Reading Reflection#3

Theory and Research:
Autonomy and Language Learning by Deborah Healey

The author pointed out in the very beginning that the current views of autonomy have moved away from isolated learning toward social settings and flexible interdependence. Later, Healey used Oxford’s viewpoints to support her idea that autonomy learning is not just using technology in learning but it’s much more. Oxford discussed autonomy from four varying perspectives: Technical perspective, psychological perspective, sociocultural perspective, and political-critical perspective.

In talking about the technical perspective, Oxford divided the setting into four categories- Highly structured learning, Accreditation and training, Contract-based independent study, and Highly self-directed learning. These four categories differentiate from the control of content and setting. The author suggested that much of the CALL material falls into Accreditation and training category. Learners own partial freedom on their learning material and pace, though sometimes the freedom of pace control will be taken by giving deadlines. Among the four categories, Highly self-directed learning is the most flexible one. It’s more learner-centered, and teacher is just a reference. Learners decide the setting, content, and even the way to evaluate their learning performance.

To discuss the autonomy learning from psychological perspectives, the author focuses on individual learner. Different autonomy learner has different learning style, motivation, strategies, and self knowledge. According to the differences, we can provide different materials or teaching style to fit different needs.

Opposite from psychological educators, Vygotsky and other social constructivists believe that learning relies on interaction with others and the whole social environment. Therefore, though we encourage autonomy learning, it doesn’t mean learners have to learn alone, they are still part of the community members. And the role of computer is not the memberships but a tool for learners to interact with other community members. Author discuss the autonomy learning from political-critical perspective pointed out a very important concept which is that technology, like all human artifacts, is not neutral; it can bring autonomous learns to the way they want. Therefore, learners must be aware this point and view those materials critically.

I believe this article help me a lot in understating autonomy learning from a broad perspective. From my viewpoint, CALL and some other computer-assisted courses can be a way to encourage autonomy learning. However, after reading this article, I know there are more applications than I can imagine. For example, some autonomy learners might prefer group discussion so that I might use forum discussion to motive this kind of learners. Like the authors said, “some learners might believe that they are come by empty and wait the instructor to fill in knowledge,” for this kind of students, I might arrange higher level students to play a role of facilitator. Being assist for a period of time, those students will be more familiar with the way of learning and then gradually learn by themselves. Overall, this article brought a lot of concerns of autonomy learning which I think is very important for teacher to think ahead. It also proves that CALL and other computer-assisted learning is not built on air, they are built on solid theories. I learn a lot from this article.

Software/Website Title: linguastars
Website URL: http://www.linguastars.com/
Grade/Age Level: All level language learners & Teachers

Language & Content:
Linguastars is a language learning website. Learners can learn Spanish, French, English, Italian, and German here. This website categorizes its teaching materials into different functions such as MFL for early learners, MFL for intermediate level and teacher training material. This website is also a user interface friendly website. As a new user like me, I can easily figure out how to interact with this website. In the greeting page, I see five fishes there and one of the fish carries a label “free previous.” Click the label and you can have a look of the website activities.

This website unlike others, focus on reading skills, you can also practice your listening skills. Materials for early learners will be easier such as single vocabulary or phrases; materials for intermediate learners will have longer sentences. Each thematic lesson will provide a various activities for learners to LEARN BY PLAY. Vivid pictures, interaction activities, and sound effects are all interesting elements to attract learners but what impressive me are the following:

• Culminating Activity- Instead of isolate activities, this website provides a culminating activity “End of Unite Test,” which combines several activities together to evaluate students’ learning.
• Flexibility- Some of the games provide widely flexibility. For example, teachers can pair students and play “Noughts & Crosses,” or Teachers can be the host and the whole class work together to play “Hangman” or “Word search.”
• Worksheet- This is especially useful when there are no computers or internet accesses in classrooms. Teachers can easily print it out and give students as a class activity. Or, teachers can allow students to play games on-line either at home or in the school time so that students will be more familiar with the work sheet.
• Listening comprehension- Usually when I find website like this, they hardly provide listening comprehension, but this website provide role play and listening comprehension check. I tried to learn French in the intermediate level material where I found a role play game. One click and then I can listen to the conversation sentence by sentence. I can even click the question mark so that I can check the meaning in English. I think this is useful especially for students they don’t have chance to listen to the standard French or any other languages.
  
  This website is definitely a great website I ever seen. I will highly recommend you to have a look or even apply this website in your future class. One thing I would like to remind everyone is that it’s not a free website. You have to pay £200 (+VAT). However, it’s an annual site subscription fee and allows all teachers and students from one institution to access the resources both from school and home.

Reading Reflection #2

In the article of “The International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning,” Anderson also suggests that the debate of the mix right is actually fueled by the definition of interaction. Nevertheless, Daniel and Marquis (1979) later challenged distance educators to get the mixture right between independent study and interactive learning strategies and activities which they quite rightly pointed out the vary differences between these two primary forms of education.

Later Anderson tried to define interaction and value the role of interaction in Education. Anderson also broke up our traditional knowledge that when talking about the interaction in education, we always think about the interaction between students to teachers, and students to students; however, Anderson (2003) suggests that there are two more forms which are student to content and teacher to content. The above two forms, Anderson believes, will boost more deep and meaningful learning.

