Week 5 reading reflection:
The reading reveals a study showing that language learners do behave in ways different from normal classroom setting. Some extrovert will behave even more active, while some popular students would even be ignored just because he was late for the online task. It's important for teacher to be aware of such phenomenon because designing CALL activities of this type online is very different from normal setting. Things always happen unexpectedly. The long negotiation time for students in the study to successfully guess the identity of each other may be due to the first attempt of such activities.
I gave my ICQ and email address to my students this year and graduates several years ago. I found that they are willing to talk to me online using English, but usually they don't take the initiative to talk more and in depth in English. They are often saying about some rountines like "having dinner" or "watching TV" and the most common response by some weak students is "Are you happy?". I guess, maybe, they are still primary students. They may lack enough proficiency to engage in more meaninngful online conversation.
I also noticed that in such online conversations, they are brave enough and tend to use more Chinglish (they do not dare to do so in my class normally). What will you do if your students do so? I usually allow them when they are talking online. It's far more important to arouse their interest to use English to talk, even just online.
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3 comments:
My students are similar to yours. They try to use English when communicate online. However, they always use simple English, or just something very simple, such as "How are you?". Some even combine Chinese and English. I won't punish them when they do this online. However, I'll write in English only. I hope that by writing in English can encourage to communicate in English.
I think we would like to promote students to use English more. That's why we won't correct students' mistakes.
Sometimes, they will use short forms to express. For instance, brb = be right back, ic = i see. What do you think? Should we correct them too?
As a language teacher, I think we should or else it will become a habit in their writing. Do you find students nowadays have poorer spelling ability? They even can't spell simple words. Is it due to the spell check function of our computer? If it goes worsen, it will be a more terrible nightmare for us to mark their composition.
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