Abstracts of the ITMELT2001 Conference

Abstract of the Plenary of Professor Martha C. Pennington.
E-mail: martha.pennington@luton.ac.uk
Institution: Language Research Centre, University of Luton.

Innovation and Synergy in IT and ELT

The marriage of information technology [IT] and English language teaching [ELT] is in one sense a natural partnership but in another sense an unnatural or uneasy alliance. It is a natural partnership in that

IT expands informational resources and tools for language teaching, and

the spread of IT and the English language are largely interlinked phenomena.

It is on the other hand an unnatural or uneasy alliance in that

there are some potential areas of conflict between ELT and IT, and
the field of ELT - and education in general - is more conservative and slower to change than IT.

A framework for viewing developments in IT and ELT is presented as an elaborated model of the adoption of innovations.

Cycles of Innovation in IT

Professor Martha C. Pennington
E-mail: martha.pennington@luton.ac.uk
Institution: Language Research Centre, University of Luton.

Abstract:
The Innovation Adoption process described by Rogers (1995) is the basis for the presenter's original model of how innovations evolve in relation to their contexts, as applied to IT. The process involves a series of three cycles through which the innovation is developed and disseminated. Through this evolutionary process, both the innovation and the context are changed. The presentation picks up on some themes introduced in the presenter's plenary address and includes some speculation on the future of IT in relation to literacy, language learning, and language teaching.

Abstract of the Plenary Paper by Professor Amy Tsui,
E-mail: bmtsui@hkucc.hku.hk
Institution: Department of Curriculum Studies, Hong Kong University.

Maximizing the Potential of Computer-mediated Communications as a Collaborative Learning Environment for ESL Teachers

In this presentation, I shall explore computer conferencing as a collaborative learning environment. Many researchers have pointed out the potential of computer-mediated communications (CMC) for collaboration and for bringing about quality interactions because of its lack of physical and emotional cues. However, in practice, not all computer conferences can realize that potential. It has been pointed out that computer networks are socio-technical systems that need to be carefully managed both in its socio-psychological dimension as well as its knowledge building dimension. This presentation investigates the socio-psychological factors which mediated the interactions amongst ESL teachers on TeleNex, a computer network set up for English teachers in Hong Kong schools, and how pedagogical and content knowledge about English language teaching and learning were constructed by these teachers through the interactions.

Click here for the full paper.

Brown, Ian
E-mail: ianb@acl.edu.au

Muddled Methodology - CALL in the classroom is not always communicative but it can be. (Paper)

The use of CALL is rapidly expanding and teachers are finding themselves compelled to use computers often with minimal training or support. This pressure to use CALL can often lead to less than optimal use with some teachers perfectly at home in their classroom becoming lost in the CALL lab. A tendency can arise to rely too much on the technology and to think of the use of CALL as a separate entity to that of the classroom. Different principles are applied to teaching in CALL labs than would be used in the classroom, resulting in activities better suited for self access than today's communicative classroom.

This paper aims to point out how using computers is no different to using whiteboards, OHPs and cassette players and that the same communicative methodology used in the classroom can and should be applied when using CALL. Successful CALL is built on integration to the curriculum with proficient guidance from teachers that can provide many advantages for communicative teaching. Along with a theoretic underpinning, practical examples and ideas for using CALL in a communicative manner will be provided opening teachers to the wide potential of this powerful new medium to complement, rather than conflict, with their classroom teaching.

Biodata:
Ian Brown (Grad. Dip Ed TESOL, Master of Ed TESOL) is currently a multimedia centre teacher at the Australian Centre of Languages in Sydney where he coordinates CALL programs for teachers and students at his centre and pursues his interests in CALL materials development and teacher training. His teaching background spans over ten years with experience teaching both EFL in Japan and ESL in Australia.

Click here for the Powerpoint Presentation and here for the web sites references.

Institution:
International Programs
Australian Centre of Languages
157-161 Gloucester St
The Rocks
Sydney NSW 2000
Australia
Tel 612 92523788
Fax 612 92523799

Brown, Ian
E-mail: ianb@acl.edu.au

News, Weather, Movies and Recipes; A workshop on Web activities to integrate to the classroom. (Workshop)

This workshop will go through procedures for using the WWW as a tool for communicative English teaching. The activities build on a number of language skills and can be adapted for different levels. All activities include pre and/or post classroom lessons, demonstrating how CALL can be integrated into classroom study. The lessons will revolve around the commonly used classroom themes of newspaper reports, weather forecasts, movie reviews and recipes, all of which are also commonly found web subjects on the Internet.

