A. Introduction
When 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. Background
1. The conflict
New 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 Framework
I 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:
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:
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.htm
English 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.html
ESLoop 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.html
Online 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.html
This 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.html
This 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 computer
a. 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.htm
This 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.htm
CLTA 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 computer
I 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. Concluson
There 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.
When 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. Background
1. The conflict
New 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 Framework
I 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)
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.
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.htm
English 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.html
ESLoop 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.html
Online 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.html
This 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.html
This 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 computer
a. 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.htm
This 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.htm
CLTA 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 computer
I 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. Concluson
There 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.
