FanFiction

I would like to talk about the social networking site-- Fan Fiction (http://www.fanfiction.net/) we explored in class this week. Again, like many other websites, it proved to me that the internet could provide more possibilities and opportunities than we could ever imagine. The forums had such a wide coverage of movies, cartoons, books, and TV shows all around the world in this website, and there were so many people discussing, creating, cooperating, sharing, and communicating in it, which had made it look like a whole different world to me. It further amazed me when I found there were people discussing and rewriting popular Chinese TV shows from the 1990s in English. Without the development of technology, this level of exchange and collaboration would have been  unimaginable. Now that we have so much help at our fingertip, we could turn the previously impossible into the possible, but how to get the best out of it remains as our own responsibility.

About CATs

Douglas and Hegelheimer (2008) gave a nice review of the developments in the use of computer technology in language assessment, and there were two particularly interesting points in their discussion I would like to reflect on here. First, as what the authors have concluded, it seems that most argument and debate in this area could be boiled down to "appropriate and inappropriate uses of CATs", which mirrors the result of most of our classroom discussion; and "what was once thought to be the wave of the future in language testing, that is, computer-adaptive tests, has been tempered by the realization of the limits of this particular technology", which reminds us the importance of not getting overwhelmed by the ever-developing technology and throwing away comparatively traditional but effective methods and practice.
 

Second, the article mentions a research conducted by Cohen and Upton (2006)( as cited in Douglas & Hegelheimer, 2008), which has found that "in general, the test takers tended to approach the test tasks as test tasks rather than as genuine reading tasks. In other words, they were mainly interested in getting the correct answer rather than learning anything from the reading". Thinking back, I have had the same problem when I was doing the internet-based test practice to prepare for TOEFL when I constantly needed to resist the temptation to click on the "checking results" button to get instant grading for my answer without really caring about what I could learn from the reading itself. However, on second thought, I would have done the same thing if I could flip the paper and check my answer in pen-and-pencil language tests. Therefore, is this a limitation of CATs only or a limitation for all forms of tests in general. Because, in my opinion, once something is turned into a test, it is human nature for people to focus on finishing the task correctly and pass the test instead of the so-called deep thinking, regardless of whether it is computer-aided or not.

Douglas, D., & Hegelheimer, V. (2007). Chapter 6: Assessing language using computer technology. Annual review of applied linguistics, 27, 115-132.

Reflection on CATs and Fanfiction

Douglas and Hegelheimer (2008) gave a nice review of the developments in the use of computer technology in language assessment, and there were two particularly interesting points in their discussion I would like to reflect on here. First, as what the authors have concluded, it seems that most argument and debate in this area could be boiled down to "appropriate and inappropriate uses of CATs", which mirrors the result of most of our classroom discussion; and "what was once thought to be the wave of the future in language testing, that is, computer-adaptive tests, has been tempered by the realization of the limits of this particular technology", which reminds us the importance of not getting overwhelmed by the ever-developing technology and throwing away comparatively traditional but effective methods and practice.

 

Second, the article mentions a research conducted by Cohen and Upton (2006)( as cited in Douglas & Hegelheimer, 2008), which has found that "in general, the test takers tended to approach the test tasks as test tasks rather than as genuine reading tasks. In other words, they were mainly interested in getting the correct answer rather than learning anything from the reading". Thinking back, I have had the same problem when I was doing the internet-based test practice to prepare for TOEFL when I constantly needed to resist the temptation to click on the "checking results" button to get instant grading for my answer without really caring about what I could learn from the reading itself. However, on second thought, I would have done the same thing if I could flip the paper and check my answer in pen-and-pensile language tests. Therefore, is this a limitation of CATs only or a limitation for all forms of tests in general. Because, in my opinion, once something is turned into a test, it is human nature for people to focus on finishing the task correctly and pass the test instead of the so-called deep thinking, regardless of whether it is computer-aided or not.

 

Lastly, I would like to talk about the social networking site-- Fan Fiction (http://www.fanfiction.net/) we explored in class this week. Again, like many other websites, it proved to me that the internet could provide more possibilities and opportunities than we could ever imagine. The forums have such a wide coverage of movies, cartoons, books, and TV shows all around the world in this website, and there are so many people discussing, creating, cooperating, sharing, and communicating in it, which makes it look like a whole new world to me. It further amazed me when I found people discussing and rewriting popular Chinese TV shows from the 1990s in English. Without the development of technology, this level of exchange and collaboration is unimaginable. Now that we have so much help at our fingertip, how to get the best out of it is our own responsibility.

