THE IMPACT OF GOOGLE VOICE

The Impact of Google Voice on Students Mandarin Listening and Speaking An Action Research Project Fan Zheng Michigan State University December 15th 2012

THE IMPACT OF GOOGLE VOICE Abstract In this action research study of my mandarin level 2 students (10th grade), I investigated the use of Google voice homework, to see if it had any impact on students listening and speaking, regarding their confidence and attitude, after school time devotion, and oral test results. Both qualitative and quantitative research methods were employed in designing the research. Data was collected in different forms, including survey, interviews, interactive homework and test scores. According to the result analyzed, I discovered that students devoted more time in practicing oral Chinese after school averagely with the use of Google voice. For three topics tested, the average students test scores increased hugely by 20% to 30% and all of the standard deviation decreased. Regretfully, there was no distinguished change on students confidence and attitude which might due to the limitation of the short research period.

THE IMPACT OF GOOGLE VOICE The Impact of Google Voice on Students Mandarin Listening and Speaking Introduction When being asked the question whats your long term goal for learning Chinese?, many of students answered to talk to Chinese people fluently or to speak Chinese fluently. This goal is usually hard to achieve because they seldom devote much time practicing Chinese orally after class. This semester, I was assigned to the a different high school and when I asked the Level 2 students Chinese questions they have learned in level 1, most of them can hardly understand the questions, and are unable to respond to them. For instance, for the question what do you like to eat, for the total number of 14 students, only 4 of them understood the word eat, 7 understood the word like, and 2 answered the question correctly. I carried out the survey afterwards investigating what kind of listening or oral practice they had in the past year, it was stated by all of the students that they simply practiced the conversation with their partners in the class upon finishing learning the new lesson (10 conversations for the whole year) and there was no listening practice other than watching the video of those conversations. Therefore, they could hardly understand or speak in Chinese with the limited chance of listening and speaking practice during and after class. In this case, I want my students to spend more time on both the listening and speaking part in order to be more successful in oral Chinese. I want to push them to practice as much as I can, not only during the class, but also after class. Based on the fact that oral homework is hard to collect, I carried out my action research focusing on the usage of Google voice to submit students oral homework. I also want to know if the assignment will have any impact on both students listening/speaking time devotion and speaking scores. Thus, I would like to research on the following questions: How will Google voice affect the time that students devote to speaking and listening practice, respectively, after school? Will

THE IMPACT OF GOOGLE VOICE the use of Google Voice affect the oral test scores of my students? If yes, what is the difference of the students performance? How will the use of Google voice impact on the students confidence and attitude toward speaking Chinese? Theoretical Framework To perform well in the Mandarin oral test, means that students should be able to understand what others say and use the vocabulary and grammar they learn to respond successfully to others. For second language learners (SLL), to understand what other people are talking about is the listening part, which is the input, and to be able to respond or express is the speaking part, which refers to the output. Stephen Krashen proposed the Input Hypothesis which pointed out that learners acquire language by hearing and understanding messages that are a little bit above his/her present level (Krashen, 1985). It should be noted that input must be comprehensive which means the instructor should make effort to present the words or content in an understandable way. Thus, for students to be successful in speaking, they need to be immersed in as much comprehensive input as possible (Hayns, 2005). Though Swain (1985) proposed the Output hypothesis that second language acquisition do needs output to obtain proficiency, Krashen argued with evidence that methods basing on Comprehensible Output can bring students great anxiety, which he gave an example that Ten anxious foreign language students interviewed by Price (1991) stated that their greatest source of anxiety was having to speak the target language in front of their peers (p. 313) (Krashen, 1998). Therefore, speaking tasks assigned as homework will best serve the purpose of increasing students comprehensive output while minimizing their anxiety level. Literature Review

