2009 Thursday Sessions

 

CALICO 2009

Conference Presentations Day One

March 12

10:00 – 10:45

Keynote Address

 

Contemplating CALL: Clichés and Challenges
Nina Garrett, Director of Center for Language Study,
Yale University, Retired

Ustream recording of Nina’s address
external link

10:00 – 10:45

Technical Issues in Comparing CALL with Classroom Learning in a Blended Curriculum
Carol Chapelle
Susan Matson
Erik Voss
This paper describes a study comparing outcomes for over 200 intensive English learners at three different levels in two instructional conditions: one with and the other without the use of CALL. We report results and discuss methodological issues such as selecting and developing measures and demonstrating equivalence of groups in view of ethical, conceptual, and logical constraints.
Recording of this session

Adaptive Vocabulary Instruction for L2 Learners of German
Trude Heift
Anne Rimrott
Which annotations best support vocabulary learning? Do individual learner differences influence this? Is adaptive instruction necessary? We present results of two studies. Fifty learners studied 60 German words with a program that provided different annotations for different words: (a) transcription + picture, (b) transcription + definition, (c) audio + picture, (d) audio + definition, and (e) everything. In study 1, each learner received each annotation. In study 2, instruction was individualized based on the learner’s performance in study 1. Results show that although annotation (e) everything is best overall, some learners perform better with other annotations, indicating a need for individualized instruction.
Recording of this session
Survey Analysis beyond Frequency, Percentage, and Mean
Fuqiang Zhuo
Surveys are often used to assess the quality of services/instruction and obtain valuable feedback. It is oftentimes the case that a survey is analyzed using basic statistics: count, percentage, and mean. However, those kinds of analyses may waste precious demographic data collected in the survey. Therefore, this presentation will demonstrate survey data analysis beyond frequency, percentage and mean such as logistic and loglinear analyses. Cross-item analyses in the same survey can also yield some interesting findings. Through this presentation, the audience will be made aware of additional statistical analyses which can lead them to more interesting results.
BRIX: A Community of Courseware Developers and Users
Stephen L. Tschudi
David Hiple
BRIX, the University of Hawaii’s CMS for language education applications, is being restructured as an open-source community-based development environment. This presentation welcomes three different user groups into the new BRIX environment, providing information relevant to: (a) educators interested in using BRIX as a platform for developing and delivering language courses, leveraging the features of BRIX that have been designed particularly for language teaching and learning, (b) language program and IT system administrators interested in start-up costs (e.g., required hardware and software) and benefits, and (c) IT programming experts interested in participating in open-source software development, including collaborative teamwork and versioning.

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Additional Materials

Task Effect on Collaborative Writing when Using Wikis and Chats
Ana Oskoz
Idoia Elola
Despite increasing research on the use of wikis and chats for collaborative writing, little is known about how tasks affect students’ writing processes when using these tools. This study examines the impact of argumentative and expository assignments on collaborative and individual writing when using wikis and chats. Analysis of students’ essay drafts indicates that while there is no significant difference for syntactic complexity, a significant difference for accuracy and fluency exists. Analysis of wiki drafts and chats suggests that both tools allow students working collaboratively to focus on global aspects and promote a proliferation of writing processes that enhance students’ writing.

Recording of this session

Putting CMC into Practice
Senta Goertler
Julie Sykes
The presenters will provide practical tips and concrete examples of how to integrate computer-mediated communication (CMC) activities in the language class. The CMC tools discussed will include asynchronous tools such as discussion forums, email, wikis, or blogs, as well as synchronous tools such as virtual worlds, special chat software, or voice-supported tools. The panelists will provide a short introduction to the tool they will present and discuss the best use of the tool in the language classroom based on pedagogical and theoretical consideration as well as previous research. Example activities will be shared with the audience.
Recording of this session

Don’t Lose Your Work: Learning Standards and Language Projects in the Era of Ubiquitous Computing
Robert Godwin-Jones
The session will discuss recent developments in educational technology standards and approaches to preventing language learning resources from being trapped within proprietary systems. Doing so not only gives more hope for a resource’s longevity, but also makes it more likely it can be shared. Specifically, I will focus on (a) the newly released IMS Common Cartridge 1.0, often considered a successor to the SCORM standard, allowing import/export of content and (b) current open content initiatives which use the OSID standard to allow sharing and discovery of content objects. I will be demonstrating several tools which support these standards.
Recording of this session

