[L544] CALL Software/Website Evaluation #1

L544 CALL Software/Website Evaluation #1

Spring 2014

Yoon-Kyoung Chae

Software/Website Title: EWE (Easy World of English)

Website URL: http://easyworldofenglish.com/readings/lReadings.aspx?c=2f1dbe126863ea88&l=8a8e34188c6d618a&ls=372e3b44d46a9c7d

Grade/Age Level: from secondary school students to adult learners

Language & Content:

1)   Intended purpose

Easy World of English (EWE) has been designed to help students and teachers alike. For students, this website can be a flexible online English language program that allows students to learn at their own pace, and there are extensive multi-level, reading, writing, grammar, and listening exercises to enable students to improve their English language skills. For teachers, this can be a resource to enable the students to further enhance their English language skills, and reading, writing and listening activities are developed for beginners, intermediate, and advanced English learners.
 

2)   Content

There are five main menus presented by different colored tab buttons at the top of the screen – Home, About Us, Locations, Our Mission, Contact Us. On the Home menu (or the first screen on the website), four submenus (four language goals; grammar, pronunciation, reading, and picture dictionary) are seen in the middle of the page for viewers to select what they want to learn. If viewers click each submenu, it goes into the multi-level contents of practices per each language goal. On About Us menu, it describes about the teachers and designers who developed this English learning online website. On Locations menu, it briefly shows the address of their off-line location, which can be inferred that there is an institution/organization that manages this learning website, or this website plays a role as a supplementary learning area for an off-line English language institution. On Our Mission menu, it addresses their intended purpose of creating this English learning website. It sets the interface of allowing users to send an email directly to contact with them on Contact Us menu. 

3)   External documents

There are no external documents included on this website. However, at the bottom of the first home page, there is a button that is connected to YouTube website for viewers to subscribe their YouTube channel. I thought they would keep updating or provide further exciting video clip resources through the YouTube channel. Unfortunately, when I clicked the button, it went to the YouTube but it said there’s no such a username. They probably deleted their YouTube channel or stopped updating there, but I think if they had kept their YouTube channel and updating the visual resources to support learners, which could have been a very great idea.

4)   Interesting?  Easy to use?

First of all, this English language learning website is absolutely free to users. There is a log-in box for viewers to join in the website, but I guess it is not necessary to do that in order to use the learning contents. Second, the layout of the website is so neat and well-organized that even visitors who came for the first time can catch the contents easily and quickly. But most of all, the greatest advantage of this learning website is abundant available/accessible learning resources to practice based on each proficiency level and each language skill (grammar, reading, pronunciation, vocabulary).

5)   Language goal(s)

The specified language goal of this website is extensive multi-level reading, writing, grammar, and listening exercises to improve learners’ English language skills. However, there is a slight gap between their intended purpose and actual practiced performance in that there is no lesson or practice for English writing on this website at all. Other than writing, it provides English language learners with abundant exercises for learner-own-paced learning of grammar, reading, listening, pronunciation, and vocabulary.

6)   Practice / Assessment / Feedback (with examples)

 I.      Grammar

Students would select their level and choose a lesson (per grammar topic) first, read the explanations carefully and listen to the examples by clicking on the orange speaker. Learners can practice their listening skills at the same time through this step. They would repeat this step (reading explanations and examples) as many times as needed. As an assessment, they would check their understanding by completing the lesson quizzes. It is recommended to repeat the quiz until their score is more than 80%. During the quizzes, it promptly shows the feedback about whether each answer learners just typed in or clicked on was ‘correct’ or ‘incorrect’. After completing the quiz, it shows the score result with accuracy percentage and notifies whether the learner passed (“Congratulations, you passed.”) or failed (“Sorry, you failed.”) based on the cut-off point of 80% accuracy. It is also possible to review the incorrect questions, with correct answers provided afterward. The examples of Grammar quizzes are as follows.

II.    Pronunciation

The pronunciation section is divided into several units – the Alphabet, Minimal pairs, Numbers, T&D sounds, Special endings (suffixes), and Verbs (regular, irregular, phrasal, two word verbs). Students first choose the section they want to practice, listen to the pronunciation, and repeat the sounds out loud as many times as deemed necessary. The audio files of pronunciation of every word sound very clear and correct. Regarding assessment and feedback, however, there is no quiz or quick test about students’ pronunciation product or their discrimination of correct sounds from wrong ones. The examples of Pronunciation practice materials are as follows.

III.      Readings

Reading section has been divided into three levels: Beginner, Intermediate and Upper-intermediate. Each level is composed of 20 readings that have been carefully selected so that students can become familiar with many common topics, phrases, expressions, and general vocabulary used in The United States. Learners first select their level and choose a lesson, listen to the story by clicking the picture on the player, and repeat step 2 as many times as needed. Vocabulary and expressions are provided with easy definition in English. Conversation activities that teachers can use as the follow-up class activity are also shown on the bottom. The guide of Reading section says students can complete quizzes A, B, and C as a quick test, but there is no button for quizzes there. Followings are some examples of Reading section.

