Xiaochen Reflection

Technology integration has been promoted increasingly in education. The strengths of utilizing technology in learning are many such as to help student develop their 21st century technology skills, to guide them to be better researchers and to distinguish useful technical tools to assist their own learning. As a language teacher, I strongly feel that I am obligated to grow with my students and to implement technology in my curriculum to help my students become a better language learner. Therefore, in my recent lesson plan-Chinese Food I have utilized various technology tools in my instruction, activities, reinforcement as well as assessment. In this reflection, I will discuss the effect that technology brought to each aspect mentioned above.

The objectives of this Chinese Food unit include learning daily used Chinese ingredients, the cooking methods, Chinese people’s diet as well as table manners. Based on the language objectives and communicative objectives, I divided my whole unit into three sub-themes. The sub-themes are correlated and built upon one another. The themes include the following: One, Chinese dishes and cooking methods, this is the foundation for the whole unit. In this theme, students will learn the most famous Chinese dishes, their origins, as well as cooking methods. Second, going to a restaurant, in this theme, students will learn sentence structures that allow them to dining in a restaurant. The last theme includes table manners and traditions of Chinese eating habits. By the end of the unit, my goal is that my students are able to go to a restaurant, to order what they want, to describe a specific dish and to ask and give opinion about the restaurant’s specialty. Through different activities, I hope that my students not only master the knowledge of the language but also learn to cooperate and appreciate one another, and to be able to choose the technology that suits their own learning style and create great final product with it.

In each sub-theme, technology plays different roles. In theme one: Chinese dishes and cooking method, I used PowerPoint for students to take notes and for class oral integration. Then I used Screen cast tool Jing to videotape myself pronouncing the new vocabulary we learned and assigned my students to watch it in order to complete their notes and achieve an accurate pronunciation. At this level, technology was used to provide students with visual aids as well as listening materials. Before using PowerPoint, I had been using flashcard in new vocabulary learning. The benefit of PowerPoint is that it is bigger so students can see it better and also I can always share my PowerPoint with my students on Edmodo, which allows them to review anytime at home. As for the screen cast, I feel like it is such a blessing for my students and me. Since it is so difficult to achieve accurate pronunciation, my students now can listen to the correct sound anytime. They have fell in love with this tool. Now, when we are encountering difficult contexts or words, my students would ask me if I could send my screen cast so they can listen to it at home. And the average level of my students’ pronunciation has been greatly improved.

In theme two, going to a Chinese restaurant, the tools that I used are video clip, Vocaroo, Imovie as well as Google doc. At the beginning of the second theme, I showed my students a short clip of two Chinese people go to a restaurant. By showing the video clip, I hope to provide my students with authentic context so they can have a feel of the native speakers’ fluency and gestures. Students were very much motivated after watching the video because they think that the upcoming theme is fun and valuable in their life. In the process of the second theme, I kept the usage of screen cast. I also assigned homework to let my students record they reading the content we were learning with vocaroo. This will save me lots of class time from asking every single student to read and give feedback. Also, since it is online recording tool, my students can record as many times as they wish to get a good one, which decreased the anxiety of reading out loud in front of the whole class. At the end of the unit, my students did a interactive project. They were divided in groups of 2 or 3, and they need to come up with a skit of going to a restaurant. I told my students the objectives of the project as well as the expectation, and then I let them choose how they want to do it. Some of them did real life skit, and some of them did an Imovie at home. As they worked on their script writing, some of them kept the traditional paper pencil writing, and some of them used Google doc to write and edit script together. Therefore in the second theme, technology assist me with meaningful and fun instruction, it brings students convenience in Mandarin learning and moreover it inspired my students to make connection between foreign language learning and technology, it shows them that they are in control of their learning and pushes them forward to produce beautiful works.

As for the last theme, it is a more culture based one so we mainly watch a video clip, which includes the Chinese restaurant table display, table etiquette and also how do Chinese people make a toast. Afterwards, we had a question and answer class. My students asked me some questions they had as they learn and watch the video. It is interesting to me that my students came up with a lot of creative and inspiring questions that I took for granted as growing up in my own culture. For example, why do Chinese dining table most round? Why does everyone share food? If someone offers me food I do not like, what should I do? We had a great discussion, and I encouraged my students to go to a Chinese restaurant and order in Mandarin. A lot of them were very excited.

