Using polylogues in teaching english at academic lyceums. Exercises

2.4. The students of academic lyceums and their educational technologies
Teaching speaking to young learners is very rewarding since they are less-conscious than older learners (Phillips, 1993). However, the teachers find it difficult since the learners have to master vocabularies, pronunciation, structure, function in order to say what they want. Cameron (2001) holds an assumption that the major part of teaching and learning to young learners will be oral. Furthermore, she proposes two guiding principles in teaching speaking to young learners: Meaning must come first: if children do not understand the spoken language, they cannot learn it; To learn discourse skill, children need both to participate indiscourse and to build up knowledge and skill for participation. It means that the young learners should be involved in a situation where they will practice speaking with real people for real purposes. Graham-Marr (2004) provides some of the speaking skills that merit classroom time include: fluency, phonological clarity, strategies, being able to produce chunks of language, appropriacy (register), understanding elliptical forms, and the use of interconnected devices. Based on the explanation above, teaching speaking to young learners should rely on children characteristics to make the learning meaningful. The use of song and cants will be useful for teaching stress patterns and rhythm of English (Phillips, 1993). Kayi (2006) endorses thirteen activities to promote speaking, namely: Discussion After a content-based lesson, a discussion can be held for various reasons. The students may aim to arrive at a conclusion, share ideas about an event, or find solutions in their discussion groups. Before the discussion, it is essential that the purpose of the discussion activity is set by the teacher. In this way, the discussion points are relevant to this purpose, so that students do not spend their time chatting with each other about irrelevant things. Simulations are very similar to role-plays but what makes simulations different than role plays is that they are more elaborate. In simulations, students can bring items to the class to create a realistic environment. For instance, if a student is acting as a singer, she brings a microphone to sing and so on. Role Play Students pretend they are in various social contexts and have a variety of social roles. In role-play activities, the teacher gives information to the learners such as who they are and what they think or feel. Thus, the teacher can tell the student that "You are David, you go to the doctor and tell him what happened last night, and." (Harmer, 2007b) On a given topic, students can produce ideas in a limited time. Depending on the context, either individual or group brainstorming is effective and learners generate ideas quickly and freely. The good characteristic of brainstorming is that the students are not criticized for their ideas so students will be open to sharing new ideas. Students can briefly summarize a tale or story they heard from somebody beforehand, or they may create their own stories to tell their classmates. Story telling fosters creative thinking. It also helps students express ideas in the format of beginning, development, and ending, including the characters and setting a story has to have. Information Gap In this activity, students are supposed to be working in pairs. One student will have the information that other partner does not have and the partners will share their information. Information gap activities serve many purposes such as solving a problem or collecting information. Also, each partner plays an important role because the task cannot be completed if the partners do not provide the information the others need. Interviews Students can conduct interviews on selected topics with various people. It is a good idea that the teacher provides a rubric to students so that they know what type of questions they can ask or what path to follow, but students should prepare their own interview questions. After interviews, each student can present his or her study to the class. Moreover, students can interview each other and "introduce" his or her partner to the class. Story Completion For this activity, a teacher starts to tell a story, but after a few sentences he or she stops narrating. Then, each student starts to narrate from the point where the previous one stopped. Each student is supposed to add from four to ten sentences. Students can add new characters, events, descriptions and so on. Reporting Before coming to class, students are asked to read a newspaper or magazine and, in class, they report to their friends what they find as the most interesting news. Students can also talk about whether they have experienced anything worth telling their friends in their daily lives before class. Playing Cards In this game, students should form groups of four. Each suit will represent a topic. For instance: diamonds represent earning money, hearts represent love and relationships, spades represent an unforgettable memory, and card represent best teacher. Each student in a group will choose a card. Then, each student will write 4-5 questions about that topic to ask the other people in the group. For example: if the topic "diamonds: earning money" is selected, here are some possible questions: .Is money important in your life? Why? Or What is the easiest way of earning money? Or what do you think about lottery? Etc. However, the teacher should state at the very beginning of the activity that students are not allowed to prepare yes-no questions, because by saying yes or no students get little practice in spoken language production. Rather, students ask open-ended questions to each other so that they reply in complete sentences. Picture Describing For this activity students can form groups and each group is given a different picture. Students discuss the picture with their groups, and then a spokesperson for each group describes the picture to the whole class. This activity fosters the creativity and imagination of the learners as well as their public speaking skills. Find the Differences For this activity students can work in pairs and each couple is given two different pictures, for example, picture of boys playing football and another picture of girls playing tennis. Students in pairs discuss the similarities and/or differences in the pictures. Picture Narrating This activity is based on several sequential pictures. Students are asked to tell the story taking place in the sequential pictures by paying attention to the criteria provided by the teacher as a rubric. Rubrics can include the vocabulary or structures they need to use while narrating.
