Foreign Language Education Learning with Video Games and Authentic Web Media Tasks. Abstract: In recent years, a sharp increase in the number of academic studies around the use of video games and new media for educational purposes has greatly expanded our understanding of their potential for enhancing learning. At the same time, the field of foreign language pedagogy has been racing to keep pace with the numerous opportunities afforded by the internet and interactive media forms. Surprisingly, however, there has been little cross- over between the two bodies of academic literature.
Sourcing Guide for Asian Tube: Lighting is one of the most important of all building systems, and we offer buyers thousands of lights to. OUTLINES FOR CONCEPTUAL UNITS. If you would like to recommend additional titles for this list, please send the title, author, and appropriate unit to [email protected]. Tony Fraction's Pizza Shop is one of the all time most popular games on mrnussbaum.com. Play the role of a pizza shop owner with five minutes to fulfill the. As Asian Americans originate from many different countries, each population has its own unique history. [2] The earliest immigration of Asian populations to North.
This site seeks to present many of the latest theories in game studies and new media literacies alongside theories of language learning. Numerous examples are presented of how video games and web applications such as The Sims 2, Grim Fandango, Google Earth, Social Networking, DVD functionality and others could shift the way we approach language learning. A nation housing over one- third of the earth's illiterate population, India has always been under immense pressure to improve its education system. Yet their challenge is formidable, for many of the cash- strapped provincial governments the extensive investment in proper classrooms and infrastructure required to support a modern education system is simply not feasible. Furthermore, even those governments capable of stretching their budgets far enough to provide schools and literacy training to their citizens often encounter lackluster results, as they struggle to motivate students to set aside their work and everyday obligations in order to attend classes and devote time to studying materials that have little apparent connection to the rest of their life. As a result, many adults ultimately choose to live their lives without any regular exposure to literacy training.
If we look at the slums of Ahmedabad city, however, we see a very different picture. While formal schooling is still well outside the reach of much of the population, many people do have some form of access to a television.
In particular, many of them choose to watch the popular television series Chitrageet, a weekly broadcast of music videos for popular Gujarati film songs. Noticing this, rather than constructing a traditional educational infrastructure focused on dedicated study periods, literacy researchers opted instead to insert pedagogical interventions directly into Chitrageet. Building upon techniques previously used for foreign language subtitling, they are able to modify Chitrageet to deliver same- language synchronized subtitles designed to facilitate literacy at a cost of US$0. While initially there were concerns that such a simplistic layering of pedagogical content would simply be ignored by viewers, the results from their study show a significant increase in viewer literacy rates versus a control group over a period of 1. Interestingly, rather than seeing the pedagogical interventions as detracting from their entertainment experience, 9.
N=7. 04) indicated a preference for the intervention over the non- subtitled version - - as literacy became a tool that could help them better understand the lyrics used in Chitrageet. Additionally, many viewers pro- actively requested further educational materials related to Chitrageet. In the developed world, we are fortunate to be able to devote a reasonable portion of our disposable income towards independently developing and delivering dedicated educational content, rather than being forced to build upon already existing popular culture materials such as was done with Chitrageet. Overall, this is undoubtedly a good thing; the establishment of dedicated educational institutions grants us considerable latitude in methodically constructing systematic and well structured learning experiences. At the same time, though, we need to question if our current means is always the best way of constructing a learning experience.
As the work with Chitrageet demonstrates, there are often instances in which breaking through the barriers that distinguish entertainment culture from educational culture allows us to construct far more engaging learning environments. Successfully blending education and entertainment, however, is not always simple task. In the early 9. 0's, emerging popular media like video games seemed a panacea for educators hoping to sneak small fragments of learning content inside the everyday entertainment activities of youth. Back then, "edutainment" titles abounded; however, most failed so spectacularly that video game developers today routinely go out of their way to ensure that people do not consider their games as educational.
Rather than meaningfully including learning experiences as part of a larger well- designed game experience, the original wave of edutainment titles unfortunately were built upon poorly designed games that occasionally halted, forcing players to learn educational content before allowing them return to the game. Jenkins)(Wright)(note: all sound files in this document are edited.