Workshop files: Movies Lesson | Newspaper Lesson | Recipes Lesson | Weather Lesson | General.doc

Institution:
International Programs
Australian Centre of Languages
157-161 Gloucester St
The Rocks
Sydney NSW 2000
Australia
Tel 612 92523788
Fax 612 92523799

Jasper, Mark
Institution: The British Council, Italy
E-mail: mark.jasper@britishcouncil.it

Creating and Evaluating Web based Lessons (Workshop)

The workshop aims to provide participants with a solid foundation upon which they can produce pedagogically sound web-based lessons.

This aim will be achieved by presenting a simple procedure for evaluating web based lessons against a set of participant agreed criteria. Participants will then have an opportunity to produce a lesson plan which integrates the World Wide Web into language learning.

By the end of the workshop, participants will additionally have evaluated a number of Web based lessons, discussed how it might be possible for recommended websites to provide a regular source of materials for English language learning, and exchanged ideas as to their usefulness.

Biodata:
I am presently half way through a two year contract as a trainer for the British Council in Ho Chi Minh City. I am the ICT co-ordinator for the British Council in Vietnam. I've previously worked in Turkey and Japan.

Institution: The British Council, Italy
The British Council
Via Manzoni, 38
Milan 20121
Italy
Fax. ++ 39 02 78 11 19
http://www.britishcouncil.it
http://www.ukinitalia.it
E-mail: mark.jasper@britishcouncil.it

Singhal, Meena
Long Beach Community College, Calgary, Canada
E-mail: meena_singhal@yahoo.com

CALL for Reading Skills in English: An Interactive Web Program for College-Level ESL Students

The paper reports on an investigation of the effectiveness of a Web-Based Reading Instruction Program to teach reading strategies to college-level ESL students. In particular, this study examined how such a program may help ESL students learn and practice reading strategies, and develop the academic reading skills, as well as the necessary skills to interpret literary works they are exposed to in their freshman composition courses, in order to improve their overall reading comprehension, strategy use, and reading efficiency. The paper also explores the potentials and limitations of using a web-based program for teaching reading strategies.

The subjects of this study were adult ESL university learners enrolled in a freshman composition course at the University of Arizona. The results of the Nelson-Denny Standardized Reading Test and the Reading Comprehension Tasks, used to measure students overall reading comprehension or reading proficiency, show significant differences before and after instruction. Significant differences were also found between pre- and post-treatment measures of the scores on the Reading Strategy Inventory indicating that as reading comprehension improved, strategy use was also affected in that students perceived themselves as using strategies more frequently following strategy instruction. Significant differences were found in the cognitive, memory, and affective areas of reading strategies.

Click here for the full paper.

Biodata:
Dr. Meena Singhal currently teaches at Long Beach Community College (ESL/Reading/English). She has taught English in both United States (The University of Arizona) and Canada. Her research interests include CALL and Reading Instruction and Web-Based Literacy Instruction. Dr. Singhal has published in both of these areas.

Institution: Long Beach Community College
Postal Address: 247 Hampshire Close NW
Calgary, Alberta T3A 4X9 Canada
Fax Number: (403)241-9460
URL: http://www.lbcc.cc.ca.us/index.shtml

Wong, John
English Language Centre, City University of Hong Kong
E-mail: eljohnw@uxmail.cityu.edu.hk

From consumption to contribution: a change in roles for teachers and learners on the web

When the web began to draw attention a few years ago, language professionals started to create webpages for learners' and colleagues' use. The main theme of most, if not all, of these sites was, and remains, the provision of free learning materials for users' consumption. However, as more technologies are developed, it becomes increasingly possible for users to not just consume, but also contribute, materials. Under structured guidance, users can add content by just entering text in slots provided on the websites. It is believed that more effective learning takes place on the web if learners are involved in the creation process and if they take up the responsibility for learning themselves.

This paper describes the rationale and setting-up of a Hong Kong University Grants Commission funded teaching development project that employs Common Gateway Interface (CGI), Java applets, and Java Server Pages (JSP) technologies to provide users with different levels of access rights and associated interfaces to add content to a website. The available services on the site include a CGI generated bulletin board system, a Java applet multiple-choice generator, a JSP generated interactive vocabulary database, and an essay sharing system.

Biodata:
I am a lecturer at the English Language Centre of the City University of Hong Kong. My research interest is computers in education. In the past six years, besides teaching, my main responsibility is to design, develop and maintain my department's website.

