Foreign Language Teaching Methods: Technology

Well hi everybody, my name is Orlando Kelm. I'm faculty here in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese and I also spend a good hunk of my time at the McCombs School of Business. I'm what they call an early adapter, a guy who just loves to try new technologies and see how they apply to language teaching.

When I was asked to do the module, I thought how in the world can we show technology in language teaching because the technologies become so outdated so quickly. By the time you actually watch this lesson, the technology won't be cool or new anymore. So I took a new angle. And that is, this lesson focuses on things that people have said are good for language teaching and can we somehow twist that for technology. So for example, we're going to talk about time on task, spending more time on something helps us learn a foreign language, maybe technology can help us do that. Language researchers say that we need context, is there a way that technology can provide me with more context so that students can identify where to use certain phrases and things like that. Language researchers have said that we learn language in chunks, little pieces, little phrases that go together as opposed to isolated words. Is there a way that technology can help me learn language in chunks. Language researchers also talk about the difference of input or intake -- its not so much about how much language I hear, but how much soaks in. Can technology help it soak in a little bit more? And so the workshop idea here is to put all those together, and see if there is a way that technology can help in time on task, context, chunks, input and intake. That's kind of what we're all about. Take a peek at the lesson, we'll see if it works.