"Teachers need to integrate technology seamlessly into the curriculum instead of viewing it as an add-on, an afterthought, or an event."
-Heidi-Hayes Jacobs
-Heidi-Hayes Jacobs
Educational Excellence and Innovation Now and Into the Future
My Beginnings: Background and a Love of Language Learning
I was raised in a small town on the Osage Nation Reservation in Oklahoma. I had little contact with or knowledge of the outside world, but language has always been a fascination. I often spent my time designing a constructed language as a teenager, stumbling onto linguistic ideas without even realizing what I had done until college over a decade later. I eventually left that small town with dreams of seeing the world, and I found myself stationed at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. From there I’ve had the pleasure of visiting many areas across the Pacific: Jinhae, South Korea; Yokohama and Sukumo, Japan; Hong Kong; Pattaya, Thailand; Guam; Singapore; Perth, Australia; Seward, Alaska; and San Diego, California. The broad experiences gained from growing up in a place with so much history, being able to visit a wide array of foreign lands, and living in one of the culturally richest places on the planet has given me what I believe to be an excellent skillset for teaching others about language and culture.
As a teenager in rural Oklahoma, I was never given much access to language or the world until the Internet came along, and one of my first ventures on the nascent World Wide Web was to attempt to teach myself Japanese. Using a small website that offered free lessons, I spent my time carefully copying kana and reciting the various words and phrases from the lessons. Listening to music I was able to practice and better my pronunciation without contact with any actual speakers. Even before that, I would practically devour books and absorb information like a sponge. It is in that same vein that many of my core values and beliefs flourished; we all have the right to information and all of us deserve learning. These are driving forces behind my goal of becoming a teacher, and I hope to instill a deep, enduring love of language learning amongst my students specifically through the use of culture and technology.
The Role of Culture in Language Instruction
Through broadening our horizons we can come to better know our world. A language without culture is dead, and as a teacher I believe it is my duty to make English and the cultures of English speakers come alive to the students. To accomplish this, I plan to incorporate cultural lessons from my own American English speaking culture into my curricula, such as days introducing foods and bringing samples to the class. A few regional foods that I would like to expose my students to come from my home state Oklahoma. An example that students may see as slightly exotic is the Indian taco, a food that derives from when American Indians were first sent to the reservations and lived on rations supplied by the government. Not knowing what to do with the flour they were given, they fried it into bread and made something similar to a taco. It has become a staple at county fairs and pow wows, and these sorts of foods easily lend themselves to lessons concerning the plights of native peoples which is something that people not from the US may not even be aware of. Other days could be spent introducing holidays and festivals with classroom celebrations, stories of my own cultural misunderstandings in the past (a bit of humor can make pieces of language quite enduring), and in environments where English speaking culture isn’t readily available I rely on technology to transport culture across the world. An example of this concept would be a “virtual host family,” where a family on the mainland would set up a webcam to allow students into their homes for a holiday or event. The students would have an opportunity to ask questions and feel as if they are a part of the experience. Through the use of Skype, YouTube, and various other forms of new media, a faraway culture can be brought center stage in the classroom.
The Advantages of Technology in Language Learning
The above-mentioned incorporation of new media and technology in my classroom is a primary technique I wish to try in my budding language teaching career. Working with colleagues in other parts of the world, their students learning the native language of my students could share and give each other great opportunities to practice. Some of the most effective language practice I’ve had in learning Japanese has been with Japanese speakers learning English, but such speakers are not always available. However, with Skype or a similar video chat service, those speakers could be easily imported from thousands of miles away and both groups would benefit from the experience. This is a more modern take on the traditional pen pal that classes used in years past.
Class periods are short and the opportunities to practice are often few, so again I would take advantage of new media for this purpose. A technique I wish to try would include having students set up Twitter accounts at the beginning of the class. All students would then follow each other as well as the teacher, and could then outside of class have an opportunity to practice with one another. With a requirement to tweet so many times a week and reply to so many of their classmates’ tweets in English, ample opportunities present themselves. The format, being only 140 characters will allow small bursts of language without much thought or anxiety, and due to the format, errors can be easily tolerated. Working with colleagues teaching in various places across the world, this could be further improved by including more students learning complementary languages (such as English native learners of Japanese and Japanese native learners of English). Not only would this make for an opportunity to practice and a simple and easy way to access the teachers with questions, it would help to build a sense of community – a sort of language learning community. This will instill stewardship in the students who will then take control of their learning, propelling it further than a teacher could alone.
Conclusion: I am a Facilitator
Whether introducing culture or using technology, at the end of the day I am a facilitator. It is my goal to encourage the students to not only come to love the learning process, but to take it into their own hands. While they’re still in my class, I do my best to create an environment where they can use what they’re learning and incorporate it, and then I guide them in their next steps in the process. I assist students in learning how to find new information on their own so that even long after they have left my classroom, they will be able to continue the process and become lifelong learners.
