Wiki Use in Foreign Language

Hi, Nancy! I was introduced to PBworks (then PBwiki) in the spring of 2009. I began to create my own professional wiki (http://amaestra.pbworks.com) . At the end of this school year, I just had students visit my wiki to listen to the messages (in Spanish) that I programmed into my Voki avatar. They would come to class the next day with the message written on a piece of paper (for extra credit). I was surprised how many students didn't know what a wiki or an avatar was. This summer (thanks in great part to the PBworks Summer Camp!) I have worked on putting some of my tech activities onto my wiki, so when my students have to visit a website they can get the link right off of my wiki. I also hope to have students post some projects and reports onto my wiki. But since so many didn't know much about Web 2.0 technology, I'll introduce them to some terminology and have them do basic things (like visit my Voki avatar) before having them sign onto some pages of my wiki as writers. I also hope to translate into Spanish the instructions of how to join my wiki community and info about wiki etiquette, and go over all of this with them in class, to help ease the transition into Web 2.0 -dom.

If you visit my wiki, please give me some feedback - I'd love to hear what another FL teacher thinks of it and how I can make it better!

Thanks! ¡Gracias!

Hi!
I am teaching business english (TBE) and business texts translation to russian studens. I'm russian myself. When we meet in class weekly, we speak and discuss  topics in russian. But all other time - online - all communications, emails and wiki website inself - all goes in English ( except when they post texts translations from English into russian).
So we switch languages all the time. The aim is  to get  a bilingual person, fluent in several languages at the same time ( All students are linguists, they aslo study third languages - French, Korean, Chinese, Spanish and other). You can have a look at my site - http://evabasilvk.pbworks.com - it's open (no password) and let me know here if you have any other questions! I'll be glad to share!

Kind
Irina

Anne - you have a very nice wiki! It appears to be very well organized and easy to navigate. I love how you are putting all of your instructions in Spanish. I have done so for assignments, but have kept everything else in English for parents and colleagues to understand. 

Last year I experimented with using a wiki for my Spanish 3 classes. One feature I loved and will continue to use is to link a Google calendar of assignments to the wiki. This was great for students to view when they were unable to be in school. I also uploaded classroom hand-outs and PowerPoint presentations for the lessons we studied. This year I hope to expand my wiki by adding more resources for students to access and by creating more interactive assignments. I'm also thinking about having each of my students create his/her own page for assignments or journaling activities. Do you think this would work, or would it be a grading nightmare? 

I am in the process of creating a Spanish 2 wiki. It is public right now if you would like to view it ( http://espanoloco2.pbworks.com). Please remember that it is a work in progress!

I created my first wiki last year for my Spanish 3 classes. It was available for students to access a calendar of assignments, be able to download hand-outs and presentations given in class, and access resources to help them study a foreign language.

I also tried some interactive assignments to get my students writing in Spanish. One assignment was to have students work together in small groups to write their own version of the last chapter of a mystery novel that we had been reading in class (I purposefully did not give them the original last chapter to read). They had to write in the same style as the author and solve the mystery according to their point of view. I created a page on the wiki for each group to use. I was pleased that most of them were collaborating outside of class from their home computers or from computers provided in study halls. I could see who contributed by following the page history on each of the student pages. I was also able to make suggestions about their grammatical and vocabulary usage as they created their pages. My comments were written in a different colored text on their workspace rather than in the comment section. Students were able to delete my comments after editing their text. It was great seeing the kids collaborate and use Spanish outside of the classroom!

Another assignment I tried was to have students give suggestions or recommendations to problems posted to Dr. Felipe (Doctor Phil). The students generated several "problems" for Dr. Felipe to solve. I posted the best on separate pages in the wiki. Students had to select 5 problems and write a response using the Subjunctive to make recommendations. I gave credit for participation and for correct usage of the Subjunctive, but it was time-consuming to grade. My students enjoyed reading the comments of others, but some only echoed the comments of others. If anyone has suggestions for how to make this assignment better, let me know.

Nancyroberts, these are simply wonderful ideas. I teach English as a foreign language and would like to try them out. I really love that we get out of this camp heaps of great ideas!

