Does pupil use of ICT increase attainment in MFL?

Master's Thesis from the year 2011 in the subject Pedagogy - The Teacher, Educational Leadership, grade: none, , course: Advanced Educational Practice, language: English, abstract: ...The English government, despite no longer making languages compulsory, still rates language learning as an important part of education by including it in the seven domains of subjects required for the EBacc certificate (Parliament records, NA). Despite common belief only 6% of the world's population speak English as a first language and 75% of the world's population do not speak any English at all. This is also reflected on the languages used on the internet where only 51% are in English. "Chinese has almost caught up with English and Russian and Spanish are increasingly prominent" (Languages work, NA)... Despite all these arguments the majority of pupils still rate other subjects, including maths and science as more important for their future even though they do not find them necessarily easy (Stables, 1999). The promotion of language learning forms part of my position as an MFL teacher and I have previously tried to engage pupils in activities like a lunchtime handball club where they had to use German expressions to communicate with each other. I have spent time pointing out to my students why I personally think it is important to learn languages and listing reasons given by Languages Work and other organisations. I often find that their parents have great influence on their opinion and attitude to learning. Governmental guidelines, EU policies and my own biography clearly outline the importance of language skills. I cannot change the pupils' view immediately and maybe never will and have therefore decided to combine the seemingly popular subject ICT with MFL to research if this can increase pupils' motivation towards MFL. On the other hand pupils regard ICT as a necessity and so do their parents which increase their willingness to attend an ICT lesson as they can see its needs. Computer games are popular and the majority of pupils can be classified as "Digital Natives" as Marc Prensky calls the current generation of pupils. According to his research a college graduate will have spent an average of only 5,000 hours reading, "but over 10,000 hours playing video games (not to mention 20,000 hours watching TV) (Prensky, 2001, p1). "Computer games, email, the Internet, cell phones and instant messaging are integral parts of their lives" which makes it easy to convince pupils that learning about ICT is a necessity (Prensky, 2001, p1)...

Auteur

Birte currently teaches a 2nd grade German partial immersion class in the Lexington One School District in Lexington, SC. In her previous position as the Language Program Officer at the Goethe-Institut Birte managed multiple projects to promote learning German and about Germany. She also built a network of hundreds of teachers across the US to better support especially German and Social Studies teachers. Her background includes serving six in the Army, teaching, marketing and the non-profit sector. She is passionate about making education accessible for everyone. Follow her on Twitter @birtechen Her blog can be found here: birtechen.blogspot.com