 

Douglas, D., & Hegelheimer, V. (2007). Chapter 6: Assessing language using computer technology. Annual review of applied linguistics, 27, 115-132.

About Qikpad and UNI-collaboration

In this week's class, we have again done some exciting experiment in lab, including embedding in our blogs an online collaboration tool called Qikpad, which works very much like Google-docs but with a more concise layout. What I also like about it is its easiness in creating a pad with an embedded window allowing instant chatting with partners, and I think it might be able to serve as a nice alternative for intercultural exchanges involving countries like China where Google tools are not that readily accessible. However, I encountered a technological breakdown with Qikpad just the day after the class when I discovered the pad I had embedded was gone, and so was the website (http://qikpad.org). Therefore, I think, like many other technological tools, Qikpad is not 100% reliable, and we had better get prepared for unexpected breakdown like this in future projects.

Besides collaboration tools, we have also explored online platforms for intercultural exchanges like Uni-collaboration (http://www.unicollaboration.eu/), which provide valuable databank to help instructors and coordinators who want to establish cultural exchange projects find partner teachers and classes in other countries, learn about successful projects and evaluation tools, and communicative with other practitioners. However, quite similar as what I have found from another renown model and platform Cultura, most projects are confined to exchanges between institutions in the U.S. and European countries, and the languages involved are usually English, Spanish, French, German, and occasionally Japanese and Korean. Although there are several participating institutions from Taiwan in UNI-collaboration, there is so far none from mainland China. Considering the fact that mainland China has the biggest number of English learners in the world and Chinese language itself is gaining popularity in recent years, there seems to be a huge gap between what should be done and what has been done in terms of exploration of online intercultural exchange in a language learning context.

About "collective intelligence"



Picture from
 http://ldele087.wordpress.com/2010/01/29/collective-intelligence/ 

The report called "Evidence for a collective intelligence factor in the performance of human groups" (Woolley, et al., 2010) demonstrated to us statistical evidence of the existence of "collective intelligence", and its exploratory power over a group's performance on a wide variety of tasks. The two studies presented in the report showed that while individual intelligence was a significant predictor of performance on tasks which were completed by individuals, average individual intelligence was not as significantly associated with performance on group tasks as collective intelligence. What was more interesting was that, instead of factors such as group cohesion, motivation, and satisfaction which one might have expected to have strong correlation with group performance, average social sensitivity, the equality in distribution of conversational turn-taking, and the proportion of females in the group turned out to be some of the best predictors for collective intelligence which could be used to account for a big proportion of variance across group performances. Although the studies reported were not directly related to second language teaching and learning, I think their results could still be beneficial and valuable for language instructors in the process of designing classroom activities, intercultural exchanges, assigning tasks and roles, as well as administering and monitoring any student activities which involve group work. However, as language learning could be a very different cognitive and social process, and the meaning negotiation and construction as well as information processing and internalization in language acquisition might differ immensely across learners of different levels, ages, cultures, and languages, more evidence would be needed to help with a better configuration and implementation of group projects in a language learning context for achieving better results.

Qikpad

Practicing second language without really trying!

Hanna and de Nooy (2003) have made a very important point in their article "A funny thing happened on the way to the forum: electronic discussion and foreign language learning" that it might be advisable to change "practicing French" to "practicing Frenchness" in instructions given to students engaged in online fora for the purpose of second language learning. The authors presented a very interesting study of the online forum exchanges and discussed about the importance of prefacing language learners of what successful participation would mean for a particular forum in order to optimize the expected effect and improve their "cultural knowledge" should forum debates be used for second language learning. In addition, as "neither culture nor genre is seen as firmly entrenched", negotiation of cultural and generic rules would be a great way for language students to improve their language competence, to be more specific, intercultural communicative competence, "through participation in a cultural practice". In this sense, it seems that we could practice second language without really trying, which sounds exciting. However, given the cultural focus of a practice like the forum debate in the article, I believe it is better to be taken as a supplementary part for a second language curriculum. In addition, this type of practice might only be beneficial to language learners who are at least at the intermediate level.

