Technology in Modern Foreign Languages – A practitioner’s perspective

If you are looking for some tips on how technology can be integrated into the Foreign Languages classroom, you need to read the collection of articles embedded below.

Written by classroom teachers for classroom teachers and edited by José Picardo, it covers a whole array of ways that have worked in the language classroom to integrate ICT into all the skill areas. Highly recommended professional reading; and, if you want to go further, create a twitter account and follow those who have contributed to the document. They are all inspirational.

Technology in Modern Foreign Languages - A Practitioner's Perspective

Student task: "Strange animal"

I love it when students take an idea (or piece of work) and run with it.
On the class wiki page the "Task" came under the banner "Time to CREATE!!!", and they did. The task was given during a unit of work on descriptions and body parts and is as follows:

Scenario: You are a Japanese newsreader presenting the evening news. The item you are reading is in relation to a new species of animal that has been recently discovered in the mountainous forests of central Japan.
Task
Part A: Write the description of your ‘new species’ for the news report, before getting it checked by the teacher.
Part B: Practice reading the report before either (i) recording yourself saying it OR (ii) make a video of the news report.

Students were given the option to work in 2s or 3s. Below is one finished product. Admittedly, the students who created the embedded video chose to bypass the "before getting it checked by your teacher" instruction, but they were immediately forgiven. The video is in Japanese.