Modern technologies in teaching FLT
2. More and better training data are needed to support
basic research on modeling non-native conversational speech.
One of the most needed resources for developing open
response conversational CALL applications is large corpora of non-native
transcribed speech data, of both read and conversational speech. Since accents
vary depending on the student's first language, separate databases must either
be collected for each L1 subgroup, or a representative sample of speakers of
different languages must be included in the database. Creating such databases
is extremely labor and cost intensive--a phone level transcription of
spontaneous conversational data can cost up to one dollar per phone. A number
of multilingual conversational databases of telephone speech are publicly
available through the Linguistic Data Consortium (LDC), including Switchboard
(US English) and CALLHOME (English, Japanese, Spanish, Chinese, Arabic,
German). Our own effort in collaboration with John Hopkins University (Byrne,
Knodt, Khudanpur, & Bernstein, 1998; Knodt, Bernstein, & Todic,1998)
has been to collect and model spontaneous English conversations between Hispanic
natives. All of these efforts will improve our understanding of the disfluent
speech of language learners and help model this speech type for the purpose of
human-machine communication.
DEFINING AND ACQUIRING LITERACY
IN THE AGE OF INFORMATION
Moll defined literacy as "a particular way of using
language for a variety of purposes, as a sociocultural practice with
intellectual significance" (1994, p. 201). While traditional definitions
of literacy have focused on reading and writing, the definition of literacy today
is more complex. The process of becoming literate today involves more than
learning how to use language effectively; rather, the process amplifies and
changes both the cognitive and the linguistic functioning of the individual in
society. One who is literate knows how to gather, analyze, and use information
resources to solve problems and make decisions, as well as how to learn both
independently and cooperatively. Ultimately literate individuals possess a
range of skills that enable them to participate fully in all aspects of modern
society, from the workforce to the family to the academic community. Indeed,
the development of literacy is "a dynamic and ongoing process of perpetual
transformation" (Neilsen, 1989, p. 5), whose evolution is influenced by a
person's interests, cultures, and experiences. Researchers have viewed literacy
as a multifaceted concept for a number of years (Johns, 1997). However,
succeeding in a digital, information-oriented society demands multiliteracies,
that is, competence in an even more diverse set of functional, academic,
critical, and electronic skills.
To be considered multiliterate, students today must acquire
a battery of skills that will enable them to take advantage of the diverse
modes of communication made possible by new technologies and to participate in
global learning communities. Although becoming multiliterate is not an easy
task for any student, it is especially difficult for ESL students operating in
a second language. In their attempts to become multiliterate, ESL students must
acquire linguistic competence in a new language and at the same time develop
the cognitive and sociocultural skills necessary to gain access into the
social, academic, and workforce environments of the 21st century.
They must become functionally literate, able to speak, understand, read, and
write English, as well as use English to acquire, articulate and expand their
knowledge. They must also become academically literate, able to read and
understand interdisciplinary texts, analyze and respond to those texts through
various modes of written and oral discourse, and expand their knowledge through
sustained and focused research. Further, they must become critically literate,
defined here as the ability to evaluate the validity and reliability of
informational sources so that they may draw appropriate conclusions from their
research efforts. Finally, in our digital age of information, students must
become electronically literate, able "to select and use electronic
tools for communication, construction, research, and autonomous learning"
(Shetzer, 1998).
Helping students develop the range of literacies they need
to enter and succeed at various levels of the academic hierarchy and
subsequently in the workforce requires a pedagogy that facilitates and hastens
linguistic proficiency development, familiarizes students with the requirements
and conventions of academic discourse, and supports the use of critical
thinking and higher order cognitive processes. A large body of research
conducted over the past decade (see, e.g., Benesch, 1988; Brinton, Snow, &
Wesche, 1989; Crandall, 1993; Kasper, 1997a, 2000a; Pally, 2000; Snow &
Brinton, 1997) has shown that content-based instruction (CBI) is highly
effective in helping ESL students develop the literacies they need to be
successful in academic and workforce environments.
CONTENT-BASED INSTRUCTION AND
LITERACY DEVELOPMENT
CBI develops linguistic competence and functional literacy
by exposing ESL learners to interdisciplinary input that consists of both
"everyday" communicative and academic language (Cummins, 1981; Mohan,
1990; Spanos, 1989) and that contains a wide range of vocabulary, forms,
registers, and pragmatic functions (Snow, Met, & Genesee, 1989; Zuengler
& Brinton, 1997). Because content-based pedagogy encourages students to use
English to gather, synthesize, evaluate, and articulate interdisciplinary
information and knowledge (Pally, 1997), it also allows them to hone academic
and critical literacy skills as they practice appropriate patterns of academic
discourse (Kasper, 2000b) and become familiar with sociolinguistic conventions
relating to audience and purpose (Soter, 1990).