About corpora for language learning

What impressed me most in today's class was the demonstration and discussion about corpora for language learning. I was amazed not only by the sheer amount of information available in a corpus but also how easy it was in fact for people to use. Besides vocabulary learning demonstrated in class, I could instantly think of so many other ways to utilize a corpus for language learning. With the "context" providing source discourses, students could practice their reading skills; the "collocation" search would definitely be helpful for grammar learning and writing practice; corpora covering or dedicated to spoken language not only could be used for researches but also may come in handy in students' oral language production; and the display of different usages of a particular word could be such a valuable resource for translation practice. However, as what we have been reminded time after time, we should never lose sight of the characteristics of language learners at a particular level. I was wondering, besides corpora created for different languages, genres, or geographical locations, is there any corpus designed for language learners of a specific level?

Thoughts about flashcard tools

In this week's lab section, we have tried out different websites for making flashcards. Just as what we have reported as various collaborative groups, although different flashcard tools might have their unique features, they share two primary functions. One is enabling learners to create their own sets of flashcards, and the other one is a common database accessible to the public, which is composed by previously generated flashcards shared by learners across the world. I find both functions, the second one in particular, helpful for language learners in terms of making their own learning material for spaced repetition and saving time by using others' when necessary. In addition, I also found the "quiz" in flashcardmachine (flashcardmachine.com) interesting. After learners have created a set of flashcards, the website would automatically generate a quiz by mingling the content of the flashcards, and the learners can then take the interactive test with instant feedback and grading. Like the flashcard database, the "quiz" demonstrates what technology could help to add to our traditional way of learning and teaching. However, as using flashcards is usually regarded as a type of mechanical drilling, I wonder if someday in the near future, developers of flashcard tools and websites would be able to help compiling and creating more meaningful and communicative drills by making even better use of the databases and embedding more user-friendly multi-media tools, so that flashcards would be used to help second language learners to learn in a collaborative environment more effectively.

About essay-grading software

The article "Essay-grading software offers professors a break" written by John Markoff (2013) in The New York Times left me with mixed feelings. On one hand, I was excited by the prospect brought by artificial intelligence whose speed of development really seemed to go beyond my power of imagination. On the other hand, what had been magnified by the adoption of the instant-grading software and the main argument of its developers and advocators made me remain skeptical about its value and effect. For me, essay writing involves the highest level of linguistic complexities and deepest level of human thinking, and I have no idea how they could be put down objectively and reasonably by writing instructors in the scoring system with a form of letter grading or numerical ranking, which would then be used by the software to give students instant feedback and free instructors from manually grading essays, the biggest selling point of this software. In addition, people write to express their inner thoughts to the outside world, I highly doubt that they would stay as motivated as they had been before if they knew they would be communicating merely with a machine, which would be fooled into giving high marks by nonsense essays, not to mention whether it could ever "help kids learn how to think critically". Moreover, it is troubling to know that one of the major objectives of developing software like this is to deal with the increased demand of essay grading in online courses. In my opinion, rash implementation of automatic grading software would only make things worse, considering people's common concern about the quality of online courses compared with the off-line ones. At last, I do not see how this type of software could be used to address the inequality issue existing between "the real world" and those "prestigious institutions", and I find the logic of argument not acceptable. After all, could anyone ever say that essays written by students in less prestigious institutions do not deserve human appreciation?

Markoff, J.(2013). Essay-grading software offers professors a break. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com

The beauty of scientific research

Sauro's (2009) paper "Computer-mediated corrective feedback and the development of L2 grammar" is regarded as one of the representatives in the growing body of research illustrating the potential that intercultural telecollaborative exchanges entail for language development through the use of corrective feedback from collaborating partners (Vinagre & Muñoz, 2011). The study reported in the article examined the relative effectiveness of two different types of computer-mediated corrective feedback on the immediate and sustained development of L2 target form knowledge. Despite the significant immediate gains of the matalinguistic group compared with the control condition, which conformed more or less to our preconceived ideas towards the effects of feedback based on positive results found on corrective feedbacks in traditional face-to-face interaction, the study showed no significant advantage for either feedback type on immediate or sustained gains in target form knowledge, which led to the author's suggestion for future studies.

