Software/Website Evaluation #2: English 4 IT

Software/Website Title:English 4 IT

Website URL: http://www.english4it.com/  

Grade/Age Level: High School - University students

Language & Content:

English 4 IT is designed to complement a series of books on English for Information and Technology (IT), that can be found by clicking the Bookstore button. It is intended to be used individually by students attending ESP reading class, particularly that of English for IT. Students may use this website to prepare themselves before class or to reinforce their vocabulary and reading skills after class. However, other users, those who do not attending the class and do not have the course book may also use the website for self-study. The latter type of users will only obtained less benefits from the website compared to former ones because the second type of users do not have partners or group to discuss the reading passages and the comprehension questions that follow.

This website contains of 21 reading topics and each topic is divided into four activities: Reading Activity, Multiple Choice, Fill in the Blanks, and Listening Comprehension. Basically the last three activities are designed mainly for vocabulary building. The website has external documents related to creating a class for teachers and enroll in a class for students. That is the only external document that the website has.
  

The website is interesting for the target audience probably because it provides various topics (although not many) and vocabulary specifically related to IT and each word in the dictionary has audio version, example of usage in a sentence, and short explanation related to prat of speech.


I think the website is useful for building user's vocabulary, specifically related to IT. The activities are focused on vocabulary exercises through linking technical vocabulary in the reading passage to the dictionary, providing multiple choice exercises related to the definition of IT-related words or phrases, fill in the blanks with again word or phrases for a given definition, and listening exercises which is actually word or phrase dictation.

Besides practices, the website provides assessment and feedback. In each activity, except reading, there will direct feedback to verify whether a user's answer is right or wrong. There is also an option of "I don't know" in each exercise. If a user click this option, it will direct the user to the explanation on the word or phrase, which is part of the dictionary. At the end of an exercise there will be report on how many right answers that a user has made.

I found that the website is easy to use because basically it only has 4 sections related to core content. The layout is simple and clear. It is also easy to navigate from one part to another. As I mentioned earlier, the strength of the website is in providing different kinds of vocabulary exercises. It is good for students of vocational schools or freshmen, whose majors are related to IT, who want to build their technology-related vocabulary. It will be much better for the website to add the number of topics and reading passages and provide more reading comprehension exercises for users.

Corpus Based Language Learning: Johns, T (1994) and Richards, J & Rogers, T (2001)

John, T. 1994. From printout to handout: grammar and vocabulary teaching in the context of data-driven learning. In T. Odlin (Ed), Perspectives on Pedagogical Grammar (pp.293-313). Cambridge University Press.

The purpose of the chapter is to describe and illustrate the synthesis of traditional and more innovative language teaching approaches. In particular, Johns describes an on going-work taking place at a program called English for Overseas Students Unit at the University of Birmingham. The program was intended for English for Specific Purposes (ESP) and second language (L2) adult learners and built based on the notion of the relationship between form and function in language. Johns posits that a concern with language form and function is always followed by the need of an extremely extensive use of authentic and unmodified data found in original texts. However, such concern results in a question of "how such data are to be obtained and made available to the learner in such a way that they do not overload his or her linguistic and learning resources" (p 294).

Processing raw data taken from authentic materials such as scientific journal or other reading materials designed for native speakers using Data-driven Learning (DDL) to create teachable and learnable ESL materials is the answer for the "how question" in page 294. Johns explains in detail how DDL approach was applied to the Remedial Grammar and Vocabulary Studies classes, which were originally designed to accommodate individual student's needs. DDL is employed because it is technologically and methodologically innovative. By using a concordancer, Johns and his team were able to create ready-made corpora taken from authentic texts to provide their students' questions through a form of linguistic research done both by students and teachers. Johns posits that DDL approach  have been proven so powerful to design materials that are closer to authentic language use. Johns provides various examples of using extracts from the available teaching materials to address some linguistic points, particularly those emerged from a close study of weekly journal the New Scientist. DDL approach had made unique inquiry collaboration between students and teacher possible through completing a huge amount of concordance-based linguistic tasks related to synonymy, antonymy, and hyponymy in more meaningful ways compared to similar tasks previously designed without the aid of a concordancer. 

Johns concludes that the results of processing extracts using a concordancer are encouraging and indicate that DDL approach may result in teachable and learnable materials that were impossible before Johns and his team applied the approach. However, at the end of the chapter, Johns states that there is a wide open research opportunity towards investigating the effectiveness of DDL, particularly with beginners or near beginners. He also recommends four research questions related to the trainability and transferability of language learning strategies and individual differences  between language learners, in the context of comparing DDL and traditional teaching approaches.   


Richards, J., and Rogers, T. 2001. Approaches and methods in language teaching (pp. 132 - 140). Cambridge University Press.