  IV.     Picture Dictionary

The Picture Dictionary is composed of commonly used vocabulary words illustrated with pictures and accompanied by their pronunciation. The Picture Dictionary is divided into forty-seven themes, which have been carefully selected. These themes range from banking and money to transportation and nature. By providing both images and sounds, it might be able to facilitate the students’ vocabulary learning process. Students first select a section and choose a theme lesson. Next, they listen to the pronunciation and check spelling by clicking on every picture. It would improve learners’ pronunciation by repeating and memorizing the words as many times as needed. However, like Pronunciation and Reading section, there is no assessment or feedback for students to check their understanding and accuracy about their learning. The example screens of Picture Dictionary are as follows.

7)   Strengths

a.    Well-organized learning materials per each level and topic

-   Even first visitor of student can easily catch the content and structure of the website, and can find appropriately what they want to learn according to their proficiency level and various different topics.

b.    Provision of pronunciation audio file

-     All the learning materials proceed with audio files of pronunciation that are clean, correct, and accurate. Therefore, students are able to study as a combined or integrated approach, such as grammar with listening or reading with listening skills. It would be very effective especially for acoustic (auditory) type of learners who acquire new knowledge better with sounds.

c.     Various types of quizzes

-   Different types of quizzes are provided based on the learning topics. Four different types of quizzes presented are, 1) Typing whole answers (word-level or sentence-level), 2) Fill in the blank, 3) Matching, and 4) Multiple choice.

8)   Suggestions for Improvement

a.    More assessment needed

-     There are not many quizzes used as a tool of assessment and feedback on this website. Only grammar section offers some quizzes, and there are no quizzes at all in other sections. Website developers need to update the materials in terms of this, because their guide of this learning website mismatches with the contents – they mentioned students can check their understanding on the quizzes they provided, but no quizzes were there on Reading, Pronunciation, and Vocabulary section. In Grammar quizzes, in addition, they can enrich the number of sets of quiz so that the students can check their learning in various contexts.

b.    Practice exercise during explanation lecture

-     While students are taking a look at the explanation materials to get the point about the topics, it might be better to be provided quick short practice exercises for them. If they got wrong, they can repeat that part again in particular and have a clear understanding about it before they jump into a quiz of the topic as a whole.

c.     More items for advanced level learners

-   This learning website might be a bit easy for the advanced learners. For instance, considering the contents of Reading section, it offers three levels of Beginner, Intermediate, and Upper Intermediate. Vocabulary section (Picture Dictionary) also provides basic English words. More contents are needed to develop for advanced-level learners if they wish this website could be used by more English language learners online.

d.    Utilization of YouTube channel

-   There is a button on the bottom of the first page that says ‘Subscribe on YouTube’. When I clicked it, it says YouTube cannot find the user. I guess they probably tried to use YouTube channel as a supplementary tool, but they stopped it now. It could be a great communication path to use YouTube channel as a way of providing new (video) lesson, giving feedback (e.g. frequent Q&A), or offering abundant video resources for students to practice in real-life contexts.

[L544] Reflection #2 (Web 2.0 & Social Media)

Hi, everyone. I'm sorry not to catch up with everyone in L599 CALLer's blogs so far.
I've been so busy and also a little sick since the second week of the semester, but now I'm on the good condition and come back to normal daily life.
In my blog, I'd like to share not only my L599 reflections but also some useful teaching materials with technology I've been collecting on my Facebook private page. Please feel free to give me any comments or share with your ideas, materials, or whatever you want! :)
Also, I'm happy to be everyone's FB friend and share our educational/social lives. :)
https://www.facebook.com/rachel.y.chae

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• Prichard, C. (2013). Using Social Networking Sites as a Platform for Second Language Instruction. TESOL Journal 4(4), 752-758.
• Terantino, J. M. (2011). Emerging Technologies YouTube for Foreign Language: You Have To See This Video. Language Learning and Technology, 15, 10-16.

While reading all the articles for this week, it made me reconsider my target language learners’ ascribed environment. In these articles, both authors clarify about our potential target language learners first. Prichard (2013) portrays the contemporary language learners as Net Generation  (p.754), and the term is equivalent to the concept of Digital Natives from Terantino’s (2011, p.10-11) – people who have grown up with digital technology and have been socializing on the net or through text messaging. Taken as a whole, not merely from educational perspective, using technology how smartly, wisely, and effectively in each domain would change a quality of person’s life in this era of flooding of technologies and information.

