The Importance of Assessment

     An instructor's job does not stop after presenting a lesson. The instructor should also assess the learning occurring in the class as well as assess how well s/he is teaching. Multiple choice exams are probably the easiest way to assess students, but they aren't always the best. In her article, "Classroom practice: Practical classroom assessment," Joy Egbert presents a number of assessment strategies. The guidelines to assessment, says Egbert, are four:

1. Assessment takes place in multiple contexts.
2. Both process and outcomes are assessed.
3. Assessment is spread out over time.
4. The method of assessment fits the content and method of what was taught.

 As you can see, assessment must be varied, must be both formative (process oriented) and summative (outcome oriented), and must accurately fit the lesson that was taught. This is why multiple choice exams, such as standardized tests, are not always the most effective assessment strategy.

     Besides testing, Egbert presents strategies such as verbal reporting, written and oral retelling, self-assessment, and portfolios. I am very familiar with all the strategies she presents. Two strategies that I have not used very often are verbal reporting, and written and oral retelling. These two methods can be both formative and summative and should be further explored.

      First of all, it is important to briefly mention the difference between formative and summative assessment. Formative assessment takes place when the instructor receives feedback that helps him/her to adjust the materials and methods used in the classroom to the needs of the learner. Basically, the teacher aims to find out if the students are learning what s/he believe s/he is teaching. An instructor who truly cares whether or not students learn will chose to assess the students formatively prior to assessing them summatively. Summative assessment takes place when the instructor assigns a score to the amount of learning that has taken place. Summative is, of course, the most popular form of assessment.

     Verbal reporting is an interesting method of assessment because in verbal reporting students are asked to reflect on what they have learned and understand how they have learned. The student, through either verbal or written words, reportrs what they have learned and how they learned it. Egbert points out that in this method the instructor assesses the process of learning, not the product.

     In retelling the students summarize what they have learned either orally or verbally. The idea is that the instructor can get a deeper understanding of whether or not the students are actually learning the material. The instructor cannot fully understand the students' level of comprehension simply through traditional testing techniques such as short answer and fill-in-the-blank activities. This assessment can be used both formatively and summatively.

     There are so many viewpoints on assessment. Mine aligns with those of Egbert in that assessment is important and should be valued. Assessment should also be varied, purposeful, and fit the goals and objectives of the course.

Autonomous Learning in CALL

Many learning situations in Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) are actually autonomous situations. Students work autonomously on a software program, activities on a website, WebQuests, and many other lessons that incorporate the use of a computer. As Deborah Healey points out in her article "Theory and Research: Autonomy and Language Learning," there are varying degrees of autonomy. She quotes Benson (2002) as stating, "Autonomy is whatever an autonomous person thinks it is." That is, a group of students could work together on a computer assisted task without guidance from the teacher and feel that they are being autonomous.

An important part of Healey's article is a breakdown of autonomy into four perspectives: technical, psychological, sociocultural, and political-critical. In the technical perspective, the content is taken into consideration. Based on the learner's needs and goals, the learner should be guided by the facilitator to use a variety of materials and methods that will assist the student to grow in his/her language learning. A student could easily stop learning because s/he works on only one skill or activity. For example, I have seen students in the Language Technology Center at my language school concentrate only on learning new vocabulary words. One student in particular was so intent on learning more words that he never learned to use the words. He would write the word down with the definition in English and the translated word in his native language. If I ever pointed to a word and asked him to use it in a sentence, he could not. He got stuck at this stage for about three months before I was finally able to work with him and get him involved in other activities - such as reading books. In this case, I took away his ability to use the computer for a month.

The second perspective, the psychological perspective, looks the motivation and learning preferences of the individual learner. To me, this is something instructors struggle with. Often, due to time constraints and the inability to work with students on an individual basis or a lack of knowledge on how to assess a student on this perspective, teachers do little to increase a student's self-motivation. Students need to be directed towards self-motivation in order to be autonomous. They must be able to get over technological and other psychological barriers.

As I stated previously, sometimes autonomous learning deals requires students to work together without the constant guidance of the instructor. This leads to the consideration of the sociocultural perspective. Healey states, "A community of practice, generally larger than a pair or small group, can enhance autonomous learning by providing social, psychological, linguistic, and academic support for learning." I find this to be true. An English Language Learner (ELL) might think that s/he is the only person in the world having trouble pronouncing a particular sound or understanding and using a particular verb tense when in fact many ELLs probably have the same struggles. Feeling alone, the student may give up, but when working with others, the student will learn that s/he is not alone and, therefore, feels better about the struggle. The student may feel more motivated to overcome the situation. Another advantage to social learning is the ability for the teacher to take a further step back. The ELLs can work together to learn - they can teach each other, allowing the teacher to move from a traditional teacher role to more of a facilitator role.