Helps improving the students speaking, this can convert spoken words to machine-readable input. The device recognizes the accuracy of what was read and then provides a positive reinforcement like “You sound great!” or gives the user an opportunity to try again, in this way the learner can figure if he is reading well or not As the user’s skill improves, the technology reads less material so that the learner reads more. This software also evaluates and provides scores of grammar, pronunciation, comprehension and provided with the correct forms, for examples if a student mispronounces a word, the learning tool can immediately spot it and help correct it. This device can be a very useful device for distance learners because they don’t have a teacher who corrects their speech and this device can help improving their speaking skills.
Internet is a commonly acknowledged term and widely used by people throughout the world. Students now use Internet in the class to learn English. Online teaching inside the classroom seems to be interesting and makes the students to find out the suitable materials for them. Students are instructed to do the grammar exercises which are available online. Through Internet we can collect data from various sources for any instruction. to improve speaking, students can use Skype, MSM Messenger, Google talk (used to have conferences on line) and other applications where students can connect with friends, other students, teacher and even native speakers, these ways of learning have been observed to improve oral proficiency in students and make up for the lack of native speakers in the areas where students live and what is more, on line conferences also enhance intercultural awareness, motivation and raise the level of interaction. Over the internet, students can find a lot of learning materials, for instance, audio, video, radio and TV shows, games, voice recordings, quizzes, podcasts and so on , in this way, students get exposed to a great amount of target language and this help them develop their speaking skills. TELL Tell is the use of computer technology including hardware, software and the internet to enhance teaching and learning of languages. It allows the students to get access with all the technologies available for the enhancement of English learning. Students are allowed to use online dictionaries, chat, and to view the various happenings around the world. POD CASTING Podcasts can be uploaded or downloaded, this audio help the learner familiarize with the target language and teachers can use them as useful audio material that can be used in class for activities like discussions, besides, in the web, there are even particular podcasts that are for ESL learners and these can include pronunciation for particular needs of students. Podcast undoubtedly help learners in speaking. Pod casting is the integration of audio files where we can feed our own materials and ply it inside and outside of the classroom. Students use i-pods to hear their favorite music files. In the same way they have their education in the form of entertainment. Podcasting allows students to use their tech-based entertainment systems for educational purposes. With it we are able to move away from the traditional face-to-face training without losing the student-to-trainer relationship that is so effective in any learning process. Podcasts enables students and teachers to share information with anyone at anytime. An absent student can download the podcast of recorded lesson and is able to access the missed lectures. They could also access lectures of experts which may not otherwise be available because of geographical distance and other reasons. Quick Link Pen allows learners to copy and store printed text, Internet links. It helps to transfer the data to computers and enables the reader to get the meaning of the word from a built in dictionary. Accessing this type of machine seems to be a more convenient method. Recent developments in machine translations presents translation engines like GO Translator and Bablefish. QUICKTIONARY It is a pen-like device. It allows the reader to easily scan the word and get its definition and translation on its own LCD screen. Technology such as Enounce and Sound-Editor enable learners to adjust the speech rate of listening materials to assist their comprehension, and present spectrum of speech waves and visual depictions of mouth and tongue movement to ease the learning and refine pronunciation.
Mobile technologies Portable devices such as tablet computers, smart and feature phones and MP3 players have particular resonance for English teaching in situations where practitioners move between different locations and where learning occurs in isolated contexts. These technologies have the potential to deliver high quality multimedia stored on internal drives or removable memory cards or that can be accessed over wireless and telecommunication networks. Many portable devices feature long-lasting batteries, particularly important where power supplies are only available during certain times of the day. Moreover, some can be powered using solar cells or charged via wind-up mechanisms. Touch sensitive screens and simple menu systems may also be of particular benefit in situations where a lack of familiarity with mice, keyboards and operating systems might inhibit learning. Many mobile devices sport one or more cameras and where there is a reliable internet connection, users can communicate over distance using simple video conferencing tools. GPS functionality and internal compasses also enable users to access and interact with powerful mapping tools. Front facing cameras allow learners to be creative as well as enabling them to trigger the release of information, for example by scanning QR codes (a type of barcode). In-built audio recording functionality allows children to record their thoughts about an area of learning or perhaps interview peers or family members prior to a task.