If we examine previous attempts at 'edutainment', one clear theme emerges: there must be a strong match between the educational content to be delivered and the content or mechanics of the entertainment media being harnessed - - similar to the way the Chitrageet researchers were able to transform literacy into an integral tool that facilitated understanding of lyrics and actually improve the entertainment process. Perhaps the educational discipline with the greatest possibilities for removing this barrier between formal education and popular entertainment, then, is foreign language education. Here, one of the primary goals of the discipline is to allow people to discuss and participate in the consumption of everyday foreign media. It makes sense, then, that foreign language educators already have a strong history of incorporating everyday activities into their lessons. With the current emphasis on extending communicative language teaching methodology to center around task- based instruction, many of the tasks people engage in outside of the classroom are actually the central core of a foreign language classroom.
Task- Based Language Teaching proposes the notion of "task" as a central unit of planning and teaching. Although definitions of task vary in TBLT, there is a commonsensical understanding that a task is an activity or goal that is carride out using language, such as finding a solution to a puzzle, reading a map and giving directions, making a telephone call, writing a letter, or reading a set of instructions and assembling a toy .. The key assumptions of task- based instruction are summarized by Feez (1. The focus is on process rather than product.
Basic elements are purposeful activities and tasks that emphasize communication and meaning. Learners learn language by interacting communicatively and purposefully while engaged in the activities and tasks. Activities and tasks can be either. Activities and tasks of a task- based syllabus are sequenced according to difficulty. The difficulty of a task depends on a range of factors including the previous experience of the learner, the complexity of the task, the language required to undertake the task, and the degree of support available.[Continued Below]While in some cases dedicated individual teachers have been able orchestrate successful and engaging task- based classrooms, we are only beginning to understand how to systematically produce mainstream curricular materials for task- based instruction. Because of its links to Communicative Language Teaching methodology and support from some prominent SLA theorists, TBLT has gained considerable attention within applied linguistics, though there have been few large- scale practical applications of it. Instructional materials play an important role in TBLT because it is dependent on a sufficient supply of appropriate classroom tasks, some of which may require considerable time, ingenuity, and resources to develop.
Thus, there is a clear psycholinguistic rationale (and substantial empirical support) for choosing 'task' as the basis for language pedagogy. One might expect, therefore, to find task- based courses figuring strongly in current language education.
However, this is not the case. As Candlin (2. 00. Similarly, task- based courses do not figure strongly in publishers' catalogues of teaching materials. Thus, while many published courses often claim to be 'task- based', a close inspection reveals that they are not. Task- based Language Learning and Teaching - - Rod Ellis This places curricular designers in a seemingly impossible predicament. On the one hand, the theory pushes them to create activities and experiences ideally as rich and authentic as those attained outside of school.
On the other hand, the market conditions for introductory foreign language curricular designers in the U. S. affords them far fewer resources or production times as compared to out- of- school industries. This is particularly the case for homework assignments; yet homework often constitutes a sizable portion of a student's engagement with the learning process and should not be marginalized. Unfortunately, some designers have chosen to lower production costs by designing materials specifically to be content agnostic and instantly reusable. Yet this approach to simplifying the production process entirely abdicates any responsibility to incorporate any naturalistic, task- based or other modern language learning theories - - greatly diminishing the real world value of any communicative theory on mainstream materials for U.
S. introductory language classes. Like with Chitrageet, educational designers in the U. S. hoping to fully realize modern theories of language acquisition will need to be extremely innovative in order to do so with the limited resources available.
Asian Americans - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Asian Americans are Americans of Asian descent.
The U. S. Census Bureau definition of Asians refers to a person having origins in any of the original peoples of the Far East, Southeast Asia, or the Indian subcontinent.[5] It includes people who indicated their race(s) as "Asian" or reported entries such as "Indian", "Chinese", "Filipino", "Korean", "Japanese", "Vietnamese", and "Other Asian" or provided other detailed Asian responses. They comprise 4. 8% of the U. S. population alone, while people who are Asian combined with at least one other race make up 5. As of 2. 01. 2[update], Asian Americans had the highest educational attainment level and median household income of any racial demographic in the country,[2][6] and in 2. Terminology[edit]As with other racial and ethnicity based terms, formal and common usage have changed markedly through the short history of this term. Prior to the late 1.