11:00 – 11:20

Enhancement of Self-Directed Vocabulary Learning through CALL
Wu Jing
Since ineffective self-directed vocabulary learning is currently shown in the higher education of Mainland China, this paper focuses on whether computer technologies could help to create a better learning environment for vocabulary learners, activating their utilization of appropriate vocabulary-learning strategies effectively and thereby enhancing self-directed vocabulary learning. A courseware prototype called Learning Vocabulary in Domain was developed particularly for this research purpose. Through the questionnaire survey of the undergraduates in UESTC, their fulfillment levels to the vocabulary-learning conditions under the computer-based learning mode and paper-based learning mode were statistically analyzed and compared. It was discovered that the CALL mode was more favorable to vocabulary learners during their self-directed learning. The superiority of CALL was further proven by the quantitative analyses of student vocabulary achievements.

Keyboarding and the Recall of Accent Marks in L2 French
Jessica Sturm
Sturm (2006) found a wide range of variance on recall tests within groups of university students who practiced a list of accent-bearing target words one of three ways: handwriting, typing using preprogrammed function keys, or typing using ALT+ numeric codes. These results contradict those of Gascogine-Lally (2000) and Gascoigne (2006a, 2006b), who found that students who typed a paragraph recalled accents better than those who wrote it by hand. The present study replicated Sturm (2006). Results revealed a significant difference between each of two typing groups and the handwriting group, but no difference between typing groups.
Recording of this session

Teaching with Twitter and Learning to Tweet
Enza Antenos-Conforti
This talk will introduce Twitter, a micro-blogging service, as an educational networking tool, and present a study on Twitter in an intermediate university level Italian course (the full study appears in the 2009 Calico Monograph). For one semester, students belonged to a Twitter community comprised of classmates and native speakers. At the end of the semester, they were asked to evaluate their Twitter experience. Results show that students engaged in Twitter for many reasons (e.g., the community of followers, tweeting in Italian) and they perceived that the experience positively affected their learning of the language and of Italian culture.

Exploring Usability of Multimodal SCMC in Distance Language Learning and Assessment
Yoo-Ree Chung
This study attempts to explore the usability of multimodal synchronous computer-mediated communication (SCMC) for distance language learning and assessment. This paper will first briefly present quantitative and qualitative findings from an experimental pilot study in which six pairs of nonnative speakers of English completed three different types of interactional tasks using three different language modes in multimodal SCMC. Discussions on the usability of multimodal SCMC in distance learning will then follow, accompanied by pedagogical suggestions and practical concerns in regard to the application of multimodal SCMC in distance learning and assessment.

Visualizing the Composing Processes of L2 Writers with Screen Capture Software
Kwanghyun Park
Sung Woo Kim
The study explores EFL writers’ composing process using video screen capture software. Three graduate students’ computer screens were captured while they were writing, and their reflective accounts were collected in the follow-up stimulated recall sessions. Data analysis focused on self-correction in order to identify the challenges that they encountered and their strategies to overcome these challenges. These findings may not have been visible if only printed papers were considered. The video screen capture technique, when corroborated by the recall sessions, offers rich information about the actual writing process. Issues regarding planning and implementing video-capture sessions are discussed.

Recording of this session

Corpus-Enhanced Language Learning: From Corpus Data to Communication and Interaction
Petra Hoffstaedter
The exploitation of corpora for language learning purposes is faced with a serious challenge: corpora, whether written or spoken, are texts/transcripts stripped bare of contextual information and situations of use. Communicative embedding, however, is needed for engaging learners in meaningful learning experiences that lead up to the development of communicative competences. In our talk, we will present corpora based on video-recorded spoken interview data; describe tools and procedures for their pedagogic annotation, enrichment, and search; and demonstrate how Moodle is used to contextualize corpus data in communicative and explorative blended learning activities in secondary schools in Germany.

