Using Cell Phones in Language Classes

Editor's Notes

• #2: This presentation is given by Edo Forsythe, an English lecturer at Hirosaki Gakuin University in Hirosaki in Aomori Prefecture. He has been using technology in language classrooms since his days of teaching Russian at the Defense Language Institute. Recently, his focus has been in using mobile technology as a way of bringing blended learning methodology into today’s budget-constricted language classrooms. If you have any questions or comments, the presenter can be reached at forsythe@hirogaku-u.ac.jp.
• #3: Before beginning the presentation, there are 3 numbers we should consider: 8, 78 and 99. According to the International Telecommunication Union, Japan is ranked eighth in its list of countries progressing toward becoming 100% information societies (12). Internet World Stats reports that 78.2% of the Japanese population uses the Internet (1), and over 73% of them have high-speed broadband access: the third-highest number of Internet-users in the world (3). In addition to wide-spread, high-speed Internet access in Japan, Hulme-Jones reports that Japan is “one of the world’s leading mobile telephone markets, not only in terms of size, but also in terms of innovation…” (par. 2). Thornton and Houser’s research in 2005 showed that approximately 99% of Japanese college students own a mobile phone and use it for web-based activities (3). These statistics show that the infrastructure exists to support blended learning methods and cell phones are the most widely available technology tool for teachers to take advantage of. Hulme-Jones, Lisa, Researcher. “Japan - Telecoms, Mobile and Broadband.” BuddeComm. Feb. 2010. Web. 7 Sep. 2010. International Telecommunications Union. Measuring the Information Society 2010. n.d. Web. 7 Sep. 2010. Internet World Stats. Usage and Population Statistics Japan. n.d. Web. 24 Jun. 2010.
• #4: This map shows the 3G network coverage of Japan and South Korea. Japan’s 3G coverage allows for cell phones to readily access the Internet from virtually anywhere in the country. (The white areas of Japan are not covered by the 3G network – primarily mountainous, sparsely populated areas.) With this coverage, teachers should be able to introduce the use of cell phones without worrying about network coverage problems.
• #5: Cell phones are a way of life for today’s teens and they have been for several years. Dennie Hoopingarner recommends that we harness and exploit this tool instead of banning them from the classrooms. Way back in 2007, 44% of US teens stated that their primary means of communication was text messaging and that they send a text within 10 mins of waking up in the mornings. They report being on the phone over 2 hrs / day; over 4 hrs / day in the summer! (Washington Post “Teen Cell Phone Usage Soars” Jul 2007). As of June 2009, Asahi Shimbun says over 90% of High School students have their own cell phones! But they don’t know how to use them appropriately in all situations. Allowing for their use in the classroom give us the opportunity to teach appropriate use and ettiquette. CLEAR is the Center for Language Education and Research at Michigan State Univ.
• #6: In preparing for this presentation, Education Week posted a report which stated that the use of cell phones is being reconsidered in the American education system. I believe we need to follow this new way of thinking and take advantage of the possibilities that cell phones offer as they continually develop and advance. Link to Education Week’s blog: http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/DigitalEducation/2011/05/clouds_on_ed-tech_horizon_agai.html.
• #7: Before you jump into using cell phones in your lessons, make sure that it’s not against your school’s policies. Not everyone, especially not the Japanese MEXT, is open to rapid change and technology acceptance; so it’s important that you discuss your plans and the pros and cons with your administration if using cell phones is prohibited / restricted in your school.
• #8: In these days of extremely tight budgets and a lack of funds for anything new or out of the box, cell phones will give our students the ability to reach out to and interact with the world – using the tools that students already have in their possession! Cell phones allow us to incorporate blended learning methods on the cheap! This slide shows that Schools have no money SO cell phones allow blending (of instruction).
• #9: There are three uses for cell phones in language teaching which I will discuss in this presentation: In-class web-based research activities (using cell phones to access the Internet to research cultural information) Outside of class for oral / speaking assignments (having students call or leave messages – a difficult task) Taking advantage of the extra features which cell phones have (applications or tools).
• #10: Before you jump into using cell phones in your classroom, there are some things you need to consider and take into account: Not all students will have cell phones. Some will have little battery left or won’t have their phone with them or will not want to use their phone – these things can cause a small problem. In order to deal with these issues, I’ve found that having students work in small groups will allow all students to be able to benefit from the cell phone tools and to accomplish the tasks assigned. Usually there are enough cell phones to cover all of the groups for the given task. Before you try to have students use their cell phones in an activity in class, be sure to check your students’ connectivity and signal strength from different locations and different carriers within your classroom. Even though Japan has excellent 3G coverage, the older concrete buildings which house some schools may limit signal strength in the classroom. Japanese (and American) students have been constantly told to “put their cell phones away” all through junior and senior high schools. When you tell them to take out their cell phones and to use them in class, they will be uncomfortable. I had a student shockingly ask, “What kind of class is this?” when I first told the class to take out their phones. I’ve found that you need to explain why you’re using the phones and what your goals are for the task in order to lower the students’ affective filters and to put the students at ease. Now that I’ve had my students use their phones a few times in class, they eagerly jump into the cell phone-related tasks.
