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,