I was raised in a small town on the Osage Nation Reservation in Oklahoma. I had little contact with or knowledge of the outside world, but language has always been a fascination. I often spent my time designing a constructed language as a teenager, stumbling onto linguistic ideas without even realizing what I had done until college over a decade later. I eventually left that small town with dreams of seeing the world, and I found myself stationed at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. From there I’ve had the pleasure of visiting many areas across the Pacific: Jinhae, South Korea; Yokohama and Sukumo, Japan; Hong Kong; Pattaya, Thailand; Guam; Singapore; Perth, Australia; Seward, Alaska; and San Diego, California. The broad experiences gained from growing up in a place with so much history, being able to visit a wide array of foreign lands, and living in one of the culturally richest places on the planet has given me what I believe to be an excellent skillset for teaching others about language and culture.
As a teenager in rural Oklahoma, I was never given much access to language or the world until the Internet came along, and one of my first ventures on the nascent World Wide Web was to attempt to teach myself Japanese. Using a small website that offered free lessons, I spent my time carefully copying kana and reciting the various words and phrases from the lessons. Listening to music I was able to practice and better my pronunciation without contact with any actual speakers. Even before that, I would practically devour books and absorb information like a sponge. It is in that same vein that many of my core values and beliefs flourished; we all have the right to information and all of us deserve learning. These are driving forces behind my goal of becoming a teacher, and I hope to instill a deep, enduring love of language learning amongst my students specifically through the use of culture and technology.
The Role of Culture in Language Instruction
Through broadening our horizons we can come to better know our world. A language without culture is dead, and as a teacher I believe it is my duty to make English and the cultures of English speakers come alive to the students. To accomplish this, I plan to incorporate cultural lessons from my own American English speaking culture into my curricula, such as days introducing foods and bringing samples to the class. A few regional foods that I would like to expose my students to come from my home state Oklahoma. An example that students may see as slightly exotic is the Indian taco, a food that derives from when American Indians were first sent to the reservations and lived on rations supplied by the government. Not knowing what to do with the flour they were given, they fried it into bread and made something similar to a taco. It has become a staple at county fairs and pow wows, and these sorts of foods easily lend themselves to lessons concerning the plights of native peoples which is something that people not from the US may not even be aware of. Other days could be spent introducing holidays and festivals with classroom celebrations, stories of my own cultural misunderstandings in the past (a bit of humor can make pieces of language quite enduring), and in environments where English speaking culture isn’t readily available I rely on technology to transport culture across the world. An example of this concept would be a “virtual host family,” where a family on the mainland would set up a webcam to allow students into their homes for a holiday or event. The students would have an opportunity to ask questions and feel as if they are a part of the experience. Through the use of Skype, YouTube, and various other forms of new media, a faraway culture can be brought center stage in the classroom.
The Advantages of Technology in Language Learning
The above-mentioned incorporation of new media and technology in my classroom is a primary technique I wish to try in my budding language teaching career. Working with colleagues in other parts of the world, their students learning the native language of my students could share and give each other great opportunities to practice. Some of the most effective language practice I’ve had in learning Japanese has been with Japanese speakers learning English, but such speakers are not always available. However, with Skype or a similar video chat service, those speakers could be easily imported from thousands of miles away and both groups would benefit from the experience. This is a more modern take on the traditional pen pal that classes used in years past.
Class periods are short and the opportunities to practice are often few, so again I would take advantage of new media for this purpose. A technique I wish to try would include having students set up Twitter accounts at the beginning of the class. All students would then follow each other as well as the teacher, and could then outside of class have an opportunity to practice with one another. With a requirement to tweet so many times a week and reply to so many of their classmates’ tweets in English, ample opportunities present themselves. The format, being only 140 characters will allow small bursts of language without much thought or anxiety, and due to the format, errors can be easily tolerated. Working with colleagues teaching in various places across the world, this could be further improved by including more students learning complementary languages (such as English native learners of Japanese and Japanese native learners of English). Not only would this make for an opportunity to practice and a simple and easy way to access the teachers with questions, it would help to build a sense of community – a sort of language learning community. This will instill stewardship in the students who will then take control of their learning, propelling it further than a teacher could alone.
Conclusion: I am a Facilitator
Whether introducing culture or using technology, at the end of the day I am a facilitator. It is my goal to encourage the students to not only come to love the learning process, but to take it into their own hands. While they’re still in my class, I do my best to create an environment where they can use what they’re learning and incorporate it, and then I guide them in their next steps in the process. I assist students in learning how to find new information on their own so that even long after they have left my classroom, they will be able to continue the process and become lifelong learners.
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