CALICO 2005, Michigan State University

CALL and the Year of Languages: Critical Needs
May 22-26, 2007
Hosted by

Center for Language Education and Research, Michigan State University

Conference Presentations: Day One
May 19, 2005

10:00 – 10:45

Instructional Uses of LARC’s Digital Media Archive (DMA): A Case Study
Moira DiMauro-Jackson
Robin Martin
This case study will show how LARC’s Digital Media Archive (DMA), an online collaborative media archive for language instruction, was integrated with Blackboard and used over a two-semester period for first-year Italian students at Texas State University. The study will also show how developing course content with specific learning objectives can inform instruction as well as student coursework. Examples of student work submitted to the archive will be demonstrated, as well as the method for adding content to DMA.

FSI’s Best Practices in Mentoring for Distance Language Learning
Josh Saunders
Distance learning is one of the training options available to foreign affairs professionals to develop the language skills that the Department of State and the nation need for real communication. The Foreign Service Institute (FSI) offers distance learning courses for 11 languages. The presenter will share the best practices in remote instruction, known as mentoring, which is a key element to the success of FSI’s distance learning program. Participants will gain an understanding of the pedagogical strategies and technical tools that the mentor uses to develop the student’s listening, reading, and speaking skills at a distance.

Create, Manage, and Deliver Web-based Content Using Antesoft WebSpace and SANS eSoloist™ Software
Ron Remschel
SANS, Inc., the exclusive licensor of Sony Language Learning Software, presents software tools for content creation and web-based delivery. Antesoft WebSpace is an easy-to-use, authoring, and web-based content management software package. The new SANS eSoloist™ Virtual PC Comparative Recorder (a derivative of the Sony Soloist® Digital PC Comparative Recording) by design can be easily embedded within language lessons created using the WebSpace software. With eSoloist, students can work on multimedia assignments, including comparative recording activities, that can be saved and reviewed anytime and anywhere.

The Use of Learner-behavior Tracking Technology in CALL Studies: A Review of Research Objectives, Methods, and Tracking Data Analysis Techniques
Fenfang Hwu
This paper reviews the CALL studies in which computer tracking is used to record learner behaviors. It classifies existing research objectives and methods, the variety of data recorded, and the range of approaches used to analyze and interpret these data. Through reviewing existing research studies, this paper points out what research hypotheses remain to be further tested and identifies what tracking data can be used to investigate a certain language learning behavior. Such understanding provides avenues for tracking-system design and helps guide researchers who seek to use such data to gain better understanding of second language learning.

Spell Checking in CALL–What Factors Matter?
Anne Rimrott
Generic spell checkers enjoy great popularity in the foreign language classroom. However, their effectiveness in correcting misspellings by nonnative writers has not been studied widely. This presentation discusses the influence of proficiency level and task type on the correction success of spell checkers in CALL. During the spring semester 2004, we analyzed 1091 misspellings from 32 beginner and 16 intermediate university students of German. Results indicate that both proficiency level and task type influence the misspellings learners produce and affect the spell checker’s correction success. Our presentation concludes with recommendation for spell checking in CALL.

Online Assessment in First-year Language Courses
Claire Bartlett
Emilie Dejonckheere
We will first show samples of first year French online quizzes, tests, midterms, and final exams and then discuss findings about students’ progress and the use of this type of assessment. Using ExTemplate and Wimba, students take several online speaking quizzes, and three online tests. All four language skills are assessed in each of the tests. At the end of the first year sequence, students representing various levels are selected to take the Oral Proficiency Interviews (OPIs). The interview results are then used to determine the average OPI levels of students at the end of the first year sequence.

Making the Right Choice: Interactive Simulations for Language Learning and Cultural Immersion
John Vitaglione
Giving learners the opportunity to make choices can engage them in first-person learn-by-doing experiences. Decision points offer choices that all are attractive for one reason or another but result in branching storylines with different outcomes, some rewarding and some not. This presentation will demonstrate how the Language Acquisition Resource Center (LARC) at San Diego State University is integrating authentic digital resources from their Digital Media Archive (DMA) in interactive simulations that provide different learning outcomes based on learner decisions. Discussion will include how LARC incorporates such simulations in their web pages and online/distance education courses for language learning and cultural immersion.

11:00 – 11:20

A Discussion on Courseware Structures
Jing Luo
This presentation intends to examine the structures of a few courseware packages from the perspectives of teaching and theoretical considerations. Having written a few software reviews, the presenter realizes that, while there is no consensus on the ideal design of a courseware, there is obvious sensitivity to imperfection. For example, there are programs that excel in content presentation, but somehow fail to provide users with the opportunity to save their progress, so that they have to start all over again the next time around, often having to tumble over the same barriers that they had somehow previously managed to overcome. In addition to the global structural issues, cases such as algorithms of exercises will also be discussed. The discussion would hopefully direct courseware designers to a few tips for better construction and definitely to questions that remain unanswered.

Beyond the Politics of Technology-enhanced ELT
Mikyong Kim
The issue of equity in ELT becomes necessary to take into account, as English and technology competence have become key factors to determine access to power. The dominant discourse of English and technology in Korea has played great roles as essential elements of criteria in the process of university admission, and so forth. As a result, the current ELT at schools has the potential to constitute the maintenance of the existing power stratification as those who have capital economically, socially, and symbolically can become capable of the skills in various ways. This presentation analyzes the politics of ELT and technology from a social perspective.

Integrated Chinese Supplemental Listening Exercise with HTML User Interface
Limin Zheng
The presentation discusses the importance of listening exercise in early stages of language learning. It demonstrates a listening exercise supplementing the increasingly popular textbook Integrated Chinese. The exercise consists of three parts corresponding to the three textbooks of Integrated Chinese. There are altogether 43 lessons, each containing an average of four listening passages with a set of comprehension questions for each passage. All these are packaged and linked by an HTML-based user interface. JavaScripts are used to incorporate features such as an embedded media player bar for playing and mouse over for displaying comprehension questions to help the user.

Variations in Time Spent Working and Students’ Online Behavior in the Chansons de la francophonie Web Activities
Alysse Weinberg
Analysis of web-tracking data from a language listening activity web site will be presented. The web-tracking system captured the amount of time students worked at their activity web pages. Research queries were made into the data to explore web behavior differences, mainly between the diligent versus the less diligent students, but also between day and evening students and between male and female students. The web site, the course, the students, and characteristics of the eChanson web tracking system and a few typical web navigation patterns for some students will also be described.

Audio Portfolios in an IEP Classroom
Lis Wilson
Anne Todd
Presenters will demonstrate varied uses of how a user-friendly, browser-contained recording tool, Audio Portfolios, that can be used to address individual language needs of beginning-level students in an IEP class. The presentation will demonstrate how a relatively simple tool can be used creatively with current pedagogy in mind to maximize benefits without requiring instructors and students to spend time on learning new technology. The presenters will also address how technology can contribute to individualized learning plans–motivating students, personalizing learning, and encouraging students to take more responsibility for their own learning.

Instructional Design Solutions for Development of Template-based Web Pages
Zenon Obydzinski
Pamela Combacau
CALL developers often face time constraints that significantly limit their ability to develop high-quality materials on time. The offered template-based solution uses two templates: data collection and user interface. The subject matter experts use the first template to enter all target language data (texts, questions, feedback, etc.) to create an XML document. The user-interface template uses this XML file to generate the final product, which can be viewed using a web browser such as Internet Explorer. The presenters will discuss instructional design issues created by this approach and provide solutions for them.

Blended Language Learning: From Concept to Operational Learning Environment with Cognistreamer and Idioma-tic
Piet Desmet
Blended language learning is not just another buzz word, but very much a useful concept inviting CALL practitioners to realize a balanced mix of electronic learning and classroom or conventional learning. Its implementation has become more feasible thanks to different recent tendencies in the CALL field (concerning learning activities, interaction, electronic environment, and learning organization). To illustrate the concept we present an integrated language-learning environment, which has been operational for more than a year. It was developed with our authoring tool Idioma-tic and brought together within our learning management system Cognistreamer. Finally, we have been using our multimedia language lab for all e-learning activities.

11:30 – 11:50

A Human-computer Interaction Study of Data-driven Learning
J. Scott Payne
Sidharth Sharma
Joey Lee
Data-driven learning is an approach to language instruction that encourages learners to test their hypotheses about the target language and acquire linguistic knowledge through discovery. The study presented uses behavior-tracking data to examine the relationship between reported instructional requirements (type of language course and tasks required as a part of instruction) and data-driven learning tool use. A corpus-based reference tool, the KWICionary, served as the context for this study. Questionnaire and behavior-tracking data were used to investigate patterns of use over time and relationships between course and task type. Implications for L2 pedagogy and CALL tool design are discussed.

The Effect of Visual Advance Organizers and Animation on ESL Learners’ Reading Comprehension of Content-based Material
Huifen Lin
Tsuiping Chen
The purpose of the study is to investigate the effect of two types of visual advance organizers, descriptive and question, in complementing animated instruction in EFL settings. 120 EFL learners were randomly assigned to respective treatments. Immediately after receiving their respective treatment, students received four criterion tests (Dwyer, 1977). Results indicated that experimental groups performed better than the control group; however, no significant difference was found between treatment groups. The researchers conclude that advance organizers are an important instructional variable for complementing animated instruction; however, all types of advance organizers are not equally effective in facilitating achievement of content-based knowledge.

