What everyone should know about SLA

Bill Van Patten

1.  What's in your head
2.  Practice doesn't make perfect
3.  Communication
4.  Don't automatically blame the first language.
5. 

Communication = the expression, interpretation and negotiation of meaning in a given context.

Classrooms are fixed contexts for communication:

• The setting is always the same.
• Participants are always the same. 

Learners create an abstract mental representation, similar to the way in which L1 learners do.
This representation bears little to no resemblance to what is traditionally practised.
This representation builds up over time due to consistent and constant exposure to input data.  Practice, as traditionally conceived, does little to foster the development of representation.

Digital Games in Language Learning

Frederick Cornillie

 

Positive attributes of digital games:

Games and simulations can enable experiential and discovery learning, transform drill-based learning to context-based acquisition and lower affective filters;

Goal-directed tasks/quests in digital games enable task-based language teaching;

Increased needs for collaboration encourage the development of collaborative social relationships and collaborative learning;

Masking the identity of the learners reduces anxiety and encourages greater risk-taking and creative use of language;

Cohesive and meaningful contexts create situated and immersive learning experience.

COTS = Commercial off the shelf games
MMPORGS = Massive multiplayer online role playing-games

Learning from COTS

Studies have found that playing commercial video games are beneficial to vocabulary learning and for improving listening and reading ability, but not for enhancing speaking and writing skills due to the fact that stand-alone video games do not offer communication opportunities and usually demand physical responses, rather than spoken and written output, for game procession.

Example Games

Little Alchemy  
GeoGuessr 

Papers please

Stop Disasters Monkey GO Happy
ESL Games Plus

MarkSharks

Tsunesaburo Makiguchi

'The aim of education is not to transfer knowledge; it is to guide the learning process, to equip the learner with the methods of research. It is not the piecemeal merchandizing of information; it is to enable the acquisition of the methods for learning on one's own; it is the provision of keys to unlock the vault of knowledge. Rather than encouraging students to appropriate the intellectual treasures uncovered by others, we should enable them to undertake on their own the process of discovery and invention.'

Makiguchi Value-creating Education

Dr Ruben Puentedura - SAMR Model

'Dr. Ruben Puentedura is the Founder and President of Hippasus, a consulting firm based in Western Massachusetts, focusing on transformative applications of information technologies to education. He has implemented these approaches for over twenty-five years at a range of K-20 educational institutions, as well as health and arts organizations.

He is the creator of the SAMR model for selecting, using, and evaluating technology in education, which currently guides the work of the Maine Learning Technology Initiative, as well as projects in Vermont and Sweden.

His current work explores new directions in mobile computing, digital storytelling, learning analytics, and educational gaming, focusing on applications in areas where they have not been traditionally employed. He can be reached at rubenrp@hippasus.com.'

Ruben R. Puentedura's blog 

The impact of SAMR

How to Apply SAMR

Motivation in Second and Foreign Language Learning

'Motivation is the process whereby goal-directed activity is instigated and sustained'

Pintrick and Schunk 1996:4

Motivational psychologists - focus in the motors of human behaviour in the individual rather than in the social being. (drive, arousal, cognitive self-appraisal).

Social psychologists - see the action as the function of the social context and the interpersonal/intergroup relation patterns, as measured by the social attitudes.

The gap between the perspectives is gradually narrowing.

Social cognition - cognitive concepts integrated into traditional social psychological models.

Reasoned Action theory

The chief determinant of action is a person's intention to perform the particular behaviour.

- attitude towards the behaviour

- subjective norm' i.e. the person's perception of the social pressures put on him/her to perform the behaviour in question.

Planned behaviour theory

'perceived behavioural control' i.e. the perceived ease or difficulty of performing the behaviour.

Approaches: expectancy-value theories, goal theories and self-determination theory.

Expectancy-value theories:

According to the main principles, motivation to perform various tasks is the product of two key factors: the individual's expectancy of success in a given task and the value the individual attaches to success in the task.

Underlying expectancy-value theories - similarly to most cognitive theories - is the belief that humans are innately active learners with an inborn curiosity and an urge to get to know their environment and meet challenges, and therefore the main issue in expectancy value theories is not what motivates learners but rather what directs and shapes their inherent motivation.

Researchers emphasise various different factors that form the individual's cognitive process; from an educational point of view, the most important aspects include processing past experiences (attribution theory), judging one's own abilities and competence (self-efficacy theory), and attempting to maintain one's self-esteem (self-worth theory).

• The guiding principle in attribution theory is the assumption that the way humans explain their own past success and failures will significantly affect their future achievement behaviour.

