" Into Your World"

Read two of articles about technology for ELT that provided

Find out the followings:

What is the first articles telling you about?

What is the second articles telling you about?

What is e-mail?

What is blog?

What are the advantages of using e-mail in ELT based on article?

What are the advantages of using blog in ELT based on article?

What are the rationales of using e-mail in ELT based on article?

What are the rationales of using blog in ELT based on article?

What kinds of activities can the teacher apply using e-mail in ELT?

What a range of activities can the teachers apply using blog in ELT?

ANSWER

The first article (Using E-mail in Foreign Language Teaching: Rationale and Suggestions) tells us about using e-mail in teaching and learning foreign language, also the advantages of using e-mail, then some activities that given by teacher or instructor to the students, so students know what should they  do by using e-mail for improving their foreign language skills.

 2. The second article (Blogs in English language teaching and learning: Pedagogical uses and student responses) tells us about teaching and learning by using blog, some activities in blogging, there is also a survey to some classmates so can give us the information about students' perceptions on blog, so there will be a feedback.

   3. According to Warschauer, Shetzer, and Meloni (2000:3), e-mail is the mother of all Internet applications, where it works as a form of asynchronous computer-mediated communication. It mean e-mail is one of the most important requirement for having such an internet applications, because most all of applications need our e-mail to fulfill the requirement for signing up or log in.

 4. Blog is essentially a homepage managed by a writer. As McIntosh (2005) states, blog is recognized by its regularly updated, time and date stamped posts. Beside those features, we also can leave a comment to the post. There are still many features in blog, we can design its theme of the page or the layout, and add some gadget media to the page.

 5. Based on the article, there are some advantages of using e-mail, such as:

Extends language learning time and place. It means, to communicate with others in the foreign language, the learners do not have to be in a specific classroom at a particular time of day.  Since students or learners just need to log in to their e-mail account and doing the task that has been offered.

Provides a context for real-world communication and authentic interaction. It means, the learners or student could feel the real atmosphere since it is written communication so it seems like the possibility for each learner to preserve the entire communication.

Expands topics beyond classroom-based ones.  So the learners has an additional context for discussion the topic.

Promotes student-centered language learning.  As Patrikis (1995) states, e-mail allows for communication between students in a context where the teacher's role is no longer at the center. FL learners can choose the topic and change the direction of the discussion so the learners could  experience increased control over their own learning.

Encourages equal opportunity participation. As Beauvois (1997) research shows us that there are many people willing to learn foreign language through the technology context than face-to-face.

Connects Speakers Quickly and Cheaply. It means, to communicate with native speakers of the target language without the high cost of traveling abroad so student can use e-mail.

6. According to me based on the article, the advantages of using blog in ELT is motivating students to write without a concern for word limits in their post. Students get motivated by the fact that when they posted something to the blog, their writing was essence published, and could be accessed and read by number of classmates, teacher and also possibly people around the world. And also by using blog, students can make a discussion to the case that written in a blog, so student could share their opinion by leaving a comment in the blog.

 7. Based on the article the rationales of using e-mail in ELT are it is easy to be accessed at anytime on the computer or laptop and café cyber. Since teacher or students has no much time to held a meeting so it is easier to submit or manage students assignment. By using e-mail also we can add more informations.

 8. Based on the article the rationales of using blog in ELT is same like the e-mail one, it is easier to be applied. Efficiency of the time between teacher and students.

Based on article, there are some activities than can teacher do or offer to the students by using e-mail. Such as:

1.      Group e-mail exchanges. In here teacher gives some instructors to the students as their task. And there are three kind of activities that teacher can apply, such as

Pre-Class Activities. In this activity, teacher or instructor provide an assignment as the next project for the student, so the students already prepare for their assignment through the e-mail where the students could do e-mail exchanges with other people to share anything that relate to the topic. So in here by using e-mail, the students get the information that they need.

Post-Class Activities. In this activity, teacher can create or post a topic or case to be solved by the students. Students have to give their opinion toward the case. By using the e-mail, students can make a discussion with other.

Supplemental Activities. It means with e-mail, teachers can assign supplemental activities for which students are responsible but which are not directly linked to class activities.

E-mail Interaction Between Classes. In this section the writer put some ways collaborative projects between classes in different locations. Collaborative projects: focus on reading and writing exchange and also Collaborative projects: focus on a joint product. This type of activity can link students both to other native speakers and to other learners and increases input from a variety of sources.

       2. One-on-one E-mail Interaction

In this section the writer offered suggestions for one-on-one exchanges between the language learner and three possible partners: a teacher, a fellow language learner, and a native speaker of the target language.

