Session 7 Blog Reflection

The Michigan Merit Curriculum Online Experience Guideline Companion Document is a great resource for teachers who are looking for a variety of online learning experiences to do with their students. I really like the table that outlines the resources available and includes the characteristics of each; it is well organized with links to several sites for each resources listed and it is something I plan to use in the future. Of course, we are already familiar with several of the resources listed since we worked with them over the course of this class; however, it's helpful to have a reminder of the different ways the resources can be used (links included) at one's fingertips for easy reference.

I contemplated which resource to discuss in this reflection and in doing so was reminded of some of my personal frustrations with integrating technology into my content area. I mentioned way back at the beginning of this course that our district recently implemented a new methodology for all of our World Language classes; we now use a method called Teaching Proficiency through Reading and Storytelling (TPRS) which relies heavily on teacher input--it's a true example of the traditional "Sage on the Stage" teaching style. Of all the approaches to teaching language I have seen and tried in my 14 years of teaching Spanish, this one is THE BEST!! I have never had more success in terms of student acquisition of the language than with TPRS: this method reaches all levels of learners in my classes; students retain and actually acquire the language; they are able to produce the language in written form like never before; they LOVE the stories we tell in class; and perhaps most importantly, they are truly motivated to learn.

So I'm torn because I appreciate the benefits of computer-delivered instruction and I believe in the benefits of the methods we have reviewed and learned in this class. I think that students in this age of technology need to learn via online experiences--just not in my class. Does that sound selfish? Maybe it is. But knowing what I know about student acquisition of a new language--researchers say that from birth to age 5 we will have experienced about 20,000 hours of hearing, understanding and acquiring our birth language and that 4 years of high school Spanish yields about 600 hours of exposure to the new language--I find it difficult to justify even a day away from the TPRS method.

Having said that, I will say that one of things I miss about the "old" way of teaching Spanish is a departure from the cultural aspect. I have found that in order to teach culture effectively, it really must be done in English--there's just too much language that's too hard for students to understand if a culture lesson were to be taught in Spanish. Besides, the focus of a culture lesson is not language, it's culture. Therefore, the online experience that I feel would most benefit both me and my students is the WebQuest. If I must take time away from a TPRS lesson, then I would want students to be learning about culture and when I thought back to the Evaluation of a WebQuest assignment from earlier in the class, I came across many great examples that would help my students learn about the culture of Spanish speaking countries and people. For example, students are always interested in learning about the foods eaten in Spanish speaking countries and there were several WebQuests in Quest Garden that would be great to use with my classes. Personally, I like to teach my students about holidays or other cultural celebrations and I found several examples of that type of WebQuest as well. These WebQuests use many different strategies including cooperative learning and collaboration, jigsaw, research and scaffolding. However, the mental battle I struggle with is that while the WebQuests can be good opportunities for effective online experiences for students, they take away from opportunities for authentic language acquisition, which is the most important goal of my class.

You may be wondering why I don't just use Spanish-language WebQuests or other types of online experiences like podcasts or RSS feeds--there are thousands of the them in Spanish! However, the difficulty is a TPRS term called comprehensible input; the belief is that less is more in terms of effective language learning. Instead of handing out a list of 30 vocabulary words at the beginning of the week, I might focus on just 3 words or phrases for a whole week. The belief in TPRS-world is that students will internalize and acquire those 3 words if they are made comprehensible rather than memorized and regurgitated on a quiz and then forgotten. This concept was proven to me the first time TPRS was introduced to me--the instructor taught us a German lesson using just 3 key phrases and I remember those phrases (and several others that we ended up learning) to this day. The problem with Spanish-language WebQuests, podcasts, RSS feeds or Blogs is that the input would not be comprehensible to the students--there would just be way too many words they wouldn't understand which would lead to frustration and eventual abandonment of the assignment.

Phew, didn't mean to be so long-winded, but I kind of got fired up for a minute there!! Anyway, to wrap up, I think the document we reviewed is a useful resource that ultimately will help teachers make good decisions about effective online learning experiences for students.