• Self-efficacy theory refers to people's judgement of their capabilities to carry out certain specific tasks, and, accordingly, their sense of efficacy will determine their choice of the activities attempted, as well as the level of their aspirations, the amount of effort exerted, and the persistence displayed.

• In self-worth theory of achievement motivation, the highest human priority is the need for self-acceptance and therefore 'in reality, the dynamics of school achievement largely reflect attempts to aggrandise and protect self-perceptions of ability' (Covington & Roberts 1994).

Value:
A model of task values by Eccles and Wigfield consists of four components: attainment value (or importance), intrinsic values (or interest), extrinsic utility value, and cost.

p120

References:

Dornyei, Z. (1998) Motivation in second and foreign language learning. Thames Valley University, London.

Pintrick and Schunk (1996) Motivation in education: theory, research, and applications. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Reading and the Web

Snowfall: The Avalanche at Tunnel Creek

Firestorm

Our Migration Story: The Making of Britain

Shakespeare - OneStopEnglish

Trip to London

WebQuests.org
WebQuests - Tom March
A WebQuest About WebQuests

Visualistics

Ecards

Worksheet: UK leads world in mobile web use - The Guardian

Technology such as mobile phones and tablet computers is changing how and when users access the internet and television. Use this complete lesson plan with separate homework sheet to build students vocabulary so they can talk about and survey their own viewing behaviour.

Worksheet

Scaffolding for Student Success

What to students already know?
What can they do?
What do they need to do?

Background knowledge.
Modelling by teacher or stronger students.
Guided practice: I do, you do.
Prompts: visual or step by step directions.
Strategy instruction.

Technology can also provide flexible, unobtrusive scaffolding for learners.

Technology + effective instruction

Language, Literacy and Technology - Richard Kern

Metacognition and Cognition in Second Language Teaching and Learning

 

Rhetorics of the Web: Hyperreading and Critical Literacy - Nicholas C. Burbules

Original article.

No Word Unspoken - Daniel Zalewski

Summar and Review

Space Between Words: The Origins of Silent Reading - Paul Saenger

How people read on the Web

How People Read on the Web (and How to Write for the Web)

 

You Won’t Finish This Article

 

CALL— past, present and future. Stephen Bax (2003)

Read the article/ book chapter, looking for 5 issues that you find interesting, or surprising.

• "Normalisation is therefore the stage when a technology is invisible, hardly even recognised as a technology, taken for granted in everyday life.  CALL has not reached this stage, as evidenced by the use of the very acronym 'CALL' - we do not speak of PALL (Pen Assisted Language Learning) or of BALL (Book Assisted Language Learning) because those two technologies are completely integrated into education, but CALL has not yet reached that normalisation stage.  In other words, one criterion of CALL's successful integration into language learning will be that it ceases to exist as a separate concept and field for discussion.  CALL practitioners should be aiming at their own extinction." p.23

 

The State of Education 2016/2017

Brought to my attention by Gary Motteram.

Great infographic from Classflow showing key findings from survey of 1,500 educators in the UK.

Neil Selwyn - Is Technology Good For Education

Next on my reading list...

Psycholinguistic approaches underlying SLA

Central questions for psycholinguists since SLA emerged as a discipline:

• What cognitive processes underlie success and failure in people's attempts to master the syntactic patterning of a second language?
• Is there evidence from this question to indicate that rule acquisition is involved in SLA?
• If SLA does involve rule acquisition, is there an innate linguistic capacity or can learning alone account for SLA?
• How is fluency of a L2 achieved?
• What is the importance of memory and attention mechanisms in SLA and their contribution to fluency?

Universal Grammar

Grammar = an abstract and unconscious linguistic system which underlies the use of language, including comprehension and production.

Universal Grammar (UG) = inbuilt universal linguistic principal thought to constrain native-speaker grammars.

Interlanguage = Non-native grammar.  Complex linguistic system demonstrating errors which are rule-governed rather than random mistakes.

Linguistic behaviour of non-native speakers can be accounted for in terms of interlanguage grammars which are constrained by principles and parameters of UG.

Interlanguage grammars differ from the grammars of native speakers.

Plato's Problem

Plato's Problem is the term given by Noam Chomsky to "the problem of explaining how we can know so much" given our limited experience.

Competition Model

Brian MacWhinney's homepage with links to papers.

The Competition Model views both L1 and L2 acquisition as a learning process based on universals of cognitive structure rather than on principles of UG.

Basic Cognitive Mechanisms in SLA

Attention

Noticing Hypothesis - Developed by Schmidt (1998) arguing that every aspect of SLA involves attention.  Involves the concern over whether there is such a thing as "implicit learning" or whether all learning requires explicit attention or noticing.

