Task for 4/8
1.Determine your objectives for your language learning experience
2. Try different procedures to reach those objectives
3. Adapt the procedures depending on the level of difficulty

Reflection: (This is a sample reflection that you may also choose to use with your learners.)
In writing your blog, you may want to think about the following questions:

Describe how you went through the software, focusing on the strategies that you used. First I. . ..Next I ... Then, I.......
What was your learning goal(s)?
Discuss the different strategies you used to achieve the goals and why you used those strategies.
How did the difficulty of the material influence your strategies?

CALL and motivation

I haven't been going to "language-learning" sites per se since taking part in the project in Fall 2006.  However, I want to share a recent experience of my own language learning via blogs.  As many of you know, I write a non-academic "foto blog" (the url I'm happy to share if you ask).  Recently a reader of my blog, who happens to live in northwest Spain, wrote and we've continued a dialogue.  She does a similar "foto blog" in Spanish.  Because of the strong instrumental (v. integrative) motivation I feel, I've been struggling to read her blog in Spanish.  Motivation is critical here;  if I weren't interested in what this blog communicated, I wouldn't make the effort with a language I've never formally studied.  My point?  The web provides easy access to sites that--although they're not overtly instructional--can "instruct" readers in the target language provided the reader feels that struggling with the target language will be instrumental in learning something.  Obviously, this only works if the reader/learner (i.e.,  me) has some existing entry into target language (in my case, the familiarity with the Roman alphabet and with a smilar Romance language, French).  My points wouldn't hold if the blog were in a non-Roman alphabet. 

I looked at the Spanish L2 site. Wasn't thrilled with it. However, I did look at the basic lessons. I am discouraged by the fact that the site will only help us to read Spanish and not speak it. A little bit of background on the language and the cultures that speak it would have made the learning more fun. For example, the site teaches the informal "TU" before the formal "USTED." Why not have a short explanation about that? Again it would make the learning experience more meaningful. Everything is in context and spoken VERY CLEARLY and VERY SLOWLY. I like that as a learner; however, I am discouraged by the sites fatal flaws.