Movie Trailers and the Past Tenses in French
Hélène Ossipov
The past tenses in French are difficult for anglophone students because the difference in choice of tenses is aspectual, that is, one visualizes the action differently. However, much of the teaching materials for these tenses use still images rather than video. By using the notion of visualizing the action, I will discuss using movie trailers, available online, to teach the appropriate past tenses in French. The advantage to using movie trailers is that the material is always new, easily available on the internet, and the trailers provide students with a common view of the action to be discussed.

Adapted Feedback in CALL Programs: A Teaching Tool that Informs and Motivates Learners
Shimona Kushner
Maria Yelenevsky
The Technion-Israel Institute of Technology develops CALL material in EFL for science and technology students. Years of experimentation and student observation have convinced us that feedback is a crucial aspect of the independent CALL learning experience. Our feedback attempts to imitate the kind of assistance students would get from a teacher in the classroom and aims to increase their ability to comprehend texts in their disciplines. The paper presents examples of CALL material and related feedback. The ideas behind the exercises will be discussed. Types of exercises that lend themselves to such feedback, and that do not, will also be presented.

Extending the “Lernort” to a Virtual Learning Environment: Bauhaus in Chicago
Ingrid Zeller
Denise M. Meuser
Franziska Lys
In this talk, the presenters will explore the intersection between an authentic learning site, a “Lernort”, the classroom setting, and virtual reality. They will show how technology has allowed them to extend the idea of “Lernort” to a virtual environment comprised of 8-10 video films focusing on culturally and architecturally significant sites in Chicago. The interactive learning module was produced for language learners of German and contains online exercises to encourage interaction with new linguistic material in order to solidify the understanding of the cultural and architectural information presented in the films.

How Does the Use of Intranet Instructional Materials Affect Learning Results of Students
Machiko Horiuchi
This study investigates how students majoring in English at a Japanese university perceive intranet English programs and how their English proficiency changes with the use of those programs.

E-education in Context
Snea Thinsan
As extensively “electronicized” as it is nowadays, our world is invaded by the “e” in all aspects. E-Thailand, initiated under a broader e-ASEAN scheme, reflects such an inevitable move at the national level due to the regional and global forces. But is the jump well justified? What are the traps? What do we educators have to say? Taking the e-Thailand as a case, I will examine and critique its five-pillar IT2010 Master Plan, which includes e-government, e-commerce, e-industry, e-education, and e-society, with a strong emphasis on e-education. Recommendations to the Thai government, which applies in global contexts, will be shared.

2:00 – 2:45

Video Dubbing as a Foreign Language Learning Activity for Beginning-level Students: Theory and Practice
Jack Burston
The purpose of this presentation is to address major pedagogical and technical issues related to the use of video dubbing in the foreign language curriculum. Pedagogically, muted video clips offer an excellent opportunity to develop the linguistic skills of foreign language learners while fostering creativity in a collaborative learner-centered environment. While highly motivating to students, video dubbing raises numerous practical technical issues. Specifically, instructors (no less than students) need to learn the basics of digital video editing. Undoubtedly, the greatest practical challenge of all is how to exploit technology without allowing it to dominate the curriculum.

Working in the Global Language Online Support System (GLOSS): Developing and Using Online Listening Materials for Foreign Language Learning
Steve Koppany
Richard Mayer
Carlos Iturrino
Youngsook Kim
There is a critical need today for interactive listening comprehension (LC) learning materials using available technology and authentic materials to enhance foreign language learning. The need is especially great for advanced learning materials. The Defense Language Institute has developed an authoring tool, the “Generator,” to produce online mini-lessons without the need for programming skills. We will briefly introduce the GLOSS project and demonstrate how to creatively and innovatively develop LC lessons using Generator templates, as well as how to use these lessons as part of a syllabus. Also, we will discuss how to maintain and enhance the underlying programming tool.

The Language Center:A Crucial Academic Resource?
Joel Goldfield
As older language labs are retired, some school administrators and faculty are wrestling with the question of whether to replace them with generic computer ones supplemented by textbook’s software packages. Might students simply use publishers’ self-paced materials on a classroom or home computer? What are the trends arguing for and against language labs and their successors? Are there enough trained professionals to staff them? This presentation encourages audience participation and will serve as a metastudy on online professional discussions, MLA statistics, regional surveys, and published materials from the CALICO Journal, the Chronicle of Higher Education, and the IALLT Journal.

Task-based Approaches for Foreign Language Learning and Language Processing in the U.S. Military
Steve LaRocca
Sherri Bellinger
Task-based approaches are common to foreign language teaching methodology, to the development of speech translation systems, and to the evaluation of classical text-to-text machine translation systems. The benefits offered by such approaches, for example, more focused language instruction, advanced speech translation systems, and improved machine translation would seem to be compelling. Still, considerable difficulties exist in anticipating and modeling with precision the tasks involving bilingual communication that are of immediate benefit to current military operations. This presentation recounts efforts to catalog tasks and demonstrates how dialog modeling is being applied to language learning as well as translation systems.

Learner Profiles for Online Learning Environments
Trude Heift
In this presentation, we will describe a study on learner profiles. Based on frequent performance assessments, learner profiles typically contain information about the learner’s progress. In online learning environments, learner profiles are generally sparse because they have to persist across sessions (visits) in order for them to be useful to the learner. In the Spring semester 2004, we conducted a study with 87 learners of German to investigate how learners’ study habits are affected by a learner profile that can be inspected by the user. Our study indicates that students utilize and are positively influenced by the information contained in their learner profile.

Language Across the Curriculum: A Case for Computer-assisted Needs Analysis
Marina Dodigovic
Needs analysis is essential to a successful course design in English for academic or specific purposes (EAP/ESP). In the past, this kind of analysis required a labor intensive approach, which was unfortunately not always applied rigorously. Nowadays, however, it has become increasingly convenient to conduct such analysis with the aid of computer. Moreover, the method used truly epitomizes the original purpose of the computer as a reliable and, above all, labor saving device. This paper showcases such analysis, especially its accuracy, demonstrating in addition how easy it is to implement with the present day technology.

Field Dependence/Independence: How Do Students Perform in Web-based Listening Activities?
Monica Stella Cárdenas-Claros
The purpose of this presentation is to explore how the cognitive styles of field dependence/independence (FD/FI) relate to performance in CALL-based listening exercises. To serve this purpose, a set of listening exercises that Academic Listening Online (ALO) web site (Cardenas-Claros, 2004) features, were used. To classify students into the FD/ FI traits, a 30-item questionnaire that measures this construct when related to CALL, was designed and validated. The help aids (transcripts/dictionary) and the media tools (audio/video) preferred by learners using ALO along with the sequence students follow to perform the different listening activities in ALO will be described. Conclusions and suggestions for further research will be provided.

3:00 – 3:45

How Valuable is CALL Preparation in MA Programs?
Greg Kessler
The presenter will share research results addressing the following questions. What is the perceived value of CALL as a component of MA programs that prepare language teachers? To what extent are these programs preparing teachers to make effective decisions about their use of CALL? What is the perceived value of this training? Should CALL be an integral component of teacher preparation programs? What can we do to better meet teachers’ needs?

A Role-based Theoretical Framework for CALL
Philip Hubbard
This presentation introduces a theoretical framework for CALL, originally developed to characterize CALL teacher education, based on elements of institutional and functional roles. Institutional roles include teachers (both pre-service and in-service), specialists (having depth in one domain), and professionals (combining depth and breadth across a number of domains). Functional roles include practitioners, developers, and researchers. The presenter outlines the role combinations and other major elements of the framework, notably the distinctions between technical knowledge and skills and pedagogical knowledge and skills. He then provides examples of how the specification of these has consequences for CALL research and theory.

The Audio Aspect of Our Multimedia World
Tamas Marius
Developing and producing listening exercises for our multimedia environment including the internet and the importance of using the right delivery methods and formats for audio materials are the focus of this presentation. Choosing the right software capable of producing products that allow the effective, combined use of PCs, SmartBoards, laptops, CD and MP3 players, and the Internet will be discussed. Coping with limitations of bandwidth and the consequential delays in delivering audio through the internet will also be discussed. The presenter will also talk about methods and available recording software to produce high-quality audio on a low budget.

Courseware Development SIG: Publishers Roundtable
Helene Greenwood
Laurel Miller
Sherry Preiss
Scott Tinetti
Howard Pomann
Natalia Carro
The Courseware Development Special Interest Group will present a Publisher’s Roundtable in which publishers will briefly present their views on future CALL software development, teacher/researcher involvement (royalty and consulting opportunities), and technology issues. Opportunities and challenges for faculty wishing to develop and publish software will be highlighted. The discussion will then be opened up to CALICO members to share their questions and comments with the panel. Panelists will include representatives from textbook publishers.

Prospects for an Online Language Textbook with Intelligent Feedback
Noriko Nagata
The author has been using an intelligent language tutor program, Robo-Sensei, to supplement a standard Japanese textbook. With Robo-Sensei, students can type in Japanese sentences and receive detailed grammatical feedback directly. If such an intelligent tutor program is expanded to a stand-alone online textbook, it will no longer be necessary to coordinate a regular printed textbook with computer materials. Language learning could become more interactive and flexible as a result. This paper discusses the prospects for an artificial intelligence online textbook, addresses the critical needs such an online textbook would meet, and demonstrates a sample module of the proposed textbook.

