About me: I am a high school Spanish teacher in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Currently, I have a Moodle website that I use to support my classroom teaching. It contains copies of notes and practice activities, audio and video files, links to other online resources, and project templates. However, due to the limited access that my students have to the internet during class time, my class page is largely supplementary. I also have some experience with online classes from the student perspective, as I did take several of my Master’s classes in an online format. I found the online classes to be at least as beneficial as the classes that met in person.
I was selected to take this course because I did my research thesis on on-line learning with respect to language acquisition. I have been asking about the ways that on-line learning will affect the World Language program within my district. I am concerned about whether or not the on-line language classes currently available develop the conversational skills that are critical to functioning in a second language. Speaking involves more than just pronunciation. Students must be able to listen and respond in real time without first pausing to draft and revise a response. I also am concerned about how well the vocabulary and grammar sequences from on-line courses offered outside the district will integrate with our program. Many of our more motivated students turn to on-line classes to resolve scheduling difficulties. With more and more students turning to on-line courses for high school credit, I feel that we need to prepare an on-line program that is aligned with our classroom program.
I hope that this class will help me to locate some tools and resources that can be used to help students develop oral and aural skills, and I also hope to get ideas about ways to assess those skills via the internet. I also would like to develop some practice activities for students that provide immediate (pre-programmed) individualized feedback that could be used in either a blended or exclusively on-line class format.
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