Last post~ Sharing my favourite movie trailer with u~

Computer-Assisted Pronunciation Teaching

General resources on Computer-Assisted Pronunciation Teaching:

SLATE, Speech and Language Technology in Education, International Speech Communication Association (ISCA) Special Interest Group

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~max/mainpage_files/SLATE.htm

Projects on Computer-Assisted Pronunciation Teaching EduSpeak, SRI International

http://www.speechatsri.com/products/eduspeak.shtml

ISLE, Interactive Spoken Language Education, University of Hamburg

http://nats-www.informatik.uni-hamburg.de/~isle/

Speech Recognition in Educational Applications, SRI International

ftp://ftp.speech.sri.com/pub/brochures/LangEdBroch2.pdf

Voice Interactive Language Instruction and Evaluation, SRI International

http://www-speech.sri.com/projects/language_instruction.html

Webgrader2, SRI International

http://www-speech.sri.com/people/julia/webgrader2.html


Commercial software for Computer-Assisted Pronunciation Teaching

Ça sonne français. CD-ROM. Hull: The TELL Consortium, CTI Modern Languages, University of Hull.

http://www.hull.ac.uk/cti/tell/tellprod.htm

CAULDWELL, R. Streaming Speech: Listening and Pronunciation for Advanced Learners of English. CD-ROM. Harborne, Birmingham: speechinaction.

http://www.speechinaction.com/

Pro-nunciation. The English Communication Toolkit. CD-ROM. Wyong, NSW: Pro-nunciation Pty Ltd.

http://users.zipworld.com.au/~pronunce/


ROCHET, B., The Rhythm of French. French Pronunciation Course for English Speakers. CD-ROM. Scottsdale AZ: Salix Corporation.

http://www.amug.org/~a108/rof.html

Tell Me More. CD-ROM. Auralog

http://www.tellmemore.com/


WESTWOOD, V.- KAUFMAN, H., Connected Speech. CD-ROM. Hurstbridge, VIC: Protea Textware Pty Ltd.

http://www.proteatextware.com.au/shopexd.asp?id=103&bc=yes

Implication of "Learner Autonomy" for Teaching

• use the target language as the preferred medium of classroom communication and require the same of her learners;

• involve her learners in a non-stop quest for good learning activities, which are shared, discussed, analysed and evaluated with the whole class – in the target language, to begin with in very simple terms;

• help her learners to set their own learning targets and choose their own learning activities, subjecting them to discussion, analysis and evaluation – again, in the target language;

• require her learners to identify individual goals but pursue them through collaborative
work in small groups;

• require her learners to keep a written record of their learning – plans of lessons and projects, lists of useful vocabulary, whatever texts they themselves produce;

• engage her learners in regular evaluation of their progress as individual learners and as a class – in the target language.

Reflection on “Technology in Testing”

Alderson, J. C. (2000). Technology in testing: the present and the future. System, 28(4), 593-603.

CBT-TOEFL (computer-based Test of English as a Foreign Language):

Frankly speaking, I’m not familiar with this test. Something interesting and useful about this test could be found from the reading, such as computer-adaptive testing and pedagogic advantages of CBTs. In CBTs, the computer could roughly estimate a candidate’ ability and then select appropriate test items to match that emerging ability level. In other words, candidates are presented with items as close as possible to their ability level. Moreover, generally different candidates use different tests, so the test security can be largely enhanced. However, as more and more people take this test, it is more likely that the test reliability is questionable. So for ETS, the continuous update of item base is of great importance. Besides, one of user-friendly features of CBTs attracts my attention, which is the test allows users to see an estimated test result immediately after taking the test, and to decide whether they wish their score to be reported to potential receiving institutions, or whether they would prefer the score not to be reported until they have improved it. Once a candidate knows his result, he could immediately plan his next step without wasting time for the release of his result. As for the test items themselves, some found in online discussion forums and learning websites could be used to assist with classroom instruction and students’ practices as well.

Reflection on "Hong Kong's Amended Copyright Law - a Guide for Teachers and Students"

http://www.ipd.gov.hk/eng/intellectual_property/copyright/edu_guide.pdf

"Fair dealing"- facilitating modern teaching methods
                       - applies not only to works in printed form but also to works available on the Internet
                       -to allow teachers and students to use or deal with reasonable portions of copyright
                      works in a fair manner for teaching and learning in a specified course of study

The two examples of "unfair" dealing have left great impression to me.
1: a student copying the whole or a large portion of a textbook because he believes the textbook is too expensive (this is not fair dealing because the amount is too great and the market for the book was adversely affected).