Student-led Multimedia CD development: Does IT Make a Difference?
Malcolm Field
Students utilized their own themes to develop CD-ROMs in this ongoing study conducted in a Japanese university communication course, which was predominantly taught in English. Initial findings suggest that students felt the development of the CDs did not assist oral language competency. Students argued that the CDs aided writing and reading L2 competency, and acknowledged that the L2 pedagogy improved listening comprehension. Students believed that their knowledge of the content increased during the process and stated that the need to learn and use IT design skills was beneficial. Students encountered difficulty with “group” processes, bringing new insight into cultural processes.

Paper to Web: Supporting Change in the LMC
Sharon Scinicariello
When all but 2 of 42 senior language majors in 2004 preferred to submit paper versions of their required portfolios, it was clear that the department needed to become proactive in moving students to e-portfolios. This presentation describes the development of a support system in the language media center for the creation of web-based portfolios. It details how two key challenges were addressed: the seniors’ lack of computing skills and the implementation of Macromedia’s Contribute in the LMC. It concludes with a discussion of proposed changes in both the LMC and the curriculum to promote the move to the web.

4:00 – 4:45

A Critical Need: Developing Proficiency Tasks in LCTLs Based on Materials Gleaned from the Web
Deniz Gokcora
Proficiency is a buzz word when we consider teaching of foreign languages. In less commonly taught languages, this term has even more ambiguous levels of meaning. The presentation will provide exemplary proficiency-based test tasks in a variety of less commonly taught languages based on materials gleaned from the web. The Internet exposes many opportunities to teachers to create tasks in reading, writing, listening, and speaking, using authentic texts and also stimulate instructors to create meaningful and student-centered test questions. Example tasks and test items will be in English as well as in Norwegian, Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, and Turkish.

Fewer Teachers, Higher Standards: Where Does Technology Figure In?
Kathryn Murphy-Judy
In this panel discussion, well-known teacher educators discuss the role of technology in teacher education and professional development: from how to use technology in the classroom to using it to improve oneself. We will also consider the impact of technology standards for teacher education, licensure, and eventually professional development (e.g., National Board Certification). Just how and where does technology have a positive effect on preparing, recruiting and retaining foreign language teachers in the schools? How and where does it hinder? What can teacher educators do to make technology a win-win situation for future teachers?

Co-Construction of Meaning in a Synchronous CMC Environment
Claudia Kost
The use of communication strategies in a CMC environment has only been explored in a few studies (Chun, 1994; Smith, 2003) which suggest that task-based activities promote the use of communication strategies. By analyzing transcripts from weekly chat sessions of beginning learners of German, the present study investigates how learners make use of communication strategies while doing role plays and how they co-construct meaning and negotiate interactions when they experience communication problems in a synchronous CMC environment.

Continuation of Courseware Development SIG: Publishers Roundtable
Helene Greenwood
Laurel Miller
Sherry Preiss
Scott Tinetti
Howard Pomann
Natalia Carro
The Courseware Development Special Interest Group will present a Publisher’s Roundtable in which publishers will briefly present their views on future CALL software development, teacher/researcher involvement (royalty and consulting opportunities), and technology issues. Opportunities and challenges for faculty wishing to develop and publish software will be highlighted. The discussion will then be opened up to CALICO members to share their questions and comments with the panel. Panelists will include representatives from textbook publishers.

What Happens When You Unplug the Audio Console? Making Online Speech Possible
Jeff Magoto
Jim Duber
When it comes to speech, language teachers and lab directors alike have decried the lack of options for web-based instruction. Determined not to repeat the same mistakes of the “console” era, considerable interest is coalescing around speech and video-based tools that are nonproprietary and relatively simple for teachers to create content with. This demonstration focuses on how we have used Flash Communications Server to build several web-based speech (and video) tools and how they are currently being used in language instruction at the University of Oregon. The tools include: a virtual tape recorder, a message board, and a quiz/survey maker.

The Challenges of Learning and Sharing Knowledge of an LCTL in the 21st Century
John Kovarik
The 21st century has dawned with the critical need for us all to build better bridges of understanding with the languages and cultures of many less commonly taught languages from Dari to the languages of the Southern Philippines. I demonstrate how the development of a Mongolian morphological analyzer, parser, and generator for Khalka Mongolian served the dual purpose of enhancing my own language skills and building user-friendly and shareable tools to support language learning for other linguistically adept language learners desiring to bridge the gap between Mongolia and the West. Each computational tool is correlated with impact on language learning.

Sens-it System Approach to CALL
James R. Nord
This session will provide a theoretical framework for programming mastery learning CALL courseware and provide a demonstration of modules that illustrate and operationally define various portions of the theoretical framework. The Sens-it system provides a way of looking at language and language acquisition in an operational manner, one that can easily be demonstrated with a computer. This session is closely related to my “From TALL to CALL” presentation and participation in both would have a synergetic effect, but they are both designed to be independent presentations with little overlap.

Conference Presentations: Day Two
May 20, 2005

8:00 – 8:45

Talking to the Cyberwalls? Interaction in an Asynchronous Web-based Language Course
Joseph Hopkins
This paper reports on an exploratory study that examined interaction in three whole-class computer-mediated discussions in an online English language course. A model combining quantitative and qualitative methods for analyzing online discussions was utilized to examine (a) to what extent interaction occurred in the conferences, (b) what types of interaction were most common, (c) what online moderating strategies appeared to foster interaction, and (d) what role individual students have in promoting interaction with their peers. The findings are discussed, along with suggestions for future research.

Segue: An Open Source Multilingual Course Management System
Alex Chapin
The Segue system is a fully multilingual, open source content management system modeled on weblogs that can be used for creating course web sites as well as sites for news, journals, e-portfolios, research, and the delivery of a wide range of media files. It is one of many curricular systems in development for use by the Middlebury College Language Schools. The next generation of Segue will include systems for managing assessments, digital assets, and knowledge bases and will implement Open Knowledge Initiative (OKI) standards for systems interoperability.

Effective Corrective Feedback Strategies in Second Language Teaching with Implications for Intelligent Tutorial Systems (ITS) for Foreign Languages (FL)
Anita Ferreira-Cabrera
In this paper, we present an approach for using empirical data on student-teacher interactions with a view towards informing the design of feedback strategies in intelligent tutorial systems (ITS) for learning Spanish as a Second Language. We explore some empirical evidence about the type, frequency, and effectiveness of the feedback strategies used by Spanish teachers in face-to-face classroom mode. We propose that the incorporation of effective teaching strategies into ITS for foreign language can be informed by (a) the analysis of feedback strategies used in Spanish as L2 classes and (b) SLA research findings on the effectiveness of corrective feedback.

Teaching Culture in Web-based Video Environments: MIMEA
Angelika Kraemer
This presentation focuses on the development and pedagogical goals of web-based video modules (Multimedia Interactive Modules for Education and Assessment) for Arabic, Chinese, German, and Vietnamese, and discusses how the modules can benefit a language program. MIMEA’s video clips show native and nonnative speakers interacting in natural, unscripted situations. Internet-based exercises reinforce language and cultural topics, paying special attention to teaching and assessing pragmatic competence. Examples will be provided for German but can be expanded to any foreign language. MIMEA is accessible to teachers and students at no charge from CLEAR’s web site.

Effects of POWERful Collaborative Computational Scaffolding on EFL Writing Quality
Hsien-Chin Liou
Chi-Wen Chien
Peer response activities are claimed to be beneficial for writing classes under the influence of the process writing pedagogy and collaborative learning. The presentation reports the effects of using an online peer co-editing platform to help 18 EFL learners to write better English essays. The study adopts a single group pretest-posttest design with three cycles of drafting, peer response, and revising in pair-work. The measurements include a blank-filling test, a timed essay writing task, and an evaluation questionnaire. Online discussion logs and various drafts will also be analyzed. Results and implications will be presented in the conference.

Exploring Measures of Syntactic Complexity in Synchronous Computer-mediated Communication
Ana Oskoz
Given the unique characteristics of the synchronous medium, research in this area has indicated the need to fine tune measures to assess syntactic complexity in online chat (Ortega, 1997; Sotillo, 2000). This study compares and analyzes students’ performance in coordination index (Warschauer, 1996) and in amount of subordinated clauses per t-unit (Hunt, 1970; Veliz, 1999). Results of the study show a statistical difference between the jigsaw and free discussion in coordination index (t (29) = -2.256, p = .032). Further results and discussion regarding the two measures, task effect and online chat characteristics, will be provided at the conference.

Blasting into the Blogosphere: Using Reading and Micropublishing as a Window into Culture
Lara Ducate
Lara Lomicka
Ninety percent of today’s bloggers are between 13 and 29 years of age, which coincides with the ages of a significant portion of the population of foreign language learners (Nussbaum, 2004). This presentation offers an overview of web logs, or blogs, and discusses their potential uses in foreign language classes, as well as suggestions for finding and integrating them into a course. Several projects, including a year-long qualitative study, integrating blogs in intermediate German and French university-level classes are highlighted. Data from the following tasks will be discussed: reading native-speaker blogs, micropublishing, and interacting with foreign language blogging communities.

