Text to Speech!

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This week we were assigned to explore a technology we think would be useful in our future classroom.  As I have stated previously I am TESOL minor so I am looking for anything that will be able to help me with ELL (English Language Learners) students. I found something called text to speech.  It is software you can download for free onto computers.  The teacher is able to allow there students to read the text while at the same time listen to the text.  This way the students are able to go at their own pace so you are not holding anyone back or losing students because you are going to fast. There are many different setting the learner can choose from, they can only have the words they are struggling with read to them by highlighting the words they need help with, they could have all of the text read to them, or the teacher can have premeditated words read to all of the students.  The students can choose from a male, female or even foreign voices which will read the text out loud to them.  They also are able to choose how fast the voice will read the words, this way the student is able to hear and comprehend what is being said.  It also allows the student to look at a word and hear exactly how it is pronounced.  The students are also able to take notes while going through this with the voice reading the text to them.
  Teachers are able to download old documents they already have or make new documents for students to access.  They can put up a wide range of material for their students to use such as

• worksheets
• tests
• textbooks
• supplementary materials
• books

I found this website which gives teachers ideas on how to integrate this program into lesson plans and step by step instructions on how to use the system.  It is very useful and you might find it will help you save a lot of time if you look it over.
I think this use of technology could be very useful for ELL's because usually everyone is at a different developmental stage in their learning and this would allow the teachers to help accommodate students with the material they need to develop even further.  It will ensure students are not being pushed just because they are ahead of the rest of the class and with this program they will not have to wait for the rest of the class to catch up to them.  however the down fall to this program is that every student would need to have a computer available for their use.  This could present a problem because most classrooms do not have enough computers to accommodate every student in it.

ESL Students

 

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    I thought it was really interesting when we had a guest lecturer come into our class a couple of weeks ago. I am a TESOL minor so when he mentioned how to use technology to benefit those student you have that do not speak English my ears perked right up!  He said how it is impossible to accommodate all of our students with clarifying things at times because no one expects us to know 40 different languages.  This intrigued me, I was wondering where he was going to go with this.  Then he said how we should use technology resources to help make things run a little smoother.  At this point I had no idea what he meant by accommodating students by using technology, usually in ESL classrooms there are not enough computers for everyone to use one.  Then he went on to say how google has an application called google translator! I thought this was a great idea! I never thought about using a translator and it would be so fast and it incorporates many different languages! For some reason I can not stop thinking about how simple idea is, but how extremely helpful it would be to my future students! This is definitely knowledge I will always remember and apply in my future classroom!

A history lesson with a chapter book!

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  For one of my other classes this week we had to read a book called Esperanza Rising.  It was a wonderful story about a family who where living a upper class life over in Mexico, who lost their father, money, and land.  The Uncles were corrupt so the mother, grandmother, and daughter all decided they would make the long journey to American so they could all be together.  We are told about the immigrant camps, the horrible living conditions and the racism which still took place every day.  The Mexican family works very hard to make little pay and overcomes many hardships in which they encounter.  This book has powerful messages it leaves the readers with; it shows how if you work hard in life you will be rewarded, how if you stick together with family you are able to overcome anything, and how money is not important in order to achieve happiness, all you need is family!

   After reading this book I thought how neat it would be to use in my future classroom, I would be able to cover reading, history, and send wonderful messages to my students!  I think it is wonderful how one book can incorporate so much, not to mention the book itself was great! I was never bored while reading and actually found it difficult to stop reading it.  I wanted to know what was going on.  Another reason I liked this book so much is because I think it would be wonderful to use in an ESL classroom.  I am going to receive a minor in TESOL so I am very enthusiastic about having other students learn about different cultures and traditions.  I feel as if this book will offer a great amount of the hardships and journey Mexican immigrants had to over come.  I think it is important to be aware of others lifestyles in order to understand other people so in an ESL this book could help build the bridge!

The Olymipics

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      I was reading my blogs that I am following on my google reader and I came across my ESL Lesson plan blog here is the link so you can check it out.  It gave a description of the history of the Olympics and talked about how they bring all the countries together.  Then they gave the assignment to watch the Olympics and embrace their new language as their own.  I thought this was really neat to use such an integrated cultural experience into an ESL classroom.  The Olympics exposes many different cultural backgrounds all at one time, this is a great way to introduce your students to both a history lesson and a cultural lesson.  I like how he wants them to speak in their new language about the Olympics, it brings everyday life into rich conversation.  I also think it is great that he tells them to come with questions about words, or culture traditions they have.

    I definitely like how this lesson plan incorporates culture and language.  Knowing the culture helps you learn and understand the language of a country. I feel like this assignment will help them grow in their language learning. What do you feel about it?

Words Words Words

This week in class we started an RSS account and have been reading a few professional blogs.  I am a TESOL or ESL minor so I am reading a few blogs regarding this topic. On http://www.esl-lesson-plan.com/archives/2010/01/words_of_the_decade.php, I am following this blog, they are talking about how words are constantly being made up by movies and other popular people figures.  How can we expect our ESL students to learn how to understand the meanings of English words when we are making up words which do not carrying proper meaning by themselves. The meaning has to be explained most of the time to other people before it is known automatically by other people.  It is difficult enough for ESL students to learn the meanings of words which do exist in our English vocabulary.  So why do we feel the need to make up words?  Most of the time we already have words in the English vocabulary which will express the same meaning as this new foreign English word. If you go to this blog you can look at a few words which have been created recently. English is complicated enough, do we need to complicate things for our ESL students even more by making up new words.