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Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 176 (2015) 772 - 778
IETC 2014
Students' aptitude to edutainment Asst. Prof. Bora BA§ARAN
Anadolu University, Faculty of Education, Eski§ehir, 26470, Turkey
Abstract
Today, education institutions continue to invest to partly mythologized technologies. More recent shifts in technology supported course offerings undoubtedly pushes the need of teachers who are armed with pedagogical components necessary to provide a technology supported quality course. Such shifts are also telling prospective German as a foreign language teacher about the role of the future education in contemporary Turkey.
Engagement and motivation has been a challenge when working with students learning a second or foreign language. There is no doubt about the benefits of using edutainment methods with foreign language learners. But how high is the qualification of the German as foreign language students in this regard? Observations, surveys and projects for exams of Students who visited the Computer-Assisted German Training I-II courses provided relevant data to determine the findings for this study. In providing a comprehensive overview of the educational use of technology by the students for vocabulary teaching, this paper contributes and highlights key tensions emerging from the current research that should be considered by practitioners and researchers alike.
© 2015TheAuthors.PublishedbyElsevierLtd.This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
(http://creativecommons.Org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Peer-review under responsibility of the Sakarya University.
Keywords: Edutainment, Foreing Language, Students Aptitute, Vocabulary.
1. Introduction
The use of technology for teaching and learning in education systems causes no surprising reactions by insiders. The usability of technology is not surprising; perhaps from a historical perspective there is nothing new. From clay tablets, as a rough example, which were used especially as a writing medium throughout the Bronze Age and well into the Iron Age to the tablet Pcs of the modern classrooms. Maybe this are exaggerated examples but it is fact that the uses of technology and out coming tools have influenced practice in educational systems. On the other side it is hard to explain the current position of technology in the education systems or ever harder to predict what its integration will mean in the future. However, education institutions continue to make educational reforms and invest into unpredictable technologies nowadays (National School Boards Association, 2007; Greenhow, Robelia & Hughes, 2009; Jonassen, Howland & Marra, 2011; Chih, 2014); which will not lasting for ages, like the clay tablets and from this angle to mythologized technologies. Despite, it is also observable in the context of technological
1877-0428 © 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Peer-review under responsibility of the Sakarya University.
doi:10.1016/j.sbspro.2015.01.539
developments, that the educational environment and educational systems will remain changing by increased technological components. From this point, educators are facing a process for determining which technological tools or new methods for implementing them are appropriate for given classrooms and their challenges. In Turkey, the Ministry of National Education has recently initiated the "Movement of Enhancing Opportunities and Improving Technology" project. This project aims to improve computer literacy in schools through providing students with access to emerging tools and resources (MNE, 2012). This is an enormous investment in schools infrastructure. All schools will be equipped with interactive white boards, data projectors, Internet connection.
Technological improvements has also a critical influence foreign language teaching (Louise, 2012). The following timetable is experimenting to demonstrate the dramatically altering relationships in foreign language education.
Fig. 1. Technology in the classroom timetable
There is no claim on completeness, topicality, quality and correctness of Figure 1. It is quite difficult to expect, due to the nature, a complete and up to date timetable. There are so many piece of technology, which should be included even if it is for a demonstration purpose. A very comprehensive topic, which would exceed the scope. Technology has a palpable influence on the daily life of a foreign language teacher and it offers colossal prospects for increasing the effectiveness and efficiency of foreign language teaching and learning. Over the past few years, various technologies are more integrated then ever into most areas of education (William, 2013). On the use and misuse of technology in education, respectively foreign language teaching, technology has his own pro and con viewpoints. Like societal, cultural, equity, educational and technical aspects. More recent shifts in technology supported course offerings undoubtedly pushes the need of teachers who are armed with pedagogical components necessary to provide a technology supported quality course (Robert, 2013). Such shifts are also telling prospective German as a foreign language teacher about the role of the future education in contemporary Turkey
Efforts to educate German foreign language teacher's to use technologies for teaching in educational processes are in reality efforts to make from teacher's "Edutainers". Without their own experience and awareness, this is not an easy task. Pursuant to the technology acceptance model, users needs with regard to technology, their experience with the technology, their awareness of technology and purpose of use can change instructional practices and learning experiences (James & Elisabeth, 2011). These features may further determine ongoing teacher candidate's opinions, particularly when the technology is in active use in the classrooms (Mayer, 2014).
