Wiki-Project Self Evaluation

The first contribution I made to the page was posting the first draft of an outline, which was generally accepted by the other members of the group and only slightly changed later. The outline was e result of proposals by Joseph and Harris together with what I considered important, especially the section on CMC and the language skills. Following Joseph’s suggestion, I also thought it was necessary to have an introductory section that explained the most important terms for an understanding of intra- and intercultural CMC, since our page is mainly designed for people who have not done detailed research in the field, yet. The content to sections 1 and 2 was posted by me on April 12th. In the introductory section I tried to keep the explanations as concise and informative as possible and just added some logistical considerations for teachers to the basic descriptions of the terms. Since much of the research in CMC (including the article I summarized on the discussion board) examines to what extent CMC enhances language proficiency, I thought it was necessary to include a section on the links between CMC and the four skills. This section, then, was intended to be a little more theoretical. I tried to include the knowledge I gained from reading the relevant articles for class. The problem was that I could not really find articles that dealt with CMC and reading proficiency, so this part of the section consequently appears less theoretical. In the practical applications section I wrote two short paragraphs about the possibilities of Email and Electronic Message Boards on April 25th. The information I give there is mostly based on two articles in Teaching with Technology that I had to concentrate on in my article presentation. I also added some pictures to illustrate the respective technologies. On April 26th I decided to add the references to those articles on the page. Finally, my personal experiences paragraph is rather short due to my limited experience with CMC in teaching. However, I think this is an interesting section for people to read as it personalizes our page. Overall I would say that our page gives an interesting introduction to intra- and intercultural CMC for people who have not done research in the field yet.
The only revision I made to the page was to move Harris’s contribution about his teaching background that he initially put in the first section to the end. I thought it would fit better in the personal section where he had already posted his experiences with CMC.
At this moment our page is not complete as examples for synchronous CMC applications are still missing. I figured I have contributed enough to the page and give Joseph the chance to add some content as well. If I had to evaluate our group work I would say it was not optimal given that not everyone contributed to the page equally and that our page is not finished right now. A little more real-life communication among the group members would have been beneficial, I guess. For this lack of communication all group members are equally to “blame”.
As for my contributions, I have met every deadline and posted everything that was due on time. Also I would say that my contributions were crucial in the development of the page with regards to structure as well as content.
I would give myself an A and the group as a whole a B.

Mini Project 4 - Teaching with video

Activity: Was essen Sie gern? (What do you like to eat?)

The activity will take approximately 20 minutes plus screening time and is designed for a class of beginning German students. The follow-up, however, will be a writing tasked that the students have to do at home, so that the actual time spent on the activity is longer than the 20 minutes in class. The video is supposed to support the acquisition of vocabulary and discoursive strategies to talk about food. The two interviews with native speakers provide authentic listening material that the students have to decipher and the interview in English serves as a basis for intercultural comparison but is also intended to be "translated" into German within the activity.

[The translations will not be given to the students.]
First screening: Scanning for familiar words. Get the gist.
- The students are supposed to take notes of familiar words to keep attention. They are also supposed to answer a few simple questions about the basic content. 1.) Was passiert im Haus für internationale Studenten und wie oft? (What happens at the HIS and how often? 2.) Wie heißen die drei Interviewpartner? (How are the interviewees called?)
Second screening: Detail understanding. (All answers supposed to be in German)
- Wer ist Randy? Was studieren Jan und Ulrich? (Who is Randy? What do Jan and Ulrich study?)
- Was gibt es heute zu essen? (What's on the menu today?)
- Wie alt sind Ulrich und Jan? (How old?)
- Was essen die drei am liebsten? (What is their favorite food?)
- Essen sie gesund? (Do they eat healthy?)
- Wer ist Vegetarier? Why is he vegetarian? (Who is the vegetarian? Why?)
- Für was macht er eine Ausnahme? Wo gibt es das?(For what does he make an exception? Where did he find this food?)

