In the latest addition to the Technology in Modern Foreign Languages series, Alex Blagona gives us a fascinating insight into how he has used wikis to provide his students with a means of learning languages which mirrors the way in which they already use technology and social networking: by sharing and collaborating online. An excellent Ofsted report vindicates Alex’s approach and serves as an inspiration to us all.

Whether we care to accept it or not, a great part of our job as teachers is the performance in the classroom. I’m not talking about ‘performance’ in the sense of performance management, but more the performance in an almost show-business sense of the word. The students are our audience, and schools now have to be ever more responsive to their views.

Education and learning can actually be entertaining, and teachers are under increasing pressure to deliver lessons that engage students, as well bringing a smile to their faces. Lessons that are fun and that tap into the interests of students are more successful, and certainly more memorable.

My main use of ICT in the last couple of years has involved the use of wikis to allow students to collaborate with each other and to make them clearer on learning, targets and to make them feel active participants in their learning. We are, without doubt, working and living in an age where technology is king, and where virtually all our students have created an online presence for themselves.

Social networks are now de rigeur for the 21st century youngster, and teachers have had to become rapidly aware of how to harness the advantages that this form of interaction now presents. Students who spend seemingly endless amounts of time online are going to be attracted by learning that matches up with their interests, that they see as accessible, that they can relate to, and which can also be fun.

To that end I set up a wiki, using wikispaces.com – there are other wiki providers out there – firstly for A Level students to help them with creative writing, essay preparation and speaking test practice, and also for my GCSE students to prepare them for their oral exams and to enable them to monitor their own progress towards the exam.

Like all things that are considered ‘different’, I was confident in how it worked and benefited the learners, and had support from pupils, and many of my teaching colleagues. In May of last year, however, we got the dreaded call from Ofsted, telling us that we would be inspected not as a whole school, but just our department, with a special focus on our use of ICT in teaching languages. This was the litmus test for what we had been doing, and to see if our methods and innovations matched the thinking of the inspectors.

When the inspection report came back, we were vindicated:

How well is ICT used by teachers and students to improve language learning?

This is outstanding…the wiki system enables students to store their work online and staff to check and mark it. It also enables students to communicate rapidly with staff about language learning.

Ofsted Report, May 2009.

I set up a couple of lessons for the inspector to observe, both using the technology of wikis to have an impact on the learning of the students. The first was an A Level French lesson with Year 13, who were in the middle of preparing for their speaking tests.

Using stimulus cards which were freely available online, we worked in a carousel, where one student answered the stimulus card questions, another wrote a selection of follow up questions, another student prepared and recorded spoken answers using Audacity, and another student reviewed the performance of the spoken answer. Although the logistics scared me, it all worked to plan, and every student ended up completing each task, with all results on the wiki, so that each student could see what every other student had done.

The second lesson involved Year 10, who were having a go at telling the story of a dream holiday. We had worked on a writing frame in the previous lesson, and they had just completed their introductions on their individual pages. I was able to provide individual targeted feedback on each student’s work, and also ensure that pupils set themselves three achievable targets for themselves to complete. I gave each pupil a wiki-buddy, another member of the class of a similar ability who would compare targets, and would review outcomes at the end of the lesson. This helped the pupils to spot common errors in their work, to avoid setting unreachable targets, and to remain challenged by the task at hand.

Wikis have really engaged the students with whom we have used them. They have been allowed to personalise their pages, and after two years of using them, they have become accustomed to leaving comments on each other’s pages, and it has served to create an atmosphere of trust and confidence amongst the class. The sites have been impeccably self-policed and because the nature of the wiki means that I can check who has done what and at what time, the participants have not been tempted to vandalise anyone else’s work.

Our school, as a Specialist Language College, is also responsible for managing the Gifted and Talented Linguists’ project for the county of Suffolk. Bringing together fifty Year 11 students in what is a very rural county is a tough task, and creating a wiki for the project has enabled the participants to share ideas and language, and to be imaginative irrespective of their geographical location.

Alex Blagona

Top photo by irievibrations

This post is tagged mfltech, wiki