A. IntroductionWhen
computers have become widespread in schools and homes and their uses in
language teaching and learning have expanded dramatically from simple
games to global networking, language teachers must now begin to think
about the implication of computers for language teaching and learning.
The
Internet, and its more recent offspring WWW (World Wide Web), is
constantly growing in popularity and availability for all people. This
allows commercial and educational organizations shift their materials
delivery over the Internet. Many English teachers put their materials
online. They create homepages just for the purpose of their classes, or
they may design homepages so that every people can learn from them or
take the pages for their own purposes.
Once we have access and
surfing the Internet, we will find unlimited sources/links. One page is
linked to one and the others so that it forms chain of resources. The
resources range from individual home pages to institutional home pages
like a university Home Page. In this article I try to sort out the ESL
Internet resources and classify them into three broad categories. These
categories are based on the computer’s roles framework. Tylor’s
taxonomies of computer’s role are used here.
This writing is divided
into two main parts. The first part (Background) will discuss three main
issues. Firstly, the conflict of whether to use or not the computer in
language learning is briefly reviewed. This issue should be highlighted
since many educators still feel doubtful to bring this technology into
classroom. They say that computers cause more frustrating than good. The
discussion will cope with the conflict.
The next issue is the
computer roles in education. This focuses on Levy’s discussion of
tutor-tool-tutee framework. This framework is then chosen to be the
feature for classification of the Internet resources made in this paper.
Finally, at the end of the first part, I will discuss the ESL/EFL
activities on the Internet in brief.
In the second part of this
writing, I will take some home pages as examples and classify them
according to the tutor-tool-tutee framework. The annotation will be
attached to each homepage as brief descriptions.
B. Background1. The conflictNew
technology is often perceived as a promise. Computers, for example, can
be tremendously useful for English language learning and teaching. They
can process user input quickly, and integrate texts, pictures, sounds,
and videos into a package of lessons. They can be programmed to
diversify instructions so that it brings in students to learn more. In
other words, there is a motivational value of using computers in
language learning (Warschauer, 1996a). Therefore, many people argue that
computers should be used for language learning. They believe that there
are many potential benefits of using computers. However, the issue is
not whether they are beneficial or not but rather how they should be
used in language learning. Regardless of that whether computers have
advantages and disadvantages in educational world in broad sense and in
language learning and teaching in particular, for whatever reasons they
are already being used and will continue to be used.
Computers
are now seen as a hero in educational difficulties like inadequate
funding, insufficient teaching stuffs, uninteresting materials, and so
on. Some think that computer will eventually replace teachers (Hoffman,
1995/1996). However, it is unlikely that computers will ever meet the
most excessive expectations. For example, Frizler (1995) states that it
is an imaginary that computers will ever replace teachers. Snyder (1994)
also believes that computers can not and should not replace teachers,
but should be used by teachers to enhance their instructions. Patrikis
(1997), even though slightly incompatibly to previous arguments, remarks
that ‘computers are hardly ever to replace teachers, but they are
equally unlikely to make poor teachers gifted teachers.’
For
whatever reasons stated above, there are some that refute those
arguments. Computers are said to be actually worse that useless. For
instance, they may cause to reduce creativity of thought, and take
precious funding away from other more worthy educational programs
(Oppenheimers, 1997). Similarly, Patrikis (1997) argues that technology
advances more rapidly than language methodology and pedagogy. As a
result, the language learning pedagogy used in the technology is not
working harmoniously or is outdated. Furthermore, Murison-Bowie (1993)
argues that computers are not being utilized by teachers to their
potential. Teachers do not seem to be taking advantages of technology’s
possible benefits. He claims that several parties were responsible for
this problem—teachers for not being easily-adapted, material developers
for not understanding new technologies could be used to meet the
profession’s needs, hardware developers for creating restrictive systems
which dictate the teaching methods.
Computer-Assisted Language
Learning (CALL) has not always been designed and used with the best or
most current pedagogical foundation as Patrikis said before. Nancy Hunt
(1993) discusses the problem of educators having a narrow view of the
use of computer technology, mainly for independent drills and word
processing. When in fact newer technologies to be used to help the
students actively participate in language learning. Conrad (1996) noted
that CALL software in 1980’s seemed to be outdated pedagogical
approaches. Not until recently has CALL begun to conform the newer
pedagogical approaches.
Finally, a common problem is for the
excitement surrounding a new technology to cause teachers to forget to
use good pedagogy. For instance, the attractiveness of the Internet or
Web causes many teachers to fall into trap of thinking that just having
their students online doing language exercises (Frizler, 1995).
