Reflections from Phil

Phil has asked me to post this on the blog. As you know, Phil is working in ningbo China and this blog is 'unavailable' there. So, I'm forwarding all posts to him as and when they are posted. Hopefully, he'll find a way to access the blog soon.

Hello all!

Firstly, apologies for my silence, and I won't bore you with tales of how frustrating it is not to be able to access the internet fully in China! I'd like to pick up from thepoint that it is hard to rely on SLA as a basis for evaluating CALL. I think it is important to make a clear link to autonomy here, in the sense that when we look for factors other than SLA theory for justifying NT and CALL, their relevance to the development of autonomy is paramount. In my experience, I have found that EAP students are much more likely to engage in autonomous learning if there is an element of NT involved. There are a few things that I have considered that might be reasons for this:

-I think that there is an important element of 'freshness' and excitement attached to the use of NT, perhaps in contrast to the acknowledged reticence or hostility on the part of some teachers! (For example...UNNC podcasts with listening materials on them seem to be very popular, if only as a good way for students to show off the best bits of their super wizzy phones to their mates!)
- I have found that students are most comfortable when they are at their computers, and from my informal discussion with students, it seems that that the amount of time the average student here spends in front of a computer is incredible!

Perhaps then, the fact that students find computers appealing and somewhat natural, or at least normal, is a justification in itself for the use of CALL. On the other hand, I have found that students are put off some of the elements of CALL that are offered to them (at UNNC) because of the simple fact that there are a huge amount of options for students to choose from when selecting online materials. Taking these observations into account, and further to Alex's suggestion that we discuss our assignment plans through the blog, I would like to point to one potential field of enquiry here. It could be argued that navigating the vast array of resources available for autonomous study is something we could perhaps help students more in doing. Perhaps we could use technology to do this in some way? A few ideas, perhaps as a starting point for discussion are as follows:

1)-Creating online 'pathways' through WebCT that guide students to the best resources for them on the basis of their self-identified needs.
2)-Projects combining the chat and discussion board functions of WebCT with the aim of encouraging students to meet online and deal with online materials together (perhaps accross classes and departments).

I thought of 1) when in the Self Access Centre at UNNC, where I was insprired by the simple fact that the they have a 'recommended reader' every week, whic helps students to pick a path through the 'forest' of reading resources there. It sounds simple, but I feel this kind of suggestion to be the key to making the step into regular autonomous study, which I feel is sometimes hindered by the sheer quantity of options to choose from. Perhaps what is needed to make this volume of choice less daunting is a similar 'push' to that of the SAC in terms of autonomous online learning. By this I mean that a regular pointer to particularly useful and topical (i.e. in relation to their studies at that time) materials could inspire students to take things more into their own hands. My thoughts on (2 came when reading the article by Hubbard.

Another potential area of focus could be that of correction. I have found that what our students at UNNC often want is more direct correction of their written language, which to some degree is understandable since they only get a few peices of close marked work back per semester, and are often used to having much more than this in previous schools. Bearing in mind work on autonomy, and of course, point five in the interactionist evaluative model, we would need to develop some kind of way for students to correct their own work, or that of their peers with limited input from the tutor. I am sure we all do this in our own way anyway by encouraging peer marking, but what I am suggesting is that we could use NT to take this to the next level. The 'next level' could entail a number of things, but the angle I have thought about most is based on the idea that encouraging more self and peer correction could be crucially related to increasing student confidence in their own marking comments. I am suggesting this because student feedback here has led me to conclude that when correcting their own work or that of their peers, students are often concerned by the fact that their corrections will not be 'good enough'. Perhaps we could we use CALL in some way to provide some confidence here? Could we introduce some element of checking against an external source without sacrificing elements of autonomy? Perhaps, for example, some simple programming could allow academic words versus typically used non- academic words to be highligted. Perhaps also, information from the 'Common Errors Project' could be incorporated into a programme in order to enable students to work out what is wrong with particular errors (I am not sure if UoN also has a 'Common Errors Project' like that we have here, please let me know if not).

One final possibility could be encouraging students to upload videos of themselves practising presentations, in an attmept to encourage some mutual peer feedback around a given structure (i.e. pointing the students to the elements of a good presentation that they could watch out for).

Obviously, this is all pretty vague and I hope it reads Ok, but it is just intended as a start!

Bye for now,

Phil.