Motivational features are capable to boost student learning through stimulating generative processing and the role of specific positive emotions can be a benefit to cope with complex learning processes (Magner, Schwonke, Aleven, Popescu, & Renkl, 2014; Plass, Heidig, Hayward & Homerand Um, 2014). In order to achieve this benefit and to
provide ample opportunities for professional development for enhancing the educational experiences of our students the courses "Computer-Assisted German Training I-II." have been added as elective courses into the curriculum of German as foreign language teacher education Program.
2. The course
The launch of innovative educational technology projects has led the embodiment of interactive whiteboards (IWB) into the Turkish educational environment. Developments like whiteboard installations in the Faculty of education of the Anadolu University are not only exciting; it is also a challenging experience for all faculty members. As the teaching stuff adapt their courses to interactive whiteboards, they find that whiteboard teaching bearing challenges, raises new issues, but at the same time presents many opportunities for professional development and for enhancing the educational experiences of their students. Planning and implementing technology effectively means not only to effort and optimise material's qualities for its specific application it also means that this education technology must remain focus on people, on meeting needs, and on social inclusion, not on technology as a one-stop solution (Jeff, Susan & Robert, 2014)
Computer-Assisted German Training I-II courses positioned on the needs of the future German as foreign language teachers. The courses are not about what they teach it is about how. Each sections has two theoretic and two practical overall four hours. The first six weeks of a 12-week length course covers the following topics:
■ Creating quizzes and activities for language teaching and learning,
■ Integrating Digital Assets into language teaching materials,
■ PowerPoint for language learning,
■ Digital Storytelling,
■ Social networking and instructional materials,
■ Evaluating commercial products.
The course participation means also for all the 30 participants to attend in several mini-surveys. All 30 Students were asked on the very beginning about their thoughts in terms of Computer-Assisted German Training. This paper will not proceed to a statistical comparison of Students tendency, due to the lack of a statistically significant number of participants neither the theoretical underpinnings of IWB use in language learning from the perspective of cognitive learning theory. Even from the perspective of Students, wide range of benefits were identified, including the personal development and there is no doubt about the benefits of using edutainment methods for foreign language learners. The data discussed here is the qualification of the ongoing German as foreign language teachers in this regard. Student build working teams to prepare a 40 minutes lesson and evaluate others lessons by a given form to find out the pros and contras from their own perspective.
3. Student experimental lessons
After theoretical and practical six course weeks, the prerequisites for experimental lessons were determined. Their target audiences was elementary school students and they war asked to plan a lesson for 40 minutes using PowerPoint. Several textbooks were offered as reference sources. Some contents of the textbooks, irrespective of subjects, was seen as very difficult to explaining. Teams are build and individual chapters were picked to create an experimental lesson in two weeks time. Following topics are chosen;
Table 1. Experimental Lessons Topics.
Computer-Assisted German Training I Computer-Assisted German Training II
1. Guten Tag und herzlich willkommen! (welcoming) 1. Ich hätte gern vier Brötchen (In the bakery / On the market)
2. Stellen Sie sich bitte kurz vor! (Details of the person) 2. Alles für Ihre Küche (All about the kitchen)
3. Ich bin Ärztin - kann ich Ihnen helfen? (Occupations & activities) 3. Wir möchten gern ein Konto eröffnen (At the bank)
4. Das ist meine Familie!( Family and kinship) 4. Kochkünstler (Cooking and Eating)
5. Meine Freunde, meine Kollegen (Social relationships) 5. Entschuldigung, wo finde ich Kartoffel-Chips (In the supermarket)
A sample lesson plan was given as a guideline for forming their own lesson.
• Goals: Students will be able to Identity Important words of the course. They will also be able to understand and use these words.
• Objectives: Given a set of pictures, the students will match the picture to the word.
Introduction: Through questioning, establish students' background knowledge of classroom vocabulary.
• Development: Using the picture dictionary as a reference model the appropriate actions or words. Practice: Students will repeat the vocabulary while looking at the presentation. Students will work with partner- asking each other questions about words of the unit.
• Accommodations: Students in the class will complete worksheets.
• Checking For Understanding: Listen to the students pronounce the vocabulary.
• Closure: Review the vocabulary words Assign practice work at home.
An evaluation form were handed out before; which is also used later by each team, to evaluate other presenting respectively teaching teams. Each team had a meeting day, if they need it, before their experimental lesson, to show or rather to explain their unit for early feedback and to make recent edits if there was any necessary. While each team hold their lesson other class members was taking the role of the elementary school students. On average two or three experimental lessons were hold, designed and presented by students. The evaluation forms are handed out before the lessons started. Afterwards each section was discussed under the aspects of the evaluation form.
4. Summarized lesson sample and students evaluation
Fig. 2. (a) Textbook unit page sample; (b) Textbook unit exercises page sample.