9:00 – 9:45

Attitudes of Students and Teachers Towards the Use of Technology in the Language Class: A Comparison
Martine Peters
Alysse Weinberg
Two studies were conducted in various multimedia settings in French-as-a-second language courses at three Canadian universities to determine what lies behind the attitudes of students and teachers towards the use of technology in language learning and teaching. Questionnaires were developed to collect information regarding use and attitudes and to elicit preferences. The data analyzed from these studies revealed that students and teachers have distinct preferences for certain types of activities and interface. We will discuss the need for language teachers to be aware of their students’ preferences in order to maximize their language learning through multimedia activities.

Email Discourse in Native-Nonnative Collaborative Interactions from a Sociocultural Perspective
Keiko Kitade
Asynchronous computer-mediated communication (ACMC) possesses distinguishable interactional features (e.g., multimoves in single messages, lack of adjacency, and lower response rate). Considering such features of ACMC, this study investigates task-based email interactions between nonnative speakers (NNSs) and native speakers (NSs) from a sociocultural perspective. The analysis reveals how collaborative learning is carried out in terms of task management, feedback mechanisms, and social cohesiveness. The findings indicate that NSs utilize the features of ACMC to provide multiple scaffoldings in a single message, employ text-initial contextualization, maintain cohesion in providing feedback, and organize the message to carry out multiple topics concurrently.

TeLL me More Education, Language Learning Software
Christophe Pralong
The new TeLL me More Education responds to the educational demand of a more comprehensive approach to language learning, while applying the latest in multimedia resources. This new version has been specially designed to meet the needs of educational institutions. TeLL me More covers all the skills to learn a language: reading and writing, listening and speaking, grammar, vocabulary … up to 2,000 hours of learning per language. TeLL me More has been already adopted by thousands of Academic Institutions worldwide. Available to learn English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Chinese, Japanese, and Arabic. For distance learning (Internet), networked labs, CD-ROMs.

Universal Instructional Design and Language Teaching: What Role Can Technology Play?
Donna Van Handle
Renate Saggau
This presentation will discuss how use of technology can aid instructors in applying principles of universal instructional design (UID) to the teaching of language on the secondary and postsecondary level. Practical examples will be supplied and handouts provided.

The Effect of Question Glossing on Online Reading and Look-up Behavior
Christina Overstreet
Qualitative and quantitative data (recall protocols, think alouds, pre- and poststudy questionnaires, exit interviews) will be presented to show how and to what extent question glosses in the hypermedia environment enabled readers to go beyond the linguistic and text base level to construct a situation model of the text. This study is based on an interactive compensatory view of reading (Stanovich, 1980) and a constructionist model of discourse comprehension (Kintsch & Van Dijk, 1983).

Corpus Analytic Insights into Foreign Language Uses of Intercultural Communication
Steve Thorne
Jonathon Reinhardt
This research examines French-foreign-language students engaged in Internet-mediated intercultural communication with peers in France. Corpus analytic techniques are used to compare early and late semester L2 CMC discourse and to develop a diachronic-developmental analysis of both high- and low-volume-participation students in the following areas: changes in lexical inventory over time, changes in the number and quality of collocations, frequency lists, and mean utterance length, with emphasis on units that are syntactically or pragmatically marked but that show movement toward enhanced communicative performance. Implications for the use of corpus techniques in assessment and pedagogy will be briefly discussed.

Web-based Lessons and Authoring Tools: The RAILS Project at the University of Wisconsin-Madison
Dianna L. Murphy
Shannon Spasova
Language teachers need tools that enable them to frame video-based learning materials in proficiency-oriented learning tasks. In this presentation, we will show new web-based listening comprehension lessons for students of Russian developed at the University of Wisconsin-Madison under a grant from the U.S. Department of Education. We will demonstrate the Multimedia LessonBuilder and Multimedia Annotator, authoring tools developed at UW-Madison that were used to create these lessons. These tools can be used by language instructors to create their own lessons incorporating video, audio, and images into a variety of types of convergent and divergent activities.

10:00 – 10:45

Use of Internet-based Task to Promote Learners’ Interaction
Mashael Al-Hamly
This presentation reports on a study comparing the use of the Internet by two types of co-operative EFL groups. Quantitative and qualitative research methods were used in this study to investigate the potential of the Internet as an information database in the promotion of EFL learning interaction. Findings of the study indicated that both types of group produced rich interaction in terms of quantity and quality. The study also confirms the value of non-ESL software (e.g., the Internet) and the use of computers as a research tool in eliciting learners’ interaction.

ECLUV Language Learning and Teaching Platform
Nancy Pedraza Araque
Martha I. Berdugo Torres
This paper presents the results of the first phase of an on-going two-phase research at Universidad del Valle (Colombia). The main purpose of the project is to design, develop, implement, and evaluate a web-based platform for teaching and learning foreign languages at the university. The platform is the result of team work, in which the web-based design and programming was done by two computing engineering undergraduate students and the instructional and language pedagogy model was defined by the authors of this paper. The e-learning system was conceived as a tool for supporting on-campus learning, but it could also be used for distance language instruction.

Formative Evaluation of a Conferencing Software Program for Writing Instruction
Teresa Chen
Hui-mei Justina Hsu
This conference presentation will start with a brief overview of the key features of the software, Conferencing Tool, and focus on its trial as well as the results of the formative evaluation. It will conclude with a plan for future improvement and implementation of the software program. A segment of the data sources and the analysis will be used to demonstrate the conferencing activities and the evaluation process.

Implementing Theoretical Issues in the Creation of an Interactive English Online Software
Emerita Bañados
The presenter will show an interactive English online software developed at Universidad de Concepción, Chile, exemplifying how some theoretical issues were actually implemented in the online materials. Some of these issues deal with tasks, management, control, input, content, feedback, language learning potential, meaning focus, and collaborative learning. (Chapelle, 2001, 2003; Doughty & Long, 2003; Crook, 1992, 1994; Ellis, 2003; Warschauer, 2000). Special attention is given to fundamental issues of online pedagogy such as providing meaningful feedback, giving students the sense of belonging to a community, and helping students develop their oral language skills through individual practice, communication, and collaboration (Felix, 2003).

Computing Laboratory as a Language Learning Environment
Zühal Okan
This study argues that in order to get a complete picture of the educational process, the overall learning environment must be considered. It involves an evaluation of the physical and psychosocial learning environments in computing laboratories through the administration of two student questionnaires. Versions of the What Is Happening in This Classroom (WIHIC) instrument (Fraser, Fisher, & McRobbie, 1996) and Computerized Classroom Environment Checklist (CCEC) are administered to 150 university students who are taking one-year compulsory education in English in the Foreign Language Teaching Center at Çukurova University, Turkey, before they are allowed to pursue their academic courses in their faculties.

Pedagogical Impact of Room Layout on CALL Activities
Nobuko Taguchi
Andrea Allen
This presentation will discuss how room and furniture layout of a language lab impacts the pedagogy of language instruction through the presenters’ experiences of using the traditional and the newly renovated language labs. In the latter lab, a group of computer desks face one another, without any division between them such as cubicle walls. There is plenty of space, so that students can easily move among classmates and interact with each other. In this presentation, the layout changes, CALL activities, teaching techniques, and feedback from students will be shared. Also, our colleagues’ CALL activities will be discussed.

A Case Study of Online Practice Units on Conjunction Use in College EFL Students’ Writing
Hsien-Chin Liou
Problems related to coherence and misuse of connectors, according to the literature, come from learners’ first language interference, improper mechanical exercise, and misleading lists of connectors in textbooks as mutually interchangeable. Form-focused instruction through explicit semantic, stylistic, and syntactic properties that clearly illustrates form-function mapping can help learning of connectors. Four online conjunction units drawing from insights in related literature and learner-corpus analyses were designed for 19 EFL college students to use for a month. A test and a writing task were used before and after the instructional period, followed by an evaluation questionnaire on students’ perception.

1:30 – 2:15

Exploring Chinatown Project: Effective Online Presentation
Meng Yeh
Hajime Kumahata
This presentation focuses on the design and results of the Exploring Chinatown Project, a semester project for the second-semester Chinese classes in spring of 2004 and 2005. This project is designed with two goals in mind. First, the project integrates the learning of language, culture, and community. Second, the project creates an online space in which students can easily present and share their findings. Students are guided to develop a topic/theme through completing small tasks in Houston’s Chinatown. Their video-taped oral presentations and digital photographs taken in Chinatown are presented online in SMIL format.

Middle East Meets West: Developing Distance Learning for Arabic and Other Critical Needs
Karen Audant
Tiffany Taylor
Dermot Rourke
The Foreign Service Institute (FSI) is the federal government’s primary training institution for officers and support personnel of the U.S. foreign affairs community. Since 1999, FSI has designed and developed over 52 distance learning courses, including critical needs languages programs. This presentation focuses on instructional design and technical considerations for Arabic courseware. Specifically, presenters will share experiences and lessons learned in the development of courseware incorporating non-Romanized language fonts, a speech recognition component, transliteration and transcription schema, and dialectical variation. In addition, presenters will provide a demonstration of selected courseware lessons and will also share testing feedback.

Development of an Automated Test of Spoken Japanese
Yasunari Harada
Jared Bernstein
Masanori Suzuki
Ordinate Corporation and the Institute for Digital Enhancement of Cognitive Development (DECODE) at Waseda University in Japan are developing a fully automated test of spoken Japanese. The spoken Japanese Test (SJT) is intended to measure a test-taker’s facility in spoken Japanese; that is, the ability to understand spoken Japanese on everyday topics and to respond intelligibly at a native-like conversational pace, in a quick and reliable manner. Test administration and scoring will be fully automated. Results of preliminary analyses of data gathered from native and nonnative speakers of Japanese will be shared.

