Best practices

The Incorporation of ICTs into Task-Based
Language Learning

SUGGESTED BEST PRACTICES:
WEB TASK –BASED LESSON PLAN

Subject: Reading
Grade: 9th year

Context:
Students have just finished reading “Of Mice and Men” by
John Steinbeck in their Reading class. During the reading
process, the teacher has been working, chapter by chapter,
with vocabulary, plot, main ideas, character analysis etc. She
has been using several technological resources as support:
audio recording, movie and students´ blog ( Expression) where they have
posted the answers to different mandatory and optional questions derived from
the analysis and feelings towards the novel.

Task presentation:
OF MICE AND MEN… AND OF SCHOOL LIFE
Students in groups of three will be asked to choose one of the themes ideas in
John Steinbeck´s Of Mice and Men and design posters promoting a school
awareness campaign to make students reflect upon those ideas taken to school
context.

Pre-task phase:
Students are given a worksheet where they have to supply eight theme ideas in
John Steinbeck´s book, “Of Mice and Men”.
o a supporting example;
o a supporting quote w/page number and;
o an explanation; (appendix 1)

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Students complete the pre-task activity working in groups of three.

Task phase:
1. Students are asked to choose one of the theme ideas they feel identified
with and form groups of three with other classmates who have made the
same choice.

2. The teacher presents the task and tells students to have a 15 minutes´
discussion and come up with a paper draft of how their poster might look
like. They should include not only the theme idea, but also how it can be
related to school or to a teenagers’ life.

3. Students go to the computer lab and design their final version of the poster
in GLOGSTER, a website that allows designing posters online, inserting
photos, images, text, videos, music and whichever resource they find useful
for their campaign.

4. Students print the posters and stick them in different places of school inviting
students to leave comments in a blog created for that purpose, where the
different posters can also be seen.

Post-task phase:
Students discuss the steps to be followed when designing an awareness
campaign.
Teacher guides a discussion on the effectiveness of different persuasive
poster writing characteristics, techniques as compared to the ones used by
students.
Teacher can supply some teaching materials on the topic if necessary.

Evaluation:
After a period of two weeks, students read the blog comments, and self-
evaluate both: the whole process of designing an awareness campaign and the
final product –the posters- criticizing how successful their campaigns have
been.

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Students use persuasive poster evaluation rubrics to help them go through the
process of evaluation. (Appendix 2)

PHOTO-BLOG EXCHANGE PROJECT

o Conceptual Framework

Though officially the word blog refers to a Web-log, or online journal
where people make chronological comments about events related to an
experience; lately, they are being also commonly thought of as a means of
expressing opinions and reflections upon general issues, such as politics,
ethics, education.

In this area precisely, blogs are the web 2.0 tools which has proved to be
more widely accepted by teachers which are an attractive addition to their new
technologies toolbox. Firstly it is a constructivist tool for learning since the
content is being created by teachers and students while the blog develops;
secondly they are a way of expanding the walls of the classroom as Richardson
(2010) describes, providing the possibility of connecting students with others
outside the classroom, their town, their country in a relatively cheap accessible
manner.
It is also important to add that blogs archives allow teachers and students
to revisit their learning experiences with a reflective sight over a wide variety of
features that range from: students´ own productions, views, opinions providing a
fertile land for cultural awareness and understanding.

o Description of the project

o The key element of this proposal is to engage groups of students from
different countries and origins in making guesses, research, discuss
and comment on others culture and experience world just out of a set
of pictures put together. Communication conventions varies from
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culture to culture and this is a concept our students will have the
opportunity to experience comparing and contrasting texts.
o The teachers in charge of the project will create a blog in which
students from the different classes will alternatively publish a collage
of photos related to a topic. This topic will be previously agreed by
teachers who will take into account not only students’ world of
interest; but also the most relevant global awareness issues, such as
environment, health etc.

Once the
collage has been posted the group of students from the other country will make
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comments of the photos, trying to make inferences and negotiating with their
partner as regards the meaning beyond the image.

