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CommunicationCulturally ResponsiveEnglish Language ArtsESL/ELLForeign LanguageMusicSpanish

Three Online Public Radio Search Tools

by Miguel Guhlin
written by Miguel Guhlin

This past holiday season, I spent some of my time listening to music from around the globe. I didn’t have to pay a cent for it, and what fun to explore the world in an interactive audio map. Wish you had a way to listen to music from around the world? Explore online public radio with one of these tools.

Why Listen to Public Radio in the Classroom?

EdSurge offers a few compelling reasons that go beyond it being pleasant:

  • Listening is a great mode of delivery for informational “texts.” Public radio stories can be a great example of spoken academic language.
  • You can hear and interpret emotions, which gives students a powerful connection to the speaker.
  • Radio announcers use techniques in their voicing that keep you listening. They create drama with their voice.

Be sure to read the complete article for more reasons why. Others suggest that listening to radio announcers and audio content can help you learn a language.

Tool #1: Radio Garden

Radio Garden makes it easy to explore audio around the world. You can click and drag the world map on your screen to place a circle anywhere in the world you want. Here’s what that looked like as I was listening to music from Spain:

Radio Garden online public radio Spain

This service is a nonprofit Dutch radio and digital research project. The Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision developed Radio Garden from 2013 to 2016. It was a project of The Transnational Radio Knowledge Platform and five other European universities (source). You can add your favorite stations to a list or bookmark them in your browser. Additionally, you can share the link to the station on Twitter, Facebook, or via email.

This site is hours of fun. I ended up visiting many locations around the globe to listen to music in English, Spanish, and others. You can guess what language I was listening to with this picture:

Radio Garden online public radio Italy

Give it a try.

Tool #2: Radio.net

Radio.net makes it easy to find public radio stations online, albeit in a less interactive way than Radio Garden.

You can type in the name of the desired country and get a list of public radio stations to explore.

This site works more like a search engine, making it easy to locate the public radio stations you want. You will be listening to music pretty quickly after you begin your search, though.

Tool #3: FMRadio Online

Another amazing music finder is FMRadio Online, which lets you surf via radio stations in the United States. But there’s more!

You can find radio stations by country flag, getting a list of radio stations for each country. I found myself captivated by local radio stations in Costa Rica, including classic songs. For any globe-trotter, a world of audio and music lies at your fingertips via your web browser.

Bonus Tip

Want to record audio from an internet radio station or any audio on your computer? Why not give Audacity a try? Look for a brief tutorial post on how to get it done next week.

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Screenshot by author

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Back to SchoolEnglish Language ArtsESL/ELLForeign LanguageGood TeachingSpanish

Three Editable Back To School Activities For Language Development

by Emily Horn
written by Emily Horn

It’s almost time for back to school. Can you believe it? I sure can’t. Summer has flown by, as per usual, but I sure hope yours has been fantastic.

Teaching Vocabulary in the Early Years

With the first few weeks of school in mind, I’ve created these three editable activities specifically for preschool to kindergarten grade levels to reinforce school vocabulary. Why the focus on language here? Students must have a solid vocabulary base to support reading comprehension. So working on building vocabulary with early emergent readers is vital to the development of reading skills and the love of reading.

Second Language Development

These activities can also be used for second language learning and vocabulary acquisition. For example, they’re great to use in bilingual or dual language classrooms. Since the teachers can share these items and use them in their language of instruction, these games can greatly aid in language transfer between two (or more) languages.

Three Back to School Activities

Take a look at these ready-to-use bingo cards, flashcards, and “I Have, Who Has” game cards. You can edit these activities to add or change anything you see fit. I purposefully didn’t include words on these cards since the focus is oral language, but once you are working on letter-sound correspondence (like beginning sounds, etc.), you can certainly add the text. Additionally, you can replace my photos with photos you (or the students) take of these items in your classroom.

Unpopular opinion alert! There are some truly beautifully made, very cute templates and resources out there, and I appreciate them. But I did not make these activities very cute (outside of the title page) on purpose. Because I don’t believe that students really need them to be or that it really helps the learning. In fact, keeping things plain and simple is often best, especially for young students learning foundational oral language and reading skills.

Here is the school supply vocabulary I used:

  • Tape
  • Colored Pencils
  • Chair
  • Folder
  • Stapler
  • Pencil Bag
  • Trash Can
  • Binder
  • Water Bottle
  • Recycle Bin
  • Eraser
  • Whiteboard
  • Backpack
  • Paint Brushes
  • Clipboard
  • Glue Stick
  • Markers
  • Book
  • Notebook
  • Paper
  • Table
  • Paint
  • Pencil
  • Crayons
  • Scissors
  • Glue

Back to School Supplies Flashcards

When introducing vocabulary, I liked to use real objects or flashcards with real photos of the objects on them. Here are very simple flashcards that can be used in a variety of ways.

