downloadable demo. Version 4.0 of Fun with Texts includes facilities for enhancing the exercises with images, video and sound: see the Multimedia section (below).

Using the Web

There are numerous ways in which materials on the Web can be exploited in language teaching. Have a look at:

• Module 1.5 at the ICT4LT website, Introduction to the Internet
• Module 2.3 at the ICT4LT website, Exploiting Web resources online and offline

Some ideas you might consider - all of which involve exploiting authentic materials:

• Plan a trip to Eurodisney.
• Plan a European railway journey:
  • France
  • Austria
  • Germany
• Find information on the Web about a famous person from the target language country and write a profile of them.
• Use a weather report and/or weather map to introduce weather vocab and to provide a stimulus for talking about the weather in different European countries:
  • Germany: WetterOnline
  • France: Météo France
  • Austria: Click on the "Wetter" tab at the Austrian TV (ORF) site
• Explore a city site and write a miniguide: Paris Balades.

The above activities are sometimes referred to as WebQuests. See Module 1.5, Section 7.4, at the ICT4LT website

Using CD-ROMs

• Use a CD-ROM to assist the development of listening and speaking skills, e.g. the EuroTalk series.
• Use a simulation on CD-ROM to stimulate whole-class activities, e.g. Who is Oscar Lake? (Available from World of Reading.)

See Case Study 5, The Ashcombe School, in Module 3.1 at the ICT4LT website for a detailed account of how this school integrates multimedia CD-ROMs into its language courses.

• Use email to work with a partner school abroad: e-twinning. See Module 1.5, Section 14.8, at the ICT4LT website.
• Use email for tandem learning (buddy learning). See Module 1.5, Section 14.9, at the ICT4LT website.

Hot Potatoes is an authoring tool designed for creating Web-based exercises for Modern Foreign Languages learners. Create a set of exercises using Hot Potatoes. Download Hot Potatoes free of charge from: http://hotpot.uvic.ca. See Module 2.5 at the ICT4LT website, Introduction to CALL authoring programs.

Concordancers have been used in EFL teaching since the early 1980s. Curiously, they have not been used a great deal in Modern Foreign Languages teaching. A detailed description of concordancing in the Modern Foreign Languages classroom, including downloadable worksheets, can be found in Module 2.4 at the ICT4LT website.

• Create an activity for your students using a concordancer.
• Use a concordancer to help you prepare a lesson dealing with a specific point of grammar or vocabulary.

Multimedia training tasks for teachers of Modern Foreign Languages

A definition of multimedia

The term multimedia was originally used to describe packages of learning materials that consisted of a book, a couple of audiocassettes and a videocassette. Such packages are still available, but the preferred terms to describe them are multiple media or mixed media. Nowadays the term multimedia refers to computer-based materials designed to be used on a computer that can display and print text and high-quality graphics, play pre-recorded audio and video material, and assist in the creation and editing of images and audio and video recordings.

Essentially, multimedia involves the integration of texts, images, sounds and movies - but not necessarily all four media in one package. Multimedia CD-ROMs have been on the market since the early 1990s, covering a wide range of subjects, and DVD-Video and DVD-ROM discs have appeared more recently. Nowadays the Web is also being used to deliver multimedia materials - but the materials offered on most websites have a long way to go before they catch up with CD-ROMs and DVD discs in terms of quality, speed of delivery and interactivity.

Module 2.2 at the ICT4LT website focuses on multimedia CALL. This module is aimed at teachers of Modern Foreign Languages and includes advice on essential multimedia hardware and editing tools.

Now for some "how to" advice:

• How to get pictures and sound into your computer.
• How to edit pictures and sound files.
• How to integrate pictures and sound into other applications, e.g. Word and PowerPoint.

Pedagogy first, technology second

First of all, you should consider why you need to use multimedia to deliver your materials. Pedagogy should always be in charge, not the technology:

• Be prepared to reject the use of the computer for a learning outcome best handled by other media, including pencil and paper.
• Consider how the materials you create will fit into a wider curricular design.
• Decide whether discrete exercises are what you require, or whether you need a more sophisticated structure, with conditional branching, remedial loops and so on.
• You need to consider carefully what kind of application you will be using to author your materials. It may be a generic package such as PowerPoint or an authoring tool designed specifically for Modern Foreign Languages, e.g. TaskMagic or Fun with Texts Version 4.0. See Module 2.5 at the ICT4LT website, Introduction to CALL authoring programs, which discusses the general principles of authoring and describes a selection of authoring tools. Choose the application which supports your needs.
• Begin work on designing your materials away from the computer.
• Do not underestimate the time needed to author!