The Competition Model is based on the premise that learning takes place in the absence of attention, that is, learning is automatic (does not consume attentional capacity), learning is implicit (does not require attention), and repetitive exposure to input is sufficient for learning to take place.

Schmidt argues the contrary in his "Noticing Hypothesis".  He believes attention is essential for learning.  He does acknowledge that a person can register information without focal attention or awareness.  Schmidt's point however, is that, while such registration of information can take place without attention, the effects do not last long and do not affect long term learning.

There is a problem in this area in that the meaning of such terms as attention and implicit learning are not fixed.

Memory

Transfer-appropriate processing, also referred to as TAP, is a type of state-dependent memory specifically showing that memory performance is not only determined by the depth of processing (where associating meaning with information strengthens the memory; see levels-of-processing effect), but by the relationship between how information is initially encoded and how it is later retrieved.

Patys M. Lightbrown: Transfer Appropriate Processing as a Model for Classroom Second Language Acquisition

"The fundamental tenet of TAP is that we can better remember what we have learned if the cognitive processes that are active during learning are similar to those that are active during retrieval."

There is little agreement "that language features that are first learned as explicit, declarative knowledge can, through practice, become proceduralised and accessible for communicative use, that is, retrieved automatically, without conscious attention to the declarative knowledge. Some SLA researchers conclude that it cannot (Krashen, 1982), but others contend that the jury is still out (N. Ellis, 2005, for a review). DeKeyser (2003: 329) contends that ‘. . . there is no evidence in the SLA literature that explicit learning and practice cannot lead to automatized procedural knowledge, only a dearth of evidence that it can . . . Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence’."

One of the reasons for the lack of evidence is that, in both teaching and research settings, success continues to be measured in terms of discrete points of language in isolated explicit test situations rather than in contexts calling for automatized procedural knowledge of language in spontaneous language production. There are good reasons for this – both practical and theoretical. In practical terms, it is far easier for teachers  and researchers to ask students to fill in the blanks or make a choice between grammatical and ungrammatical sentences than it is to solicit (and record and transcribe and analyse) samples of spontaneous speech. The theoretical reasons to prefer discrete point measures come from the importance in hypothesis-testing research of ensuring that the conditions for assessment are as nearly identical as possible across the groups being compared. But there can be a cost to using explicit, discrete point types of measures. They may not adequately answer questions about the extent to which different kinds of instruction prepare learners to use the language under other conditions. Doughty (2003) reviewed the studies that were included in Norris and Ortega’s (2000) comprehensive meta-analysis of research on the effect of instruction and concluded that the studies overwhelmingly used ‘explicit’ assessment instruments, even when the researchers’ intention was to assess an ‘implicit’ approach to instruction. As Norris and Ortega point out, the evidence suggests that the predominance of explicit testing may not be solely responsible for the finding that explicit instruction appeared to be more effective

TAP suggests the hypothesis that what matters most is not how we learned something in the first place, but whether the learning processes are easily transferred to the retrieval processes and conditions (Franks et al., 2000).

Although LOP research initially focused on the importance of processing the semantics – the meaning – of items, subsequent research showed the importance of other components of the learning situation. These included:

• Frequency – numerous encounters with language features are almost always required for effective memory encoding (e.g. N. Ellis, 2002).

• Distribution and spacing – in general, long-term retention is better if there are multiple, spaced exposures rather than a single study session, even if the overall time devoted to learning is the same (e.g. Dempster, 1996).

• Generation – it is usually helpful for learners to produce as well as hear or see the item during the learning phase, especially if they must retrieve it from memory and use it to express their own meanings (e.g. De Keyser, 1998; Jacoby, 1978; Slamecka & Graf, 1978).

 

• Elaboration – linking the item to be learned to multiple aspects of form and meaning, as well as to related ideas, will increase the likelihood that it will be retrieved successfully (Laufer & Hulstijn, 2001).

Reference:
Norman Segalowitz and Patsy M.Lightbrown (1999) Psycholinguistic Approaches to SLA.  Annual Review of Applied Linguistics 19, 43-63. CUP.

Learning Strategies

Learner differences include, among others, factors classified under the following
three areas:

1. learning styles;
2. learning strategies; and
3. affective variables.

Ehrman (2003, p.313)

Learner Strategies Defined

Learning strategies are procedures that facilitate a learning task. Strategies are most often conscious and goal-driven, especially in the beginning stages of tackling an unfamiliar language task. Once a learning strategy becomes familiar through repeated use, it may be used with some automaticity, but most learners will, if required, be able to call the strategy to conscious awareness. 

