WEEK 4: Reflection on CALL in Language Skills LSRWG (Part 1)

On 26^th February 2013, Tuesday, we learned about CALL in language skills. LSRWG stands for the main language skills which are listening, speaking, reading, writing and grammar. We went through many acronyms of CALL and their emphasis. Some of the acronyms were CELL, TELL, TALL, CBLT, IT and ICT, NBLT, DLL and MALL. Then we were shown a list of benefits of CALL. Our lecturer asked every group to pick one of the benefits and explain it. Among all the listed benefits of CALL, we chose to explain on how CALL has been effective in illustrating concepts and organizing facts.  

As we all know, concepts are something abstract and cannot be seen by our naked eyes. Thus, in order to get the understanding of a certain concept, we have to show it. By using a computer, illustrating concepts can be easy and interesting. The illustration can be done by using videos, animations or PowerPoint presentations. There are many things that we can do by using Microsoft PowerPoint. We can make our presentation slides to be colourful by choosing the designs that are available or we can simply use our own. We also can choose a variety of fonts, ranging from the formal fonts like Times New Roman and Arial to fancy fonts like Lucida Handwriting and many more.

Some of us might get bored easily when it comes to reading facts because most of the facts are lengthy in nature. However, this can be solved by using computer. How? Simple. Since lengthy facts make people bored, we make them simple and well-organized. By using computer, we can arrange the facts by putting the most important ones first and the least important ones later. Other than that, we can put them in tables or in boxes with animated arrows in between each box in order to show chronological order of something or some events. That will not only make the learning become interesting and fun but also successful.

There was a reason behind our lecturer asking us to explain the benefits of CALL. Our lecturer wanted to see how we explained our points. Some of the groups did not really explain their points in details but rather they gave the main ideas only. It is important to be specific and to be able to elaborate more on our points by giving examples and strong evidences. This will certainly help us in answering our examination questions, thus achieving A+ in Computer Applications on Language Studies and other subjects. In Sha Allah. 

WEEK 3: REFLECTION OF ISLAMIZATION OF KNOWLEDGE

On 21^st February ago, we have learnt about how to create a new blog for our mega project and also the lecturer has inserted about what islamization of knowledge is. Dr. Rozina has given a chance to us to create our own blog first before proceeding to the lesson. When creating the blog, we worked together to explore some new things. One of the group members did not know how to use the blog so we have to teach her first and Alhamdulillah she manages to use the blog now. After that, our lecturer had exposed to us about islamization of knowledge based on Dr.Mahmudul’s slides. During that hour, we felt more closer to what IOK is and understand what actually IOK means. The questions that have been asked really made us to think what we want in our life. The questions made us to ponder of everything surround us as well. It caused us to make some changes in our life. The islamization of knowledge based on Dr.Mahmudul’s point of view also trigger us towards the real life and why we have to study and get knowledge. Some of the questions are:

• who do we represent?
• who will benefit if we do well in studies
• how are our brothers and sisters in Islam doing?

As a student, we must know the reason why we go to school and study. One might say it is because of ibadah and the answer is ultimately true but there are also some reasons behind it. one of the benefits is the knowledge that we get, we should share with others. Thus, with the knowledge that we have, we can help others to the right path of Allah.

WEEK 2: REFLECTION OF E-PORTFOLIO

Portfolio is a book that contains the works of the students as required by the teacher. The content of portfolio of one student includes the student basic background, picture, interest and other importance point.

            We as a student who already experienced doing the portfolio during our school day noticed the advantages of the e-portfolio towards the students. In the school day, the students use color paper to make the portfolio and design it with own creativity. The portfolio is big and only the students work can be keep in it. Thus, when we were asked by the lecturer to make a portfolio using the electronic gadget it is a new experience for us. The e-portfolio are more appealing that the normal portfolio. In the e-portfolio we can put sound and video to make the portfolio more interesting and picture and graphics to make the layout stand out for the readers to read our entry.

            In addition, from the e-portfolio we can enhance and get new knowledge about the new technology and to enhance our skills in the computer skills. We might not know certain terms or other things that is related to the computer application that we can learn from the lecturer and from our fellow classmate.

            In a nutshell, e-portfolio is more organized than the normal portfolio. We can edit the entry, make it more lively and interesting, creating it  based on what we as a group  want our e-portfolio to look like as the final result and also it could make the task of evaluating our e-portfolio by the lecturer to be easier.  

WEEK 2: Reflection of the History of CALL

Learners, no matter what subject they are in, must always reflect what they have learned in class. In Week 1, we learned about the history of CALL and its three stages (behaviourist CALL, communicative CALL, and integrative CALL).The first time we are introduced with the history of CALL, we never expected that it has three stages. These three stages are different from each other in terms of how much does the computer helps in the learning process and what role it holds. Before this, we know that computer has assisted human in many areas. We know that computer helps language learning process and that’s it. We never think beyond that.

