reading response three

Reading Prompt #3
*LEVY – Ch. 8. Technology

*BLACKBOARD - Soares, D. d.A. (2008). Understanding class blogs as a tool for language development. Language Teaching Research, 12(4), 517–533.



What challenges did Soares face when using blogs with her ESL students, and what lessons did she learn? How does she feel about using blogs with students in the future? Levy describes several types of technologies Choose one of them and describe how you might want to use it (or have used it), and discuss some of considerations that need to be taken when using this technology with ESL students

I thought the Soares article was very eye opening. It showed how students may be resistant to using blogs in the classroom, especially if the work is to be done at home. I think when she started to include blogging activities during class time it helped the students take part more in the blog. Her survey of other ESL teacher's using blogs was also helpful. The article is a valuable resource for ESL teacher's wanting to include blogging in their classroom.

I thought that Speech Recognition and Pronunciation-Training Technology from the Levy book could be a helpful tool in the classroom. I wonder if it is similar to what is used in the Rosetta Stone software? Because when using this software, if you do not pronounce something correctly, you have to keep saying it over until the computer reckognizes the correct pronunciation.

From reading chapter eight in Levy I have some difficulty in understanding the descriptions of some of the technology. I need to see it demonstrated in class to have a full understanding of it.