Besides the language issue discussed about, this article has also made me think of the challenges and merits of academic studies. It is never easy to find significant results, and it is even more difficult to claim causality. However, it is the researchers' responsibility to report a study as it is. By doing this, they are making no less contribution than those who are fortunate enough to get more "desirable" results; and by doing this, they are demonstrating to us more vividly the beauty of scientific research-- we never know what we would end up with. 

Sauro, S. (2009). Computer-mediated corrective feedback and the development of L2 grammar. Language Learning & Technology, 13(1), 96–120. Retrieved from http://llt.msu.edu/vol13num1/sauro.pdf

Vinagre, M., & Muñoz, B. (2011). Computer-mediated corrective feedback and language accuracy in telecollaborative exchanges. Language Learning & Technology, 15(1), 96–120. Retrieved from http://llt.msu.edu/issues/february2011/vinagremunoz.pdf

Cognitive principles vs. learner styles

Today's class was informative and interesting as usual, and we also got hands-on experience of creating online listening test in lab by using really neat and handy tools like tubechop and Google-forms. In addition, during the lecture, we had discussion focusing on the use of technology in improving reading and listening skills. One of my fellow classmates mentioned about the effect of different combination of multi-media input on L2 reading comprehension, which reminded me of an article I had read before about a study on cognitive principles of multi-media learning. The study found that students learned better when visual and verbal materials were physically close and when verbal input was presented auditorily as speech rather than visually as text ( Moreno & Mayer, 1999). Although the article was written more than a decade ago and the study did not target L2 learning, I believe it is still relevant to today's discussion. However, I was wondering whether the findings would still be the same if learners' different learning styles had been taken into account. After all, we know that the effect of the same material might vary greatly among learners with auditory, visual, or kinesthetic styles.

Moreno, R., & Mayer, R. E. (1999). Cognitive principles of multimedia learning: the role of modality and contiguity. Journal of Educational Psychology, 91(2), 358-368.

What if TOEFL had video listening test?

Wagner's (2007) article "Are they watching? Test-taker viewing behavior during an L2 video listening test" investigated into how L2 listening test-takers interacted with video listening texts, and the extent to which test-takers oriented to the video texts. One of the most interesting findings of this study was that the test-takers did not find the video "distracting", which was contradictory to the assumption of some researchers. It reminded me of the listening section in the TOEFL (internet-based test) I took two years ago, and I believe the format is still the same today. During the listening test, there was only one static picture shown on the computer monitor throughout each task. Although I did not give much thought about it at that time, because the test itself was too important for someone who wanted to be enrolled in graduate school in an English-spoken country, I now start to wonder, what if we had video listening test in TOEFL? Was that kind of static picture display in TOEFL based on the conjecture that video would be distracting for test-takers? Would videos make the listening tasks easier or more difficult? The author has suggested that the correlation between test scores and test-takers' orientation to the video monitor would be something worth looking into. I agree with him, and I hope that future researches would help to make massive-scale English tests like TOEFL more "taker-friendly" and effective. After all, language is used and understood in real-life situations, videos might indeed help to put test takers into a more life-like environment and get more reliable test results. 

Wagner, E. (2007). Are they watching? Test-taker viewing behavior during an L2 video listening test. Language Learning and Technology, 11(1), 67-86.

Praat

Going to the Technology and SLA class has always been an eye-opening experience for me. For example, Praat, which was introduced in class this week, was one of the most sophisticated computer programs on phonetics I have ever known for analyzing, synthesizing, and manipulating speech. What amazed me most was the demonstration and practice we had in class about how it could be used to help students with tones and intonation in language class with its high quality pictures showing spectrograms, pitch contours, formant contours, and intensity contours. Praat further convinced me that, if used appropriately, professional computer programs like this could really make language learning and teaching easier and more efficient. However, like what has been pointed out by Dr. Chun, everything has its limitations, and computer program is no exception. Besides the inability in accurately recognizing and displaying voiceless sounds, I think this program is mostly useful for practicing decontextualized single sound, words, or short phrases. The change of tones and intonations in more complicated expressions and language in use would still require more explicit instructions and complementary materials.

