Southern New Hampshire UniversityVietnam National University

********************EFL 537- call

By Jeffery Alan Lebow

-----------------------------------------------

Final Report

APPLYING COMPUTER AND INTERNET

IN TEACHING ENGLISH AT HIGH SCHOOL

By Do Thi Binh Giang (Peaceful River)

TABLE OF CONTENT

I- INTRODUCTION:II- DEVELOPMENT:

1. What have I been doing to approach computer in

teaching English at my High School?

1.1. With Preasentation (Powerpoint)

1.2. With Activities ( Hotpotatoes),

1.3. Audio Recording and Editing (Audacity), With Image Editing

(Irfanview)

1.4. Connection the skills/tools above in a lesson

1.5. With Slideshare and Youtube.

2. What have I achieved when applying computer in

teaching English?

3. My future plan of CALL

III- CONCLUSION:

I- INTRODUCTION:

Two weeks of EFL537- Computer Assisted Language Learning

(CALL) course in Cohorh 4 classroom seem to go faster than usual. It is

hard to believe that I have finished 10 days with the course. The courses

really provides me a hands-on, collaborative environment in which I can

learn about and explore the use of computer and the varous technologies to

develop learning materials that are relevant to my teaching context. I am

very happy with the course by Jeffery Alan Lebow. I have real chance to

learn by doing practically because of my NEEDS and my own INTERESTS,

not GRADES. After the first day of the course, I really overcame the

anxieties of learning CALL course with Jeff’s timely help although he is far

from me. The most important thing I achieve from the course is that I am

now more confident to learn and practise how to explore and approach

computer in teaching English at my High School. I am sure I can do my

teaching better with the help of computer.

There are many CALL tools and resources available evolving rapidly

day by day, so I want to know how to use them as much as possible, then I

choose some suitable tools to apply in practically teaching English at my

High School in Hoa Binh province, Vietnam. There is a computer room for

the students in my school, but there is no internet connection there, so I can

only teach English by one computer and projector. As a result, I choose to

master Presentations ( with powerpoint ), and Activity ( With Hotpotatoes),

and some other relevant academic fields, as: Audio Recording and Editing

( Audacity), Image Editing ( with Irfanview) to degine my lessons. And I

sometimes use Slideshare and Youtube to share my lesson and my teaching

experiences with my colleagues or some my students ( who have their own

computer and internet connection at home).

II- DEVELOPMENT:

1. What have I been doing to approach computer in

teaching English at my High School?

1.1. With Preasentation (Powerpoint):

There are many options to create Presentation, but I choose

Powerpoint because of effectiveness. I usually teach my students with only

one computer in the classroom, so I use Powerpoint software to design my

lesson and then use projector to show in the classroom. Here are some

examples of my lesson presentations:

http://www.slideshare.net/dothibinhgiang/englh-11-unit-6reading-a-

nice-lesson-see-it

http://ww.slideshare.net/dothibinhgiang/englh-11-unit-16reading

When I create a lesson presentation, I always try to find more

informations, and pictures to make my lesson more interesting, not only the

content and the picures in the textbook. I search on internet to find suitable

things to add my presentation. And I can see my students are are more

interested in my lessons created by powerpoint than the lessons presented by

only blackboard and chalks.

1.2. With Activities ( Hotpotatoes),

Hot Potatoes  is one of the best known programs (for Windows and

Mac) for creating activities. I usually use Hot Potatoes  to create activities

presented at the “Warm-up” or “Production” of the lesson in the classroom (

The class using only one computer. Students can stand up to do the

activities, or to work in groups, pairs, or dividually to look at the screen and

do activities at the same time. Hot Potatoes is specially useful for the

grammar exercises, which makes students more active and interested in

doing. Here are some my own created Hot potatpes Activities:

http://www.efl537.com/blog/hot-potatoes-3-vnu4b

http://www.efl537.com/blog/hot-potatoes-2-vnu4b

If there is a lab for my students at Lac Thuy B School in the near

future, I will use these activities to let my stucents to do in their own

computer. I think it will be more effective and useful.

1.3. Audio Recording and Editing (Audacity), With Image Editing

(Irfanview)

To make my presentation more interesting, living, and attractive, I use

“Adacity” to record and edit Audios, and “Irfanview” to edit images. I can

record any Audios which are suitable for my teaching presentation. It is very

interesting to make my Audios myself. It seems to be more professional

when my students can see my name on the top of Audio when it is playing.