The final perspective, the political-critical perspective, draws on the work of such researchers as Paulo Freire. In this perspective, autonomy is seen as a way to increase an individual's personal feeling of power. The student has an increased sense of his/her ability to control his/her learning.

As you can see, autonomy plays a very large role in CALL. CALL can create a feeling of control of one's learning and can also increase a student's motivation to learn.

Professional Development in CALL

If you sit at home one afternoon watching daytime television, no less than five schools will advertise their excellent online educational opportunities. While in the past distance learning was restricted to trade schools and nationally accredited schools, today top schools offer online courses and full online degrees. In fact, I am currently enrolled in a fully online masters degree program through Indiana University-Bloomington, a very well respected school. Students in grades K-12 can also take part or all of their coursework online through state-funded virtual schools. Online education is no longer an anomaly, it is becoming the norm. And if a student chooses not to take an online course, often that student will find that one or more of his/her classes meet in a comptuer lab and use technology to support the course objectives.

ESL education often follows the trends in mainstream education. Sometimes this change occurs slowly and sometimes very quickly. Currently, English Language Learners (ELLs) are not given the opportunity to complete an entire ESL program online, although I don't think we are far from this happening. However, most ESL programs today intergrate technology into the coursework somehow. For example, last spring I visited the ESL prorgram at a middle school in order to observe a few classes. During their two hours in their pull-out ESL class, the students I observed spent 45 minutes in a computer lab working on an individualized program that rates the student's ability, chooses activities based on the student's current level, and tracks the student's progress. The program allowed students to work on all skill areas, except speaking. Another example comes from my current work situation. I direct a language program for university-bound adults. As part of the curriculum, the students spend an hour a day in a computer lab where they use a variety of programs to support their Individualized Learning Plan.

In both of the scenarios above, the instructor's job is to teach the students how to use the technology and then support the students as they move through their individualized lessons. Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) does not only work with individualized learning plans, but also with regular coursework in an ESL program. Often times, as Hubbard (2007) points out, ESL instructors are trained to use technology efficiently to support language learning. Just think, many ESL teachers (of adults) take a 4 week intensive course on how to teach ESL and then they begin teaching right away. I don't know of any of these programs that provides instruction on CALL. Hubbard (2007) also points out that most graduate programs in language learning do not provide coursework in CALL and the ones that do offer the course as an elective.

Due to the lack of professional development in CALL, Hubbard (2007) calls upon organizations like TESOL to place more emphasis on the importance of incorporating technology into the language learning classroom. He presents a list of tips on how to begin an individualized plan of professional development in the field of CALL. A few of these tips are:
- Start small
- Identify one area of technology to use in the classroom and try it out and perfect the use of it
- When learning a new technology, learn by show and tell, don't let others do it for you (Hubbard, 2007).

In my workplace, I need to provide more support to my teachers on the technology available in the computer lab. We are a new school and no one is really familiar with the technology yet. I am somewhat familiar, but I definitely need to spend more time in the lab familiarizing myself with the software.

I think there is often a fear of technology when it comes to teaching. Just as when manufacturing became automized, many fear that they might lose their jobs to teachnology. In education, technology does not replace the teacher - technology simply changes the teacher's role. For seasoned teachers who have found a method of teaching that they are comfortable with and that they believe works, encouraging them to change their role can be very difficult. However, computer assisted learning is not a fad, it is here to stay and we all need to adjust. I know I am adjusting and I'm very exciting about the possibilities CALL brings!!

Website Evaluation of "365 ESL Short Stories: A Free Site for ESL Intermediate Learners"

Yesterday one of my teachers asked me to assist her in finding ESL versions of short stories to use in her beginning to intermediate reading class. The class is an elective type course with course objectives, but no textbook. It is up to the instructor to locate resources to use in the classroom. When searching the web with her, I came across a website titled “365 ESL Short Stories: A Free Site for ESL Intermediate Learners.” While the website seems very primitive in nature and is riddled with advertisements, I think that it provides very useful instruction for the English language learner.