Frankly speaking, I didn't think textbooks are so expensive until I became a student in cityu. My textbooks used in the last semester generally cost at least 200 HKD for each, so think of the total textbook costs throughout four years to an undergraduate. What a large amount ! It's no wonder that many students want to copy their textbooks. However, I admit that this "fair dealing" regulation in HK protecting the interests of book markets to some extent indeed makes sense and necessary. In the mainland China, I'm not sure if such rule exists. Actully, there has been an increasing tendency of copying textbooks in many universities since the year of 2008.

2: a teacher playing a DVD of a currently shown movie in class for students' entertainment after exam were over (this is not fair because it is a currently shown movie and it was not used for an educational purpose)

I don't understand why a currently shown movie cannot be used for an educational purpose. I think as long as the movie and its DVD are released, teachers could use it in their classes.   

Mobile Assisted Language Learning

Chinnery, G. M. (2006). Going to the MALL: Mobile assisted language learning. Language Learning & Technology, 10(1), 9-16.

In this article, Chinnery (2006) presents some MALL applications using cell phones, personal digital assistants, and portable digital audio players. I’m quite interested in two examples illustrated in the paper. In the project developed by Thornton and Houser (2002; 2003; 2005), vocabulary instruction was provided by SMS (short message service); “three times a day, they emailed short mini-lessons to students, sent in discrete chunks so as to be easily readable on the tiny screens;” and “ lessons defined five words per week, recycled previous vocabulary, and used the words in various contexts, including episodic stories.” The results of this project show that SMS instruction is effective in increasing students’ vocabulary words and improving their scores as well as preferred by the vast majority of students. I think by using SMS for vocabulary learning, students could take advantage of their spare time, and at one time, a mini-lesson on the tiny screens is not a big heavy burden to students. They could digest one lesson and then continue to another one. Besides, frequent rehearsal and recycled previous vocabulary is sent in messages for students’ revision. SMS instruction is really a good way to assure students’ acquisition and revision of vocabulary knowledge; however, the availability of cell phones and the cost of SMS are big concerns for teachers and students in the mainland China. If it’s possible, I would like to do similar experiment in my future teaching environment. What would be the results?

Another example is moblogging, a combination of mobile and weblogging. Chinnery (2006) shows that “moblogs offer the potential to expound these benefits by removing time and place boundaries and adding authentic and personal visual content.” I agree that students could do moblogging on their own time in any place where wireless net is available, but fluent moblogging requires high-quality cell phones as well. As to moblogging instruction, if students only need cell phones for the sake of calling and texting, do they need to buy another one exclusively for moblogging instruction? So I think if it’s possible, moblogging could be better used by students for the purpose of self-learning, writing practices and so on.

At the end of the paper, some challenges are summarized, such as “reduced screen sizes, limited audiovisual quality, virtual keyboarding and one-finger data entry, limited power and availability, limited nonverbal communications, message lengths, a lack of cultural context, and potentially limited social interaction” (Chinnery 2006). These drawbacks are worth of teachers’ considerations.

Week 4 Reading : Language Learner Behavior in a Virtual Environment

Roed, J. (2003). Language learner behaviour in a virtual environment. Computer Assisted Language Learning, 16(2-3), 155-172.

Frankly speaking, I haven’t thought of that the study about the changes of learners’ behavior could be conducted in an effective and interesting way as it is showed in this paper. In this study, the author analyzes students’ online dialogues in a language task. The target is to find out how online communication can affect learners’ behavior.


Through detailed analysis, the author concludes students’ behavior and made comparison between their performance in actual classroom and that in a virtual environment. The result is inspiring. In the cases of Tom, Linda and Julie, they are students who are active participants in the online work, which would never happen in their regular classroom. They probably well benefit from this computer based language learning tasks. Thus, to some extent, online communication could give shy and introvert language students a more comfortable place to talk and comment. If designed and adopted appropriately, programs based on CALL could become quite useful in students’ language learning, especially in helping students with high anxiety to achieve better results.


Besides, in the discussion, the author mentions that it would be an interesting study to see whether this higher level of online participation from shy students could be transferred back to their regular classroom. I thought this following study is important and worth of efforts, as if this kind of transformation could be fulfilled, it means that students with high anxiety could have a way to solve their problems.

After reading this paper, I ever thought of conducting computer-based language tasks among my students and also recording their performance and making similar comparison. Maybe some changes would happen.