Asian ancestry were usually referred to as Oriental, Asiatic, and Mongoloid.[9][1. The term Asian American was coined by historian Yuji Ichioka, who is credited with popularizing the term, to frame a new "inter- ethnic- pan- Asian American self- defining political group" in the late 1. The Hart- Celler Act of 1. Asian racial background.[1.
The new system, based on skills and family connections to U. S. residents, enabled significant immigration from every nation in Asia, which led to dramatic and ongoing changes in the Asian American population. As a result of these population changes, the formal and common understandings of what defines Asian American have expanded to include more of the peoples with ancestry from various parts of Asia. Because of their more recent immigration, new Asian immigrants also have had different educational, economic and other characteristics than early 2. They also tend to have different employment and settlement patterns in the United States. Today, Asian American is the accepted term for most formal purposes, such as government and academic research, although it is often shortened to Asian in common usage. The most commonly used definition of Asian American is the US Census Bureau definition of Asian,[1.
Census definitions determine many government classifications, notably for equal opportunity programs and measurements. People with origins in the Far East, Southeast Asia and the Indian Subcontinent are included in the Census definition of Asia.[1.
The use of a separate "Asian" category in the Census is a recent addition, beginning in 1. Since then, the Census definitions have varied.
The 2. 00. 0 census divided the Asian- Pacific Islander group and created Pacific Islander ethnicities as a separate category. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, "Asian person" in the United States is sometimes thought of as a person of East Asian descent.[1. In vernacular usage, "Asian" is often used to refer to those of East Asian descent or anyone else of Asian descent with epicanthic eyefolds.[1. This differs from the U. S. Census definition[1.
Asian American Studies departments of many universities consider those of East, South or Southeast Asian descent with or without epicanthic eyefolds to be "Asian".[1. In the US Census, people who originate from the indigenous peoples of the Far East,[5][2. Indian subcontinent,[5][2. Southeast Asia[5][2. Asian race; [2. 0] while those who originate from the indigenous peoples of North Asia (Russians, Siberians), Central Asia (Kazakhs, Uzbeks, Turkmens etc.), the Middle East (diaspora Jews, Turks, Persians, West Asian Arabs etc.), and the Caucasus (Georgians, Armenians, Azeris) are classified as "White".[2. Before 1. 98. 0, Census forms listed particular Asian ancestries as separate groups, along with White and Black or Negro.[2.
Asian Americans had also been classified as "other".[2. In 1. 97. 7, the federal Office of Management and Budget issued a directive requiring government agencies to maintain statistics on racial groups, including on "Asian or Pacific Islander".[2.
The 1. 98. 0 census marked the first classification of Asians as a large group, combining several individual ancestry groups into "Asian or Pacific Islander." By the 1. Asian or Pacific Islander (API) was included as an explicit category, although respondents had to select one particular ancestry.[2. In the 2. 00. 0 census, people reporting Jewish, Arab, Iranian, or Turkish ancestry but not reporting race are presumed to be in the White race category rather than Asian.[1. The definition of Asian American has variations that derive from the use of the word American in different contexts. Immigration status, citizenship (by birthright and by naturalization), acculturation, and language ability are some variables that are used to define American for various purposes and may vary in formal and everyday usage.[2. For example, restricting American to include only U. S. citizens conflicts with discussions of Asian American businesses, which generally refer both to citizen and non- citizen owners.[2.
In a PBS interview from 2. Asian American writers discussed how some groups include people of Middle Eastern descent in the Asian American category.[2.
Asian American author Stewart Ikeda has noted, "The definition of 'Asian American' also frequently depends on who's asking, who's defining, in what context, and why.. Asian- Pacific American' are many, complex, and shifting.. Asian American Studies conferences suggest that Russians, Iranians, and Israelis all might fit the field's subject of study."[3. Jeff Yang, of the Wall Street Journal, writes that the pan- ethnic definition of Asian American is a unique American construct, and as an identity is in "beta".[3. Demographics[edit]. Asian American population percentage by state in 2.