Now when I reflect on my teaching, I wish that I had had chance to record my students’ demonstrate Chinese table manners, I think it would leave them with a deeper impression and more fun.

To sum up, technology brings great opportunities for my students and I in Mandarin learning. In class, it increases on task time and quality by providing us with authentic materials; it helps students expand their learning from classroom to home and makes it much convenient and fun; what’s more, it allows our class to become a motivated learning community, all the learning materials, questions and events are posted on our Edmodo page, students can better keep track of their assignment and progress. Technology makes me feel more powerful and I do wish that in the future, I can keep work with my students, to grow together to become lifelong learners,

Chinese Cuisine Lesson Plan

1.              Content:

Big Picture and Essential Questions

Food is an essential part of the learning of Chinese culture. It is unique from the cooking materials to the cooking methods. Students had laid a foundation on some common cooking materials last year, in this unit, we will experience different kinds of cooking methods, so students will understand how Chinese dishes are prepared. In turn, they will have the concept of Chinese people’s eating habits. Then, they will have the opportunity to “create” some dishes by themselves. Afterwards, they will learn how to order in a Chinese restaurant, as well as the Chinese table etiquettes.

Challenging Areas:

There are many different cooking methods in Chinese. Students might have a hard time understanding them since they rarely cook Chinese food at home. Therefore I will provide the instruction with authentic pictures and video clips to assist my students.

2.              Pedagogy:

Project-Centered Learning: In this unit, students are asked to accomplish various tasks through cooperating with one another. For example, the role-play of going to a restaurant. There are also individual tasks that required students to organize the knowledge that they learned and create a handcraft project, such as: My Chinese Placement. Students will accomplish learning through task solving activities. These activities are designed to develop students’ independent and group working ability.

Utilizing the Technology: Students can organize information, collect resource, create their own product and communicate one another with technology.

3.             Content & Pedagogy:

The reason I choose project-centered pedagogy is because I want my students to develop the ability of problem solving, to practice on collecting and organizing the useful materials as well as to make connection between new knowledge to the old ones. For language learning, project-centered learning can motivate students’ interests. As they use the language to do things and accomplish tasks, they gain the sense of accomplishment. Last but not least, if students learn in an authentic problem-solving classroom, they will be able to use the language after they master it. However in the traditional language-learning classroom, students have a hard time transfer the language content into real life from the classroom.

4.              Technology:

Varies technology tools will be applied as we learn the Chinese Food unit.

1. To start the unit, I am going to show students a short video about Beijing Roast Duck. So they can have a impression on Chinese restaurants, utensils, the duck cooking methods and so on, in order to rise their interest in Chinese food. The video is more authentic and vivid than teacher’s introduction therefore it is necessary.

2. As we learn new vocabulary, I will upload a Jing video on our Edmodo profile so students can watch the video to review what we have been learning. Students need to answer certain questions to show that they had accomplished the work. This method is very efficient on helping students review since it provides them with their teacher’s pronunciation as well as the PowerPoint they learned in class. It cannot be replaced by other methods.

3. For the final project, students need to create a conversation about going to the restaurant. For this project, students can achieve in different ways. They may create a script and do a traditional skit, or using GoAnimate to create a cartoon clip or producing an IMovie. The technology for this part is optional.

5.             Technology & Pedagogy:

The main reason for me to select the technology I mentioned is to support students’ learning with the most authentic, convenient and real-life content.

In this unit, technology not only is a tool to accomplish the goal to communicate (Imovie, Goanimate and etc) but also the content and the reference that facilitate students’ learning. Students are learning with technology so even though the technology is not available they can still use mandarin to solve daily problems. In the process of achieving this goal, technology makes it convenient for students’ reviewing. It is very important because in order to help them accomplish the task, teacher has to give access to sufficient materials.

6.             Technology & Content:

First, technology makes the content authentic and vivid. Students can experience the food making closely.