Gathering your assets

A collection of texts, images, sounds and movies in digital format is normally referred to in computer jargon as assets. You need to create a special folder on your computer where you can store the different multimedia files: e.g.the assets folder of Fun with Texts Version 4.0 looks like this in Windows Explorer:

Images

These are the basic ways of building up a collection of images:

• Import an image from a clipart or picture library on the Web, e.g.
  • The University of Victoria's Language Teaching Clipart Library: http://hcmc.uvic.ca/clipart/
  • General images: http://www.clipartconnection.com
  • Maps and flags: http://www.worldatlas.com/clipart.htm
• Use Google to find an image relating to a specific topic: http://www.google.co.uk. First click on the Images tab at the top of the screen and then enter your search term.
• Use a digital camera to take your own pictures and import them into your computer.
• Scan an image into your computer using a flatbed scanner. See Module 2.2, Section 2.2.3.2, at the ICT4LT website.

Respect copyright! See the General guidelines on copyright at the ICT4LT website.

Sounds

These are the basic ways of building up your collection of sounds:

• Import a sound file from an audio CD or other audio source.
• Import a sound file from a library of sound clips on the Web, e.g.
  • Sound Clips: A large free collection. Mainly sound effects, music, TV stuff, etc: http://www.webplaces.com/html/sounds.htm
  • FreeAudioClips: A large collection of audio clips. Very little to do with Modern Foreign Languages, but if you want barking dogs, howling wolves, alarm clocks and silly messages for your answering machine you'll find it all here: http://www.freeaudioclips.com
• Use Google to search for sound recordings: http://www.google.co.uk
• Make your own sound recording using sound recording/editing software, e.g. Audacity. See Module 2.2, Section 2.2.3.3, at the ICT4LT website.

Respect copyright! See the General guidelines on copyright at the ICT4LT website.

Editing image and sound files

The next step is to edit your image and sound files. To do this you need a software package designed specially for the purpose:

• Module 2.2, Section 2.2.3, at the ICT4LT website covers image edting and making and editing sound recordings in detail.

Slotting your assets into an application

Finally, you need to slot your assets into an application. This may be a generic package such as Microsoft Word or PowerPoint or an authoring tool designed specifically for Modern Foreign Languages.

• Module 1.3, Section 8, at the ICT4LT website focuses on enhancing Word and PowerPoint documents with pictures and sound.
• Module 2.5 at the ICT4LT website, Introduction to CALL authoring programs discusses the general principles of authoring and describes a selection of authoring tools. Choose the application which supports your needs.

Further reading

Davies G. (1997) "Lessons from the past, lessons for the future: 20 years of CALL". In Korsvold A-K. & Rüschoff B. (eds.) New technologies in language learning and teaching, Council of Europe, Strasbourg, France. The full text (revised 2010) is also on the Web at: http://www.camsoftpartners.co.uk/coegdd1.htm.

Davies G. (2000) ICT and Modern Languages in the National Curriculum: some personal views: Camsoft monograph. Frequently updated.

Davies G. (2002 - revised) The Internet: an introduction for language teachers. Training materials first presented at the Language World Internet Workshop, 1999.

Davies G. (2002 - revised) The Internet: write your own WWW pages: Materials first presented at the Language World Internet Workshop, 2000.

Davies G. (2002) "ICT and Modern Foreign Languages: learning opportunities and training needs", published in International Journal of English Studies 2, 1: Monograph Issue, New Trends in Computer Assisted Language Learning and Teaching, edited by Pascual Pérez Paredes & Pascual Cantos Gómez, Servicio de Publicaciones, Universidad de Murcia, Spain.

Davies G. (2003) Article on CALL in the Good Practice Guide at the website of the Subject Centre for Languages, Linguistics and Area Studies, University of Southampton. You can browse the guide by author name or subject or go straight to: http://www.llas.ac.uk/resources/gpg/61. This article is also available, with updated links, at: http://www.camsoftpartners.co.uk/docs/LLAS_Web_Guide.htm

Davies G. (2005) "Computer Assisted Language Learning: Where are we now and where are we going?" Keynote paper originally presented at the UCALL Conference, University of Ulster, Coleraine, June 2005. Regularly revised: http://www.camsoftpartners.co.uk/docs/UCALL_Keynote.htm

Davies G., Bangs P., Frisby R. & Walton E. (2005 - regularly updated) Setting up effective digital language laboratories and multimedia ICT suites for Modern Foreign Languages, London: CILT: http://www.camsoftpartners.co.uk/docs/CILT_Digital_Labs.htm

© Graham Davies 2012. This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.