TOPICS
21st Century Language Learning
The major reason 21st century language learning differs from other centuries is the technology and its constant effect on the education. After decades of the same methods , the type of learning started to change and it was a change to better. Communication and collaboration became a major way for students to learn. Teachers were asked to come up with innovative learning methods that would make the students eager to learn. New skills, tools and strategies were brought to class practice.
Not only individual learning, but also group and team learning is the goal in this system. Apart from that, international involvement is also an important part of the 21st century language learning.
Technology was put in the students’ hands along with tools and activities. Experiencing them by the first hand would lead the students to be explorers and designers. The teachers would also spend their time crafting new activities rather than creating presentations.
So, the 21st century language learning is a socio-cultural model learning that would require the teachers to change the way they look at teaching language, how they use technology in the classroom. Because if the teachers don’t integrate the technology with their teaching, it will not make much of a difference.
PODCAST
Hello there! Today, I will be talking about my podcast experience. A podcast is a digital media file that can be subscribed and downloaded. It can be about any topic including subjects that language learners could benefit from.
Podcasts can be used by both students and teachers. Students can listen to and also produce podcasts and post them on their blogs. After podcasts are shared, they can listen to each other’s podcasts and take notes, have a discuss about their topics and how they handled it. There are many things they can do in a podcast. They can produce a story, a poem, talk about places, their dreams, interview some people and many more things. As for the teachers, they can use podcasts in classes or create their own. They can let students know about the podcasts that might interest them and encourage them to listen to them regularly.
We should use podcasts in classes because it is a student-centered method for language learning. It provides them a real audience to interact with and develop their foreign language skills. Podcasts also give teachers an opportunity to listen to all of the students and give feedback to them. Another good thing about it is that the students get to listen to themselves and try to improve their performance. It motivates the students and comes up with a way to use language skills.
*Before I share my podcast with you, I would like to tell you what I have done through the whole process.
It was a fun task for me to do, I enjoyed preparing and talking for the podcast.
First, I wrote down my choice for the podcast which is ‘60-second idea to improve the world’ and listened to some of the sample podcasts. After I decided on a starting sentence to the podcast, I asked some of my friends and my family what they would change in the world and how. Then, I took my idea ‘environmental pollution’ and prepared a 60-second speech about a way to make the world a clean place. I will put my prep papers below.
I would most certainly give my students a task like this. Because it is a task that needs research and sometimes collaboration , skills my students will benefit from over the years. Additionally, they will need to use their foreign language skills which will bring me a chance to evaluate them more effectively.
Here is my '60- second idea to improve the world' podcast.
WIKIS
Hello there! Today, I will be talking about my wikiing experience.
I have been
given a task to create a page about a book that I liked and would recommend to
others. Our task is to give some information about the book and the author,
briefly talk about the plot of the book, come up with some questions that would
make you want to read it, explain why I recommend it and rate the book from 1
to 5. We were also supposed to find a tag line. My choice of book was ‘’ What Is
Called Thinking?’’ by Martin Heidegger. It is a book about the concept of
thinking and the process we go through when we think about anything.
I think this
was a brilliant task for us to share our favorite books with friends and our
teacher. I had no difficulties at all while writing the review because I used
to write movie reviews in a magazine called ‘Mızıka’. It was my first time
writing on a wiki page but I didn’t have any problems with that, either.
I would most certainly use wikis with my
students just like the other activities you can see on my blog. It is a great way
to learn about my students’ taste of book and also to find out about their
characteristics as our favorite books reflect our characters.
PADLET
Hello
there! Today, I will be talking about my padlet experience.
We have
been given a task to choose a problem in today’s world and create a padlet wall
about the chosen problem. We were supposed to list the things we know about the
problem under the column ‘what we know’, then list those we aim to know under
‘what we want to know’ column. Lastly, we were supposed to search and find
answers to our questions and list them under the column called ‘what we learned’.
The process of my project made me feel both happy and sad. The fact that we
live in a world with such problems worried and upset me but I was happy to know
that there were ways to overcome them and that there were works already in
progress in that purpose.
I was lucky
to be using Padlet for this task because it is such an easy and helpful tool
that I have used before. Since everything we use within the technology contribute
to the 21st century learning skills, Padlet is therefore a great
platform to use in the purpose of teaching and learning, I hope to use this
tool more in the future!
DIGITAL POSTER
Hello there! Today, I will be talking about my digital poster making experience.
We have been given a task to create a movie poster based on one of the books that we have read. We imagined what kind of a poster it would be and designed one on our own. We were asked to put the title of the novel’s name, our names as producers and the author’s name as the director. We also put a picture or something similar, on condition that we do not use the book cover, on the poster to give the audience an idea of the plot. We have quoted two lines from the book and added a tag line for the purpose of making the audience interested in the movie. Last but not least, the list of leading cast of the movie was added, the actors and actresses that we would hope to portray the characters in the book.
I chose the ‘Gregor the Overlander’ series because those books are one of the first fantastic series I had the chance to read and made me very interested in that genre. I have a very special bond with those books and if I ever had a chance to make a movie based on some books, it would definitely be from this novel series.
I used Canva for this specific task because it is such an easy platform to use if you know what you want. Thus, I had no problem at all while designing my poster. It was a very fun task to do and I certainly plan to give this kind of a task to my future students. I am sure they will love doing it just like I did.
Here is the poster that I created.
INFOGRAPHICS
Hello there! Today, I will be talking about my infographic experience.
We have been given a task to create an infographic about the online higher online education in Turkey. I used the information of a survey published by Sinop University. I used Canva to create an infographic and add the data in it since it is a very easy platform and one that I am familiar with.
An infographic is quite useful in my opinion. It is valid for both the creating side and the reading side. For the usage of visuals which deliver the data, infographics make it easier for you to understand and comprehend the topic in a more effective way.
Here is the infographic that I created.
DIGITAL STORYTELLING
Hello there! Today, I will be talking about my digital storytelling experience.
We have been given a task to create a digital story. Oğuz, Ömer and I were a group of three for this particular task. Here are links to each of their blogs.
* https://akihito2207.blogspot.com/
We chose to do a 'How To' digital story and decided to create one about making a fishtail bracelet. Since I know how to do it, I took some photos and videos in the making process. After I have finished, I sent them to my group members. I came up with a text for the video and while we were editing the videos on Sony Vegas Pro, we split the text into three and recorded them. Then, we added the voiceovers and some background music into the video. Even though we had some difficulty getting used to this particular tool, we managed to learn and created a pretty good video.
For digital story tasks make student research about certain topics and encourage them to communicate through the process and helps them make a connection, it is quite a good way to use in ELT classes. I had fun doing this task with my friends and plan to use it in the future in my classes as well.
Here is the digital story we created.
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