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EdTec in ELT

The Educational Technology (EdTec) workshop: “Interfacing with Public Space: Embodied language learning with mobile technologies” by Paul Driver, February 13th, 2016

As I have tagged all places where I have been and all cafes and restaurants where I had a meal on my mobile phone’s Google map app, I can remember locations, surroundings and how to get there. Also, I always take photos when I visit somewhere new places and tag them. It is surprising and fascinating that this ‘tagging’ on the map on a mobile phone can be applied to ELT materials.

‘Geotagged Memories’

In this workshop, Paul shared ‘Geotagged Memories’ idea based on mental geotagging by Neuroscience study, which when a person visits a place that is familiar with, he/she suddenly recalls events and things that happened to him/her by a trigger. The trigger can be photos, souvenirs, architecture, status, scars and tattoos. With the study, Paul designed geolocation activities: SPYWALK and INVADER using mobile devices with GPS for the language learners from the aspect of experience being in the place and producing language in English. By experiencing the activities, learners can recall their memories and language use when they revisit the place.

Those ‘geotagged memories’ materials can be beneficial for learning English because learners interact with each other in English and share the experience, which could be impactful for them so that they can remember and recall English language use. Using GPS-based mobile devices is also useful to record interaction in English, contact each other during the activities and tag the places. Those devices are collaborative communication tools so that learners are encouraged to initiate communication with their colleagues.

However, there are some challenges. If an activity requires high-tech mobile devices, it would be difficult for those who do not own them. If an activity requires well-accessibility of the Internet on the devices, it would be difficult to take place in a poor internet accessibility environment and for those who (particularly short-stay international students) do not have available mobile phones in a foreign country. Despite those challenges, Paul gave some solutions to us in the workshop. He proposed using low-tech devices, like a voice recorder provided by an institution, or providing a sim card.

At the end of the EdTec workshop, each group were given time to come up with each activity. Our group came up with two activities, one was ‘Missing Person‘ and the other was ‘Brighton Online Museum‘.

‘Missing Person’

• Age: Teenagers
• Target: EFL learners
• Objective: To learnin English adjectives to describe the person
• Place: City centre
• Rules: Students are given a blurred sketch of a person first, looking for the person in a city centre and describing the person who they think that he/she is the one, where they find and how the person looks like in English. Also, while searching the person, students are required to record their interaction with colleagues in English.

‘Brighton Online Museum’

• Age: Teenagers
• Target: ESL learners in Brighton
• Objective: To learn English adjectives and create an antique map in Brighton
• Places: Brighton city centre
• Rules: Students visit antique shops in the city centre and ask the owners stories behind the antique goods. They are required to record their interaction with their colleagues and explanation how they visit the shops in English. After the task, students make an online map to introduce where people can go for antique shopping in Brighton.

I personally like ‘Brighton Online Museum‘ because creating something could be helpful for mental tagging and beneficial for not only improving English, but also encouraging English learners to communicate with others to help each other out.

The Paul’s workshop was really mind-blowing. After attending it, first I thought that applying those activities mentioned above to make them suitable for Japanese ELT context would be exciting for Japanese English learners, particularly secondary school students. In my next post, I would like to talk about the activity abaptation to Japanese context and Apps on mobile devices covered in the workshop.

Manami

References

http://digitaldebris.info/digital-debris/