Forum LAMS Lounge Forum: ESL or Languages

I haven't actually used LAMS with real ESL/EFL or language students, but I have tried to imagine how I would do it.

One activity that I think would work is to use the Google News site in a foreign language and get the students to look at that through Share Resources.

The students can then be taken through some questions/discussions about the news they've read in forum or chat (in a foreign language or whatever is required).

LAMS V2 has been translated into over 30 languages I think, so you could even run LAMS in the language that the student is most comfortable with - and swap them to English (or whatever) when they are comfortable using the system.

I'm still getting my head around how setting up LAMS in a foreign language works, but hopefully some more experienced LAMS V2 users will give you some more input.

Let us know how you go

Cheers,
Bronwen

Posted by Bronwen Dalziel

Fiona Malikoff here - technical lead for the LAMS 2.0 project. Can't help with the teaching angle but I can clarify Bronwen's comment on the LAMS v2 translations.

LAMS 2.0 will probbaly be coming out with less than 30 languages. We have over 20 languages in translation but the translations aren't all complete and we will only release the completed translations.

Our translators are doing a sterling job of trying to keep up the translation work as we do the development, and we really appreciate the work they are doing!

Now before you all get too disappointed, the translation files can be added after you install LAMS so we are planning on releasing new language packs over the coming months, as the translations are completed.

In LAMS 2.0, you will be able to set one language as the server language, and another language as the user's language. So if your server is in English, then you could set up Maria to use Spanish. All the text you enter will be in English (or whatever language you use to type it in), but Maria will see the general headings on the screen, the buttons for Save, Continue, Next, etc, in Spanish.

Then when Maria is more comfortable with LAMS, then she can be switched to use English as her language. If they use LAMS enough, students will gradually get familiar with which button to hit next - you should see me trying to operate LAMS in Korean or Arabic and I'm sitting there going now which button was save and which button was cancel!

Changing a user's language will need to be done by someone with the appropriate administration rights - the user can't change the language themselves in 2.0.

Hope this helps!

Fiona

Posted by Fiona Malikoff

I've used LAMS in the ESL/EFL context. I recently did some workshops in Wuhan China with LAMS. It worked very well because the workshops were conducted in English but my students' first language was Chinese. The class was a mix of students (PhD and Masters) and teachers.

One activity that worked really well was:

1. I introduced a case study written in English via the Share Resources tool in LAMS (online).

2. Participants in the workshop read the case study individually. (offline)

3. In pairs, participants discussed the case study - (face to face) - in Chinese if they wanted. (offline)

4. Students contributed a shared response to the forum and Q & A in English (paired activity, online).

5. We then had a further debrieging discussion of this (offline) - face to face - in English.

I thought this was a successful way of combining English with first language interactions. It took the pressure off students having to use English all the time, but still gave us a record of the discussion for later reference if we wanted it. It also combined individual and collaborative activities.

And it was more fun doing it this way than on your own. If you work with a partner too, your ideas can be challenged - first one-to-one, and then by the wider group.

I should add the sequence to the repository!

I recommend this as a strategy.

Robyn

Posted by Robyn Philip