Follow-Up: Discussion,communication and homework.
- In-class discussion: Do you see any cultural differences between Randy, Ulrich and Jan? From what you know, is there a difference between German food culture and American?

-Partner Interview in next class session. Students doing the interview that I did in the video in pairs.

- Homework: Write a short paragraph (8-10 sentences)about yourself and you food preferences. (Name, age, what you study, your favorite food, where you go out to eat usually, whether you try to eat healthy or not.)


Assessing student performance: The students are supposed to participate actively and answer all questions. Their follow-up homework essay will be graded according to a 25 point max. grading rubric. (Content 12pts./ Grammar 8 pts./ Vocabulary 5pts.)

First Steps with Audacity for Podcasting

Once again my beautiful voice.

Virtual Life - Real Skills?

I think the reason why Second Life is not really as successful as MMORPGs (massively multiplayer online role-playing games)like World of Warcraft is the lack of fantasy or game factors involved. When people delve into a virtual reality, they usually don't want to re-play real life. In my opinion those fantasy game worlds are a promising environment for learning a language. You usually have to work in groups to achieve certain goals in the virtual world and thus have to communicate with other players who can be native speakers of your target language. From my experience, German online role-playing gamers attain pretty good English skills through their hour-long contact with English speaker in the game world. As I said before, those games are more likely to involve language learners in communication as a second life based on reality. One might argue, of course that we don't want our students to be able to organize a group of trolls fighting against orks, instead of being able to order food at a restaurant.
However, when I played English adventure games as a kid, it helped me improve my language skills a lot, although it was fantasy and I don't have to argue with pirates in the real world.

Intercultural Communication

Last week I posted some thoughts on how an understanding of the target culture's humor can be one way of developing intercultural understanding and showed how you can implement youtube videos as a source for a discussion. Thinking a little more about the topic of humor I imagined problematic situations that my students might encounter when they visit Germany: when intercultural communication goes wrong and a joke might be interpreted as offensive although it was not intended to be. Different cultures may have different standards of what is offensive and what not. This is, I think, mainly a matter of pragmatics. There is a close link betwwen cultural awareness and pragmatic competence, a key to mastering a foreign language. Pragmatic competence means e.g. that you are able to decode "power relations" in a communicative situation. If you feel offended by a joke that was not intended to be offensive, you might have misinterpreted the speaker's standpoint as being more powerful or "elevated" compared to you, than it really was. Intercultural communicative competence, then, means to have a basic understanding of how native speakers say something in specific situations and being able to decode the original intention correctly. Such competence can only be trained by communication with native speakers, although, as is the case with Germany and America, the pragmatics of humor need not be that far apart in some cases. (The international success of The Simpsons might be a proof for that.)

