SARAH RILLING
Kent State University
ANNE DAHLMAN
University of Minnesota
SARAH DODSON
Colorado State University
CLAIRE BOYLES
Front Range Community College
OZLEM PAZVANT
Columbia UniversityAbstract:
This paper integrates the theory and practice of computer pedagogies in a variety of language courses, all stemming from participation in a graduate level course on computers in language teaching. First, the graduate level preservice CALL course is described, focusing on how connections between theory and practice were developed. Descriptions of how four participants from the course continued to apply theory in their practice of computer integration in four language courses follows. Each of these four courses demonstrates how computers can be integrated into language teaching to meet course and program goals. Drawing on task and computer pedagogy theories, the first two projects make use of the Internet to provide adult foreign language learners with authentic language input and interaction opportunities, one in a distance learning course in Finland and the other in a French as a foreign language course in the US. The final two projects ground practice on theories of English for specific purposes and computer pedagogies in adult courses in the US, the first a business English course integrating a computer simulation and the second a graduate electrical engineering writing course with materials developed using concordancing software and a specifically designed corpus of engineering texts.
KEYWORDS Computer-mediated Communications, Computer Pedagogy, Concordancing, English for Specific Purposes, Simulation
INTRODUCTION
In language teacher education, a tension exists between the expectations of faculty and students in balancing theoretical underpinnings of the field and practical teaching experiences. Once in the field, however, teachers draw on both theoretical and practical knowledge (Freeman & Richards, 1996; Freeman & Johnson, 1998; Wallace, 1991), indicating that both are needed in language teacher education programs. Theoretical knowledge includes the exploration of language learning/teaching theories and content knowledge, while practical knowledge is acquired through reflecting on prior experience as language learners, teaching observations, and direct teaching experiences (Drever & Cope, 1999; Golombek, 1998; Freeman & Johnson, 1998; Roberts, 1998). Integrating technology training into the preservice teaching experience increases the tension between the theoretical and the practical because these novice teachers may be at varying stages of computer literacy and may be more or less comfortable with the notion of integrating computers into their developing pedagogies.
Computer training and integration is needed in preservice teacher education as society transitions to an electronic age where reading, research, and communications are increasingly conducted online. Many in-service teachers report feeling inadequately trained and ill prepared to meet the challenges of integrating computer technologies into their pedagogies (Schrum, 1999; Sprague, Kopfman, & Dorsey, 1998), and, additionally, teachers may feel isolated if the pre- or in-service technology experience was limited (Brownell, 1997; Orrill, 2001). Providing preservice teachers with varied experiences with new electronic literacy practices can model the application of theory to practical use that they will need to apply computer technologies to the language classroom.
The graduate preservice course described here integrates technology as a primary tool in teaching language through theoretical explorations of electronic literacy and hands-on practical training in using those technologies. By integrating theory with practical applications, the teacher preparation course gave the students a model for exploiting theory in the application of practice. Four participants of this technology course applied and expanded on theories they had studied in the course by creating practical language teaching applications once in their roles as novice language teachers. This paper begins by describing the teacher education course, focusing on the development of theory and applications in computerized language teaching. The four computer integration projects are then presented, demonstrating a range of technology integration projects in ESL, EFL, and FL. In each case, the novice teachers firmly wove technology into the fabric of their courses by applying theoretical constructs from the field to practical applications in language teaching.
THEORY AND PRACTICE IN A PRESERVICE TECHNOLOGY-IN-PEDAGOGY COURSE
Although many preservice teachers have experience using computers for a variety of purposes (e.g., word processing, information retrieval, and communications),
few have considered how computers might be integrated into language courses to promote course and program goals. Computers in Language Teaching, an elective course in an MA TESL Program at a mid-sized university in the US, surveys theoretical issues related to educational technology and provides hands-on opportunities for participants to practice using and applying new technologies in language teaching. Participants in the course typically include graduate students preparing to teach either in preK-12 schools or in adult education contexts. The term preservice teachers used here applies to students preparing either for public school or adult education settings. Once the students had graduated and were in charge of their own language courses, applying computer and pedagogical theory to their classroom practices, we refer to them in this article as novice teachers.
Computers in Language Teaching serves as a beginning step for preservice teachers interested in incorporating computer technologies into their teaching repertoire. The course increases their foundational electronic literacy skills (e.g., word processing, email, and critical reading on the Internet) (Shetzer & Warschauer, 2000), and it provides opportunities to expand their electronic literacies to include pedagogical applications (Hatasa, 1999) such as software/Web evaluation, authoring, computer-mediated communications (CMC), and basic corpus linguistic techniques in language analysis and materials development. The preservice teachers apply these expanded literacy skills in the development of materials and tasks for language teaching and testing.
Throughout the course, participants consider the theoretical issues of (a) integrating the technologies into the curriculum rather than using the computer as a mere add on (Wildner, 1999), (b) extending language learning beyond the classroom through computer-enhanced learning (Salaberry, 1996), and (c) realizing the social constructivist nature of language teaching that enables learners to acquire the target language through interactions with the teacher, with each other, and with other learners at a distance (Beatty, 2003). In addition, the preservice teachers gain experience in mustering institutional support for technology integration within a wide range of contexts (Ehrmann, 1995).
Four components of the Computers in Language Teaching course laid the foundation for the projects which participants developed in the year following the course when each was established in a professional language teaching context. Topics and skills beyond those listed below were practiced in Computers in Language Teaching as well (see Rilling, 2000). Course components included
1. Internet and software design and development, requiring the preservice teachers to design and author: (a) simple interactive learning software using an authoring tool (Authorware, 1999) and (b) an Internet site with multiple links and graphic elements using an HTML editor. Applying theoretical readings of web/software design and use, participants designed and generated software and Internet sites to suit a given target population with specific language learning goals.
2. Electronic communications using a variety of computer-mediated communications (CMC) applications (e.g., electronic chats and bulletin boards) in the discussion of issues related to CMC for language learning. Theoretical discussion topics included fluency building through CMC, affect and CMC, cross-cultural exchange through CMC, discourse conventions in CMC, and social constructivist theories of language learning and CMC. Theoretical readings provided topics for discussions through various CMC media.
3. CD-ROM/software/Internet literacy, focusing on evaluation of native and nonnative speaker software/CD-ROMs and Internet sites for language teaching applications. Participants developed supplemental learning tasks and materials to target specific teaching goals by applying course readings and discussions to a variety of language teaching contexts.
4. Corpus linguistic techniques in language materials development, exploring issues of representativeness in corpus design and considering the needs of both English for academic purposes (Thurstun & Candlin, 1998) and English for specific purposes (Dudley-Evans & St. John, 1998) language learners. Participants practiced using a concordance program and a published corpus collection (Hofland, Lindebjerg, & Thunestvedt, 1999) to support or refute what they were learning about lexis and syntax in other coursework, with an eye toward developing authentic learner materials.
