Computer Language Laboratory First Lesson
Andrea Vadakin
| GRADE LEVEL: | CPLL (Computer Language Laboratory) Class, 2nd and 3rd year students |
| SKILLS: | Listening, Reading, Writing |
| TIME: | Spans two 45 minute class periods |
| MATERIALS: | Computer Vocabulary Worksheet, computer for each student, pictures of steps for the how-to lesson |
| YEAR: | 2007 |
OBJECTIVES:
1. To show students different ways that the computer can assist the language learning process.
2. To further advance the process of language learning thought through use of a creative medium.
3. To develop computer skills.
PROCEDURE:
1. Before the class begins, create email accounts for each student. You might have to talk to the teacher in charge of computer-related issues at your school before you are able to do this. The records of these email accounts will be held only by the JTE and ALT. For the first lesson, send in the email a D.O.L. (Daily Oral Language) sentence, a quote or passage of interest, and a website that you think the students will find interesting. I used a website that had great online “how-to” ideas: http://www.ehow.com.
2. At the beginning of class assign each student to a computer and hand out the computer vocabulary worksheets.
3. Next, go through the new vocabulary for using a computer in an English setting. Have the students listen and repeat each new word. If the students do not know the meaning of a word, they should look it up using http://dictionary.goo.ne.jp. Emphasis needs to be placed on keeping everything centered around using the computer during this class.
3. Next, have students run through using the computer in an English setting—start up to shut down.
4. Give students their assigned email addresses, and have them open up the email you sent them before class. Have each student attempt to correct the sentence, and then have them resubmit their corrected sentence through a reply email to either the ALT or JTE. If you’re not running short on time, you can have students guess at the meaning behind the quote or passage. Otherwise, this would be homework to submit at a later time. I make my students keep a journal of all D.O.L. and quotes that I send them weekly.
5. After they finish their D.O.L., direct the students to the website that they will be working on that day. “How-to” and cooking websites are particularly fun, because they can teach students things that they can use in everyday life. Such as, “How to Clean Candy from Carpet,” or “How to Survive an Encounter with a Coyote.” Not kidding. For the first lesson, have the students take turns reading each step of the how-to out loud, and, if possible, use images, either drawn or found online, to show each step to the students. Have the JTE check their understanding of each step.
6. Finally, depending on what type of how-to has been chosen, you can do follow-up of the project and have students show their understanding by creating what they have been learning about or by submitting a report to the JTE or ALT.
NOTES:
My kids were amazed at the idea of actually getting an email address of their own, and it has made it really easy for students to turn in assignments to me. If your school doesn’t allow access to Hotmail, Gmail, or other popular email sites, try to find a smaller email service that isn’t blocked.
This lesson is pretty basic, and can be tweaked to go just about anywhere. Instead of a how-to lesson, you could easily modify it to cover something like the news. You could have the students do research on a certain subject using online newspapers, online news video, or even have them use blogs or podcasts to spice things up a little. I have even heard some ALTs say that they use applications such as Skype to allow their students to use English in an actual conversation. All of these can make students very interested in learning more about English.
HANDOUTS and WORKSHEETS:
Handouts for these activities can be found here and here
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