Ideas for Using these Back to School Flashcards:

  • Mystery Box: I loved using the mystery box to introduce new vocabuarly. I would sing a little mystery box song (that I completely made up) and pull a card out of the box for the students to identify. When I was teaching pre-K students, this was one of their favorite things.
  • Matching/Memory Game: Print out two sets of cards and place them all face down. Have students take turns turning over two cards at a time. If the two cards chosen match, they can be left face up. If the two cards do not match, they should be turned face down. Continue until all matches have been found.
  • Kim’s Game: Place three cards in front of a student face up. Have the student close his/her eyes. Remove one card from the group. When the student opens their eyes, ask them to tell you which card is missing. This game can be differentiated by varying the number of cards, the number of cards you remove, and by mixing the cards up after you remove cards.
  • Supply Hunt: Have students draw a flashcard from the mystery box and then find the object(s) in the classroom. This is a great way to help students get to know where supplies are!
Access the Flashcards Template Here

Back to School Supplies Bingo

Get out some beans, counting bears, counters, or counting bugs, and play back to school bingo with your young learners. Five cards are included in this template, but you can certainly add more by duplicating sheets and moving around (or adding to) the images to make the new cards unique. I loved playing bingo in small groups, and I often used it as an informal assessment for listening comprehension and took anecdotal notes. Can students identify objects when they hear the vocabulary word? This game will show you. You can use the flashcards as support for language learners when playing this game (but only if needed). If a student needs support, just say the word, hold up the flashcard, and encourage the student to say the word and find the image on their card. This is a game that can really be used with any vocabulary, including numbers, shapes, and colors!

Additional Back to School Bingo Ideas:

  • School People Bingo: Switch out the images with pictures of classmates, teachers, and school staff to help students get to know each other and those around them.
  • Classroom Jobs Bingo: Use the images you have on the jobs chart to help familiarize students with the classroom jobs.
  • Around School Bingo: Use images of various spots on campus (cafeteria, playground, classroom, library, etc.) and in your classroom (centers, carpet, small group table, etc.) to help students recognize and learn school spaces.
Access the Editable Bingo Template Here

“I Have, Who Has?” Cards

This game was a favorite in my pre-K classroom. It really motivated students when it came to speaking! Just follow the instructions below with your small group, and let the speaking, listening, and vocabulary reinforcement begin.

Access the “I Have, Who Has” Game Template Here

Do you have other ideas for ways to use these three activities for back to school bonding and language acquisition? Please share with us in the comments.

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English Language ArtsESL/ELLWeb 2.0 Tool

Five Ways to Use QR Codes for Second Language Development

by Emily Horn
written by Emily Horn

Before we talk about QR codes, I’m going to tell you a secret. Many of you reading this are going to think that I’m absolutely crazy because of this secret. But there will be a few of you who will gasp lightly, smile, get a little excited, and think “Oh my gosh. Me, too!” Ok. Here goes.

I absolutely loved teaching prekindergarten. Loved it. As in it is my favorite grade I’ve ever taught.

It’s true. I am “that” person. The Pre-K-8 school where I taught prekindergarten had a major focus on language development, and I worked with many students learning English as a second (or third) language. This is the case for many students and teachers in classrooms around the country. If you teach prekindergarten or lower elementary and have English Language Learners (ELLs) in your classroom, let’s look at five ways QR codes can be used to support language development and promote vocabulary acquisition in your classroom. In the end, I’ll also share how to create different types of QR codes. But before we get started, let’s take a look at some research and information on language development in young children.

Why Is Language Development Important in Early Years?

Language development has been theorized for years by great psychologists and sociologists who have impacted education in major ways– like Skinner, Chomsky, Piaget, and Vygotsky. There is so much research out there! According to researcher Patricia K. Kuhl, Ph.D. in “Brain Mechanisms in Early Language Acquisition,”

There is evidence that early mastery of the phonetic units of language requires learning in a social context.

So the family, school, and social environment of learners is an important part of their language learning. This can be connected to Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development which is focused on language development through social interaction. Kuhl, along with many other researchers, also finds that:

In the domain of language, infants and young children are superior learners when compared to adults, in spite of adults’ cognitive superiority. Language is one of the classic examples of a “critical” or “sensitive” period in neurobiology. Scientists are generally in agreement that this learning curve is representative of data across a wide variety of second-language learning studies.

