Teaching argumentative essay writing by integrating multimedia learning device (Microsoft Word, Facebook, email and weblog)*

Course description

In English language education, writing argumentative writing is one of obligatory subjects that all students must take in that it becomes one of the skill set to accomplish before assigned to write academic essays and research proposal or report in the higher level of higher education. This subject focuses on establishing students ability to present logical reasoning, strong and convincing argument, as well as critical analysis and judgement in the form of argumentative essays. Therefore, in this subject the students are expected to be able to write argumentative essays about any given topics or those of their interest. Before doing this subject, the students should have the ability to write a good paragraph because that would be the prerequisite skill to write an essay. Furthermore, this subject consists of 4 credits which require the students to dedicate eight hours of learning perweek on their own.

Issues concerning writing

There are a number of issues regarding writing in the university where I am teaching. For instance, students seem to be demotivated to write compared to their interest in spoken interaction. Trang, TTT & Baldauf, JRB, (2007) suggest that demotivation decreases students interest in learning English. Once students lose interest in learning, it would affect their engagement to the learning activities both in and out of the classroom. As result, it would be hard for them to achieve the learning objectives.

One of the reasons is probably due to the teaching method employed by the instructor which is traditional in nature. By traditional means, the use of old textbook and hand writing are still predominant although there are thousands of writing sources available on the website and despite the availability of computers in the university.  Concerning that, TTT & Baldauf, JRB (2007) further outlines that teacher’s teaching method becomes the largest source of it.

On top of that, it is worth mentioning that there is also interesting facts about the students in my teaching context. Despite losing interest in writing class, they have great engagement with writing on social media like Facebook and weblogs. They could spend hours to write their feeling and thoughts and communicate with their peers or with anyone online. This is probably caused by the attraction provided by those media. For instance, they can build network, upload and download pictures which interest them.  Moreover, many of them belong to group discussions which require them to give comments, argue and support their ideas. Furthermore, some of them have produced pages of writing on their weblogs. This is really contradictory to what happens in their writing class.

Potential benefits of Facebook in writing

Reflecting to such contrast facts, we can draw an assumption that information technology and communication, especially social media, has great potential benefits not only to increase students’ motivation to learn to write but also, more importantly, to refine the traditional teaching method in the classroom. Bosch (2009) argues that students who used Facebook found a list of benefits of using Facebook for academic purposes. For instance, they got assistance in identifying online resources for learning from their Facebook friends.

Integration of other multimedia

The other emerging ICT are computer and the internet. In computer, there is a word processor like Microsoft word, which can be used as teaching and learning media.  Dudeny and Hockly (2007, p. 15) point out that Microsoft word can be used in many inventive ways. As an illustration, students can personalize their writing by inserting images, voice, videos or website links to their writing to make it more appealing. With these features, students would find writing enjoyable. Furthermore, writing on Microsoft word allows the students to work collaboratively with their friends. An example of this activity is by getting students to write collaborative story (Dudeny and Hockley, 2007, p.24). In that instance, students become co-writers for the story and this would be enjoyable and less demanding activity.

For the purpose of writing argumentative essay, collaboration is possible with such an application, for instance with TrackChange. This tool allows the learners to share their documents with the other students as well as to change or edit ideas or language features that considered requiring revision (ibid, p. 19). Further benefit of this tool is that it enables the learners to do peers’ review or give feedback to each other.  Mangelsdorf (1991) points out that peer review is found to have helve helped many students to revise the content of their drafts. However, it is worth noting that the reviewing tasks must be carefully structured in order for the students to become successful critics (ibid). In other words, teachers must provide a rubric for peer review and train students to give feedback appropriately in order to avoid drawback of this type of feedback. Furthermore, along with peer feedback, teacher can also use TrackChange to give feedback to their students during the writing process.

Dudeny and Hockly (2007, p. 62) argue that one of the most used and useful information and communication (ICT) tools around the globe is email. For this teaching and learning purpose, email will be used as media to send the essay draft to their friends and teacher. Composing an email has added the benefit for learners in writing process as it allows them to edit their writing before sending them (ibid, p,63). However, before applying this technology, students are expected to have basic email skills. There are two basic skills of emailing: communication skills and technical skills. Communication skills include formality of writing and basic netiquette or rules of engagement in email writing while technical skills includes steps to receive, send emails and how to deals with viruses (ibid).