Computers in Language Teaching combined CALL theories with practical teaching applications by
1. exploring current trends in CALL;
2. providing the preservice teachers access to challenging materials and technological innovations;
3. reading and discussing texts that included both theory and practical classroom applications;
4. allowing the preservice teachers to choose the readings they wanted to lead discussions on;
5. asking the preservice teachers to explain how they understood the readings, how they could benefit from that knowledge, and how they might apply that knowledge in the field;
6. having the preservice teachers use real scenarios, real students, and real contexts in realizing course projects;
7. asking the preservice teachers to make personal connections to the course materials and technologies; and
8. creating autonomous learners by providing the preservice teachers with concrete resources and tools to use after the course.
This preservice graduate course laid the groundwork for four participants to develop computer integration projects in a variety of professional contexts. Each of the four projects is presented, showing how the novice teacher applied theory in the practical application of technology in language learning.
THE INTERNET IN AN EFL COURSE IN FINLAND
One of the participants in Computers in Language Teaching investigated combining task sequences with authentic materials and interaction opportunities on the Internet in preparation for teaching a summer course in higher education in Finland. By applying social constructivist theories of language learning (e.g., Beatty, 2003; Weasenforth, Biesenbach-Lucas, & Meloni, 2002), this novice teacher was able to develop a distance learning course that met various needs of her learners, including test preparation and increased language proficiency.
The Internet and Internet tasks that the novice teacher developed formed the focus of the 8-week EFL distance learning course. The course prepared learners for a national exam of English listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills. Since the course participants were all public educators in Finland, many of whom teach courses in English, the course also developed the learners' English proficiency to enhance classroom instruction. The first and the last week of the course took place on campus during which learners had computer orientations and oral discussion/presentation opportunities. The 6 weeks between comprised a distance-learning period using computer and other technologies for language development.
The goals of the course were threefold. First, the language learners needed to increase their motivation to learn and use English. By exploiting authentic English language input available on the Internet, learners increased their opportunities to improve their reading and vocabulary skills, and they increased their motivation to use English (Buell, 1999). Through the process of using the Internet, positive learning experiences with technology were created, thereby minimizing technophobia (Johnston, 1999) while promoting learner autonomy, responsibility, and motivation.
A second goal of the course was to support individual differences among learners. The Internet is an optimal site for the creation of tasks tailored to different learners' language skills and personal/professional interests (Dahlman & Rilling, 2001). One way of tailoring tasks was achieved by giving learners choices, at times asking them to compare more than one Internet site on the same topic (Healey, 1999; Hanson-Smith 1999b). Some tasks allowed learners to choose texts that matched their interests, thus simulating the concept of an I-search paper (Macrorie, 1988), a content-based research paper or presentation based on student interest. Tasks were also tailored by providing the language learners with specific Internet sites to match their language skills or interests. This controlled freedom gave learners opportunities to explore the Internet at a level most beneficial to them.
A third goal of the course was to promote student responsibility for learning (Chao, 1999), an essential goal in distance learning. During three fourths of the course, the learners studied at home and participated remotely by completing distance-learning tasks. Through specific tasks, they gained insights into professional and personal uses of the Internet for future language learning, information retrieval, exchange of ideas, and entertainment. Healey emphasizes the importance of the Internet as “a connection to learners' real-world needs and desires” (1999, p. 136), so by designing tasks that mimicked potential computer use in their own lives, life-long learning was promoted.
Foreign language teachers face the challenge of providing adequate and varied language input. The Internet provided learners with reading and viewing input on the target and other cultures (Martínez-Lage, 1997) as well as opportunities to interact with other learners or native speakers (Chun, 1998; Gaer, 1999). In addition, the Internet provided authentic reading materials and opportunities to simulate real-life tasks.
Examples of Internet Tasks to Accomplish EFL Course Goals in Finland
The course Web site, designed and maintained by the novice teacher, served as an important link between the language learners and the teacher during the distance learning period, and its built-in Internet forum enabled participants to communicate with each other. These social connections proved essential in providing learners with a sense of community and opportunities to learn from each other as they completed course tasks. All required task assignments were linked to descriptions and due dates, so learners could also work independently within established guidelines, giving them plenty of flexibility in scheduling the distance-learning tasks into their own busy lives.
To meet the course goal of improving language proficiency and increasing motivation, the Internet was used to provide information, simultaneously introducing new vocabulary and associated language structures. Language and content were activated by having the language learners use the newly learned material in multiple ways. For example, learners conducted Internet research on a common topic, discussed what they had found on a class e-forum (Opp-Beckman, 1999), and reported their results to the instructor via email. Table 1 shows a series of such tasks, each designed to promote reading and interaction through the Internet.
Feedback, Reflections, and Future Plans for Finland
Learners were asked to give feedback about the course and the progress they made both during and after the course. Learners reported that the Internet tasks were linguistically challenging since the Web sites contained language which they did not understand, thus causing a sense of cognitive overload (see Foltz, 1996). In order to cope with this overload, learners in the future may be asked to answer focused questions at specified Internet sites, thereby reducing cognitive load in processing the wealth of materials available on the Internet. Other Internet innovations will also be incorporated based on learner feedback, including websites that offer sound—audio recordings and video clips—to provide listening practice as supplements to the students' Internet research (e.g., clips available at CNN at http://www.cnn.com). Increasing students' access to listening materials through the Internet will address students' concerns about increasing their listening skills.
Table 1
Internet Reading and Interactions in Finland
Task
Preparation
In-task
activities
Posttask
activities
Computer
enhancements
Simulation: Custom design a trip to Finland for hypothetical English-speaking tourists.
In groups, discuss places to stay, attractions, etc., given the specialized needs of simulated tourists.
Explore tourist attractions and accommodations in English at different locations in Finland on the Internet.
Prepare handouts on your travel plans based on Internet readings and present these orally in class.
Examples for the Savonlinna region: http://www.retretti.fi, http://www.operafestival.fi, and http://www.savonlinna.fi
Explore Finnish and American society/culture.
Locate Internet information in English on an aspect of Finnish society/culture (e.g., government, education, and language use).
Share information and opinions on society/culture with classmates on an interactive Internet forum.
Discuss with US keypals Finnish and American society/culture.
Internet Forum authored into the class Web site, using script available from http://www.ezboard.com
Locate suitable summer housing in an English-speaking country.
Visit English language real estate sites on the Internet. Compare available housing.
Email a written report to the instructor about the housing features, costs, advantages, etc.
Present a `virtual' tour of vacation plans orally in class with visual support from the Internet.
