By Dr. Linh Phung
July 2024
On July 24, 2022, I gave a presentation about technology in language teaching hosted by Childhood Education International in collaboration with US Department State's Regional English Office in Ukraine.
About 400 registrants (I heard) and over 70 participants on Zoom, it was like seeing fireworks . In hindsight, I exerted too much energy as I'd always love a more relaxing pace without too much content in a presentation.
That said, I think I delivered the messages that I wanted to deliver:
We learn new tools all the time, but we keep the fundamental education principles at the center.
We create the porous classroom to extend learning beyond the classroom, bring learning in, and learn with students.
Lifelong learning and learning to learn are essential to move forward in today's evolving world.
The most influential applications in teaching to drive learning to me include:
Access to engaging materials and content through extensive reading, listening, and viewing.
Using tasks to promote communication and language development with the mediation of technology when needed.
Facilitating learner engagement with or without gamification.
Realizing the potential of AI.
I didn't cover virtual exchange in detail, but the Discord project I briefly mentioned, the Eduling Speak app, and the Pangea Chat app are meant to facilitate international and intercultural communication . In fact, Eduling International is organizing weekly global conversations in Discord, and this is the invite link for this week: https://discord.gg/6M2MVm6C.
If teachers want to try and experiment with my app, please let me know, and I'll walk you through .
Thank you Childhood Education International for organizing the event and having me.
The PPT can be found on my page: https://www.eduling.org/drlinhphung or with this LINK. The first half of the presentation is on my YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYfNgV5Iq9g&t=2413s
I'm also posting a summary of an article written by Godwin-Jones (2021) that inspired an image I shared above: Evolving Technologies for Language Learning by Godwin-Jones (2021)
Reviewing the development of CALL in the past 25 years, Godwin-Jones (2021) describes the evolution of technologies with some coming and going without us noticing, such as multimodal plugins or Blu-ray disks. Current CALL reflects the rise of networks and multimodal communication and the commercialization and commodification of the Internet among other trends. Regarding commercialization of CALL, while language services can provide contextual language use through interactions with peers or tutors, the author argues that it is not the core of their approach. Interestingly, the author suggests that CALL approaches that are more in line with SLA theory and research findings point in quite different directions (from those of the commercial services). These include:
the centrality of socio-cultural learning in SLA (learning language through socialization and language use)
a model of language based on usage-based theories (learners acquire language through exposure to a large amount of language data)
the effectiveness in the use of leisure-oriented informal language learning resources (Youtube, Netflix, ...)
the reality of widespread multilingualism and translanguaging
With the evolution of technologies and directions that SLA points to, the author argues that new metaphors for CALL are needed. Common metaphors to describe the roles of computers or technologies in language learning used to be and still are "tutors" or "tools." However, Reinhardt (2020) also proposes a new set of metaphors, including windows, doorways, mirrors, and playgrounds to describe the new reality of language learning with technology. Breen (1999) and Goodwin-Jones (2021) add the porous classroom as learning extends beyond the classroom walls to include opportunities in communities near and far.
After reading this article, as I tried to visualize the some metaphors suggested above, I realized that the Eduling classroom banner almost captures all of those ideas. I'm using the picture here as an illustration. My Eduling Speak also aims to put language use as its core approach. Download the app: https://share.eduling.org/edulingspeak.
The whole article can be accessed here: https://www.lltjournal.org/item/10125-73443/
About the author: Dr. Linh Phung is a dedicated international educator, innovator, and leader with a proven track record of directing successful educational programs, fostering academic excellence, and driving innovation in language learning. With Eduling, she leads a cross-functional team of IT developers, content developers, and designers in the development of Eduling Speak, an app that connects learners to talk in pairs based on 1200+ communicative tasks and games. She's also a published author with 10+ language learning and bilingual picture books as well as an expert in language education with publications in high impact journals. She has served as an English Language Specialist with the U.S. Department of State.
Comments