Volume 26 Number 1, 2022

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https://hdl.handle.net/10125/81528

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Now showing 1 - 10 of 29

Multiple online environments as complex systems: Toward an orchestration of environments
(University of Hawaii National Foreign Language Resource Center, 2022-12-12) Cappellini, Marco; Combe, Christelle
Distance learning, telecollaboration, and virtual exchange rely more and more on multiple online environments. Research on how teachers and learners deal with this is rare. The present study considers future teachers designing online tasks for actual learners in a telecollaborative project deployed across three online platforms. Framed by dynamic and complex systems theory, our study draws on computer-mediated discourse analysis, multimodal conversation analysis, and content analysis to understand through which affordances pedagogical actions such as instruction giving and providing feedback are accomplished throughout the three environments. Analysis highlights different strategies for each pedagogical regulation. Our main finding is that the presence of different environments emerges as an affordance for teachers to distribute pedagogical actions across the system of environments, which we call orchestration of environments. We discuss the implications of this finding for models of teacher competence and for teacher education.
ICALL offering individually adaptive input: Effects of complex input on L2 development
(University of Hawaii National Foreign Language Resource Center, 2022-11-28) Chen, Xiaobin; Meurers, Detmar; Rebuschat, Patrick
The Artificial Intelligence methods employed in Intelligent Computer Assisted Language Learning (ICALL) in principle makes it possible to individually support language learners. Second Language Acquisition (SLA) research and language teaching practitioners agree on the relevance of target language input adapted to the learner level. However, little systematic research has explored individually adapting input and how it impacts learners. Building on previous findings on apparent alignment between the complexity of learner input and their output (Chen & Meurers, 2019), the purpose of this study is to investigate how different challenge levels of adaptive input impact learners’ written output . We developed an ICALL system implementing a Complex Input Primed Writing task that selects texts for individual learners and ran an experiment grouping learners into four classes: no, low, medium, or high challenge in relation to the individual learners’ writing complexity. The results show that learners generally were able to align to low- and medium-level challenges, producing more complex writings after receiving the adaptively challenging input, but less so for the high challenge group. The study demonstrates how an ICALL system used in a regular language learning context can support SLA research into adaptive input and complexity alignment.
Review of Mobile assisted language learning: Concepts, contexts and challenges
(University of Hawaii National Foreign Language Resource Center, 2022-11-15) Yang, Weijia; Gao, Xuesong Andy; Ruslan Suvorov
Vocabulary learning through a daily task of cooking in the Digital Kitchen
(University of Hawaii National Foreign Language Resource Center, 2022-10-31) Park, Jaeuk
Task-Based Language Learning and Teaching (TBLT) has been integrated with Computer-Assisted Language Learning (CALL), contributing to pedagogical developments in the field of SLA. While the majority of studies have used the integrated pedagogy inside the classroom context, little attention has been paid to the area outside of the classroom. Drawing on a recently developed learning environment called ‘Digital Kitchen’, this study examines how learning in a technology-enhanced real-world environment benefits foreign vocabulary acquisition. In particular, the multimodal effect of physicality is investigated using a mixed methods and quasi-experimental research design. Forty-eight adult participants performed two cooking sessions: one in a kitchen using real objects and the other in a classroom looking at photos. Statistical data demonstrated that the digital kitchen users registered significantly higher scores on vocabulary learning compared to classroom participants. The findings show that engaging all senses in a technology-enhanced environment is more powerful for vocabulary learning than using only a few senses. These findings have implications for those planning to design and implement a similar real-world learning environment.
Assistive design for English phonetic tools (ADEPT) in language learning
(University of Hawaii National Foreign Language Resource Center, 2022-10-17) Medina González, Maritza; Hardison, Debra M.
Assistive Design for English Phonetic Tools (ADEPT) was developed to improve inclusion in classrooms and enhance collaboration among blind, low vision, and sighted learners of American English (AE) as a second/foreign language through better access to the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) symbols and the sounds they represent. Grounded in multisensory training efficacy, ADEPT involves auditory-visual- tactual integration through the use of visual-tactile IPA symbol cards and an auditory-visual companion website based on the Universal Design for Learning guidelines. Each card includes a symbol, description, and website reference number, all with braille notations. The website includes printed and audio-recorded information on the articulation of AE consonants and vowels, with recordings of each sound in isolation, syllables, and words. ADEPT’s pedagogical efficacy was field tested with 21 blind/low vision adult L2 learners of AE (L1 Spanish), emphasizing vowel production in a pretest-training-posttest design, which had a training period of 10 weeks. Production scores from native-speaking raters were the dependent variable in a multilevel model with time (pretest-posttest comparison) as a fixed effect. Results showed a significant effect of time (i.e., improvement in production accuracy); the fit of the model improved when the random effect of participants was added (p < .001). In addition, pre- and post-study comments were very positive. ADEPT, which learners described as “invaluable,” can facilitate a collaborative learning environment.
Review of Informal digital learning of English: Research to practice