THE IMPACT OF GOOGLE VOICE My research question are that How will Google voice affect the time that students devote to speaking and listening practice, respectively, after school? Will the use of Google Voice affect the oral test scores of my students? If yes, what is the difference of the students performance? How will the use of Google voice impact on the students confidence and attitude toward speaking Chinese? With these questions in mind and the theories I based on, I searched online and scanned about 30 articles, which were then narrowed down to 10 for reviewing according to my topic. For all the articles I reviewed, they are sorted into three themes students motivation for doing homework, and comparison of technologies available for oral assignments, and comprehensive input and oral assignment of different forms. First of all, according to my past teaching experience, students always carried a negative attitude towards homework. In this case, I wanted to know what motivate the students most to practice or do homework after school, so that I would have a better idea of how to design assignments accordingly. Next, I compared all different kinds of technology/tools that could be used to assign speaking task after class in order to see if Google Voice is the best choice and what kind of impact Google voice or other similar technologies have on students listening and speaking time devotion. Thus, the third theme is the comparison of different technology and their impact on time devotion. Some of the technologies I had heard or used before, but some I have never. For example, I found out a web 2.0 tool called Voki, which seems so interesting and I have never tried. Based on Krashens Input hypothesis, comprehensible input was the cause of language acquisition and students would not be able to have the satisfying output. Thus, my next step was to search for what kind of comprehensible input did teachers usually offer, and among all those,

THE IMPACT OF GOOGLE VOICE what I may use to design my listening input assignments. I also searched for various kinds of oral practice people usually assign after school and if I can use the Google voice to assign similar or same kind of homework that related to the comprehensible input. Therefore, the last theme is comprehensive input and oral assignment of different forms. Regretfully, I had not found out any articles researching on the impact of any technology on the result of students listening or oral practice/assignment after class. All I found about this field were the tools to use, and no data collected to indicate the influence it would bring to the students. Students motivation for doing homework Motivation is related to achievement. According to the research, motivation is highly related to achievement (Broussard & Garrison, 2004). Therefore, the more motivated the students are to practice listening and speaking, the better learning outcome will be. In this section, I investigated articles about what motivates students to do homework, since oral homework is the kind I am going to assign. For students, there are two kinds of motivation, one is intrinsic, and another is extrinsic. Intrinsic motivation is about personal enjoyment, interest, or pleasure, while the extrinsic motivation is governed by reinforcement contingencies. (Lai, 2011) Then what is teachers role in motivating students? Based on another research that Grades, rewards, praise, punishments, public recognition and phone calls home are the most widely used extrinsic motivations in the class (Shindler, 2008). Among the above extrinsic motivations, grades are the most prevalent example of a formal extrinsic motivator used in schools( Shindler, 2008). Traditional grading system such as scores in the test is only a symbol for students, thus to integrate more authentic measures such

THE IMPACT OF GOOGLE VOICE as performance assessment rubrics will be more motivational than more artificial uses such as a total of the number of correct responses on a worksheet( Shindler, 2008). Intrinsic motivation is what motivates students from their inner-self (Lumsden, 1994). According to the U.S. Department of Education, by celebrating student success daily, applying learning to future career aspects, and offering chances for student choices, teachers have greater chance to make classes more fun and interactive. ("Student motivation,") I investigated into student choices in detail. In Guthries research (2000), he listed different kinds of autonomy that teachers may emphasize such as empowering students to choose specific subtopics, texts, and modes of expressing their understanding in culminating projects. Also, as Stipek (1996) stated, there could be many forms of student choices, including providing students with rubrics and tables that they can grade their own work and track their own achievement, giving students more freedom of when and how to finish assignments and more choice of topics to select and ways to present their work, and creating agreements between teachers and students concerning the timeline of handing in the assignments. When I consulted my mentor teacher, Lindsey, about the motivators she used in the class, she told me Although we want all of our students to be intrinsically motivated, but it is not realistic in our real world of teaching, because it is hard to satisfy the needs of all of them and every student is unique. I agreed with her. For example, when I have song time, which is considered to be the fun time in learning the language, there were still one or two students who had no interest at all. Therefore, she suggested me that I should combine both extrinsic and intrinsic motivators, which would lead to success of majority students, and prepare choices in advance. Comparison of Technologies Available for Oral Assignments

