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17ПРЕДСТАВЛЕНИЕ НАУЧНОЙ РАБОТЫ
USING LANGUAGE LEARNING TECHNOLOGIES TO PROVIDE QUALITY INPUT, INTERACTION AND OUTPUT IN TEACHING ENGLISH
И ТВОРЧЕСТВА
Анюшенкова Ольга Николаевна, Финансовый университет при Правительстве Российской Федерации, г. Москва
E-mail: olgaann2008@yandex.ru
Аnnotation. The article is devoted to development of language learning technologies to equip teachers of English to provide quality input, interaction, and • output, targeted to the level of proficiency of their students. These crucial elements in foreign language acquisition and students' mastery of academic content is the foundation of successful teaching of ELLs.
Keywords: input, interaction, output, adjusting, technology, academic content, foreign language acquisition, comprehensible, proficiency level, verbal communication, opportunities, scaffolding, developing
Today's teachers of English have two main instructional goals: 1) to support their students' acquisition of English; 2) to support their students' mastery of academic content. In order to make a subject comprehensible to learners, teachers must create conditions that also support language learning. Cummins (1980) distinguishes two types of language use that ELLs must develop: (1) Basic Interpersonal Communication Skills (BICS), which refer to social language; and (2) Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency (CALP).
The process of learning a foreign language is complex. How successful someone is at learning another language depends on many factors. Some learners learn quickly, while others may take more time. Scientific researches into this process have found three critical elements that affect foreign language acquisition: input, interaction, and output.
Input. From a teaching perspective, input is the information you convey to your students. Input is your message. Comprehensible input is language input that can be understood by listeners despite them not understanding all the words and structures
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in it. It is described as one level above that of the learners if it can only just be understood. According to Krashen's theory of language acquisition, giving learners this kind of input helps them acquire language naturally, rather than learn it consciously.
Context or non-verbal clues. Providing a lot of non-verbal context helps to make the input comprehensible. For foreign language learners, input is clearer if it is delivered in ways that go beyond only verbal expression. Poor input would be verbally explaining the subject. Better input would be to show pictures, videos, diagrams that are labeled the phenomena while saying the appropriate vocabulary.
Adjusting verbal communication. In addition to non-verbal aspects of quality input, teachers should adjust verbal presentations to make the message more comprehensible. An important way to make input understandable is to be sure that the language used to convey the message is targeted to their level of comprehension.
Adjusting verbal input for levels of proficiency. Developing proficiency in a foreign language can be seen as a process of adding new words and grammatical structures in the learners' repertoire until they reach proficiency. Teachers should modify their language based on students' level of English proficiency. •
How technology provides quality input. When teaching English language skills or academic subjects, enhancing and increasing non-verbal input can be more easily achieved with technology. Technology can improve comprehensibility of subject matter through enhanced context and target verbal input to the learner's proficiency level.
Providing context. A great way to help students develop reading skills through comprehending the main points of the text (i.e., written input) is to provide a concept map with visuals and key words of key points in the reading passage. Many teachers can use concept mapping programs that include clip art libraries and point and click steps for showing relationships such as comparison and contrast, cause and effect, and hierarchy. Students can use them to map a reading to show their comprehension, and of course, concept maps will help to learn the subject.
Sheltered content. The instruction is typically "sheltered", which means that it is geared to the language levels of the ELL students. With sheltered content, the ELL students can learn new vocabulary and structures, as well as develop reading and writing skills in English, while learning about the subject area of focus.
Targeting verbal input to proficiency level. The other element of quality input is gearing verbal communication to the level of students. Numerous software programs provide tutorials in language and content skills for English language learners (ELL) at different levels of proficiency. In addition, there are many free websites, which provide drills and activities for language development, for beginners through advanced and beyond. English teachers, for example, can direct individual students to
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work through exercises on completing different tasks.
Interaction. In the21st century, we have come a long way from the "sage on the stage" approach to teaching. Today's classroom includes a variety of activities that pair and group students in purposeful ways. Of course, teachers also interact with students, often individually. Both of these types of interaction are beneficial to learners because they provide opportunities for what is called "negotiation of meaning. "Negotiation of meaning (Pica, 1994) helps to link up the message that the speaker intends to convey with the message the listener receives. The speaker can say "give me the pen" but the listener, who is a beginning level, may not know what the word pen means. The speaker realizes that the listener does not understand the word pen can point to the pen. Once the listener brings the pen to the speaker, the negotiation is complete and successful.
