Have you ever heard about Lev Vygotsky?
He was a Soviet psychologist, the founder of a theory of human cultural and bio-social development commonly referred to as cultural-historical psychology. Vygotsky studied child development and the significant roles of cultural mediation and interpersonal communication. He observed how higher mental functions developed through these interactions also represented the shared knowledge of a culture. This process is known as internalisation.
Internalisation can be understood in one respect as "knowing how". For example, riding a bicycle or pouring a cup of milk are tools of the society and are initially outside and beyond the child. The mastery of these skills occurs through the activity of the child within society. A further aspect of internalisation is appropriation, in which the child takes a tool and makes it his own, perhaps using it in a way unique to himself. Internalising the use of a pencil allows the child to use it very much for his own ends rather than drawing exactly what others in society have drawn previously. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lev_Vygotsky)
Place your mouse over the video and without clicking, you will be able to see the CC option for you to listen to the video and read the subtitles at the same time.
Vygotsky provides us with a Social Cognitive Learning Theory that we can apply to education. Two critical concepts of his theory include the Zone of Proximal Development(ZPD), and Instructional scaffolding. The ZPD is a range of tasks that are within a child’s cognitive ability to learn with assistance. Scaffolding is closely related to this because it is the process of adjusting the amount of support based upon the needs of the child. It was Vygotsky’s intention to suggest that learning occurs in the ZPD where instruction is not too difficult but just exceeds the learner's current independent skills. If the material is too difficult, then the child is considered to be in the Frustrational-level of instruction. If the material is too easy and the child does not require assistance, the child is considered to be at the Independent-level of learning. When learning occurs in the ZPD, it is known as the Instructional-level.
Place your mouse over the video and without clicking, you will be able to see the CC option for you to listen to the video and read the subtitles at the same time.
After reading and watching this introduction, what's your opinion?
Can technology be used to scaffold student's learning?
Of course, it CAN! And apart from an engaging and entertaining tool, it allows the teacher to start the process BEFORE the lesson, DURING the lesson and AFTER the lesson.
To help you understand a little better and to have some ideas, you can read an interesting document that summarises a lecture: Virtually Vygotsky: Using Technology to Scaffold Student Learning: By
Adrian Lee. Click here
LISTENING
When we listen, we use a variety of strategies to help us pick up the message. Some of these are connected with understanding the 'big picture', e.g. gaining an overview of the structure of the whole text, getting the gist (the general meaning), using various types of previous knowledge to help us make sense of the message, etc. Listening in this way is sometimes termed 'gist listening' or 'extensive listening'. Other strategies are connected with the small pieces of the text, e.g. correctly hearing precise sounds, working out what some individual words are, catching precise details of information, etc. This is often called 'listening for detail'. (Harmer, 2005)
Some listening tasks are obviously more difficult than others. One important point is that students getting the right answer is not necessarily the most important goal. The effort a student puts into listening and searching for answer is the useful work. Then the guideline is 'process rather than product'. Another important guideline is: grading the task rather than the recording. This means that you, as a teacher, shouldn't worry so much about finding the right recording according to the students' level but designing the task according students' ability.
It's not so easy to find listening online resources / tools or software to use with our students. So first, I want to share with you some useful sites where you can have some graded listening practice and perform some tasks online. Students can work on their own and check the results without any guidance just maybe the helping with the learning of how to use the tool that will mean you helping them with the technical support.
Watch this tutorial
Place your mouse over the video and without clicking, you will be able to see the CC option for you to listen to the video and read the subtitles at the same time.
To watch more tutorials about this site, click here (this is Randall's Channel on YouTube)
To watch the tutorials on his site, click here
To download a PDF tutorial, click here
To download study handouts, click here
Explore this site! You'll find it really useful!
To read more about this site, click here
Go straight forward to the listening lab by clicking here
Look at these photos illustrating some of the activities.
Explore this site! You'll find it really useful!
AudioPal is developed by Oddcast, a company dedicated to creating a wide array of innovative avatar (animated speaking character) & audio driven products for corporations, small businesses and consumers.
In 2009 Oddcast introduced AudioPal an online service to allow individuals and businesses an easy and effective way to add audio to their online message.
Instructions in Three Steps
WATCH THIS TUTORIAL
Place your mouse over the video and without clicking, you will be able to see the CC option for you to listen to the video and read the subtitles at the same time.
To start recording your message using a mic, the TTS, the phone or your MP3, click here
Chirbit
Chirbit is a useful and fun tool that enables you to record,upload and share your voice or audio files easily. Record your voice using a webcam or microphone connected to your computer, or upload an existing audio file. You can then share your chirbit, on twitter, facebook, email, your blog, or smartphone.
WATCH THESE TUTORIALS
Place your mouse over the video and without clicking, you will be able to see the CC option for you to listen to the video and read the subtitles at the same time.
Place your mouse over the video and without clicking, you will be able to see the CC option for you to listen to the video and read the subtitles at the same time.
To download a PDF tutorial, click here
TASKS
- Using Audiopal (you don't need to create an account), record a message using the TTS option. Think about your favourite story's main character, type his/her lines, your favourite ones. Send the audio file to yourself, to your e-mail address. Open the e-mail and click on the link provided. When the new window is open, click on the + sign and send it to my e-mail address veronica73.arg@gmail.com
- Using Chirbit (you need to create an account), record a text to audio format. Write about your feelings when listening to English native speakers (face to face, on TV shows, series, movies, on the radio, etc.). Do your feel comfortable? Is it hard for you to understand them? Can you understand 100% of what they say?, etc. Send the URL provided to my e-mail address veronica73.arg@gmail.com
We can write our own audio texts that will be spoken by these tools as if they were told by native speakers, letting us create wonderful and useful files for different purposes.
Listen to my Audiopal file
I couldn`t do the Audiopal task due to an aparent problem with my "adobe flash player " I tried upgrading it but still...It didn`t work... I'll try on somebody else's computer.
ReplyDeleteNoe, try first to restart your computer or use Explorer or another browser. Good luck!
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