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!