Week 1 and 2: (Oct 10 to 21)
1. Familiarity of the e-learning tools
- students are not familiar with the e-learning tools, i.e. Google Slides and Google Document.
- related trials of the use of the tools should be done beforehand.
- downloading of the tools should also be done before the commencement of the project, including Google doc, Google slides and Google sheets, Google Drive
- students were stuck by finding the correct link of the task, downloading the related apps
2. Instructions of the lessons:
- should be very clear in all the tasks involved and should be clearly given at the beginning of each lesson
- time-limit should be given to students for completion of each task (to ensure that students are on the task simultaneously)
- each task should be done within 10 to 15 minutes
- examples should be shown to students before they start doing so, or else it is hard to control and catch students' attention.
- before starting of each task, steps and examples should be shown once to ensure students are on task;
3. Setting of the classroom:
- 1 hour lesson: in the language laboratory: a bit difficult for students to listen to the teachers
(solution: sit together for the instructions; sit according to the groups when conducting the task)
- get students to sit together rather than spread around the room
4. Variety of the tasks
- same tools but with different tasks (one student expressed that it is recording task again; it could be replaced by video-taping with the use of props; however, that may not match the task requirement, i.e. a telephone conversation; would that be possible to record the telephone conversation
5. Explanation of the materials
- time should be given on explaining the materials before the start of each task
(e.g. when conducting Lesson 3, students found it hard to complete the task in turning the phrases of the steps to form a complete instruction, based on the fact that teacher did not spend time on explaining the vocabulary)
6. Technical issues
- battery issues, network problem, connection to the device would be what students concern when they are performing the first few tasks. (Students' perspective)
- (Teacher's perspective) extra time on preparing for the lesson and also evaluating students' work.
7. Students performance in first assessment:
Usually drilling of the assessment paper will be done in 2 weeks time to prepare students for the assessment. However, due to the shortage of time and most of the time spent on other assessment related task, but not the drilling of the assessment, students' performance may be relatively lower than the others since they may not be very familiar with the assessment content.
8. Feedback on students' task
It is found that feedback is quite hard to be given to students on a real time basis. Usually after their submission of work, e.g. the sound tracks from Whatsapp, I need to download them all at once first and then putting in the folder. I tried only once putting my feedback in a document file with the correct pronunciation of students' mistakes. And thus, students may not know their performance after completion of task. Besides, extra time outside lessons is used to download their tracks or for providing feedback. Using Podcast maybe a way to solve problem since students can record their own track and upload directly to the shared podcast.
9. Students' attendance
In general, students' attendance is getting better than before. But it is also found that one student (Lui Kwok Ho) did not attend class for some days. And he is also absent from the assessment. Follow up actions should be done and also if possible, I may invite him to join the interview on his viewpoint on mobile language learning.
Good points of teaching
1. Students are playing an active role in learning:
a. They are eager to learn using their mobile phone, i.e. they enjoy taking selfie and creating their own group powerpoint slide
b. They like the pronunciation of the vocabulary from Quizlet. They can hear the pronunciation of the vocabulary. And they like the quiz regarding the new vocabulary they learnt.
Nov 17 and 18
1. Nov 17 is planned to ask students to conduct a small scale survey where they need to ask their friends 5 questions on giving suggestions under different aspects and topics, e.g. who do you suggest to invite for the Christmas party? And then students need to write down under which aspects, the suggestions given by their partner.
2. Nov 18: It was planned to start the lesson by a recap on giving suggestions with introducing the topic. And then start teaching Unit 12 on stating preferences. However, the time spent on recap is more than expected and also the pre-task (using Kahoot to do a quick survey on students' 5 different preferences is spending much more time.
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