Review foundational knowledge about Online Interactions in K-12 Blended Teaching (Volume 1).
World language classrooms thrive on interactions with and between students. Both in-person and online interactions and feedback provide students with ways to develop four functional skills (i.e., listening, reading, speaking, and writing), give and receive feedback, and lower their affective filters to express their needs and ask questions.
Communicating in a world language through reading, listening, writing, and speaking and understanding relevant cultures are at the heart of world language classes. Technology can enhance these activities, increasing student confidence, collaboration, engagement, and exposure to various media and cultural opportunities. In the following video, Stephanie Pryce shares how she uses tools such as Padlet, Flip, and Google Suite to improve online interaction and collaboration.
There are many technologies that support active use of the four language skills, beyond the limit of space and time, and foster collaboration and interaction among students and teachers. Here are a few of them and how they can be used in teaching world languages. (You might want to become proficient with one technology then branch out to another one. Don’t try too many at once.)
Flip a video discussion board. Instead of using a text-based discussion, flip allows students to post and respond with video to practice their speaking and listening skills, which can increase the sense of nearness and community in the discussion, as well as give important practice in speaking and listening. Flip allows students to interact with other students outside of the classroom, allows students and teachers to create and share screencast videos and slides, and gives stuent the opportunity to ask questions or voice their language product, even though they may have difficulty in sharing their ideas in person in front of the whole class, because they are shy speaking up becuase other people in the class are talking.
Google Docs: A collaboration tool, where students can write and receive feedback and suggested edits on their writing and where students can collaborate on projects and all forms of writing.
Google Slides: Similar to Google Docs, Google Slides allows students to individually or collaboratively create presentation slides. Google Slides is also increasingly used to generate quick ideas and brainstorming, with each student or group of students having one slide.
Discussion Boards: Usually part of a learning management system (LMS), they allow threaded discussions that enable students to respond on varying spaces and times, greatly expanding the opportunities for students to communicate in the target language. It also allows students to share visual and audio materials.
Padlet: An online bulletin board where students can post and reply to comments using text, images, audio, and video. Students can also create timelines, storyboards, and collages individually or collaboratively. .
VoiceThread: A video/audio tool that allows students to add pictures or text on a project, give feedback on writing, and explain their work. It can also be used to make instructional videos with interactive abilities (that can also be turned into quizzes), and create situations where students think aloud about their writing process and share their videos with each other.
Blooket: Review games with a variety of selections, where students can review vocabulary by competing with other students.
Quizlet: Review games where students can review a set of words individually or they can compete with another in groups.
Here is a teacher’s example of how students personalized time and pace to reflect on a question interactivly on an asynchronous discussion board.
Here is another teacher’s example of how students actively lead online interaction in various ways.
Although online interaction can support reflective and interaction, it can become stale if the interactions do not include collaboration and creative work. Here are some ideas that are relevant to a world language classroom.
Table 1
Collaborative Story Reading through Media
In-person | Online | |
---|---|---|
Cultural Background (for a traditional folktale story that requires some cultural and historical understanding and has different personified items.) | 2. Put students who have reviewed different media sources into a group. Have them share their pictures, video clips, vocabulary, and knowledge. Students in the group complete the cultural items and information sheet by sharing what they have learned with each other. 3. Teacher and students check for understanding of what they learned together about culture before they read a traditional folktale that is enhanced by their new understanding of culture. | 1. Students are given different media sources to learn and build up cultural knowledge online. Using what they learn through the online exploration, information, pictures, and short video clips, students answer questions regarding their assigned culture. |
Reading for Understanding | 1. Give students the information sheet that includes the captured image from the story video of the characters that are personified items. Teacher says the name of each character of the story, and students write down their name. | 2. Students watch a video of a story presented in Edpuzzle with embedded questions to help student understand the storyline. 3. Students answer questions related what characters do to help the main character save people from or be saved from the villain. |
Jumbled Readers Theater | 1. Students are placed in groups and each receives an excerpt of text that is part of a larger story. Students read their own excerpt and discuss what order their pieces should go in to create a story. They identify any transitional expressions or conjunctions that are clues to arranging the order of the texts. 3. Students discuss what roles they will perform for the readers theater. 6. Each group of students practice performing their script. | 2. Students compare how they ordered their excerpts to an online video of the full story. 4. On a Google Doc template, students create a series of scenes using the script lines for their character. Then, each group completes the play script, the narrator's lines, and the main characters' lines. 5. The teacher gives formative feedback by commenting on the Google Doc. 7. Students record their theater using Flip or another recording tool. |
In your Blended Teaching Notebook create an online discussion for the lesson/content area that you are addressing with your problem of practice. How will you make it engaging for the students? How will you target your problem of practice?
If you haven't already opened and saved your workbook, you can access it here.
Not all online interaction has to take place in a discussion. It can take place in a shared Google Doc, in a real-time Zoom meeting, through blogs or social media, through visits to each other's websites, etc. Here are a few ideas.
Students could share their past experiences in a class by writing a story in the target language using their childhood pictures. When writing a story about their memorable past experience, students use grammar and sentence structures they learned in class. Students may have created their story books using BookCreator or screencast their Google Slides to share their childhood stories.
Have students read others’ e-story books, like an online gallery walk, and make comments in the target language on parts they like.
Have students find grammar sentence structures that other people use and write down sentences. If there are some errors, they can underline and fix them.
Use your creativity to modify these activities for use in both the online and in-person space to encourage students’ collaboration, creativity, and cultural understanding.
An online discussion is most effective when the instructions are clear. For a review of how to create an effective discussion board post, see 5.2.2 Building Community and Setting Expectations in K-12 Blended Teaching (Volume 1).
Student-to-student, or peer interactions, can be powerful. Students can help each other, answer questions, give feedback, take feedback, explain concepts, and counsel with each other.
Blended teachers can also help to facilitate student-to-student interactions accross classroom and even countries. For instance, GridPals is a modern take on penpals, where students send video recordings on Flipgrid rather than writing letters using pen and paper. Flipgrid has made it fairly easy to connect with other classrooms around the globe. Once you register your class (https://info.flipgrid.com/blog/tips/gridpals.html), you are provided with an interactive map of other elementary classrooms who are also seeking to connect with others. However, similar activities can be organized and done on lots of different tools. Teachers also commonly connect with classrooms using their personal connections. Other teachers connect with international classroom through organizations such as the Peace Corps' World Wise Schools.
Interactions between students and the teacher are also important in a world language course. Experienced blended teachers often report that their interactions with students online have strengthened relationships and contributed to student growth. What are some ways teachers can foster these interactions?
Here are some examples of how World language teachers utilize online learning to effectively check for students’ understanding and give feedback to students.
The online space significantly increases opportunities for interaction between students and content, students and other students, and students and teachers. Students who never or rarely speak in class may find themselves suddenly communicating on a regular basis. The results of learning through a combination of content, interactions, instruction, and feedback can improve student outcomes, investment, and engagement with the subject matter. You don't have to start all at once. Just choose one interaction that looks promising to you—and begin.
This content is provided to you freely by BYU Open Learning Network.
Access it online or download it at https://open.byu.edu/k12blended_world_languages/ela_olintUGkEUi.