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8:15 - 9:35
Plenary Roger Schank 9:45 - 10:45
Bridging the Gap - Delivering Distance Courses on the Web Peter Gölz The World Wide Web is the electronic medium that has received the most extensive recognition in the press. At present, it is widely used to complement all kinds of courses in the Humanities and the Sciences. In this talk, I would like to expand on one aspect of using the WWW in the classroom which will become more and more important in the next few years.
I am presently developing a distance-education course, which will be taught on the Web. My presentation will analyze various means of incorporating the Web in distance-education courses and the different forms of feedback for students and instructors. In particular, I will focus on the interaction between students and students, and students and the instructors. This interaction will not necessarily be limited to the participants of one class, but will incorporate interested parties from various countries.
Based on a web-site I developed over the last two years, this lecture will explore the possibilites and limitation of various means of communication to bridge the distance between the participants in such an exchange (for example, e-mail, HTML-forms, cgi-scripts, Java, virtual realities, and others which may become available in the meantime).
Using the Information Superhighway:
Resources for Linguistics, Language Teaching, and CommunicationKenji Kitao, S. Kathleen Kitao The Internet has developed into a vast treasure house of information. For researchers, language teachers and language students, linguists, and communication scholars, the Internet has useful information for professional development, for research, for classroom materials, and for materials that students can use directly.
Resources on the World Wide Web include teaching materials; teaching plans; on-line journals, papers and articles; information about "keypals" for English language students; information about professional organizations, linguistics departments, and universities; searchable bibliographies; reference materials; resources for job searches; and information that can be used as a basis for materials for classes. In addition, with an increasing number of on-line journals and newsletters, the WWW is a potential outlet for publication of papers and articles. Finally, English language students can find materials that they can use for themselves.
There are also mailing lists that connect researchers, language teachers, and language students to others with similar interests. On these mailing lists, members can discuss issues and get information and ideas from other members. Lists also often have useful archives available to list members. Some journals and newsletters are also available through lists. In this presentation, we will discuss these resources and show examples of them.
Building Cultural Fluency through Multimedia Sue Otto Over the past decade, schools and colleges have worked diligently to help students achieve useful levels of proficiency in foreign languages. The focus on improving the techniques of language teaching and refining the measurement of students' linguistic progress has neglected an underlying critical needãto educate a citizenry that masters not just foreign words but foreign cultures. Our economic, political, and intellectual needs are best served when we can add to the goal of linguistic proficiency the dimension of cultural fluency. Our students need a far greater depth and richness of both content knowledge and cross-cultural understanding. The synergy of departmental interests in second language acquisition, teaching culture, and multimedia technology transformed our intermediate French and German curricula by the introduction of significant cultural content delivered in a multimedia-enhanced environment. The presenter will describe (in terms suitable for a general audience) various facets of the project: developing cultural fluency objectives; developing authoring templates; production and integration of multimedia lesson materials into the French and German curricula; and conducting research to establish base-line data on cultural knowledge and attitudes and to measure the effectiveness of our methods and the impact of our curriculum.
The Dark Side of the Web Claire Bradin What could be more fashionable than the World Wide Web? Is there a danger that the WWW is being embraced uncritically as language educators leap onto the latest bandwagon? Its potential as a resource in second language learning is widely hailed. However, serious technical, pedagogical, and ethical issues present themselves. As trend-setters, LLA and IALL members should be as well informed about the pitfalls of the WWW as they are about its advantages.
In this session, the presenter will outline some problems which appear as students go online and find slow, undependable connections, dead links, and missing "helper" applications or plug-ins. Will students stay focused on the content we want them to learn? How will they handle this new freedom? She will suggest some solutions and distribute a handout with additional resources.
Many language teachers go through three separate phases as they start to use the WWW. First, they are excited by its power. Next, they become frustrated and/or leery of some of the implications, and finally, they become successful users. This session will not discourage anyone from using the WWW but help to lead them to this last stage.
Assessment of Internet Functions as Tools for ESL and JSL Chizuko Suzuki, Julie Keaten-Reed, Masatomo Oji, John Baldridge, Kouichi Nozaki, Francis Noji, Yasayuki Ishigami, Janice Cook, Steven A. Singer Use of the Internet has been popularized as a means of communication across cultures and nations. And it has come into use as a part of multimedia for language learning in various ways. However, the question of which function or mode is most suitable for developing each language skill required in ESL and JSL has not yet been investigated based on objective and quantitative data from actual practice of learners.
The purpose of this study is (1) to explore potentiality of the Internet as tools and resources for language learning, (2) to investigate functions of the Internet available for language learning: E-mail, FTP, WWW, Homepage Making, Mailing List, Newsgroup, etc., and (3) to examine which function can be used for each language skill most effectively, by analyzing the results of the Internet practice data of college students of ESL/EFL classes in Japan and of JSL in US.