Task based: Procedures

Willis (1996, cited in Littlewood, 2003, p.321) argues that “tasks are always activities where language is used by the learners for communicative purpose to achieve and outcome”.  Referring to what Willis has outlined, this teaching method employs a task-based approach.  This is mainly because the ultimate goal of using this method is to provide as many opportunities as possible for learners to use the language in order that that they can gain ability to write argumentative essays. Furthermore, the more students the chance to use language, for instance through reading a page on the internet, writing on email, Facebook and speaking in or out of the classroom, the bigger the possibility that their language skills will be enhanced.  Once they make progress on their skill, it is expected that they can be encouraged or have intrinsic motivation to learn the language. On top of that, they can gain confidence and start to learn independently.

The following are the stages the students will go through during the writing process:

1.             Students are divided into groups of three

2.             Each group are to choose a topic, either from the given topics or those of their interest

3.             Start to research online to find information about their topics

4.           After getting the information, they have to summarize or paraphrase it and finally post the information on the Facebook along with the reference. The posting of the information should be on the topic of their choice, for instance, topic on bilingual education.

5.             Students, afterward, copy and paste all the ideas from Facebook to a Microsoft word. On it, they can start organizing the ideas. At this stage they will write their draft or essay.

6.             After completing the draft, they have to send their draft to the other group to get feedback.

7.          Feedback given is focused on content, ideas organization, coherence and cohesion. This done using Trackchange.

8.             After providing feedback, the students should resend their friends draft via email.

9.             By using the feedback, the students can revise their writing.

10.      After revising their writing, the students have to send their revised draft to their teacher to get feedback.

11.         By using teacher’s feedback, returned by teacher via email, students can revise their drafts.

12.         After revising, they can edit the grammar, punctuation, spelling and perhaps the vocabulary.

13.    Having completed that, they have to write a summary of their essay (100 words) to post on the Facebook.

14.        The full essay with its references will be published on class blog. In the Facebook, the weblog address should be attached. 

15.      Students can also be encouraged to give presentation in the classroom by using Misrosoft Word or Power Point if considered necessary.

Assessing students’ writing

The students final essay will be evaluated based on the rubric designed by Schwalm (2007). Aspects to assess will include: introduction, conclusion, main points,use of sources, sentence precision, and mechanic. However for overall score, other asspects will be considered.  These include their postings on facebook and weblog.

Evaluation of teaching method

Despite the facts that there have been many researches about the use of ICT in language teaching, the effectiveness and efficiency of this method cannot be measured yet. Therefore, by the end of the lesson, students will be asked to give their comments on Facebook regarding this method. Students’ personal feeling on the advantages of this method will be explored as well as the downsides.  Along with students’ responses, teacher himself will also do self-evaluation. By referring to these, a betterment of this method can be expected.

Variation to this approach: a note for teachers

This method can be used in varied ways. For instance, teachers can use the Facebook for online chatting or discussion. Students’ afterward can be asked to summarize the result of their chats or discussion.  In addition, teacher can post questions and ask the students to provide answers, taken from online sources, on Facebook page. Concerning email, teachers can take into account of what Dudely and Hockley (2007, p. 67) suggests, that is to make an online projects on the other genre of texts. In short, designing an online lesson would be motivating in many ways. 

Reference

Bosch, TE (2009) Using online social networking for teaching and learning:Facebook use at the University of Cape Town. Communicatio: South African Journal for Communication Theory and Research Volume 35, Issue 2, 2009pp. 185–200 Accessed on 19 October 2013, http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02500160903250648

Dudeny, G & Hockly, N (2007) How to teach English with technology, pp.15, 19, 24, 62, 63, 67. Pearson longman, England.