Reading this journal article expand my knowledge about the interaction in Education. However, I don’t quite agree with his part of the ideas. For example, the author seemed imply that the interaction between teacher-student and student-student are not work as well as student-content. However, I will say there are some unique characteristics which student-content can’t replace. For example, being a teacher, we don’t just hold a degree but we have to accumulate teaching experiences or even life experiences so that we can always inspire students’ knowledge and provide psychological comfort. However, if we just read and interact with content by our own, though we can explore more resources through multimedia, we sometimes get lost. I remember last semester, one of my instructor asked us a question which I would like to know more ideas from you all.

Q: Since the technology education era is coming, students will argue that we can just learn by ourselves. We search the internet and find out the learning materials we like. We don’t need to go to the classroom because the classes can be delivered by different multimedia such video conference, forum and etc. So, what’s the instructors’ role in classroom? And how should teachers’ role migrate from traditional classroom to technological classroom?

I made a slightly change of the question, but I will looking forward to hear your opinions!

How can technology help learning

• Educational Uses of Second Life
• http://tw.youtube.com/watch?v=qOFU9oUF2HA&feature=related

• Computer Assisted Debate (CAD)
• http://tw.youtube.com/watch?v=uCQnJOHMeks

Language learning website Evaluation

Lang-8
http://www.lang-8.com
Fit for all level learners

This website is designed for learners who want to practice their writing skills. It provides six languages for you to choose - English, Japanese, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Spanish and Korean. For example, if you are a traditional Chinese native speaker, you can choose traditional Chinese interface so that all instruction will be presented in traditional Chinese.
This website itself doesn’t provide a very clear introduction. However, once you register for the lang-8 members, they will receive a greeting letter and which contains a brief introduction of Lang-8. Besides, you can also get the access to watch a video about error correction. http://lang-8.com/instruction/correction_en.htm (Error correction)

Lang-8 is a community website where you can communicate and
find friends from all over the world.

In the process, you can better your language abilities by getting your
posts corrected by native speakers, and by correcting the posts of other
users that are in your native language. It is a unique, fun, give and take
community that will knock your socks off when it comes to language learning.

Here’s another Lang-8 introductory film created by one of Lang-8 members. http://tw.youtube.com/watch?v=aitMjybzcYU

Lang-8 provides a free space for language learners to learn from each other. There were two major characteristics of this website. First of all, it provides interaction for language learners and real audiences. It is especially benefits for EFL learners who don’t have the chance to interact with native speakers after school. Second, it provides a low-anxiety and friendly learning environment. Learners can easily accept error correction without embarrassing, because no one knows who you are in the real life. In addition, there is no due-day, or specific topic, learners can write whenever and whatever they like. They have much freedom.

This website is a non-profit language learning website, so all kinds of people can be members. People master in different languages can contribute their expertise to help different language learners. There is no practice or assessment. All you can do is post your journal articles and then people will give you feedbacks and help correct the grammatical errors. It is much like a self-service community. As a new member of this website, I will say it is a little difficult for me to get acquainted with the user interface. I think it will be better to categorize different language journals so that new users can choose the articles according to the different language catalogues.

Overall, it is a great website for learners who want to improve their writing skills.

Reading Reflection_CALL Essentials: Principles and Practice in CALL (Egbert, J.2005)

Generally speaking, Egbert tried to give his readers a clear definition of CALL (computer assisted language learning), and then extended his idea to explain how can technology provide a better learning environment. According to Egbert, J (2005), there are many definition of CALL. From a very basic idea, CALL means using computers to assist language learning; however, there is a more specific way to define CALL. “CALL is software tool designed to promote language learning” (ICT4LT, 2001). Although there are diverse definitions, three themes emerge:

1. Instead of focusing on technology learning, CALL put more focus on language learning. In other words, technology is only a facilitator during learning process.
2. CALL has no boundaries. Diverse learners can participate so that parishioners have to take care of different needs.
3. CALL pedagogy should build on solid theory and also be practical.
However, in the end the page 4, the author inferred that the diverse definitions of CALL are due to the unfamiliar with the new technology; once teachers and learners see technology as kind of learning tools, there’s no need to argue about the definition.

Later the author provided us three examples of CALL application, and also brought many ideas of using CALL. I briefly conclude them here.

1. CALL provides interaction. In traditional classroom, the interaction mainly exists between teachers and students in the classroom. However, by using technology, students can interact with people outside the classroom.
2. CALL eliminates time limitation and which reduce students’ learning anxiety. Students may not need to reply one’s opinion immediately which allow them to prepare themselves and more willing participate.
3. CALL is more flexible. By using learning software, individual learners might set up different goals and choose different learning materials which meet their current level. Besides, different from traditional classroom where there’s a unified textbook, CALL provides students opportunities to explore their own learning materials.

After reviewing this chapter, I have a better idea about what’s CALL. It’s not merely using PowerPoint slides to deliver the lecture, but using technology as a tool to make learning more effectively. Although CALL is not necessary good, it compensates what traditional pedagogy can’t achieve. However, as the author mentions, CALL must grounded in theory. It’s not just use it, but how and when to use it. In addition, from the “teachers’ voice” paragraph, I learned two things. One, I should always have a back-up plan beforehand. Two, as a teacher, I should know better, or at least more familiar with technology before use it and don’t take it for grant that all my students can handle the technology stuff.