The following can be concluded: (i) the functions should be selected depending on the goals of learning, and on the levels of proficiency (ii) E-mail might be used best for writing; WWW for reading and listening; Homepage Making for presentation skills, Mailing List for discussion; Newsgroup for debating.
An Analysis of Listening comprehension Abilities of Japanese and Korean High School Students Terry Laskowski Masayoshi Kinoshita Kazuhito Ishii Atsushi Ohtsu Megumi Kawajiri Hiroshi Shimatani Yoshiro Takanashi 10:45 - 11:20
Visit with Vendors
Poster Session: Listening Comprehension and StrategiesKeiko Sato, Motoko Sone Developing listening ability is the first step towards communication in a second/foreign language. Even in Japan, where the grammar-translation method is still the most common method in teaching English, the importance of teaching listening is paid great attention. However, since very few teachers have enough experience to train themselves to find effective techniques, most teachers and their students just work mechanically through their textbooks.
This study concerns which strategies effective listeners employ in listening comprehension. Inferencing strategy is one of the most important listening processes for guessing meanings, and to infer, listeners must be able to catch key words in what they hear. This study investigates the effect of key word catching strategy taught explicitly for ten weeks. The subjects are 90 sophomores majoring English language and literature in two intact Language Laboratory classes in a Japanese women's university.
One class (Experimental Group) was taught the listening strategies explicitly through tasks designed to raise students' consciousness. The other class (Control Group) was taught using the same material (a movie video) as that of the experimental group but without the tasks. The pedagogical implications from the findings will be presented.
11:30 - 12:25
Multimedia Production Experience: from ideas to CD ROM Brian Powell, Gordon Gamlin The process of transforming a language tutorial into a multimedia computer program can be a formidable challenge to the average language teacher. There are many design and production decisions that need to be made along the way, and most teachers do not have a computer background or someone to show them the way. Consequently, many teacher-made programs have good textual content, but not much interactivity, pictures, or sound, whereas programmer-made programs often have everything but good instructional content. This paper gives an insight into the making of a quality reading skills program by teachers and staff in the Multimedia Language Center at the University of British columbia.
Bidirectional Language Learning Using Student-Centered Interactive Multimedia Ernie Chang We have prototyped interactive multimedia tools for language learning which uses a number of student-centered cognitive tools. These have the character of engaging the learner in authentic tasks of language understanding, and are bidirectional in the following sense.
Given the English word "mother" [EM] and its Chinese equivalent [CM], and their spoken sounds [EMS and CMS], there are four distinct objects and twelve associations, such as: Given the spoken Chinese CMS, state its English word form EM (which we can write as: CMS ^ EM), and (CM ^ EM), (CMS ^ CM), etc.
For an English speaker wanting to learn Chinese, (CMS ^ EMS - understanding ) is important; of course, (EMS ^ CMS) is also important in order to speak Chinese. It is clear that (EMS ^ CMS) is useful for the Chinese speaker learning to understand English, and (CMS ^ EMS) is for learning to speak English.
This four-fold symmetry (bidirectionally useful for both learners) is the basis of the software environment that we have prototyped using two learning approaches - Active Pages and Discrimination Learning. Active Pages are hypermedia pages in which English and Chinese words are displayed, and are active bidirectionally, visually and audibly. Discrimination Learning topics have greater learning intensity, in that students are given spoken and/or written forms of words and phrases in either language, and are asked to identify them (in either language). The two are integrated so that a student moves easily between them.
This language learning environment can be applied to any language, but has special benefit in iconographic languages such as Chinese, in which the visual representation of a character gives no direction to its articulation.
The advantages of this bidirectional student-centered system are not only in flexibility and economy, but also in student engagement and learning effectiveness, because of the authentic nature of the tasks and the continuous feedback and cognitive repair incorporated into the Axia engines.
Integrating Computer-based Instruction and Testing Throughout the Spanish Curriculum at Brigham Young University Harold H. Hendricks Over the past twelve years use of computer-based instruction and testing within the Spanish curriculum at Brigham Young University has evolved into a broad range of programs. About 1500 Spanish students spend from four to twenty hours per semester using one or more of the following programs:
- --Computer-adaptive placement testing for incoming students.
- --A multi-media CD-ROM that integrates the first-year dilogue text and audio.
- --Computer-based grammar exercises.
- --Two interactive videodisc programs for listening comprehension.
- --Phonetic transcription exercises using digital audio.
- --Integrated multi-media testing.
This lecture will describe how these programs are implemented within the curriculum and discuss some of the strengths and weaknesses of each.
