What's happening in the news with ESL and technology?

This week I had more than double the amount of Google Alerts for my ESL topic, which was exciting.  After perusing through each article, I found four of them to be of interest and relative to my ESL technology blog and my readers.  So, without further ado, here are my week two articles summarized and reviewed for you, and I look forward to hearing from you too.

Article One is entitled “More people are choosing to learn English as a second language” by Ayat Ahadi and was featured on goodherald.com. This article discussed how many people are choosing to learn English for various reasons in various ways.  However, these various ways did not include traditional learning in a classroom setting, which as the author indicated can be cumbersome and “tricky.” Instead the article gave ideas and examples of how people are more quickly acquiring English as a second language, which include watching television and listening to radio shows in English, reading online books and newspapers in English, and/or purchasing CD or internet lessons. The common denominator of these learning methods is computer technology that is readily available to motivated learners across the globe. Although this article did not give any actual statistics about the number of English language learners choosing technology language learning over traditional language learning, I do believe that the content holds validity.  If we just quickly assess our own family and friends, how many  do we know who have DuoLingo or some other L2 learning app on their personal mobile device?  Additionally, as educators, how many students do we know who are full-time or blended cyber learners? How many schools are moving to1:1 initiatives to bring technology to all students?  To these questions, I can answer, “many.”  Thus, an apparent affirmation to the digital movement of global learning learning,

Article Two is entitled “Bill would create more flexibility for students learning English” by Katie Lannan of State House News Servive via 22News WWLP.com of Boston, Massachusetts.  This bill allows for schools to submit their own ESL lesson plans for sheltered immersion or primarily English taught classes based on their individual student population needs.  The bill does allow for parents to opt of this learning method; however, many stated that bilingual education failed; hence the push for sheltered immersion.  The article did not state if CALL or CMC instructional methods would be used, but I am confident that schools in this progressive area of the nation are already employing technology -based learning strategies such as iMovie, Keynote, Reflex Math, EPIC! reading, Google Docs, Glogster, Powtoon, Toontastic, VoiceThread, etc.

Article Three is entitled “Windsor-Essex Catholic School Board intensifying English as a second language program” by Dave Waddell of the Windsor Star.  This simply discusses how the Catholic School Board wants to add more ESL educational opportunities at beginning this September.  The secondary schools will now offer twice the amount of current instructional time during the school day in order to immerse students more in the English language.  The article made no indication that technology will be incorporated into a ESL curriculum, nor did it infer that it is currently used.  In fact, the last quote of the article stressed that “speaking the language is the best practice,” which implies to me that the school focuses on conversational, personal L2 learning interaction.

Article Four, the last one for this week, is entitled “Express Fluency to host language training” by Maggie B. Cassidy, Special to the Reforemer in Brattleboro, Vermont.  This article informs the public of an educational training for world-lauguage teachers sponsored by the local language school, Express Fluency this August.  This language school focuses on teaching L2s as similar to L1 acquisition as possible, which includes listening, personalization, and story-telling instead of drilling grammar and vocabulary.  The teachers will guide participants through L2 learning by using technology to create stories with videos and music.  It appears that technology will be included Express Fluency’s instructional methods.  I believe this conference would be very helpful for L2 educators and their learners.

Well, that’s all for this week. Thanks for tuning in.

~ALW


CALL = Computer Assisted Learning
CMC = Computer-Mediated Learning