Africans Learn English through High Tech Tablets

The kids in this village wear filthy, ragged clothes. They sleep beside cows and sheep in huts made of sticks and mud. They have no school. Yet they all can chant the English alphabet, and some can make words.

The key to their success: 20 tablet computers dropped off in their Ethiopian village in February by a U.S. group called One Laptop Per Child.

The goal is to find out whether kids using today's new technology can teach themselves to read in places where no schools or teachers exist. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers analyzing the project data say they're already startled.

"What I think has already happened is that the kids have already learned more than they would have in one year of kindergarten," said Matt Keller, who runs the Ethiopia program.

The fastest learner — and the first to turn on one of the Motorola Xoom tablets when they arrived — is 8-year-old Kelbesa Negusse. The device's camera was disabled to save memory, yet within weeks Kelbesa had figured out its workings and made the camera work.

He proclaimed himself a lion, a marker of accomplishment in Ethiopia.

The apps encouraged them to click on colors — green, red, yellow. "Awesome," one app said aloud. Kelbesa rearranged the letters HSROE into one of the many English animal names he knows. Then he spelled words on his own, tracing the English letters into his tablet in a thick red line.

"He just spelled the word 'bird'!" exclaimed Keller. "Seven months ago he didn't know any English. That's unbelievable. That's a quantum leap forward."

"I think if you gave them food and water they would never leave the computer room," said Teka Kumula, who charges the tablets off a solar station built by One Laptop. "They would spend day and night here."

Kelbesa, the self-declared child lion, said: "I prefer the computer over my friends because I learn things with the computer." Asked what English words he knows, he rattled off a barnyard: "Dog, donkey, horse, sheep, cow, pig, cat."

Keller said that Nicholas Negroponte, the MIT pioneer in computer science who founded One Laptop, is designing a program for the 100 million children worldwide who don't get to attend school. Wolf said Negroponte wants to tap into children's "very extraordinary capacity to teach themselves," though she said she has no desire to see teachers replaced.

The goal of the project is to get kids to a stage called "deep reading," where they can read to learn. It won't be in Amharic, Ethiopia's first language, but English, which is widely seen as the ticket to higher paying jobs.

(Tween Tribune)

Grammar : Visual Pattern

Definition:

Visual pattern: The artistic arrangement and use of the visual aspects of words into particular repetitive and/or serial forms as a means to create structure in a poem. Prominent places to look at visual pattern include verbal, grammatical, syntactical, linear, stanzaic and sectional elements within a poem.

What is Visual Pattern?

Visual pattern is, then: The artistic arrangement and use of the visual aspects of words into particular repetitive and/or serial forms as a means to create structure in a poem. Said another way, visual pattern is any recurring or consistent visual aspect of a poem. Since the whole visual field of the poem on the page is available, we must break down some of the aspects of that field into workable pieces. Since the standard elements of written language are letters, diphthongs, words, phrases, sentences, paragraphs and sections, then we must break down our visual patterns into similar elements, with a few exceptions.

In working with visual pattern, the goal is to relax the eye, so to speak, so that the page can be read "at a glance," therefore allowing the visual aspect to come forward. Thinking of the words as being in a field, or whitespace, as it's commonly called, will help you see the different aspects of visual pattern.

Of course, recurrence and predictability are the basis of pattern. This includes words, phrases, sentences, and other grammar-based variations. But rather than dealing with the more obvious uses of repetition on the letter and diphthong level, we start with the recurrence of words on a page, which can be easily scanned and seen. Since a poem has some qualities that are unique only to poetry, namely line and stanza, they are also possible places to seek repetition and subsequently pattern. This leads us to ask...

What are the aspects of a poem that can be varied and patterned?

Visual pattern can arise in the verbal, grammatical, syntactical, linear, stanzaic orsectional elements of a poem. This list is by no means exhaustive, but in order to create an art of visual pattern, we have to put the breaks on somewhere. The reader is encouraged to discover other visual elements within a poem, but for our purposes here, we stop at these six terms. Below is a description of each of these elements, in order of small to large physical presence on the page.

Verbal: A verbal pattern is a pattern that derives from word choice. Verbal patterns arise in the common letter configurations and repetition of certain words. Take as an example Edgar Alan Poe's well known poem "Annabel Lee" (and I use this poem because it makes its patterns obvious— with free verse poetry the patterns are typically more subtle.):

It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of ANNABEL LEE;—
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.

She was a child and I was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea,
But we loved with a love that was more than love—
I and my Annabel Lee—
With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven
Coveted her and me.

And this was the reason that, long ago,
In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud by night
Chilling my Annabel Lee;
So that her high-born kinsman came
And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulchre
In this kingdom by the sea.

The angels, not half so happy in Heaven,
Went envying her and me:—
Yes! that was the reason (as all men know,
In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of a cloud, chilling
And killing my Annabel Lee.
But our love it was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older than we—
Of many far wiser than we-
And neither the angels in Heaven above,
Nor the demons down under the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee:—

For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise but I see the bright eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling, my darling, my life and my bride,
In her sepulchre there by the sea—
In her tomb by the side of the sea.

