In many parts of the world, bringing iPods and other music players in school may be banned due to the premise that they may disturb school activities. However, in Beaufort County, South Carolina, there are students who can use them within the school premises.

There are many ways in learning languages yet it seems that language teachers need more tools to help students who have limited knowledge of the language around them to become more familiar with the language. English language lessons may not be enough for English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) students that is why technology was tapped in order to help them bridge the communication gap.

According to the ESOL coordinator of the district, Sarah Owen, Hilton Head Island Middle School purchased a set of iPods last year and the school district paid about $200 for each iPod Touch using the federal money allocated for ESOL students. Bluffton High, H.E. McCracken Middle School, Red Cedar Elementary School, and Hilton Head Island School for the Creative Arts elementary school will receive their iPod sets this year.

The district has a contract with iPod manufacturer Apple Computer Inc. that includes training for teachers and a device that can charge and sync about twenty iPods to one computer at the same time. ESOL teacher at Hilton Head Middle, Nancy Davis, has said that “It’s a popular form of technology, so students are excited about them.”

The students use the iPods as language learning devices to listen to stories as part of a fluency program designed to develop vocabulary, improve pronunciation, and emphasize important words and concepts taught in core subjects. For reading and grammar exercises, the students use the iPod’s video playback feature. Later this year, Ms Davis plans to help her ESOL students take a video of themselves using the iPods so that they can analyze their own speech and the speech of their peers.

The ESOL students at Hilton head Middle School said that they typically read a story before using the iPod and mark the words that they don’t recognize. They then re-read the story while listening to an audio version. Students who don’t understand the story can listen to the audio version repeatedly until they can understand it. They also have the option of rewinding to the parts of the audio book that confuse them.

At the moment the iPods are used only in ESOL classes but Davis has said that the school’s program to use the said device might be expanded to include students learning foreign languages such as French and Spanish.

This entry was posted on Friday, September 18th, 2009 at 9:55 am and is filed under Learn Languages, Learning Abroad. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.