Learning strategies are important in second language learning and teaching for two major reasons. First, by examining the strategies used by second language learners during the language learning process, we gain insights into the metacognitive, cognitive, social, and affective processes involved in language learning. The second reason supporting research into language learning strategies is that less successful language learners can be taught new strategies, thus helping them become better language learners (Grenfell & Harris, 1999).

Chamot (2005, p.112)

Studies identified the good language learner as one who is a mentally active learner, monitors language comprehension and production, practices communicating in the language, makes use of prior linguistic and general knowledge, uses various memorization techniques, and asks questions for clarification.

Chamot (2005, p.115) 

Good language learners are skilled at matching strategies to the task they were working on, whereas less successful language learners apparently do not have the metacognitive knowledge about task requirements needed to select appropriate strategies.

Chamot (2005, p.116) 

A given learning strategy is neither good nor bad; it is essentially neutral until it is considered in context. A strategy is useful under these conditions: 

(a) the strategy relates well to the L2 task at hand, 

(b) the strategy fits the particular student’s learning style preferences to one degree or another, and 

(c) the student employs the strategy effectively and links it with other relevant strategies. 

Strategies that fulfill these conditions ‘‘make learning easier, faster, more enjoyable, more self-directed, more effective, and more transferable to new situations’’ (Oxford, 1990, p. 8) and enable more independent, autonomous, lifelong learning (Allwright, 1990; Little, 1991).

Ehrman (2003, p.315)

Oxford (1990, 1992) developed the Strategy Inventory for Language Learning (SILL), which uses factor analyses to group strategies into six categories. Oxford (1990) identified six major groups of L2 learning strategies:

1. Cognitive strategies enable the learner to manipulate the language material in direct ways, e.g., through reasoning, analysis, note-taking, and synthesizing.

2. Metacognitive strategies (e.g., identifying one’s own preferences and needs, planning, monitoring mistakes, and evaluating task success) are used to manage the learning process overall.

3. Memory-related strategies (e.g., acronyms, sound similarities, images, key words) help learners link one L2 item or concept with another but do not necessarily involve deep understanding.

4. Compensatory strategies (e.g., guessing from the context; circumlocution; and gestures and pause words) help make up for missing knowledge.

5. Affective strategies, such as identifying one’s mood and anxiety level, talking about feelings, rewarding oneself, and using deep breathing or positive selftalk, help learners manage their emotions and motivation level.

6. Social strategies (e.g., asking questions, asking for clarification, asking for help, talking with a native-speaking conversation partner, and exploring cultural and social norms) enable the learner to learn via interaction with others and understand the target culture.

Ehrman (2003, p.316-317)

Reflection:

Q.  In what ways does learning strategies challenge the 'traditional' role of the teacher as the transmitter of knowledge?

As we learn more about SLA the role of the teacher is becoming more and more diversified to support the highly complex process of language learning and the almost infinite combinations of classroom activities that can take place.  The teacher has to assume a variety of roles to nurture learning: coach, co-ordinator, consultant, mentor, motivator, guide, role model, reference etc.

Adrian Underhill proposes three kinds of teacher to offer some simplification to the many types of teachers which could be considered: the explainer, involver and enabler (Scrivener 2011). 

References:

Chamot (2005) Language Learning Strategy Instruction: Current Issues and Research. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 25, 112–130.

Ehrman, et al (2003) A brief overview of individual differences in second language learning.

Grenfell, M., & Harris, V. (1999). Modern languages and learning strategies: In theory and practice. London: Routledge.

Scrivener, J. (2011) Learning Teaching.

Complex, not complicated: Diane Larsen Freeman on Complexity Theory in Applied Linguistics

Chaos Theory or Nonlinear System Dynamics

Chaos / Complexity Science and Second Language Acquisition

Unpredictability accompanies large, complex, nonlinear systems.

With certain phenomena, randomness is inherent, gathering more information does not obviate it.

There are similarities between complex nonlinear systems in nature and language and language acquisition.  Language acquisition is dynamic, complex and nonlinear.

Complex nonlinear systems are characterized to varying degrees by the following features: they are dynamic, complex, nonlinear, chaotic, unpredictable, sensitive to initial conditions, open, self-organizing, feedback sensitive, and adaptive.

Gleick (1987) the study of 'chaos is a science of process rather than state, of becoming rather than being.'

Complex systems are often, though not always, composed of a large number of components or agents, e.g. the brain comprises of billions of neurons.

The behaviour of complex systems is more than a product of the behaviour of its individual components. 

