As part of the LMS experience, I have chosen to create an onilne supplementary site to my face-to-face English 10 course. The lessons online will be accompanied by lessons in class and this blended learning approach will begin to introduce the skills the students need from basic keyboarding skills to using different applications and navigating the Internet.
I chose to use the Moodle synchronous chat function to get the students to utilize their informal language and recognize when the use of informal language was allowed in an English course. The online assignment will be supplementary to a lesson in class regarding the use of formal and informal language. As English learners and students, it is very difficult for students to understand the idea of formality in writing. The integration of technology like instant messaging, chats and email has lead to an increasingly informal style of writing seeping into compositions, which require a more academic tone. This initial lesson will heighten the student’s awareness of language, but also to make them aware of the way language can take on different forms in different contexts. The asynchronous forum at the end of the lesson will ask them to reflect from a more academic perspective regarding the use of the tool and the complexities of human communication and interaction
The rationale for selecting this as the initial lesson is because I wanted the students to really start to form a community with each other. By asking them to interact in a chat session, it might be less intimidating for students. The task is simple enough to ease my ESL learners into my English program. The novelty of using a computer and respondiing in English will interest the students to have an authentic purpose in using the tool of chats and forums. It will also make them critically aware of the different purposes of the English language.
Student who are used to the fancy chat sessions of MSN or other similar programs might find the chat in Moodle a bit drab and simple. Since I am new to Moodle, I will inform students of the other options but ask them to try out the one I set up in Moodle for them first. Since the students in my class are mostly Chinese or Korean students, typing in English within instant chat sessions might not be as effortless as native speakers. However, communicating through synchronous chats will give them a bit of time pressure to respond in English. In class, I will give students examples of chat sessions to give them a sense of what a successful chat session would look like on screen.
I tried the chat function within the LMS and it seems to be quite fast and friendly to use. The steps to entering the chat were kid-friendly and I would walk them through an initial demonstration of the Moodle site within my classroom lesson. The forum seems to be a place for students to have a more permanent sense of their communication.
Reflection
I am not extremely satisfied with the visual appeal of my Moodle site yet. However, i will try to look into it and try to make it more visually exciting. It currently seems to be a lot of text and I know how important it is for a site to look more exciting. Hopefully, this will be soon changed.
This iniital assignment should not be too difficult for my students but it should give me an idea on how to gauge the rest of my lessons. At first, i wanted to create a full online English 10 course with Moodle, but I feel more comfortable with a blended approach. Once my Moodle skills are a bit more advanced, I would contemplate the design of a full online version. The blended approach still satisfies the proposal I stated earlier for my LMS.
I am hoping this lesson will create a sense of awareness between informal and formal language while utilizing the authentic contexts of chats to create this learning objective. At the same time I want to teach them how to use chats and forums, i also want them to think about the content of language in our course.
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