Adjusting interaction for level ofproficiency. Teachers should keep this notion of negotiation of meaning in mind when planning student-to-student or teacher-to-student interaction. Targeting interaction activities to the needs of beginning, intermediate, and advanced English as a Foreign Language learners (EFLs) is crucial. The fact that the ELL student can request clarification in an interactive exchange • makes the activity more comprehensible. However, to make the activity more appropriate for language development, the interaction should be supported or, to in educational terminology, scaffolded (Vygotsky, 1978).
Adjusting interaction through scaffolding. Scaffolding an interactive exchange might include providing ELLs with common phrases to express confusion and request assistance (such as speaking more slowly, repeating an utterance, rephrasing, etc.). The more opportunities that ELLs have to interact with others to communicate in English, the faster and better they will learn English. Having ELL students solve problems in pairs provides greater opportunities for each student to speak than having them listen to the teacher solve a problem. They can benefit from interacting with other ELLs in English or with native speakers of English.
How technology provides quality interaction. Technology can also assist with structuring opportunities for learners to interact with others in meaningful ways, for example team or pair activities and online communications.
Cooperative learning and technology. One of the best ways to increase interaction is to pair students in a computer-based activity. Web Quests are a good example. A web quest is "an inquiry-oriented activity in which some or all of the information that learners interact with comes from resources on the Internet..." (Bernie Dodge). In a Web Quest, students carry out a task or solve a problem that requires gathering information from the Internet. The varied forms of information, including non-verbal components such as pictures, graphs, and video clips, can be a point for pair discussions.
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Computer-mediated communication. Nowadays, real-time computer-mediated communication, such as text, audio, and video chats provide different ways for language learners to interact with others in English. Learners can also interact at their convenience through e-mail, bulletin boards, or programs that allow students to draft compositions and comment on/add to other students' compositions. These are great ways to provide more interaction targeted to the needs of ELL students.
Output. It is not enough for ELL students to receive input and to interact with others to understand or convey a message. ELLs students should be provided with ample opportunities to produce output in English. Output can be defined as verbal expression, both spoken and written language. A language learner cannot learn a language without expressing meaning in it. Therefore, to learn to speak a language, he has to speak it, and to learn to write a language, he has to write it. The teacher's role is to set up situations that require students to speak or write.
Adjusting output for level of proficiency. The ELL student's level of proficiency is key for any output activity. Selecting and scaffolding the right type of output assignment is critical for language growth. If students are motivated to say or write something that is at or slightly beyond their current level of ability, they will be • able to acquire new words and grammatical knowledge that will increase their English expression.
How technology provides quality output. The notion of scaffolded, or supported, output applies to both goalsof teaching ELLs: English language development and mastery of academic content in English, and can be supported by various types of technology.
Technology-mediated output in language development and in content areas. Supporting language development through student oral and written output can be facilitated with technology. An example of technology-supported output for language development is software or Web-based programs that allow students to listen to multimedia storybooks and then record themselves reading the story. Students can listen to segments of both versions, comparing pronunciation, intonation, and fluency to the model.When considering ELL students' mastery of academic content, output can demonstrate the student's comprehension and be used as a form of assessment.
Scaffolding input, interaction, and output. Teachers should provide a scaffolding, or structure, of input, interaction, and output for ELLs. Put simply, scaffolding is providing support that enables learners to do something that they could not do without it
Summary. Teachers of ELLs have two primary goals: English language development and mastery of academic content in English. Having a solid understanding of language learning technologies equips teachers to provide quality input, interaction, and output, targeted to the level of proficiency of students. These
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crucial elements in foreign language acquisition and students' mastery of academic content is the foundation of successful teaching of ELLs.
Bibliography:
1. Cummins, J. (1980). The construct of language proficiency in bilingual education. In J.E. Alatis (Ed.) Georgetown University Round Table on Languages and Linguistics. Washington DC: Georgetown University Press.
2. Krashen, S. (1985). The input hypothesis: Issues and implications. New York: Longman.
3. Pica, T. (1994). Questions from the language classroom: Research perspectives. TESOL Quarterly, 28. pp. 49-79.
4. Vygotsky, L. (1978). Mind in society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
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