Presentation at the EV Fair
2007 CALL Interest Section Special Events
The 41st Annual Convention TESOL 2007
March 21-24, 2007
Seattle, Washington
Presenter: Lyra Riabov
Associate Professor
Southern New Hampshire University
E-mail: l.riabov@snhu.edu
Website:http://acadweb.snhu.edu/riabov_lyra/ESL.htm
Technology for ESL Speaking and Culture Studies Activities and Projects
This presentation demonstrates how Professor Lyra Riabov Web-based Blackboard™,
her class website, and MS Power Point make student learning more effective in ESL 5
(Advanced) Oral Communication and Comparative Culture Study classes at the
Southern New Hampshire University, the Institute for Language Education The
attendees will look at the process from teacher and student perspectives through
exploring teacher- prepared resources and students’ activities and projects. Traditionally
known for mostly online education Blackboard™ technology is also can be successfully
used in a classroom or computer lab setting. A Blackboard™ course account offers
students an access to the Blackboard™ features including communication with each
other and the instructor at any time.
Discussion Forum students’ postings: increased dramatically the volume of students’
writing and reading, raised their motivation to participate in oral and written discussions,
supported the individual expression and learning, brought satisfaction for receiving
immediate peers’ feedback, increased the competition in discussing the content issues,
raised the awareness and need for improvement in grammar, vocabulary, and sentence
structure in order to achieve mutual understanding. Assignments, Announcements,
and External Links Blackboard™ features helped to organize and effectively manage
classroom and home work activities as well as make needed reading and the Internet
resources easily available at any time. Digital Drop Box Blackboard™ feature secured
privacy of the instructor’s corrections, comments and grades. Send E-mail feature
offered a convenient way of communicating with an individual or a group as a whole.
Students could exchange Word documents with comments, PowerPoint presentations,
and picture files as attachments to their discussions. Paper use was minimal.
International students appreciated the experience of e-learning and the Blackboard™
technology needed in the college undergraduate and graduate courses. Teachercreated class website served as a research resource for the student projects. MS
Power Point helped students to organize their materials and ideas and deliver effective
presentations of their projects
URL of the Prof. Lyra Riabov’s ESL/Culture courses website is:
http://acadweb.snhu.edu/riabov_lyra/ESL.htm
Student projects URL:
http://acadweb.snhu.edu/riabov_lyra/ESL_Student_Projects.htm
Authoring materials used: Microsoft FrontPage 2000, 2003, PowerPoint, MS Word,
Blackboard™: http://blackboard,snhu.edu