Littlewood, W (2003) The task-based approach: some questions and suggestions, ELT J (2004) 58 (4): 319-326, pp.321, accessed on 19 October 2013 , http://eltj.oxfordjournals.org/content/58/4/319.short

Mangelsdorf, K (1991)Peer reviews in the ESL composition classroom:what do the students think?ELT Journal (1992) 46 (3): 274-284,accessed on 19 October 2013, http://eltj.oxfordjournals.org/content/46/3/274.short

Schwalm, K  (2007) Rubric for the Assessment of the Argumentative Essay, Accessed on 20 October 2013, http://web.gccaz.edu/English/Assessment/Spring07/Final/ArgumentRubric.htm

Trang, TTT& Baldauf, JRB, (2007) Demotivation: understanding resistance to Englishlanguage learning – the case of Vietnamese students, The Journal of Asia TEFL Vol 4, No 1, pp. 79-105, Spring 2007

*Rational for WebQuest project of  EDGT940: Materials & Technology in Second Language Teaching.

** Master of TESOL student in School of education, University of Wollongong, NSW Australia. (Spring, 2013).

The Power Point Presentation of this teaching method can be accessed in http://www.slideshare.net/Marham

Stepping stone to be an academic writer

Writing in academic style has been a very daunting and, I personally believe, is a painstaking work particularly for those whose first language is not English.  One of the causes is partially due to our unfamiliarity with the phrases commonly used in such a genre. However, every academic writing, either journal, textbook and report should have some commonalities. Therefore, it is worth spending some time to have a read through the following website http://www.phrasebank.manchester.ac.uk/. Not only introducing how you write descriptively, but you will find the source helpful to guide you to be a critical writer. In other words, reading through such a learning source would enrich your understanding about being an academic writer.

Happy learning!!!

An abstract to ASIA TEFL Conference

Hi mates

The following is the abstract I sent to an ASIA TEFL conference (http://www.asiateflphil.org/) for teaching presentation and I have no Idea whether it would be acepted or not. However, as the topic of the conference also includes the use of IT in ESL class, so I challenged my self to write the abstract about the use of three different technologies in teaching writing, emails, word Processors and blogs. Who knows it would work?.

This teaching program is especially designed to teach writing for intermediate learners in secondary school. The integration of email, word processor and blog in the teaching and learning of writing aims at increasing the learners’ motivation, confidence and skills to write with computers, connected with the internet. The pedagogical values in this teaching method include: promoting learners’ autonomy, research skill, peer reviews, colaborative works,  digital literacy and critical thinking.The learning objectives to achieve after the end of the session would be learners are expected to able to a) write a short essay about their chosen topics, b) gather information about the topic they would choose from a variety of sources, i.e. observation, websites, interview or personal reflection, c) use word processor to write their findings, d) use email to send their draft to their peers, e) use track change to give feedback/ review their friends’ work, f) revise their own draft after getting feedback form their friends, g) post their final draft on blog, h) add additional feature son their blogs, i.e. images, audio or video files, i) give comment on their friends’ posting on the blog, and j) express their viewpoints or personal feeling about the whole teaching and learning activities. Lastly, before starting the program, it will be assumed that all the learners have had their own emails and the class has already created a class blog.

Key words: Teaching Writing, Emails, Word processor, Blog, Pedagogical Values


Source: https://moodle.uowplatform.edu.au/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=20467

Well...call for paper has been closed a few months before I submitted the abstract. By the way the committee asked me to come to join the conference, but I don't think it is worth attending if I cannot present my article...

Using mobile phone in ESL clas

My response to a discussion on Moodle site on topic " Using Mobile Phone in ESL class"

                                                         Hi everyone...

It seems that the discussion has been rooted quiet deep. Nevertheles, it is worth, first of all, rethinking some key issues dicussed in this context, using mobile phone (MP) for promoting language skills. The first issue is that whether it is useful or not?. The second is how to encourage ESL to otimally use the MP for language learning purposes?.

Let me share my opinion about these questions.

It is obvious that mobile phones (MP) can be a helpful portable technology for ESL because of the following reasons: It is portable, appordable, entertaining, and provides a broad access to the internet, "the second real world".  As it is portable, it would break the learning boundary. By that I mean, MP enables us to gain input, i.e. vocabulay, pronunciation, or information, irrespective the place and time. Its affordability aspect, in addition, would certainly enable learners from all level of wealthy to learn English by using such a shopisticated tool. This would also mean breaking the learning limitation.

