CALL Skill Practice 2

 I made my own concordancer using the free software provided from this website (http://www.concordancesoftware.co.uk/)

I have made this using three full scripts of different movies. It is very easy and quick process that you can utilize for vocabulary teaching. L2 learners tend to not pay attention to collocations, but teachers can teach them using concordance in classroom. For example, with this skill practice, I myself have learned that the word 'another' is not used with definite artice such as a/an.

Sample Student Writing improvement using concordancer

[Sample Student Writing]

Actually, many people think that bartender is just a person who simply makes cocktails. And they also think that foreign language skills are not needed to be a good bartender. But it's not true. Even in korea, many foreigners went a bar for cocktails. For them, bartender has to recommend or introduce cocktail's name and its taste. Of course, most people knew what they want to drink, but in case of cocktail beginner, they don't have any infomation about cocktail. I think it is the basic virtue of bartender. So I have to study a brewery English and hotel English. I have a textbook about those two area. It is little bit difficult, because of the idiom expression. So I'm studying hotel English expression. I memorized the word overbooking. I didn't know about what it means. Delux room is also new word. But I am studying with fun. It fits me!!

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[Improved Writing using Concordancer]

Actually, many people think that a bartender is just a person who simply makes cocktails. And they also think that foreign language skills are not needed to be a good bartender. But it's not true. Even in Korea, many foreigners go to a bar for drinking cocktails. For them, bartenders have to recommend or introduce a cocktail's name and its taste. Of course, most people know what they want to drink, but in case of a cocktail beginner, they don't have any information about cocktails. I think it is the basic virtue of bartender. So I have to study English words about brewery and hospitality. I have a textbook about those two fields. It is a little bit difficult, because of the idiom expressions. So I'm studying English expression for hotel business. I memorized the word 'overbooking'. I didn't know what it means. 'Deluxe room' is also a new word. I am studying while having fun. It fits me!!


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I have used Google, a easy-to-use concordancer, to improve the sample writing.
For example, in order to find out whether 'a basic virtue' is right or 'the basic virtue' is right, I simply typed both word on google with quotation marks and it gives the number of search results found. More natural and native-like expression will have a higher number of search results.

I didn't use concordancer to correct student's typing or spelling errors and misuse of singular and plural nouns. (I need a suggestion for this)

For the odd expressions like 'hotel english' and 'brewery english', I typed in both words on google and could not find any relative search results, so I corrected on my own as I assume it is not a really authentic language use.

I could improve the sample writing expressions/sentence use too (Not only incorrect single word uses) For some expressions like 'studying with fun', Even though I could find some search results, I could definitely tell that "have fun while studying" or "studying while having fun" is more widely used expression with the number of search results, so I changed it.

With this exercise, I will definitely use concordancer programs like google for my own writing, because I now know it is a very useful and straightforward tool for language learning.

Taewhan's CALL Review 1

So far, I have taken 4 classes in ‘Use of Multimedia in ELT’ course. I think I have learned a lot within a very short period of time. And I think it is very good that I get to write a review like this because it will help me to remember things I learned much longer.

During the first week of the course, I learned what is ‘CALL’; Computer Assisted Language Learning. It is a very important terminology that generally includes all kinds of language learning that involves computing and associated devices such as mobile phones. Since I am in the generation which I grow up with the developing technology, I am very much familiar with the use of those devices but not with using those as a learning tool. In Korean educational context, they call it ‘Smart Learning’ in order to describe an interactive learning experience with Information Technology and they highlights expands and utilization of smart learning for this decade. Since I want to be an English teacher in South Korea, I feel the necessity to learn how to incorporate CALL into learning instruction. Knowing about this new cutting-edge language teaching method definitely evokes my interests to discover about CALL more.

As a beginning of the semester-long CALL introduction, we created a blog which itself is a great tool for CALL and autonomy in learning. I have already created one 4 years ago when I took an ‘ICT and autonomy in learning’ course and decided to use it again, instead of creating a new one. For the first step to decorate my blog, the professor introduced ‘Microsoft Powerpoint’ as a powerful tool to make an illustrative work without such professional tool like ‘Adobe Photoshop’. You can do lots of simple task with this program and I will absolutely use it for my future photo works. Also, I learned how to do a survey interaction using the website “http://www.polleverywhere.com“ This website is partially free for all and is very useful to interact with a small number of people. It works simultaneously just if you are connected to the Internet. It seemed like it is a pretty applicable voting tool.

During the second week of the course, we finally started to go into more details in terms of teaching language through CALL. The first topic is about teaching Vocabulary. As we learned the new theories, terminologies and even some methodologies about vocabulary teaching, some effective vocabulary teaching resources are introduced. In accordance with the Lexical Approach that Michael Lewis introduced in 1993, the professor and I looked through the websites that offers a variety of activities that involves learning collocations and others. One of the best websites was British National Corpus “http://corpus.byu.edu/bnc/” Through this website, I could easily check up the natural and native-like collocations because it lists the search result by the frequency of usage. Visuwords Online “http://www.visuwords.com” was another interesting website that offers online graphical dictionary. It gives you a straightforward visual mind-map of the word that you type in. I think younger kids will be a good target for this because they tend to learn visually. Lastly, I also very liked the Wordsmyth. “http://www.wordsmyth.net/” This site offers you a free glossary maker. I think I will use this website with the top priority when I teach kids. Within a few clicks, you can print out a glossary list that is essential tool to teach kids vocabulary in classrooms.

I didn’t review the all the websites that I looked through in class because they are too many. I picked few that I like. For the future reference of vocabulary resources, please visit my professor’s blog “http://proactiveteacher.blogspot.kr/2012/02/corpus-concordance-and-data-driven.html” I think because of the less complexity, teaching vocabulary is the field that you can utilize a variety of CALL and multimedia resources. I think I have learned a lot only during the past 2 weeks and I am highly looking forwards to going to class more times.

CALL Skill Practice 1

It is my first CALL skill practice 1 using EclipseCrossword program.
This is a very useful and easy tool to create a simple crossword puzzle exercise.
I highly recommend all of you to utilize this program.

The website address for the future reference is http://www.eclipsecrossword.com/
Go download the program and start using ^^