Language Learning Software with Microsoft.NET
Robert Zerwekh
George M. Henry
This paper will demonstrate several language learning software programs developed with Microsoft’s .NET platform. It will also show how the .NET programming model is appropriate for writing interactive Internet-based learning exercises as well as stand-alone Windows programs.

Lessons Learned in Teaching Language at a Distance: Arabic Without Walls
Robert Blake
Sonia S’hiri
Online language learning needs to address all skills even though the textual medium may constitute a unique strength of this environment. The need for a comprehensive curriculum is especially relevant for Arabic with its complicated writing system. This presentation will discuss the technological components that facilitate production of a distance learning course for first-year Arabic. Materials from the web site for Arabic Without Walls, a recently funded FIPSE-sponsored project, will be demonstrated. Particular attention will be given to CMC tasks, the presentation of culture, and SCORM-compliant exercises. Pilot survey results and protocol interviews from students will also be presented and evaluated.

Energize Language Learning with Content-based Instruction and Technology
Marlene Johnshoy
Getting students involved and excited about language learning is critical to the overall success of language programs. The use of technology and content-based instruction (CBI) are two ways in which teachers can make their language classrooms more engaging for students. To help teachers learn how to use CBI and technology effectively, the Content-Based Language Teaching through Technology project provides a series of online instructional modules for “anytime, anywhere” professional development. Each of the modules provides in-depth information about the topic, activities to check comprehension and practice new skills, and lots of resources to help teachers energize their language classes.

Give your Online Classes a Voice
Jody Wexler
How can anyone learn a language without speaking it? This troubling question has been raised all too often since most online language courses rely exclusively on text. It goes without saying that discussion and dialogue are essential elements of language learning, yet most online language courses lack the necessary tools and resources to offer their students the ability to practice the audible and verbal aspects of languages. Fortunately, Horizon Wimba remedies this problem by offering language learning solutions that allow students and teachers to learn and teach the most natural way of all–with voice.

2:30 – 3:15

Investigating the Effectiveness of a CALL Program Designed to Improve Editing
Gabseon Lee
Jinhee Choo
Ron Cowan
This presentation reports an experiment that tested the effectiveness of a CALL program designed to improve Korean ESL undergraduate and graduate students’ ability to detect and correct grammatical errors in the first drafts of English compositions. The program targeted persistent errors determined by a corpus analysis of Korean students’ compositions. The results showed significant gains for the CALL group over a NOCALL group with very little drop in performance over 5 months, as measured by a second posttest. The results are related to considerations in designing more efficient CALL programs for enhancing L2 learning.

Transdisciplinarity as a Strategy for Tackling Interdisciplinarity Issues in CALL
Jozef Colpaert
Wilfried Decoo
Three years of editorship of the CALL Journal have led to a list of recurring statements by submitting authors which illustrate that the application of knowledge, methods, skills and procedures from other disciplines is often associated with a lack of academic rigor. We will discuss 10 examples of statements which often alert reviewers of the CALL Journal to possible problems of relevance and applicability. This leads us to an analysis of the multidisciplinarity problem in CALL, to interdisciplinarity as a problem-solving technique and to transdisciplinarity as a better way of working across the borders of relevant disciplines.

Interinstitutional and Intrainstitutional Factors in Online Course Management and Administration
Stephen Tschudi
Courseware, instructional design, curriculum content, and student variables are all critical factors in the success or failure of online courses. This paper argues that administrative and management factors both within the walls of the originating institution and, in the case of contracted instruction, at the receiving institution, are equally important. Cases from two kinds of distance/distributed courses are examined with an eye to identifying factors in course management and administration that enabled or precluded successful course delivery, and a rubric for such analysis is presented. The audience will learn how to apply this rubric in their own distance/distributed education setting.

Two Alternative Menu-based User Interfaces for a Computer-based Hypertext for Teaching Foreign-language (Brazilian Portuguese) Culture
Paul Sundberg
While computer-based hypertext environments (with multiple linked pages) have been proposed as ideally suited for teaching complex domains (Spiro et al.), including foreign-language culture, a variety of potential interface architectures for such hypertexts are possible. In this dissertation study (N = 36), the presenter argues that such design decisions in CAI are not neutral but have differing effects on the mental models learners construct of the domain. The experiment compares learning outcomes from two alternative menu-based navigational interfaces for selecting (identical) pages in a hypertext on the regional culture of Bahia, Brazil designed in accordance with the principles of cognitive flexibility theory.

Cultural Identity in German-American Email Partnership on Hot Topics
Senta Goertler
Recently, German-American political relations have been challenging. In an attempt to create cross-cultural understanding an email-partnership was developed between a southwestern US university and a high school in southwestern Germany. Participants were asked to discuss topics which were expected to be controversial, especially along country lines. Over the course of a semester students discussed 12 topics, with half of the messages written in German and half in English. Under investigation in this study was the development of a third cultural space over the course of the semester and also the difference in cultural identity in English versus German.

The Dictionary Assistant: Internet Software to Facilitate Reading
Finley M. Taylor
The Dictionary Assistant is an Internet-based program which facilitates reading and composition through bidirectional searches in linked dictionaries between English and either German, French, Italian, or Spanish. The interface has a drop-down menu with the dictionaries and a blank, resizable frame for text. When text is entered, clicking on any word initiates the search and opens a new frame which displays the results. The Dictionary Assistant combines otherwise separate operations and windows into one 10-KB-program. It can be used at all undergraduate levels and resides at the Karen L. Smith Faculty Center for Teaching and Learning at the University of Central Florida.

Enhancing Web-based Online Course Instruction with Synchronous VirtualClassroom Tools
Masato Kikuchi
Funded by Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia and NSEP, a two-year sequence in online Japanese courses have been developed. (Chinese and Russian courses are also forthcoming.) The entire course materials are delivered by WebCT Vista and a virtual classroom application called OpenCampus by Horizon Wimba. These Web courses combine both synchronous tools (live VoIP-based interaction, text chat, and whiteboard) and asynchronous tools (threaded discussion, email, automated Web-based exercises, and multimedia materials). We will demonstrate a relatively economical model of online instruction that supports all four skills including speaking skills aimed at elementary- to intermediate-level classes.

3:30 – 4:15

The Role of the Digital Portfolio in Foreign Language Teacher Education Programs
Christopher Luke
This presentation focuses on digital portfolios as a means for future foreign language teaching candidates to simultaneously meet national and state performance standards and showcase their language abilities. The digital portfolios allow candidates to demonstrate language, teaching, and technology skills in a dynamic, multimedia environment while fostering self-reflection and highlighting growth and development over time.

An Investigation of Feedback in CALL for Enhancing Advanced Learners’ Interlanguage Grammar
Doe Hyung Kim
CALL programs designed to record detailed usage information and feedback may provide important perspectives on the role of focus on form and negative feedback in advanced learners’ language acquisition. In a task that replicates the revision of passages in academic writing, learners located and corrected persistent grammatical errors and received multiple feedback using the ESL Tutor (Cowan, Choi, & Kim, 2003). I discuss learners’ performance in relation to the types of feedback they received. The analysis leads to a discussion of the learners’ competency, the effectiveness of feedback, and the nature of feedback delivered in the CALL program.

How do Korean Immigrant Families Use Technology as a Means of Maintaining/Acquiring Heritage Language and Culture?
Sunah Cho
Stephen Carey
This qualitative case study examines computer use among Korean immigrant families who reside in the lower mainland of Vancouver, Canada, as a means of maintaining/acquiring their heritage language and culture. The data consist of semi-structured interviews, observations, questionnaires, and the participants’ diaries, computer-mediated interactions, relevant documents about their family history, and materials about the children’s experience in learning and practicing Korean. The research findings shed new light on the connections between technology use and heritage language and culture maintenance and acquisition by examining participants’ theories and ideologies about and actual practice with technology in their language maintenance and learning.

Auto-glossing News. Yet another Attempt to Integrate Current News into the Foreign Language Curriculum
Thomas Plagwitz
Educating for global citizenship could greatly benefit from international news sources that are readily available on the Internet, if they were effectively integrated into the foreign language curriculum. The presentation will outline an application that auto-glosses foreign language news in a learner-centered environment. Glossing is based on dictionary and word-frequency data. The resulting enriched texts can also be synchronized with multimedia recordings. Glossing is customized to learner proficiency and topical interest. In addition, the application tracks learner interaction to improve vocabulary building.

What’s Really Going On: A New Approach to SCMC Task-based Data Collection
Bryan Smith
Greta J. Gorsuch
In this paper we demonstrate a new methodological approach to capturing and interpreting second language learners’ interaction using computer chat. By conjoining real time video clips of second language users’ faces and their computer screens, with a new coding technique, we provide compelling evidence that traditional, linear paper and ink chatscripts obscure many aspects of synchronous CMC which are significant to second language learning theory.

Language Anxiety, Learner Self-management and Oral Performance in Face-to-face and Virtual Language-learning Contexts
Mirjam Hauck
Stella Hurd
Based on the evaluation of data collected during the first two years of dual strand tutorials at the Open University/UK, this paper seeks to explore the interrelationship between affective learner variables, learner self-knowledge and management and learner performance in face-to-face as well as virtual language-learning contexts.

