1.

A description of the online activity, assessment or resource including specifics about what the
students and the teacher would have to do. For example, how would the student interact with
it? What role does the teacher play in facilitating the technology? You can do this in writing or
you can draw diagrams, create a slide show, an interactive flowchart, or use open
technologies to build your working example. Make sure whatever method you use, that it can
be accessed by your colleagues who will peer-assess your work (500 words if you choose the
written submission format or 5 minute recording if you choose to submit a video format).

The activity in which I am interested is the learning and practice of a Second Language through
mobile apps. I am a Private English Teacher and found that many of my students can only talk
and practice with me, so encouraging them to interact with others students all over the world
also learning another language could be helpful tool for learning.

Among the options that I have found, there’s this application called Tandem that serves the
purposes I seek, it is an open access technology and is free for mobile devices. My students are
familiar with this kind of technologies and have already used apps for learning, such as
Duolingo, the big hit among language learning apps.

Alright, there is the description of how students will interact with the app:

1. There will be an introductory session. I’ll explain how to use Tandem, the activity goals,
how it’ll be assessed and the risks involved (since it is an open technology).
2. During class, they’ll start to use the app. First, looking for someone online to start a
talk. Whoever contacted will be noticed that is collaborating and will decide either
continue helping or not. So, students will start to practicing speaking.
3. I will ask them to continue using the app for at least 15 minutes per week, and give
back a recorded track to evidence it.
4. After two or three times doing this activity, I will ask during class how they are feeling
about the activity, if they like it or do not. Feedback will be really important to improve
it or even suspend everything. (Actually, I tested it with one student and she got
engaged easily. So, I’m hoping it could work for most of my students)

This is a pretty clear YouTube video of a girl testing Tandem. The app itself is very intuitive,
that’s the reason I liked it most, you might check it if have doubts about how it works.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOgFbjbNQHw&t=120s

1. A description of how the online activity, assessment, or resource is aligned with the rest of
the curriculum in your course. See Module 3: Planning Online Learning for strategies for
curriculum alignment (200 words if you choose the written submission format or 2 minute
recording if you choose to submit a video format).
There’s three foundations for second language acquisition: Grammar, Lecture Comprehension
and Speaking. At least for the method I teach.

The activity I want to apply responses to a ‘Speaking’ need. As I said before, students don’t
usually have the chance to practice with someone who speak English, neither native speakers
by the way, therefore my activity goals are encourage them to do it digitally, using the app as
 medium. Record the conversations they’re having might help to keep track of their progress,
thus they could learn in a real context issues we also saw at class.

1. A discussion of the strategies you have chose to engage your students with the online
assessment, activity, or resource with supporting evidence. See Module 7: Engaging and
Motivating Students for strategies (400 words if you choose the written submission format or
4 minute recording if you choose to submit a video format).

Para responder a esto, rápidamente quisiera explicar cómo son mis alumnos:

To answer this, I’d like to quickly describe a bit how my students actually are:

They’re all college students, among 16 and 24 y/o. They are digital natives, so is easy to catch
them texting or posting stuff on social media. Still, they’re pretty collaborative and show
interest in learning a new language. Only a few of them took my class for school counseling
and the most are there to improve their actual skills, having in mind to travel and know people
from other countries.

My activities planned on Tandem are virtually activities in an open access technology which is
also a social media platform. That means they’ll indirectly be immersed in a ubiquitous
environment, in which they can interact as they could do in real life. There will be no specific
grammar rules, not predesigned topics, no artificial interaction. Just in a way they could test
their language communication skills. Explaining this social media/real interaction issue may be
my main strategy to motivate students to try it, and keep engaged the ones whom did like it.

1. A plan for evaluating your online assessment, activity, or resource to determine its
effectiveness. See Module 8: Evaluation Strategies for strategies (400 words if you choose the
written submission format or 4 minute recording if you choose to submit a video format).

I would like to explain it by taking the suggested evaluation angles:

Self: As a teacher, you could deduce a certain level of engagement or interest that a student
had for an activity. That’s how you’re improving and making changes in class planning. In fact,
I’ve never know someone who had did a perfect planning. From my point of view, things
flowing organically are the best, I mean, not trying too hard to develop an activity.

While my classes are delivered individually to each student, making personal interviews is the
perfect strategy to obtain and give feedback. I imagine if I had a big class, surveys might aim a
similar objective but directly face-to-face evaluation is good in my case.

Peer: This is actually hard since I only gave private classes, however I’m constantly searching
for forums and opinions from colleagues doing similar activities. Research on papers has help
me a lot recently. Nevertheless, I’ll plan to meet with Language teachers in congresses near my
city, learn from their experience and explain my situation expecting a constructive feedback.

Student: I already said that personal interviews will be my main feedback source, yet trying to
catch traits in recorded tracks they will give me for assess is important to get information I
could later register in some platform to measure and keep track of student’s progress. This
could be implement for other activities as well.
Theory: I lay my work on constructivism theory, so the student is at center for learning. My
goal is for they to get really immersed and engaged in the subject of their learning. Achieving
that is a way of evaluate my success or failure.