Samples of real estate sites: http://www.homegain.com, http://www.realtor.com, and http://www.remax.com
By combining life-like tasks with interaction opportunities, this novice teacher provided her learners with ample opportunities to learn both from authentic materials and from socially constructed dialogues with each other and with native-speaking keypals. These connections between social constructivist theories of language learning and the practice of teaching through such interactions provided a strong basis for the Finnish learners to increase their language proficiency and their motivation to continue to use English in real-life tasks.
INTEGRATING CMC WITH OTHER COMPUTER TECHNOLOGIES IN THE FOREIGN LANGUAGE CLASSROOM
Prior to teaching a first-year French-as-a-foreign-language course for the first time, another participant of the Computers in Language Teaching course considered theories of language input/output, accuracy, and fluency (Swain & Lapkin, 2001; Williams, 1999) in applying computers in the foreign language curriculum. First-year French at this mid-size US university takes a communicative approach to language teaching by integrating the skills of reading, writing, listening, and speaking while targeting specific vocabulary and grammatical structures. In addition, the language learners expand their knowledge of French and francophone countries. The textbook for the course (Manley, Smith, McMinn, & Prévost, 1998) focuses on vocabulary and structure development supported through short readings, limited mostly to dialogues and single paragraphs in each chapter, plus occasional authentic texts such as poems, ads, and very brief excerpts from magazine articles. The textbook also suggests one Internet activity per chapter; however, prior to this novice teacher's involvement with the course, other instructors (TAs and instructors) had not made use of the Internet as a resource because teaching with technology had not been emphasized in training.
Technology integrated by this novice teacher provided learners in the first-year language program with literacy tasks that included access to longer authentic texts (both oral and written) and opportunities to interact in French. By using international Internet sites as reading texts and as springboards to interactive writing assignments, communicative goals of the course were met, including: (a) providing the language learners practice in literacy and computer literacy skills (Shetzer & Warschauer, 2000), (b) addressing multiple intelligences (Gardner, 1993), and (c) bringing welcome variety to a class that meets daily. As Opp-Beckman explains, “computers have the capacity to enhance language learning in ways that complement other methods and activities” (1999, p. 79). By integrating the Internet and other computer-based tasks into the curriculum, learners had access to authentic uses of French language that enhanced the textbook. Computer-mediated communication (CMC) and other computer technologies appealed to several of the learners' multiple intelligences, such as verbal-linguistic, bodily-kinesthetic, intrapersonal, and interpersonal. Additionally, activities that included samples of French radio spoke to learners with musical intelligence, and supplemental activities like designing brochures, ads, or Internet sites based on online research provided a forum for learners with spatial intelligence.
Computer-based Tasks to Accomplish French Language Goals
Since it is impossible to take all French learners to Paris, Québec, Martinique, or Morocco, the Internet and available CD-ROMs provided these first-year French students with a virtual immersion experience with authentic French texts and interaction opportunities. By developing Internet tasks that made connections to words, phrases, ideas, and grammar from the textbook, the language was made relevant because the learners were functioning in a native-speaking environment while dealing with familiar language. Beauvois (1998) stresses the importance of negotiating meaning in CMC activities. By contributing their own ideas through CMC, the learners were `publishing' their ideas for the class. Learners were careful with their writing because they knew that the teacher was not the only one who would read it.
In preparation for the course, this novice teacher developed a class Web page using Syllabase (2001), a proprietary Internet-based teaching forum offering teacher control over such design features as electronic forums, chat rooms, links to the Internet, a course calendar, and so on. In addition, the teacher and students could easily up- and download files to and from the course Web page to complete assignments. The French class used the electronic forum feature of Syllabase most often, and this was combined with other computer technologies. For example, to focus on the recursive nature of writing, learners revisited postings from earlier in the semester and revised them using new grammar and vocabulary, allowing learners to see clearly the progress they had made. This approach further emphasized writing as a cyclic process, not a one-time event (Ferris & Hedgcock, 1998). An example of some of the interactive writing tasks that learners completed are presented in Table 2.
Feedback, Reflections, and Future Plans for French
Learners' reactions on course evaluations over the past few semesters have been favorable and often enthusiastic about the integration of computer technologies in the first-year French course. Learners did their online tasks regularly and responded to each other's postings with enough detail that it was clear that they had read and considered the material. The students reported on course evaluation forms that they enjoyed the Internet searches, although some, as in the Finnish context, never stopped being frustrated when they could not understand every word. More explicit teaching of vocabulary learning strategies and skimming/scanning skills will benefit these learners in the future. In terms of affect, most learners agreed with Beauvois (1998) that they like writing on the computer because it gave them “time to process” (p. 109) and reduced the stress they felt in the classroom when producing language face to face.
As Egbert (1999) has indicated, however, having learners work in groups for computer-based tasks does not guarantee a productive interaction or ensure they will speak completely in the target language. Based on structured observations by the novice teacher, the learners did sometimes slip into English when doing online activities; however, the teacher discovered that this also happens during face-to-face pair work in the classroom. Learners generally worked together diligently to decode the French pages, which meant that they were gaining exposure to more French than may have been available in a traditional class session.
Recently this novice teacher has integrated computer technology into the French instructor/TA training program by summarizing and helping the instructors and TAs integrate research and theories of computer pedagogies into their language teaching. Training includes brainstorming sessions designed to generate ways to integrate technology into the curriculum, and each first-year teacher now establishes a Syllabase Web page for homework assignments and CMC applications. In addition, each takes turns developing Internet activities to accompany different sections of the course textbook. These activities are tested on several different classes, and the results are compared to determine what sorts of activities both appeal to learners and are at an appropriate level of difficulty. Table 2
Technology Enhanced French Language Learning Tasks
Task
Preparation
In-task
activities
Posttask
activities
Computer
enhancements
Write a horoscope using future and conditional.
Brainstorm common horoscope elements.
Read and analyze horoscopes on the Internet.
Post to the Forum an original horoscope for a classmate.
http://fr.astrolo
gy.yahoo.com
Syllabase Forum
Prepare a written role play based on information gathered from the Internet.
Brainstorm the kinds of information the Internet may provide on cafés in Paris and Nice.
Do a scavenger hunt worksheet looking for prices, specials, and locations of cafés in Paris and Nice.
Choose a café and role play in an e-chat a conversation between a customer and a server.
http://www.sortir.fr/cafesbars.htm, http://cityindex.com.nice/sortir/bars_cafes, http://magasin.iga.net/index_fr. html, Syllabase Chat
Write a past narrative using passé composé and imparfait.
Write a past narrative on the Internet forum describing your worst vacation.
Create at least one lie in your narrative.
Read classmates' narratives and find the lie. Write a follow-up posting guessing the suspected lie.
Internet discussion forum through Syllabase
Explore love and romance from a French perspective while recognizing and using target vocabulary.
Consider your ideal mate and write a brief description.
