A grant proposal to add noise canceling headphones with microphones to the Spanish classroom |
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Part III: Total PACKage
Context
I teach Spanish 1 and 2 to middle school students in an upper-middle class suburb of Indianapolis. Many students here do not encounter native Spanish speakers in their daily life, so I need to bring native sounds to them. The headsets would give my students this opportunity without traveling. My middle school is 1:1 with laptops and we have an online textbook with some listening activities. These available activities are short and content-centered, meaning they focus on a specific vocabulary list and grammar point covered in the chapter. Being 1:1 gives my students many opportunities, but some listening activities are time consuming and unrealistic to complete during class time.
With noise-canceling headphones with attached microphones, I will be able to give students more realistic listening and speaking activities that cover all topics. For example, one rarely has a conversation exclusively about sports or their morning routine like presented in many of the listening activities from the book. Usually, one will talk about more than one topic during a conversation, so students should practice responding to conversations that cover a mixture or vocabulary and grammar concepts. These headsets would cut down on listening assessment practice in class, therefore giving students more practice and opportunities to forge real-life conversations.
With noise-canceling headphones with attached microphones, I will be able to give students more realistic listening and speaking activities that cover all topics. For example, one rarely has a conversation exclusively about sports or their morning routine like presented in many of the listening activities from the book. Usually, one will talk about more than one topic during a conversation, so students should practice responding to conversations that cover a mixture or vocabulary and grammar concepts. These headsets would cut down on listening assessment practice in class, therefore giving students more practice and opportunities to forge real-life conversations.
Content
My overlying goal for teaching is to prepare students to be successful in a Spanish-speaking environment, whether that is in the United States or abroad. Speaking and responding correctly is often the hardest skill for students to acquire since they need to comprehend aural language quickly and form a comprehensive response in a short period of time. I have seen this time and time again in class. Students will take an unrealistic amount of time to respond to a question or story since they are trying to work everything out in their brains. Some students can become flustered and discouraged when they do not succeed right away. With noise-canceling headphones with microphones, I can use the online textbook’s activities, listening and speaking activities I have made, or activities I have found online as ample practice of simulated conversations. Students would be less distracted by their peers and background noise and would be able to respond to the questions asked in the recording. Also, having a recording playing on their individual computers would allow students the opportunity to rewind or stop the recording before responding. This would scaffold their learning until they felt comfortable and no longer needed to do this. Finally, many students, especially at the lower levels, do not believe they can have a conversation in Spanish. They simply do not think they know enough Spanish. However, if I could give them regular, uninterrupted practice, they could start to see that they are capable of speaking Spanish and that they know more than they think. Giving extensive practice listening in formative and summative work, will force students to address their misconception that they cannot have a conversation and help them to become comfortable with their language abilities.
Technology
The technology of noise-canceling headphones and a microphone is best suited for this problem because it takes away the time constraint of oral practice and assessments in class. Right now, I rarely give oral assessments in class because it takes three class days to individually interview each student. I do not have the time to do that multiple times a semester. With the affordance of headsets, I would be able to have students do an oral practice or assessment in class and grade them outside of class, taking the time to give constructive feedback. The recording would also let students re-listen to their own recording after reading my feedback, thus allowing them to notice strengths and weaknesses in their own language abilities. Using the headsets with the technology I already have available (1:1 computers and online practice), I could give students regular practice speaking with native speakers, thus preparing them for the real world.
Pedagogy
The twelve to fourteen year old students in my classroom are just beginning Piaget’s last Stage of Development: formal operational. My students are still working toward abstract thinking and moral reasoning. “All knowledge is constructed by the individual in a scheme of accommodation and assimilation” (Watson & Kopnicek, 1990). With headsets, I would be able to give accommodations to let student work at their pace and rewind when needed. Hearing and responding to Spanish-speakers from around the world would help students notice different dialects and colloquial words, thus assimilating them to a new culture. Giving students these accommodations and time to work with the new material to experience new cultures will force students to think abstractly about similarities and differences between themselves and the new culture they are “speaking” to. They will also begin to understand and empathize with other cultures, which will show their deep understanding in the acquired material and language.