Finally, the group who has posted the images, will give feedback to their
partner class, as regards their inferences, correcting the once that are wrong
and enlarging and giving more support on the correct ones.

During the evaluation period, both teachers and students will post
comments assessing their experience, focusing both on the positive aspects of
the experience as well as on the aspects that might need revision for future
replication of the project.

o Objectives

• Students will negotiate meaning and use language purposefully.
• Students will use technology in socially and cross-cultural appropriate and
ethical ways.
• Students will make research about other cultures and contexts so as to
make meaningful contributions in their blog.

o Teachers in Charge

• Ms Erin.Conley, teacher of English Language and Arts in 9th Year
Ms Michelle Williams, teacher of English Language and Arts in 10th Year
• Ms Adriana Castagnino, teacher of English as FL in 9th, 10th year.
Ms Aurelia Garcia, teacher of English as FL in 7th , 8th and 9th year.

o Participants

• English Language and Arts class from Montgomery Blair High School,
Montgomery County, Maryland, USA.
• English as a Foreign Language class from COLUNLPam in Santa Rosa, La
Pampa, Argentina.
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o Suggested Topics

• Typical Food
• Favorite artists
• Town & cities
• Houses
• School culture
• Free time activities

o Timeline

AUGUST SEPTEMBER OCTOBER NOVEMBER

Presentation of the exchange of photo Exchange of photo Exchange of photo
blog: objectives and collage on a collage on proposed collage on topic
Weeks 1-2
possible contents proposed topic by topic by teacher in suggested by
areas teacher in USA. Argentina. students. Comment
Comment and Comment and and feedback.
feedback. feedback.

Exchange of photo Exchange of photo Exchange of photo Students and
collage on different collage on proposed collage on proposed teachers evaluation
Weeks 3-4
topics. Comment topic by teacher in topic by teacher in of experience.
and feedback. Argentina. USA. Comment and Publication of
Comment and feedback. experience
feedback.

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o Evaluation

Teachers will design instruments to evaluate the experience before, during
and after it has finished. These instruments will focus on both: students’
performance and commitment all through the experience on the one hand (rubric
table 1); and blog efficiency as a learning tool on the other (rubric table 2).

Rubric table 1: assessing writing in a collaborative tool: blog

CATEGORY 4 3 2 1

Student accessed Student accessed Student accessed Student was
site and made site and made site but made erratic in

Content of meaningful sometimes poor accessing site and

contributions contributions. meaningful contributions. made
contributions. meaningless
contributions.

There are no There are minimal There are some There several
Spelling, errors in spelling, errors in spelling, errors in spelling, errors in spelling,
punctuation, punctuation, punctuation, punctuation, punctuation,
grammar and grammar and grammar and grammar and grammar and
vocabulary vocabulary. vocabulary. vocabulary. vocabulary.

Student always Student almost Student shows Student argues or
shows respect for always shows little evidence of is disrespectful of
Cooperative others' ideas, and respect for others a commitment others' idea.
work shows a ideas and commit toward quality Criticism is not
commitment to to quality work. work. constructive.
quality work.

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Rubric table 2: assessing blog as a collaborative writing tool

o CRITERIA ACHIEVEMENTS SUGGESTIONS

Navigability:
Is this blog easy to navigate? Does it take too long to
load? Are links working correctly? Do titles show
contents clearly? Is the URL easy to remember? Are
contents of the blog easy to identify?

Design:
Are colors and template adequate? Can it be read
easily? Are colors distractive? Is font size and style
suitable?

Content:
Do titles of posts express content? Are there grammar
or spelling mistakes? Are contents clearly related to
class activities? Is the blog free? Can anyone have
access to it; is this an advantage or a disadvantage? Are
there multimedia resource?

Other considerations:
What kind of learning is the blog fostering? (Individual?
Group? Collaborative? A combination?)Analyze
comments made by students: are they all relevant to
the task? How frequently do students post a comment?
Are there links to other sites? What are these sites
about?