A poor man's server - a key to successful transition in computerization Norio Ota As the computer coordinator for languages, I took up the responsibility of creating a multimedia computer research lab for faculty two years ago. In our proposal, we requested a budget to purchase a real server, but it was rejeted, and we were only granted to purchase 2 PCs and 2 Powers PCs, and other hardware. My solution was to use an ordinary PC as a server. We acquired NextStep v3.3 with an educational discount, and Apache, a free WWW server program. We have been running a Pentium 100, 32 meg, 2gig, multimedia computer as our server, offering services including web pages, E-mail, Listservs, and FTP sites. The lab itself houses 9 networked computers now, 6 of which have multimedia capabilities. We offer workshops and other assistance to faculty members. The facility has been used regularly, and the service has been extended to other departments as well. We are embarking on courseware development this year.
In this presentation, I would like to discuss a viable option for creating a small self-sufficient faculty multimedia computer research lab with an inexpensive PC server as a substitute for an expensive server machine under severe budgetary constraints.
The Foreign Language Database and Beyond... Otmar K.E. Foelsche The IALL Foreign Language Software Database was put into a client/server environment in January 1997. This database setup permits circumventing the complexities of html by allowing entries, updates, corrections, rearrangements directly on the screen. Various levels of protection permit entries by individuals, industry, certified software reviewers, and the administrators and editors of the database.Various levels of searches permit access to a range of data on foreign language software for all platforms.
This lecture will include a demonstration of the database and its holdings as of January 97. The lecture will also include a number of "data printouts" to the screen that are possible in this environment but not accessible to the general public yet. The database administrators are looking for feedback on these items in the discussion part of the lecture.
Integrating Technology into the Curriculum: the ALLE Project Brian Gill The session will discuss the Alberta Language Learning Environment project (ALLE) at the U. of Calgary, U of Lethbridge, and Mount Royal College in Calgary. ALLE is based on the belief that integrating technology into the curriculum is a more pressing challenge than simply developing courseware. Instead of a simplistic learning model in which knowledge is supposed to flow from a software package to a student, ALLE implements a more dynamic, negotiated model of learning in which the teacher interacts with the student and the software. Using a suite of simple authoring tools and templates designed for second language learning, workshops, production studios and group projects will get teachers at high school and college levels involved in the process of using, creating and adapting courseware to suit their particular needs. Delivery over the Web using an instructional managment system (still to be determined) will further encourage instructor involvement. Tools and materials produced produced will be shared freely among participants.
Administering SRA activities for the reading class using Hypercard and computer network system Hiromi Imamura, Margaret Pereira, Shuji Ozeki This presentation will demonstrate the use of a hypercard stack developed to facilitate SRA reading practices. The presenters will briefly outline the setbacks commonly encountered in the conventional use of SRA and suggest a more effective alternative through the use of the program and a computer network system.
The hypercard program was created in order to resolve some of the problems teachers faced in monitoring students' progress and in providing meaningful feedback. This computer program allows students to record the results of their SRA exercises as they work, and to send the data to the teacher through the local network system. The computer program benefits both teacher and student in that there is immediacy in feedback. The teacher is able to respond as soon as s/he receives the folders, thus enabling students to move to the subsequent task/ level quickly. In this way, students can work independently without relying on class meetings. The strength of the computer program is that it converts the results of completed exercises into percentages, and charts out the figures in graphs, thus allowing for evaluation of progress at a glance.
During this session, the presenters will demonstrate step by step how this computer program is used.
Unlocking CALL Materials: General Structures for Curriculum Materials Terry Butler The technological environment in which we create and present CALL materials is changing rapidly. Strategies which lock the curriculum information into proprietary formats and intermingle the "data" with the "code" are both obsolete and expensive. Too many good CALL projects have been dropped when technology change has made the software obsolete, and the content remained "locked" inside the program, too difficult to extract and reuse.
As new delivery opportunities emerge, we need to be able to easily export and convert the curriculum materials (which are of primary importance) to new delivery vehicles (which are just the means to an end).
This lecture will show CALL developers and teachers who are developing CALL materials how to create independence of the data, in several commonly used tools such as Toolbook, Authorware, and web programs such as JavaScript. It will also demonstrate easy-to-use programs which can convert and modify the curriculum materials, and ease the transition from one delivery vehicle to another.
It will also discuss the development of standards within our community for tagging curriculum materials for computer delivery, which will make the goals of data longevity and re-use much easier to achieve.