Each unit from the textbook has also one exercise page, so the students must also include unit exercises to their lesson. Based of the given space limitations of this paper one example will be summarized. The name of the unit in the Textbook is "Alles für Ihre Küche" All about the kitchen. The teaching topic here are the objects in our kitchens. A common context for language learners; which allows an easy comparison and sampling.
Fig. 3. (a) Textbook All about the kitchen unit sample; (b) All about the kitchen lesson presentation.
The figure 3. (b) Only shows a mixture from the lessons PowerPoint. The vocabulary is articulated this is beyond visualization, also after each sets a multiple-choice test is added. Therefore, the elementary school students must response to the questions. Colors and fonts, font sizes are according to the given instruction. Moreover, a simplicity dominates the PowerPoint slides. The absence of turmoil and chaos facilitates to follow the lesson. Each course participant, had to take notes to the given evaluation form.
ftü«»¡ Alies» ('V Ihre
Fig. 4. Evaluation form sample in English.
MtVie- »„«.Mr..: g^fo;) TflN¡í>
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Basaran Tcmel tacydc GetiftinlebHir Ba>°n" Ornrk Almmali
Supurado mutjafc mabt-melert -tet tet taiihkiiqi iClfl boíOíili ir.üHak rröben-dfi ociet aUnabíte Sesdayatou arrt-k aínobife". ^rwcrdci Jcooü ioerfcji gsrekíi dcífe efe vcíWae-CPl^jmiS- mirtftjk q-iedeñ ses dc^fjbK le ^-ot-rcM \QU cta t.itiümo
Sanum ¿(füllen Hon bouvrttan i^iWictöae-rit ahWHrdi, ^ 'bunumda kulbiiWi art,a pfor» daW) tade olobíltdi
¡vnum ^íimum iCffrilt. Otcirot ctoha ^feltvtfríleWltf, ^Tunuimm qKiyirto ■fcnitibn fulla- ue "fei mi er cumie ícjnde WullmilQbihd
b-ooiil alinabíkfFk bcui ol^riñalor viardl.
Fig. 5. Filled authentic evaluation form sample.
The first two columns left are titled with "Failed" and "At the basic level" of the lessons in terms of: Subject content and distribution, Presentation criteria, Presentation and Feedback in up to down sequence. None of the given evaluation forms had this columns filled. The critiques formulated in the third column of this evaluation form that has the title "Perfectible". All aspects have been discussed after reading, even if they was not filled out. Each point had to be justified and explained.
5. Results and discussion
A number of new technologies have emerged in recent years that have been largely regarded and intended for educational use. The influence of technology on the daily teaching life of a foreign language teacher offers increasing the effectiveness and efficiency of teaching and learning. Teachers need to be armed with pedagogical components necessary to provide a technology supported quality course. Efforts to educate German foreign language teacher's to use technologies for teaching in educational processes are in reality efforts to make from teacher's "Edutainers". Without their own experience and awareness, this is not an easy task. Only their own experience, awareness of technology can change instructional practices and learning experiences for the future. Computer-Assisted German Training I-II courses offered ongoing teacher candidates a theoretical and practical
starting for their own active use of technology in the classroom in order to concretise their own experience and awareness.
This study investigated the opinions and expectations of 30 ongoing German as foreign language teacher candidates after an experimental active technology use in the classroom. From the Student's point of view, not all courses are suited to technology supported Foreign language teaching; there is often a concern expressed about the time taken to prepare and maintain such courses, motivate students, cope with an expected greater demand from students in technology supported classes, and intellectual property issues. It is especially emphasized that the programs offered in the curriculum also lack in supporting students in establishing a technological teaching philosophy. Teacher candidates reported the importance of offering such kind of courses. If future teachers are expected to adopt current actively use of technology theories, these practices should be compulsory as part of the policy for teacher education programs. Findings revealed that in developing these characteristics, not only contents and processes have a vital role but also the physical environment and teacher educators' tendencies and knowledge have significant effects on the professional development of a future teacher. At this point, participants strongly criticized the physical conditions of faculties of education. Thus, it is strongly recommended that quality of physical conditions should be accepted as a part of an effective teacher education process. The participants of the study reported that educators are insufficient in being role models for ongoing teachers. The educators expect students to develop certain skills and adopt certain teaching methods. However, educators fail to do the same thing; educators tend to use of ineffective and traditional methods of teaching according to the participants. This understanding strongly points to the need for further research in Turkey to examine the attitudes and methods of teacher educators in relation to technology supported teaching and learning.
6. References
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