THE IMPACT OF GOOGLE VOICE I want to use Google voice for my action research paper. I need to find out if it s the best choice for the students so far. Is it the kind of application that is easiest to use compared to any other, so that students will be able to practice more, and turn in the assignment without too much trouble after school? Also, are Google voice assignments most convenient for teachers to collect and grade? While I search online, there are dozens of applications available, including Voki, Voicethread, Iphone, Google Voice, Skype, bubble joy, eyejot, etc. (Deubelbeiss, 2011). According to their options available, there are mainly three types audio &video, audio only, video only. Besides, they can also be divided into needing support of Internet or not, needing support of computer/laptop or not. If all the students had computer/laptop with webcam, mic, internet access at home, then they could videotape themselves, post it on the website like Youtube or screencast, and send the link to me. Sending videos to the website might not be the best choice. First, it is not very large chance that every student will process all the equipment needed at home. Second, it is a little bit time-consuming to do it on a daily basis from recording, uploading to sending the link to the teacher since video files will not be small. Compared to uploading videos, Voicethread tend to fit into my purpose better, it provides interaction between students and it has visual as well. Student can upload any picture and they can common on each others threads. However, again, it requires every student to have computer/laptop, mic and Internet access at home. Are Iphone or other kind of smartphone good choice since many students have smart phone now? The answer is positive. Eyejot can be used both through smartphone or website basis. If a student does not have Internet access, but has a data-plan with Iphone, he/she can

THE IMPACT OF GOOGLE VOICE create an Eyejot by recording the voice, selecting the picture to go with it, and sending this video mail from anywhere anytime. It can be posted directly to social websites such as twitter or Facebook. Thus now, students can use either way-a smartphone or website to create the video mail. Nevertheless, the limitation is still whether all the students need to have either smart phone or internet and PC/laptop access. Finally, there is something that almost everyone has-phone. It can be either mobile phone or home phone, as long as it has the function to dial! We need to sign up a free Gmail in the first place. Next, we can set up a Google voice number under the Google account. Last, we connect our own phone to the Google voice number to make it work, but we can choose not to direct any voicemail to our own phone. Then we can give out this number to our students, which keeps our privacy by not giving out our own number. Now students can use the phone to record the voice and leave the voicemail in our Google account mailbox anytime anywhere they want! The best thing is that we can even embed the voicemail into any website so students can listen to each others voice! Most importantly, since all the assignment will be in the teachers mailbox, it makes the collection not as hard for the teacher anymore! Comprehensive input and oral assignment of different forms As Krashen (1998) stated in his book, comprehensive input doesnt mean students need to already know every single words and sentence pattern in the context, but rather need to understand what the instructor or the material is saying and it should be a little bit more difficult than the leaners current level so that he/she will be pushed to learn whats beyond his knowledge and ability. Therefore, I tried to find out different forms of input that is comprehensible and will benefit students most. The tools I found that can be used to create comprehensive input include comic books, side-by-side reading and Rosetta Stone. In the

THE IMPACT OF GOOGLE VOICE

classroom setting, teachers may provide as much visual aid including total Physical Response and

designing visual projects such as road map projects. Then I searched online for different types of assignments that other teachers had tried out, such as reciting part of the text book after class, answering the questions orally after reading them, recording the dialogue/passage/song, ringing each other and talking to each other in the target language ("Teaching tips 38:," 2012; menombreestu , 2012). In addition, I found out oral homework which needs no technology to collect at all. For example, students can use the self-monitoring checklist to jot down the time they read the text or they can be assigned with interactive homework, which requires to be signed by the parents. This is hard to enforce because of the lack of self-discipline which may result in cheating and parents may be too busy to support as well. Methods Research settings and participants Totally 14 level two Mandarin learning students from Regina High School, warren, Michigan, participated in the research. All students were at 10th grade and had learned Mandarin for one year. The age was in range of 14-15 years old with 11 white, 2 African-America and 1 Asian concerning the ethnicity. All the students were females. The study began on Oct. 29, 2012, and lasted 4 weeks. Research design and data collection methods Research was conducted using both descriptive and group comparison designs that employ quantitative approaches. Besides, there was also qualitative data collected by interviews. Since there was only one group, the preexperimental design was selected. Data was collected in