Therefore, there is a need for considering carefully the use of computer
technology. It should be well-received and useful rather than a source
of public disappointment. The technology should be used to the maximum
level of its capability to enhance language learning, and pedagogical
research and practices should lead to what is done with the technology,
not the other way round.
In short, I should say that it is
outdated to argue whether or not to use computers in education (language
learning in particular). Computers are already being used anywhere.
They are parts of our daily life. The issue now is not that conflict.
However, 'the fundamental issue in the field of CALL is the “fit”
between the computer’s capabilities and the demand of language pedagogy'
(Wyatt, 1988). It is our duty as language teachers or CALLers to find
ways how to maximize the use of computers in our ‘business’, to find the
most appropriate pedagogical foundation for their uses.
The end
of this conflict (whether or not to use computer technology in language
learning) should bring us to another issue of CALL. This issue is about
the roles of computer in language learning and teaching.
2. Tutor-Tool-Tutee FrameworkI
understand why there are still some educators who doubt to use
computers in their classrooms. It is because of the essence of computers
as machines. Computers are not human beings. They can not think and can
neither feel. They just respond as they are programmed. In contrast, a
good human teacher has two capacities (Higgins: 1984) which a computer
or any machine does not have. One is feeling. A good teacher loves her
students. She treats her students humanely. The second capacity is
sensitivity. A good teacher can read her students’ feeling. She might
know what is wrong with the students. If a mistake occurs, she will know
whether it is because of deliberateness, carelessness, or genuine
misunderstanding of a concept. On the other hand, computers hardly ever
have those capacities.
From this illustration, a question arises:
are computers useless in the classroom? The answer is of course ‘no.’
The advantage of using computers varies to some extend depending on how
the computers are programmed. This will lead us to the discussion of the
roles of computer in language learning and teaching, what computers can
and cannot do.
Levy (1997) discusses this issue in great detail
but I should start from Higgins’ taxonomies of computer roles. Higgins
(1985) discusses two roles of computer, magister and pedagogue (this
issue is also discussed in Levy, 1997). In magister role, computers are
superior to the human (teachers and students) since they take the
control—presenting, questioning, drilling, and evaluating. The other
role is pedagogue. Higgins illustrates the pedagogue role as a slave
because the computers are passive. They wait for the instructions from
the users. They can be ‘a task setter, an opponent in a game, an
invironment, a conversational partners, a stooge, or a tool’ (Higgins in
Levy, 1997). Higgins (1984) says that computers are bad at magister and
good at pedagogue.
Unlike Higgins, Wyatt’s taxonomies of
computer roles are more than just two. Wyatt (1984) introduces one more
which is called collaborative role beside instructor and facilitator
which are relevant to Higgins’ magister and pedagogue respectively. In
collaborative role, students and computers cooperate in a certain task.
In this case, the student initiate and control the activities that may
happen in the computer (Wyatt, 1984). Collaborative software casts
students in a much more active role and depemds on them to taqke
responsibility for their own learning.
These frameworks (Higgins’
and Wyatt’s) are in line with Tylor’s taxonomies, tutor, tool, and
tutee (Levy, 1997). Levy summerises the tutor, tool, and tutee roles of
computers as follows.
As a tutor a computer evaluates the
learners and then provide next activities accordingly. A computer as a
tutor implies that a computer can replace the presence of the teachers
and that the activities can happen in self-access mode. Levy says that
the nature of ‘computer tutor is the notion of the teacher in the
machine rather than the teacher working with the students alongside the
machine’. In other words, the computer serves as a vehicle for
delivering instructions to the students. Computers as tutor are useful
in some cases. Th fact says that CALL drills are still used today
(Warschauer, 1996b). According to Warschauer, the rationale behind the
computers as tutor is as follows:
- Repeated exposure to the same material is beneficial or even essential to learning
- A
computer is ideal for carrying out repeated drills, since the machine
does not get bored with presenting the same material and since it can
provide immediate non-judgmental feedback
- A computer can present
such material on an individualized basis, allowing students to proceed
at their own pace and freeing up class time for other activities
(Warschauer, 1996b)
Unlike the tutor role, the tool role of
computers is to improve the efficiency of work of teachers and students
(Levy, 1997). Warschauer (1996b) called this role as ‘computer as
workhorse’. In this role, the computers do not necessarily provide
learning materials at all, but rather empower the student to understand
the lessons (Warschauer, 1996b). Computers as tool include word
processing, spelling and grammar checking, desktop publishing program,
and concordances.