I have been using a wiki with my ESL students in a reading/writing class. In addition to dissemination of information (homework, handouts, etc), the students put up work.  For example, they put up their weekly journal assignment, which other students read and comment on.  I also have them do group work sometimes.

Anne - you have a very nice wiki! It appears to be very well organized and easy to navigate. I love how you are putting all of your instructions in Spanish. I have done so for assignments, but have kept everything else in English for parents and colleagues to understand. 
Last year I experimented with using a wiki for my Spanish 3 classes. One feature I loved and will continue to use is to link a Google calendar of assignments to the wiki. This was great for students to view when they were unable to be in school. I also uploaded classroom hand-outs and PowerPoint presentations for the lessons we studied. This year I hope to expand my wiki by adding more resources for students to access and by creating more interactive assignments. I'm also thinking about having each of my students create his/her own page for assignments or journaling activities. Do you think this would work, or would it be a grading nightmare? 
I am in the process of creating a Spanish 2 wiki. It is public right now if you would like to view it ( [url]). Please remember that it is a work in progress!

-nancyroberts

Nancy
How did you like using google calendar for your homework? Did you embed it from the wiki productivity tools? I had tried that last year for homework, but it got really cluttered so I just created a table on a page where I listed homework with date. I did 3 columns, date, assigned, due. This worked fine, but I think the visual of a calendar would work better for the students. I think my problem was that I tried to list all 3 classes I taught on one calendar. . .which is why it became cluttered.

In regards to your initial question, I too have used my wiki as a way to disseminate information to my students, but am hoping to make it a little more interactive this year. I liked the ideas for your Spanish 3 class and the journaling idea is neat--I would love to hear ideas for grading it. :)

Here is my wiki: kmcspanish.pbworks.com

Have any of you figured out how to type international characters on your wiki (accents, etc.)? I usually type the letter, word, phrase, etc. in Word and cut and paste into my wiki, but there has to be a better way. Thanks for the help.

I teach English (and French) as a foreign language to German students aged 12 to 19. My favourite wiki use is for interactive writing tasks. One reason being that I like students to base their work on real communication, i. e. they should provide each other with information they do not know yet and then base their discussions on it. My big tasks are to come up with a good idea that allows students to work in different directions, to provide rules, tools (online dictionary) and constructive feedback.
My last project was a "Teen Magazine", grade 7, 3rd year English. Students discussed categories for their magazine in class. I then created the folders they had agreed upon, e. g. music, sports, jokes, holiday destinations .... We also discussed how a wiki could expand the possibilities of an ordinary magazine and we looked at some examples: slideshows, youtube etc. By then, most of the students were quite excited about what they could do and I just had to help with language questions and encourage them to comment on other students' articles - in English.
Unfortunately, our school is not very well equipped. We do not have enough computers, no cameras, no microphones, no sound (!). Most of the students have all these things at home and use them there.

In regards to the Google calendar, I created a calendar for each level of Spanish I teach and one for general school information. I have assigned a different color to each one. You can do this on the left-hand side of the calendar under My Calendars. There is a link to create and a link to Settings. Under Settings you can copy the code for whatever calendars you want to imbed. For example, in my Spanish 3 wiki, I have chosen to imbed only the Spanish 3 calendar and the general calendar.  It works out well and my level 3 students do not have to worry about what the other levels are doing. I plan to do the same for my level 2 classes. The good thing is that I only have to go to one site on Google to input information into each calendar. It makes it so easy. I'm thinking about posting all assignments online this year rather than keeping a written calendar in the classroom. This way kids who are absent can access what we are doing from home.  

I have created a page on my wiki for students to access. You may go there if you like to find the numerical codes I use for Spanish. Just remember my wiki is a work in progress!

http://espanoloco2.pbworks.com/How-to-Add-Accents

I am thinking of having students create their own class dictionary, a different student being responsible for adding the new words each week. Does anybody have experience or ideas to share on working with vocabulary?

Hey, Nancy! Thanks for checking out my wiki! I just checked out your wiki - pretty cool! I left a couple of comments for you there. I am SO getting into this technology!