Teaching with Technology Philosophy

In my opinion, what is probably the most important factor for successful teaching is to be open-minded towards new approaches, methods and circumstances. Looking back at my experiences as a student of foreign languages, I always improved the most when teachers showed motivation and a willingness to adjust their syllabus and were open to new ideas. On the other hand I always had problems being motivated when it seemed like the teacher used a fixed syllabus and set of activities that he/she had already used over and over again over years. A good teacher should always be self-critical as well as open to criticism from students or other teachers. He/ she should also show an awareness of changing language acquisition contexts and specific dynamics among the students (different learning abilities). I agree with Thorne and Payne’s observation that our students today are a new generation that has been brought up in different social and technological environment. (The so-called “Digital Natives”). In this respect, an open-minded teacher should also be willing to adapt to these new circumstances by including new technologies and ways of communication that our students are very familiar with as they are a part of their everyday social behavior.
The teacher’s open-mindedness should also coincide with the ability to create a productive learning atmosphere in the classroom; that is to motivate students and to make them feel at ease with learning a new language. Students should not be afraid of making mistakes; they are a natural part of language acquisition. I try to tell my students that it is more important to communicate than to be correct. As long as the mistakes do not hinder communication severely, students can get their message across and that is the main purpose of using a language. Research has shown that computer-mediated communication such as chat or electronic discussion boards lowers the students’ affective filter (their level of anxiety) to the point that their language output in these environments increases as opposed to classroom face-to-face communication. I think it would be careless for teachers nowadays not to take advantage of this. I only have three students in my current class and two of them are very anxious about using German; they tend to answer in English although they know how to express it in German. It would be interesting to see how their performance changes in a chat environment for example. However, as experience with chat shows, teachers have to make sure that the students have clear goals and a certain structure that guides CMC. As with all tools that are used in foreign language education, the use of modern communication technologies, too, has to be based on well established theoretical frameworks and should be guided by specific learning goals. The benefits of CMC, such as increased language production, make communicative activities more efficient, but it is the teacher’s job to turn this efficiency into effectiveness. Before every communicative activity, for example, I try to establish a meaningful context that keeps students interested in what they say and hear. Personalized information exchange also keeps students more involved.
I try to speak as much German in class as possible because it is one of the only authentic audible inputs my students can get for developing proficiency in listening. Listening comprehension is a key skill in mastering the target language and being able to survive in the target culture. The internet has brought along a seemingly endless source for authentic material and podcasting e.g. seems to be a great way of exposing students to authentic audio files and enhancing the teacher’s possibilities. However, as with most of the newer technologies, the problem is that the school would have to provide the respective financial and logistic prerequisites that are needed. (This teaching with technology statement has to presuppose that the necessary resources are available.)
When I asked my beginning students why they study German, most of them stated that they want be able to communicate with co-workers in a German company or in the country itself. That is why I consider the development of speaking proficiency probably the most important. I try to encourage my students to speak as much German in class as possible. Most of CMC is based on writing, but there have been studies that suggest that the increased written language production also has positive effects on oral performance. This is another strong argument for me to include CMC based activities in my teaching. Maybe the future holds groundbreaking changes in the development of speech recognition software and artificial intelligence that open up even better possibilities in the area of teaching oral proficiency. Thanks to the Internet it is even possible to have students communicate orally with native speakers through telecommunication software such as skype. Although this contact to native speakers may raise the affective filter again it is a unique possibility for gaining proficiency and learning about the target culture. Cultural awareness, in my mind, is a key step to mastering a foreign language. It is probably in this realm that the Internet and the vast access to authentic material proves to be most beneficial. I like to show short videos or music-clips that can be found on websites like youtube which usually entail more cultural information and starting points for discussion than the average textbook. Even without Internet technology I would show documentaries or feature films in class. Both media, though in different ways, give insight to the target culture that a book can not provide.
In my preliminary remarks I stated that teachers should always be open-minded and aware of changing social and technological circumstances. In this respect I think it is important to be aware that this philosophy is momentary, too, as it would have to change with technological developments and be adjusted to classroom dynamics that may favour the implementation of certain technologies as opposed to others.

Intercultural Humor

Youtube can provide videos of L2 comedy that can be the starting point for an intercultural class discussion about products, practices and perspectives.

I think comedy is a very important product of a culture. Most comedy relies on stereotypes; it uses exaggerated depiction of cultural practices and perspectives. The video I linked is a fake commercial within a comedy movie that promotes a "true" German restaurant by ridiculing other cuisines like Italian, Greek and Turkish. The joke here, however, is not on the ethnic minorities but on the narrow-minded, nationalistic Germans whose "Gastfreundlichkeit" (hospitality) does not apply for everything south of the border.

Instructors could use such instances of L2 comedy to foster intercultural discussion with NS. Why do Germans think this is funny? (If they think it is funny at all). Do American students consider this funny, too? What is the difference to American comedy which also heavily relies on ethnic stereotypes? I think such an intercultural understanding of humor is a major step in gaining pragmatic proficiency in the target language.