(University of Hawaii National Foreign Language Resource Center, 2022-10-03) Kohnke, Lucas; Ruslan Suvorov
Impact of mobile virtual reality on EFL learners’ listening comprehension
(University of Hawaii National Foreign Language Resource Center, 2022-09-19) Tai, Tzu-Yu
Virtual reality (VR) has received increasing attention from researchers and practitioners in EFL listening. However, prior studies are primarily concerned with non-immersive desktop-based VR. Few studies examined the effects of VR via mobile-rendered head-mounted displays (mobile VR). Therefore, this study investigates the impact of mobile VR on EFL learners’ listening comprehension. Participants were 49 Taiwanese seventh-graders, randomly assigned to either the VR group or video group. The VR group played with a language learning VR app using mobile VR while the video group watched the walkthrough video of the VR app on personal computers. The effects of mobile VR were analyzed based on listening comprehension post-tests, recalls, and interviews. The results revealed the VR group’s listening comprehension and recall were significantly better than that of the video group. The interview data indicated that, for most VR players, mobile VR-mediated EFL listening was motivating, beneficial, and convenient. They felt more engaged in the listening tasks. Simulated real-life scenarios and interactivity, particularly the interaction with virtual characters, led to a stronger sense of presence and a higher degree of immersion, which enabled them to listen as a participant rather than overhearer. Interaction in an authentically fully-immersive context facilitated listening comprehension. The findings suggest that mobile VR may be a useful tool to promote EFL listening and underscore the necessity for additional research on the emerging technology for language learning.
Different effects of machine translation on L2 revisions across students’ L2 writing proficiency levels
(University of Hawaii National Foreign Language Resource Center, 2022-09-05) Lee, Sangmin-Michelle
In recent years, machine translation (MT) has been gaining popularity, both in academic settings and in everyday life among foreign language students. However, insufficient research has been conducted in this field. Moreover, the findings of extant literature are often contradictory, and there are few empirical studies based on students’ actual outcomes. Therefore, the present study investigates the effectiveness of using MT in English-as-a-Foreign-Language (EFL) writing classes. It particularly examines whether students’ L2 writing proficiency levels influence their revisions when using MT. According to the results, using MT helped all levels of students improve their revisions, but to a different extent depending on their L2 writing proficiency levels. Compared to the higher-level students, the lower-level students made fewer changes per error, resulting in less improvement in the revised versions. Furthermore, this study found that the lowest- level students benefited the least from MT, mainly due to their limited L2 knowledge. Conversely, the higher-level students benefited more from MT by critically selecting better options between their own translations and those produced by MT. Overall, this study includes several pedagogical implications for using MT in L2 writing classrooms.
Investigating the influence of video-dubbing tasks on EFL learning
(University of Hawaii National Foreign Language Resource Center, 2022-08-29) Huang, Heng-Tsung Danny
This study investigates the effects of completing video-dubbing tasks on English speaking proficiency, English public speaking anxiety (EPSA), and group cohesion (GC). Two classes of EFL college students were assigned to either the dubbing group or the comparison group. Both groups began by responding to the EPSA scale, the GC scale, and a standardized English speaking test. Next, the dubbing group completed two video-dubbing tasks, for each of which they worked in groups to select a video clip, remove the original soundtrack, rehearse the monologues and dialogues, create a new soundtrack, combine the video clip with the new soundtrack, submit the dubbed video clip, and perform the live dubbing in class. In contrast, during the weeks when the dubbing group performed live dubbing, the comparison group watched and discussed movies in English. Finally, both groups took the post-test comprising the two scales and a second set of the standardized English speaking test. The synthesis of quantitative and qualitative findings revealed that, firstly, video-dubbing tasks constituted an entertaining task that could enhance English speaking proficiency. Second, completing video-dubbing tasks reduced foreign language anxiety but not English public speaking anxiety. Third, group cohesion increased substantially as a result of accomplishing video- dubbing tasks.
Dialogue systems for language learning: A meta-analysis
(University of Hawaii National Foreign Language Resource Center, 2022-08-15) Bibauw, Serge; Van den Noortgate, Wim; François, Thomas; Desmet, Piet
The present study offers a meta-analysis of effectiveness studies on dialogue-based CALL, systems affording a learner practice in a foreign language (L2) by interacting with a conversational agent (“bot”). Through a systematic inclusion and exclusion process, we identified 17 relevant meta-analyzable studies. We made use of Morris and DeShon’s (2002) formulas to compute comparable effect sizes across designs, including k = 100 individual effect sizes, which were analyzed through a multilevel random-effects model. Results confirm that dialogue-based CALL practice had a significant medium effect size on L2 proficiency development (d = 0.58). We performed extensive moderator analyses to explore the relative effectiveness on several learning outcomes of different types and features of dialogue-based CALL (type of interaction, modality, constraints, feedback, agent embodiment, gamification). Our study confirms the effectiveness of form-focused and goal-oriented systems, system-guided interactions, corrective feedback provision, and gamification features. Effects for lower proficiency learners, and on vocabulary, morphosyntax, holistic proficiency, and accuracy are established. Finally, we discuss expected evolutions in dialogue-based CALL and the language learning opportunities it offers.

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