04/2004 - Liverpool, UK

IATEFL Annual Conference, Liverpool, England, 13-17 April 2004

Photographs


Reports

Computer-related talks at the Annual Conference, 16-17 April 2004 - Reports on 7 talks by Geoff Taylor, Computer SIG committee member.

 

Resources on the cheap: finding them, using them

Lucy Baldwin (Embassy CES Brighton & Hove School, England)

Lucy Baldwin, after her talk, smiling, with a glass of something at the Computer Open SIG forum A page from Lucy Baldwin's presentation Web-based multimedia demonstration in Lucy Baldwin's presentation

Summary
Lucy gave a tour of a wide variety of resources for English language learners and teachers available for free on the World Wide Web. She briefly discussed the advantages, disadvantages and risks involved in using these resources.

The good:
control, independence, support, opportunity, security, choice

The bad:
aimless, erratic, unmotivating, non-productive, computers are thick

The bulk of the presentation was a tour of a wide range of resources, grouped into familiar ELT categories, including:
Pronunciation, Listening, Things to do with computer classes, Teachers’ Resources, Examination Resources (IELTS, FCE)

Comments
Lucy demonstrated the wide variety of English language learning materials available for free on the Web. The lack of an Internet-enabled computer room at the venue prevented participants from getting hands-on experience, but by making desktop 'movies' of the pages she wanted to show, Lucy managed to present a viable substitute. This means of delivery brought the materials to life and gave attendees a good impression of the quality of interactive facilities, graphics, audio, video available.

Lucy has kindly supplied the set of categorised links accompanying her talk: lucyslinks.pdf (286 KB)

 

 

Developing people and attending to form: an innovative CALL programme

Kevin Mark (Meiji University, Tokyo, Japan)

Kevin Mark giving Computer SIG track talk, with image of menu page from his software program Kevin Mark giving Computer SIG track talk, with image from his software program Kevin Mark giving a Computer SIG track talk with image of student-generated material

Summary
Kevin introduced Lexispace, a software application which he is developing, linked to ACE, an experimental English language teaching program. Lexispace is a kind of authoring program that can include both text-based and audio-visual materials. Exercises can be developed by teachers, and even by students.

The software is a Filemaker Pro application, and so works on both Windows and Macintosh platforms. A commercial release is planned in the future.

Comments
The software looked extremely promising, and was clearly already achieving positive results in Kevin's teaching context, and had also clearly won over strong support from his teaching colleagues. We welcome a speedy release to the wider public, with guidelines for use, and sample lesson plans or projects.

 

Students make the news: exploiting the media

Claire Millar (Bell Saffron Walden, England)

Summary
Claire described a lesson framework based on published news media that practised all four skills (reading, writing, speaking and listening) and exploited the facilities of the computer room and the language laboratory. She detailed a two-part 180-minute lesson, starting in the Internet-enabled computer room, and finishing in the language lab.

Part 1: In the computer room:
Students, in the role of journalists, choose 4 different news stories. They read and write short summaries of the stories and then devise 3 comprehension questions per story.

Part 2: in the language laboratory:
Students record their summaries, then switch places with other students. They listen to the other people’s story summaries, and answer the comprehension questions.

Suggested variations and adaptations included:

  • Different topics could be used, e.g. students’ own countries or famous people.
  • Those without an Internet-enabled computer room could source stories from printed newspapers.
  • Those without a language laboratory could record onto cassettes, or give face-to-face oral presentations.

Comments
The lesson plan seems eminently practical. The talk was well-organised, very clear and well presented, with effective use of PowerPoint.

 

 

Online Tasks in ELT: Using E-tivities

Adam Edmett (British Council, Slovenia)

Adam Edmett giving Computer SIG track talk

Summary
Adam described a case study undertaken using a series of online tasks within the framework of Salmon’s five-stage model for e-learning (electronic distance learning). [Salmon, G (2002) Etivities Kogan Press]

The 'platform' for the study was the Global Village online community provided by the British Council for its students, free of charge, which has 10,000 registered users, though only a fraction of these are active users. Adam is a moderator in this community, and was able to enlist 10 active users, from different parts of the world, who had never met face to face.

The study was 4 weeks long, and the activities were all asynchronous (no real-time chat). The medium of communication seemed to be Web bulletin boards or forums, typically also sent as emails, where participants' messages would appear in a Web page, and where teacher’s assignments and learners' responses as well as other exchanges, would be 'threaded' together by different subject headings, and easily followed via hyperlinks.

Salmon’s 5-stage e-learning model (with example activity by Adam)
Stage Description Example activity
1 Access and motivation Learners log on and post a message introducing themselves and describing their motivations for learning English.
2 Socialisation/ Getting to know each other Learners log on and describe their favourite dish, e.g. if you could live only on one dish what would it be?
3 Information exchange/ Co-operation Learners search the web for sites for practising English and then exchange the URL’s in the forums.
4 Knowledge construction/ Collaboration The tutor starts a story in a forum but leaves it unfinished. Learners log on an add extra lines to continue the story. When the story is finished, learners discuss how the plot developed in a forum.
5 Development/ Responsibility for own learning Learners design their own e-tivities and take it in turn to send them to the class.