Read personal ads on the Internet, then cut and paste a favorite one to the electronic forum. Comment on why you chose this person.
React to class-mates' postings on the Forum and then take a `love test,' or create a `Mad Libs' style love letter. Write your own personal ad on the class forum.
http://www.pupuce.com or http://www.club-internet.fr/amour
Learn about and interact on life in Sénégal while practicing adjective agreement and placement.
View CD-ROM images in the language lab and listen to the instructor's lecture `tour' on Sénégal.
Discuss the images from the Sénégal tour in one of several chat rooms on Syllabase.
Write a posting to the Internet forum comparing elements of Senegalese, French and US culture.
CD-ROM about Sénégal (Le Sénégal de Youssou N'Dour, 1996)
Expand textbook chapter on French food.
Skim and scan Internet supermarket sites for specific information on French and francophone supermarkets.
Consult recipes on the Internet, make a shopping list for a French meal by clicking on certain foods, and then look up the foods in accompanying advertisements to determine costs.
With the class, compile the recipes with ingredients and prices to develop a French cookbook for use at home.
http://www.champion.fr, http://www.supercasino.fr,
http://exotic center.com/epicerie.htm, and http://www.iga.net.FRINTEGRATING SIMULATION SOFTWARE IN BUSINESS ENGLISH IN AN INTENSIVE ENGLISH PROGRAM
A third computer integration project stemmed directly from a project in the Computers in Language Teaching course. This project required the preservice teachers to (a) evaluate native speaker software or Internet sites (Robb & Susser, 2000) and (b) develop language support materials/tasks to work in tandem with the computer application. One group of preservice teachers had developed support materials for the simulation software Sim Theme Park (1999) for content-based instruction. One of the members of the group further developed these materials for a business English course that she taught in an intensive English program at the university level. Once in the field, this novice teacher drew on pedagogical applications of computers in language teaching as well as theories of teaching English for specific purposes and language testing.
The Business English class described here, an elective for both intermediate- and advanced-level learners in an intensive English program associated with a mid-sized US university, was comprised of 12 learners of different nationalities and included the following basic course objectives: (a) practicing English language skills, (b) increasing content knowledge (business vocabulary, business text types, etc.), and (c) practicing basic functions of business software (e.g., word processors, spreadsheets, and presentation tools). Since simulations are potentially rich tools for language acquisition in content-oriented classes, especially when accompanied by well delineated tasks, this novice teacher decided to integrate the Sim Theme Park software into her course. Hanson-Smith (1999a) argues that “simulations can extend the concept of the case study by providing enormous amounts of data with which to experiment as well as offering changes based on learners' input in various areas” (p. 141). Simulations provide a meaningful stimulus around which language and content can be constructed and practiced. While Sim Theme Park supported the course objectives listed above, the following objectives were also added to integrate fully the simulation into the course: (d) creating and managing a simulated business (a theme park), (e) planning and implementing decisions in a team format, and (f) preparing and pitching a business proposal to potential investors to expand the theme park.
One of the goals of integrating the simulation program into the course was to allow the intensive English program to maximize its technological resources in a way that it had not done prior to the redesign of this course. Although the hardware for technology integration was already in place, many of the courses in which technology could play a useful role in the program had not been examined, and so the technology components of most courses were limited to word-processing assignments and self-directed Internet research. This course allowed the institution to utilize its technology in a more meaningful and creative way to further the language acquisition of its students by incorporating more social interaction around computers (Egbert, 1999).
Another goal of the integration of the software into the business class was to allow students to explore and practice the cross-cultural nuances so necessary for successful international business transactions (Ellis & Johnson, 1994). Because the groups formed for the simulation were multinational, the incorporation of the simulation software provided a rich opportunity for role play, demanding sensitivity to the cultural expectations of others on the team and those on other teams in the class. The team format allowed for increased development of each student's interlanguage and furthered their discovery of cultural expectations by allowing them to become a “member of a transactional world where the fundamental concern is the exchange of goods and services” (Dudley-Evans & St John., 1998, p.72).
A further goal of the software integration was to provide multiple means of assessing the students' speaking abilities (Cohen, 1994). Beyond the pen-and-paper tests and formal oral presentations embedded in the course, the simulated construction and management of the theme park created a type of extended, open-ended role play in which students were asked to produce different types of speech acts depending on the task involved with the simulation (e.g., answering a request, summarizing financial information, etc.). Through structured observations, the novice teacher was provided with daily input on how the students completed these tasks at the computer and how often and how appropriately the students applied the content vocabulary, structures, and text types introduced in the course.
Integration of Sim Theme Park and Examples of Tasks
The Sim Theme Park program requires `players' to design, build, and manage a virtual amusement park where success demands completion of an extensive set of complex business tasks, including hiring and managing staff members, cleaning the park, monitoring and responding to visitor happiness, keeping track of finances, and other related duties. While Chapelle (1999) points out the difficulties in labeling any classroom task authentic, the simulation software offers business practices resembling the demands of operating a business in the real world. Because of the relative authenticity of the simulation, it was a simple matter to integrate business concepts by matching relevant chapters of the course textbook (McDougal Arden & Tolley Dowling, 1993) to the functions and demands of the simulation software. Developing tasks that paralleled the course textbook and exploring how the software supported the course in advance had an important benefit in that it allowed the novice teacher to become very familiar with the simulation software, enabling her to troubleshoot problems in case of technical difficulties during the course. Because Sim Theme Park is fairly complex to use, the novice teacher compiled a set of simple instructions for the learners, providing them with commands for basic program functions in a form that was readily available outside of class.
One example of the integration of the textbook, the simulation software, and commercial business software is the course unit on accounting and finance. The overall concepts were presented in the textbook, including related vocabulary and different types of accounting tools. The Sim Theme Park program provided learners with detailed financial information for their simulated parks in numeric and graphic formats, effectively supporting the finance theme. Commercial spreadsheet programs, commonly used in business situations to track such data, were incorporated for the language learners to process the business data further in support of several course goals, including oral presentations. Table 3 shows further classroom activities used to support the objectives of the course.
Table 3
Integration of Sim Theme Park Software into a Business English Intensive English Course
Task scenario
Preparation
In-task activities
Posttask
Computer enhancements
Respond to a complaint letter from a dissatisfied theme park customer.
In class, examine models of and various purposes for business letters.
Read a complaint letter about your park and respond to it by writing a letter denying the excessive demands of the customer.
Read the letters of other groups and critique the format, language, and solutions.
Word-processing templates for business letters
Prepare a portfolio of theme park business documents.
In class, examine various types of business documents (e.g., balance sheets, advertising brochures, and business letters).
Work with your team to collect data to produce a portfolio for your theme park using spreadsheet and word processing software.
Work with a partner from another group to critique the portfolios based on a rubric provided in class.
