In developing foreign language curriculum, our ideal is to lead students into authentic communication. That is, to facilitate our students' open-ended, creative expression with a clear purpose beyond performing soley for the teacher. E-mail can provide the means of communication through a keypals-style project. The discovery process of eliciting information about another community/ high school from fellow students who live there can provide the purpose (Q:"What is San Diego (Dallas, Lima) like anyway?" "How does it compare to Palo Alto?") Multimedia provides the medium through which the communication and resulting discovery can be shown.
Stage 1 -Planning for communication-Students make a list of the things they would like to know about students in another place. We could start with a pre-assignment of having them outline what they would tell students elsewhere about Paly. The questions could be loosely related to the course vocabulary and sequenced appropriately.
Stage 2 -Students communicate their questions in sequence (not all at once) to the keypals. The questions are refined as they see the answers they receive in return. Do they need more detail? Was their question understood?
Stage 3 -Students construct a mind map, in the target language, of what they now know about their keypals. This can be done in writing, but should also include a multimedia expression of this understanding, usually accompanied by a report in the target language
Stage 4 -Students share their picture with the keypals, asking for their feedback. The multimedia component can be shared on the internet (with appropriate editing).
The various products of this assignment can be assessed with rubrics:
The state framework for foreign language learning and teaching places great importance on the use of authentic assessment of real language tasks.
Students will use the computer lab for e-mail and multimedia work. Planning can be done in the classroom. The project will necessarily be done over a period of weeks, since the groups must communicate with their partners and reflect on their answers. The information gathering may take only one part of one class per week for 4 to 6 weeks, while the multimedia part at the end will require intense work for about one week.
Students will work together in small groups to develop questions, communicate with keypals and produce the final product. The assignment will provide for individual samples of work for which students will be personally responsible. The teacher will construct the frame of the keypals project and facilitate questions of content, procedure and access to technology while trying to allow groups freedom to come up with creative solutions.
The students must master some specific word processing skills for the e-mail part. The teacher will need to facilitate the actual e-mailing to evaluate the student work and to provide some anonimity for student participants. The multimedia part will require the training of students in HyperStudio , PowerPoint or other multimedia software. Finally, the groups may put their project on Paly's home page.
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