Week 2

Week 2 has been a little stressful due to starting a new job and having a large assignment due, but I managed to find the time to reach my goals and even start next week’s DuoLingo!

After this week’s tutorial I realised that I may not have made clear which pedagogical approaches are embedded in my technologies. As I’m focussing on developing my grammar and vocabulary, the principle underlying pedagogy is the modular approach (Levy, 2009). For this reason I am only reflecting on my development of these two language competencies. Furthermore, using Facebook and my iPad in French has resulted in an additional underlying pedagogy – incidental learning. In this approach, I am incidentally learning new vocabulary through completing familiar and unfamiliar tasks without focussing on intentionally acquiring the vocabulary (Groot, 2000; Laufer & Hulstijn, 2001; Waring & Nation, 2004).

One of the readings I engaged with this week provoked some thoughts on using my Oxford French/English Dictionary. It became apparent that many dictionaries, especially offline, are reluctant to receive feedback and change to meet the needs of users. This is due to lexicographers systematically designing dictionary consultation as a one-way road where they are communicating but not listening (Nielson, 2008). In terms of using my dictionary, I have found it difficult to find words at times, especially when words have accents. I believe it would help users if there was a short paragraph at the start of the dictionary that explained how words are alphabetically represented with and without accents.

It has also become apparent that this challenge is developing more than just my French Language acquisition. Just from using this blog I am developing my digital literacy skills through applying creative practices, communicating effectively, finding and selecting information as well as critically thinking and evaluating (Hague & Payton, 2011). These skills and more are developed through creating a hybrid of oral and written language in this digital platform. The main components used through this digital platform include permanent language, easily modified language, and pervasively multimodal language.

After class this week we had an interesting discussion of whether online learning helps in communicating in SL offline. I believe that I’m at a level in French where I’m comfortable in communicating offline but sometimes struggle to correctly form sentences and use extensive vocabulary. So for me, I believe online learning, especially in the context of this challenge, helps me communicate in French offline.

Now to focus on this week’s experiences using my technologies.

This week in DuoLingo I have progressed further than expected and learned the new skills conjugations 2, adverbs 2 and household vocabulary. This app has continued to keep me motivated and engaged, particularly through the three activities displayed below (translate this sentence, how do you say and tap the pairs). 

Additionally, I have found two more affordances, one that will keep me more engaged and another that I don’t think I’ll have enough time to make use of. Firstly, the weekly leader board shows where how much XP my friends have got this week compared to me. I saw that I was quite far behind Bronte and surpassed my weekly goal by completing two weeks’ worth of skills. However, as you can see below, she is still much further ahead than me. Secondly, I have discovered that there is a function for practicing weak skills. Skills become weak over time and users are encouraged to practice them to ensure past, present and future skills are all as strong as they can be. However, as I have other technologies and commitments it would be too time consuming to practice skills that don’t help me to reach my goals. 

I will just quickly explain another reason for completing next week’s skill. I have noticed that the upcoming skills look much harder, longer and time consuming to complete than previous skills. So by progressing a little now it will minimise the stress of meeting the next checkpoint by the end of the challenge.
I decided to have a quick look on DuoLingo’s computer platform to see what it offered. An astonishing discovery (see below) is that I have learned 613 French words since starting this challenge! Of course this includes the placement test but I still think this is a wonderful achievement and gives me some quantitative data for the end of my challenge to determine exactly how much vocabulary I’ve gained and the language area that each word belongs in.

Quizlet’s matching game was a little harder since I started the French Intermediate 1 Unit 2 study set. There was quite a lot of new vocabulary that made it difficult for me to match in under 15 seconds. I must have played at least 20 times before I even managed to get under 20 seconds. However, when I did, I was far more familiar with the new vocabulary and was able to achieve my goal of three matching games under 15 seconds. I even beat my personal best by finishing in 11.7 seconds!!!

This week on Facebook there was a lot of incidental learning of grammar and vocabulary from routine activities; however the most learning came from being out of my comfort zone and adding a new job on my profile. After completing the new ‘Emploi’ on my profile I used my dictionary to make sure I was correct before I hit ‘Enregistrer’. Sure enough I was right and I am now familiar with ‘Poste’ meaning a position, among other words.

Navigating my iPad is getting easier and easier as I progress through this challenge. However, I wanted to turn off auto-rotation and had a bit of trouble figuring out how. I knew which button turned it on and off but I had to change my settings in order for that button to do it. As I was aware that the same button turned the sound on and off I found the setting ‘Le bouton latéral sert à’ and sure enough I managed to ‘Verrouiller la rotation’. Through this experience I incidentally learned that verrouiller means to lock and am now familiar with many other words that can be seen in the screenshot below. By completing little activities like this I am learning many new words and am feeling more comfortable navigating my iPad. This is helping me on course to meet my goal next week of understanding most of the vocabulary on my iPad and Facebook.

This week I have not been particularly happy that all four of my technologies have been using different vocabulary, unlike my experience last week. Perhaps this is due to the change in Quizlet study set and progression in DuoLingo. I hope that in the coming weeks the vocabulary matches up again as it really was an excellent way to contextualise new words. However, the combination of these technologies has continued to prove to be effective in catering for my multimodal style of learning which is keeping me motivated and sufficiently challenged. Furthermore, the nature of the activities has also catered for my analytical and authority-orientated language learning styles.

References
Groot, P. J. (2000). Computer assisted second language vocabulary acquisition. Language Learning & Technology, 4(1), 60-81.

Hague, C., & Payton, S. (2011). Digital literacy across the curriculum.Curriculum Leadership, 9(10).

Laufer, B., & Hulstijn, J. (2001). Incidental vocabulary acquisition in a second language: The construct of task-induced involvement. Applied linguistics, 22(1), 1-26.

Levy, M. (2009). Technologies in use for second language learning. The Modern Language Journal, 93(1), 769-782.

Nielsen, S. (2008). The Effect of Lexicographical Information Costs on Dictionary Making. Lexikos, 18(1).

Waring, R., & Nation, I. S. P. (2004). Second language reading and incidental vocabulary learning. Angles on the English speaking world, 4, 97-110.