Top 10 Reasons Why Students Like to Work in a Language Lab Patty Lamb, Read Gilgen Almost all lab directors depend on student employees to help run their facilities. Why do students apply to work at language centers? What makes them stay in their jobs? What makes them leave? What skills do they gain from being employed in the language center and how will this experience help them? Knowing the answers to these questions may help us in hiring and retaining the best student employees possible. In this roundtable discussion we will explore the reasons students work in language centers and what keeps them coming back. Come and share (or find out) the top ten reasons why students work for you!
14:00 - 14:55 (2:00 - 2:55 p.m.)
Involving Faculty in New and Emerging Centers:
Strategies and StoriesVirginia L. Lewis, Joseph Molitorisz, Robin Clouser, Yoko Koike, Eric Nelson, Hal Haskell Without doubt, the critical factor for success of any Language Learning Center is meaningful faculty involvement, particularly in the early stages where perceptions can be fragile and success stories motivating to other faculty who might not otherwise test the waters. This panel will be of particular interest to faculty members who are planning a new technology center or nurturing an emerging one - and to new (or experienced) directors trying to get faculty in the door. As granting agencies become more and more concerned about the level of faculty involvement, *starting out* well is key - and may determine whether there is more money to be had for second-round financing for innovative programs (in contrast to mere equipment). Panelists represent a variety of perspectives and come from schools with Centers in the early (Southwestern and PLU) to maturing (Haverford) stages, as well as a school (Ursinus) just getting into multimedia technology and implementing a Center upgrade via a Mellon grant.
Two panelists are Chairs of Departments who led the years-long process of committing to a technology center; others are faculty members with stories to tell, whether of the "good, the bad, or the ugly." Some questions we hope to field are: "What does it take to get faculty to 'sign on the dotted line'?" "*When* should the process of involving faculty begin?" "What kind of *support* is needed (technical, pedagogical, monetary, motivational, etc.)?" "Why would a *scholar* be willing to devote time to technology and multimedia?" Panelists present a wide range of experience in helping to refine - if not answer definitively - these (and other) questions. Audience participation is very much encouraged.
The Six Million Dollar Lab Director:
Building the Perfect Language TechnologistSamantha Earp, Christopher Higgins, Jackie Tanner How do we prepare future FL Intructional Technologists/students to enter our field? This is one of our profession's most pressing questions, particularly in a time when job advertisements for language technology specialists include software development, grant writing, facility design and more (!) in addition to the continual responsibilities of lab management, equipment purchase and maintenance. One part of the answer is the creation of experiential learning positions, in which newcomers to the language technology profession can gain valuable experience under the guidance of a mentor.
In this presentation, we will discuss the kinds of internships / graduate assistantships currently in place in institutions around the country and will make suggestions for the future systematic development of this type of on-the-job learning experience.
This presentation is valuable for anyone involved in or interested in the professional development of the next generation of Language Technologists.
Innovations for a Twenty-First Century Learning Lab Judith M. Gallian Johan Reinalda Schools now face increasing demands by teachers and students for access to global libraries and the technology for learning and working in the twenty-first century. Administrators and coordinators in campus self-study centers and language labs recognize the growing need for additional computer stations and the challenge of staying abreast of fast-changing technology, yet they are keenly aware of the pitfalls of fads and possibilty for costly mistakes in upgrading present equipment. In a demonstration with video, participants will see students using Internet access for test preparation, academic research, job searches, corresponding with friends and prospective employers, creating web pages for resumes, and on-line class projects in an innovative and non-traditional lab environment.
In a recent renovation, the Academic Resource Center at Miyazaki International College expanded its labs to include a laptop lounge, Internet Cafe and stations for test preparation and printing-on-the-fly. The presenters will discuss the policy changes, designs, hardware, network and staff issues encountered while creating these areas. The presenters will also offer video and anecdotal evidence on the pedagogical benefits to students now using the new learning environment.
Obstacles to the implementation of CALL in the curriculum Marilyn E. Kidd Despite the significant advances made in the area of Computer-Assisted Language Learning over the past twenty years, many, if not most, language teachers still have not incorporated CALL into their curriculum.
In the past, the obstacles to the implementation of CALL were evident but today, especially with the advent of the WWW, the computer occupies a place of prominence as a tool for study, research and communication. The use of the computer for educational purposes has never been viewed in a more favourable light. Many types of CALL programs with a variety of pedagogical applications are being produced around the globe. What, then, is preventing the widespread integration of CALL into the L2 curriculum?
This paper proposes to examine the following areas, among others, in an attempt to identify the reasons for this seeming paradox: availability and type of hardware; availability, type and quality of software; rôle in instruction; effectiveness studies; attitudes of administrators, students, and teachers.
14:00 - 16:05 (2:00 - 4:05 p.m.)