The Ecology and Semiotics of Online Communication
Leo van Lier
This presentation examines online projects at the graduate level in terms of design, dynamics, student and teacher roles, and other aspects of computer-mediated communication, using activity theory and other contextual models to describe and interpret various kinds of project work, particularly in collaborative setups between groups in different countries. The functions and participatory properties of asynchronous and synchronous communication are compared, and cross-cultural understandings and misunderstandings are analyzed. Of particular interest are tensions between differing curricula, identities and belief systems, and ways in which such tensions can be resolved through course design, collaborative activities, and reflective metacommunicative tasks.

Conference Presentations: Day Three
May 21, 2005

8:00 – 8:45

Foreign Language Teaching in Interactive Multimedia Laboratory Settings
Marinella Garatti
This paper reports on findings from a study conducted among Intermediate-level college students of Italian learning the present subjunctive in an interactive multimedia laboratory setting which allows for data recording of language input, student-student interaction, and output. In addition to providing insights into student achievement and preferences for different instructional tasks, the study discusses strengths and challenges of foreign language teaching in this instructional setting.

Noticing in Text-based Online Chat
Chun Lai
Current research on text-based online chat has yielded rich documentation of its social and motivational effects and of the quality of negotiated interaction produced in this context. However, to fully realize the potential of text-based online chat, a deeper understanding of its cognitive effects is much needed. This study is an effort along this line and investigated the potential of text-based online chat for promoting ‘noticing.’ The study found that text-based online chat had great strength in terms of facilitating learners’ noticing of their own linguistic mistakes. Furthermore, some features of discourse in text-based online chat also lent support to its potential in facilitating second language learning.

Weblogs and Wikis in the EFL Classroom
Richard S. Lavin
Weblogs have recently garnered much attention for their potential to foster the writing habit and to engender a stronger feeling of ownership than is possible with closed-community discussion forums. To a lesser extent, wikis–a class of networked editable writing environments–have also attracted attention since they appear to lend themselves to peer editing and the co-construction of knowledge. The present study describes the use made by the presenter of weblogs, wikis, and discussion forums in EFL tertiary contexts and attempts to draw conclusions regarding the nature of the respective media and pedagogically sound uses that play to their strengths.

Reality in Virtuality: Enhancing Authenticity of Role Play in Language Learning through CMC
Jiang Pu
Fei Gao
Yong Zhao
Role play has been widely used as a strategy in foreign/second language learning to simulate authentic communication opportunities that allow learners to practice what they have learned. However in traditional classrooms, the authenticity of such simulation suffers from the fact that the learners are often too familiar with each other to pretend to be someone else and that visual existence of the reality of the context affects their ability to fantasize. The lack of authenticity can significantly reduce the effectiveness of role play as a pedagogical strategy. The potential of being anonymous and seeing a visual presentation of intended context of CMC technologies may, paradoxically, bring about a higher degree of authenticity than the traditional face-to-face classroom. For example, ActiveWorlds, a 3-D online chatting environment, with built-in anonymity and spatiality, gives students great room for imagination and thus might enhance their perception of its authenticity. This study proposes to examine the potential of ActiveWorlds in promoting learners’ perception of the authenticity of role play.

Using Moodle for Teaching Business English in a CALL Environment
Thomas Robb
Moodle is an open source course management system (CMS) that is in many ways superior to the expensive ‘high end’ products such as WebCT and Blackboard. The presenter will demonstrate how Moodle, with some special enhancements, has been made the center piece of the Business English course for English majors at Kyoto Sangyo University. It is used to take attendance, provide practice materials, administer quizzes, collect written assignments and return them with feedback, and, finally, to extract data for final evaluations. Observations will be made on how the course has changed since the adoption of Moodle.

Creative Uses of Audio and Video in the Foreign Language Classroom
Gregory Menke
Cecilia Barbudo
Marina Cobb
Tarek Elgendy
Hanan Khaled
Soondeuk Kim
A panel of presenters from the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center (DLIFLC) will demonstrate creative uses of audio and video media for teaching Arabic, Korean, Kurdish, Russian, and Spanish exemplifying principals of teaching for proficiency in the communicative task-based classroom and demonstrating the use of technology for enhancing interactivity in the classroom. Activity templates and step-by-step instructions for development and implementation will be provided. Some of the programs utilized include SMART Board Notebook software, Microsoft Office, Adobe Audition, and Ulead Video Studio 7.

9:00 – 9:45

A Designed Case for a New Theory for Teaching Freshman English in a Hybrid Web-based Course
Gi-Zen Liu
The researcher created an instructional case to develop guidelines (including speaking, listening, reading, and writing) for teaching EFL to first-year undergraduate students in a hybrid Web-based course (including both classroom and online contexts) in Taiwan. This study utilized the broad framework of instructional design theory (Reigeluth, 1999) to develop guidelines and used formative research methodology to collect and analyze data to refine the guidelines in the theory in a five-stage process. He used two rounds of expert review to collect and analyze formative data on the case and then used the data to refine the case and the guidelines.

Integrated Courseware for Beginning Language Instruction: The Auf geht’s! Project
Lee Forester
Anne Green
This session will give an overview of Auf geht’s!, an integrated curriculum for beginning college German language and culture, and describe the results of the first full pilot year, 2004-05. The Auf geht’s! curriculum consists of multimedia software, print materials, web resources, and communicative classroom activities designed to work together, emphasizing the unique strengths of each learning medium. The main elements of the program will be demonstrated and initial findings of student learning and attitudes described, especially in relation to the multimedia software materials.

Corpus CALL: Opportunities and Challenges
Hans Paulussen
Piet Desmet
Recently, the use of text corpora has gained momentum in language technology and in linguistics, but the advantages of this type of textual resources in language learning and CALL still remain underestimated. If collected and annotated in a systematic way, text corpora can be useful not only as a reference tool (e.g., learner dictionary or grammar), but also as an effective part of learning activities (e.g., automatic generation of exercises, active support of the learning activity, and generation of feedback). We will illustrate how we use parallel corpora in the development of corpus-based CALL materials.

Creating Technology-enhanced Materials for Innovation
Rebecca L. Oxford
Sei-Hwa Jung
Ying Zhang
This presentation shares experiences in creating technology-enhanced materials for English language learners in a recently established Materials Design and Technology course in the Second Language Education Program at the University of Maryland. Presenters discuss how they used technology to create new materials and learning environments for English language learners and how the course promoted cooperative learning and individual responsibility among class members. The presentation highlights not only the process and the products of this innovative course but also the theoretical foundations underlying it.

Use of Cohesive Devices in Synchronous and Asynchronous CMC in Japanese
Maki Hirotani
The need for a better understanding of language use in the CMC environment is called for in order to provide appropriate CMC applications to learners for the achievement of a higher level of targeted linguistic features, including linguistic complexity and cohesiveness. The researcher qualitatively examines cohesiveness in the chat and bulletin board environment. Using discussion data from learners of Japanese, she looks at various types of cohesive devices and examines how each type was used and how the learners’ cohesive skills were developed over a period of time. Based on the findings, she proposes possible CMC applications for developing learners’ cohesive skills.

Internet-based Reading–Vocabulary Learning and Lookup Behavior
Makoto Yoshii
This study examines the incremental nature of vocabulary learning through reading for comprehension using Internet-based materials. The study was conducted for more than two months with 45 Japanese university English as a Foreign Language (EFL) students. The participants read six texts (in total more than 5,000 words) for comprehension purposes. A program was created to present reading texts with an electronic dictionary component which allowed the researchers to keep track of learners’ lookup behavior. The study looks at the change in students’ vocabulary knowledge and also examines the relationship between the vocabulary test scores and the lookup data.

Task-based Language Teaching in CALL
Junko Hondo
This presentation focuses on a technology-enhanced foreign language program via a web-based voice-board system. Limited exposure to the target language outside of the classroom poses challenges to the learners and instructors of all foreign languages. In this study of a Japanese language program, students collaborated outside the classroom to enhance oral production and listening comprehension as an extension of their class work. In an effort to maximize the functionality of the voice board, task-based instruction was incorporated as the method of stimulating student collaboration. The descriptive results indicate benefits in addressing the special challenges of foreign language acquisition.

10:00 – 10:45

Situated Research in Video Study Groups: A Critical Framework for World Language Education
François Tochon
Video allows for “situated research,” referring to lived experience for the purpose of understanding and reflection. Video has thus freed research from an exclusively laboratory-based approach and broadens it to include self-viewing and other-viewing in reflective groups. Video feedback offers one means of contributing to the intersubjective meaning-making process. As such, it constitutes one of the loci of validation of knowledge. Video feedback can be seen as an applied semiotic process through which world language learners and teachers make sense of their actions. The resulting attention has implications for how language learning and teaching are conceived and studied at various levels.

CMC Technologies for Teaching Foreign Languages: What’s on the Horizon?
Peter A. Lafford
Barbara Lafford
Computer-mediated communication (CMC) technologies have begun to play an increasingly important role in the teaching of foreign/second languages. In this presentation, various established and “cutting-edge” CMC technologies that facilitate asynchronous and synchronous oral and written communication will be described and evaluated vis-à-vis the feasibility of their pedagogical application to the teaching of foreign/second languages. Various foreign language learning scenarios using these technologies in task-based activities will also be proposed. This presentation concludes with a discussion focusing on the challenges facing the implementation of these technologies (e.g., accessibility, compatibility, and financial considerations) and some possible solutions to those problems.