E-mail Between the Teacher and the Foreign Language Learner

Informal Messages. Teacher and student decide on frequency how often they would do e-mail exchanges (e.g., once a week, once per chapter, twice a semester) and the content of the messages (e.g., course- or chapter-related, open). Teachers should respond promptly to the student messages.

Electronic Feedback on Writing Assignments. Teachers can offer their students the opportunity to confer with them electronically about their writing. This possibility is very useful, especially when a class meets only once or twice a week. Students can e-mail their questions to the teacher, without having to wait for the next class session.

Dialogue Journals. Teachers can require students to write one entry per week or one per lesson. They can require that the content be related to the current lesson or allow students to write on any topic they choose.

Blogs in English language teaching and learning: Pedagogical uses and student responses

Brad Blackstone National University of Singapore

John Spiri Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology

Naeko Naganuma Akita International University

               Blog is essentially a homepage managed by a writer. As McIntosh (2005) states, blog is recognized by its regularly updated, time and date stamped posts. Beside those features, we also can leave a comment to the post. There are still many features in blog, we can design its theme of the page or the layout, and add some gadget media to the page. According to Stanley (2006), “(Blogs are) a way of opening up the classroom walls and showing the wider world what is happening... thus creating a small language learning community.” Similarly, while relating the findings of a series of interviews with bloggers in the Stanford University area, as Swartz (2004) relate how a rhetoric instructor/researcher using blogs explained that for students “blogging created a sense of community that would be less likely to emerge in a conventional classroom setting”. As Murray (2007) notes that a key feature of a “blog community” is the fact that all community members have easy access to each others’ blogs. This can be reached with moodle, a class wiki page, or the blog community’s homepage (which might also be called a ‘blog magazine’).

        However, student and teacher has a limit in timing so that is why a student in the traditional writing class has typically presented his or her work to the teacher alone, or at most, to a group of peer reviewers and then to the teacher. In this article, the writer of this paper implemented parallel cycles of blogging and associated activities within four different English for Academic Purposes (EAP) and composition courses across four sequential levels during two semesters of one academic year at an English-language medium university in Japan. Each cycle included the following activities:

Every student in each class set up a blog.

Every student’s blog address was distributed to all other students in the Blogs in English language teaching and learning 3 classes at each respective level via the teacher’s blog site, a class wiki or a class moodle page.

Every student worked at least half the semester with a “blogging buddy,” a classmate/peer reviewer who would read the student’s blog post before  it was posted.

Eevery student made at least one post on a specified theme to his or her blog every two weeks.

Every student was also required to read and respond to at least three posts made by classmates during each biweekly cycle.

  In blogging we have some principles in support of blogging activities because when the authors of this paper began teaching writing and integrated

skills courses at various levels a principal assumption was that for academic success the students needed to have opportunities to develop their computer- and language-based skills. Another assumption was that for optimal English language development, beside not just within the confines of the traditional classroom but the students needed as many opportunities as possible to interact in the target language within their community of learners.

            We know Computer-Assisted Language Learning (CALL) as the applications or media for us to learn language by using computer. In here also there is principle for CALL pedagogues” include six requirements:

language learning potential,

learner fit (presenting tasks “appropriate to learners’ linguistic ability level”),

meaning focus,

authenticity,

positive impact (resulting in “effects beyond its language learning potential”), and

practicality. Similarly, based on the experiences of teachers surveyed worldwide,

As Warschauer & Whittaker (2002) have compiled a set of considerations for teachers planning to implement CALL tasks. Their suggested considerations such as:

understanding of one’s goals,

aiming for the integration of skills activities

understanding the “complexity” of CALL tasks,

providing strong teacher support, and

involving learners in decision-making.

         The cycle of blogging activities that was implemented included students setting up blogs, collaborating with blogging buddies (some within an appointed group of classmates called “blogging groups,” but others  not), making blog posts, then reading classmates’ post and commenting. The ease with which a student or any other blogger can set up a blog has been discussed in the section above. This section addresses blog posts, peer reviews and peer comments on blogs posts, blogging groups, and the blogging buddy method. It also includes a summary of the common aspects of blogging that were covered in our various sources.

There are some activities that teacher can apply by using blog in teaching, including:

Peer reviews. Peer review giving students a sense of responsibility and accomplishment both as readers and writers. As Cho, Christian, & Charney (2006) note that, “Peer feedback appears to bring about a higher perception of meaning-change revision while most teacher influenced revisions happen at the surface level”.

