Technology Choices

Technology support plays an essential role in our course designing. In our interactive learning resources, we choose three technologies to better promote student’s learning experience.

1. Course website:

The selected YouTube video describes six tips for enhancing French oral competence. As an interactive learning resource, technology-based education provides students opportunities to control the pacing of teaching material (Inan et al., 2013). Students can revisit the content and follow the sequence on the website.

  • Presenting group discussion topics (activity two):

Instructors will deliver learning materials via the course website before the class. Timid students will benefit from the extra time of preparation and thus become more confident when interacting with their peers during class sessions. Building confidence may gradually improve learners’ language competence (Dina & Ciornei, 2013). We hope posting topics online in advance will motivate students to participate and engage in class discussions.

 

2. A dubbing app: MadLipz (activity three):

Education-apps, such as vocabulary, encyclopedia, dubbing apps, facilitate formal learning. These are feasible to download, and apply to different educational purposes, which satisfy customization and portability (Jain et al., 2018). Most apps offer self-evaluation quizzes to augment student’s learning competence. Self-dubbing exercise not only fulfills the demand for practicing but also arouses student’s interest in learning French. Danan (2010) argues that learners transform from teacher-directed learning to self-initiated learning through dubbing activities.

Photo retrieved from Google Play

3. Online video collages:

We will provide recordings after each lecture on the course website for student’s various learning demands. Lecture recording technology positively prompts student’s self-directed learning and enhances learning efficiency (Topale, 2016). Students can also review their performances, recorded by instructors, in activity three and four (dubbing films and the detective play) to improve their French oral skills.

 

Reference:

Danan, M. (2010). Dubbing projects for the language learner: A framework for integrating audiovisual translation into task-based instruction. Computer Assisted Language Learning, 23(5), 441-456.

Dina, A., & Ciornei, S. (2013). The Advantages and Disadvantages of Computer Assisted Language Learning and Teaching for Foreign Languages. Procedia – Social and Behavioral Sciences, 76, 248-252. doi:10.1016/j.sbspro.2013.04.107

Inan, F. A., Crooks, S. M., Cheon, J., Ari, F., Flores, R., Kurucay, M., & Paniukov, D. (2013). The reverse modality effect: Examining student learning from interactive computer-based instruction. British Journal of Educational Technology, 46(1), 123-130. doi:10.1111/bjet.12129

Jain, D., Chakraborty, P., & Chakraverty, S. (2018). Smartphone Apps for Teaching Engineering Courses: Experience and Scope. Journal of Educational Technology Systems, 47(1), 4-16. doi:10.1177/0047239518785166

Topale, L. (2016). The strategic use of lecture recordings to facilitate an active and self-directed learning approach. BMC Medical Education, 16(1), 201. https://doi-org.ezproxy.library.uvic.ca/10.1186/s12909-016-0723-0