Second, technology provides different content, which divergent from the same big idea. Therefore, it benefits students, who have different learning styles.

Third, technology allows students to work with one another more conveniently.

7. Assessment:

There are informal assessments such as: Class worksheets; Games and Activities; Question answering

Formal Assessments: Chinese Placemat (for new vocabulary wrap up); Menu Creation (Putting food and cooking methods together);Role-play (To order food in a restaurant)

Other than learning mandarin, students are learning to make connection between new learning with what they have learned before; to develop self-learning skills with given materials; to cooperate in role-play; to work with one another in projects and make contribution to the team; to create opportunities to speak Chinese in their daily life.

Story Telling for Reviewing

Here is my storytelling video.

Audio Interview

Please click here to listen to Xiaochen Song's Audio Interview.

WPP

      The purpose for my project is to promote students communicative as well as writing skills in mandarin. Moreover, to take this opportunity to foster a Mandarin learning communities for my 8th grade class through the usage of technology.

      According to “20 Ways to Use Edmodo”it allows students to communicate with each other anytime, anywhere in different ways. I would like to take advantage of that. Therefore, I designed a writing activity through Edmodo. The topic is posted through notes. Students can turn their writing work in by “replying”to the post. Then, they need to read their peer editor’s work and give suggestions on grammar errors, good points and how can the writing be improved. Later on, they need to go back to their original writing, revise it according to their peer’s comment and then finalize it. To complete this assignment, they need to have two writings, one is the original writing, and the other one is finalized writing.

    What’s more, students can also practice Chinese character typing, which is a crucial skill nowadays for 21st century learners. I also chose a topic that students are interested at “Describe an animal you like the best.”

     This project is designed based on the following information:

     Content Knowledge (CK): The process of mastering a language develops from Listening-speaking-reading to writing. This activity combines reading, writing, editing, reflecting. These four skills foster a cycle of learning while students collaborate on one another’s ideas.

      Technology Knowledge (TK): This activity requires students to be able to type in Chinese character, to give respond to one another’s post on Edmodo as well as to gather information from the resource that I provide online.

     Pedagogical Knowledge (PK): To ensure a smooth transition from learning the new language points to the accomplishment of the work, I scaffolded students from the usage of the words and sentences to analysis of the short context and then to short story writing.

      Moreover, I provide detailed questions that guide students on commenting on one another’s writing. The implication of my project is overall a success. My students were very excited from the beginning of the activity. They definitely put in their biggest effort. They loved typing Chinese characters in computer. As they worked on their writing, most of my students keep themselves challenged by choosing sentence structures that are complicated. Based on the commenting that I received, they all took responsibility to help each other on doing a better job. The comments they provided are meaningful as well. All these really surprised me and I have decided to keep this writing activity as part of my writing assessment for my students.

     In the process of the activity, I made a minor change.While I was designing this activity, I planned to let my students comment on 3 other students. However, I have 16 students, if they all respond to 3 others, the posts might be too long. So I decided to let students comment on 1 other classmate using our clock partner chart. These two students will be editing peers. In order to evaluate, I asked them to write what they like about their peer’s writing, what mistakes. Also, they need to contribute at least three more sentences to make their peer’s writing look better.

     In my WPP presentation, I have given an example of one of my student, Eric’s work. In his writing, he describes giant panda, such as its looks, what food does panda like, where does a panda live. His peer editor suggested him to give some information on “where does panda originated” as well as the activities that a panda likes to do. So in Eric’s final writing, he added the sentences that Maddie suggested and it not only makes his writing interesting but also develops some depth of the usage of this language.

This is my WPP presentation.

Professional Learning Plan

This is a prezi that I made for my ideas of professional learning plan. I used Jing to capture the video while I was making it. So the whole idea of my professional learning plan is to make connection with the technology we have learned; integrate them into different part of my teaching based on my teaching purpose. In this video, hopefully you can not only see the ideas, but also see how to make a presentation with Prezi :D

Group Project-Weebly Tutorial

This is the website that our group used to demonstrate the usage of Weebly. It includes five different tutorials, which focus on different aspects of Weebly editing. It also has a Sample page and a page that readers can give Feedback.