New Horizons in NetworkBased Language Learning Some old
New Horizons in Network-Based Language Learning Some old and some new thoughts Marina Orsini-Jones Coventry University VLE Languages User Group Vth Annual Meeting
Computer Assisted Language Learning CALL may be defined as ‘the search for and the study of applications of the computer in language learning and teaching’ Michael Levy Computer Assisted Language Learning: Context and Conceptualization. (1997: 1) Oxford: Clarendon.
Role of the computer (Ahamad 1985: 2) The computer is a tool, of itself incapable of action. It has no inborn wisdom, no mind of its own, no initiative and no inherent ability to learn or teach. It will perform, with remarkable speed, exactly the instruction given to it by a human user…. The computer is a servant. Its role in education is that of a medium…It is the teacher, then, who can make the computer assume various roles
Virtual Learning Environments and Language Learning and Teaching: students can • Find more opportunities to plan their discourse • Reflect on their production • Compare their production with that of their peers and their teachers • Share electronic knowledge (students have suggested useful sites to each other with direct links in discussion forum) • Acquire useful ICT transferable skills (myth of the “digital native”)
New horizons in CALL: Network-based language learning/blended learning • Online speaking and listening: Skype, Second Life (SL “Teens”), Wimba audio-conferencing and asynchronous discussions • Online virtual world creation: games, Second Life • Online knowledge sharing: Language learning exchanges: Livemocha http: //www. livemocha. com/
Engaging with new media: digital multilingual multiliteracies • ICT literacy • Employability • “Reading the world” Research evidence that effective use of e-learning can “empower the learner”
Prenski’s digital immigrants: myth or reality? (Owen 2004/Mason and Rennie 2008)
Literacy according to Freire (quoted in Hockstad and Dons 2007) The ability, the possibility and the will to read the world.
Academic Literacy University literacy practices are likely to be characterised by increasing rhetorical complexity (Goodfellow et. al. 2003). Essay and dissertation: “power genres” (Paltridge 2006) not close to death (Warschauer 2000), but becoming digital Tension between our use of electronic classrooms to enact process-oriented models of learning, and the existence of prior standards by which we determine the kinds of learning and writing we wish these classrooms to promote (Goodfellow et. al. 2003) Multilingual multiliteracy: more complex still?
E-learning spaces proposed by Hartley. students engage with: • The formal, public, controlled. The institutional world of control and individual assessment, the VLE (the museum); • The collaborative, informal, exploratory. The world of facilitation and enquiry, Google, wikis, Facebook and My. Space (the playground); and • The personal, private and exclusive. Talking to invited friends only: i. PODs (the refuge). Fight for the playground in HE: debatable – personalised collaborative learning in formal settings does not fit in
Necessary collision?
Hartley + MOJ: the Modern University Must: • • Know the students Make its pedagogy explicit Support all the learning journeys Adopt the appropriate technologies Manage the boundaries between environments Align the policies and practices + Train students in academic genres and electric rhetoric
Recommendation: institutional platforms • Moodle • E-Portoflio Pebble. PAD • Wimba voice tools
Sample Language Activity with Wimba • Each student told that they are a journalist from different newspapers and have to report on a lecture by a famous professor in the style of that newspaper; • Students to listen to a lecture about Berlusconi F 2 F;
Activity continued… • Students to report on the major points heard, according to the style of their newspaper using Wimba as a ‘mock’ telephone call to the editor (Voice Board/Voice Email). • Students to discuss issues relating to style and register further using another discussion board (Voice Board).
Sample Activity with Voice Board
Skills practised • • • Listening and comprehension. Speaking. Interpreting and Translating. Summary. Critical analysis/thinking.
Web design: social-collaborative knowledge construction • The teacher selects and explores texts with pupils/students; • Pupils/students select relevant themes/words • The text is converted to hypertext format using an easy-to-use webpage design package; • The pupils/students use/test/assess each other’s hypertext version of the text via an assessed presentation; • The team (staff and students) assess the learning experience and suggested improvements and post feedback on the discussion boards; • The teacher learns from the students’ experience of the material and the hypertexts evolves according to staff and students’ continuous feedback. • Example: translation hypertext
Translation Hypertext
Socio-collaborative hypertext reflective task: comparing the same item of news in different newspapers (can be done foreign papers and/or on a comparative basis)
E-Portfolio Pebble. PAD: tutor can give feedback on each page – advantage over previously used systems
Second Life – Educase Island: staff development for language teachers
The CALL challenge: towards an e-learning pedagogy for a connected world “better to create, communicate, build, explore, discover and collaborate than engage in drill and practice, acquiring facts or accessing information. The challenge, therefore, is to provide pedagogically sound means for learners to engage in activities that will improve linguistic accuracy”. (Felix, 2005: 92) Uschi Felix (2005) ‘E-learning pedagogy in the third millenium: the need for combining social and cognitive constructivist approaches’. Re. CALL, 17 (1), 85 -100
Fluid Role Evolving E-Learning Environment: Academic Multiliteracy Development in a Connected World © Orsini-Jones & Nishant 2009
Some examples for TEFL • • • • http: //esl. about. com/library/weekly/aa 020601 a. htm http: //www. tefl. net/esl-lesson-plans/esl-worksheets-tp. htm http: //www. angelfire. com/wi 3/englishcorner/grammar. html#condint http: //www. testyourenglish. net/english-online/menu/cloze-tests. html http: //books. google. com/books? id=8 YA 6 w. J 6 FMw. C&dq=concordancing+language+learning&printsec=frontcover&source=in&hl= en&ei=Okq 5 SY 3 n. B 5 C 0 j. Af. Tv 4 Sc. CA&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=11&ct=result #PPA 1, M 1 http: //books. google. com/books? id=jk. YOAAAAQAAJ&dq=concordancing+language +learning&printsec=frontcover&source=in&hl=en&ei=Okq 5 SY 3 n. B 5 C 0 j. Af. Tv 4 Sc. CA &sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=12&ct=result#PPA 5, M 1
References can be emailed on demand Based on two forthcoming chapters • Orsini-Jones, M. (forthcoming 2009 -2010) Shared spaces and ‘secret gardens’: the troublesome journey from undergraduate students to undergraduate scholars via Pebble. Pad In J. O’Donoghue (Ed. ) Technology Supported Environment for Personalised Learning: Methods and Case Studies Hershey, PA: IGI Global. (pp. TBC). • Orsini-Jones, M. (forthcoming 2009 -2010) Task-Based Development of Languages Students’ Critical Digital Multiliteracies and Cybergenre Awareness. In M. J. Luzon, N. Ruiz and L. Villanueva (Eds. ) Genre Theory and New Literacies. Applications to Autonomous Language Learning. Heidelberg: Springer (pp. TBC).
Any questions? • m. orsini@coventry. ac. uk
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