Entertaining factor is another crucial aspect that should exists in language learning and an MP has this strenght. For instance, by listening to a broad range of songs of learners' interest or watching youtobe online by using the MP, would be quite joyful language learning activities. In brief, the fun side of language learning can be promoted through such a technology. This would be a kind of extrinsic factor.

With regard to the learners' motivation, I would say that motivation is something that can be built. How would we do that?. It is worth trying to introduce some benefits of using MP for language learning to the learners at the first place. This is intended to raise their awareness of the potential benefits an MP has. Afterwards, encouraging the learners to practice using the MP for learning in the classroom for a couple of minutes could be done. If we give them such opportunities, they might find the joyful side of ESL learning.  What is more, it is good to keep encouraging them practice that regularly until we think they have already tasted the benefits them selves.This, however, can be done through a good design of lesson plan.  

What do you think mates?


Source : https://moodle.uowplatform.edu.au/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=20467

Writing with computers in ESL classroom: Enhancing ESL learners’ motivation, confidence and writing proficiency

Before reading: Please watch this video!

Writing in my school

There are three main issues regarding teaching and learning writing skills in the secondary school where I am teaching: learners’ low motivation to write, minimum interaction in writing, and poor writing skils. These lead to their lack of confidence in that particular skill. Nevertheless, they are very motivated and actively participating in speaking activities, as a result, their aural skills are much better than those of written ones. Furthermore, writing on papers or handwriting activities is the typical form of teaching and learning writing activities in most Indonesian secondry schools. This is caused by the lack of computers in each school which teachers and ESL learners can use for writing. In the case of the school where I am teaching, there are only less than 20 units of computers for  almost 200 hundres students, from year ten to twelve and for teachers to use.  These computers are only used for computer lesson. Lack of teachers’, school preparedness (Anderson,  1985. P.5) as well as learners’ ability in making use of such a technology seem also to be the cause. By teachers’preparedness means that they are not very familiar in using the computers for ESL although all of them are computer literate.  Even, as Dudeney (2007, p.2) observes that, many teachers ignore their existence despite the facts that a great change in computer  use and advances spread quickly in education world. Consequently, handwriting activities keeps existing although students have the chance to write with computers.

However, a significant change recently has happened where Indonesian government has allocated a huge amount, 20 %, of the national budget to support education. With that funding, schools now can have more computers and teachers are encouraged to optimally use the facility for the sake of teaching learning activities. In spite of this, teachers’ awareness in using computer for ESL classroom is still the remainding issue. Therefore, at this juncture, this article will discuss how computers can be used for the purpose of increasing students’ motivation and confidence, and their writing skills. These would be done by getting them engaged in a variety of  writing activities with computers, either offline or online.

Benefits of using computers in the ESL classroom compared to handwriting

Writing with computers would benefit both teachers and learners. Dowling (1999,p.xi) argues that “writing with computers is of special benefit to learners of all ages”. The reasons are, as Dowling suggests,  writing with computers enables the balance between process and product within the activities of writing. Learners are also free to explore and develop ideas, concepts and relationship through language. In additon, learners identified having learning difficulties, would find this helpful because computers allows them to write freely and flexibly. This, to a greater extent would ehance their confidence and status within their peer or group (ibid). Reflecting from what Dowling has suggested, it is obvious that writing with computers could be done by learners at any age of learning. They will certainly experience the process of writing and, more importantly, gain confidence. This, to some extent, would affect learners motivation to write.

Writing computers or offline writing

Writing with computers can be done offline or online. By offline means that writing process is separately done without internet connection. Offline writing can be done through word processor, i.e. microsoft word. Writing with word processors gives a broad range of benefits for writing. For instance, initial “correctness” like spelling, choice of words or sentence correction is no longer the issue (Dowling, 1999. P. xi) because in microsoft word, a range of programs are provided to do those tasks for the learners when writing. This will reduce learners’ burden in writing. For instance with the spelling checkers, learners would feel confidence with their spelling (ibid.p. xii) since the facilities, like spelling checker, can directly show which words are misspelled along with the correct spelled words.