Brain Mechanisms in Early Language Acquisition

For example, here is a chart shared by Kuhl showing the age of second language acquisition related to grammatical proficiency in the second language. It’s interesting to see that proficiency is highest in those children learning the language before age seven. Teachers working with ELLs in preschool through second grade, you have an important job during a critical stage in language development. But if you’re a teacher working with older students, research also shows that our brains are still very skilled, more so than originally thought, at learning the grammar of a new language up to age 17 or 18.

Brain Mechanisms in Early Language Acquisition

Seeing how important second language learning is in the critical stage before age seven, let’s take a look at five ways to use QR codes to boost acquisition of language structures and vocabulary and foster positive social interaction to support language development.

1. Vocabulary Reinforcement

“I Have/Who Has” Example Card

Learning supply and school vocabulary. Label supplies, materials, and toys in your classroom with audio-only QR codes. This will allow students to scan and hear the words for vocabulary practice.

Checking for understanding. Students can pick QR codes from a mystery box or bag, listen to the word, and identify the correlating object(s) in pictures, flashcards, or the classroom. For example, if a student scans a QR code and hears the word “scissors,” they can show they understand by finding scissors in the classroom, choosing them out of a set of picture cards, or by pointing to scissors in a picture of a classroom.

Scan and say. You can also put audio QR codes on image cards for students to scan and say. Labeling flashcard images with QR codes for matching games is fun, too. Students flip the card, scan to hear, then say the word before choosing their second card. You can also place codes on “I Have/Who Has” cards if a student gets stuck.

2. Songs, Poems, and Nursery Rhymes

Old MacDonald Had a Farm (Audio Only Example)

Songs, poems, and nursery rhymes are fantastic for language learning. And they are a tried-and-true way to teach vocabulary and sentence structure. Not only that but students really love them! Give ELLs the opportunity to revisit songs, poems, and nursery rhymes to reinforce vocabulary on their own by creating a Song and Poetry book with QR codes. Prior to introducing a new song, create a video or audio recording of it. Be sure to speak (or sing) slowly and clearly. Once students have been introduced to the song and any related vocabulary, you can paste the audio or video QR code along with lyrics and related pictures of vocabulary into the Song and Poetry book. This book can stay in the library or music center, for example. Repeated listening is good vocabulary reinforcement and it builds confidence in students who may be hesitant to participate at first.

3. Language-Based Scavenger Hunts

Clue 1 for Scavenger Hunt to Find the Missing Bear

There are several ways you can create fun, language-based scavenger hunts for your ELLs. Place audio-only QR codes on numbered cards around your classroom or school to give oral instructions on where to go next for treasure hunts. Or have students pick a QR code from a bag to collect objects or have “I Spy” adventures.

Here are just a couple of adaptable scavenger hunt ideas:

  • The class mascot is missing!
  • Find the hidden treasure.
  • Spy objects on a nature walk.
  • Gather a collection of items.
  • Look for shapes, numbers, and colors!

4. Connect School and Home with Language Journals

Create a Language Journal with ELLs. Include lyrics to songs, poems, and nursery rhymes, and add images and words for vocabulary. Add QR codes for these so students can practice outside of school. They can take their journal home each weekend to add photos or drawings to bring back to school on Monday. In my classroom, students were very motivated to speak about their lives. They enjoyed showing me their pictures and drawings and describing them. Not only was it a great time to connect with students on a personal level, it was also a great way to get them comfortable speaking.

5. Read Alouds

Storyline Online: Clark the Shark read by Chris Pine

Record your own read alouds or find them on YouTube. Laminate QR code cards containing the QR code and a picture of the book cover, and students will love to revisit texts you’ve read in class. This is great for listening comprehension and reinforcing vocabulary, much like the Song and Poetry book. I kept these in a basket in the library center. Students could watch a video read aloud or listen to an audio-only read aloud while looking at the book.

Read Aloud Resources:

How to Create QR Codes

Video QR Codes

This video shows you how to create a QR code using a video in your Google Drive. Be sure that your share settings are set to “Anyone with the link can view.”

For YouTube videos, you can use the same instructions, but with a YouTube video link.

Audio QR Codes

You can follow the instructions above for audio files in your Google Drive. But you can also easily use Vocaroo. Vocaroo is a fantastically easy tool to use for creating free, audio-only QR codes. Click the red record button, click Save and Share, and then download your audio QR code. This has been one of the most valuable tools I’ve found.

