Posted At : November 14, 2008 12:11 PM 0 Comments
Recently I blogged about Learnosity's project with The Le@rning Federation. I have just been sent an article from South Australian newspaper AdelaideNow about the project. It is included below.
ONCE a teacher's nightmare in the classroom, mobile phones are now resurfacing as a legitimate learning aid.
While many schools maintain strict classroom bans, St Johns Grammar is encouraging mobiles as part of an Australian-first trial to promote the benefits of mobile technology in increasing fluency in foreign languages.
The Year 10 students, studying Indonesian, are given a mobile each which they use to call up an automated service that guides them through a menu. They choose from conversations about booking a hotel to a menu and are prompted to go through the details in Indonesian.
Their answers are uploaded on to a website and get marked on their use of the language.
The class is among 250 students and teachers throughout South Australia, Victoria and Tasmania taking part in the unique trial by the the Government's Le@rning Federation's Mobile Applications for Language Learning project.
St Johns Grammar Indonesian teacher Sally Letcher said her students were gaining extra confidence in their language skills during the trial.
"It takes away the fear of talking to a real person and builds up their confidence and extends their vocab," she said.
Students can also call each other in the classroom, but the phones cannot call normal mobile phones.
Year 10 student Miranda Daughtry, 15, said the program had helped her vocabulary and she was building confidence in putting her language skills to use.
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