Adam discussed the disadvantages of such learning environments, including:

  • can require a lot of tutor time
  • lack of explicit feedback on language
  • limited number of users per group (maximum 15)
  • only really appeals to those with good IT skills
  • no real balance of skills in this study (all text-based)
  • a tendency towards high drop-out rates where there is no face-to-face contact
  • ambiguity of meaning and problems with intercultural communication
  • low level students not easily accommodated

Results of the study:

  • tutor time was not excessive – student tasks were fairly quick to construct
  • students tended to pick language up from the moderator’s feedback messages, and use it later on (e.g. “Cheers” as a close greeting)
  • student involvement followed a classic curve over time of initial high involvement by all > decline of activity except for hard core > ending in surge of activity again just before the end of the course

Comments
Salmon’s model is a generic e-learning model, but applies very well to language learning, and rightly deserves wider promotion, especially in its emphasis on the crucial importance of the earlier socialisation stages.

The case study was very interesting, though the results were not conclusive. The talk was well-planned and clear, and included various challenging and interesting puzzle-like activities, designed to increase involvement.

 

 

The Internet and Business English: an up-date

Barney Barrett (Summertown Publishing, England)

Screen display: 'The Internet and Business English - an up-date' by Barney Barrett  Barney Barrett giving talk

Summary
Barney's talk was described as an update and promotion for a published book (he pointed out that the book's companion website already provided a high level of future-proofing). However, the talk stands very well by itself as a guide to Business English/ESP resources on the World Wide Web.

1.Searching the Web
Barney gave valuable tips for using Google (http://www.google.com/) and some meta-search engines.

Google News Search (http://news.google.com/)
When searching for specific news stories, for example, the latest on the oil and gas industry, as opposed to the huge number of general hits the basic Google search facility gives, the Google News Search service focusses on online newspapers. Google News UK (http://news.google.com/news/en/uk/main.html) prioritizes UK newspapers.

Google Glossary (http://www.google.com/help/features.html#definitions)
This service searches online glossaries. It is keyed in simply by putting "define: keyword", where keyword is the word you want defined, into the search field

Google linked items
To search for grammatically linked items – e.g. for "price" >> price, prices, pricing – put "~" followed by the keyword into the search field, e.g. "~price"

Google personalised
This service maintains a personal profile of topics, e.g. TEFL, TESL, EFL, ESL chosen by the user (and stored as cookies on the hard drive). A slider control permits the user to determine how much the personal preferences should influence the results. (I haven't actually managed to find this service yet.)

Meta-search engines
Barney described some useful facilities available in some meta-search engines, which get their results by searching other search engines and often have extra useful features, including:

  • Vivisimo (www.vivisimo.com)
    clusters its results into related topics and has a useful "Preview" button
  • Kartoo (www.kartoo.com)
    produces a graphical map of results, and has a useful history function
  • Profusion (www.profusion.com)
    takes each key word and highlights it in a different colour in the results hit list, and so is very good for showing collocations
  • BBC Audio/Video Search (on BBC News website)
    apparently produces a list from the BBC's online archives of audio/video clips, averaging 1-2 minutes in length (I couldn't actually find this feature when I visited the BBC website)

2.QuickFinder learner dictionaries
Barney recommended learner dictionaries that offer a word "quickfind" facility that enables users to get instant access to key dictionary facilities while viewing text in a Web browser or other compatible application, e.g. MS Office. Key information about any word the user lets the mouse linger on may be displayed in a small window on the desktop.

Dictionaries with this feature included:

3.Favourite ESP websites
Barney recommended some particular websites for ESP and business English:

4.Email newsletters
Barney explained that subscriptions to email newsletters can be very useful for ESP/business English teachers. Recommended newsletters included:

5.Discussion Forums
Barney recommended various forums for English language teachers, including:

6.Continuing to learn
Barney recommended handing out a page of links to useful websites at the end of a course. If saved as an editable (Word) document, it can be updated as needed, and personalised for individual students.

He said that information on all the material discussed, and more, could be downloaded from the Summertown Publishing website (http://www.summertown.co.uk/)

Comments
This talk, more or less independently of the book being promoted, provided a convenient guide to a good range of Web-based Business-oriented and general English resources, and so was very useful not only for the Business English teacher, but also the general English teacher.

In keeping with the aim of providing an update to what was in any case a relatively recent publication, many of the points made were novel, with interesting tips even for experienced 'Webheads'. In addition, by maintaining a brisk pace, Barney was able to cover a lot of ground, and in enough detail to give a pretty good idea of the value of the resources and how to use them. In consequence, the talk was suitable for teachers with less wide-ranging experience of Web-based resources, and those with lots of experience.