Institution: City University of Hong Kong
Postal Address: English Language Centre,
City University of Hong Kong,
Tat Chee Avenue, Kowloon Tong, Kowloon
Hong Kong
Fax Number: 27888234
URL: http://www.cityu.edu.hk/elc

Prescott, David L.
Institution: Universiti Brunei Darussalam
E-mail: prescott@ppl.brunet.bn

Developing evaluation frameworks for CALL software and English language websites with pre-service English language teachers

This paper describes a course for pre-service English language teachers, which takes as its starting point theories of learning based on work by Levy (1997) and Jones & Mercer (1993). The student teachers begin their considerations of the material in the course from the perspectives of pertinent theories of learning; behaviourism, constructivism and socio-cultural theory derived from the work of Vygotsky (1978). The paper describes the students’ cooperative exploration and assessment of English language software, their development of evaluation instruments and their reflective evaluation of the application and utility of the instruments. The paper also describes student work with respect to English language websites as resources for teachers and students. In this case the student teachers work individually to construct evaluation instruments and assess the websites. Again they evaluate the application and utility of the instruments. The paper also explains how the assessment and evaluation of the software and the websites is conducted in the contexts of the theories of learning with which the course commences and how the software and website tasks are structured in order to reflect features of these learning theories.

Materials: Full paper | PowerPoint Presentation | Handout

Biodata:
Dr David Lochmohr Prescott is Senior Lecturer in the Department of English Language and Applied Linguistics at Universiti Brunei Darussalam. He has taught English and trained EL teachers in New Zealand, Australia and Southeast Asia . His particular interest in the use of ICT resources for English language teachers in Southeast Asia has included work in helping teachers adapt foreign, innovative concepts for local realities.

Institution: Universiti Brunei Darussalam
Postal Address: PO Box 422
Pusat Memproses Mel
Airport Lama
Berakas BB3577
Brunei
Fax Number: 673 2 344338
URL: http://www.ubd.edu.bn/

Greaves, Chris
English Language Centre, Hong Kong Polytechnic University
E-mail: ecchgr@polyu.edu.hk

Resource-Assisted Learning: a vocabulary on-demand model for WWW online learning.

Resource-assisted learning is a strategy and model for virtual learning via the WWW which involves the integration of vocabulary, concordancing, dictionary reference and multimedia to provide on-demand support for the learner. The inspiration for this model is the experience of using both concordancing and electronic dictionaries to enhance vocabulary learning when combined with various CALL and reading activities.

This paper describes techniques and strategies involved in implementing this model, with particular reference to integrating text, sound and audio streaming, dictionary lookups and concordance searches for vocabulary learning. Ways for applying this model in developing subject-specific language support for ESL students who are studying degree programmes through the medium of English are described. Text-to-Speech support for this model is also discussed.

Biodata:
Chris Greaves has an MA in Applied Linguistics and an MSc in Computer Science. He has previously taught in Sweden, Japan, Brunei & Malaysia. Research interests are computers in education & research, corpus linguistics, and the presentation of teaching & learning materials via the internet. He is an Assistant Professor in the English Language Centre of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University.

English Language Centre
Hong Kong Polytechnic University
Kowloon
Hong Kong
URL: http://elc.polyu.edu.hk , http://vlc.polyu.edu.hk

Stokes, Andrew (Director: Clarity Language Consultants) & Kathy Borden
E-mail: andrew@clarity.com.hk

Practical ideas to make your ELT programs work hard for you!

Many teachers are reluctant to use the software the school has bought because they have no experience of using information technology in front of their students. Common fears include the software going wrong, and a lack of confidence in teaching techniques for lessons incorporating software. In this workshop we will look at practical classroom techniques for making your English language teaching software programs a success with your students. We will look at a range of popular programs and at different classroom set-ups, from the one-computer classroom to the multimedia lab.

Biodata:
Andrew Stokes, MA, graduated in Modern Languages from Cambridge University. He went on to teach in secondary and higher education in the UK, Spain and Malaysia. Andrew has presented papers in many countries and has written extensively for the ELT press. In 1992 he co-founded Clarity Language Consultants as Editorial Director.

Ms Katherine Borden received her degree from Stanford University with honours in education and then began teaching overseas. She taught English in Japan, Korea and Hong Kong before eventually joining Clarity Language Consultants full time to focus on Computer Assisted Language Learning. Within Clarity, Ms. Borden develops and conducts training courses on effectively integrating language software into classroom teaching and designing your own customised assessments.

Institution: Clarity Language Consultants Ltd
Postal Address: PO Box 163,
Sai Kung, NT
Hong Kong
Tel: +852 2791 1787
Fax: +852 2791 6484
E-mail: kath@clarity.com.hk
URL: http://www.clarity.com.hk/

Katherine Borden & Cozens, Philip: (Clarity Language Consultants)

Create your own computer-based lessons - incredibly fast!

Many teachers would like to create IT-based materials for their students but feel they do not know enough about programming or simply don’t have the time. In this session we will look at three authoring programs which enable them to create topical, interactive materials specifically designed for their students, in a matter of minutes. Participants can use this session to build your IT confidence!