THE IMPACT OF GOOGLE VOICE different forms, including survey, interviews and test scores. For the test scores, the one-group pretest-posttest design was adopted. There were pre-survey and post survey carried out to investigate students confidence and attitude towards speaking before and after the research on Oct.29 and Nov.27 respectively. During Oct.29 to Nov.21, data were collected by asking students to note down the time they devoted to listening practice. Also, they were also required to report the time they practiced speaking for six days during Nov.7 to Nov. 21. These data were used to compare the students time devotion in speaking and listening after class. Moreover, the test scores were also analyzed by using the pretest and posttest data collected for all three topics I taught between Nov.5 to Nov.22. Last, interviews were conducted to help gaining deeper understanding of the study. To ensure the reliability and trustworthiness of the data, the quantitative method was conducted multi-days or multi-rounds. For example, to compare students listening time devotion after class, data were collected 7 days before the Google voice homework and 3 days with the homework. The same was also true with the speaking and test part. Both data of speaking time devotion and pretest/posttest scores were collected under three topics, namely, feelings, body parts and family. In addition, all the log-in paper which was used to note down students time devotion need to be signed by their parents every day in order to earn the credits. Data analysis techniques The data has been analyzed using descriptive statistics. Both tables and figures were adopted to show the result of the findings. By calculating the mean and standard deviation, it was relatively prcised to lead to the result. Limitations Though all efforts were devoted to increase the trustiness of the data, the study still had

THE IMPACT OF GOOGLE VOICE few limitations. First, there was no gender difference under research, since the private school I am teaching consists of all females. The second limitation of the study was the relatively small sample size which was only 14 students. Therefore, its not possible to generalize the finding to the larger community. Third, even students were required to get signature of their parents on the log-in paper, it still could not guarantee that they were all signed by the parents instead of students themselves and the minutes were prcised recorded. Last, the research period is only one month, so it might be difficult to see any changes with short period of time. Findings Research Question 1 How will Google voice affect the time that students devote to speaking and listening practice, respectively, after school? My assertion is that the average minutes of the students after school practice increase by using Google voice. In addition, the minutes and the number of students who practice listening after school increased as well. The evidence is shown by the two forms of data I collected. First, students were asked to note down the time they devoted to speaking for Day A and Day B respectively. Day A stands for the day I assigned speaking homework without Google voice (Nov.7, Nov.14, and Nov.20) and Day B stands for the day with Google voice homework assignments(Nov.8, Nov.15, and Nov.21). After the students noted down the minutes, they returned the form with the parents signatures on. I collect the data of both days for each topic. For all six days, all students turned in the forms. The data showed noticeable increase of the average minutes of the whole class spent on oral practice. All the minutes at least doubled with the enforcement of Google voice.

THE IMPACT OF GOOGLE VOICE Below is the bar graph comparing the average minutes of oral practice that the students devoted on the day with Google voice assignment (Day B) and without Google voice assignment (Day A).(See Figure 1). Figure 1 Speaking Time Comparison of Day A and Day B

Average minutes devoted to oral practice after school

14 12 10 8 6 4 2 0
Body parts Feelings
Figure 1

DayA Day B

Family

Also, students filled out the form of how much minutes they spent on listening practice after school during the first week of my action research for seven days (Oct.29 to Nov.4) as well as the three days (Nov.8, Nov. 15 and Nov. 21) which the Google Voice homework was given. As shown in figure 2, the average minutes that each student devoted to listening increased considerably with the aid of Google Voice. For example, students only spent 1.9 minutes averagely on speaking on Oct.29, compared to 7.5 minutes on Nov.21. Not only the time devotion, it is apparent that number of students who practice listening after school also rose shapely. Without Google voice assignment, there are less than one third of students practiced listening between Oct.29 to Nov.4. On the contrary, on days Nov.8, Nov.15 and Nov.21, upon

THE IMPACT OF GOOGLE VOICE given the Google voice homework, at least 70 percent students set aside time for listening practice. Figure 2 After School Listening Practice