Teaching about Post-reunification Germany: Issues, Challenges, and Technology
Bernhard T. Streitwieser
Franziska Lys
Fifteen years after the reunification of East and West Germany, a heated debate rages on over the legacy of communism and the continuing impact of 1989. A new course at Northwestern University explores this debate through innovative use of the Blackboard course management system. This presentation will share use of internet technology (e.g., video-audio links to archives, documentary footage, famous recordings, academic articles, newspaper reports, Internet sites, online quizzes, and virtual discussions) to involve undergraduates in debate, engaging them in ways deviating from traditional teaching models. We will also present results of a preliminary study on learning and technology to test the course’s impact.

Who, When, Why, What: How Computer Technology is Used in Higher Education
Nike Arnold
This presentation reports the findings of a web survey about the use of computer technology for foreign language teaching in higher education. The responses of teaching assistants, lecturers, and faculty from selected colleges and universities in the Southeast were used to answer the following questions: Who uses computer technology for their teaching? How is it used? Why is it used? Why is computer technology not used more often? This presentation contributes to a better understanding of the status quo of technology use and provides essential information for lab directors, supervisors, and administrators to help address the needs and concerns of their teachers.

Tierra Adentro-Spanish Electronic Newsletter
Adolfo Carrillo Cabello
Robert Irvin
Students studying abroad are a very valuable first-hand source of information that this project utilizes as a unique source of cultural materials that help to foster more awareness of cultural diversity in and outside the language classroom. This project shows the use of basic image and audio technology to develop a web site that consists of student reports from abroad. Using our own students in developing online materials has increased their peers’ interest in other cultures while they learn from their experiences abroad. This in turn has enhanced the sense of ‘ownership’ of this valuable learning resource.

DiLL–The All Digital Audio Lab Solution for the Macintosh-equipped Computer Lab
Janine Spencer
Matthew Taylor
This presentation will introduce the Digital Learning Lab (DiLL), a new software solution for Macintosh-equipped computer labs developed by the Multimedia Learning Center at Northwestern University. DiLL incorporates all of the important features of traditional analog language lab systems and also provides additional innovative capabilities such as a database-driven audio-cataloging system, safeguarding and web-enabled review of student work from a web browser, and variable audio playback. After final deployment, testing, and refinement at Northwestern, the Multimedia Learning Center will begin licensing the software to interested outside institutions starting in summer, 2005.

11:00 – 11:20

Demonstration of German Elementary I, Internet Course
Annemarie Pajewski
The presenter will demonstrate course tools used to develop/teach a two-year-college four-semester, transferable German Internet course Mesa Community College. Having been taught for 2 years, with Deutsch Heute and a QUIA component. Platform makes use of WebCT, and GoLive. The web course tools to develop/maintain online course material include: course management, images, icons, uploading files. The web site contains a content module, organizer page, discussion, chat, assignment dropbox, WebCT email/oral assignments, bulletin board/themes, grade book, Respondus-Quizzes, and equation editor for MAC/PC (PDF). Oral assignments use PureVoice. Links are used for grammar, chapter deadlines, submission dates, cultural/linguistic information. For more information, see http://www.mc.maricopa.edu/~pajewski

A Report on Efforts to Identify and Promote Online Language Learning Resources at the DLIFLC
Gregory Menke
This presentation highlights teacher-training efforts to promote the use of authentic materials gathered from the Internet in the teaching of a wide variety of less commonly taught languages at the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center (DLIFLC) in Monterey, CA. As part of a 20-hour workshop, teachers are trained to use digital audio and video recording software coupled with Internet resources and then expected to develop a project for presentation. The concerns, suggestions, reservations, and problems encountered by those teachers having completed this training will be discussed.

Dissemination of Technology-based Language Instructional Materials
Yong Zhao
Chun Lai
The underutilization of computers and other innovations in education has been widely recognized. While much has been invested in developing technology-based interventions to support language learning, few have been widely adopted and used regularly in the classroom. A well meant innovation amounts to nothing if not adopted, and, thus, successful dissemination of these materials is the premise of the intended benefit. Therefore, an understanding of the factors that inhibit or facilitate their adoption is of great importance in that it informs both the development and dissemination processes. This study proposes to enrich our understanding on this issue through investigating the dissemination of the language instructional materials developed by the federally funded national language resource centers.

Developing Competencies through the Use of a Webfolio and a Discussion Board
Martine Peters
Future language teachers nowadays are encouraged to reflect and follow the development of their various competencies during their teacher education program. In an effort to understand the development of technical competencies and reflective skills of future language teachers, this research project analyzed the use of a webfolio and a discussion board by the students over a three month period. Students were asked to comment on various aspects of language learning and teaching. Conclusions on the use of technological tools such as the webfolio and the discussion board to develop competencies will be discussed.

Collaboratively Building a Learning Community through Online Games
Kazue Masuyama
Andrea Shea
We will describe the collaboration between a Japanese language instructor and a computer specialist at California State University, Sacramento, in building a learning community through use of interactive activities. The primary focus will be on a set of online games called “Hiragana and Katakana Drag-n-Drop.” First the instructor will share her motivation in seeking such games. The computer specialist will then discuss the steps taken in the design, development, and implementation of the games. Based on comments from surveys and interviews with students, effective ways to incorporate these successful online games into the course will be shared.

Building Virtual Communities of Practice in TESOL
Valia Spiliotopoulos
Stephen Carey
A research project conducted at the University of British Columbia’s (UBC) English Language Institute explored the nature and dynamics of international teachers’ virtual participation in an online course of Advanced English Language Teaching. Through discourse analysis, this research hopes to assess whether meaningful online communication and full participation were achieved by all members of this virtual community of practice (Lave & Wenger, 1991). The findings of this research can help to solve common challenges in online teacher development courses so as to maximize international participation of virtual communities of practice in the field of teaching English as a second/foreign language.

The Design and Implementation of a Web-based Dictation Homework System
David Sperling
This presentation describes the design and implementation of a web-based dictation system which assesses the listening comprehension skills of students at any level in language courses. While the system was implemented in English, it may be used with many other languages. The web application allows nonprogrammers to create dictation exercises for large classes with a few clicks of the mouse. The system centrally stores the dictation results in a database. The program allows teachers to view student progress/activity scores for the length of the course.

11:30 – 11:50

Building Speech Corpora with Flash
Jack Franke
Natasha Ananenko
The Macromedia Flash program has revolutionized CALL and is ubiquitous throughout the world. The access to foreign language utterances in a corpora can enhance the awareness of foreign language learners. At the next level of electronic portfolios, students can access a corpora to see/hear various speaking samples. The corpus, which has been constructed from a selection of student recordings, contains samples based on the construct of the ILR OPI. The corpora are provided in a Flash interface for ease of use and will be provided to all participants.

Preservice Teachers’ Perception of Using Technology in Teaching ESOL Students
Zhaohui Chen
This qualitative study examined preservice teachers’ perceptions of using technology in teaching English as a second language (ESOL) students. Online survey and semistructured interview were used to collect data from 25 preservice teachers from an urban public university in southeastern United States. Findings provided information on preservice teachers’ beliefs for the use of technology in teaching English as a second language to ESOL students with diverse language backgrounds and reflected possible factors that would influence their decision to use or not use technology. In light of teacher education, the study would inform the design and delivery of distance learning courses in preservice teachers’ professional development.

Proving IT Works: A Critical Transition
Christina Huhn
In current CALL literature, our research focus remains primarily on very specific learner outcomes, rather than looking at our overall pedagogy and advancement of the field. This focus can have detrimental effects on both individual projects and the overall advancement of the field, and it is becoming more critical that we shift our focus. The presentation will discuss one researcher’s experience, where the research project began as a traditionally designed research project, but early results forced the researcher to reconsider the project from a new perspective. This shift revealed not only additional issues to be addressed in the project, but also strong potential for contributions to current research.

The Effects of Learning Units on Synonymous Adjectives for College EFL Students
Yuli Yeh
Yi-Hsin Lee
This study aims to design and evaluate online learning units for helping Taiwanese college EFL learners avoid using the five most frequently overused adjectives in writing. Each unit presents two tasks. The first task requires students to induce patterns from instances in a bilingual concordancer, TANGO. Then in the second task, learners do substitution, blank-filling, and translation exercises to actively practice employing a more specific adjective in context. A tracking device and individual notepad provided by the system, together with interviews will record students’ learning processes. The instruments used include a pretest, two posttests, in addition to background and evaluation questionnaires.

Using Multipoint ISDN Videoconferencing and Blackboard to Meet the Needs of EFL Teachers in Mexico
Ruth Roux
The scarcity and dispersion of qualified language teacher educators in the northeast Mexico presents difficulties for the implementation of a much needed BA program in English language teaching. To solve the problem, a distance learning project was developed to help teachers and students in six cities communicate using ISDN conferencing and web-based learning technology. The presenter will provide an overview of how technology is used to deliver one of the courses in the program: teacher research. The presenter will also discuss the results of a study that examines the perceptions of students on the extent to which technology meets their learning needs.