The three programs we will look at are:

Author Plus for network based materials
Perception for the web
MindGame to create a game.

Biodata:
Ms Katherine Borden received her degree from Stanford University with honours in education and then began teaching overseas. She taught English in Japan, Korea and Hong Kong before eventually joining Clarity Language Consultants full time to focus on Computer Assisted Language Learning. Within Clarity, Ms. Borden develops and conducts training courses on effectively integrating language software into classroom teaching and designing your own customised assessments.

Institution: Clarity Language Consultants Ltd
Postal Address: PO Box 163,
Sai Kung, NT
Hong Kong
Tel: +852 2791 1787
Fax: +852 2791 6484
E-mail: kath@clarity.com.hk
URL: http://www.clarity.com.hk/

Chen, Hao-Jan Howard
National Taiwan Ocean University
E-mail: b0240@mail.ntou.edu.tw

Evaluating Five Speech Recognition Programs for ESL Learners

Since the Joint College Entrance Examination in Taiwan only assesses students’ English reading and writing abilities, college students often find that they do not have an adequate command of English listening and speaking skills. Many CALL products have adopted speech recognition technology. Most programs with speech recognition capacities claim that they can enhance both listening and speaking abilities. However, there are few empirical studies testing the quality of these programs. Thus, the effectiveness of these programs should be assessed before teachers or students adopt them.

This paper examines five software packages featuring speech recognition technologies, including TRACI Talk (CPI), Talk to Me (Auralog), Just Talk SOHO (Sohomedia), Caroline in the City (CDSOFT), and CNN Interactive English (Hebron Soft). The functions and features of each program are identified then examined with reference to a set of CD-ROM evaluation criteria recommended by Chapelle (1998). Based on a thorough comparison of these CD-ROM titles, the possible contributions, limitations, and potentials of speech recognition technologies in language learning are discussed in detail.

Click here for the full paper.

Biodata:
Hao-Jan Howard Chen (Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania) is an associate professor at National Taiwan Ocean University. He teaches Freshman English, English Writing, and Computer-Assisted Language Learning. His research interests include Second Language Acquisition, Computer-assisted Language Leaning, and Corpus Linguistics.

Institution: National Taiwan Ocean University
Postal Address: 1F, 32, LN 194, Sung-Kiang RD.
Taipei City,
Taiwan
Fax Number: 02-2562-6967
URL: http://ntouvlc.ntou.edu.tw

Gao Zhao-Ming
Institution: Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures, National Taiwan University
E-mail: zmgao@ccms.ntu.edu.tw

A Pattern Retrieval Program for Exploring Corpus-Based English Phraseology

Data-driven Language Learning has been advocated by many scholars in the CALL community as one of the most promising approaches to language learning. By using a concordancer, language learners can explore the usage of a word in a large collection of authentic texts. Unfortunately, the limited functions of concordancers prevent users from making the best use of corpora. An obvious shortcoming of existing concordancers is that they can only handle word-based search. It is very inefficient for learners to use a concordancer to find verb patterns, grammar patterns, and collocations, because they have to inspect hundreds or even thousands of unorganized and irrelevant data. What they need is a tool which can facilitate the retrieval of patterns. This tool should allow learners to input not only words but also syntactic information. For example, if learners want to know which adjectives can modify the word spirit, they can input ADJ spirit; If they want to know what verbs and adjectives can appear in the empty expletive construction, they can input the query It V that and It is ADJ that. The program can then retrieve relevant example sentences. We will discuss how this tool is designed and how it can help learners of English to learn English phraseology.

Biodata:
Dr. Zhao-Ming Gao received his Ph.D. in Language Engineering at UMIST in U.K. and is now Assistant Professor of the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures at National Taiwan University.

No. 1, Section 4, Rosevelt Road
Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures
National Taiwan University
Taipei 106, Taiwan
URL: http://www.ntu.edu.tw

Ng, Peggy & Burton, Pauline
Institution: The City University of Hong Kong
E-mails: Peggy Ng Lau Bick Mun LSPEGGYN@cityu.edu.hk & Pauline Burton LSPMB@cityu.edu.hk

Developing Language Awareness through Concordancing: Action Research and Materials Development for First-year University Students in Hong Kong

This paper reports the implementation, evaluation and findings of an action research project in which concordancing was used by first-year students on the Higher Diploma in English for Professional Communication at the City University of Hong Kong with the aim of developing their awareness of lexico-grammatical patterning in authentic text.