“365 ESL Short Stories” is found at URL http://www.eslfast.com/ as well as URL http://www.eslyes.com/ and is linked from the main website found at URL http://www.rong-chang.com/. The author of the sites, Dr. Rong Chang Li, appears to be quite credible. At the top of the main site Dr. Li links a shortened version of his Curriculum Vitae which includes the following information: a color picture of himself, his email address, selected publications, presentations, software, internet projects, and awards. Included in his awards are grants from organizations such as University of Illinois – Urbana-Champaign, TESOL, and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. The Hewlett Foundation gives money worldwide to better the social and environmental problems of the world. This is a very large foundation that issues grants on a competitive basis. One can see from his credentials, that Dr. Li, who works in China, is a very credible author. I also googled his name and found that he and his websites are referenced on a number of other credible ESL websites.

If he is so credible, then why do I describe his website as “primitive”? Well, the sites are no frills and look as if they were made in one day. The main page is simply a list of 365 stories. The background is white, the numbers are black, and the links to the short stories are traditional blue links. There are no graphics, no welcomes, and no explanations. If Dr. Li had not linked his Vitae to the website, the viewer would not be able to discern whether or not the site was credible just by looking at it.

When the viewer clicks on one of the short stories links, it takes the viewer to another page that has the title of the story on the top of the page with three icons. These icons are very useful. One is the picture of a book that stays “Dictionary.” Clicking on this icon will open a new window that takes you to http://www.dictionary.com/. The other two icons allow the view to listen to the story. One icon says “real” and the other says “slow.” The viewer can listen to the story as one might normally hear it or the viewer can listen to the story in slower, more articulated speech. The “real” version can also be heard by clicking the play button on the music player just below the title. The “real” version for every story is in a woman’s voice and the “slow” version is in a man’s voice. Below the music player is a bar of google advertisements as well as a google search bar. Along the left hand side of the page, taking up about one third of the page, are more advertisements. The story is located below and to the right of the advertisements in large black letters on top of a white background. At the bottom of the page are blue links taking the reader to activities associated with the reading.

Even though the page with the story is not well laid out, the reading and the activities are very interesting. The readings range from three to five short paragraphs on a variety of topics, including TV shows, news stories, and personal stories. The activities include a list of vocabulary linked to www.dictionary.com, cloze exercises where the student gets immediate feedback and percentage correct, a crossword puzzle that can be filled in online and checked, and a dictation exercise where the student listens to a sentence, types it in the box, and checks it for accuracy. Every story has the four activities above and some stories have additional activities. The activities do not ask students to work on reading comprehension, but rather vocabulary building, listening for dictation, spelling, and grammar/mechanics. I would like to see a reading comprehension activity added to the available skill that the student can learn.

Also linked to the main page of “365 Short Stories” are a list of vocabulary, sentence structure writing practice, 2,000+ ESL/EFL conversations on different topics, and links to beginning reading selections with activities similar to the intermediate reading selections on the “365 Short Stories” site. The amount of material available to the English language learner on this website is vast, the author is extremely credible, but the website itself lacks in its overall appeal. I would like something that is much more organized and more aesthetically pleasing.

The Authenticness of our Endeavors to be Authentic

Ok. So my title is a bit wordy, but this really is what Guariento and Morely (2001) discuss in their article "Test and task authenticity in the EFL classroom" and it is something I argue with ELL/ESL/EFL teachers all the time. First of all, the question arises, what makes a text or task truly authentic. Well Guariento and Morely (2001) start their article with a queste from Little et. al. (1998) that states that an authentic text is one "created to fultil some social purpose in the language community in which it was produced" (347). Well, ok, this is the definition of "discourse" really, but is it the definition of an authentic text?

My argument would be that we cannot fully create an authentic environment in the classroom. We can mimic authentic environments, but we cannot actually create a post office, restaurant, rental office, etc in our classrooms. No matter how well the activity is structured, some portion of the activity is controlled and guided practice.

Part of the problem, as Guariento and Morely (2001) point out in attempting to create an authentic learning task is the issue of task difficulty. This is very problemmatic with beginning language learners. Let's take the task of ordering in a restaurant. The instructor can teach the beginning students 20 new words associated with ordering in a restaurant. The teacher can teach the basic script of how to take an order (server role) and how to give an order (customer role). But the script will be limited due to the student's current vocabulary and current ability to understand and use questions and verb forms. The teacher can set up a mock restaurant in the classroom and assign students the roles of servers and customers. The students can role play taking and giving orders. There can be menus and table settings and even food and drink. But no matter what, the students are still performing a task in a controlled environment, not a truly authentic environment. If the teacher took the students to a restaurant, they may find themselves in a situation that is not like what they learned in the classroom and they may not be prepared to function in that environment.

