As newer technologies become available, educators have the responsibility of being aware of these new methods and technologies and incorporating them in ways that are beneficial to my students. Especially in a post-COVID world where many of our students have experienced online learning, it becomes even more important that educators are technologically literate and able to incorporate digital tools as appropriate to their students and contexts. However, there is also the question of what tools to implement, and how to balance digital tools and physical materials in the classroom. Prior to my experience in learning about digitally-mediated language learning (DMLL), these were questions that I was thinking about frequently. However, these were somewhat answered through my completion of 20 DMLL modules and as evident by my implementation of concepts of including interactive listening and ongoing assessment (Guskey, 2003) I now have a stronger understanding of the use of digital tools in language learning contexts.
These concepts are strongly present in my lesson plan for the third day of my interactive, conversational Japanese course that I had planned for LT 548, Curriculum and Materials Development. In the second part of this lesson, students will be asked to listen to and watch a documentary about family online, and the instructor will facilitate this viewing. This documentary was chosen to help students to become more familiar with familial vocabulary and it widens the scope and perspective of what they could talk about when it comes to their families. From this, one can see how aspects of discovery learning (Brown & Lee, 2015; Bruner, 1961) are facilitated through this documentary, but the way that it is presented also incorporates digital interactive listening. The teacher will facilitate the viewing of the video by checking for comprehension and replaying or slowing down the video as needed. So, the students will be reporting and checking their own comprehension of this digital resource as the teacher plays it, and will be giving feedback to the teacher about what they need to hear again. In this way, we see aspects of interactivity with this digital resource, and students are also given the opportunity to somewhat personalize their experience with the resource as they can control the speed that they are watching and how many times parts are replayed. Because of this, this digital tool becomes more effective for students, as ideas of interactive listening are being included for student engagement with the resource.
This lesson also demonstrates an aspect of ongoing, informal assessment that I try to incorporate in my plans and activities. Through this module, I learned how important it is to be able to track learner progress over time, and to make this available to students and instructors for motivational and grading purposes. I have implemented this here by asking students to “check-in” at the end of the discussion of the documentary with the language difficulty and how useful this activity was to them. This would be done online through Google Forms, to record numerical data about student success. A useful feature of Google Forms is that it will compile and present the data as it comes in and allows one to easily compare student success. This data can also be presented to the class to celebrate general success and to potentially raise student motivation. This digital resource would be very beneficial to the instructor to gauge the effectiveness and benefits of the documentary for students; this would both inform future decisions about what kinds of digital materials to use as well as what supplemental language instruction might be beneficial to students. Where this assessment becomes ongoing is in future class days, where the same types of check-ins are given and recorded in order to monitor progress over time. So, the implementation of this ongoing digital assessment in this lesson plan represents another way in which I have grown more comfortable in including aspects of DMLL in my classrooms and how I use tools with both purposes and the users in mind.
After completing 20 DMLL modules and exploring areas of online language learning as is relevant to my needs, I have found that blending and balancing according to one’s context and learners is what is most important when it comes to implementation of digital tools. The documentary and digital check-ins were only part of this class, and I balanced this DMLL with in-person language learning activities such as discussions. To me, these activities felt like a promising blend of digital and in-person techniques according to my affordances and potential learner needs. Even though the available technologies and techniques will change in the coming years, I will continue to monitor these and stay a learner myself. These qualities and this lesson plan demonstrate my competence in DMLL, and I hope to grow and upkeep these skills well into the future.
Brown, H.D. & Lee, H. (2015). Teaching by principles: An integrative approach to language pedagogy (4th edition). Pearson Education, Inc.
Bruner, J. (1961). The act of discovery. Harvard Educational Review, 31, 21–32.
Guskey, T. R. (2003). How Classroom Assessments Improve Learning. Educational Leadership, 60(5), 6.