Students were first introduced to the applications of concordancing. They then traced themes in a sample corpus of four weeks’ letters to a Hong Kong English-language newspaper, using concordancing software to examine key words in context. Students later used concordancing to check collocation and grammatical patterns of words in context during the editing stage of their writing cycle.

We conclude that classroom concordancing can play an important role in developing students' awareness of language and argue, therefore, that it deserves to be implemented more widely now that improvements in software, computer access, and students’ computer literacy, have eliminated technical difficulties.

Biodata:
Peggy Ng is a Senior Lecturer in the Division of Language Studies, City University of Hong Kong. Her research interests have included teacher beliefs, peer feedback in process writing and generative genre as a learning approach. Her current doctoral research (Bristol University) is on collaborative writing and dialogic inquiry.

Pauline Burton is a Senior Lecturer in the Division of Language Studies, City University of Hong Kong. Her M.A. dissertation (Birmingham University) was on concordance analysis of Hong Kong news stories. She is working on a PhD at Luton University on creativity and teacher development in Hong Kong secondary schools.

Lee, K.C.
E-mail: elcleekc@nus.edu.sg
Institution: Centre for English Language Communication, National University of Singapore

Selecting and Integrating CALL Software Programs into the EFL Classroom

With a wide range of commercial software programs available to language teachers, selecting those that best suit the needs of the students has become a challenging task, especially for language teachers who are unfamiliar with the implementation of CALL in the classroom. Once CALL software has been selected, language teachers have to integrate it into the existing curriculum. Successful integration requires that the language teachers have 1) a certain level of competency in the use of computers, 2) an understanding of the dynamics of a CALL classroom, and 3) a strong commitment to the continuous use of CALL in the language classroom. This paper emphasizes the close relationship between the selection criteria and the way(s) in which software is to be integrated into the EFL classroom. In addition, this paper proposes a self-check survey for language teachers to determine their readiness to integrate CALL software into their classrooms.

Click here for the full paper.

Biodata:
KC Lee is a lecturer at the Centre for English Language Communication, National University of Singapore. Her interest in CALL started about 6 years ago when she assisted in the setting up of the multimedia language lab at the language centre where she was teaching. Her other research interests are second language writing and learning strategies.

Institution: Centre for English Language Communication, National University of Singapore
Centre for English Language Communication
National University of Singapore
Block AS4, #03-33
10, Kent Ridge Crescent
Singapore 119260
Fax Number: (65) 777 9152
URL: http://www.nus.sg/NUSinfo/CELC

ppt doc

Sima Sengupta
E-mail address: egsima@polyu.edu.hk
The Hong Kong Polytechnic University

Community formation through partially web-based classrooms

Within the social constructionist theoretical framework every classroom is a learning community a gathering of like-minded people exchanging information that is important to them. A classroom, however, does not become a community just because a group of people meet regularly or use the web to teach and learn it becomes a community when there is dialogic exchange (Laurillard, 2000). The purpose of this paper is to discuss, with data from four partially-web based classes, how technology can complement a regular classroom and provide a platform for classroom teachers to work towards building a community in which dialogue about the teaching and learning experience takes centre stage. Data were gathered from four courses that had partially web-based elements where undergraduate students completed web tasks, posted and responded to learning log entries, and participated in web-based bulletin board discussions of issues related to the specific courses. Through an analysis of the discourse of the web classroom, the course documents and student interviews, the paper demonstrates the process through which classroom communities were built and sustained. It is argued that although the web provides a foundation for dialogic interaction, its success depends on the ways in which pedagogy is conceptualized.

Ref:
Laurillard, D. (2000) New technologies, students and the curriculum: The impact of communication and information technology on higher education. In Scott, P. (ed.) Higher education re-formed (133-153). London: Falmer Press.

Biodata:
Sima Sengupta teaches English language at the Department of English, in the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Her research interests lie in literacy development and teacher education.

Sima SENGUPTA (Dr.)
Assistant Professor
Department of English
The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
Hung Hom
Hong Kong SAR
Fax Number: 23336569

Cobb, Tom & Horst, Marlise
cobb.tom@uqam.ca

Growing Academic Vocabulary with a Collaborative Online Database

A problem facing students preparing for university study in English is an inadequate command of vocabulary. One reason is that few language courses attempt to introduce learners systematically to vocabulary beyond the first 1000 most frequent words. And yet research shows that a minimal basis for academic text comprehension is more like 3500 words, broken down into the first 2000 words by frequency, a further 700 "academic" words that appear in discourse across subject domains, followed by the few hundred items that characterize individual domains (economics, law, medicine, etc). This minimal yet nonetheless daunting learning task has typically been left to chance, with vague support from the "learning words by guessing" theories of the 1970s. But recent research has cast doubt on the scope and quality of learning that is likely to take place incidentally. In our presentation, we describe an experimental course run in Canada, with mainly Chinese and French-Canadian students, which uses a collaborative online database concept and technology to provide rapid yet systematic coverage of three levels of vocabulary: academic vocabulary, general vocabulary as appears in quality newspapers, and vocabulary by learners' domains of study. The presentation will also include pre-post and other empirical results of the experiment. Initial indications are that collaboration and technology are a powerful combination that can cope with large-scale learning tasks once considered beyond the realm of instruction.