• #11: The first time I used cell phones in my English Conversation class, the topic was The Peanuts Gang. I wanted to share the traditional American Halloween classic, The Great Pumpkin, with my class, but the students really only knew who Charlie Brown and Snoopy are. So I divided my class into groups and assigned each of them to use their cell phones to research one of the other characters and their relationship with one another. Once each group found their assigned pieces of information, I wove the story of The Peanuts Gang together with the students interjecting their information at the appropriate times. A second activity was during another English Conversation class (different students) and the lesson in the textbook briefly discussed American music. So I used that as a segue into a lesson on American music genres and their origins (jazz, blues, R&B, hip hop / rap, rock and country music). In this instance, I divided the class into small groups and had each group research information about a specific music genre and then as a group, we discussed the development of American music in the 20th century.
• #12: After I’ve tried this with a few classes, I’ve worked out the following steps to conducting a culture-based research activity in your classroom. The next slide shows a sample handout for use as mentioned in step #2.
• #13: This is a snapshot of the handout I provide the students for the American Music Genres activity (my personal favorite!).
• #14: If you’re interested in seeing the video (about 3 mins in mp4 format) of my students conducting an in-class activity using their cell phones in groups, contact me at forsythe@hirogaku-u.ac.jp.
• #15: The cell phone can be used outside of class for a variety of activities which can supplement the topics taught during class sessions. Telephoning in a foreign language can be very challenging, to say the least. In my Business English class, I have my students call me and leave messages or talk to me to make an appointment. This gives them practical experience in speaking English on the phone – something they don’t normally have a chance to do. Considering that the majority of communications between young people these days is via text messaging, I teach a lesson about the differences between “standard” English and text-speak and then I have my students text me on their cell phones. Twitter is a popular messaging program in America (and we discuss it during my texting lesson) but it’s not widely used in Japan so I’ve chosen not to use it as part of my lessons at this time. Finally, there are other activities which work well on cell phones: ipadio, Blogger and facebook. Facebook has recently expanded its market to Japan and it has caught on a little bit (as of this presentation, Mixi is still much more popular and widely used). However, facebook allows for mobile access and updates and can be used by students to expand their social network and English practice. I have seen several presentations which incorporate facebook into English language lessons and a web search should provide some ideas for using it in your classes. Blogger also allows mobile access and lets students post blogs and read / comment on others’ blogs as well. Using blogs is a good option for having students keep a journal and read and comment on others’ posts. Finally, I’ll discuss ipadio on the next slide.
• #16: Students in or out of class can call in and record a message and then surf to iPadio and listen to the phlogs of their classmates and make comments. iPadio is a web-based phone blog (phlog) service which allows people to post an audio blog. The ipadio system then provides a machine-transcript of the phlog (with the ability to edit it and correct any misspellings or errors in transcription). Teachers can use this to allow students to practice speaking and leaving oral samples and other students can both listen to them and leave their own comments. (Teachers can register for the program and get a free phlog PIN, then they give the pin and registered phone # to their students so that they can access the account). It’s a nice way to allow students to leave oral messages without overloading the teacher’s personal voicemail. The phlogs can also be downloaded in mp3 format for review / discussion. Ipadio is a great site for language learning and the staff are very educator-friendly. Contact them for assistance and for extra inboxes for your students to use.
• #17: Cell phones in Japan are constantly advancing and developing new applications for both Smartphones and regular phones. Using some of these features give you possibilities for using the cell phone in new or different ways than previously discussed. One activity you can do is to have your students conduct scavenger hunts and take a picture of an item they found and then send the picture to the teacher for a second clue. This takes some advanced planning but it can give the students a chance to get out of the classroom and do an activity (I’d recommend small groups for safety and to give them a chance to work in groups – an important skill for later in life). Many phones’ cameras allow not only still photography but also video recording. You can use the cameras to record videos of the students doing a role-play or acting out a scenario of their own creation. These videos can be posted to YouTube for review and comment by classmates and the teacher. There are also many games and applications available which allow students to use or expand their foreign language. I’ll discuss many of these on the next slide.
• #18: The 2011 TESOL Conference (held in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA) hosted a “Mobile Apps for Education” presentation to discuss what apps teachers have had success in using in the language classroom. This slide presents some of the attendees’ favorites. If you have an app which you use in the language classroom, please email me at forsythe@hirogaku-u.ac.jp and I’ll share it with others. Thanks. One session attendee suggested that Word Girl (by PBS.org) is a good app to teach word association and vocabulary.
• #19: Some other activities were shared by presentation attendees. Their responses are listed below: One teacher has her students use their cell phones to find an image / picture of a person and then to practice their description vocabulary to describe the person in the image to another student (this can be done with other items besides people’s pictures as well). Another teacher explains how he uses cell phones to take advantage of teachable moments. When the class discussions hit upon an unknown cultural item (such as a banjo during a discussion about music), the teacher has the students use their cell phones to find out what the item is. When they looked up ‘banjo,’ they not only found pictures to show what it is, they also found a link to a YouTube clip from the movie “Deliverance” in which there’s a dueling guitar / banjo scene. This allowed the students to not only see what a banjo was, but to hear its sound and how it compares to a more common, similar instrument – the guitar. This was much preferable to the option of the Teacher drawing a rudimentary picture of a banjo and trying to explain how it’s different from a guitar, in my opinion.