Creating Language Activities in SuperMacLang (SML): Utilizing Text, Graphics, Sound, and Video in an Environment That Can Handle Western and Eastern Languages For Fill-ins, Multiple Choice, Jumbles, And Column Matching type of activities Otmar K.E. Foelsche Participants will learn how to create language activities in a simple environment utilizing text, sound, video, and graphics in conjunction with basic exercise types of fill-ins, multiple choise, jumbles, and column matching. They will also learn how to use advanced features like multiple answers, feedback, and reading student records collected by SuperMacLang. Participants are encouraged to bring their own materials to the workshop. Working with multibyte languages (Japanese and Chinese) as well as with Arabic and Hebrew is possible in this workshop. (Macintosh only)
15:10 - 16:05 (3:10 - 4:05 p.m.)
Organizing People, Places, and Things: Databases in the Language Center Ruth M. Trometer, Kelly Nelson, Kathleen Ford The presenters will describe the advantages of organizing, streamlining, and cross-referencing the many sources of information available to us daily in the language/media lab. The presentation will outline a rationale for developing related databases, tell of lessons learned from working with relational databases, and give general guidelines to consider when setting up a database. Examples that will be demonstrated include student staff notes, a daily schedule of events, attendance records, materials' catalogue, reservation/checkout of equipment, materials checkout, or student staff duties. An understanding of databases will be assumed. Presenters will focus on uses of database software, not the details of setting up such software.
Accessible authenticity: using Internet resources with school foreign language learners in difficulty David Wilson The National Curriculum for England and Wales now entitles all 11- to 16-year-olds in mainstream schools, including those with special educational needs, to study a modern foreign language. The 1990s have seen the genesis of a number of projects dedicated to the extension of school foreign language learning across the ability range via appropriate use of information technologies and other strategies.
This paper describes the latest phase in the author's school-based initiative supporting foreign language learners with difficulties and investigating the classroom exploitation of electronic resources originally developed for mother-tongue computer usage in countries where the target language is the medium of discourse. Having successfully trialled on-line and on-disc travel software in French, German and Spanish with 13-year-old lower achievers, the author's project now focuses on the ability of the Internet to deliver other curricular topics (School, Daily Routine, Weather, Health, Arranging Meetings and Holidays) to such learners and to contribute to their reading development, vocabulary knowledge and cultural awareness. The author has extensively searched the World Wide Web, identified a range of relevant authentic texts commensurate with the level, interest and ability of the learners and devised accompanying target-language tasks, which he has successfully deployed in school examinations.
The paper addresses an audience interested in the appropriate use of information and communication technologies in inclusive modern foreign language curricula, with particular reference to secondary education.
Developing a web-based language course Michael Barlow The presenter will describe the design and development of an web-based language course created with a web courseware authoring package.
Many language teachers are using the web to (i) deliver language learning materials to their students and (ii) provide students with links to resources around the world. The courseware under development is an extension of such efforts in that the aim is provide students with an extremely rich environment that consists of audio, video, and textual materials, as well as a series of course-related tools.
The presenter will discuss the design of the course and the progress made towards providing this intensive online language course.
Teaching the previous fin de siécle with the help of current fin de siécle technology Gary A. Smith In this presentation, I will discuss two courses I offered this year on Vienna at the turn of the 19th to the 20th century. One was a senior-level German seminar, and the other a freshman seminar presented in English. In each, I used the World-Wide-Web extensively to provide cultural materials and an email distribution list to extend discussion beyond the classroom. For the freshman seminar, I created HTML pages that describe the course and delineate its schedule, and include links to materials related to the topics being dealt with at specific times. Based upon my experience with these courses, I will offer suggestions on how the Web and other technology resources can be used most effectively to support instruction in foreign culture, and how to create HTML pages for use in courses such as these.
An Exploratory Learning Tool for German Word Order Archana Hinduja, Christoph Zähner This lecture wishes to introduce 'German Grammar Explorer', an exploratory grammar aid for advanced level students of German, which focuses on the grammar domain of word order. The tool allows students to generate a clause by actively choosing each sentence component. Students make these choices at a functional or notational level and immediately see the effect their choice has on the word order of the surface string generated.
The aim of 'German Grammar Explorer' is that after using the program, students should have an understanding of the relationship of functional aspects of German and their surface realisation. One question we hope to answer from this research is whether this new understanding and knowledge translates into a better command of German. All language instructors are aware that knowing something and implementing it are two different things.
The program aims to fill the gap between old-fashioned drill programs on the one hand and AI attempts at producing intelligent teaching agents on the other. The learning approach we have used here, namely exploratory language learning, allows students to explore a relevant, yet constraint, aspect of German grammar, albeit at a meta-language level.