Bobo the Clown - Crash Course Psychology

Bobo doll experiment, groundbreaking study on aggression led by psychologist Albert Bandura that demonstrated that children are able to learn through the observation of adult behaviour. The experiment was executed via a team of researchers who physically and verbally abused an inflatable doll in front of preschool-age children, which led the children to later mimic the behaviour of the adults by attacking the doll in the same fashion.

Jeannette L. Nolen - Encylopaedia Britannica

George Bernard Shaw — 'Imitation is not just the sincerest form of flattery - it's the sincerest form of learning.' 

Bashaer Al Kilani - How to develop effective edtech integration

Bashaer provides this great analogy by Fletcher (1996) to highlight the real role of technology in learning:

“When you go to the hardware store to buy a drill, you do not actually want a drill, you want a hole. They do not sell holes at the hardware store, but they do sell drills, which are the devices used to make holes. We must not lose sight that technology, for the most part, is a tool, and it should be used in applications which address educational concerns.”

Bashaer also highlights the important point that teachers should focus on the use of technology as a medium for enhanced learning.

How do we get there?

1. Teachers’ perception of technology in learning

Dr.  Ray Clifford: “Technology won’t replace teachers, but teachers who don’t use technology will soon be replaced.”

2. Teachers’ training on effective technology integration

3. Teachers should have a voice in technology integration

Nicholas Carr - The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains

This book was recommended by the MA TESOL course tutor Gary Motteram.

It deals with a topic which I have been interested in and something which I believe is happening; technology, and most recently, the Internet, is changing the way we think and act.  Surfing the net is something most people love doing but I have had the feeling that clicking from page to page has affected the way we consume information, moving to a more superficial level of reading.  I've always had the gnawing doubt that my ability to concentrate on one topic has been affected by the ease of clicking form page to page online.

Nicholas Carr's book introduced and directed me towards the Socratic dialogue of Phaedrus, written by Plato, in which Socrates expresses animosity towards the writing and recording of philosophical discourse.  Socrates, an early Luddite, was against the written word believing that words should be written with intelligence in the mind of the learner.  David Malki's blog offers a great analysis of the Phaedrus dialogue (True Stuff: Socrates vs. the Written Word).

Chapter 7: The Juggler's Brain

I found the chapter entitled 'The Juggler's Brain' very interesting.  It looks at what the scientific effects that the Internet is having on how our minds work.

"Dozens of studies by psychologists, neurobiologists, educators, and Web designers point to the same conclusion: when we go online, we enter an environment that promotes cursory reading, hurried and distracted thinking, and superficial learning."

"With the exception of alphabets and number systems, the Net may well be the single most powerful mind-altering technology that has ever come into general use.  At the very least, it's the most powerful that has come along since the book".

Michael Hausauer, a psychotherapist in Oakland, Calif., said teenagers had a “terrific interest in knowing what’s going on in the lives of their peers, coupled with a terrific anxiety about being out of the loop.” For that reason, he said, the rapid rise in texting has potential for great benefit and great harm. NY Times

The Net sizes our attention only to scatter it.

Michael Merzenich ruminates that: "our brain is modified on a substantial scale, physically and functionally, each time we learn a new skill or develop a new ability,".

"When humans first evolved from the chimp line, they were (of course) only slightly more advanced than their relatives. It took them 10,000 to 20,000 years to develop the first useful language; about 40,000 years to figure out how to make a sharp knife; maybe 55,000 years or so to develop a method of writing; another several thousand years before they figured out how to make something sensible and portable to write on; another couple of thousand years to invent punctuation; another thousand years or so to figure out how to make more than one copy of a book; another 200 years before the general populace was taught to read, and then in only some places in the world; another couple of hundred years before the invention of the radio, television, the movies; and so on."
Are we getting smarter or dumber? CNET New, September 21, 2005.

"When culture drives changes in the ways that we engage our brains, it creates DIFFERENT brains. Nicholas Carr records a beautiful statement from the psychologist Maryanne Wolf (a reading expert from Tufts University) that sums it all up: “We are not only what we read. We are how we read.” For “we”, you can substitute “our brains”, because they’re (You and Your-Brain are) synonymous."

Referring to the Internet and Google Michael Merzenich states: "THEIR HEAVY USE HAS NEUROLOGICAL CONSEQUENCES."
Going Googly, On the Brain Blog, August 11, 2008.