Comparing the first two stanzas, there is an obvious verbal pattern in the repetition of the word "many" in the first line of the first stanza and "child" in the first line of the second stanza. Also note the pattern of ending the stanzas with the word "me" (this is not continued throughout the poem, although he does end a few more lines with "me", and varies the word with "we" in the 5th stanza, thus placing emphasis on "we.") What other verbal patterns are there?

Grammatical: Grammatical patterns are found in placement of punctuation or repetition of similar grammatical units (ie: two lines with similar use of independent clauses). This also includes syntactical function ("function" meaning: does the sentence ask a question, make a statement etc...(this is with grammatical patterns because of the fact that they end with a specific punctuation)). We also include conventions such as capitalization, italics, boldfacing etc. here. In the Poe poem above note his convention (developed very well by the end of the poem) of beginning lines with prepositional phrases, most often "of" phrases.

Syntactical: Syntactical pattern arises when two or more sentences have similar verbal and grammatical patterns (thus making them seems similar in content and construction), have similar length or repeat identically the same sentence. The line "A wind blew out of a cloud by night" in stanza three line three, and the line "That the wind came out of a cloud, chilling" in stanza four line five, are an obvious syntactical repetition— with the variation in the fourth stanza putting emphasis on the word "chilling." In some ways, building from the smallest elements to the largest, it seems obvious that a combination of verbal and grammatical pattern leads to syntactical pattern.

Linear: Patterns that occur in the line are found primarily in how the line ends and visually how far the lines extends. The first aspect of linear pattern looks at whether the line is end-stopped, end-paused or enjambed. An end-stopped line ends with hard punctuation, typically a period, comma, dash or semi-colon. An end-paused line is one that breaks between phrases. Enjambed lines break the phrase and often contain internal punctuation

A Cultural Awarness Project

The goal of this project is to develop learners’ overall communicative competence

in the target language by focusing specifically on the four skills, as

well as to make them aware of cultural differences or similarities in different

language communities. The project should be conducted in small

groups so that learners can work collaboratively. It consists of four different

stages: 1) a preparation stage, in which learners are provided with

some cultural topics to deal with; 2) a collection stage, in which learners

are asked to collect materials for these topics; 3) an implementation stage,

in which learners work in the classroom with all the materials they have

brought along; and 4) a reflection stage, in which the teacher guides feedback

and encourages cross-cultural class discussion. Each stage is described

in detail in what follows:

•   Preparation stage

As a preliminary step, teachers should provide learners with a brief introduction

about the nature of intercultural competence in order to make them

aware of the importance of paying attention to different cultural frameworks.

This explanation could be carried out by following Byram (1997).

Once the concept of intercultural competence has been introduced in class,

the teacher explains to the learners that they are going to explore the English

target culture in the language classroom. They are then presented with

a list of cultural topics which may offer entry points to the English culture

in order to focus on learners’ intercultural competence. The topics could be:

Family, Education, the World of Work, Regional Identity, Power and Politics

or Law and Order. The selection of topics follows the ideas suggested

in other projects dealing with how best to explore another culture (Duffy

and Mayes 2001; Morgan 2001). In order to help learners with the topic

20 Esther Usó-Juan and Alicia Martínez-Flor

orientation, the five-word technique (Cain 1990) can be used. This technique

consists in asking students to note down the first five words they

think of in relation to each topic presented by the teacher. In fact, making

learners provide such words may be a useful technique to activate their

background knowledge on the cultural topics to be covered. Once learners

have selected the topic they are going to focus on, the next stage of the

project is explained to them.

•   Collection stage

In this stage, it would be tempting for the teacher to make the collection of

materials him/herself about a particular cultural topic and bring them to the

classroom along with prepared activities for the learners. However, we

agree with Morgan (2001) that doing this would block one of the major

aims of the project, which consists in raising learners’ cultural awareness

through having to question themselves what is culturally important and

representative of the target language.

Taking this assumption into account, learners are given the task to collect

materials in the English target culture in relation to the particular topic

they have agreed to work with. Here, they are recommended to look for a

variety of sources, including photocopied information from different

printed materials; photo-documentaries, video or DVD scenes; recorded

material, like conversations with Erasmus learners or English native speakers;

excerpts from the Internet or the hard copy of conversations after having

contacted English-speaking partners through e-mail exchanges or CMC

telecollaborative tasks. During the process of collecting such material,

learners are required to meet the teacher at appointed office hours so that

the teacher can provide any help they might need. Once learners have collected

all the material they are asked to hand it in to the teacher in order to

prepare the next stage of the project.

• Implementation stage

This stage involves several class sessions devoted to developing learners’

communicative competence through the four skills while working on the

cultural topics it was agreed they would deal with in the first stage. Here,

learners are presented with structured activities on the four skills in order to

increase their cultural awareness, intercultural imagination and context

Towards acquiring communicative competence through the four skills 21

sensitivity on that particular topic (Meier 2003). A detailed explanation of

these activities would be provided in the four introductory chapters of each

section dealing with each skill, that is, Section II (listening skill), Section

III (speaking skill), Section IV (reading skill) and Section V (writing skill).