The role of computers as tutee allows students
or teachers to interfere the program. The students do not only simply
absorb the materials from the computer (tutor) or respond the computers
(tool) but also they should have some kind of interaction between
students and computers where the students take more control. In this
role computers provide manipulable space or field for creating models or
conceptual structures (Levy, 1997). In other words, computers are used
as tool to discover the information the computers possess where the
students are responsible for initiating and directing the activities
that occur in the learning environment.
Two things are clear
here. In computer tool framework, computers are used as tool to
reinforce the learning such as be a partner in conversation, an opponent
in a game, or a challenger in a puzzle. Here student cannot interfere
the program at all. On the other hand, in computer tutee framework,
computers are used as tool to explore learning environment. For that
reason, students take more control or direct the computers to achieve
the goal.
3. Language learning on the Internet.Let us move on to discuss the greater sophistication of computer use in language learning; it is the Internet.
Uschi
Felix defines the Internet as “the world’s largest computer networking
linking millions of individual computers at different sites raging from
commercial business to educational institutions … connected to each
other by land cables and other linkages.” One of the outstanding
features of the Internet, particularly its more recent offspring World
Wide Web (WWW), is that it is multi media. We can put texts, graphic
images, audio, video in a single page of HTML (Plass and Chun, 1996).
HTML stands for hypertext mark-up language; we use this language to
build up a homepage. More technical explanation of the Internet in
detail can be read in Uschi Felix’ book ‘Virtual language learning’ part
3, or at http://www.tcom.ohiou.edu/OU_Language/help/index.html the
online Internet course by Ohio University.
Once we have begun to
collect sites, create our own home pages, we are ready for the next
step, putting course materials on-line and making them interactive.
There are many different kinds of interactivity possible on the Web
today, but what I have in mind are pages which allow (or require) user
input (typing, clicking) with appropriate responses to that input or
pages which enable users to work collaboratively.
I think we all
recognize that our discipline requires a more active kind of learning
than most. We cannot learn to use a language by listening to lectures or
by just studying the theory (or the grammar). As in learning to play
the piano, practice is essential. Therefore, it stands to reason if we
are going to consider the Web as teacher's aid, we need to empower that
aid to interact with the students, not just to lecture them (computer as
tutor). To the extent that it is possible, we want students to work
with authentic language materials, and to verify their comprehension
through some kind of testing and feedback. We want to have students use
the language as much as possible, including outside of class, through
writing and speaking. We want students to interact with one another, to
use the language for real communication (not just in staged classroom
scenarios), to learn from one another. In short, we expect that the
learning take place in such environment somehow. All this is doable on
the Web, to one degree or another.
There are several styles of
user/system interaction possible in standard Web configurations. One of
the first uses of the Internet and other digital technologies has been
computer-mediated communications. These can be divided into two broad
categories: Synchronous and Asynchronous. With "asynchronous
applications", messages are either E-Mailed or posted on a system where,
upon login, users are notified of the new postings they have not yet
accessed. Example systems have traditionally been computer conferencing
and computer bulletin boards. In Synchronous Applications users are
online at the same time, exchanging messages and other information in
real time as they communicate. Examples of this category are Internet
Relay Chat (IRC) and Multiple User Domain (MUD) (Sanchez, 1996). This
class of interaction system is used for social role playing and is being
supplemented as well by the newer MOO for "MUD, Object-Oriented", MUSH
"Multi-user Shared Hallucination". Access Steve Thorne's Web page on
these technologies for more information. Also see John December's
resource list on computer-mediated communication for additional
information on these topics in their more generic, non-language learning
specific settings. Visit the Web entrance to see how a site functions
that is not based on static Web pages.
The final category of
interactions is one that is garnering the most attention today with
respect to developments surrounding the Web. Going beyond HTML markup
commands in a static Web page, this approach does more than increase
interactivity on the server side through the use of CGI scripts that
tailor what users see. This approach also avoids some of the negative
elements of pre-placing assets on the user's local system for quicker
access than is possible on the Net. Fitting into this category are
developments such as the Java Programming (Reeser, 1997).
Let us
keep in mind, however, that we are talking about an electronic means to
enhance classroom instruction, to provide students with opportunities to
use the language outside of class. Computers and the Web can never
provide as effective or efficient a means of learning a language as
one-on-one human interaction. With all the type of technological
changes, teachers should not fear for their profession or for their
job--computers can never replace human beings as has been discussed
before.