Evaluation of Educational Software
Juan Garcia
The introduction of computers in the classroom has provoked a massive production of educational software, the quality of which is questionable in some cases, or does not adapt to classroom needs. Teachers find an overwhelming quantity of material that they need to evaluate before using it in class. A good evaluation system is required in order to choose the appropriate educational software and to maximize its benefits for learning. Several evaluation methods will be discussed in the presentation, taking as a point of reference an example of software to teach foreign languages.

Using Multimedia and Internet in Proficiency-oriented Foreign Language Teaching
Marat Sanatullov
Elvira Sanatullova-Allison
The session discusses the use of the HyperStudio multimedia program as well as Macromedia Web Design Studio 4 in a proficiency-oriented foreign language teaching. The presenters demonstrate the adaptation of Alexander Dumas’ story, The Three Musketeers, to contextualize the practice of reading, listening, writing, speaking and viewing skills for novice learners of French. The session also presents a WebQuest, an internet- and inquiry-based project in which intermediate learners of French investigate the culture and geography of France in order to select the best host for Summer Olympic Games in France.

1:30 – 2:15

EPortfolio–Key to Authentic Assessment
Jan Marston
Every language learner in DULAP (Drake University Language Acquisition Program) develops and presents an ePortfolio which begins with a statement of the learner’s objectives for the semester. The purpose of the ePortfolio is to demonstrate how those objectives are achieved along the course of the semester by including selections of the learner’s language work, such as digital video clips, sound bites, mediated chat transcripts, as well as more formal writing samples, reflective writing, study group project, self-evaluations, and peer evaluations. Creating this proof of objectives met gives students a sense of ownership, self-awareness, and purpose about their language learning.

Computer Adaptive Tests in English as a Second Language
Miguel Fernandez
Computer adaptive tests (CATs) started being used as an alternative method of assessing language acquisition. However, there are still some disadvantages in their use. Are they as practical, valid and reliable as paper and pencil tests? This presentation will show when, how, and why to administer both kinds of tests.

Data-driven Learning in Second Language Writing Instruction
Brenda Ross
J. Scott Payne
Data-driven learning (DDL) is a research-as-pedagogy approach to language learning that places corpus analysis software in the hands of language learners and encourages them to take on the role of researchers. Results from a study are presented addressing the question of whether DDL can help language students improve their writing skills. Student writing samples, questionnaires, and video data were analyzed together with the behavior-tracking data generated from the KWICionary. Implications for second language writing instruction are discussed.

Using the Wimba Voice Board in Foreign Language Courses: A Communicative Integration Plan
María Isabel Charle Poza
Computer conferencing technologies are increasingly being used in second language acquisition. They have expanded the communicative reach of the classroom by breaking the time and space barriers of that environment. Additionally, it is now possible to add the dimension of voice to these text-based technologies. The challenge for language educators today is to find ways to effectively integrate this new tool into their teaching. To address this need, a simple plan will be presented that includes sample activities using the Wimba voice board, as well as guidelines that will aid instructors to effectively integrate computer conferencing technologies into language courses.

A Tale of Convergence: Asynchronous Communication Between Beginning Native Speakers and Nonnative Speakers of Spanish
Cynthia Ducar
Brittany Lindsey
This correlational study analyzes dyadic interactions between native speakers (NS) of Spanish and nonnative speakers of Spanish (NNS) via discourse analysis. Data was collected utilizing online conferencing. Transcripts were coded and analyzed using MS Excel. The following research questions were addressed: Will CMC facilitate accommodation and negotiation in NS and NNS groups? Will both populations show evidence of English influence? Will NS produce a greater amount of language than NNS, as measured by word count? The NS-NNS pairs produced authentic interactions, resulting in complex outputs. The ability to communicate anonymously restructured traditional classroom interaction, resulting in increasingly equal participation between NS and NNS.

German Express: The Foreign Service Institute’s Online Familiarization Course and its Utilization at the United States Military Academy–A Successful Pilot Project
Johannes Vazulik
Peter Rowell
In this pilot project, first-, second-, and third-year German students used the online course German Express for review, reinforcement, enrichment, and remediation of language skills and cultural knowledge. German Express features a powerful speech recognizer, authentic video clips, interactive vocabulary and grammar exercises, a succinct grammar reference, the well known publication These Strange German Ways, and a lexicon. Contextual listening and speaking activities address daily functions and handling emergencies. Presenters will discuss pre- and postmeasures of students’ foreign language production and cultural awareness. They will also report learners’ and instructors’ perceptions regarding German Express’s effectiveness as an ancillary instructional tool.

Distance ESL Teaching: Tips and Techniques
Darcy Christianson
This presentation will review a few of the current methodologies as well as provide tips and techniques for effective distance ESL learning and teaching, taking into consideration issues such as cross-cultural communication and course design. Useful, low-cost tools for collaboration and communication will also be reviewed and discussed.

2:30 – 3:15

Web Audio Lab: A Hybrid Web/CD/ftp Audio Recorder with Teacher Review
Richard Feldman
While task-based communicative activities are surely the most valid for class use, students need opportunities to repeat, transform, and generate speech in a guided environment. The program described in this presentation gives students the opportunity to record their voice in response to programmed input, compare their speech to the model, and submit to the teacher. The teacher can then check the class generally for submissions, scan certain exercises, or listen comprehensively to student recordings. The program has been used with beginning courses and intermediate pronunciation courses and has a wide range of applications. It has been received enthusiastically.

Chatting in the Year of Languages
Bonnie L. Youngs
Technology use in language classrooms must incorporate sound language teaching methodology practices. In this Year of Languages, we must examine ‘tried and true’ technologies to improve our overall view of technology and technological innovations. As professionals, we approach chat in varied ways, but we must still ask: ‘How can we implement chat for the greatest benefit to our students?’ In this session, we investigate different chat tasks to understand when chat ‘works’ and does not. In order to better inform our teaching practices, in conjunction with second language acquisition theory, we examine student language in quality and quantity, produced via various chat assignments.

Towards the Automatic Evaluation of Fluency
Garry Molholt
John Morgan
Sherri Bellinger
In order to evaluate fluency of learners of Arabic, Korean, Mandarin Chinese, Russian, and Spanish, an automatic speech recognition system (ASR) is configured to output duration data of speech segments. The duration data are used to calculate measures such as the pace, articulation rate, and phonation/time ratio, which indicates the amount of space within the utterances. In addition to measuring the values for a large number of speakers, native speakers were asked to provide perceptual data to determine the salience of the various parameters regarding their perceptions of fluency.

Redesigning Introductory Spanish: Increased Enrollment, Online Management, Cost Reduction, and Effects on Student Learning
Robert Sanders
Integration of online course management (WebCT) in a year-long beginning Spanish program allowed enrollment growth of 85% (250 students per term) and decreased cost per student by 29% while lowering section sizes from 30 to 25 students each. Course design and assessment from 2 years of implementation are discussed: student retention, successful course completion, and scores on the Brigham Young University web-based Computerized Adaptive Placement Exam were comparable to those of traditional instruction. Student satisfaction was also high, but proficiency results (certified by the ACTFL) were mixed. Lessons learned will be shared.

Interactivity System Analysis, AIM, and Pedagogical Innovation
Steve Thorne
Arlo Bensinger
Jonathon Reinhardt
Dana Webber
This research uses activity theory to analyze a CMC-based pedagogical innovation in a Spanish language high school classroom. Our qualitative interactivity system analysis suggests that as students and teachers create a new activity system through the use of CMC, factors that come into play include the heterogeneous cultures of use of Internet communication tools, shifting expectations of rules, changes in the division of labor, and ultimately the potential for a reformation of social identities on the part of both students and the instructor. This presentation concludes with a discussion of the use of activity theory as a change agent within educational practice.

Spanish Prepositions POR and PARA in a Universal Mythology Contextualized Inductive Choose Your Own Adventure Style CALL Tool
Justin P. White
Research suggests that the formal schema and cultural schema of a text affects comprehension (Carrell, 1992). This study evaluates the design of a CALL tool prototype adhering to the cultural and formal schema posited by the theory of universal mythology (Joseph Campbell, 1968). The multimedia tool is designed to facilitate the acquisition of the Spanish prepositions por and para in an inductive learning environment structured as a choose your own adventure style story. Design evaluating data are collected through participants’ surveys, pre-/posttests, and investigator observations. Implications are drawn and suggestions are provided for improvements on future versions.

Anonymity and Negative Feedback
Chun Lai
Wei Qiu
Qi Chen
Yong Zhao
The importance of negative feedback in second language learning has long been conceptualized and verified for its capacity to evoke learners’ noticing of the “holes” in their interlanguage systems. However, the provision of negative feedback in face-to-face situation might be inhibited by sociocultural concerns. On the other hand, studies have shown that anonymity might free learners of these constraints, help them interact more freely, and thus provide more negative feedback to each other when detected. This study proposes to examine the link between anonymity mediated via CMC and provision of negative feedback in a peer review situation.

CALL and the Year of Languages: Critical Needs May 22-26, 2007 Hosted by

Center for Language Education and Research, Michigan State University

Conference Presentations: Day One May 19, 2005

Conference Presentations: Day Two May 20, 2005

Conference Presentations: Day Three May 21, 2005

CALL and the Year of Languages: Critical Needs
May 22-26, 2007
Hosted by

Conference Presentations: Day One
May 19, 2005

Conference Presentations: Day Two
May 20, 2005

Conference Presentations: Day Three
May 21, 2005