Recording of this session

Audio Versus Video in Improving Pronunciation Listening Activities
Shannon McCrocklin
At the University of Illinois the pronunciation course, ESL 110/510, currently uses streaming audio to present listening exercises. The presenter will discuss her research study, examining the effects of incorporating video (in addition to audio) in listening exercises. She will discuss study results, examining the accuracy of produced, targeted sounds throughout the span of the study, as well as student reactions to the use of this new media.
Recording of this session

11:30 – 11:50

Learning Spanish Pragmatics via a Web-Based Tutorial
Victoria Russell
This session presents a web-based tutorial (WBT) that was designed to teach pragmatics to Spanish language learners. Foreign language textbooks do not typically include instruction on how the language is used by native speakers to perform specific functions such as apologizing, requesting, complementing, and complaining. This WBT uses video clips, animation, and role plays to raise student awareness about the linguistic and sociocultural differences between English and Spanish with respect to the speech acts of requesting and complaining. The WBT also helps Spanish language learners to produce speech that more closely approximates nativespeaker norms.

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When iPods Meet RSS Feed. Using iPod for RSS Feed Platforms in EFL Reading and Writing Classes
Hyejin Yang
iPods (iPod Touch or iPhone) have spread all around the world, and they bring people a new type of user-friendly technology. Using the iPod has numerous potential advantages for language teaching and learning because learners are able to use various internet resources with ease by accessing the internet. Of various resources, furthermore, an RSS feed can be played as a booster which allows learners to be exposed to the selected information on a regular basis. This presentation will explain how to integrate iPods with RSS feeds for EFL reading and writing classes. It will also demonstrate a number of possible tasks and introduce useful websites to implement the tasks for EFL reading and writing classes.

Recording of this session Slides from this presentation
Handout from this presentation

 

Background Factors of ESL Students and Preference for Computer- or Paper-Based Writing Medium
Shengrong Cai
ESL teachers, facing a diverse population of students, should be aware that using computers in teaching may produce different effects on students from different backgrounds. Without this awareness, the gaps among students may be unwittingly widened, thus violating the principle of fairness in education. This study focused on the relationship between seven background factors of universitylevel ESL students and their writing medium preference for three writing tasks. Results indicated that different background factors played different roles in predicting the preference for writing medium, depending on the writing task. Possible explanations are given, and general themes from the results are discussed.

Recording of this session
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Strategy Training in Learners’ Self-Confidence and Feedback
Joan Jamieson
Mansoor Al-Surmi
Certain strategy training can help students develop self-awareness and self-esteem and thereby increase their chances of success in autonomous use of CALL after formal instruction is finished (Graham, 2007; Hubbard, 2004; Kolaitis et al., 2006; Tarone & Yule, 1989). This study combined strategy training in self-confidence with feedback learners receive in CALL. Before students chose an answer, they were asked to rate their confidence. They were asked to answer each question and compare their self-confidence scores with the correct answer. Results traced confidence patterns over time and described overall reactions. Suggestions for the effectiveness

of this training will be given.
Practice Makes Perfect? Structuring Practice Opportunities for Learning in an ESL Grammar Tutor
Ruth Wylie
Ken Koedinger
Teruko Mitamura
Why is the English article system (a, an, the, null) so hard to learn? Using data from two studies, we address these challenges and discuss how to design systems that facilitate learning. Using the Article Tutor, an intelligent tutoring system that provides immediate feedback and on-demand hints, we compare two methods for selecting instructional materials. The first method is based on article type (e.g. “the”) while the second is rule-based (e.g. “noun was already mentioned”). Results show significant learning gains with the rulebased approach, suggesting that for articles understanding rules and processes are more important than the article choice itself.
Recording of this session

2:00 – 3:30
Extended Panel Presentation

Successes and Challenges of ICALL for Learning, Teaching and Research
Mathias Schulze
Trude Heift
Detmar Meurers
Xiaofei Lu
This panel discussion focuses on the successes and challenges of ICALL techniques for foreign language learning and reports on current developments in the analysis of learner language. Mathias Schulze will focus on SLA theories that have influenced current thinking in ICALL. Trude Heift will provide an example of an ICALL application by illustrating the benefits of error-specific feedback and individualized instruction. Detmar Meurers will discuss the automatic analysis of meaning. Xiaofei Lu will provide an overview of how teachers and researchers can employ NLP tools to automatically measure L2 lexical and syntactic development. The session concludes with time for discussion.