Word-processing-brochure templates; spreadsheet software for spreadsheets and performance graphics; screen-dump shots for brochures
Create a business proposal to attract potential investors
In class, create business portfolios (see above), discuss presentation techniques and requirements, develop business language and vocabulary.
Present formally your financial information, customer satisfaction data, current infrastructure, and plan for expansion.
Panel of “investors” (local businesspeople such as realtors, bankers, etc.) rates each presentation and presents which park they would invest in and why.
Spreadsheets for customer satisfaction and financial data; word processing for reports and brochures; screen dump shots for brochures and advertisements
Feedback, Reflections, and Future Plans for Business English
The novice teacher incorporated several assessment tools into her teaching routines to observe and record student performance of course language and content as well as satisfaction with the course, including structured observations of an on-going nature, interviews with the students, and formal summative evaluations completed by the students at the end of the course. Because none of the resulting group members shared a native language and because many course assignments required each team to work together to produce a single product, the novice teacher observed that English usage was optimized, allowing learners to experience the different expectations and decision making processes inherent in international business negotiations (Dudley-Evans & St. John, 1998; Hanson-Smith, 1999a). The teacher recorded spontaneous use of the business vocabulary presented in class with each content theme in almost all team discussions. Especially interesting was the learners' use of business vocabulary and structures that the novice teacher observed in the final presentations. While community members (two real estate agents and a banker) judged the learners' business expansion proposals from a content perspective, the novice teacher could observe and record the learners' use of language. The novice teacher noted independently recycled vocabulary from various units in the course used by the language learners to persuade the panel of potential investors.
One of the most encouraging outcomes of the simulation integration was the increased confidence and motivation reported in interviews and on final course evaluations by learners with lower linguistic abilities. These students often surpassed the more advanced learners in the development of their theme parks. Not only did the learners report their advanced simulations as a source of pride and confidence vis-à-vis more advanced learners, their experience may have also led toward the type of language negotiation that Pica, Lincoln-Porter, Paninos, and Linnell (1996) claim leads to language acquisition. During course observations, the novice teacher noted that more advanced learners began asking the lower level learners questions about their strategies for building and managing their companies and that the lower level learners enthusiastically explained their business development through a variety of interactional techniques, having suddenly become authorities in the classroom.
On the final summative course evaluations, many learners reported that learning the software was time consuming, but most also reported that they found using the simulation software an enjoyable context for learning Business English. The instructor's enthusiasm for this software integration project was apparent since her creativity in integrating this simulation into the course clearly added a level of enjoyment to the class that may not otherwise have been easy to inject in a content-based course. By supporting the development of authentic tasks around a computer simulation, this novice teacher supported her practice with pedagogical theories of computer and content integration.
CORPUS LINGUISTICS IN ENGLISH FOR SPECIFIC PURPOSES MATERIALS DESIGN FOR ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING
This fourth and final computer integration project from the Computers in Language Teaching course combined pedagogical applications of corpus linguistic techniques while drawing on theories of English for specific purposes. For more than a decade, corpus linguistic analyses have been applied in general English for academic purposes teaching (e.g., Donley & Reppen, 2001) and in English for specific purposes (Biber, Conrad & Reppen, 1998). Making extensive use of computers, corpus-based studies analyze large quantities of texts compiled using specific design principles (Sinclair, 1991). Concordancing software enables simple pattern analyses and has been used in language teaching materials and activity development (Flowerdew, 1993; Johns, 1994; Ma, 1994). With this final computer integration project, a fourth novice teacher served as intern to the faculty member teaching the Computers in Language Teaching course in developing and delivering a highly specialized language course: English for professional writing in electrical engineering. The electrical engineering writing course was contracted directly by an engineering faculty member for his advanced advisees. All learners in the course were international PhD candidates researching a variety of subspecialties under the electrical engineering professor's supervision. Each was in the process of writing a book chapter for a volume edited by the electrical engineering professor.
The two course instructors met the challenge English for specific purposes teachers face in developing specialized tasks and materials (Nunan, 1999) by first conducting a needs analysis (Dudley-Evans & St. John, 1998). In designing the course, the Computers in Language Teaching faculty member and the novice teacher considered input from the electrical engineering faculty member on course goals and activities. First, students' writing was analyzed for error patterns, which showed that their texts ranged from needing only minor editing to being seriously flawed on both rhetorical and local levels. Several grammatical patterns and inappropriate use of lexical items and punctuation use in certain sections of the students' texts were identified for study. The engineering students were also involved in the needs assessment by identifying their own concerns about writing and writing processes, and it was determined that they needed to improve their overall confidence in writing for a professional audience since they had cutting-edge research to share. The needs analysis also led to a survey of available English for academic purposes and English for specific purposes textbooks for teaching ideas as well as the research literature on teaching with genre-based approaches to such specialized discourse domains (e.g., Hyland, 2000; Hyon, 1996).
In preparing classroom materials and discussion topics, only authentic models from electrical engineering book chapters were found to be relevant for language study because this was the genre the students were in the process of producing. At times, however, the language conventions found in electrical engineering book chapters were contrasted in the writing course with research articles in the field. The writing class discussions focused on (a) characteristics of the discourse of the different sections of electrical engineering chapters versus the research articles that the students were more accustomed to reading, (b) the language introducing and discussing the myriad graphic elements presented in electrical engineering texts (e.g., equations and performance graphics), and (c) editing issues of grammar and punctuation.
Throughout the project, the Computers in Language Teaching faculty member used the novice teacher as a sounding board for teaching ideas and as a `gopher' in preparing and running corpus-based studies (i.e., running punctuation, lexical item and lexical phrase searches, and culling the corpus for textual samples of desired items and patterns). In addition, the novice teacher assisted the faculty member in class during discussions of materials, at times teaching lessons she had prepared. This process enhanced the novice teacher's knowledge of corpus linguistics and her skills in using associated computer tools. The process also directly benefited the faculty member since the novice teacher provided valuable insights and time to the development of the course and course materials.
Application of Concordancing
A computer concordancing program (MonoConc Pro, 2.0, 1999) was used to analyze and prepare materials from a corpus of scanned texts (11 electrical engineering book chapters—approximately 49,000 words) (see Rilling & Pazvant, 2002). The corpus served as site for textual analysis and a source of language samples for course materials. The software allows users to identify and quantify specific lexical and punctuation items as well as short collocational units (lexical phrases). These functions were readily incorporated into lesson development as we sought examples and frequencies of various language patterns: lexical items (e.g., hedging markers identified by Hyland, 1996), lexical phrases (e.g., noun premodifiers, `a ____ of noun / NP'), and punctuation (e.g., the contrast between semi-colon and colon).