Click here for the full paper.

Biodata:
Thomas Cobb is a professor of TESL at the University of Quebec in Montreal. He taught English for Specific Purposes in Saudi Arabia, the Sultanate of Oman, and Hong Kong before returning to do a Ph.D. in educational technology at Concordia University in Canada. His research mainly concerns the use of computers for vocabulary acquisition.

Han Yang
E-mail: yhan@ouhk.edu.hk
The Open University of Hong Kong

A Subject-specific Glossary-assisted Model for Open and Distance Learning

The concept of subject-specific-glossary-assisted open and distance learning is derived from existing ‘vocabulary-based’ learning methodologies such as that which is implemented in the Virtual Language Centre (VLC) website at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, which is an integration of vocabulary, lexicon, concordancing and multimedia to provide a comprehensive range of resources in support of the learner. This model can be applied to create an online resource for open and distance learning, and has the potential of becoming a virtual learning resource supporting a broad range of web delivery programmes such as those offered at the Open University of Hong Kong.

This paper argues that the integration of subject study with online specialist glossary underpins the concept of independent learning in the sense that the students will be able to access the meaning and pronunciation of unfamiliar technical terms instantly. In the final analysis the pace at which students understand a concept of their subject is in part limited to how fast they can access the meanings and explanations of the unfamiliar terms. This is particularly so for non-native speakers of English taking English medium courses, as is the case with many students involved in open and distance learning in Hong Kong. This subject-specific glossary-assisted model will significantly reduce the time students spend searching dictionaries for unfamiliar terms, and is particularly well-suited for open and distance learning.

Biodata:
Dr. Han Yang is an Assistant Professor at the Open University of Hong Kong. She specializes in Linguistics and has taught in Britain, Singapore, Hong Kong and Japan. She also worked for the Virtual Language Centre at Hong Kong Polytechnic University as Chief Editor for a bilingual on-line lexicon.

Assistant Professor in Language and Translation
School of Arts and Social Sciences
Open University of Hong Kong.

Terri Leong
E-mail: ecterri@polyu.edu.hk
Institution: The Hong Kong Polytechnic University

Writing Assistance Programme Online Service

The WAP online is a free data-driven learning service on the Internet. It was developed to help student writers to critically revise their academic essays and job application letters. The materials and links of the web-site support students with knowledge and ideas for writing essays and job application letters. They also help raise their ability to critically evaluate and edit their own texts.

The service is an enhancement of a face-to-face consultation session for individual help seekers of the Writing Assistance Programme of English Language Centre. The resources include guidelines, checklists, dictionary, concordancer, tools, web-links, etc. The vivid presentation of the content is one of the characteristics of the web-site. Users can listen, read, and view explanation and examples of essays and job application letters.

The workshop will demonstrate how users can use the web-site for autonomous learning. Participants will also have a chance to register as members for further application. Some basic principles and rationale for developing the site will be shared and discussed.

Click here to see the handout for this workshop (MS Word .doc format).

Biodata:
Terri Leong has been working as a language instructor in the English Language Centre of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University since 1997. Prior to joining the HK PolyU, Terri worked as an ESOL (English to Speaker of Other Languages) teacher in various TAFE (Technical and Further Education) colleges in Sydney.

English Language Centre
Hong Kong Polytechnic University
Kowloon
Hong Kong
URLs: http://elc.polyu.edu.hk/wap ; http://elc.polyu.edu.hk

B. Winkler
E-mail: B.Winkler@open.ac.uk
Institution: Open University, Institute of Educational Technology

Students working with an English learners' dictionary on CD-ROM

This paper presents a study which aimed to better understand what happened when an English learner's dictionary on CD-ROM was consulted by (upper) intermediate students of English, taking classes at various English language centres in British universities.

Two CD-ROM dictionaries were chosen for students to carry out two tasks: a vocabulary task was undertaken by 30 pairs of intermediate students, and a writing task was completed by 30 upper-intermediate students.. Both tasks focused on dictionary searches. These were recorded by the researcher and analysed with respect to reasons for searches, look-up strategies and search success. Think-aloud protocols were also used to gain more insight into the look-up processes, and more general data gathered by way of a questionnaire. This provided background information on students' use of and attitude towards printed and electronic dictionaries.