25 20 15 10 5 0
Student Number

Oct.29Oct.30Oct.31 Nov.1 Nov.2 Nov.3 Nov.4 Nov.8 Nov.15Nov.21 2 5 2.4 3 2.1 4 2.3 1 0.8 4 1.6 1 0.1 11 6.1 11 7.1 13 7.5

Time Devotion (mins) 1.9

Besides the statistic data, students are also interviewed for their experience of using Google voice for oral assignments. Research Question 2 Will the use of Google Voice affect the oral test scores of my students? If yes, what is the difference of the students performance? According to the result of the pre-test and post-test carried out, there is a dramatic increase of the average amount of time that students practice speaking all three times by comparing the test scores. I collect the data for all three topics respectively. To be more specific, Nov.5, Nov.12 and Nov.19 were set aside for pretest and Nov.9, Nov.16 and Nov.22 were set aside for post-test. Upon finishing each topic, the pre oral-test was carried out right after, including words and sentences translation. Each oral test has 12 questions. Two days later, the students were given the

THE IMPACT OF GOOGLE VOICE Google voice oral assignments. They practiced the words, sentence patterns, or readings to go with each topic and recorded the assignment by Google voice. There were totally 14 students taking the oral test out of 10 points. I calculated the mean and standard deviation of all the oral test scores with and without the Google voice assignments, as shown the following table : ).(See Table 1).

Oral Test n=14 Topic Body Parts Feelings Family Members

Pre-test Mean 6.14 4.75 5.39 Standard Deviation 2.01 2.08 1.86 Table 1

Post-test Mean 8.64 7.11 8.75 Standard Deviation 1.67 1.82 1.22

By comparing the mean for pre-test and post-test, we can see that with the use of Google voice, the average students test scores increase hugely by 20% to 30% and all of the standard deviation decreased. The data shows an increase of all three tests. However, there are only three test carried out. If there are more tests involving more classes, my assertion will be stronger. Research Question 3 How will the use of Google voice impact on the students confidence and attitude toward speaking Chinese? I assert that students have similar level of confidence and attitude when taking the oral test and do not show increased willingness to devote time in practicing Chinese orally after class. To investigate the question, I gave out the same survey (see Appendix A ) on Oct. 29th which is before the Google voice homework was assigned and Nov. 27th when all the students finish three oral assignments. The following is the data that I collected in comparing the responses I collected in both days:

THE IMPACT OF GOOGLE VOICE

Title Date 1. I like practicing Chinese after school. 2. I feel confident when I am speaking Chinese in front of the whole class. 3. I am good at oral Chinese. 4. I like oral homework. 5. I do not feel nervous when I am taking oral test.

Number of students choosing agree and strongly agree Oct. 29 5 4 Nov. 27 5 3

6 2 4 Table 2

7 2 3

As we can see from the result above, it might be a little bit disheartening, because I thought it might be great difference since they devoted more time in practicing. I got some idea of why this happened through my individual interview during Nov. 28 and Nov. 29. According to the interview, there are several reasons that why the students didnt change their attitude towards oral homework. Some of them thought the oral homework was somehow too easy, so they barely needed any practice in order to accomplish it successfully. As Li Dongmei stated, I already knew most of the sentences. Thats why I did not visit the website at all. And Mei Zeli also mentioned, I like something new. Maybe topics we havent learned. That might be interesting. Concerning their confidence, the main reason might be the length of the research time. When being asked the question, Do you think you become more confident whenever you take the test or present in front of people orally? Why?, most students gave me a negative answer. I mean it might help, in a long run. I dont know responded Bu Liqi. Sai Yawen gave the similar answer, I dont know. I havent done it a lot.