The international engineering students also needed consciousness raising about several grammatical patterns, including the use of articles, relative clauses, and participials. While the software was able to search on grammatical/syntactic tags in a tagged corpus, our corpus was untagged. Therefore, our ability to identify complex grammatical patterns using the program was limited. The materials development research described below for relative clauses shows both the possibilities and the limitations of concordance-based research of grammatical patterns using untagged texts.
Consulting English grammar texts (e.g., Celce-Murcia, 1999; Biber et al, 1999), the two instructors gained insights into the patterns we were studying and provided background materials for class presentation. Frequency counts of lexical, punctuation, and some grammatical patterns could be produced, and the two instructors located language samples (sentences and larger chunks of text) from the corpus in the development of support materials. Screen prints of frequency counts for some patterns were used directly in class to make certain points. Language samples for handouts were also identified by first analyzing the Key Word in Context (KWIC) output from the concordance program and then preparing related tasks and activities. For example, sample sentences of relevant patterns could be copied from the concordance program and transferred into a word processor where gap filler and other types of exercises could be developed.
Taking a problematic example of a construction in English, the relative clause, the faculty member and the novice teacher first identified potential relative pronouns used in the corpus by doing simple lexical searches. Table 4 shows the frequencies of these lexical items in our 49,000 word corpus.
Not all instances of these lexical items function as relative pronouns, however. `Which,' for example, can function as an interrogative pronoun in addition to functioning as a relative subject or object pronoun. `That' is even more problematic in that it can function variously as a relative pronoun, a complementizer, a demonstrative pronoun or article, and a conjunct. In fact, as Table 4 demonstrates, only a little more than 25% of the tokens of `that' actually functioned as relative
pronouns. The KWIC output needed, therefore, to be carefully scrutinized manually to differentiate between these functions of potential relative pronouns in order to locate appropriate sample sentences for class exercises.
Table 4
Frequencies of Potential and Actual Relative Pronouns in the Electrical Engineering Corpus
Lexical search item
Frequency in the corpus
Tokens actually functioning as relative pronouns
Which
228
227
That
857
182
Whose
18
18
Who
4
4
Whom
1
1
Frequency data enabled the class to comment on the distribution of the different relative pronouns and to investigate further other uses of the potential relative pronouns, as complementizers, for example. By presenting materials from the students' own disciplinary texts, language awareness of different types of relative clauses and issues of preference as to `that' or `which' were highlighted. Discussions of the punctuation used with these relative clauses focused students' attention on the differences between restrictive and nonrestrictive clause types and the stylistic liberties that writers take. In this way, we were able to contrast what is taught in grammar textbooks with what writers actually use, which does not always conform to the `rules.' Other features of relative clause constructions, such as the referent of the relative pronoun and whether the pronoun is preceded by a preposition, could be explored using the language samples gleaned from the corpus using the concordance program. Exercises enabled students to discover, for example, that nonrestrictive relative clauses in electrical engineering professional writing are not always marked by a comma and that `which' appears slightly more frequently than `that' as a relative pronoun. Figure 1 shows a sample of a gap-filler exercise devised to have students explore the choice of relative pronoun.
Figure 1
Sample Questions on a Relative Clause Handout
Fill in the blanks with the correct relative pronoun (that, who, which, whose, and whom). For `which,' decide whether the clause is restrictive or non-restrictive.
1. For example, consider two users are assigned the same rectangular waveform.
2. Given an invertible crosscorrelation matrix R and a K -vector e components are drawn from {-1,+1} we construct the matrix R.
3. We shall show that considerable performance improvement can be gained by using the optimum metric leads to a maximum-likelihood sequence estimation (MLSE) algorithm. Feedback, Reflections, and Future Plans for Concordancing in English for Specific Purposes
Concordancing software and a corpus compiled of specific texts enabled the Computers in Language Teaching faculty member and the novice teacher to prepare study materials focusing on different aspects of the language use of electrical engineering book chapters in an efficient way. By utilizing corpus linguistic techniques and drawing on English for specific purposes theory, the faculty member and the novice teacher could provide a meaningful, specialized electrical engineering course. On the final course evaluations, students commented especially positively on the authentic materials designed for the course. The relationship between the novice teacher and the faculty member created an ideal venue for exploring and exploiting corpus linguistic applications to language teaching. In the future, tagged texts will be explored to facilitate the examination of syntactic choices made by content specialists in their writing.
CONCLUSIONS
In all of our courses, from the preservice Computers in Language Teaching course to the four language courses presented above, we found that by grounding our technology integration projects in theory, we were able to support student learning and course goals with authentic materials and tasks, create autonomous learners in our classrooms, and encourage life-long learning with and through computers. The preservice teachers in the Computers in Language Teaching course discovered that, once in charge of their own language courses, they could apply what they had learned directly in their classrooms with confidence and self-assurance. The Computers in Language Teaching course modeled to these novice teachers how theory informs practice, thereby bridging the gap in many teacher preparation programs between theoretical considerations and hands-on teaching applications.
REFERENCES
Authorware [Computer software]. (1999). San Francisco: Macromedia.
Beatty, K. (2003). Teaching and researching computer-assisted language learning. London: Longman.
Beauvois, M. H. (1998). E-talk: Computer-assisted classroom discussion—Attitudes and motivation. In J. Swaffer, S. Romano, P. Markley, & K. Arens (Eds.), Language learning online: Theory and practice in the ESL and L2 computer classroom (pp. 99-120). Austin, TX: Labyrinth Publications.
Biber, D., Conrad, S., & Reppen, R. (1998). Corpus linguistics: Investigating language structure and use. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Biber, D., Johansson, S., Leech, G., Conrad, S., & Finegan, E. (1999). Longman grammar of spoken and written English. Essex, UK: Longman.
Brownell, K. (1997). Technology in teacher education: Where are we and where do we go from here. Journal of Technology and Teacher Education, 5 (2/3), 117-138. Buell, J. (1999). CALL issues: Resources for CALL. In J. Egbert & E. Hanson-Smith (Eds.), CALL environments: Research, practice, and critical issues (pp. 216-237). Alexandria, VA: TESOL, Inc.
Celce-Murcia, M. (1999). The grammar book: An ESL/EFL teacher's course (2nd ed.). Boston: Heinle & Heinle Publishers.
Chao, C. (1999). Theory and research: New emphases of assessment in the language learning classroom. In J. Egbert & E. Hanson-Smith (Eds.), CALL environments: Research, practice, and critical issues (pp. 243-256). Alexandria, VA: TESOL, Inc.
Chapelle, C. (1999). Theory and research: Investigation of “authentic” language learning tasks. In J. Egbert & E. Hanson-Smith (Eds.), CALL environments: Research, practice, and critical issues (pp. 101-115). Alexandria, VA: TESOL, Inc.