Mobile phones and other ‘smart’ devices are perfect for developing mobile assisted
language learning (MALL) activities. Clever software can facilitate the delivery of
multi-modal content as well as offering the potential to register user interaction, provide feedback and track progress.
Whilst much of the research evidence focuses on improved outcomes for individual pupils, dialogic pedagogy has far more to offer than improved results on standardised tests. Monologic classroom practices do not engage the social collective, pupils are seen mainly as a collective of disconnected individuals (Watkins, 2005). If, as Watkins recommends, classrooms are to become ‘Communities of Learners’, we must address the affective as well as the cognitive and create learning opportunities through enquiry. Early results from Alexander’s (2006) ‘Talk-to-Learn’ project suggest that a dialogic approach can achieve this as it promotes a more inclusive classroom where pupils who normally do not compete to speak in class gain the confidence to contribute. Dialogic teaching is valued as a process that can promote inclusion of all pupils and has much to contribute to the establishment of communities of learners. Increasingly such learning is recognised as central to personal and social education. The EPPI review of evidence on citizenship education (Deakin et al., 2005) found, for example: The quality of dialogue and discourse is central to learning in citizenship education. Dialogue and discourse are connected with learning about shared values, human rights and issues of justice and equality . . . Transformative, dialogical and participatory pedagogies complement and sustain achievement rather than divert attention from it. In a discussion of pedagogy and dialogue, Skidmore (2006) identifies ‘the affective conditions for learning created by different patterns of teacher–student interaction as a neglected line of enquiry’. What is important here is the tradition of seeing cognition and affect as discrete entities rather than interdependent concepts (Egan, 1983). Egan wants us to question methods of teaching and testing which see education as ‘a process of accumulating knowledge and skills uninvolved with emotions, intentions, and human meaning’ (Egan, 1983: 51). He stresses the difference between ‘knowing a lot’ and knowledge which is meaningful in the lives of learners. Egan wants children to use their imaginations to understand there are different ‘truths’ in the world which depend on historical, social and cultural settings. In addition, Egan (1992: 70) points out that making sense of experience is profoundly mediated by our emotions. Egan’s work therefore provides support for the proponents of emotional intelligence (Gardner, 1993; Goleman, 1996) widely acknowledged as a greater indicator of success in life than scores on standardised tests. The role of dialogue in pupil learning is therefore about more than just promoting better thinking and raised standards. It has the potential to enable student voice to be accessed and legitimated. A programme which values both reason and imagination, where teachers are trained to be ‘attentive’ to what children say, and listen to pupil ‘voice’ is philosophy for children (P4C) (Lipman, 1988). In the next section I argue that the practice of P4C exemplifies good practice in dialogic teaching and learning. technology is finally being integrated into education, its use for teaching and learning still remains a challenge. Despite the fact that many schools today are privileged to have ready access to technology, trained teachers, and a favourable policy environment, the use of technology in the classroom is still low. Some attribute low levels of technology use in education to the pedagogical beliefs of teachers. that said, the potential of technology to enhance learning cannot be overemphasized. The use of technology is something that started a long time ago for students with special needs. For example, brail machines have been utilized for the visually impaired. In addition, special needs programs that help children with autism use technology to enhance learning. By integrating technology into education, educators aim to engender pedagogical change and address fundamental issues that affect learners with special needs. Technology can therefore be seen as both a tool and a catalyst for change., technologies used to improve and facilitate learning can be found everywhere. Leaving other contextual factors to the side – such as unequal access to technological innovations and connected technologies across schools and districts – we can only say that we have embraced technology in education when it is used for both teaching and learning. With the incorporation of technology into schools, the main purpose is to change how teachers and students gather, access, analyse, present and transmit information. This can democratize information in classrooms as well as help differentiate instruction, particularly for students with special needs. technology for students with special needs technology can be defined as an item, piece of equipment or product system that can be used to maintain, increase or improve functional capabilities for any person with a special need. Thus, the incorporation of educational technology can also provide benefits to students with disabilities who may be in a better position to interact with the lesson through technology. Moreover, technology can place teachers in a better position to customize learning for students with special needs.