The talk was well-researched, clearly structured and succinctly presented. The availability of handouts with short clear descriptions and full links to the on-line material discussed was very welcome, permitting attendees to follow up the recommendations of material subsequently at their leisure.

 

 

The Pros and Cons of E-mail

May Mikati (American University of Beirut, Lebanon)

Flip-chart display: 'The Pros and Cons of E-mail', by May Mikati  May Mikati giving Computer SIG track talk 2

Summary
May looked at the advantages and disadvantages of uses of email in educational contexts.

Advantages

  • Mentoring – email is useful for communications between mentors/mentees
  • Building relationships between universities and school students, e.g. the PLUS program (Positive Links between University and Schools) in Australia, with aboriginals
  • Parent/teacher relations – can be improved by use of email, as pupils may not be best carriers of messages/information
  • Mentoring of teachers – for example, a program of mentoring novice teachers by experienced teachers in Minnesota, USA
  • Electronic office hours – email extends the contact opportunities between tutors and students. In addition, email permits or even encourages:
    • Negotiation
    • Instant feedback
    • Reduced inhibition
  • Native/non-native speaker communication – can be facilitated by email
  • Changing cultural stereotypes and providing a more comprehensive world view – facilitated by improved opportunities for international communication

Areas of concern

  • Native/non-native speaker communication – tends to be an imbalance in levels of negotiation skills between native and non-native speakers, favouring the native speaker
  • Some teachers’ feeling of isolation – due to lack of face-to-face contact
  • Many students’ favourite professors shun distance education and ‘excessive’ use of email
  • Impulsive behaviour/inappropriate communications
    • By students – May gave a personal example of a student who had made up a ridiculous excuse for not completing an assignment on time
    • By teachers – May gave an example of a teacher who had to apologise after sending a message to a learner that included rude/abusive content, and another of a teacher who was fired for a similar offence
  • Insufficient social cues for impression formation – lack of face-to-face contact can make it difficult to form impressions of correspondents who one has never met
  • Conflict escalation – conflicts can escalate more easily than in face-to-face communication, due to lack of body language and distancing
  • Cultural differences in communication – these can lead to misinterpretations and potential problems, e.g. Western culture is more text-based, whereas Japanese culture is more non-verbal, perhaps putting Japanese correspondents at a disadvantage
  • Students’ confusion due to hybrid codes of social behaviour on the Net, e.g. those relating to home, study, work and entertainment, e.g. the prevalence of spam (junk email) and other email mixed in with serious messages may result in students deleting important messages from their teacher or classmates

Comments
This was a well-prepared talk that addressed an important theme: the danger of over-using technological solutions.

May presented the information clearly, though no specific references were given to studies mentioned at the time. (More detailed information will be given in an article in the forthcoming issue of the Computer SIG newsletter.)

Time was given for discussion at the end of the presentation, but there did not seem to be any one general consensus of opinion, though this was not a fault of the presenter. Personally, I have to say that in so far as email is a medium of communication, I feel that discussing the pros and cons of its use is a bit like discussing the pros and cons of the use of pen and paper or the telephone: I suspect that such discussions are bound to be inconclusive and choices (such as whether to use email and to what degree) are bound to be subjective.

 

Accommodating learner needs: the guiding principle behind designing e-learning materials

Ruth Trinder (Vienna University of Economics & Business Administration, Austria)

Summary
Ruth presented a set of educational Web-based materials called Online English Mentor (http://www2.wu-wien.ac.at/oem/login/index.php?action=team) that she had designed/developed for her employer. These materials were developed as supplementary e-learning resources for students of business English in a tertiary educational context. The pedagogical rationale for the design of the materials was hammered out during her PhD studies into e-learning.

Ruth was project Coordinator. She had two content developers and two programmers, as well as three other contributors. It took a year to develop the materials for first year students, nine months to develop for the materials for the second year.

Ruth demonstrated the overall design of the materials, and a range of study and practice facilities, including interactive exercises. She showed how the design had been improved for the second year material, primarily using the criteria of user feedback.

The material is in use by students at the university. The question was, how much use did it get? It seems that there was a marked increase in use by learners of the second year material. The reasons for this were mainly extrinsic to the design and content of the e-learning materials.

Ruth summarised learners' perceptions of e-learning:

Pros:

  • choice of time, place, pace
  • individualised instruction
  • immediate feedback
  • testing of knowledge

Cons:

  • computer-based (some learners are not keen)
  • physical complaints (eyestrain, headaches)
  • no oral interaction
  • Internet connection problems

Ruth's conclusions
The closer the correlation between online and class materials, the more use online materials are likely to get.

Comments
Ruth drew the short straw with regard to timing, this talk occupying the penultimate slot of the last day of the conference. Only half a dozen people attended, including two Computer SIG Committee members.

This was a pity, as:

  • the e-learning materials on which the talk focussed were clearly well-designed and effective
  • the talk was well-prepared and succinctly delivered
  • despite lack of a live Internet connection, the guided tour of the material was effectively delivered using local files on the speaker's laptop
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