Why do we have to learn about the history of CALL? What benefits can we get?

First, learning something new and something that we never heard of will, of course, add our existing knowledge of this world. Second, everything in this world is related to people’s lives. By learning the history of CALL, people can relate all three stages of CALL with their own experience when learning a language before in order to get a good understanding of that subject matter.

In Behaviourist CALL, the computer is considered as a mechanical tutor. In this stage, learners are described as passive and ‘coming to class in a blank slate.’ Because of this, the behaviourists think that it is important for them to create the learning environment for the learners. They will come out with activities that emphasize on repetition and memorization such as dialogues, pattern drills, grammar translations and etc. We still can recall our teacher asking us to repeat over certain words just to get the pronunciation right.

In Communicative CALL, the computer is considered as a pupil. The learning is based on the concept of discovery learning through activities like problem solving. The learners can sit among themselves and provide their own input or idea. When a computer is said as a pupil, it means that the computer plays a role in giving input to the learning. In this case, we can relate to our experience in drawing the human vocal track diagram in Phonetics and Phonology class by referring to the diagram on the computer.

In Integrative CALL, computer is used as merely a tool for language learning. There are many examples of using a computer as a language tool based on our experience. The most common one is the use of LMS by our lecturers in posting notes and announcements related to the subjects.  

Last but not least, the benefit that we can get from learning the history of CALL is that we can think and observe which stage is more effective to be used in learning a language. Based on our interpretation of the three stages of CALL, we personally think that Integrative CALL is the best approach to learning a language. In Behaviourist CALL, we see that the learners are dependent of the computer which is their teacher. In Communicative CALL, the teacher distant himself from the students, while in Integrative CALL, the teacher is there helping the students in getting the correct understanding of what they learn. Learning is less likely to be successful if there is only one side who is working for it. It is important for the teacher to work together with the students in class. 

WEEK1: Exercise of History of Call

QUESTION 1:

Reflect on your experience in the linguistic course that you have chosen as the them of your blog. Did the course incorporate the use of computer in teaching and learning.

ANSWER:

The linguistic course that we choose is Phonetics and Phonology. This course is quite practical, thus we have many class activities. Some of the activities are to draw and fill in the blank the diagram of the place of articulation. we also have to transcribe words into symbols that represent the sounds of the words. All these activities require us to memorize a lot.

The course incorporates the use of computer in teaching and learning. The lecturer uses the computer and the projector to show her slides. We use the computer to refer to the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) chart and to do exercises.

QUESTION 2:

Relate the concepts in the three stages to that experience. Are the computer-based activities related to any of the three stages of CALL?

ANSWER:

The computer-based activities in the Phonetics and Phonology class are related to the three stages of CALL. The computer works as a mechanical tutor (Behaviorist CALL), a pupil or a stimulus (communicative CALL), as well as a tool (integrative CALL)

QUESTION 3:

Discuss how the concepts in three stages of CALL are relevant to SLA theories or practices. What are the important concepts in the three stages related to the activities?

ANSWER:

Computer As A Mechanical Tutor

• The lecturer uses the computer and projector to show her power point slide, pictures (e.g. vocal track diagram), charts (IPA chart), and videos (different English Dialects) 
• The computer is used to play audiovisual materials as to show how to produce a certain sound and how to pronounce a certain word correctly.
• We are required to repeat and memorize the IPA chart, the sound of every symbol and the human vocal track diagram.

Computer As A Pupil/ Computer As A Stimulus

• We may know the sound of a symbol but may not know how to write it. Thus, the computer helps in the symbols of the sounds in the IPA chart.

Computer As A Tool

• The students are asked to go in front of the class and transcribe words and phrases using the computer.
• The students do exercises on the computer using the links and software which what are given by the lecturer.
• The computer also can check whether the transcription of the words is correct or not by using a software on the computer
• Lecturer uses the computer as a medium to posts notes and announcements which is through LMS.

welcoming remark

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

السلام عليكم

اهلا وسهلا

THE ISLAMIZATION

of

"PHONETICS AND PHONOLOGY"

This blog focus on the Islamization of phonetics and phonology. With the tagline "speak like native, act like Muslim" we present you our mega project for ENGL 4740. We choose phonetics and phonology as our specialization in this project because we find that this is the foundation of all skills in learning any language. This subject not only concerns about the letters and symbols, but it emphasizes in producing varieties of sounds in different language. In this blog, we will update every week about the reflection of our lessons for every class. To make it more interesting, we will insert extra knowledge and materials about what phonetics and phonology is and how this subject benefits us as a Muslim in our daily life. Our group consists of three members:

Siti Faridah Binti Mhd Amin
Nur Syafiqa Binti Ismail
Nornatasha Binti Ahmad Nizam

We hope you will enjoy every single note that we attach and hopefully it can help you as well.
 We apologize for any limitation in our posts.
Do comment on our blog. Your comments are highly appreciated.

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السلام عليكم

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