• Reflection stage

After learners have worked on all the activities prepared by the teacher in

each of the four skills, a cross-cultural class discussion follows in order to

elicit learners’ opinions about the topics being dealt with. This discussion

will allow them to take a critical and evaluative position in relation to the

cultural awareness activities already carried out.

In short, by engaging learners in a project such as the one described above,

they become active participants in their own process of language learning.

They are provided with opportunities to develop their overall communicative

competence in the target language by increasing their ability to communicate

in each of the four language skills: listening, speaking, reading

and writing. Additionally, they become aware of the importance of understanding

how cultural issues influence our perception of the world (Cortazzi

and Jin 1999). This development of learners’ intercultural competence,

thus, turns out to be an essential part of foreign language teaching.

Use Scientific Thinking Tkill of Problem Solving

Use your scientific thinking skills

instead of jumping to the obvious conclusion.

1. Identify the problem. Kids are sick and

you want to find out what caused the

problem.

2. Collect information/investigate. So

you found out that the hot-dog eaters got sick

and the brown baggers didn’t. Keep going.

Ask questions that will take you scientifically

to a conclusion before you leap to one. Did

some students who ate hot dogs not end

up vomiting? Did they all have mustard or

ketchup or relish? Did something else come

with the hot dogs, like chips or pickles?

Were all the sickies from the same lunch

period?

Expand your research to the kitchen. Did

the same cafeteria server handle hamburgers

and hot dogs? Did only one server handle

the dogs? Did anybody in the kitchen get

sick? Are there any toxic substances near

the hot-dog-preparation area? Check out the

hot-dog oven. What about pans and serving

platters? Did anybody examine those hot

dog buns? Are there uncooked hot dogs lying

around? Never shortcut the informationgathering

step in a scientific investigation.

3. Form your hypothesis. Maybe, after all

your investigations, you still blame the hot

dogs. In your opinion, the hot dogs are

26 Problem Solving

Never shortcut

the informationgathering

step

in a scientific

investigation.

responsible for student sickness that

afternoon. That’s your theory, your

hypothesis.

4. Draw your conclusions. You can’t do that

until you test your hypothesis, right? If

you’re brave, you might run your own

experiment and eat one of the suspect hot

dogs. Or you can ask your science teacher to

run a substance analysis on a hot dog. The

fourth step is the time to test your theory

and confirm your hypothesis or adjust your

conclusion.

You decide that you’re not brave, so you

don’t eat the hot dog. Your teacher examines

the food, but it comes up clean. It’s time to

consider a new hypothesis. Since only one

person prepared the hot dogs, and he didn’t

touch the hamburgers, you shift your

suspicions to him. To test your new theory,

you spy on him. Sure enough, you see him

cough without covering his mouth. The

man confesses that he just got over the flu.

Case solved.

Why Use Blog ?

Right Tool for the Right Reasons

The first critical consideration for teachers is whether or not the tool being used is necessary to the learning process. In this regard teachers must be unequivocally clear; if teachers do not effectively contextualize the use of any web 2.0 tool, then students are not likely to see the tool as being of benefit to the learning process.

Because blogging can enhance the ability of students to self-reflect and process concepts, the use of a blog in the classroom can only be implemented when there are “concepts for students to think through, various resources and content segments to process, or ideas to construct.” Reynard notes “there must be a certain amount of content preparation” prior to implementing any blogging practices within the classroom.

Also, teachers need to be clear that a blog is an individualized tool for one learner. Yes, students can leave comments on a colleague’s blog that represent a reflection of the material presented. But if a teacher is seeking reactions from a collective group the tool to use would be a wiki or a discussion forum. In essence, teachers must select the proper tool for the task.

The second step is to be absolutely clear about the desired learning outcomes for the course. By the term outcomes, Reynard correctly notes that teachers must go beyond the fundamentals of course objectives.

Learning outcomes do begin with course objectives but they also “include student learning needs and objectives” as well as opportunities for “future application of the learning.” As but one example, learning outcomes could include the use of a blog as the tool for implementing various levels of bloom taxonomy  with students.

Blogs can be the catalyst that has students analyzing and synthesizing course materials. With proper planning and appropriate curriculum, individual students may also use a blog to find ways to apply new ideas.

But in order for a blog to work in such a manner, teachers must provide relevant feedback at the proper times. In addition, teachers should be evaluating the blog not for a final product but as to how the entire learning process shakes out, evaluating blog entries over a period of time.

In summary, blogs can be used to encourage students to summarize what they have learned as well as for comparing and contrasting various aspects of what they have internalized. As students begin to articulate their thoughts blogs can help them feel a sense of empowerment as they develop their own voice.

Throughout the process, blogs can therefore lay out the entire “learning journey” students have been on, helping them become more reflective about the learning process.