Gary Small, professor of psychiatry at UCLA: "The current explosion of digital technology not only is changing the way we live and communicate but is rapidly and profoundly altering our brains".

iBrain: Surviving the Technological Alteration of the Modern Mind. Gary Small and Gigi Vorgan

Also
Your Brain on Google: Patterns of Cerebral Activation during Internet Searching

Working memory = scratch pad
Long-term memory = filing system

Long-term memory remains largely outside of our consciousness.  To think about something we have previously learned we have to transfer the memory from long-term memory back into working memory.  It was previously thought that long-term memory played little part in complex cognitive processes such as thinking and problem solving, however scientists have discovers that long-term memory is actually the seat of understanding.  Schemas, our understanding of complex concepts, are stored there.

John Sweller: "Our intellectual prowess is derived largely from the schemas we have acquired over long periods of time.  We are able to understand concepts in our areas of expertise because we have schemas associated with those concepts"

The depth of our intelligence relies on our ability to transfer information from working memory to long-term memory and weave it into conceptual schemas.  This can also form a major bottleneck.  Working memory is only able to hold a very small amount of information.

The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two

Cognitive load = the information flowing into our working memory at any given moment.

Chapter 9: Search, Memory

And as I write down the thoughts of others....
"Socrates was right.  As people grew accustomed to writing down their thoughts and reading the thoughts others had written down, they became less dependent on the contents of their own memory.  What once had to be stored in the head could instead be stored on tablets and scrolls or between the covers of codices.  People began, as the great orator had predicted, to call things to mind not "from within themselves, but by means of external marks."  The reliance on personal memory diminshed further with the spread of the letterpress and the attendant expansion of publishing and literacy.  Books and journals, at hand in libraries or on the shelves in private homes, became supplements to the brain's biological storehouse.  People didn't have to memorize everything anymore.  They could look it up."

From Internet to Gutenberg
Umberto Eco, November 12 1996, Columbia University's Italian Academy for Advanced Studies.

Plato's imagined Socratic discourse in Phaedrus tells of a Pharoh who "was instantiating an eternal fear: the fear that a new technological achievement could abolish or destroy something that we consider precious, fruitful, something that represents for us a value in itself, and a deeply spiritual one."

"Books challenge and improve memory; they do not narcotize it."

Computer Meets Classroom, Classroom Wins.

B.F. Skinner

Merril Swain - Comprehensible Output

Comprehensible input: Language that is understandable to a learner. It can be comprehensible because the language is adjusted to the proficiency level of the learner or because the learner uses contextual clues or schematic knowledge to make sense of it.

Comprehensible output: Language produced by learners which they have attempted to make understandable to listeners/readers.

Swain proposed the Comprehensible Output Hypothesis in 1985 in response to Krashen's Comprehensible Input Hypothesis.  Swain was influenced by cognitive theory and then later by sociocultural theory.

Colleague: "What evidence is there that technology benefits language learning?"

During a recent ICT induction a colleague asked what the 'proven benefits of technology' are to learning English.  This struck me as a rather strange question as I consider ICT in the classroom as a tool to aid learning; web sites, interactive whiteboards, flip-charts, power-points, iPads, mobile phones etc, are all classroom supports which, when used judiciously and by skilled teachers, contribute towards enhancing learning.  He stated that he had asked tutors for evidence of language enhancement but this was never ever given.

I would never suggest that every lesson must incorporate ICT tools, just as I would not advocate teachers use a coursebook or cuisenaire rods in every class (Where's the evidence that they support learning?).  The teacher was a self-confessed technophobe so his misgivings regarding technology are understandable.  Some people may feel threatened by the use of technology in class.

'My approach has always been that the appropriate use of technologies can be both empowering and liberating, but what is appropriate to one person's teaching style may not be appropriate to another's. Without a full understanding of a technology or the ability and skills to employ it creatively to one's own ends, it is easy to see it as a gimmick or a threat.  Only a complete understanding allows us to reject what is inappropriate, as well as accept what may be appropriate.'
(Glenis Lambert: personal communication. Oxford Handbook for Language Teachers: Technology Enhanced Language Learning. e-book Loc 3806).

I wanted to find some research into the effect of technology on language learning.

Everest Syndrome refers to the tendency of teachers to feel the need to use technology, especially the internet, in their classrooms simply because it exists (Maddux's choice of words may have been influenced by George Mallory's answer to the question "Why do you want to climb Mount Everest?" - "Because it's there").  The researcher employs this term also to include the often overwhelming effect of massive amounts of information resources and technological tools made available through the World Wide Web.


1. Mark Warschauer - A Developmental Perspective on Technology in Language Education.  TESOL Quarterly Vol.36, No. 3, Autumn 2002.