However, technology is causing and accelerating major
social and educational change. Sooner or later, all teachers will be
expected to take advantage of some aspects of technology in their
teaching. If they do not follow the move, they will be outdated or even
will be left behind by their students. Nonetheless, once teachers begin
creating dynamic Web pages, they will find they are working in a richly
enabling environment, one which allows them not just to follow in the
path others have taken, but to invent new paradigms. Fundamentally, we
want to use technology to supplement what we do in the classroom and to
help in doing what we cannot do very well now (share multimedia,
collaborate long distance, make authentic materials comprehensible,
etc). But we also want to use the technology to help us think "out of
the box", to experiment with approaches we had never thought of before.
On
the most basic level, I am talking about beginning with what are
essentially Web pages. The Web offers the possibility of making our
materials available electronically and putting them into an interactive
environment. There are several advantages to doing this on the Web:
- Materials can be updated easily.
- Students have 24-hour, remote, independent access
- The
pages can support customized help, review or extra-credit projects to
accommodate students at different levels of preparation and ability,
including students with special needs.
Let us back to the main
purpose of this writing i.e. trying to classify web-based materials
according to tutor-tool-tutee framework.
According to Harris as
cited in Hackbarth (1997) there are three general type of online
materials. The first type is interpersonal exchange. Interpersonal
include exercises such as electronic mentoring, email exchanges. I
consider this type as computer tool activities because there is two-way
communication between a computer and student and communication among
students through computers (the Internet). The second type is
information collection. I consider this as computer tutor framework
because a computer is used to deliver instructional materials. The last
category made by Harris is problem-solving project. I categorize this
type as computer tutee framework. Although Harris explanation about
problem-solving project is not directly related to computer tutee
framework, but it implies that students use a computer and take more
control. Here students as users put their data and there is
collaboration between users and the computers, somehow.
In
conclusion, the Internet promotes philosophies of shared resources and
knowledge plus active involvement in learning process. Indeed, this rich
resource lends itself naturally to being an effective teaching and
learning tool for student-centered, communicative and collaborative
classroom.
C. Annotated Samples Of Web Sites.The
following sites are examples that represent to the classification that I
discussed above. the annotations below the sites are to describe
briefly what the examples are about. It is difficult to find a single
web site that represents exactly to the frameworks outlined in this
writing. One web may represent two or even three frameworks al together
(tutor, tool, and tutee). Therefore, the examples listed below are
classified according to their dominance. If a tutor-role framework is
dominant in a certain site, so then it is classified into the example of
tutor-role of computer, and so forth
The number of examples provided here does not show the ratio of the number of web sites available online at hte present time.
1. The tutor role of computer
a. English as Second language URL http://www.lang.uiuc.edu/r-li5/esl/index.htmEnglish
as a Second Language is a starting point for ESL learners who want to
learn English through the World Wide Web. This home page links to other
ESL sites and other interesting places. The variety of materials will
allow students to choose something appropriate for them. Basically this
site contains information and links to other ESL sites; however, there
are some exercises that allow students to interact with the computers
like puzzles. This site also contains large audio files. Copyright ©
1994, 1996, 1998 Rong-Chang Li
b. ESLoop URL http://www.tesol.net/esloop/esloop.htmlESLoop
is a collection of sites relevant to English Language Teaching and
Learning on the World-Wide Web. The ESLoop is run by a cgi-driven
system, kindly donated by Sage Weil of the Webring. ESLoop was begun in
1996 as a way to offer teachers and students of English a way to browse
the internet for resources specific to English language teaching and
learning
ESLoop sites are all relevant to English language teaching
and learning in some manner, from student projects and activities to
scholarly papers to English for Science and Technology and job
opportunities
c. Online English URL http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Olympus/9260/online.htmlOnline
English is an English course organised by Paolo Rossetti from YMCA
International College, Vancouver Canada. It is mainly conducted via
email between the students and the teacher as the webmaster. The
students will receive lessons via email regularly once a week. There
will be 52 lessons a year. The lessons will have exercises on useful
vocabulary, grammar, reading and listening comprehension and students
can access a Conferencing Center for discussions with other members. All
materials can be accessed from the Internet. Every lesson will be
different and be based on real English used on the Internet.
d. Native American Lore Index Page URL http://www.ilhawaii.net/~stony/loreindx.htmlThis
site is mainly to provide Reading exercises for ESL students. It
consists of several stories of Native American Indian Lore from several
Tribes across Turtle Island. The students may send their own stories to
the web site owner and put them online. There are over 100 stories
available here. While we read the stories, we can listen to background
music. Copy right 1996.
e. Advanced Composition for Non-Native Speakers of English URL http://www.homestead.com/esl_efl/index.htmlThis
website is for ESL/EFL students who want to learn to write well in
English for academic purposes. There are a lot of documents within these
pages; however, their organization is simple. First, there are a series
of articles that explain how to write effective essays. Second, there
are links to stories by professionals. Finally, there are many students'
essays, interesting from a multicultural perspective.