In Conclusion

I hope you’ve found something you can use in your classroom to make second language learning fun and to support vocabulary acquisition. If not, I hope one of these ideas sparked an idea in you. Please feel free to share what’s worked in your classroom in the comments section.

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subtitles
Microsoft Tips and Tricks

New PowerPoint Translator Makes Captioning Possible

by Miguel Guhlin
written by Miguel Guhlin

New web-based translation services make captioning easier. Microsoft now includes captioning in its Office suite as Powerpoint combines with Microsoft Translator to create powerful learning opportunities for students.

Why Captioning Matters

While Powerpoint Translator has great features, let’s reflect on the reasons why captioning is a PreK-12 education necessity.

  • Captioning is required by law. Relevant law includes Americans with Disabilities Act and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act . Both require captioning on student-available educational video. This can be critical for hearing-impaired learners. For PreK-12 public school students, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) requires equal access to education. This makes captioning educational video a requirement. (source).
  • Captioning helps non-native speakers. There are 4.6 million English Language Learners (ELL) in public schools.
  • Captioning improves reading comprehension, retention, and focus. Same language subtitling can improve student attitude, engagement, and reading proficiency levels (source).
  • Captioning makes your presentation more searchable. Adding subtitles to your work makes content searchable on the web as search engines index your subtitles. This makes it easy for others to find ideas matched to their search terms.

Let’s discuss the changes Microsoft has made to PowerPoint.

Key Features

The PowerPoint Translator add-in has these features:

Subtitles

  • Real-time subtitles to presentations in any of the 10 supported speech languages. Supported languages include Arabic, Chinese (Mandarin), English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish.
  • Subtitles can be shown in the presenter’s language. This supports accessibility scenarios.
  • Subtitles may be seen in any of the 60+ languages.

Audience Interaction

  • The audience can use their own device as long as it is equipped with the Microsoft Translator app (Android | iOS).
  • The audience can follow along. Presenters can use a QR or five letter conversation code. This allows them to participate in a multi-language Q&A.
  • The add-in learns technical terms, acronyms, and special names. It does this by scanning the content of slides/notes. The add-in presents jargon to the audience.
  • Up to 100 audience members in the room can follow along in their own language. They may use their own phone, tablet, or computer.

 Translation

  • Translate the text of PowerPoint. This preserves the original formatting,
  • Languages (left-to-right, right-to-left) can be translated from one to the other.

Make Learning Accessible

Powerpoint Translator makes subtitling automatic and closed captioning possible. How will you use these Microsoft tools to transform learning in your classroom?

 

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ESL/ELL

For the ELL Student, Does Practice Make Perfect?

by Miguel Guhlin
written by Miguel Guhlin

Do educators believe that practice makes perfect? Do you believe that English language learners’ brains work like muscles that, if properly exercised, will become more adept at the tasks they are set? These questions popped into my mind as I reflected on the following Tweet.

#ELLs speak, on average, fewer than 10 minutes a day in school. How can you learn a language when you aren’t allowed to speak? #WIDA2016

This tweet raises a few questions and responses. You are invited to inventory your biases, as I did when I resisted the inclination to agree. Let’s explore the questions.

Does Practice Make Perfect in Language Learning?

Stephen Krashen (@skrashen) points out that we learn language when it is comprehensible to us, when it means something. The Comprehension Hypothesis points out that we understand language (input) by achieving three criteria:

  • We have some language background to refer to.
  • We have some knowledge of the world around us.
  • We have context.

According to Krashen, this means that we acquire language by input, not by output. “Talking” he points out, “is not practicing.” He goes on to say, “More output, more speaking (or writing) will not result in more language acquisition. . .the ability to speak is the result of language acquisition, not the cause.” Speaking, however, does provide a way for students to obtain comprehensible input.

If Krashen’s second language acquisition hypothesis is accurate, then it does not matter that English language learners speak fewer than ten minutes a day in school. There is little correlation between learning and quantity of output. Practice, or activities that promote output, are important because of the opportunities they provide language learners in effective processing of input. Throughout this, students build a theory of the world around them, a “shield against bewilderment” (Smith, 2012).

If Practice Doesn’t Make Perfect, How Do ELL Students Learn?

Providing a safe, language-rich environment can enable students to learn a new language and be motivated to use it meaningfully. Students have the choice whether to participate or not in a language learning classroom. Games, discussing topics of interest, storytelling, and projects present opportunities for students to acquire language that is at their level and that they can grow on (what Krashen calls “i+1” with the “i” being for “comprehensible input”). Grammatical accuracy comes as a result of successful second language acquisition, rather than through rigorous practice. Regrettably, the latter is standard in high school foreign language learning classes.