Picture from http://www3.telus.net/linguisticsissues/cartoon1.jpg

Sometimes a NNS can be more helpful than a NS in our second language learning!

One of the most interesting findings in this week's readings is the one in "Synchronous-Voice Computer-Mediated Communication: Effects on Pronunciation" (Alastuey, 2010) about different levels of improvement in pronunciation across various kinds of dyad (NNS sharing- L1, NNS different-L1, and NS). The researchers found that, instead of the NNS-NS dyads which would be the most natural assumption of many of us, NNS-NNS different-L1 dyads seemed to be the most beneficial for pronunciation development. Such a finding was both surprising and intriguing for me, mainly because I had never thought of the possibility and potential of learning a foreign language through collaboration between NNS with different L1s. However, the reasons given in the article, including reduced anxiety levels and more opportunities for self-repair did make sense to me. In addition, according to my own experience as an L2 learner, I believe communication between NNS with different L1s would indeed require more "standardized" pronunciation to ensure mutual intelligibility than the one between NNS and NS, because native speakers usually have higher level of tolerance and comprehension ability towards deviation in pronunciation.

Finally, I agree with the author that other kinds of modified output between different types of dyads would be an interesting and promising area for future research. Thanks to the development of modern educational technology like SVCMC, researches on language learning involving diverse learner groups have become more workable and productive.

Picture from http://tr.toonpool.com/cartoons/foreign%20language_123073#

Cool tech tools!

Today we learned about Google apps such as Google-docs and Google form. Because I have already used Google-docs before, I was particularly excited about what I could do with the Google form, and it was the first time in my life that I had actually created an online survey form(see below) with questions which allowed different types of input including text, checkboxes, scale, etc..In the past, I was always amazed by those beautifully laid out and formatted online surveys, and I had no idea how easily it could be done until today, thanks to our capable TA.

In addition, the student response system, Socrative, introduced by Zack today in class was also a really neat way to engage students into classroom activities and help teacher gain instant feedback from the class. What I like most about the system is that it is simple and focused, hence easy to use and efficient. Because I think one of the most common problems with language learning and classroom management systems is that too many resources cram together in a complicated structure which would sometimes scare potential users away.

About quiz feature on Moodle

Like many other fellow students, I was impressed most by the quiz feature on Gauchospace demonstrated by the capable assistant of the language technology team of UCSB. Thanks to this course and Dr. Chun, I got to know about the existence of such an excellent resource on this campus. Back to the quiz feature, what made me excited was not the way how a quiz with different types of questions and multi-media formats could be put online, because an online version of quiz was the same as a traditional one in essence in terms of its content and what students are tested on, it was the instant feedback enabled by automatic grading function in most cases that had made it different. This kind of timely feedback is exactly what language learners need, and it could serve as valuable supplements to instructor and peer feedback as well as helpful references for instructors to make well-informed adjustment in and outside classrooms. Besides, I would love to see that in the near future, technology would also help with the progress in "testing the untestable" in language education, such as knowledge of the pragmatics and intercultural communicative competence, etc. At last, I keep wondering if all these powerful tools such as the Moodle course management system, wiki, and Classroom 2.0 could work well in China, just like I really doubt that I could use Google-docs there as Google has already partially retreated from China in 2010.

Picture from https://gauchospace.ucsb.edu/courses/course/view.php?id=8140

About Nielson's article on language learning software

Self-study or group study?
Picture from http://www.trulygraphics.com/tg/baby/page/50/

In his article "Self-study with language learning software in the workplace: what happens?", Nielson (2011)presented to us a fact that, despite the enthusiasm of learners and promises given by commercial companies about the effectiveness of their self-study language products, "severe attrition" turned out to be one major finding of an investigation of the use of self-study CALL materials by motivated USG employees in the workplace. I could not agree with him more in saying "learning a language is far from simple, especially for adult learners". 

I had taught for several semesters adult students who went to night school to study English. Most of them were highly motivated students, considering the fact that they were willing to pay for tuition and come to school after a whole day's hard work. One of the most important reasons for them coming to night school, according to their own words, they "want more systematic training, consistent instruction, constant encouragement, moderate pressure from instructors and peers, and opportunities to interact with others", which, I believe, echoes with what Nielson believed that self-study materials should be taken as supplements to instructor-mediated training and human support and interaction was indispensable in language learning.  From the first day I started to learn English, I was told that there was no short cut in language learning, just as there is no one "complete", "stand-alone", or "simple" solution to it even in this information explosion era.