Here are is an example:

http://www.efl537.com/audio/peaceful-river-vnu4b-introduction-do-thi-

binh-giang

But I think I want to focus on another role of this sotfware is editing

Audios. When I want to teach listening, I want to help my students to focus

on each part of listening ( or sentence by sentence depending on the

understanding questions of the listening), I can export every selection. I can

give an example here:

http://www.efl537.com/audio/audio-editing-orignal-listening

And I cut it into 8 tracks for my students to check their understanding

after they answer the comprehension questions:

http://www.efl537.com/audio/audio-editing

I sometimes see the images are not suitable with my lesson

presentation, so I want to edit to meet the needs of my lesson.. In this case, I

use “Irfanview” to edit the images which are suitable with the practical

context of the lesson. Here are some example:

This is the Orignal Image ( Unit 12- English 10), as here:

http://www.efl537.com/blog/orginal-image

And I cut the image into 3 single pictures to meet the needs of my

presentation, as here:

http://www.efl537.com/blog/imageedit

I always feel satisfied with the audios and images editted by the

Audacity and Irfanview which make our presentations more living,

effective, and attractive.

1.4. Connection the skills/tools above in a lesson

To make my lessons more meaningful and professional by adding

audio, videos in powerpoint presentations while creating Presentations, as

the following (I use irfan to have this pictures to illustrate this):

I also Reload Hot potatoes and powerpoint in the same package by

using reload editor sotfware : http://www.reload.ac.uk/editor.html . I have

used it to reload:

1.5. With Slideshare and Youtube.

When I want to share my presentation with my colleagues, I use

Slideshare to upupload my presentation. My colleagues can download and

share their ideas with me. I am happy with any comment from them. I feel

sorry that most of my students do not have computer and internet at home,

but some of them have, so they can see my presentation on Slideshare, and

Youtube. I think in near future, there will be enough labs with modern

equipments for my students to learn English via computer. Especially in

case they may be ill and miss some lessons, they can learn by internet and

computer by “Slideshare” and “Youtube”.

http://www.slideshare.net/dothibinhgiang/englh-11-unit-6reading-a-

nice-lesson-see-it

http://ww.slideshare.net/dothibinhgiang/englh-11-unit-16reading

http://www.youtube.com/user/dothibinhgiang

I will sometimes records my presentation in the classroom, and

upload the video on Youtube so that my colleagues can download to see.

And I also download theirs, and we can share personal experiences of

teaching English.

2. What have I achieved when applying computer in

teaching English?

When I apply computer in teaching English, my students are more

interested in my lessons. They are more active to involve in my lesson, and

enjoy taking parts in doing activities. As a result, I often achieve the

objectives of the lessons with the help of computer. I also am happy when I

can motivate my students to learn English by create interesting and useful

presentation. Here are some photos taken in my classroom:

3. My future plan of CALL

I know that I am not really good at enternet exploring, so I have to try

my best to practise some skills usful to my teaching as much as possible. So,

I will go on improving my skills of using Powerpoint and Hot potatoes to

create more interesting and useful lessons with the relevant fields, as: audios

and image edit. I have a dream that in the near future, I can have a chance to

use Slideshare and Youtube to teach English. At that time, I do not also

teach English with one computer but also can teach with one computer for

each student. So, I have to try my best to focus on the skills of CALL above

and some othe skill to explore internet, as: Social Boomarking, Blogging

and RSS, Social Network.

III- CONCLUSION:

As my teacher, Jeffery Alan Lebow says, CALL is an unusual course. The

course is the beginning of my CALL learning, and never ends. I learn much

from the course, not only the knowledge of CALL, but also: how to work

with the others, how to do something myself, how to be creative in learning.

And I also learn much from my teacher (I call him Jeff): how to motivate

students in learning, how to encourage students in doing creative things,

how to help students, how to treat students.ect. He has just opened a now

world for me. And I have been trying to do well in the new world of

teaching. I am sure that I will continue his course until I stop breathing

because of its benefits to my work and my life. Thanks Jeff so much and

give him the best regards. And I also thank to Tuan who helps me much

during the course. CALL COURSE NEVER ENDS!