The findings of the study are discussed with regard to learners' look-up strategies and their skills in using an English learner's dictionary on CD-ROM. Apart from the conventional dictionary skills, which many participants seemed to lack, the paper also examines how learners will have to adapt to this innovative electronic medium in order to make effective use of such a tool. Finally, problems with the design and content of these dictionaries and their pedagogic applications are explored, and possible improvements are suggested.

Click here for the full paper.

Biodata:
Birgit Winkler is currently undertaking a doctoral research project on the use of English learners' dictionaries at the Open University in Milton Keynes, England. She graduated in Austria and taught German at two British universities before studying for her PhD at the Institute of Educational Technology.

Institution: Open University, Institute of Educational Technology
Postal Address: Walton Hall, Geoffrey Crowther
Milton Keynes
MK7 6AA
Great Britain
Fax Number: 0044-1908-653744
URL: http://iet.open.ac.uk

Lee, Lai, Chan & Jor
E-mails:
Eva Lai - fungkuenlaw@cuhk.edu.hk
George Jor - george-jor@cuhk.edu.hk

Autonomous Learning with the Support of a Multimedia English Learning Website: Design, Application and Some Preliminary Results

This paper presents the pedagogic design, application and results of a project to develop a multimedia web-based English program in the Hong Kong context. There will be a short demonstration of the program.

The program aims to promote English learning and autonomous learning of science and social science majors in Hong Kong. The major focus is to guide students to learn English independently through web-assisted programmes. It is argued that the Web is only a tool to foster autonomous learning and students should be given careful and sufficient guidance at the early stage of autonomous learning. We believe that students should not be left alone in the autonomous learning process, in spite of the fact that this mode of learning emphasizes learner choice and responsibility.

The website is tailor-made for science and social science university students, and is designed for great flexibility. The students can follow the graded exercises or begin at a level of their choice. The system provides immediate feedback in such a way that users can evaluate their learning by reviewing individual progress and other learners’ statistically. The program was designed in three phases. First, a survey of 415 science and social science majors found their top six topics of interest. Second, three proficiency levels with listening, reading, vocabulary, grammar, reading and speaking exercises were designed for each topic. Third, the program was piloted with over 100 science and social science students. Preliminary results and observations showed that the provision of immediate feedback on performance and the review of other learners’ scores are welcomed by the students. Many students followed the suggested learning pathway at the initial stage of learning. It seems that there is a case for guided autonomy in the Hong Kong context.

Biodata:

Cynthia F.K. Lee is an Assistant Professor in the Language Centre of the Hong Kong Baptist University. Her research interests include syllabus design and materials development, EAP and ESP teaching, spoken discourse analysis and multimedia education. She is currently supervising some university- and government-funded multimedia web-based teaching development projects.

Eva Fung-kuen Lai has researched and published in these areas: reading, needs analysis, SLA, CALL and self-access learning. At present, she is Programme Director of the English Section of the Independent Learning Centre, and Director of the English Language Teaching Unit of The Chinese University of Hong Kong.

Brian Chan is a research associate at the Hong Kong Baptist University. He taught English and Linguistics at the Chinese University of Hong Kong and the City University of Hong Kong before he went to University College London for further study. He won an Overseas Researcher Scholarship (ORS) and received his PhD degree in Linguistics in 1999.

George Jor serves as a Senior Instructor of the English Language Teaching Unit, The Chinese University of Hong Kong. He is currently the team leader of Technical Communications and the designer of the course English Online: Writing on the Web. His research interests include electronic literacies, CALL and Web-based instruction.

Institutions:
The English Language Teaching Unit
Chinese University
Hong Kong
URL: http://www.cuhk.edu.hk/eltu/index.html

and the Language Centre
Hong Kong Baptist University
URL: http://arts.hkbu.edu.hk/lc/index.html

Morrall, Andy
E-mail: ecandym@polyu.edu.hk
Institution: English Language Centre, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University

Tools to help students' writing: are they educational or do they replace education?

Writing job application letters is a common writing task students have to face, both in courses and in the job application process. Students and their teachers want good letters to increase the chances of getting an interview.

Participants in this workshop will get a chance to write personalized job application letters using an online program. This will be followed by a discussion about whether they think the program is educational, or whether it replaces education in job application letter writing.

Arguments in favour of this approach to genre-specific writing skills include that the program produces a personalized model letter which can be integrated into the students’ writing practice, for example by providing a basic template which the students can build on as they develop their application letter writing skills, and that the program contains context-sensitive advice on how to write in this genre.