Writing with a word processor     

Writing can be fun in that word processor provides facilities to joyful writing activities. Dudeny and Hockly (2007, p.15) highlight that word processor such as microsoft word can be used in many inventive ways by both teachers and learners. For teachers, they can use it to prepare, create and share materials for their classes (ibid). For students, however, it allows learners to insert pictures they like and design the lay out of their writing in a very interesting way. Also, they can change the fonts color and size, insert frames and explore their creatvity on their writing tasks. In addition, they can change the text background which will make the text looks colourful or they might want to break the text into coloumn like a magazine. By doing such activitities, their texts may look appealing to them. With regard to this, Dowling (1999.p.1) argues that words processor can help learners to produce “ a professional looking” work.

Basiccaly, there are two main writing activities that students can do on word processor like microsoft word. As Dowling (1999. P.19-25) points outs, students can use microsoft word for individual and collaborative writing. In this context, collaborative means students can write in pairs, groups or write with the whole class. For individual writing, Dowling (ibid) suggests a range of activities such as writing “ blind”, filling in details, finding and replacing-exploring style, finding and replacing-exploring grammar, cutting and pasting-playing with sequencing, spaced out, etc. More explanation about all these types of activities can be seen in Dowling’s book, writing and learning with computers (1999).

                                                             Individual writing

As mentioned earlier, word processor facilitates teacher and learners. For teachers, they can assign the students to compose a story or write about their family or their pets. In designing the writing activities, it is suggested that teachers apply the process based approach which emphasises the idea of writing as problem solving (Dudely-Evans & John, 1998. P.117). In this approach there is a range of steps that a learner has to go through before coming at the writing product.  Robinson (1991, in  Dudely-Evans & John, 1998. P.117) reviews the thinking stages of writing within this approach which  starts with draft 1, revision, input, draft 2, feedback, and draft 3. All these processes will keep continuing until the learners arrive at their writing final  products. This approach certainly needs time investment from both teachers and learners.

To make individual writing more attractive, there is a variety of activities that teachers can get their students to do. Dudely-Evans & John (1998. P. 21) suggest that students can use word processor for creative writing. By creative writing means that students can add sound, pictures or videos to support their writing. For instance, they might want to write about their family. On their text, they can insert their family photos. With the same text, they can also change the colour for the names of their parents and their siblings. Adding to that, the can insert frame for their text which would make their family description looks more personalized and interesting. Overall, all the facilities in word processor will allow the learners to develop their creativity as well as encourage them to produce more writing.

Not only for the purpose of building students’ creativity in writing can be achieved through this program, it also allows the learners to practice language and develop their vocabulary. For instance, learners can practice fill in the gap activities, sentence reordering, adding titles to paragraphs, and soon (Dudely-Evans & John, 1998. P.22). These activities are made possible because word proccesor allows the learner to undo and redo along with copying and pasting more easily and less time consuming (ibid). Furthermore, with the thesaurus, they can find the synonym or antonyms of certain words. This would enrich their vocabulary although they might have a problem with the right word choice.  

Collaborative writing

As well as promoting individual learning activities, words processor also allow  a range of collaborative writing activities, either paired and grouped work or whole class activities. For instance, they can write a dialogue, stories, or the other types of text. They can also practice to be editors (Dowling, 1999, p.28). In this sense, they can proofread, edit or change some parts of their friends’ work by using track change (Dudely-Evans & John, 1998. P.19). More importantly, they can work together to write for presentation (ibid, p. 25) or for assessment purposes ((Dowling, 1999, p.29).    These activities will not only enable them to communicate their ideas and improve their writing skill from their peers’ feedback, but these also could increase their confidence and motivation to write in English.

Writing  with computers (online)

After feeling confident with writing with computer, students, afterwards, can be encouraged to write on a more interesting phase, that is to write on the internet or online. Linda (2000) believes that “when computers and Internet technology are integrated into regular instruction, they can become an effective tool to facilitate language learning” (para. 17). By writing, posting or publishing their written work on the internet, ESL learners would certainly increase their motivation in writing. However, prior to do such online writing, teachers should be aware of students’ background skills or familiarity with the internet. In other words, teachers need to identify what the learners have been able to do and what they cannot do. Teachers’ awareness with these issue would enable them to plan some initial activities like introducing the learners with emails, wesbsites, blogs, wikipedias, etc..These activities can be done along with the writing process.