THE IMPACT OF GOOGLE VOICE Nevertheless, some positive answers are also collected. Zhu Lian noted that she preferred oral homework to be not challenging and content that they had learned. She thought it harder to teach herself anything new and if she made mistakes, its harder to correct later. Thus, she like the Google voice homework, as she remarked, the more you do it, the more confident you are. Discussion In order to motivate students, I did design three different forms of assignments from topic to topic. However, though there was a pretest for each topic, I didnt have time to design different tasks according to their level as shown in the pretest. In addition, there was no survey or observations on students different interests and learning styles carried out in preparing the assignments. Thus, the students didnt have any choices for each individual topic. And this might be the reason that while the average time that students practice speaking after school increased, there were still some students who did not devote any time and some students who still did not perform well in the post-test. So far, there was only one of the five classes I am teaching exposed to Google voice assignments. For all five classes, my next step will be designing surveys or interviews to find out their interests and learning styles, and various forms of Google voice assignments to go with each topic accordingly. Most importantly, there should always be pretests, so that the students will be assigned differentiated homework according to their level. Since its a very short research period, the surveys concerning students attitude towards speaking should be given again when they will be exposed to a longer period of time, e.g. on year, to see if there is any practical difference.

THE IMPACT OF GOOGLE VOICE Conclusion Although I didnt see clear change of students confidence and attitude towards listening and speaking, I am glad to see my level two students increasing time devotion on listening and speaking, and their improvement on the oral test results, because the implementation of the Google voice technique. I will continue this kind of assignment as their homework routine. However, there should be more choices and forms given upon assignment, which I will continue working on in order to motivate the students more intrinsically. Most importantly, surveys and pretests should always be carried out first to determine students different leaning style and interests, so that I can design and differentiate the assignments according to their difference, preferences, and readiness. For my future action research, I should include larger sample size and utilized comparison between groups to ensure the preciseness.

THE IMPACT OF GOOGLE VOICE References Broussard, S. C., & Garrison, M. E. B. (2004). The relationship between classroom motivation and academic achievement in elementary school-aged children. Family and Consumer Sciences Research Journal, 33(2), 106120. Deubelbeiss, D. (Producer). (2011). Technology to practice speaking english. [Web Slideshow]. Retrieved english Guthrie, J. T., Wigfield, A., & VonSecker, C. (2000). Effects of integrated instruction on motivation and strategy use in reading. Journal of Educational Psychology, 92(2), 331 341. Haynes, J. (2005). Comprehensible Input and Output. Retrieved 12/12/2012 from http://www.everythingesl.net/inservices/comprehensible_input_output_ 70140.php Krashen, S. (1998). Foreign Language Education the Easy Way. New York: Language Education Assocs. Krashen, S. (1998). Comprehensible Output . Retrieved 12/5/2012 from http://www.sdkrashen.com/articles/comprehensible_o utput/all.html Lai R. E. (2011). Motivation: A Literature Review. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.pearsonassessments.com/hai/images/tmrs/motivation_review_final.pdf. [Last Accessed e.g. 31 August 11]. Lumsden, L. S. (1994). Student Motivation to Learn. New York: ERIC learinghouse on Urban Education. (ERIC Digest Number 92) menombreestu (2012, 03 23). [Web log message]. Retrieved from from http://www.slideshare.net/ddeubel/technology-to-practice-speaking-

THE IMPACT OF GOOGLE VOICE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPEB4LsgNBc Shindler, J. (2008). Transformative classroom management: Positive strategies to engage all students and promote a psychology of success. . Allyn Bacon Publishers Retrieved from http://www.calstatela.edu/faculty/jshindl/cm/ExtrinsicRewards.htm Stipek, D. J. (1996). Motivation and instruction. D. C. Berliner & R. C. Calfee, Handbook of Educational Psychology . New York: Macmillan. Student motivation. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.allpsychologycareers.com/topics/studentmotivation.html Teaching tips 38: Speaking homework. (2012, 10 12). Retrieved from http://www.developingteachers.com/tips/pasttips38.htm

THE IMPACT OF GOOGLE VOICE Appendix Appendix A: Student Survey The purpose of the following survey can give a basic understanding of your feelings towards Chinese speaking. This survey is anonymous, so please do not put your name on the paper.