Warschauer took part in a 3-year research programme in Egypt for integrating a range of technology in language learning at K-12 and university levels.

hardware + software: humanware? 

> emphasis on human development and leadership

The goal in TESOL, and especially in considerations of how to make use of technology, should not be only development of the language but also development of the person. At the classroom level, that implies helping students not only use technology as an instructional aid but also master technology as a medium of communication, research, and knowledge production.  At the professional level, that implies developing networks of innovators with expertise in technology enhanced teaching, teaching development, and educational reform (pp.472-473).

Cultivating technological innovations for development. Electronic journal on Information Systems in Developing Countries, 2(2) 1-15.

http://www.ejisdc.org/ojs2/index.php/ejisdc/article/view/7/7 

2. Rafael Salaberry - The Use of Technology for Second Language Learning and Teaching: A Retrospective. The Modern Language Journal, 85, i, (2001) 0026-7902/01/39-56.

Salaberry proposes four major questions in his 20001 critical review of the pedagogical use of technological resources:

1. Is increased technological sophistication correlated to increased pedagogical effectiveness?
2. Which technical attributes specific to new technologies can be profitably exploited for   pedagogical purposes?
3. How can new technologies be successfully integrated into the curriculum?
4. Do new technologies provide for an efficient use of human and material resources?

Technological practice integrated with pedagogical practice:

Development - Implementation - Assessment

Lindenau, as far back as 1984, predicted that "A blackboard-and-textbook system of education in the age of microelectronics will inevitably promote detrimental and far-reaching consequences" (p. 119).

Dunkel (1987) - There will be a potential waste of resources if pedagogy does not take advantage of new technological tools.

Audiovisual media

Radio

Garfinkel (1972) Radio has "the technological resources to supply any language classroom, no matter how remote, with a wealth of stimuli from all over the world ...  radio is much closer on [the] continuum to the 'concrete' terminal than are the printed media so widely used in our foreign language classes" (p. 162).

TV, film & Video

Gottschalk (1965) "course materials and exercises . . . would profit from visual presentation," because it is "considerably easier for students to absorb both the abstract material given in lectures and the visual aids used to illustrate these abstract materials".

Teaching devices
Pond (1963) highlighted some advantages of using overhead projectors:

1. enable teachers to prepare materials in advance,
2. allow information written on overlays to be easily and quickly hidden (in contrast with information written on the blackboard),
3. enable the teacher to add, subtract, underline, and highlight information at will,
4. do not require that the lights be dimmed,
5. allow for simple creation of teaching materials,
6. enable the teacher to face the class while writing on transparencies, and
7. are not prone to failure or damage due to their technological simplicity.

Learning Communities - Forming, Storming, Norming and Performing

Psychologist Bruce Tuckman first came up with the memorable phrase "forming, storming, norming, and performing" in his 1965 article, "Developmental Sequence in Small Groups." He used it to describe the path that most disparate people go through on their way to becoming a group. Later, he added a fifth stage, "adjourning" (which is sometimes known as "mourning").

The following video and model details have been adapted from MindTools, a website designed to help careers, however the information is just as useful to the development of learning communities.

Forming

In this stage, most learners are positive and polite. Some are anxious, as they haven't fully understood what the lessons will involve. Others are simply excited about the new collaborations ahead.  As the teacher, you play a dominant role at this stage, because students' roles and responsibilities aren't clear.  This stage can last for some time, as people start to work together, and as they make an effort to get to know their new classmates.

 

Storming

Next, the class moves into the storming phase, where people start to push against the boundaries established in the forming stage. This is the stage where many groups have problems.  Storming often starts where there is a conflict between group members' natural learning styles. People may work in different ways for all sorts of reasons but, if differing learning styles cause unforeseen problems, they may become frustrated.

Storming can also happen in other situations. For example, members may challenge group authority, or jockey for position as their roles are clarified. Or, if you haven't defined clearly how the students will work, people may feel overwhelmed by their workload, or they could be uncomfortable with the approach you're using.

Some may question the worth of the goal, and they may resist taking on tasks.  Students who stick with the task at hand may experience stress, particularly as they don't have the support of established processes, or strong relationships with their colleagues.

 

Norming

Gradually, the team moves into the norming stage. This is when people start to resolve their differences, appreciate classmates' strengths, and respect your authority as the teacher.
Now that your students know one another better, they may socialize together, and they are able to ask one another for help and provide constructive feedback. People develop a stronger commitment to the learning goal, and you start to see good progress towards it.

There is often a prolonged overlap between storming and norming, because, as new tasks come up, the group may lapse back into behaviour from the storming stage.