A WWW-Based Hypermedia Program for Learning Japanese Onomatopoeia Masatoshi Sugiura, Chiung-Yu Lo The purpose of this presentation is to illustrate a hypermedia program we have developed for learning Japanese onomatopoeia and explain the process of putting this program on the WWW. With this hypermedia program learners can learn Japanese onomatopoeia, whose situational contexts are displayed through animations. The average score of twenty subjects after about thirty minutes study is 92 out of 100. The evaluation questionnaire reveals that learners appreciate this program highly. Onomatopoeia plays a special role in the Japanese language and it is necessary when living in Japan, but is hardly dealt with in Japanese textbooks or dictionaries. However, our experiment has proved that it is possible to learn onomatopoeia quickly and easily with hypermedia outside the Japanese classroom. Putting the program on the Web allows remote learners to use the program from anywhere in the world. The WWW-based version of this program is to be demonstrated.
Multimedia in Language Instruction: Challenges and Solutions Jörg Roche The learning of foreign languages takes long, is widely perceived to be both painful and boring and often does not lead directly to those specialized language skills which learners want and need in an increasingly global and specialized workplace. The paper presents the framework and the results of an innovative approach to foreign language instruction in the area of languages for technical and professional purposes. It outlines the concept and the nature of a series of language courses which take advantage of the learners' subject matter knowledge and multimedia technology to widen access to instruction while increasing its quality. In the first phase of the development project a number of reading courses in German technical languages have been developed (including Business, Chemistry and Music languages). These courses are offered worldwide and their linguistic framework, methodology and technology are easily transferrable to other languages, in particular ESL. In the second phase, the developed approach is now being adopted for other language instruction formats (including the instruction of speaking and writing). The presentation includes an on-screen presentation of the programs.
QTKanji and KanjiQuiz for Japanese Language Learning Saeko Komori, Mike Ueda, Robert Smitheram QTKanji and KanjiQuiz will be demonstrated at this session. Both programs are HyperCard based kanji learning programs for Japanese language learners. QTKanji can give 1000 kanji data including each kanji 'on' and 'kun' readings, 'jukugo' (compound words) with sound, stroke number and stroke order information. Stroke orders are shown with digitized movies. QTKanji has also an authoring mode which allows teachers to choose kanji and create their own kanji learning programs easily. Teachers can also supplement some of the materials as well as supply unique lesson plans for their curriculum. KanjiQuiz is a software that can test the students' kanji recognition with hiragana. Both QTKanji and KanjiQuiz have been used by students of Japanese at Chubu University.
A Closed Captioned Database for Language Learning Yutaka Tsutsumi and Ryoji Matsuno We have been developing an English conversation education support system "LETS" for people of ESL/EFL, which makes use of video closed captioning (CC). "LETS" allows users to extract CC from any video movie so long as the movie has CC, to produce a scenario database, and to play back immediately any scenes of the movie that are requested.
For students of ESL/EFL, it is a strong desire but sometimes difficult to acquire clear and correct pronunciation of English words, phrases and sentences. Using one feature of "LETS" mentioned above, they can search a variety of sentences that include words with similar pronunciation such as minimal pairs, and can listen to the contrasting of two similar words. As a result, it is anticipated that students' ability to distinguish the difference between those two words will increase, and it is also anticipated that the peculiar accent coming from their native language will decrease.
In this paper, we will describe an overview of "LETS", the significance of searching similar words, the details of our searching algorithm, and then discuss its effectiveness for language education.
A Closed Captioned Database for Language Learning Comprehension and the Future of CALL
James Nord, Pete Smith, Yukio Takefuta What is the role of comprehension in language acquisition, and what is the role of technology in teaching a language through comprehension?
This roundtable will look at language acquisition from the comprehension perspective, i.e. based upon cybernetic principles. It will also ask how modern technology, particularly the computer, can be used most effectively and efficiently to teach languages. The roundtable will begin with a short overview of the comprehension approach to language teaching, and then review some technological applications of this approach. After this, the roundtable will be open to the audience. Questions, comments and reactions of the audience will be a key feature of this roundtable.
This roundtable thus can raise a number of basic issues and possibly generate a variety of responses. How does one teach comprehension? Can we drown a student in too much sound? Is comprehsnesion teaching enough? Do comprehension skills transfer to the expressive skills? Should computers be used to teach the expressive skills also? Is the teaching of listening skills, the same as the teaching of comprehension? Is listening comprehension different from reading comprehension? Should we tell our student to "shut up and listen"? or to "talk, talk, talk"?