Peer comments on blog posts. This activity provides students with the opportunity to participate in a meaningful, largely autonomous forum where they can exchange ideas, while practicing previously learned skills and developing new ones.

Blogging groups. In this activity, teacher ask students must respond to other people post.

        The fact that blogs are a relatively recent educational activity (Thorne & Payne, 2005), so that is why the literature does not seem to contain references to  “blogging groups” as used herein, as subgroups of learners determined by the teacher who have a special responsibility to read and comment on the blogs of three or four classmates.

       In blogging, we also know about summary of common aspects of the blogging activities.There are some aspects of the blogging activities in the eleven classes of the writers of this paper were as follows:

1) All blogging activities were assigned and not optional.

2) In addition to writing their own blogs, students were required to read and comment on classmates’ blogs.

3) Every student had a blogging buddy, assigned by the teacher or chosen by the student.

4) Every student blogging buddy was encouraged to make any sort of comment necessary to improve his/her partner’s writing. This was understood to include language usage and/or content/organization corrections.

5) Every student made blog posts for half of their respective course without utilizing the blogging buddy system, and then made posts for an equal length of course time utilizing the blogging buddy system.

  There are several variations on the application of the blogging buddy system included:

whether a student commented on peer papers by writing on a printed copy, or typing directly onto the computer,

whether blog posts and comments were made during class time or outside of class time,

 whether the minimum length of each post was specified by the teacher or not,

whether students were assigned to a blogging group.

 The results show us about why the participants are important for a number of reasons. First, 82.4%  students who liked writing in general, 81.4%liked blogging as an activity. 78% noted that they liked posting classroom assignments on their blogs. So it seems like: Students who like to write will probably like blogging, while students who do not like writing might not like blogging.

  Second, students responses seem to indicate that whether students liked writing or not, 93.1% of them pleased in reading what their classmates write and 97%  having their classmates read and comment on their own writing.

            Based on the survey results it seems clear that students truly appreciated the need to improve their writing and considered having an editor and being an editor valuable. While 85.5% expressed satisfaction with peer review activities in general, 93.8% indicated that having a blogging buddy was more effective for improving their writing than not having one. 96.6% also indicated that being a blogging buddy editor is a good learning experience.

         There are several advantages of using blog in ELT is motivating students to write without a concern for word limits in their post. Students get motivated by the fact that when they posted something to the blog, their writing was essence published, and could be accessed and read by number of classmates, teacher and also possibly people around the world. And also by using blog, students can make a discussion to the case that written in a blog, so student could share their opinion by leaving a comment in the blog.

Using E-mail in Foreign Language Teaching: Rationale and Suggestions

Margaret Gonglewski, Christine Meloni and Jocelyne Brant margaret [at] gwu.edu | meloni [at] gwu.edu | brant [at] gwu.edu The George Washington University (Washington DC, USA)

  According to Warschauer, Shetzer, and Meloni (2000:3), e-mail is the mother of all Internet applications, where it works as a form of asynchronous computer-mediated communication. However, in foreign language (FL) classroom we have seen many innovative ideas for the use of e-mail. It is difficult to keep track of what these innovations are and how they might benefit the language learner because there are so many teaching and learning ways or methods by using e-mail.

In this article, the writer would like to describe the advantages that have been referred to in the literature about the use of e-mail in foreign language learning contexts. The writer has several opinions about the advantages of using e-mail in foreign language class:

1.      Extends language learning time and place. To communicate with others in the foreign language, the learners do not have to be in a specific classroom at a particular time of day. They just need to log in and write e-mail from the comfort of their own room, and for the rest of their times, they can spend both composing and reading in the foreign language in a communicative context.

 2.      Provides a context for real-world communication and authentic interaction. E-mail can provides a context for communicating with other speakers in authentic communicative situations besides connecting foreign language speakers outside of the classroom. Interaction via e-mail gives a feeling of reality to students' communicative efforts that may seem artificial in a classroom setting. As Schwienkorst (1998) states, "The major advantage of written communication is ... the possibility for each learner to preserve the entire communication ..." and to have for future use"

 3.      Expands topics beyond classroom-based ones. Content and grammatical topics which is to be presented and practiced by the language teachers have to follow the schedule in a semester. By e-mail learners has an additional context for discussion.

 4.      Promotes student-centered language learning. As Patrikis (1995) states, e-mail allows for communication between students in a context where the teacher's role is no longer at the center. FL learners can choose the topic and change the direction of the discussion so the learners could  experience increased control over their own learning. Rather than to produce a mistake-free composition, e-mail is good to communicate with people.