Arguments against this approach include the objection that students may be product-orientated and not look at the advice, and that the program replaces the students’ knowledge of writing for this genre, instead of increasing it. It may be that the process of personalizing a generic model is an important part of the educational process, and that the use of this program may deprive students of this experience.

Click here for the workshop plan (MS Word doc).

Biodata:
Andy Morrall is a Language Instructor in the Centre for Independent Language Learning of the English Language Centre. His interests are in the use of the Internet and multimedia in English language learning.

Contact details:
Andy Morrall
Centre for Independent Language Learning
The English Language Centre
The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
Kowloon
Hong Kong
Fax: 2766 7576

Beaton, Bryan
E-mail: ecbryan@polyu.edu.hk
Institution: English Language Centre, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University

"Our dreams have lost some grandeur coming true" (Joni Mitchell 'The Circle Game')
- producing web-based materials which are pedagogically valuable

Once an exotic, peripheral element in English Language Teaching, CALL is moving into the educational mainstream. Teachers are often encouraged – sometimes required – to use web-based materials in their teaching. Fortunately, authoring tools have become more readily available, and easier to use. But how easy is it really to produce web-based materials which are pedagogically valuable?

In this workshop, participants will examine the features of one particular website, reflecting upon the original intentions, the actual realisation, and on feedback from its ultimate users – the students. This exploration will reflect upon what (at the present time) web-based CALL materials can and cannot offer, and will form the basis for a discussion of how teachers can produce and adapt materials for the web.

Biodata:
Bryan Beaton has taught in Nigeria, China, Hong Kong and Canada. His interests include CALL and process writing. He now teaches for the English Language Centre of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University.

Contact details:
Bryan Beaton
The English Language Centre
The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
Kowloon
Hong Kong

Materials: Powerpoint Presentation | Handouts

Saunders, Bradley
E-mail: bradley_saunders@zu.ac.ae
Institution: Zayed University - United Arab Emirates

From "Sir, what's my grade?" to "Click here for extra practice.": The long road to student autonomy.

I propose an action enquiry analysis of a university for women in the Middle East where cutting edge technology plays a central role in the learning process.

This paper will explore the underlying assumptions and some of the contradictions between,

the technology-based learner centered pedagogy as espoused by western educated faculty and the teacher-centered traditional didactic teaching style expected by students straight from secondary schools.

the implicit academic freedom of the web and the need to protect students from materials deemed to be inappropriate.

I will show how web-based learning and self-access facilities developed in this environment and demonstrate how independent learning came to be an integral part of the curriculum framework.

The paper will be of interest to educationalists in self access and web-based learning.

Bio-data
Bradley Saunders has taught in the Middle East, South East Asia and Europe for twenty years. Since the early nineties he has been primarily interested in CALL and web-based learning. His research interests are in Computer-Mediated Communication and Technology in the Teaching of Writing. He holds an Msc in ESP from Aston University.

Corbel, Chris
E-mail: CorbelC@ames.vic.edu.au
Institution: Technical and Further Education System

Easynews: making online news even easier

This session demonstrates Easynews, an online weekly collection of specially prepared news items and language learning tasks based on Australia’s Special Broadcasting Service. Content is divided into Easynews Australia and Easynews World, each with three levels of difficulty. Users can combine listening, reading and doing a task as required, with opportunities to share their opinions as well.

Many English language teaching websites contain links to commercial broadcasting websites. However, the material at the target sites may be difficult to use immediately for language teaching purposes. It may be too difficult, and if there is sound, it may take a long time to download. Furthermore, sites are constantly changing, making to hard to plan lessons ahead, or to look up past items.

Easynews addresses these issues. It is based on news items specially prepared by professional news staff from Australia’s Special Broadcasting Service, who work with language teachers to create a collection of weekly learning tasks. Some tasks focus on Australia, other on world news. Users can choose to read the transcript of the news items, which are read by professional newsreaders Sound files are specially prepared to make downloading easier, and users can choose to store files locally if they wish.

Bio-data:
Chris Corbel is Manager of Online AMES. Online AMES runs the Virtual Independent Learning Centre and the TAFE Virtual Campus, an online learning environment for the Technical and Further Education System in Victoria, Australia. Chris has worked in educational computing in the language and literacy field for many years. His most recent publications include Computer Literacies (Sydney: NCELTR 1999) and the Instructional Technology Strategy for the AMEP (Sydney: NCELTR 1998).

Other pages on this site: Home Page; Conference Schedule (2001); ITMELT 1999; Accepted Abstracts(1999); Call for Papers (1999); Hotel Accommodation, Conference Schedule (1999).

Web page design: Andy Morrall. Please e-mail me with any suggestions for this site.
Last updated on Saturday, 18 August 2001.