In the Web 2.0 interface, language learners’ posting or publishing in the net community is a meaningful and authentic activity with meaningful purpose than traditional classroom activity, which motivates learners’ interest and satisfaction with their own ownership about the product they created by themselves. In this way, especially Social Networking Sites such as Facebook could be a space not only to hang out socially online but also to do academic or even any fields of performances. As an educator, we should strive to make the best use of SNSs in an educational way. Some might disagree with integrating SNS in language class because of its distractions and unsecured setting. However, potential merits of using SNS in language class would be abundant enough to put aside these concerns. Terantino (2011) points out that students would be learning without initially realizing that they were learning in this alive online world, and foreign language students may be temporarily distracted by various YouTube video clips but they will gain real linguistic knowledge and skills at the same time (p.11-12).

With this unlimited access to instructional videos, articles, and posting in the Web 2.0, settings for language learning are expanded with regard to learning materials, types of class assignments, or even possible peers to interact with. On the Web 2.0 technologies, two-way communication is very easy and active to be done, and public in online community could play a role as another agent in students’ language learning, rather than just teacher-student or student-student relationships in typical classroom-based language class. In other words, public in online community could be language learners’ audience, unofficial teacher, friend, commenter, critic, or supporter. Among these public, even learners’ family members or friends could join and support their learning, not just by one language teacher.

As an example of using SNS I’ve seen, some instructors of Korean language courses at IU use Facebook as one of the required course assignments. Regular FB posting is students’ weekly assignment, and the postings should be about status posting, making comments to other’s posting, uploading some video clips or articles and writing a review in Korean language. All the class members including instructors share and discuss their product on FB as well as practicing in face-to-face classroom. It seemed really great especially for young undergraduate students who are the very net generation or digital natives.

Another example I myself can think of is Language Exchange group program. Two foreign language classes from different countries, let’s say, English class in Korea and Korean class in the U.S., could do a collaborative work on Facebook group page. Their target learning language is each other’s native language, so teachers can use the ability of both L1 and L2 of all the learners from two different language classes. Korean learners will do the postings in English and American students will make comments or give feedback on them, and vice versa. This collaborative language group work not only enhances student-centered learning but also induces their interests in foreign language learning by socializing among themselves in an entertaining SNS community.

As a closing, I’d like to share a great Google Drive tool for taking notes while watching videos. Its name is VideoNotes, and you can sneak a peek on this video clip. I hope everyone likes this and apply in your teaching. :)

 

[Edu] The modern Taxonomy Wheel

[Edu] 25 Important Skills for 21st Century Students

[L544] Reflection #1 (CALL Overview)

• Hubbard, P. (2009). General Introduction. In Hubbard, P. (Ed.), Computer Assisted Language Learning (pp.1-20). London: Routledge

• Levy, M. (2009). Technologies in Use for Second Language Learning. The Modern Language Journal, 93, 769-782.

I’d like to point out first about two practical CALL applications mentioned in the articles. Hubbard (2009) briefly introduced Google Docs free online suite for collaborative writing (p.8). I’m personally in favor of doing collaborative work in learning or working something new, and using Google Docs in L2 (second language) writing class was one of my paper topics before. There are a number of advantages in this, such as writing/editing by multiple users at the same time, planning/discussing/editing together within the document, or learning reciprocally from each other’s mistakes and errors. This would be a great CALL application for writing project group assignment, but meanwhile there also would be an issue of assessment for individual contribution in collaborative writing process, or to what extent the instructor would intervene or give feedback to them. The other CALL application I’d like to discuss more about is Second Life (Levy, 2009, p.777). I took a sneak peek at Second Life when I took my master course (something related to technology) in 2009. It was pretty long time ago and must have been developed a lot compared to nowadays, but to me it did not seem appropriate for language learning because there were so many distractions in that virtual space. Some people were just hanging out there and doing awkward things to others misusing its environment of virtual space and anonymity.

Thus, seeing the two examples of CALL applications, I would say that language teachers should prepare the educational settings before applying those applications in their language class. The technology and application should be integrated to set up an effective curriculum for language learners. And like mentioned before, to what degree the instructor would intervene in learners’ interaction on the online/virtual space would be an issue while maximizing learners’ autonomy and self-motivation.

In terms of setting up an effective curriculum with technology in language class, teacher education and professional development for CALL should be a prerequisite to a successful CALL design. In particular, Hubbard (2009) cited that pre-service training for CALL is presently sporadic, with the majority of teacher candidates still receiving little or no formal preparation (Kessler, 2006). The language teacher’s attitude towards using technology in class would definitely influence on learners’ conceptualization about combining technology in their language learning, and teacher’s positive attitude comes from their efforts to utilize appropriate technologies in the proper language learning contents and to keep up-to-date on the changes/improvements/trends of technologies. Levy (2009) also mentioned about the need of learners’ training for the technology; when learning technologies are introduced to students, learner training is essential because the default position of users is different from that of learners (p.778). Therefore, training for both language teacher and language learners would be necessary for effective and successful technology-integrated language learning and teaching.