Richards and Rogers explain that a lexical approach in language teaching refers to an approach "derived from the belief that the building blocks of language learning and communication are words and word combination" (p. 132). Lexical approaches in language teaching reflect a Chomskyan belief that "a lexicon is prime"; it is the center of language structure, second language learning, and language use. The role of lexical units has been emphasized in first and second language acquisition research. In addition, the availability of many lexically based texts and computer resources have made the organization and teaching the lexicon possible.

Referring to the lexical view Richards and Rogers state that basically the role of collocation is important in lexically based theories of language. Collocations as types of  lexical units are crucial in learning and communication. Studies on linguistic corpora have been done to examine patterns of phrases and clauses sequences in samples of various kinds of texts, including spoken samples. However, referring to Pawley and Syder's estimation about native speakers' lexical inventory, Krashen's suggestions related to language input, amd Bahns' suggestion on the emphasis of teaching lexical collocation to EFL learners, Lewis' and other experts' proposal for a lexis-based approach, Richards and Rogers conclude that "how a lexically based theory of language and language learning can be applied at the levels of design and procedure in language teaching still need to be continuously convincingly demonstrated.


I wish I read these two chapters when I was still teaching ESP reading in my home institution. Back then, I taught freshmen, sophomore, and senior undergraduate students having telecommunication, informatics, and industrial engineering as their major. My students have similar English learning experience background, in which mostly they learned grammar in their previous education, with those described in Johns' chapter. I would have tried DDL approach with my students if I knew about it. These two chapters have been published more than 10 years ago and ironically I've just read them this week. Well, one aspect that makes me like L 544 is that I have been exposed to language teaching and learning approaches new to me but have been practiced and scientifically proven.           

Reflection on Anderson's Article (2003)

Anderson, T. (2003). Getting the mix right again: an updated and theoretical rationale for interaction. The International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning. 4.(2), pp 1 - 25.

Anderson points out the debate on the importance of interaction in educational process to introduce his proposal of equivalency theorem. His objective in writing the article is to provide a theoretical rationale and guide of effective and efficient distance education systems.He begins the discussion by providing the definition of interaction and explaining the function and value of interaction in education.  He differentiates between interaction leading to learning in any informal context and types of interaction that take place in formal education context (p. 4).

When it comes to distance education, Anderson refers to his previous work with Garrison to describe common types of interaction between student-student, student-teacher, and student-content. He posits his equivalency theorem stating that "deep meaningful formal learning is supported as long as one of the three types of interaction is at high level" (p.7). This means that one type of interaction can be substituted with one of the other types with equivalent level. Anderson then proceeds to providing the implications of equivalency  theorem that involves student, teacher, and content.  

In the next part, Anderson gives various examples to describe the operation of the equivalency theorem in most common distance education. Web-based courses are more effective and efficient compared to traditional distance education via mail or electronic correspondence and audio and video conferencing because they are capable of providing high levels of deep and meaningful learning through high level of student-student interaction. At the end, Anderson describe his model of Online learning with learners and teachers as its main actors. The model facilitates the development of social skills, collaborative learning, and personal relationships amongst all participants. In short, Anderson's theorem  and model provide  examples of various types of effective distance education programming  based upon various types and mixes of interaction (p.20).

At first, I thought that the article would be theoretical and difficult to read. I was glad that the discussion actually provides practical examples and explanation about various types of interaction in distance education. Last semester, I took my first online class in IST department and L-544 is my second online class. My experiences in those two classes have made me easier in grasping the meaning of "reducing the amount of teacher-student interaction and substitute it with increased student-student and student-content interaction in e-learning environment".

Software/Website Evaluation #1

Software/Website Title: Learning Indonesian

Website URL: http://www.learningindonesian.com/

Grade/Age Level: teenage to adult

Learning Indonesian is an online Indonesian course that provides free program and paid products. I am evaluating the free program only. The program is designed to develop conversational fluency in the Indonesian language and it is intended for those who are casually interested to learn some basic Indonesian vocabularies and conversational skills. 

The content of the website is actually not about the course. It mainly introduce and explain about both free and paid programs. Clearly, the explanations are intended for promoting paid program, which is called Learning Indonesian Premium. The website has blogs about Indonesian language, food, and travel created by Cici and Shaun who are also the instructors of the course. Cici posted stories in Indonesian, but Shaun posted his in English. Some people interested with the stories commented in Indonesian, some in English, and some other in mixed English-Indonesian. Cici and Shaun replied to the comments in Indonesian and provided the English version of their replies. 

The course is presented in 48-session-audio lessons with additional two lessons from the paid program. All lessons are in MP3 files. The lessons are designed in graded level of difficulty of pronouncing Indonesian vocabularies, phrases, and sentences commonly used in everyday conversation. Each lesson is designed based on the previous ones. The lessons are actually listen and repeat exercises. Cici and Shaun articulate the instruction,examples, and short explanation, while learners have to repeat the examples. Lessons 1 - 48 contain English based instruction.   There will be pause after an example to give learners time to repeat the example. The lessons of the free program are actually the shorter versions edited out of the paid products.