2:00 – 2:45

Using Praat to Test Models of L1-L2 Relations in Bilingual Speech
Timothy J. Riney
This presentation demonstrates how acoustic software, in this case Praat (free software for acoustic analysis by Paul Boersma of the University of Amsterdam), can be used to test certain theories and hypotheses about the speech of second language learners and bilinguals. The example theory, used to contextualize this demonstration, hypothesizes an L1-L2 interaction effect that involves not only an L1 effect on L2 but also an L2 effect on L1. The experiment shows how Praat can be used to test this claim, based on Japanese-English and English-Japanese bilinguals’ productions of /p, t, k/ in both languages.

The Second Generation: Online Collaboration and Social Networking in CALL
Gillian Lord
Lara Lomicka Anderson
The advent of Web 2.0 tools has drastically altered our understanding of CALL and its potential in language classrooms. The 2009 CALICO monograph addresses these tools and their uses in teaching and learning languages, presenting theoretical and empirical studies of their integration and use. This session highlights the contributions to the volume (wikis, blogs, okrut, twitter, chatbots, second life, Facebook, RSS, YouTube, and podcasting), discussing Web 2.0 tools, including findings and implications of the studies. This presentation also offers ideas for continued research and teaching.

Recording of this session Slides of this presentation

Integrating Web-Based Concordancing in EFL Primary School Students’ Learning of Verb Phrases
Hsien-Chin Liou
Li-Tang Yu
This study used a time-series design to investigate the effectiveness of incorporating concordancing in EFL primary school students’ learning of verb phrases. Eight fifth graders were assessed with two pretests to identify their unknown verb phrases. They then received a 6-week treatment on 18 verb phrases aiming for them to produce the phrases in a sentence context through the help of an English-Chinese bilingual concordancer. After the treatment, two posttests and one delayed posttest on the verb phrases were given. Findings of the study are expected to address effectiveness questions on using concordancing in EFL primary school contexts.

Recording of this session Slides of this presentation

Vendor Presentation
21st Century Online-Learning Environment with Wimba
Gina Connors
Instructors consider personal interaction to be the most valuable element of the teaching and learning process. This presentation will show how Wimba’s Collaboration Suite supports instructors and students in the 21st century online-learning environment. We will demonstrate how Wimba enables faculty and students to build relationships by combining state-of-the-art interactive technologies such as voice, video, application sharing, polling, and whiteboarding with traditional best practices of instruction. Instructors can personalize their online courses by holding live, online classes, office hours, guest lectures, webcasts, and meetings. Come experience 21st Century online learning with Wimba.
Recording of this session

Learner Autonomy Revisited: Towards the Development of New Competencies for Autonomous Online Language Learning
Françoise Blin
Drawing on activity theory and more particularly on Kaptelinin and Nardi’s (2006) definition of “functional organs,” which “combine natural human capabilities with artefacts to attain goals that could not be attained otherwise” (p. 64), this paper revisits our understanding of learner autonomy and its relationship to CALL. It explores a range of competencies associated with the creation of functional organs that language learners may need to develop in order to become autonomous online language learners. It then proposes and discusses a pedagogical model to assist in the design and implementation of online tasks promoting the development and exercise of learner autonomy.

Recording of this session

Academic Corpora to Enhance the Revision Process: The Google Alternative
Randall Sadler
Ulugbek Nurmukhamedov
This presentation will discuss the results of a research project that examined the feasibility and effectiveness of using Google Wildcard Searches (GWS) to enhance essay revision. An example of GWS like These * results, might result in possible hits like These important results, or These insignificant results. The study involved one group utilizing GWS during their revision process while the control group used more traditional online dictionaries and thesauri. The results suggest that GWS can enhance vocabulary revision, resulting in increased fluency and native-like selection in students’ written product in comparison to more traditional revision methods.