Asian percentage by County, 2. The demographics of Asian Americans describe a heterogeneous group of people in the United States who can trace their ancestry to one or more countries in Asia.[3. Because Asian Americans comprise 5% of the entire U. S. population, the diversity of the group is often disregarded in media and news discussions of "Asians" or of "Asian Americans." While there are some commonalities across ethnic sub- groups, there are significant differences among different Asian ethnicities that are related to each group's history.[3. The demographics of Asian Americans can further be subdivided into: South Asian Americans, including Bangladeshi Americans, Bhutanese Americans, Indian Americans, Nepalese Americans, Pakistani Americans, and Sri Lankan Americans. East Asian Americans, including Chinese Americans, Japanese Americans, Korean Americans, Mongolian Americans, Tibetan Americans and Taiwanese Americans. Southeast Asian Americans, including Burmese Americans, Cambodian Americans, Filipino Americans, Hmong Americans, Indonesian Americans, Laotian Americans, Malaysian Americans, Mien Americans, Singaporean Americans, Thai Americans, and Vietnamese Americans.
Religion[edit]According to a Pew research as of July, 2. Asian Americans religious identify as.[3. Christian. 26% are unaffiliated with any religion. Buddhist. 10% Hindu. Muslim. 2% Other religion. Sikh. History[edit]As Asian Americans originate from many different countries, each population has its own unique history.[2]The earliest immigration of Asian populations to North America occurred in the 1.
By 1. 58. 7, when both the Philippines and vast swathes of North America were colonized by the Spanish Empire, "Luzonians" arrived in Morro Bay, (San Luis Obispo) California on board the Manila- built galleon ship Nuestra Senora de Esperanza under the command of Spanish Captain Pedro de Unamuno.[3. In 1. 63. 5, an "East Indian" is listed in Jamestown, Virginia; [3. Indian immigrants settling on the East Coast of the United States beginning in the 1. In 1. 76. 3, Filipinos established the small settlement of Saint Malo, Louisiana, after fleeing mistreatment aboard Spanishships.[4. Since there were no Filipino women with them, these Manilamen, as they were known, married Cajun and Native American women.[4.
Chinese sailors first came to Hawaii in 1. Captain James Cook came upon the island. Many settled and married Hawaiian women.
Some Island- born Chinese can claim to be 7th generation. Most Chinese, Korean and Japanese immigrants in Hawaii arrived in the 1. Later, Filipinos also came to work as laborers, attracted by the job opportunities, although they were limited.[4. Chinese began arriving to the West Coast of what is now the United States in the mid- 1. After hearing stories of incredible wealth in California's Gum Shan or Gold Mountain, Chinese started to immigrate to California. During the early 1. Chinese immigrants in California were involved in the mining business.[4.
By 1. 85. 2, the number of Chinese immigrants in San Francisco had jumped to more than twenty thousand. The next big thing that attracted Chinese immigrants was the construction of the transcontinental railroad.
In 1. 86. 2, the construction of the Railroad started in Sacramento; this caused another Chinese movement. When the Gold Rush hype had died down, Chinese immigrants became unemployed. When the Railroad construction began, Chinese slowly migrated inland to work as construction workers.[4. The first Japanese person to come to the United States, and stay any significant period of time was Nakahama Manjir. ЕЌ who reached the East Coast in 1.
In 1. 85. 8, Joseph Heco, became the first naturalized Japanese American U. S. Citizen.[5. 1] Japanese immigration to the United States did not begin in any significant numbers until after the Meiji Restoration, which occurred in 1. Although the absolute numbers of Asian immigrants in the late 1. West, and the increase caused some Americans to fear the change represented by the growing number of Asians. This fear was referred to as the "yellow peril".
The United States passed laws such as Asian Exclusion Act and Chinese Exclusion Act to sharply restrict Asian immigration.[5.