I think chatting is especially useful for middle-school and high-school English classes, because, as I stated in my last post, it is useful for grammar and vocabulary teaching. In the college English classes, chatting can be used for teaching reading, and vocabulary as well. But I will not use it in class, instead, I'll use it after class, since it can be time-consuming. I'm thinking of assigning my students some tasks about group chatting after class about some questions related to the reading text we are learning in class. Group members can negotiate the time when they can all get access to their chat room and discuss about the questions together. I'll ask them to e-mail me their chat history to see how deep they can understand the text and how much involved each student is in the chat. In this way, students can learn cooperatively and at the same time, hopefully, enjoy their chatting. Some target words and phrases may be encouraged to use in their chatting in order to practice their usage.
I really like this idea of assigning chat HW for after class and then asking for a printed version of the participant’s chat. This way, you could also provide individual language feedback for students (if you chose to) by making copies of the printed chats and writing comments on them. This could aid in a student's "noticing."
ReplyDeleteIt's a good idea. But I have about fifty students in one class, it would be plenty of work for me to provide individual language feedback for students, esp. when chatting is assigned regularly. I might as well make general comments on their chatting in the following class.
ReplyDeleteIt's a great idea to have students chat about a homework assignment! Having students email the chatting dialogue keeps them on task -- you could just skim them to make sure everyone's working hard.
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