Recording of this session Additional materials

 

3:00 – 3:45

Developing Technology-Mediated Language Awareness through Bridging Activities
Steven Thorne
Jonathon Reinhardt
Technology-mediated language awareness refers to the development of language awareness through technological means, as well as awareness of the influences of technology on language use. For the advanced foreign language classroom, we propose developing this awareness through bridging activities (Thorne & Reinhardt, 2008), which are classroom activities that teach language awareness through the analysis of texts students have collected from their everyday, out-of-school internet practices. In this presentation, we outline the approach, situate it in broader discussion of language pedagogy and technology, and offer sample activities.

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Usability Tests: When Learners Have a Say on CALL Interface Design
Marie-Jose Hamel
Catherine Caws
In web ergonomics (Schneiderman, 1998), the term usability (Baccino et al., 2005) refers to how useable and how useful a web interface is to its target users in task specific situations. Ergonomic criteria (Scapin & Bastien, 1997) such as effectiveness, efficiency, and user satisfaction, which serve to measure the usability of web interfaces can be applied in the context of CALL. We will describe some ergonomic analyses conducted with learners that can be carried out to measure the usability of CALL interfaces. We will provide experimental results of usability tests done with learners using two CALL tools currently under development.

Diversity in CALL Learner Training
Phil Hubbard
Kenneth Romeo
This presentation reviews two dimensions of diversity in CALL learner training. The first, diversity in the learner training process, is informed by a framework that distinguishes technical, strategic, and pedagogical training as well as the timing and the style of the training. The second dimension, diversity in the learners themselves, is first discussed in general terms with respect to relevant literature. Examples are then given of group and individual diversity using data from student reports and recordings of tutorial sessions in an advanced ESL listening course. Suggestions for incorporating learner training while accommodating learner diversity are offered.

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Vendor Presentation
Meeting Assessment, Research, Data Collection, and Compliance Needs:
The OWL Testing Software Solution
Chris Dalessandri
Thekla Fall
OWL Testing Software provides the tools instructors need to create, administer, and score or rate tests in any language (as well as collect data for research and compliance requirements) with ease! See how the OWL wizard makes it easy to assign tasks, do blind ratings, and create data reports, whether students and raters are here or abroad. OWL can greatly expand your research and testing capacity as an integrated solution with Blackboard, Moodle, ANGEL, and most other course management systems. All participants will receive a packet of speaking proficiency test-prep materials. One participant will win a free, 3-month OWL trial.

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Interaction and Accuracy in Synchronous Computer-Mediated Classroom Discussion
Lisa Jurkowitz
Synchronous computer-mediated classroom discussion (CMCD) has been touted as highly interactive and beneficial for second language acquisition on many levels. However, studies have noted that learner output is often inaccurate. In order to heighten students’ attention to features of the target language, SLA research suggests integrating a focus on form within meaning-based tasks. In this study, various activities intended to make form salient were added to students’ weekly electronic discussions. Findings point to CMCD as a valuable means of increasing authentic classroom communication and indicate that attention to form need not be sacrificed in the process.

Recording of this session

Teacher Education via Technology: Do Teacher Beliefs Change?
Rong Yuan
Sandra Wagner
This presentation describes research conducted to assess the potential changes in teacher beliefs after a semester-long hybrid language teacher training course. The same teacher belief survey adapted from Lightbown and Spada (2006) was administered respectively at the beginning and at the end of the course; belief changes as indicated in the surveys are discussed. Additionally, the presentation provides an overview of the online interface of the course, its design principle, and course delivery and its impact on the changes in teacher beliefs. Finally, future course modifications based on survey outcomes and for other improvements are also discussed.

