ASSOCIATED COLLEGES OF THE SOUTH
TECHNOLOGY FELLOWS PROGRAM
APPLICATION
Please return this completed form, along with your attached proposal, to:
Technology Fellows Program
Associated Colleges of the South Technology Center
Southwestern University Box 7385
Georgetown, TX 78626
Applicant Name: Moira R. Rogers, PhD.
Project Title: "Creating a High-Tech Environment for Learning Spanish as a Second Language"
Project proposed for (select one):
_____Fall, 1999, X Spring, 2000 _____Summer, 2000
Project type:
X Project to be completed at Home Campus (stipend only)
X Residency at ACS Technology Center (Southwestern University) (stipend plus housing and limited meal plan)
Proposed length of residency (and desired dates, if known) March 13-20; May 15-30, 2000.
ACS Institution: Morehouse College
Department: Modern Foreign Languages
Mailing Address: 830 Westview Dr. SW
Atlanta, GA 30314
E-Mail: morogers@morehouse.edu
"Creating a High-Tech Environment for Learning Spanish as a Second Language"
Moira R. Rogers, PhD
Information technologies are transforming the way in which educational institutions fulfill their educational mission. In recent years researchers have assessed the role of technology in second language learning and encouraged teachers to recognize the potential of adding a technological component to the present foreign language curriculum (Byrnes: 1998), enhancing pedagogy through multimedia technologies. The incorporation of new technologies challenges us to take advantage of new materials and tools to increase interconnections and language enrichment. These innovative technologies include web-based materials, CD-Roms, CALL (computer-assisted language learning) programs, and network-based communication, which has the potential to open up the traditional classroom to learners from remote sites around the nation and the world.
Our students are much more technologically oriented than they were in past generations. For them technology is a welcome environment, and in it we can convey our basic professional message: Learn languages and cultures. Students' openness to technology allows teachers to harness useful techniques to make the task of second language learning less arduous and time-intensive. As part of all my courses, I have incorporated optional internet activities that have proven students' appreciation of electronic media as they have helped them engage with authentic materials in the form of texts, sounds, symbols, images, and videos. Technology can play an important role in fostering second language acquisition by electronically increasing learners' contact with a wide array of authentic materials and real-life situations. Texts accompanied by video rich in culturally authentic images appeal to students' visual memory. Drill-and-practice exercises can offer appropriate feedback, treat the subject-matter in context, and follow problem-solving or discovery procedures.
My immediate goal is to develop a Web page for Spanish 202, which will provide students with quick and unrestricted access to course related materials as well as to on-line research resources. The course aims at providing ample opportunity for developing all four language skills (listening, speaking, reading, and writing) through the application of these skills in real life situations. Readings in cultural issues are designed to expand vocabulary, stimulate discussion, and broaden their understanding of the Hispanic world. I am convinced that the incorporation of technology mediated instruction will significantly enhance and reinforce students' learning, immersing them in virtual realms where the pursuit of the Spanish language and culture become interdisciplinary and learner oriented tasks.
My page will include links that will help students browse through interdisciplinary resources, read print media, access film, art and historical museums, view on-line slides and videos, read international newspapers, and listen to international broadcasts. Students will also be directed to foreign music archives and collections and popular culture exhibits. All these materials can be easily accessed from the laboratory, and can help language students turn into informed cultural observers. My page will also incorporate collaborative writing and discussion programs, such as De orilla a orilla, which enjoys great success in connecting Spanish Speakers in the United States with participants in Latin America.
In addition to in-class activities, I offer my students the opportunity to engage in hands-on service-learning activities in the Spanish speaking community of Atlanta. My web-page will include information on service-learning activities, as well as an open forum in which students will share their experiences.
In the Spring, I teach a Spanish for Business (Span. 352) course. This class is designed for the student who wants to learn to communicate successfully in the Spanish-speaking world of business and trade at home and overseas. Students acquire specific business terminology and cultural conventions to discuss business topics such as: management, industry, marketing, banking, import/export, etc. While emphasis is placed on learning communicative strategies in oral and written Spanish, a great deal of cultural information is also discussed and examined in order to carry out effective business transactions. In addition, issues focused on the future trade initiatives and agreements between the United States and Latin American countries will be studied. In the summer of 1999, I attended a faculty development seminar at the Darla School of Business in South Carolina to develop innovative course materials. In my syllabus for 99, I made a modest incorporation of Multimedia resources due to the limited access that students had to computers. The fellowship I request to cover the development of a pertinent Web page with course-materials and resources will clearly enhance the quality of the course offered.
Evaluation: I plan to conduct an initial survey of students' knowledge, perceptions, and expertise with innovative technologies. At the end of the course/s I will in turn ask them to assess the gains and difficulties they experienced through the incorporation of the new media. As I monitor students' progress and motivation in their learning process, I believe this experience will provide me with important data to revise and improve the materials for later uses.
Impact: The incorporation of innovative technologies into the Spanish curriculum has important pedagogical advantages: motivate students, let them work at their own pace, reinforce learning, and expose them to technology, among others. It will save class-room activities from time-consuming drills, and allow students to engage in task-oriented explorations of the Spanish language and culture. The materials I am proposing to develop are oriented not only to our students but also to other instructors of our department and colleagues at the ACS who teach similar courses.
Expertise: As a Ph.D. in Science and Technology Studies, I am interested in working on the impact of the incorporation of innovative technologies into the Foreign Language curriculum. I believe the development of my own web pages and the monitoring of students' achievements through this medium will provide me with essential experimental data for my research. Enhancing my ability to use information technology in my teaching is one of my near term professional goals.
Departmental Support: The Department of Modern and Foreign Languages has been awarded a grant from the Bush Foundation aimed at promoting the use of technology in teaching. We expect that by the Spring of 1999 we will have a new electronic classroom and computerized lab that will facilitate our use of innovative technologies in the teaching of foreign languages. This represents an exciting improvement from the old-fashioned audiolingual lab that has frustrated many of our students.
Residency at ACS Technology Center: I plan to spend the week of Spring Break (March 13-20) and the weeks of May 15-30 at the ACS Technology center with the following goals:
Bibliography
Byrnes, Heidi, Learning Foreign and Second Languages. Perspectives in Research and Scholarship, MLA: New York, 1998.
O'Donnell, J, "Teaching with Technology," URL address: http://gopher.upenn.edu:80/pennprintout/html/v11/5/teach.html, University of Pennsylvania, 1995.
Patrikis, Peter C., Where is Computer Technology Taking US? Association of Departments of Foreign Languages, ADFL Bulletin, Winter 1995, Vol. 26, No. 2, p. 36-39.