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EMBEDDED TEACHERS TRAINING

Conceptual framework

Teachers who have earlier engaged in computer-assisted and technology-
enhanced language learning have multiple roles. (Peters, M. et.al. 2007). Apart
from developing materials and integrating technologies in our own practices, our
new findings and demonstrations should serve as inspiring models for current
and future teachers. Our projects, experiences, products and research should
definitely help other colleagues and advanced students to initiate their own way
to teaching practice transformation.

Although there are many ways in which teachers can become expertise in
embedded Task-Based Teaching, we have to admit that these changes can be
challenging and frightening for some teachers. With this teachers training
proposal, I am trying not only to introduce teachers to new Web 2.0 tools and
resources, but also to provide a supportive online professional development
network that can foster mutual collaboration between trainer and trainees
throughout the training process and beyond.

Objectives: teachers will…

• Become aware of web2.0 technologies and analyze their impact in
education and their teaching practices.
• Design and implement embedded lesson plans with the incorporation of
suitable web2.0 tools.
• Evaluate this new embedded approach to language teaching.

Calendar plan

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The workshop will be implemented in four traditional classroom setting sessions
of six hours each. Three of them will be delivered in subsequent Saturdays,
while the last evaluative session will be delivered within a month from the last
meeting. During all this time teachers will receive online support through a wiki
platform, where they will also be able to share concerns, classroom experiences
and lesson plans with other teachers in the group.

Description of the Resources and Activities:

First session:
1- Through a cooperative learning technique called jigsaw, teachers work in
groups of four with four different papers related to web 2.0 technologies and
their impact in education. They will complete a Google doc spreadsheet to
be shared by the whole group later.
2- Teachers will be introduced to one of the key technological resources in this
teachers´ training proposal: wiki. They will navigate through different
students, class, institutional and professional development wikis, completing
a checklist with the particular tools and differences they find among them, so
as to evaluate all the possibilities a wiki offers to educators. They will be
introduced to this course wiki and allowed to “play” and practise inserting
pages, videos, images, widgets, discussion threads as well as editing and
contributing to somebody´s work.

Second session:
1- Through a jigsaw technique teaches´ work in groups with different papers
related to Task-Based Teaching methodology (TBL) and its application in
different educational contexts. They will complete presentation using one of
the following tools according to their preference: Glogster, Mind Map, Prezi
to be shared by the whole group later.
2- Some web 2.0 foundational concepts such as RSS, Third-party site –
YouTube, SlideShare, Scribbd, Flickr will be developed and teachers will
have the opportunity of experimenting with them.
3- Teachers will be introduced to another technological highlight in this
teachers´ training proposal: blog. They will navigate through different
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students, class and institutional and professional development blogs, so as
to evaluate all the possibilities a blog offers to educators as well as compare
it with wiki as an educational aid. They will be creating a blog for one of their
classes and practise inserting text, videos, images, widgets as well as
making comments in somebody´s else´s posts.

Third session:
1- Teachers will be introduced to more sophisticated technological innovations
in this teachers´ training proposal: video and podcasting. They become
familiar with different podcasting alternatives and evaluate how these could
become part of their embedded lesson plans.
2- Teachers will finally be introduced to the concept of social networking as a
valuable pedagogical incorporation looking into different tools, such as
Google groups and Grouply.

Forth session: evaluation
During this session teachers are going to be carrying out their evaluation of the
course, their productions and their students reactions though different
methodologies and techniques.

1- Peer observation: teachers will assess a partner’s blog or wiki, following a
given rubric and will provide useful feedback to him/her.
2- Self-evaluations: through an online survey teachers will evaluate their
performance, involvement and productions throughout the teachers training
workshop.
3- Workshop assessment: Teachers in groups of four will discuss certain
aspects of the teachers training workshop and share their opinions with the
rest of the groups in a final round table providing a graphic organizer or mind
map which summarizes. These impressions will become a meaningful and
constructive input for future implementations of the workshop.

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