In addition to Piaget’s Stages of Development, the headsets lend themselves to a cognitivism teaching style. “To help students develop their understanding, teachers must directly address the knowledge students bring with them to school, and build on it whenever possible. In order to learn, people have to link new experiences to previous understanding” (Levstik & Barton, 1997, p. 11). By using headsets to practice conversing more, students will be able to link what they hear (authentic language) to previously learned vocabulary and grammar skills (i.e. conjugations, question words, pronunciation). Students will bring the isolated grammar and vocabulary into their working memory to grapple what they have heard. They can then chunk the audio with what they already know, which will aid in putting that new information into long term memory. Furthermore, Levstik & Barton (1997) state, “We cannot simply fill children up with information… People learn when they seek answers to the questions that matter to them” (1997, p 13). I can give students conjugations, vocabulary, and big cultural points, but until they see them all together, students will not really connect with the material enough to ask meaningful questions and have the motivation to find the answer. With the technology of noise cancellation, students will really be able to focus on what the speaker is saying, and will start to notice things about their language. This will lead to self-guided inquiry.
In addition to Piaget’s Stages of Development, the headsets lend themselves to a cognitivism teaching style. “To help students develop their understanding, teachers must directly address the knowledge students bring with them to school, and build on it whenever possible. In order to learn, people have to link new experiences to previous understanding” (Levstik & Barton, 1997, p. 11). By using headsets to practice conversing more, students will be able to link what they hear (authentic language) to previously learned vocabulary and grammar skills (i.e. conjugations, question words, pronunciation). Students will bring the isolated grammar and vocabulary into their working memory to grapple what they have heard. They can then chunk the audio with what they already know, which will aid in putting that new information into long term memory. Furthermore, Levstik & Barton (1997) state, “We cannot simply fill children up with information… People learn when they seek answers to the questions that matter to them” (1997, p 13). I can give students conjugations, vocabulary, and big cultural points, but until they see them all together, students will not really connect with the material enough to ask meaningful questions and have the motivation to find the answer. With the technology of noise cancellation, students will really be able to focus on what the speaker is saying, and will start to notice things about their language. This will lead to self-guided inquiry.
The Total PACKage
Mishra and Koehler explain in their article Too Cool for School? No Way that “technologies have affordances and constraints, potentials and problems that we as educators need to understand before we can start using them for pedagogical purposes” (2009, p. 15). Before I bring noise-canceling headphones with microphones into the classroom, I need to think about what opportunity they will give me and at what cost. The headsets will save a large amount of class time, therefore, I will be able to give more practices and assessments of this kind. This will provide more experience with real-world situations and conversations with natives. I will become closer to my goal of getting students to become conversationally fluent. There are not any major constraints in using this new technology.
As Dewey and Bruce (2011) explain, the teacher has to know what the appropriate use of new technology is. The technology must aid in students natural impulses of inquiry. Headsets allowing for frequent practice responding to native speakers would develop students’ inquiry, communication, and expression. Headsets would give students the time to focus on the speaker which leads to noticing and questioning. Replying through the microphone lets students respond to what they have heard and questioned. Finally, students will be able to answer freely which lets them express themselves, just like they would in a real-life conversation.
As Dewey and Bruce (2011) explain, the teacher has to know what the appropriate use of new technology is. The technology must aid in students natural impulses of inquiry. Headsets allowing for frequent practice responding to native speakers would develop students’ inquiry, communication, and expression. Headsets would give students the time to focus on the speaker which leads to noticing and questioning. Replying through the microphone lets students respond to what they have heard and questioned. Finally, students will be able to answer freely which lets them express themselves, just like they would in a real-life conversation.
SAMR Model
The SAMR Model pushes teachers to be sure that technology will engage students in deep learning and authentic concepts. The headsets will provide an opportunity for students to practice conversing with Spanish speakers around the world. These headphone and microphone sets were not made with the intention of being used in the classroom, but they would transform the way students practice aural and oral language and how I assess students’ language acquisition. The headsets would redesign the way I assess my students. There would no longer be a need to give tests on paper. I would be able to see what students have learned by how they use the language to answer questions verbally. Since the headsets are noise-canceling, students would not be able to hear one another’s answers. I would get a more holistic idea of the students’ language skills. Additionally, the headsets would give students class time to practice hearing accents and dialects from around the world. I would then have the time to give feedback on their oral skills, which will help in language acquisition. The headsets, although a small change, would provide a redefinition to how students interact with the language.
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