Chin-Chi Chao

Topic: Building in English Lessons as Young Students Programmed With Micro:bit: On Two Teachers’ Experiences

Abstract

This study documents a 10-week experience teaching elementary school students English while having them program via Micro:Bit. The complexity of this lesson included not just trying to build in English learning in a reasonable way while having the children program, but also eight of the classes were online with the teachers and students being in different locations. The eight children in this class were located in a remote village in northern Taiwan. Given that their families were heavily impacted by the pandemic due to loss of tourists, there were concerns about their learning interest. The two teachers who taught this class were very experienced elementary school English teachers, with strong digital technological skills and experiences. Upon receiving the mission to teach this class very different from their usual school English teaching, they were excited as they developed a plan right away. However, many adjustments must be made as the lessons went on, including incorporating multiple online tools and being flexible about what they wished to achieve with the little time they had with the children. At the final presentation, the teachers were happy to find that, despite all the changes, the children understood surprisingly more English than expected. The insight from this experience is the concept of "being flexible" as teachers,  drawing on the currently prevailing social media culture.

Bio data

Chin-Chi Chao is a professor of TESOL. She has published articles that explore relationships between language teachers and technology, including how language teaching identities may be related to teacher's technology use in school as well as in their participation on social media.