Application of 'Second Life' to TEFL

                               
New digital technologies give us the opportunity to live not only in our usual 'First Life' but also to shift to another world and do different kinds of things which we usually do in our life, e.g.walking, speaking and different kinds of acts. The difference is, though, that in 'Second Life' we have an avatar, which does everything we ask him to do. But, anyway, when sitting alone at home, we can have the feeling of being integrated into a communicative environment and interact with different people (avatars of other people). Thus, online, virtual 3D worlds offer the opportunity for users to interact in real time with native speakers of the language they are learning.
Actually, there is a little research done on the usefulness of 'Second Life' to TEFL, but, in my opinion, they create a total immersion in the foreign language learning environment (excluding the attempts in getting used to the environment, connected with technical issues). When I first tried to enter 'Second Life', first of all I had to figure out things like who am I in the environment, how can I interact with people, what should I do in general. This took not so long, and later I was immersed in an environment where language was used intensively. So, I can say that 3D environment provides communication through language and negotiation of meaning.

A research was conducted on foreign language vocabulary development through activities in an online 3D environment. The purpose of the study was to find out how the immersion in a 'Second Life' environment  affected on the improvement of the students' vocabulary and language fluency. Of course, there were both advantages and limitations. According to the case study the immersion into a 3D virtual world can create a viable language larning environment, regarding to vocabulary enrichment and fluency development. I also want to mention some of the limitations, such as the cost and time set for learning environment. Besides, we should create security for young learners, because, as in real life, in 'Second Life' aslo they can appear in inappropriate situations.
Eventually, further research needs to be conducted in this field, so as to find out the basic functions of 3D virtual world, especially its influence on the language learning process.

DGBL (Digital Game-based Learning)

Digital game-based learning is one of the most discussed areas in the field of digital technologies in learning.

When reading about this topic I remembered my childhood when I was sitting in front of the computer and playing video games for hours. My parents didn't ever forbid me doing that, they even sometimes played with me which gave me more motivation in that. I turned the computer off when I was already bored of the games. Later I started to get bored sooner, because everything was already the same and I couldn't find anything new for me to discover in those games. It is followed to say that the learning from the games had already happened, and there was nothing new for me to learn. 

Video games first of all provide children problem solving and critical thinking skills. They become creative, especially when they not only take the role of a consumer, but also the role of a producer.

With digital games learning is produced within a certain context, e.g. they don't have to read about the games and then go and play it according to the instructions. They just start observing in the context themselves which fosters their consciousness raising skills.

When playing a digital game children are not afraid of making mistakes and of being assessed. Actually, assessment happens at every moment in games, which is fun here as compared with the assessment in classrooms.

However there are also some risks in using video games. The thing is that not all the games are of good quality. One of the dangerous things is their getting addicted to some games, thus forgetting everything rest in the world. This is, of course menacing their health, e.g. the eye-sight. Moreover, computer games can be violent in their nature and affect negatively on children's character and the whole psychology. So, parents should be very careful at first stages in choosing the right games for their children. they should also often play them with their children to understand the content better and its affects on the child.

DGBL is also applied in TEFL. Games can engage children in practicing both receptive and productive linguistic skills. E.g. I leaned a lot of vocabulary items from the game "Tekken", like "start, play, exit, enter, turn on, turn off, game over, time is up, win, lose, perfect, etc.". The football game was good for developing my listening and reading skills, etc.

Eventually, technology helps children to learn in new ways and to create the models of what education might be like in future.

The video production project.

Nowadays video production can be a good tool for making different tutorials for the students.
The process of groupwork for making our own videos was the best and the most interesting groupwork in AUA life. I was so enthusiastic about that, that I decided to work with two different groups. The video shooting process with the first group was more easier than with the second one, because it was a very authentic one and the action was all there ready for us. We had only to go to different places and to take shots. What about the second video, it took 3 whole days for us to think about the script and to shoot it. The video production process was really very interesting, difficult and also fun. The thing is that we decided to be the actors ourselves and to shoot the videos in many different places. There were even some parts which were successful only after the 30th attempt. The problem was that we needed other people also to be in the cast ( I want to say thanks to the students of other departments who agreed to cooperate with us, namely Balu, Vahagn, Mnatsakan, Narek and Ararat) and also the time was very short for making such a video, besides we had to keep it as short as possible. But, anyway, the separate parts are ready and Ripa Karapetyan is the editor, so lots of thanks to her for taking that huge responsibility. We hope that the video will be ready for tomorrow's class and we will enjoy it together.
The video tutorials were very informative and helpful for our own video production project. Me and my classmates were discussing that after watching the tutorials and having all this experiments we will approach different films and also video tutorials more critically than before. Eventually, this was a good step for us to make our own video productions for language learning purposes as language teachers. And also, who knows, maybe one day we'll become film stars as we already have the experiment.

Digistories.