Chun, D. M. (1998). Using computer-assisted class discussion to facilitate the acquisition of interactive competence. In J. Swaffer, S. Romano, P. Markley, & K. Arens (Eds.), Language learning online: Theory and practice in the ESL and L2 computer classroom (pp. 57-80). Austin, TX: Labyrinth Publications.
Cohen, A. D. (1994). Assessing language ability in the classroom. Boston: Heinle & Heinle.
Dahlman, A., & Rilling, S. (2001). Integrating technologies and tasks in an EFL distance learning course in Finland. TESOL Journal, 10 (1), 4-8.
Donley, K. M., & Reppen, R. (2001). Using corpus tools to highlight vocabulary in SCLT. TESOL Journal, 10 (2/3), 7-12.
Drever, E., & Cope, P. (1999). Students' use of theory in an initial teacher education programme. Journal of Education for Teaching, 25 (2), 97-109.
Dudley-Evans & St. John, M. G. (1998). Developments in English for specific purposes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Egbert, J. (1999). Classroom practice: Creating interactive CALL activities. In J. Egbert & E. Hanson-Smith (Eds.), CALL environments: Research, practice, and critical issues (pp. 27-40). Alexandria, VA: TESOL, Inc.
Ehrmann, S. C., (1995). Facing the triple challenge: You can't do it alone. CALICO Journal, 13 (1), 5-25.
Ellis, M., & Johnson, C. (1994). Teaching business English. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Ferris, D., & Hedgcock, J. S. (1998). Teaching ESL composition: Purpose, process, and practice. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Flowerdew, J. (1993). Concordancing as a tool in course design. System, 21 (2), 231-244.
Foltz, P. W. (1996). Comprehension, coherence, and strategies in hypertext and linear text. In J. Rouet, J. Levonen, A. Dillon, & R. Spiro (Eds.), Hypertext and cognition (pp. 109-136). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Freeman, D., & Johnson, K. E. (1998). Reconceptualizing the knowledge-base of language teacher education. TESOL Quarterly, 32, 397-417.
Freeman, D, & Richards, J. C. (1996). Teacher learning in language teaching. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Kamis, 23 Desember 2010
Call and Teaching
A Computer-Mediated Scientific Writing Program
Roy Bowers
Center for Biological Research
La Paz, Mexico
Abstract
Biologists at the Center for Biological Research found ways to improve their scientific writing without the benefit of an English language program. By tapping Internet biology forums for comprehensible input, and using a computer-assisted retention strategy to profit from error correction, writing has begun to improve. Scientific dialogue on the Internet has helped this group realize that by writing more concise sentences, they could reduce the number of errors in their scientific papers without conceding academic authority.
Introduction
English is the lingua franca of the scientific community today (I.S.I., 1995); with few exceptions, a biologist must write correctly in English to publish internationally. This contemporary reality forced the Centro de Investigaciones Biolo'gicas (CIB) in La Paz, Mexico, to look for ways to improve the English writing of its biologists, thereby empowering them in the competitive environment of scientific publishing.
The CIB supports 125 researchers and graduate students in aquaculture, ecology, marine biology, biotechnology, and marine pathology. For financial, logistical, and political reasons, there is no English language program at the CIB, yet English is critical to the Mexican scientist. When hired, a researcher is given a salary which is enough to live on, but only by publishing internationally, i.e., in English, will the salary double with the addition of "merit pay" provided by the National System of Researchers. Not only is there incentive on the part of scientists to publish in English, but the center is also funded according to its scientific production, as measured by articles published in international journals.
Despite the lack of a conventional EFL program, the CIB has access to vast amounts of scientific reading in English. The library can access most scientific journals through the DIALOG bibliographic service. Scientific abstracts are supplied through the Cambridge CD-ROM database service. Every researcher also has access to a computer with full Internet connection. [-1-]
My responsibility was to edit the manuscripts of CIB biologists to improve their chances of being published. It didn't take long before I realized that writers were repeating the same errors frequently in subsequent papers, regardless of my corrections.
Comprehensible Input
I began by looking at their reading. Since the biologists were constantly reading scientific articles in English, I hoped to see some positive effect on their writing as well. To establish a relationship between their reading and their writing, I asked the group to evaluate themselves (on a scale of 1-5) on their comprehension of each section of a scientific paper (Abstract, Introduction, Materials and Methods, and Discussion). I rank-ordered from easiest to most difficult (based on my own experience with scientific text):
1. Materials and Methods
2. Abstract
3. Introduction
4. Discussion (or Results and discussion)
Not surprisingly, their ability to comprehend these sections corresponded with their ability to write them. The Materials and Methods section was the clearly the easiest section for both reading and writing. The discussion section was the least understood, suggesting it was probably written in a style that was above their linguistic competence.
The question then became: "How can we offer scientific discussion that is more comprehensible than that which is generally found in published scientific papers"? Our solution was to provide access to the scientific forums on the Internet where the discussion appeared to be written in a more comprehensible style. This was later confirmed by questionnaire which indicated that researchers clearly understood the scientific dialogue on network forums in biology.
In EST programs for non-native speakers of English, it is important to distinguish between scientific communication (that found in scientific journals) and scientific dialogue (such as that found in forums on the Internet). If we expect the writing of EFL scientists to improve as a result of comprehensible input, that input should indeed, be comprehensible. For this target group, much of what they were reading in journals appeared to be having little impact on their writing, possibly because it was far above their ability to comprehend.
To access scientific dialogue, we began by having the scientists subscribe to relevant Biological forums via e-mail. However, this proved to be frustrating to some researchers. On some [-2-] BioNet forums, a week could pass without a single message; others forums produced a flood of e-mail, but only a small percentage of it was relevant to their research.
Netnews was found to be a more satisfactory medium for a number of reasons:
1. Newsreader software makes it easier to follow a thread (one or more postings with the same subject).
2. News software recovers messages automatically after network interruptions, whereas subscribers can automatically be removed from e-mail lists during server/network malfunctions. This factor is particularly important in developing countries where network connections are often undependable.
3. Messages are stored on a local server for a long period, (depending on the system policy and disk resources), making it easier to search through past postings. The CIB keeps BioNet messages for several months before they scroll off.
4. News software organizes messages by topic and subtopic for easy browsing. In contrast, e-mail forums arrive in chronological order of posting and are mixed in with other forums and personal messages.
The software we use (TIN) was easy to learn and made it possible to search past messages for content and keywords.
This aspect of "searchability" was important to CIB scientists. They had specific interests they wanted to read about, and often complained of having to read through irrelevant material when they were subscribed to e-mail forums. Unfortunately, not all biology forums are echoed on NetNews, so some e-mail subscriptions were still necessary (aquaculture and site specific ecology groups). Presently, 77 BioNet forums are carried both as e-mail distribution lists and as Usenet newsgroups. Information about Bionet is available by sending an e-mail request for the FAQ to biosci-help@net.bio.net or by anonymous FTP from net.bio.net [134.172.2.69] in pub/BIOSCI/doc/biosci.FAQ.
