Computer technology: A magic bullet for language education

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Computer technology A magic bullet for language
education?
Thomas Robb Kyoto Sangyo University
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Magic bullet concordance
from the Cobuild Corpus
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CANCER Using antibodie n Action. A magic bullet
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magic bullet" technique in which poisons are
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laboratory at le who gives a magic bullet when
it's so cool-headed, so gri so-called magic
bullet" hit the American market just tw nds on
the magic bullet" Viagra, which has become the
mo - said the magic bullet" medication has made
him feel li behind the magic bullet" impotency
cure, have risen from
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Advantages of Computer Enhanced Learning

• Students can study whenever they want to

• They can study what they want/need to study

• They can study at their own pace

• They can repeat items as needed until fully
  mastered

• CALL can be motivating (when it works well)

• It may suit the learning styles of some students,
  complementing what is presented in the classroom

• Through the Internet, students can engage in real
  interaction and communication

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Tutor
Tool
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Computer as Tutor

• the student simply works carefully through
  material presented by a pre-determined syllabus

• presents new material in a way that the student
  can understand,

• allows the student to practice the new
  concept(s), and

• finally assesses how well we have mastered it.

• It reviews areas where the student has made
  mistakes and slowly progresses through the
  syllabus in measured steps.

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Some Web Pages for Language Practice
http//www.btinternet.com/ted.power/rp0740.html
http//www.smic.be/smic5022/passive1.htm
http//www.gsu.edu/eslhpb/aegweb/exercises/x11/x1
1-4.htm
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Oxford Passport Online
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Computer as Tool
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The Tool

• Word Processing

• Communication

• E-mail

• Synchronous talk (text or audio/video)

• cAccess to information

• Intra-class coordination and communication

Content courses via distance learning
Projects
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What tarnishes the bullet
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Problems

• Boring, ineffective practice materials

• Limited access to computers

• Slow adoption of technology by staff

• Non-accessed self-access centers

• Access and usage often not monitored or logged

• Slow access speeds

• Maintenance problems

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Boring, ineffective practice materials

• Have students try out software BEFORE you
  purchase it, and not with the demo disk

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Limited access to computers

• Don't force the students to go to the Internet,
  bring the Internet to your students.

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Bringing the Internet to your students

• Find articles relevant to the topics you are
  currently studying.
• Simplify the language and prepare activities
  around it.

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Bringing the Internet to your students

• Searching for useful material
• Moving the material to your word processor
• Adapting the material
• Adjusting the language level
• Creating an activity with it

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Searching for Useful Material

• Lists of links
• Lists for ESL/EFL learners
• Lists for native-speaker children
• General lists
• See http//www.kyoto-su.ac.jp/trobb/read/main.ht
  ml
• http//www.kyoto-su.ac.jp/trobb/content.h
  tml
• Search engines
• www.google.com -- the current king

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Moving the material to your word processor

• Using the file/save as text menu item
• Copying pasting (easier with Explorer)
• Grabbing graphics
• Slide to the desktop
• Copy paste
• Taking a screen shot
• Printing out use real scissors paste

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Adapting the material

• Adjusting the language level
• Replacing lexical items with easier ones
• Simplifying the grammar
• Shortening the passage
• Eliminating difficult or irrelevant sections

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Creating an activity with it

• Types of activities
• Traditional comprehension questions
• Find where it talks about
• Cloze exercise
• Scrambled paragraphs
• See http//www.kyoto-su.ac.jp/trobb/activtypes.h
  tml

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Another approach - preset lesson plans

• Springboard Site (Oxford Univ. Press)
• Site contains lesson plans to go along over 100
  sites, divided into 24 common topics such as
  traveling, dating, food, etc.
• See http//www1.oup.com/elt/springboard

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Slow access speeds

• A 'proxy server', can automatically keep local
  copies of recently accessed pages.
• Keep a local copy of the web page itself

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Slow adoption of technology by staff

• Offer to set up material to be used by all
  classes at a particular level in your school.

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Maintenance problems

• Invest in software which will automatically
  refresh local hard disks from a 'model hard disk'
  on the server. Lock down critical files on the
  client machines so that it cannot be altered.

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Non-accessed self-access centers

• 1. Require that the students use the self-access
  center to complete assignments

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Modes of Computer Lab Access

• Voluntary self-access

• Guided self-access

• Required self-access

• Access as a class unit

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Non-accessed self-access centers

• 2. Be sure that you have some method of tracking
  student usage

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Methods for Tracking Usage

• A built-in login and tracking system
• Follow-up material in the classroom, which can't
  be properly done if the student hasn't done the
  self-access work
• Quizzes on the self-access work in class.

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Future Trends
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Future Trends

• An increasingly large proportion of usage will be
  in the tools category.

• We will see more use of the target language for
  communication between students, between students
  and teacher, and between students and the real
  world.

• We will see better tutor software with
  tracking features.

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