The main external documents are: Important steps for new users, About us, Full program, Cici and Shaun's blogs, and Learning and community. These documents are effectively used to introduce and briefly explain both the free and paid programs. Other additional guides includes those for getting free study guides, member Log In, content news update, important pages and subscribe to Podcast. The "important pages" provides links to free audio lessons and recommended books.

Cici and Shaun introduce themselves and great their target audience briefly and warmly. They also provide simple explanation and provide sample lessons. In addition, the fact that Shaun is a native speaker of English and Cici is a native speaker of Indonesian has made the instruction, explanation, and examples clear and easy to understand. In my opinion, all those factors will make people visiting this website want to know more and download the audio lesson. Those who try the free versions and have particular plans related to Indonesia will also be interested in buying the Premium products for more practices. 

This audio lessons would be useful for teenage or adult learners who speak or know English and want to learn basic Indonesian conversational skills. Particularly, the lessons are useful for those who plan to travel to Indonesia and need to know how to communicate with Indonesians at some tourists destinations because not many Indonesians speak English well.

The website provides practice through the audio lessons, that is to repeat the examples of words, phrases, or sentences. There is no assessment and feedback. I think this is because the lessons are designed for casually interested learners. However, the website is easy to use. It is easy to navigate to different parts and it is also easy to download all free lessons available.

Because this website is intended for listening and  speaking practice, the strength of the programs is in the clarity of the instruction, simple explanation, clear pronunciation of each example. However, this website would be more interesting if Cici and Shaun provide speaking practice for the users. This can be done by making use of Skype.    

 

Reflection on Egbert (2005) and Warschauer (2010)

Egbert, J. (2005). CALL essentials: principles and practice in CALL classrooms. Alexandria, Virginia: TESOL Publication.

In her first chapter, Egbert provides both general and specific CALL definitions that help novice CALL practitioners to grasp the idea of what CALL is. She points out three key points of CALL in which it is focused on language learning, not on technology, it can be used in various contexts and diverse participants, and its pedagogy should be supported by the theory and practice of interdisciplinary fields. In addition, CALL practitioners might make the best use of CALL research results to effectively and efficiently integrate computers into their classroom.

Egbert also thoroughly explains the four fundamental principles of using technology to support language learning. First, CALL must be aimed to create optimal classroom language learning environments.  Second, CALL has to integrate ESL standards that the technology will support. In other words, computer technologies will assist learners toward the goal stated in the standards within environments that support their learning. The third principle is that CALL designers must refer to guidelines for using educational technology in language classroom. Basically the design must be based on the instructional goal and problems and must support effective learning. The fourth principle states that CALL must integrate the national educational standards in the design.

This chapter helps me, as novice CALL practitioner, to get to know CALL, its standards, conditions, and guidelines need to be considered in designing CALL activities. The explanation is easy to understand because it is so practical and followed by examples.

Then, in chapter 7 Egbert briefly discusses content-based instruction (CBI) which is beneficial for both language and content teachers. In her overview of CBI she emphasizes that content is purposeful and language is a tool for content learning. She also provides two important techniques in supporting content-based language instruction and tips for designing the instruction. The designed instruction incorporates measurable objectives that  address language, content, and use of technology. I like the final part, which present practical examples of using content, language, and technology objectives. I have never thought of some activities in the examples like using SimTown in content area of Mathematics. I particularly agree with the idea that language teachers should carefully plan how to use commercial software and Web sites intended for native speaking audiences. Otherwise, it would create problems in class and would not meet the instructional goals.


Warschauer, M. (2010). New paradigms in technology-Mediated Learning

Warschauer points out a trend showing that the numbers of English learners and speakers globally keeps on increasing. Today English becomes a global language. Another trend shows that the number of Internet users is also increasing. Meanwhile, global literacy needs one's mastery of English, information and technology tools, and communication skills to deploy English and information technology effectively. Thus, Warschauer conclude that  the use of information technology for international communication in English becomes an important strategies to develop global literacy. He then explain about situated learning in CALL from structural, cognitive, and sociocognitive point of view. He extensively discusses two types of computer mediated communicatin, e.g. Blogs and Wikis. Blogs is powerful for language learning because it bridges speech and writing , and genre. Wikis enable teachers to design interesting and engaging collaborative writing project. The example of a teacher creating Wiki for his/her class and assign collaborative writing projects is interesting to me. However, I wonder whether it is possible to design such activities for a large class of 40 - 50 students and how to assess the activity.

I particularly like this quote: "The blogosphere is a community that might produce a work, whereas a Wiki is a work that might produce a community " (Ward Cunningham). It really explains the role of Blogs and Wiki in education.