Final thought

The advances of computer technology, like word processors, have made writing process more easily in some respects. Not only allowing the students to write individually, by employing process based approach, it also promotes collaborative writing activities. Students with less interest in writing could be encouraged to write with computers as the facilities in word processors allow them to write freely and explore their creatvity. It also allows them to personalize their writing and make them look appealing. This will certainly increase their motivation. More importanly, writing with computers can enhance their confidence, which is a good starting poin to write on a higher stage that is to write on online pages, like weblogs or websites. However, apart from those benefits, teachers should be aware of some challenges they might encounter before or during the implementation of such a program, for intance the limited of access to computers and school unpreparadness to support such learning activities.

References

Anderson, J. (1985). Computers in the language classroom. pp.5. Australian reading association. Perth, West Australia.

Dowling, C. (1999) Writing and Learning with Computers. pp.xi,xii,1,19-26,28,29. Acer Press.Victoria, Australia.

Dudeny, G. & Hockly, N. (2007). How to teach english with technology. pp.  15,19,25,28,29,117. Pearson Longman, England.

Dudeney, G (2007) The internet and the language classroom. A practical guide for teachers. 2nd edition. Thornburry (ed). pp.2. Cambridge University Press.

Linda, T (2000). Benefits and challenges in using computers and the internet with adult English learners. Retrieved on 14 September 2013, from http://www.cal.org/caela/esl_resources/usetech.html

Images : retrieved on 20 September 2013, from http:// www.google.com
Video  : retrieved on 20 September 2013, from http:// www.youtobe.com

 

Using Skype in the Classroom

I had a read through an article about using skype in ESL classroom, written by Lee (2013). In his article he reviews the pedagogical values of using skype in classroom by using evaluation criteria suggested by Bates (2005). The evaluation criteria is called ACTIONS which stands for Acccess, Cost, Teaching and Learning, Interactivity and user-friendliness, Organizational issues, Novelty and Speed. Based on the criteria, it seems that skype fits all the criteria although with some limitations.

The following is the result of his evaluation based on the ACTIONS concept. Firstly, skype can be accessed quite easily as long as there is an internet connection. It can be downloaded easily from www.skype.com to PC, Laptops, or mobile phones. Secondly, despite the fact that there is certain amount of budget for internet connection, downloading skype software is free. However, for premium users for instance for conference, some amount of money will be charged.  Thirdly, skype provides the teachers to interact with global community from their class. They can communicate with other people from different country by simply sitting before the screen. What is interesting here is that they do not need to have technical skills to be able to do so. Next, using skype in the classroom might cause resistance from school, although this technology offers benefits for teachers and learners. Therefore, it is advised to get approval prior to setting skype in the classroom, probably from the school principals. Following that, with skype class materials can be created quickly and adapted with learners’ learning pace. Having said that, it is also worth mentioning here that the limitation of using skype would be the download speed. For video calling, bigger capacity of internet broadband is needed, otherwise there will be many video or audio lags.

Lee (2013) also mentions some teaching learning activities which can be done via skype in the classroom. Basically, learners can chat with their peers, teachers or with any penpals overseas. This would beneit them in a way that they can communicate in English either spoken or written as skype provides such facilities. With skype in the classroom program, teachers and learners can find a lesson. Teachers and learners can select the appropriate materials provided in the skype. More interestingly, teachers can create their own lesson by using skype. With this, adjusting materials with learners’ need may not be the issue anymore.

Lastly, in his final thought, Lee (2013) highlights the benefit of skype in the classroom. Skype increases the opportunities for communication and enables the class to have a global network. Not only becoming a powerful tool for language teaching and learning, skype facilitates cross cultural communication as well as interaction among people from diverse background. At the end, Lee, emphasizes that with skype in the classroom, it enables the learners to get engage in language learning as well as encourage them to learn independently.