PPT overload, etc.

In terms of the tools and related articles introduced in Week 1, I found "Reducing PPT Overload" (Atkinson & Mayer, 2004) and "Visual Design for Presentations" (Michaels, 2012) particularly helpful. Powerpoint is one of the most frequently used technological tools in language classrooms. Thinking back, I have produced so many highly overloaded slides for my students in class but have never thought that it might sometimes be the very reason for making students bored, tired, or distracted.

We were also given a chance to create a blog in Week 1's class for this course. Although it was not the first time I had created a blog, I did learn more about various options we had in terms of the layout and personal settings. What I do not like about the Blogger is the banner ads automatically added to my blog, and what make things worse is that those ads could be completely irrelevant to my blog content and some of them are even disgusting. Yes, I can remove the ads by not allowing the "blog feed", but then it says, by doing so, "your blog will not be syndicated and its content will not be indexed by Google Blog Search". No free lunch. I see.

About teachers' role in technology integration

In Blake's (2008) discussion of the new trend in using technology in language curriculum, he drew people's attention to the fact that more and more CALL researchers had identified teachers' lack of experience with using technology as one of the most serious barriers to the successful integration of technology into the language curriculum. Although, I agree that, insufficient knowledge of newly-developed technology and the worry of being displaced or forced to make drastic change are important factors in explaining teachers' acceptance and implementation of technology in their language classrooms, there are still other more complicated reasons at work in this issue.

The problem reminds me of one of the articles we had from another class last quarter, "Why hasn't technology disrupted academics' teaching practices? Understanding resistance to change through the lens of activity theory" (Blin & Munro, 2007), whose discussion focuses on current resistance and difficulty in technology implementation in education system. The authors have proposed that the activity of designing educational technological tools can "be conceptualized as unfolding in two different yet interconnected spaces: the designer ‘semiotic’ space, which is the social and cultural context in which the design activity is taking place, and the technological space, which affords the actual realization of the object of the design activity", and then whoever is trying to implement the technology "enters two distinct, yet overlapping, communities, both shaped by a partially shared object, governed by their own rules and division of labor". Therefore, to look at technology implementation issue with such a perspective, we could easily see that, to have sufficient technological tools available for use is one thing, but how to make it work across communities and systems is a completely different story. While issues within the technological space might be relatively easy to address with technology development and adequate training, what happens within the semiotic space as well as between these two spaces is much more complicated and challenging.

Finally, I find the concern above-mentioned resonates with what Egbert, Huff, McNeil, Preuss, and Sellen (2009) (as cited in Arnold & Ducate, 2011) have advocated for future direction of CALL researches. After all, the perspective and the role of the teacher are indispensable in the process of integrating technology into language education. However, considering the intricacy and complexity of everything involved, when things do not turn out to be what have been expected, the teacher should not be the only we blame.

About the blog and thoughts from Week 1

This blog is created for the course Technology and Second Language Acquisition (ED 259)given by Professor Dorothy M. Chun. The future posts would mainly be my reflection on weekly reading assignment, classroom discussion and activities, and technology tools which I find particularly exciting or relevant. I look forward to learning more about related technological tools and their application in SLE, and more importantly, researches on technology and SLA. Comments would be very much appreciated.

This week, we talked about terms like "digital native", "digital immigrant", and "net generation", as well as the changes coming along to second language classrooms. Besides those mentioned in class, I could still think of many more changes like roles of teachers and students, the types of collaborative assignment students could now finish more easily after class, and students' perception towards textbooks and what is in them. In retrospect, in the late twentieth century when I started to learn a foreign language, with such limited access to authentic language material, we were told to take every single word in a textbook seriously and to believe what was in it was what had been using in real life. However, now with the Internet and other new technologies as well as the development of digital corpora, students are no longer easily "fooled" by any poorly compiled textbook. Therefore, what material to be used in language classrooms might be the first decision language teachers should make before they could move ahead towards: how it could be used.