Newswise — The 63 students studying intermediate French at Grand Valley State University each received an iPod on the first day of class. While they've listened to a lot of music, it has been music with French lyrics. Though iPods have been used at other universities to distribute lectures, this may be one of the first instances of their use for language acquisition.
Each week the students were assigned four songs and worked on vocabulary, listening comprehension and pronunciation. The iPods were programed with text files including the lyrics of each song.
"The music we've selected spans eight decades," said David Eick, who along with Janel Pettes-Guikema developed the idea for their classes.
"Students give oral presentations, discuss the historical and cultural contexts which gave rise to the songs and then are tested on the knowledge presented by their classmates."
In addition to music, students listen to authentic podcasts of news from French radio and complete assignments on the content of these. Also, the vocabulary lessons in their textbook are supplemented by flash card slide shows on the iPods, with images accompanied by sound of the words being pronounced.
For their final class project, students will become French DJs, creating podcasts including their favorite French songs, mock interviews with the artists, commercials and weather forecasts.
"Research has indicated that motivation and time on task are the biggest predictors of success," said Pettes-Guikema, who specializes in language acquisition research. "By providing students with the iPods, we've given them a portable language lab, available 24 hours a day, seven days a week." She's conducting a study on the effectiveness of the iPod as a tool in language learning, focusing on listening comprehension, vocabulary development, and cultural knowledge and understanding.
Student response has been enthusiastic. Though they are the first to admit they spend more time than ever anticipated studying French, they say the challenge has paid off in unexpected ways, such as giving a broader exposure to "street French" as well as a deeper understanding of historical and contemporary culture.
Grand Valley's Language Resource Center, already the most advanced language lab of all universities in Michigan, has reinvented itself and provided tremendous support in terms of pedagogical vision, technical expertise, and lots of labor. Now the Department of Modern Languages is looking into implementing iPods in other language courses.
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