Reading or listening to stories has always been a very unique kind of learning tool for all of us. I think that people of all ages love to both listen to and tell stories to others. Nowadays we can make the process of telling stories more impressive, powerful, useful and motivating due to digital technologies.
I remember the times when my mom and grandma told me different kinds of stories and I always tried to imagine that beautiful world that was created by their words. But now the world of digital technologies gives us the opportunity to create stories with visuals, sound, and motion. All this factors make the stories more authentic, motivating and engaging.
One of the most significant benefits that digistories give the students is that they become producers, i.e. they do all the work themselves, they search, download, choose, record, type, add and do other kinds of functions all themselves and finally create a whole story. Thus, there is a diversity in the style of the learning of the students, i.e. they are not always consumers, but also producers.
According to different research, digistories affect on the students' learning and engagement very positively. They foster active and communicative learning. Besides, it give the learners the opportunity to share their personal stories with their audience, stories that they cannot express or share in real communication. It means that they combine their knowledge gained in the class and what they know outside the class. It also gives the students their own voice, i.e. by creating a story of their own they acquire the sense of ownership and also self-confidence. Other important skills that digistories can develop are as follows: the ability to actively use digital technologies, to become more creative, to retain their knowledge longer, etc.
However, in one of the research there was a question unidentified, whether digistories foster critical thinking or not. In my opinion, they do affect on critical thinking, because when making the stories through different technologies (be it power point, movie maker, storyboard, etc.) they have to think about who are their audience, about the succession of the visuals, about the corresponding music, the content of the story and other kinds of issues.
Finally, digistories affect on the students' linguistic skills; they become better readers, writers and speakers and listeners of the language.
For watching some examples of digistories, please visit the following websites:

• http://mashable.com/2012/01/31/digital-storytelling/
• http://digitalstorytelling.coe.uh.edu/

And this is a sample of digistory created by one of my friends: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=FbeV9GZLK7s#t=0

Using 'Wikis' in ELL

Using 'wiki' is a very popular approach to online community development. According to Cunningham (2001), wiki is a freely expandable collection of interlinked webpages, where each page is easily edited by any user. Different contents can be linked to other wikis or Web documents.
As I have understood, one of the good opportunities that wikis give the instructors, is that they can create interactive activities for their students. From my own experience I can say that wikis mainly develop the learners' reading and writing skills. When one of the students posts a content according to a specific instruction, and the other has to continue the previous student's piece of writing, it mainly affects on their critical reading and writing skills. While reading the students have to continue their thoughts based on the other students' writings. I want to mention that in wikis the writing process is asynchronous, i.e. the writing cannot be done simultaneously by different students. It also creates coherence in their writing, because they have to use words of coherence so as to better connect their ideas to their coursemate's ideas. So, using wikis can be a good tool for developing the students' language proficiency, in terms of reading and writing skills, besides for creating a good sense of collaboration and interactive work.

Using Podcasts in ELL

As we know the internet audio-listening has greatly increased its popularity. Podcasts have been used for English learning purposes. I think that they mainly influence on the learners' listening, vocabulary and speaking skills.
I want to refer to a reasearch which was held in the University of South Carolina. The researchers examined the effects of using podcasts to improve pronunciation in SLL, and how students' attitudes changed toward pronunciation over the semester. The participants in this study were 12 learners of German and 10 learners of French. According to the statistical analysis there were no significant differences in the students' pronunciation from pre-test to post-test over time. Only french students had some improvements in their comprehensibility and accentedness. As for the extemporaneous tasks, students in both languages showed little improvement. This was mainly because of the students' concentrating more on the meaning than on the form.
To tell the truth the results mentioned above were a little surprising to me. I can say from my own experience that using podcasts can be very effective for english learning purposes, mainly in terms of improving listening and speaking skills. I felt the imrovement especially in my listening skills. It also directly affected on my pronunciation skills. I feel very comfortable in using podcasts for improving my linguistic skills. While practicing my pronunciation I tried to concentrate more on the form than on the meaning. Of course understanding the meaning is the first stage, but later I concentrated more on the form by doing a lot of repititions and self-recordings. So, one can, for sure, benefit from using podcasts for improving the linguistic skills.

Using Blogging and Microblogging in ELL

My love and interest increases towards blogging and microblogging day by day. This process of learning is really more engaging, meaningful and interesting for me. I think that I will be able to implement both the blogging and microblogging in language teaching processes. I think that learning with blogs can be used beginning from the intermediate high level students, because they are more able to recognize for what purposes blogs are going to be used. It would be more convenient to use blogging in computer labs than in usual classrooms. When introducing the necessity of using blogs to my students I would point out the following things: that blogs are more useful than usual notebooks, because in this case the blogger has more responsibility in what he/she is writing, because it is going to be shared with a wide audience. Besides, blogging is more interactive, where you don't only write for yourself and your teacher, but also for the community you are in. Moreover, the students can develop different computer skills by using blogs. So, in their blogs students would refer to their daily lessons, would write summaries of different texts, would comment on other's blogs, etc.
What refers to twitter, I would suggest my students to use it in the case they would like to, which would be for short tweets, basically refering to the difficulties in understanding something, or, vice versa, to something which they liked, and also could make some suggestions. Microblogging, though, doesn't have to be about the learning materials necessarily. It may be about the students' daily plans and other casual things. But, anyway, this is a way of using the language, and also a way of interacting and communicating by that language. So, in my opinion, both blogging and microblogging create an environment for active learning.
Evaluation is an important aspect for both the teacher and the students. I would not grade the students for blogging and microblogging, but I would provide some comments on the content, writing accuracy and fluency, lexical complexity and other linguistic aspects.
I think that there would also be some challanges for the students who are a little behind the others in terms of their knowledge and abilities. For example, they might be shy or might feel not confident to share their piece of writing with a wide audience. For this case my suggestion is to ask those students to actively read the posts of their friends, and to make their first steps by leaving comments on their posts, thus getting used to the process. They could also show their piece of writing to the teacher before posting it, till they would be able to do it by themselves.