The thing is this: The controlled, guided practice that occurs in the classroom is OK - in fact, it's GREAT! It is exactly what some students need because they are beginners. This is something that I have thought all along and the coolest part is that Guariento and Markley (2001) agree! In their conclusion they state, "In this paper we have argued that the authenticity if texts (genuineness) may need to be sacrificed if we are to achieve authentic responses in our students" (352). That is, the task may not seem very authentic, but the language the students' produce is - because the language is new for them and they really are speaking and learning.

This article really made me happy. There's so much more to the article and so much more can be said, but for now I'll let you chew on what I wrote.

Interaction and Computer Assisted Language Learning

A popular theory of education, referred to as Social Constructivism or Social Interactionism, emphasizes the importance of social interaction in learning. According to the theorist Vygotsky, knowledge is created through interactions in social situations. In terms of language learning, Vygotsky believes that humans are drawn to develop languages due to their need to interact socially. He also believes that language can only be fully developed by interacting in a variety of social situations.

In the 2003 article titled, "Getting the mix right again: An updated and theoretical rationale for interaction," Anderson summarizes the importance of interaction in education (especially in distance education) and applications of interaction to a variety of educational settings. The article culminates with a model of interaction for online learning. This article presents a theory of interaction that goes beyond Vygotsky's simple idea that social interaction is important.

Anderson (2003) states that it is problematic to define interaction mostly because most definitions do not offer a definition of "meaningful interaction." Indirectly, the question is posed, "what constitutes meaningful interaction?" What is needed in a classroom setting, says Anderson (2003), is formal interaction (versus informal interaction). Anderson (2003) states, "interaction in formal education contexts is specifically designed to induce learning directed towards defined and shared learning objectives or outcomes" (p. 4). It is important that the interactions match the learning objectives and those interactions could be either teacher-centered, student-centered, or content-centered; it all depends on the desired learning outcomes.

Anderson (2003) provides a very interesting, and I would suspect, controversial statement about the three types of interaction. She states that as long as one of the types of interaction (teacher-student, student-student, student-content) occurs at a high level, students will be satisfied. I wonder if she also believes that students will learn. I would not rate all three types of interactions equally. In fact, I would argue that student-student interaction is by far the most important, and probably the most preferred, type of interaction in a classroom - especially in a language learning classroom. Despite any possible arguments against Anderson's (2003) statement, she does provide some useful information in the form examples of all three types of interaction. Additionally, she presents information on how to assess the appropriate level of interaction in the educational setting. Finally, Anderson (2003) provides examples of how to enhance the levels of interaction in popular educational delivery models: classroom, traditional (mail or email) distance education, audio and video conferencing, and web-based learning.

The model of online learning proposed by Anderson (2003) incorporates a variety of elements, including the object of interaction (teacher, student, content), the timing of interaction (synchronous or asynchronous), the content itself, and the type of web delivery (games, tutorials, chat, e-book, etc).

The theory proposed by Anderson (2003) is not revolutionary, but as she states in her conclusion, she did not aim to present a revolutionary theory. Her intention was to bring together a variety of thoughts about interaction into one model. She states that her main purpose was to encourage dialogue about the interactions in online education. Anderson wrote, "I hope this small theoretical piece encourages dialogue within our community of practice" (p. 19).

As a member of the "community of practice," I feel I must begin a dialogue on this topic. First of all, the model reminds me of the rhetorical triangle. In the rhetorical triangle, we have a triangle with the purpose in the center. On the three points of the equilateral triangle are author, audience, and subject. We can examine each of the elements in the triangle according to their interactions with one another and their interaction with the purpose.

Anderson's (2003) model is virtually the same thing. To better align her model, though, with the very familiar rhetorical triangle, I would propose this model. We would have a triangle with the learning objectives in the center of the triangle. On the three edges we would have teacher, student, and content. To the right of the triangle would be an error pointing to the modes of delivery (e-book, chat, WebQuest, etc, etc).

In my model, I propose that we first consider the types of interaction we desire based upon the learning objectives and then move to the right of the model where we chose the mode of delivery that best fits the learning objectives and the levels of interaction (teacher-student, teacher-content, student-content).

The problem with my triangle is that student-student interaction is not available. I wonder how this could be built in.

I would call my model the Output-based Interaction Triangle.