Reference

Bates, A. W.'(1995).Technology,open learning and distance education.New York,NY: Routledge.   

Lee, Y.H. (2012). Skype and Skype in the Classroom: Options for Language Teaching and Learning. The Electronic Journal for English as a Second Language. May 2013–Volume 17, Number 1.

Using youtobe in ESL class: Boosting students’ motivation, confidence, listening and speaking skills

Context

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LF7zsz8fi64

One of the main issues regarding the emerging technologies, for instance youtobe, in ESL class is probably teachers’ awareness. By that I mean that, youtobe might have been very popular to both teachers and learners, yet the teachers might not be aware about the potential benefits of using it in their ESL/EFL classs. Thus, sharing the benefits of using youtobe and what activities can be done in ESL class would be worth trying.

What is youtobe?

“Youtobe is a public communication site allowing registered users to upload videos. It was designed by three employees of paypall online payment service: Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim in 2005 and Google  purchased it for about 1.65 billion dollars” (Feldman, 2007). It can be used for a broad range of purposes, for instance to promote a business product, or to campaign a political party. For educational purposes, many language teachers have been using it to upload and to download videos regarding ESL teaching materials.  

Why using youtobe in ESL class.

I found several reasons why youtobe is quite rich learning sources for ESL class, especially in listening and speaking activities. The following are some of the ideas:

·      Youtobe can increase students’ confidence.

·      It gives learners more opportuninities to expose themselves to authentic spoken English.

·     The videos downloaded from youtobe can be played in their PC, laptops or smartphone, in the classroom or at learners’ own time.

·      Not only improving students listening, but it does give learners excellent model of speaking.

·    There is a broad range of videos, like songs, films, talks shows comedies, etc,  in youtobe from which students’ can learn and these diverse audio visual learning source provides “unlimited” appealing stuff which would make ESL learning more enjoyable.

·      It is quite accessible although internet limited access might be the issue.

Examples of listening and speaking activities with youtobe

For listening Acitivities, karaoke song would be really excellent actitivity because it is both entertaining and provides learners with song lyrics on the screen. This will help the learners to improve their pronunciation in an ejoyable way. Jess (2012) suggests that using karaoke is really fun especially for younger learners. She also recommends that finding popular song to start with will engage the learners to sing while at the same time building their confidence.

Youtobe will certainly allows teachers to develop their creativity especially in speaking class. For intance, after watching the videos, teachers can ask students to talk about the videos. They can express their viewpoints about the contents. However, teachers must be aware of students who might not feel confident to speak or may not want to speak about the videos. As Jess (2012) experienced, many of her learners did not speak much. They only said “ the movies are good” or " I like it" and that was it. With regard to that, spending some more time to think about speaking activities beforehand would be a good thing for teachers to make the class become more interactive.

Avoiding negative backwash of youtobe.

It is worth bearing in mind that, youtobe, may contain videos which might not be suitable to your learners as anyone can upload their videos. For that reason, teachers need to do some prior activities such as videos selection before introducing learners to such a media. Here are a few things for teachers that are worth considering:

·     Search the videos suitable with the teaching and learning objectives.

·     Remember that some videos aren't always appropriate, and are always so long and excruciating to watch. So pick videos last no more than 4 minutes (Jess, 2012)

·     List the recommended videos to watch or to download.

·   The video links can be put in teachers’ blog where students can directly navigate from there. Doing this will limit students exposure to the other contents of youtobe that might not be approrpriate. 

Recommendation

With that in mind, why not trying to optimize the use of this realy rich learning source?. Either you’re teaching for lower level learners or adult, you will find this technology resourceful. Hopefully, by using this existing source, you are able to enhance your learners’ motivation and confidence along with their listening and speaking skills.

References

Feldman, J.B. (2007). YouTube: What Is It and Why Use It?. Retrieved on September 12, 2013 from http://www.surfnetkids.com/tech/1200/youtube-what-is-it-and-why-use-it/

Jess. (2012). Using Youtube in the ESL Classroom: Karaoke and more. Retrieved on September 12, 2013. From http://quetzalista.blogspot.com.au/2012/09/using-youtube-in-esl-classroom-karaoke.html