 5.      Encourages equal opportunity participation. According to Beauvois (1997) research, computer-mediated communication increased total class participation to 100%. Others have reported that students reticent to speak in face-to-face contexts are more willing to participate in the electronic context (Beauvois, 1995; González-Bueno, 1998; Warschauer, 1995).

 6.      Connects Speakers Quickly and Cheaply. It means, to communicate with native speakers of the target language without the high cost of traveling abroad so students can use e-mail (Hedderich 1997; Roakes, 1998).

  In this article the writer also present a wide variety of activities that have been used successfully by FL teachers, such as activities into group and one-on-one e-mail exchanges.

a.      Group e-mail exchanges

Students has opportunity to interact with others in the target language by using e-mail. They can make their own mailing lists or the teacher can set up a class e-mail list or listserv. Activities can be planned for use within a class or between two or more classes in different locations. Students can also join discussion forums outside of their regularly planned course. According to Moran & Hawisher (1998), e-mail has been described as a conversational writing medium, a crossbreed language with elements of both written and spoken language. In group e-mail exchanges there are some ways to do e-mail exchanges.

1). E-mail Interaction within the Class. In this section, the writer describe e-mail tasks that fit into these three category activities:

Pre-Class Activities. In this activity, teacher or instructor provide an assignment as the next project for the student, so the students already prepare for their assignment through the e-mail where the students could do e-mail exchanges with other people to share anything that relate to the topic. So in here by using e-mail, the students get the information that they need.

Post-Class Activities. In this activity, teacher can create or post a topic or case to be solved by the students. Students have to give their opinion toward the case. By using the e-mail, students can make a discussion with other.

Supplemental Activities. It means with e-mail, teachers can assign supplemental activities for which students are responsible but which are not directly linked to class activities.

2). E-mail Interaction Between Classes

In this section the writer put some ways collaborative projects between classes in different locations.

Collaborative projects: focus on reading and writing exchange

Collaborative projects: focus on a joint product

3). Independent Groups Outside of One's Class

This type of activity can link students both to other native speakers and to other learners and increases input from a variety of sources.

2. One-on-one E-mail Interaction

In this section the writer offered suggestions for one-on-one exchanges between the language learner and three possible partners: a teacher, a fellow language learner, and a native speaker of the target language.

E-mail Between the Teacher and the Foreign Language Learner

Gonzales-Bueno (1998:55) states that an exchange with the teacher "may serve as a transition toward the use of foreign language in a real-cybernetic-world context" in addition to building up learners' confidence in their language skills, "[t]he initial opportunities to interact in the foreign language via electronic communication, as offered to students by their foreign language teachers, may provide the necessary first steps to render the learner capable of navigating the Internet autonomously in a foreign language".

  Informal Messages

Teacher and student decide on frequency how often they would do e-mail exchanges (e.g., once a week, once per chapter, twice a semester) and the content of the messages (e.g., course- or chapter-related, open). Teachers should respond promptly to the student messages.

  Electronic Feedback on Writing Assignments

Teachers can offer their students the opportunity to confer with them electronically about their writing. This possibility is very useful, especially when a class meets only once or twice a week. Students can e-mail their questions to the teacher, without having to wait for the next class session.

  Dialogue Journals

Teachers can require students to write one entry per week or one per lesson. They can require that the content be related to the current lesson or allow students to write on any topic they choose.

  E-mail Between Two Individual FL Learners

Teachers can assign their students keypals who are in the same class or who are in a distant location. Needless to say, student motivation is higher when the keypals do not know each other and are unable to communicate face to face.

In the sections that follow the writer consider three types of keypal e-mail exchange.

(a)   E-mail Between Keypals Learning the Same Target Language. Learning foreign language with the same purpose through e-mail.

(b)   E-mail Between Keypals Learning Different Target Languages: Language Learning in Tandem. In this type of exchange individuals are studying each other's native language and, therefore, they play both the role of native speaker and of language learner. The most important principle of tandem learning is that the exchange must be mutually beneficial to both learners. For example, a French-English Tandem Exchange and an English-German Tandem Exchange.

  (c)    E-mail Between an Individual Foreign Language Learner and a Native Speaker. In this context, the learner's comprehension can soar. In addition, teachers have reported that language learners writing to native speakers are more eager to self-correct their own grammar because the communicative aspect motivates them to make themselves understood (Kendall, 1995).

  In short, e-mail has some benefits for foreign language learners to interact and communicate with other for the specific purposes and much more valuable communicative interaction in the target language.

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