How Does Technology Play a Part in Language Learning?

Creating safe learning environments that promote language learning are possible with online learning management systems. Listening to others can result in comprehensible input. Some approaches for ELL teachers include the following:

  • Engage students in the authentic purpose of solving a problem (problem-based learning/inquiry-based learning).
  • Encourage student collaboration on projects focused on the creation of tangible product(s) (webquests, project-based learning).
  • Amplify human voices as they gather stories and share them (blogging, podcasts, digital storytelling).

Findings (Jarvis, 2014) suggest that 1) Language learners find that non-pedagogical uses of technology are helpful (as opposed to direct instruction via language exercises), 2) The Internet provides many opportunities for comprehensible input. 3) Finally, technology enhances language learning when used for authentic purposes.

For more suggestions on blending technology into second language learning, you are encouraged to read Stephen Krashen’s blog on The Potential of Technology. Also read and listen to these TCEA TechNotes blog entries and podcasts.

References

  1. Jarvis, H., & Krashen, S. (February, 2014). Is Computer-Assisted Language Learning Learning Obsolete? Language Acquisition and Language Learning Revisited in a Digital Age. Available online at http://ly.tcea.org/teslcallobsolete
  2. Krashen, S. (2013). Second Language Acquisition. Available online at http://www.sdkrashen.com/content/articles/krashen_sla.pdf
  3. Smith, F. (2012). Understanding Reading: A psycholinguistic analysis of reading and learning to read. Available online at http://ly.tcea.org/franksmith2012

 

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ESL/ELL

ELL Strategies: Digital Phrase Walls and Anchor Charts

by Miguel Guhlin
written by Miguel Guhlin

“My principal wants me to use anchor charts, or at least, hang some on the walls” an experienced teacher told me recently. “I’m just not sure I get the value.” I immediately started to explain why anchor charts are so important, and then sputtered to a stop, like a car running out of gas, realizing that I could not articulate why they were beneficial. In this blog entry, let’s explore the benefits of anchor charts, phrase walls, and technology for use in English Language Learner (ELL) classrooms. Of course, these approaches work for monolingual classes as well.

Before we do that, let’s review what anchor charts are, courtesy of Rhonda Stewart (Scholastic) for the quote:

…an anchor chart is a tool used largely to support instruction and to move the student towards achieving success with lessons taught in class. They are also used as a classroom management tool for students to self-monitor their behavior by gently reminding them of expectations and routines. Anchor charts are created during the instruction of the lesson. As the teacher models the lesson or strategy, the lesson reinforcement or strategy tool is written on chart paper. Once the lesson is complete, the chart is placed in a convenient student-friendly location so that the students can access it independently….

The beauty of an anchor chart is that it can be displayed as needed or determined by the student work. Some anchor charts live all year long in the classroom, while others are only displayed during the current unit of study.

One of the key phrases is that “anchor charts are created during the instruction of the lesson.” A question that comes to mind is “How can we transfer ownership of the anchor charts from the teacher to the students and use technology to generate the chart?”

Here are three approaches to try:

  1. Create a Padlet: Although Padlet can be used to create a word wall, you can easily share expectations for what “talking” should sound like simply by having students audio record themselves and share that in the Padlet itself. You can also include other content (e.g. text, video, images). Then make the Padlet available on a device like a digital projector or large screen television/monitor. If working with classroom centers, setting up a computer screen monitor connected to a mobile device will also work.
  2. Create a Thinglink: Think of ThingLink as a virtual interactive wall, which makes it great to combine with a large touchscreen monitor.
  3. Create an Infographic: Having students create infographics that they can share and then hang on the wall can be very engaging for them. Not only have they recaptured ownership of the anchor/phrase chart, but they are able to pull information from others in the classroom. Each contributes their own part.

What other strategies do you see as effective in ELL to create expectations for how students should interact? While you are reflecting on that, consider the following point that Nancy McNeal emphasizes in her blog Learning Twice regarding anchor charts:

The brain-based research of Marcia Tate and others support the use of visuals to incorporate new learning into memory. When the visual represents a learning event that includes the students, it becomes an artifact of the learning experience. It has meaning for the students because they participated in its construction. [emphasis mine-MG]

Are you ready for ELL students to become co-creators of their learning? THEY are.

Join the ongoing TCEA Microsoft Innovative Educator (MIE) SkypeChat via your mobile device or online. Explore and share concepts at the intersection of teaching, learning, leading, and technology!

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