 

Performing

The group reaches the performing stage, when hard work leads, without friction, to the achievement of the goal. The structures and processes that you have set up support this well.  As the teacher, you can delegate more, and concentrate on developing group roles.  It feels easy to be part of the group at this stage, and people who join or leave won't disrupt performance.

 

Adjourning

Many groups will reach this stage eventually. Courses generally last for only a short period.
Students who like routine, or who have developed close working relationships with classmates, may find this stage difficult, particularly if they are unable to continue their learning.

Teachers and Technology

Their tends to be a focus on student learning rather than developing skills for teaching more effectively.

Technical vs Pedagogical skills.

Technical teaching skills - how to turn the sound up, use ActivInspire, find material on the T drive, troubleshoot common browser problems or access and use Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs).


Salmon (2003) "Any significant initiative aimed at changing teaching methods or the introduction of technology into teaching and learning should include effective e-moderator support and training, otherwise its outcomes are likely to be meagre and unsuccessful".


Hampel and Stickler believe that the ample availability of authentic teaching and learning materials makes the online environment ideally suited for communicative tasks.  It also provides an "opportunity to take part in meaningful communicative interaction with highly competent speakers of the language (Canale & Swain, 1980, p. 27).

Authentic and meaningful interaction AND the necessary pedagogical support = Optimal communicative competence teaching. Live synchronous written and spoken interaction with peers and tutors who provide scaffolding  via online language tutorials.

First level - basic competence including: using a the keyboard, mouse, word processor, internet, troubleshooting browser problems and downloading audio, video, image files etc.

Second level - particular software applications for teaching purposes such as the interactive white board and commercially available educational software.

Third level - Understanding what kinds of learning the software can facilitate, and what the limitations are.

Fourth level - Enabling learners to develop their communicative competence by interacting with other language learners.

Fifth level - The design of tasks and intervention by the tutor once the online community has been established.

Canale, M., & Swain, M. (1980).  Theoretical bases of communicative approaches to second language teaching and testing. Applied Linguistics, 1(1) 1 - 47.  

Salmon, G. (2003). E-moderating: The key to teaching and learning online (2nd ed.). London and New York: RouteledgeFarmer

Kumaravadivelu

 

Fostering Language Awareness

Language Awareness:

(a) General language awareness – linguistic & sociolinguistic features

(b) Critical language awareness – social & political factors

The British Movement – Language Awareness (LA) movement

1975 report of the Bullock Committee

Donmall 1985, p. 7: “A person’s sensitivity to and conscious awareness of the nature of language and its role in human life.”

Eric Hawkins (1984, p. 6): “We are trying to light fires of curiosity about the central human characteristic of language which will blaze throughout our pupil’s lives.  While combating linguistic complacency, we are seeking to arm our pupils against fear of the unknown which breeds prejudice and antagonism.”

The American Movement – Whole Language movement

Integrating four language skills + language related content across school curriculum

Various components of language such as sounds, words, phrases and sentences should be taught holistically using authentic materials and meaningful activities that resonate with learners and their daily life.

Holistic = characterized by comprehension of the parts of something as intimately interconnected and explicable only by reference to the whole.

Ken Goodman (1986, p.27): “Whole language is whole.  It does not exclude some languages, some dialects, or some registers because their speakers lack status in a particular society.  Every language form constitutes a precious linguistic resource for its users.  This does not mean that whole language teachers are not aware of the social values assigned to different language varieties and how these affect people who use them. But they can put these social values in perspective.”

WHAT DOES THE TERM WHOLE LANGUAGE MEAN? CONSTRUCTING A DEFINITION FROM THE LITERATURE

Whole language has as its foundation many concepts drawn from early philosophers in education. In her report of the historical roots of whole language, Yetta Goodman (1989) stated that "those who call ourselves whole-language proponents today discover our roots in the humanistic and scientific beliefs of those who came before" (p. 125). Goodman cited: Comenius's concern for learner-centered pedagogy, Piaget's support for children's active role in learning, Vygotsky's belief in the relationship between the learning and of the individual student and influences of the social context, and Halliday's support for contextual learning as each contributing to the concept of whole language. In addition, Dewey's contributions to whole language can be traced through his support for reflective teaching, learning centered education, and the integration of the language arts within the curriculum (Y. Goodman, 1989) as well as for his support for learning by doing (Hildreth, 1965).

Yetta Goodman (1989) the whole language is simply language experience with a new label. 

The language-experience approach (LEA) was described four decades ago as one that ‘makes much of this sequence of meaningful relationships through which it guides the learner and strives to develop his personal identification with the experience and with the functional uses of relevant language”.