Well, it needs work, but it's what I can come up with at 11:45 pm on a Friday night. Please comment and let me know if you think I'm on the right track with a new model. Also, please comment on improvements I could make. I think that this is an idea I could/should actually develop into a paper!

Reference:
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, 1-25.

Evaluating a Language Learning Blog

OK so there are numerous websites out there to teach people English. In a recent Google search, I found a number of these websites also have blogs on them. One such site is called "Learn English" and can be found at: http://kliktrans.com. This website is geared toward adult learners and provides a number of resources.

The main resource is the weekly blog giving tips and tricks on learning English. The most recent blog, titled "Understanding the Apostrophe," provides commentary about the difficulty of the English language and uses the apostrophe as an example. The blog is written is very difficult academic language using complex sentence structures and vocabulary. A beginning English language learner (ELL) would not be able to access this information. Rules regarding the use of the apostrophe are presented, but in paragraph form. I find it is much better to list rules numerically in a chart-like format making them easier for the ELL to compare the different rules. Additionally, the author gives very few examples of each rule.

Another resource on the site is the link to audio materials. The author links YouTube videos and resources provided from readers of the site. These videos are very appropriate for the ELL. The quality of the videos is good and the speakers on the video speak loudly, clearly, and slowly. The only problem here is that there are only seven audio resources provided and they do not provide a very large range of lessons.

The additional resources are not that exciting and are just more blogs or links based on a number of different categories of learning English. Within these links, the author talks about Google quite a bit as a tool for learning English. I don't know the relationship between the author/website and Google, but there could be.

One annoying thing about the website is that the author talks about losing his job and also makes a number of spelling errors. Also, the website is not very comprehensive, meaning it lacks a lot of information on basic skills and gives no sense of what needs to be learned first in order to learn a more difficult skill. It is a haphazard conglomerate of resources. Perhaps the author is not an expert in language learning, which makes me ask, why even build the site?

Introducing Computer Assisted Language Learning

Egbert (2005) outlines Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) in his book CALL Essentials: Principles and Practice in CALL Classrooms. To begin with, CALL is defined as any use of computers, particularly the use of software on computers and the Internet, to support language learning. Within the field of CALL, Egbert (2005) notes three themes: (1) the students and the learning, not the technology, should remain the center of language learning in a CALL classroom, (2) CALL can occur in any language learning situation, and (3) CALL is interdisciplinary and draws from a number of fields.

Egbert (2005) presents four principles associated with CALL in Chapter One of his text. The first principle focuses on eight conditions that create a well-structured language learning classroom. The principles focus on a learner-centered classroom that encourages authentic learning in a supportive environment. Similarly, the second principle extends these conditions by adding in ESL standards. Specifically, Egbert (2005) discussed TESOL standards, ESL Standards for Pre-K - 12 Students, which extends the eight conditions. Within these two principles, it is extremely important, says Egbert (2005), to keep the students' learning goals, not standards, at the center of the lessons.

Focusing on CALL, the third principle presents five guidelines for using CALL in the classroom. The guidelines state that technology must be used as an effective and efficient tool that is accessible to all students and that enhances the learning objectives of the course. To assist in bridging the use of computers in the language classroom, Egbert (2005) states his fourth principle, which is to integrate the National Education Technology Standards into the curriculum. (For more information on NETS, see: http://www.iste.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=NETS).

The author reflects on her principles through the eyes of a teacher and not a researcher. She talks about having a back-up plan in case the technology does not work, she discusses the need to also teach the students how to the technology, and she poses a question regarding the condition of not using technology purely to use technology.

It is this question that causes me to pause for thought. Egbert (2005) writes, "When deciding whether or not to use software, I think it is important to evaluate if technology would be better than other methods" (p. 16). She also states that she once agreed with the statement, "if the computer doesn't support learning, then it should not be used just to be used" (Egbert, 2005, p. 16). She states that she now is not sure that she agrees because students can learn something by just playing around on the computer.

Yes, students can learn just by playing around on the computer - they can learn how to use technology. However, all lessons should be focused around the learning objectives of the course and the learning objectives of the student. Students might learn something by playing around with a computer, but we must ask whether or not they are meeting their personal and educational goals. Students can learn something "valuable" (as Egbert puts it) by going shopping. The students might learn that baggy jeans are a thing of the past. The students will find this to be a "valuable" lesson because the students will be fashionable at school. We must pose the questions: to whom is it valuable and to what degree is it valuable?

Therefore, I do think that Egbert is correct in questioning the statement. Technology should be used for a purpose and in order to meet a goal - it should not be used just to be used.