The theoretical foundations supporting a content-based model
of ESL instruction derive from cognitive learning theory and second language
acquisition (SLA) research. Cognitive learning theory posits that in the
process of acquiring literacy skills, students progress through a series of
three stages, the cognitive, the associative, and the autonomous (Anderson,
1983a). Progression through these stages is facilitated by scaffolding, which
involves providing extensive instructional support during the initial stages of
learning and gradually removing this support as students become more proficient
at the task (Chamot & O'Malley, 1994). Second language acquisition (SLA)
research emphasizes that literacy development can be facilitated by providing
multiple opportunities for learners to interact in communicative contexts with
authentic, linguistically challenging materials that are relevant to their
personal and educational goals (see, e.g., Brinton, et al., 1989; Kasper,
2000a; Krashen, 1982; Snow & Brinton, 1997; Snow, et al., 1989).
In a 1996 paper published in The Harvard Educational
Review, The New London Group (NLG) advocated developing multiliteracies
through a pedagogy that involves a complex interaction of four factors which
they called Situated Practice, Overt Instruction, Critical Framing, and Transformed
Practice. According to the NLG, becoming multiliterate requires critical
engagement in relevant tasks, interaction with diverse forms of communication
made possible by electronic technologies, and participation in collaborative
learning contexts. Warschauer (1999) concurred and stated that a pedagogy of
critical inquiry and problem solving that provides the context for
"authentic and collaborative projects and analyses" (p. 16) that
support and are supported by the use of electronic technologies is necessary
for ESL students to acquire the linguistic, social, and technological
competencies key to literacy in a digital world.
According to a 1995 report published by the United States
Department of Education, "technology is an important enabler for classes
organized around complex, authentic tasks" and when "used in support
of challenging projects, [technology] can contribute to students' sense ...
that they are using real tools for real purposes." Technology use
increases students' motivation as it promotes their active engagement with
language and content through authentic, challenging tasks that are
interdisciplinary in nature (McGrath, 1998). Technology use also encourages
students to spend more time on task. As they search for information in a
hyperlinked environment, ESL students benefit from increased opportunities to
process linguistic and content information. Used as a tool for learning,
technology supports a level of task authenticity and complexity that fits well
with the interdisciplinary work inherent in content-based instruction and that
promotes the acquisition of multiliteracies.
THEORY INTO PRACTICE
These research findings suggest that in our efforts to
prepare ESL students for the challenges of the academic and workforce
environments of the 21st century, we should adopt a pedagogical
model that incorporates information technology as an integral component and
that specifically targets the development of the range of literacies deemed
necessary for success in a digital, information-oriented society. This paper
describes a content-based pedagogy, which I call focus discipline research
(Kasper, 1998a), and presents the results of a classroom study conducted to
measure the effects of focus discipline research on the development of ESL
students' literacy skills.
As described here, focus discipline research puts theory
into practice as it incorporates the principles of cognitive learning theory,
SLA research, and the four components of the NLG's (1996) pedagogy of
multiliteracies. Through pedagogical activities that provide the context for
situated practice, overt instruction, critical framing, and transformed
practice, focus discipline research promotes ESL students' choice of and
responsibility for course content, engages them in extended practice with
linguistic structures and interdisciplinary material, and encourages them to
become "content experts" in a subject of their own choosing.
CONCLUSION
It can be seen that it is difficult and probably undesirable
to attempt to determine the difficulty of a listening and viewing task in any
absolute terms. By considering the three aspects that affect the level of
difficulty, namely text, task, and context features, it is possible to identify
those characteristics of tasks that can be manipulated. Having identified the
variable characteristics of tasks in developing the model, it is necessary to
look to the dynamic interaction among, tasks, texts, and the computer-based
environment.
Task design and text selection in this model also
incorporate the identification and consideration of context. Teachers can make
provision for their influence on learner perception of difficulty by providing
texts and tasks that range across these levels, and by ensuring that learners
with lower language proficiency can ease themselves gradually into the more
contextually difficult tasks. This can be achieved by reducing the level of
difficulty of other parameters such as text or task difficulty, or by
minimizing other aspects of contextual difficulty. Thus, for example, learners
of lower proficiency who are exposed for the first time to a task based on a
broadcast announcement would be provided with appropriate visual support in the
form of graphics or video to reduce textual difficulty. The task type would
also be kept to a low level of cognitive demand (Hoven, 1991, 1997a, 1997b).
In a CELL environment, this identification of parameters of
difficulty enables task designers to develop and modify tasks on the basis of
clear language pedagogy that is both learner-centred and cognitively sound.
Learners are provided with the necessary information on text, task, and context
to make informed choices, and are given opportunities to implement their
decisions. Teachers are therefore creating a CELL environment that facilitates
and encourages exploration of, and experimentation with, the choices available.
Within this model, learners are then able to adjust their own learning paths
through the texts and tasks, and can do this at their own pace and at their
individual points of readiness. In sociocultural terms, the model provides
learners with a guiding framework or community of practice within which to
develop through their individual Zones of Proximal Development. The model
provides them with the tools to mediate meaning in the form of software
incorporating information, feedback, and appropriate help systems.
By taking account of learners' needs and making provision
for learner choice in this way, one of the major advantages of using computers
in language learning--their capacity to allow learners to work at their own
pace and in their own time--can be more fully exploited. It then becomes our
task as researchers to evaluate, with learners' assistance, the effectiveness
of environments such as these in improving the their listening and viewing
comprehension as well as their approaches to learning in these environments.
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