For each statement, please circle the answer that represents you best: SA: strongly agree N: Neither agree nor disagree A: agree D: disagree SD: strongly disagree

1. I like practicing Chinese after school. A: SA B: A C: N D: D E: SD

2. I feel confident when I am speaking Chinese in front of the whole class. A: SA 3. I am good at oral Chinese. A: SA 4. I like oral homework. A: SA B: A C: N D: D E: SD B: A C: N D: D E: SD B: A C: N D: D E: SD

5. I do not feel nervous when I am taking oral test. A: SA B: A C: N D: D E: SD

THE IMPACT OF GOOGLE VOICE Appendix B: Listening Practice Log-in Paper ( Oct. 29th to Nov. 4th) Please note down the time (mins) that you devoted and the related topic/page covered in practice Chinese listening AFTER SCHOOL EVERYDAY. (Please put N/A if its blank.) Your parents need to sign it every day. Points: 5 Due: Nov. 5th, 2012

Date:
1

Time and Content (Listening)

Parent Signature

Oct. 29th
2

Oct. 30th
3

Oct. 31st

Nov. 1st

Nov. 2nd
6

Nov. 3rd
7

Nov. 4th

THE IMPACT OF GOOGLE VOICE Appendix C: Listening and speaking Practice Log-in Paper ( Nov.8th to Nov. 21st) Please note down the time (mins) that you devoted and the related topic/page covered in practice Chinese listening AFTER SCHOOL EVERYDAY. (Please put N/A if its blank.) Your parents need to sign it every day. Points: 5 Due: Nov. 22nd, 2012

Date:
1

Time and Content (Listening)

Parent Signature

Nov. 8th
2

Nov. 15th
3

Nov. 21st

Please note down the time (mins) that you devoted and the related topic/page covered in practice Chinese speaking AFTER SCHOOL EVERY DAY(Please put N/A if its blank.) Your parents need to sign it every day. Points: 5 Due: Nov. 22nd, 2012

Date:
1 2 3 4 5 6

Time and Content (speaking)

th

Parent Signature

Nov. 7

Nov. 8th Nov. 14th Nov. 15th Nov. 20th Nov. 21st

THE IMPACT OF GOOGLE VOICE Appendix D: Google Voice Oral Assignments

Oral Homework Level Two Points: 10

Chinese Name in Pinyin _________________________

Google voicemail recording due: 11:55 p.m., Nov.8th, 2012 Google voice number: 586-393-7099 Topic: Body parts Please visit the classroom website and listen to the recording body parts under listening section. Please call 586-393-7099, and leave a message of yourself recording your oral homework.

______________________________________________________________________________ Oral Homework Level Two Points: 10 Google voicemail recording due: 11:55 p.m., Nov.15th, 2012 Google voice number: 586-393-7099 Topic: Feelings Please visit the classroom website and listen to the recording Feelings under listening section. Please call 586-393-7099, and leave a message of yourself recording your oral homework. Chinese Name in Pinyin _________________________

______________________________________________________________________________ Oral Homework Level Two Points: 10 Google voicemail recording due: 11:55 p.m., Nov.21, 2012 Google voice number: 586-393-7099 Topic: Family Please visit the classroom website and listen to the recording Family under listening section. Please call 586-393-7099, and leave a message of yourself recording your oral homework. Chinese Name in Pinyin _________________________

THE IMPACT OF GOOGLE VOICE Appendix E: Parental Consent Letter Dear Parent/Guardian: I am conducting an Action Research Project to facilitate my teaching. The project is one of the assignments of my graduate course through Michigan State University. The primary purposes of this project are to enhance student learning and encourage excellence in teaching. This project may require notes from interviews, assignment worksheet, and assessment results to be submitted. Besides, the sample of students work might be asked to submit, which may include your childs work. As part of the project, you will be asked to sign the log-in paper of your childs speaking and listening interactive homework. No students English name will appear on any materials that are submitted, because they are required to write Chinese names on any assignment. The form below will be used to document your permission for these activities. Thank you in advance for your time and support, Regards, Fan ZHENG (Mandarin Teacher) __________ I give my child consent to participate in the action research study. __________ I do not give my child consent to participate in the action research study.

Date __________________________________