For
ESL/EFL teachers, this website contains "Advanced Composition" course
content. This site also contains a rationale for the use of portfolio
development within composition classes.
2. The tool role of computera. Poetry URL http://prominence.com/java/poetry/The
Magnetic Poetry Kit by Dave Kapell can be useful for anyone who is
interested in writing poems. Students/teachers can simply rearrange some
of the 300 words shown on the screen. There are suffixes, prefixes and
an extensive word list. They can play online by clicking and dragging or
they can print out the list of words to compose their own poem
off-line. Copyright © 1998 Prominence Dot Com, Inc
b. EXCHANGE URL http://deil.lang.uiuc.edu/exchange/EXCHANGE
stands for Electronic, Xross Cultural, Hypertextual Academy of
Non-native Gatherings in English. The goals of EXCHANGE are to provide
an opportunity for non-native English speakers to express themselves
through the use of English, to provide resources to enhance English
learning, and to create a unique source of knowledge and insight about
different cultures. To accomplish these goals, EXCHANGE publishes
writings of non-native English speakers from all over the world, and
provides English self-study materials. Two of activities of EXCHANGE are
Creative writing by individual and collaborative writers. And key-pals
to find friends all over the world, to share experiences while learning
English. Last updated Friday, April 30, 1999
c. Interactive JavaScript Quiz URL http://www.aitech.ac.jp/~iteslj/quizzes/js/Interactive
JavaScript Quiz is a collection of Quizzes maintained by Charles I.
Kelly, Aichi Institute of Technology, Toyota, Japan. These Quizzes are
written by ESL teachers around the world in the form of plain text &
then converted into JavaSricpt by Charles Kelly.
This site
consists of 100 quizzes, and each quiz contains 20 to 100 questions.
This site is mainly used to practice grammar, vocabulary and mechanic
writing. The grammar quiz covers regular/irregular verbs, preposition,
verb forms, question forms, sentence combining, modifiers, adverb often
confused, and the like. Similarly, the Vocabulary quiz covers,
antonym/synonym, homonym, word category, idiom with parts of body,
phrasal verbs, etc; while the quiz for mechanic writing covers like
punctuation & capitalization, and so on. There are many forms of
Quizzes. They are multiple choices and matching, completion, spelling,
hangman, shock wave, word cross puzzle, picture puzzle, etc. this site
also links to other ESL quiz links. Last Quiz Added: May 17, 1999
d. Randall ESL Cyber Listening Lab. URL http://www.esl-lab.com/index.htmThis
site is designed for both ESL/EFL students and teachers around the
world. Registered members can chat in several different rooms, create
their own unique profiles for others to look at, find pen friends via
the WebBoard, and more. Teachers can use the Chat Center as part of
classroom activities or as a means of communicating with other
educators. In this site you can also find audio file library which
stores various kinds of sounds. Copyright © 1998, 1999
e. CLTA Shocked Grammar URL http://www.clta.on.ca/hillsofmexico/shocked/homshocked01.htmCLTA
Shocked Grammar is one of CLTA services (CLTA stands for Centre for
Language Training and Assessment). CLTA Shocked Grammar is a list of
shockwave grammar games. There are 31 games here. They are suitable for
beginner students. Another similar games can found at
http://www.clta.on.ca/hillsofmexico/flash/homflash01.htm
3. The tutee role of computerI
hardly ever find web sites that represent what I mean by computer tutee
role framework where the student can take control the web site or
interface the program. So far, I found a web site that little represents
this category. It is concordancer Space Less URL
http://www.spaceless.com/concord/. In this site, the users can put their
materials as data source for concordance program. In addition, the
users can refer any other URL addresses as data source instead of what
concordancer Space Less has.
D. ConclusonThere
are abundant web sites available for ESL/EFL teachers or students
today. They are designed by teachers, students, programmers,
researchers, and other experts with different rationale and pedagogy.
What I am trying to do is to calcify them according to the programming
features, what computer can and cannot do. From my small-scale
observation, I found a huge number of web sites which function as tutor
and tool in language learning. In contrast, the tutee role of web site
is very scare. It might be due to that the tutee role of computer
programming is difficult to put online. Otherwise, the observation I
made should be expanded.
Classifying web sites according to the
tutor-tool-tutee framework of computer role is useful for ESL/EFL
teachers to help them decide easily and quickly the web sites that best
fit their philosophy of teaching among thousands of web sites available
on the web.
The future work can be directed to build up an ESL
online resource database which is based on the tutor-tool-tutee
framework of the computer role.