16:15 - 17:05 (4:15 - 5:05) Building Pronunciation Power Martine Allard The intent of this session is to demonstrate an interactive pronunciation programme, developed and written at Seneca College in Toronto, Ontario, that is designed to run on the CAN-8 system (the CAN-8 system is a fully digitized language lab). Building Pronunciation Power is interactive courseware that assists learners in developing both receptive and productive strategies for the sound system of North American English. The programme is designed for intermediate to advanced language learners. It is made up of three parts: Vowels, Consonants and Rhythm, Stress and Intonation. Each unit begins with a variety of discrimination and isolation activities designed to reinforce listening skills, and progresses to the actual production and recording of the target sounds in sentences following a model. The presenter will show how the program can be used in a structured, linear environment, or on an open-concept, specific-needs basis. A Study on the Perception of Consonants in the Network Era Makoto Yoshimoto Noriko Kano The purpose of this study is to find out the most efficient and relevant network sound format for Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) systems and to give some suggestions for CALL developers in optimizing their performance, with maintaining an appropriate sound quality. This study was conducted to investigate the effects of the following five factors on word perception and recognition of 140 Japanese university students:
frequency, sound format (including sound resolution and compression rate), use of an equalizer, consonants (/th/, /s/, /f/, /l/, /r/, /p, /t/, and /k/), place of target sounds (word-initial vs word-final). It was found in Chi-square tests and ANOVAs that 22kHz frequency and 16 bit-2:1 compression was identified as the bottom -line for all consonants examined in this study. Most subjects could recognize /th/, /s/, /f/, /l/, /r/, /p, /t/, and /k/ sounds in this sound condition, even if the target consonants were placed at word-final. In case of memory restriction, however, 11kHz sampling frequency was acceptable with the use of the equalizer. An Alternative to "Schooling":Teach Yourself Glen Lovelace The Japanese word kyoiku means "to put in" (as in schooling or instruction as defined under 'usage' in many dictionaries); it is not equivalent to education from the Latin educare, meaning "to lead out"). A student must teach oneself to speak a foreign language; and educator's primary role is to encourage and assist. Profile of a Japanese 1st-year college or university student: Student has formally memorized English vocabulary, spelling, and grammar for at least six years (maybe with the part-time help of a native speaker) and can read and write enough to have passed the entrance examination. Sutdent wants to learn to speak English but is afraid to loose face by making a mistake or being laughed at for looking foolish (an uncontrollable trembling of the upper lip -- impossible to imitate -- reveals this fear). Obviously, spontaneous spoken English cannot be memorized; textbooks, video tapes, patter repetitions, etc. will help to make it possible, but the only way to learn to speak is to speak, make mistakes, be helped, teach yourself, speak, make mistakes, be helped, teach yourself ... ad infinitum. My method in a Oral English class (for any age or occupation) is basically Socatic and involves questions (semiguided for 1st-year students, spontaneous after that) and answers between myself and a student or only between the students. At the end of my "call to arms" lecture I would demonstrate by calling upon members of the audience to "teach themselves to speak English". The Effect of Charades Yoshinobu Niwa It is well known that the associations of vocabulary with physical actions have an effect on memory. However, in Japan it is very difficult to put this into practice in the teaching of English. It is partly due to the passive nature of Japanese students and partly to the traditional methods used in schools. In order to overcome passivity in the classroom, the presenter opted to use "charades", a drama method to activate a dialog. The presenter conducted an experiment to compare effects of teaching English using the traditional method versus the charades-based method and arrived at some interesting conclusions. It was found that there was a significant difference in memory and in particular, students with lower abilities showed more interest. There was also significant difference in both short and long term memory. In addition to this there was difference in the degree of "affection" between the two methods. This means that the charades-based dialog is a more natural language activity and produces a more pleasant class room atmosphere. Target audience: those who are interested in an active English class for better retention. Toward a Valid Assessment of Mental Lexicon of EFL Learners in Japan Shuhei Kadota It has been pointed out by many researchers and educators that EFL learners in Japan typically make an access to an English word through a corresponding, equivalent translation in their L1 (i.e. Japanese) with the aid of bilingual English-Japanese dictionary. On the other hand, in an investigation into the L1 mental lexicon, a variety of research techniques have been so far accepted in RT (i.e. reaction-time) experiments measuring decision latencies in lexical category, semantic similarity, phonology, etc. This report is an empirical study designed and conducted to examine the relationships between above-mentioned RT tasks and a newly-developed L1-based RT vocabulary test. Our aim was to assess the validity of such psychological tasks in the testing of EFL vocabulary, and then to explore some of the characteristics of Japanese learners' L1-based access mechanism to English words. The results lead us to the confirmation of a statistically valid relationship between the above-mentioned tasks and the test. Future research perspectives are also given to the similarities and/or differences in L1 and L2 mental lexicon, together with the practicability of developing computer-managed RT testing device for measuring vocabulary in EFL. Electronic Dictionaries and EFL learning strategies of Japanese College Students Akira Kubota, Hiroshi Ohtake So-called electronic or digital dictionaries have become more popular in Japan in the teaching and learning of English, as educational technology has developed. Until recently, however, few studies have been made on how Japanese EFL learners utilize an electronic dictionary while they are tackling a reading text in English. In this study we attempt to investigate
