CALICO 2005
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.