 

3:45pm – 5:15pm
Extended Panel Presentation

Tech-NO-logy: When It’s Not as Ubiquitous as We Think, What Do We Do?
Hyun Bin Kang
Junhee Kim
Donald Ugarte
Zekariya Ozsevik
Nagham Awadallah
Michael Foster
Currently technology has become an important aspect of the language teaching classroom. Today teachers and students rely much more on the internet and portable devices such as the iPod in the classroom. However, even with today’s technology, some countries lack the technical support needed for both teachers and students. Through our presentation, we would like to discuss the different limitations in different countries. The countries that will be discussed are as follow: Uzbekistan, Turkey, South Korea, Nicaragua, Madagascar, and Palestine. Also we would like to discuss how we could overcome these limitations in the language classroom.
Recording of this session

4:00 – 4:45

Automating and Evaluating Measures of L2 Lexical Complexity
Xiaofei Lu
First a computational system is described for automatic measurement of L2 lexical complexity using a wide range of measures proposed in the second language acquisition literature, including measures of lexical diversity/variation, lexical sophistication, lexical density, and lexical relationships. I then report results of a corpusbased evaluation of these measures as indices of L2 language development using data from the Spoken and Written English Corpus of Chinese Learners. Finally, I discuss the usefulness of the computational system and the implications of our research findings for second language teaching, assessment, and research.

Recording of this session Slides of this presentation

Computer-Based Assessment of Basic Language Proficiency and Regional Expertise in the Less Commonly Taught Languages
Johannes Vazulik
Jeff Watson
Sherri Bellinger
With increased emphasis on foreign languages, cultures, and regional knowledge, West Point’s Center for Languages, Cultures and Regional Studies (CLCRS) is researching innovative ways of integrating these concepts across the curriculum. This presentation will report on development of computer-based assessment tools for basic language proficiency and regional knowledge. Tests on Brazilian Portuguese and Brazil are ready, with Arabic, Chinese, Russian, Persian, and associated regions to follow. Additionally, we will report on the CLCRS’s Language and Culture Teaching Database (LCTD), a web-based teaching and learning tool that allows teachers to share expertise and further integrate language and culture into their courses.

Acquiring L2 Cultural Knowledge and Changing Attitudes: Blogs Versus Email Exchanges
Joshua Thoms
Fanny Roncal-Ramírez
This research project compares the use of email versus blogs in a cultural exchange project between intermediate learners of Spanish at The University of Iowa and learners of English at The University of Barcelona in Spain. Using Byram’s (1997) intercultural competence model as the theoretical framework, the study measures students’ attitude changes toward the second culture (C2) via pre- and postquestionnaire data and assesses the effectiveness of using email and blogs to enhance knowledge about the C2. Quantitative and qualitative analyses of the data will be shared along with pedagogical recommendations for using both applications in cultural learning projects.
Recording of this session

Boot Camp and Beyond: Technology Training for Language Teachers
Felix Kronenberg
The latest technology and the best language center are not worth the investment without proper language educator training. The Foreign Language Resource Center at Pomona deals with this issue by offering an intensive workshop for beginners, called Language Technology Boot Camp, to faculty and language assistants. This is followed up by a series of workshops and individual training. This session shows how to best implement and develop a sustainable language educator training program. Critical topics that will be dealt with include educator anxiety and resentment of technology, faculty time concerns, as well as technological, logistical, and support issues.

Recording of this session Additional Materials

Factoring Technology into Institutional Effectiveness?
Claire Bartlett
Wendy Freeman
As business models of productivity are applied to educational institutions, how are faculty and administrators quantifying success in teaching with technology? Accountability helps us attract and retain funding, increase visibility, and improve student learning. We will present and discuss data used in reports to the administration. Examples presented will range from faculty evaluation criteria, student online surveys, internal and external assessment protocols, student wikis, blogs and e-portfolios, course management systems, server statistics, grants, and budgets. We will also discuss how we plan to continue using these data to improve educational program outcomes for our Center for the Study of Languages at Rice University.

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The University of Arizona Critical Languages Series for Kazakh
Scott Brill
Akmaral Mukan
We discuss the pedagogical and technological principles underlying the widely available University of Arizona Kazakh Critical Languages Series (CLS), implications for classroom use, and future prospects for application in Web-based learning. CLS courseware is designed for use in three settings: the traditional classroom, a modified selfinstructional setting, and in completely self-instructional, noncredit contexts. These Kazakh materials are available for three levels (Beginning, Intermediate, and Advanced) and were developed in cooperation with the National Association of Self-Instructional Language Programs (NASILP). Our website at http://clp.arizona.edu/ cls contains detailed descriptions of our materials which are available through the University of Arizona Press.
Recording of this session

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