if and how such dictionaries with easier accessibility affect Japanese college students' language learning strategies, particularly in terms of their vocabulary understanding and reading comprehension whether increased interest in the dictionaries (resulting from easier accessibility) provides the students with motivation to read English texts by themselves. Special attention is to be paid to the frequency of the students looking up and obtaining the meaning of unknown words they encounter in context in a dictionary of electronic type, and to the nature or kind of words looked up. Based on the observations made, some implications for the teaching and learning of reading and vocabulary via electronic dictionaries are then discussed. Development of Courseware for Effectively Teaching Vocabulary to EFL Students Junko Takefuta, Yukio Takefuta The purposes of the study were to develop a prototype of courseware to effectively teach vocabulary to EFL students, and to evaluate their functions. In our study, we attempted to develop courseware which used all the multimedia facilities of today's personal computers, as well as the most advanced theories of teaching vocabulary. Specifically, we put together all the necessary procedures proposed by the theories of learning, Classical Conditioning, Operant Conditioning and Cognitive Learning, to develop an effective system for teaching vocabulary. The technique of spaced practice was also introduced to increase the rate of retention. The subjects were three groups of junior high school students and college students. After conducting the study described above, it was found that:
Learners could enhance their vocabulary knowledge so that they could easily access their personal lexicon and incorporate the information fluently in their communicative interactions outside the classroom. Learners could retain 93.1% of the words they learned for 11 weeks. Their average rate of forgetting was only 0.6% a week. Learners could improve their listening proficiency from 21% in the pretest to 61% in the posttest. Learners actively participated in the process and developed positive attitudes toward learning their English vocabulary. The target audience is ESL teachers of all levels. Incorporating the Internet into group projects on academic issues:
A university English language course in JapanMidori Shimazaki This presentation will introduce how the Internet was used in the process of preparing group project presentation in a university English course. This session aims particularly at those who are interested in using the Internet in a language course. First, the presenter will briefly give an overview of the project and the course. The course focused on cross-cultural perspectives on current issues. The group project, one of the primary tasks in the course, aimed to help students improve their language skills, learn about topics, and enhance their presentation skills. Second, the presentation will focus on the actual use of World Wide Web (WWW) and e-mail for the project. The students used WWW to gather information on their topic and used e-mail to exchange ideas with the group members as well as to collect various opinions about the topic. The last part of the session will focus on the analysis of the project presentation and the students' feedback. Most of the students gave positive comments on the use of the Internet and seemed to understand the purpose and importance of using it. The Learner as Lexicographer: User-Friendly Concordancing Thomas Cobb, Marlise Horst Hands-on concordancing is often described as an interesting idea for CALL development, but few studies have ever tested its usefulness empirically. For my doctoral study in educational technology, I designed an empirical test of concordancing within a large-scale implementation. My hypothesis was that concordancing could aid learners in rapid lexical acquisition, as it presents words in several contexts that might otherwise take a long time to appear in natural extensive reading. But could the learning benefits of natural reading be replicated by meeting compressed contexts on a computer screen? Within the fiction of learner-as-lexicographer, I developed a corpus, concordance, and publishing interface to facilitate extended use of concordancing. Over a four-month term, academic EFL learners used concordances to build their own dictionaries, encountering words in several contexts as they searched through corpora for clear examples to include. The concept and software were developed and tested in 1994-1996 with several hundred commerce students at Sultan Qaboos University in Oman. In my presentation, I will demonstrate the software, present results, and argue that one important outcome of natural acquisition was replicated by the concordance work - the ability to transfer learning to novel contexts. Integrating Internet Resources into Foreign Language Instruction Teresa H. Johnson Demonstration and limited hands-on experience integrating internet resources, both in English and in foreign languages, into the foreign language teaching/learning process. Main objective: to learn what linguistic, cultural and technological gains can be obtained by the systematic integration of material found in the internet in foreign language courses, including ESL and EFL. Linguistic gains include vocabulary building, translation, summaries and overall development of reading and writing skills. Cultural gains go from reading today's news from all over the world to visiting museums: discovering Culture and culture in a way possible only when using internet resources. Demonstration will include activities for different aspects of foreign language learning.
17:15 - 18:00 (5:15 - 6:00) Demonstrations at the Uvic Language Centre
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