Error Correction
My second approach to improving scientific writing centered around error correction. Since I was already editing their papers, it seemed logical to capitalize on this effort by providing some way for writers to learn from their errors. My goal was to see the fruits of correction reflected in subsequent papers and to minimize [-3-] their dependence on my editing. My solution was to show writers how to use a "digital learning log". Learning logs aren't new to language teaching (Beni'tez, 1990), but using a computer to generate them is (hence the word digital'). Since all CIB biologists use word-processing software (mostly WordPerfect) for writing, I facilitated the creation of a learning log by developing a macro (an automated computer routine) to copy text from the original document to the learning log.
A digital learning log is a separate document generated by the word processing software. It contains the writer's most common errors and corrections. The following desribes how we use it at the CIB:
1. Writers submit their manuscripts for correction (paper copy).
2. During editing, I mark the errors and indicate with a highlighter those errors which are important enough to be in their learning log, providing just enough context (I found that too much context makes the log become unwieldy.) The paper is returned to the writer.
3. During revision, the writer comes to the first highlighted error, highlights it using the word-processing program, then invokes the macro with one keystroke. This macro instantly copies the error to the log and returns the writer to the paper. This copy/paste takes a fraction of a second.
4. The writer then corrects the error in the manuscript according to my comments, and moves on to the next error. (During the revision process, the writer is hardly aware that a learning log is being used, since errors are quickly copied to another document which is not visible on the writer's screen.)
5. This sequence continues: a) highlight & copy the error to the log b) correct the error in the paper.
6. After the manuscript is corrected and saved, the writer now turns to the learning log and corrects the errors from memory, rewriting the correct phrase directly below the error.
7. The writer then verifies the correctness of the log by comparing it to the original manuscript, which has been previously corrected. [-4-]
8. The log can be organized according to the writer's own strategy. Comments and notes can be added, personalizing the log. Finally, the learning log is saved and printed.
This entire process, by itself, had little effect on the number of writing errors. However, when writers reviewed the log immediately prior to writing a new paper, the number of errors in their papers dropped significantly. Thus, by reviewing their most common errors prior to writing, they were reminded of their linguistic pitfalls and stimulated to take corrective measures while they were putting thought to paper. It seems in this case that anticipation of an error is an important part of correcting it before it appears in print.
CIB researchers found the learning log to be an enjoyable, self-paced activity. Several researchers commented that before using the learning log, they never felt they were actually learning from correction. Instructions for creating and using the learning log macro are available by sending the command GET LEARN LOG EST-L to LISTSERV@ASUVM.INRE.ASU.EDU (host of EST-L, Teachers of English for Science and Technology).
We also experimented briefly with grammar checkers. Pennington (1993) makes a strong case against using grammar checkers for ESL students. Our experience was also negative. Researchers felt deceived when this software flagged correct scientific constructions. The learning log proved to be far more valuable than the grammar checker as a autonomous writing strategy for reducing the number of writing errors.
Discussion
The learning log showed immediate and positive results. From all indications this activity created a matalinguistic awareness that was helpful to our scientific writers.
Connecting CIB researchers to Biological forums has also shown promise, but in an unexpected way. Writers developed a marked appreciation for the simplicity and brevity that characterizes scientific dialogue. After years of reading the more verbose and formal style of scientific journals, they found it surprising that brief and clear communication could be so powerful, persuasive, and authoritative. This realization contrasted drastically with their culturally-determined bias for lengthy prose. Soon, CIB writers began to imitate the style they observed in the forums, and surprisingly, the number of errors in their writing dropped considerably.
Leaders in the field of scientific writing all agree that scientific communication should be clear and concise (Booth, 1993; Day, 1979, 1992; Woodford 1986). These authors also concur that [-5-] effective scientific writing comes straight to the point in as few words as possible. However, for many Mexican scientific writers, "coming straight to the point" is not considered scholarly. As editor, I found that most writing errors for this group were the consequence of attempting complex constructions without the linguistic competence to do so, resulting in sentences like the following:
It is important to emphasize the catalytics differences between crustacean proteinases and vertebrate proteinases such as shrimps chymotrypsins are not affected by some specific inhibitors for bovine chymotrypsin and crabs trypsins have differents calcium ion requirements, pH stability, lower isoelectric point and a wide range of molecular weights compared to vertebrate trypsins.
By trying to include so much information into one sentence, L2 writers often provide themselves more opportunity for grammatical error. After reading biological dialogue on the net, they saw how leaders in their field were very adept at expressing complex thoughts with clever economy.
It seems to matter little that the Internet forum style is in a different register than that of the scientific paper. For EFL students, the important realization was cultural: that native English speaking scientists do not sacrifice authority by writing simply. For EST students, skillful biological forum writers make better role models than journal writers because they tend to express themselves more clearly. Of course brevity can be exaggerated, but during revision, I found it much easier to help writers combine sentences than simplify them.
Examples of more concise writing are now beginning to appear on my desk at CIB, but it is still too soon to know how far this lesson in brevity will be reflected in the scientific articles of researchers or how much it will contribute to overall correctness.
Summary
Without an EFL program, the CIB has had to rely on comprehensible input and error correction to improve writing skills. The learning log provided writers with a retention mechanism that reduced the number of errors almost immediately. Internet biological forums provided researchers with two missing elements in their linguistic development: scientific dialogue at their level of comprehension and exposure to clear and concise writing. Currently, we are exploring the World Wide Web as a source of even more scientific text that is both comprehensible and easily accessible. Clearly, the Internet is proving to be a formative macrocosm for the writing development of this target group. [-6-]
References
Beni'tez, R. (1990). Using a learning log in an EFL writing class. English Teaching Forum 28:(3): 40.
Booth, V. (1993). Communicating in science. Cambridge, R.I.: Cambridge University Press.
Day, R. A. (1979). How to write and publish a scientific paper. Philadelphia: I.S.I Press.
Day, R. A. (1992). Scientific English: A guide for scientists and other professionals. Phoenix: Oryx Press.
I.S.I. (Institute for Scientific Information) (1995). Current contents (weekly), 3501 Market Street, Philadelphia, PA.
Pennington, M. (1993). Computer-assisted writing on a principled basis: The case against computer-assisted text analysis for non-proficient writers. Language and Education 7(1): 43-59.
Woodford, P. F. (Ed.) (1986). Scientific writing for graduate students. Bethesda, MD: Committee on Graduate Training in Scientific Writing, Council of Biology Editors, Inc.
Roy Bowers
Center for Biological Research
La Paz, Mexico
Abstract
Biologists at the Center for Biological Research found ways to improve their scientific writing without the benefit of an English language program. By tapping Internet biology forums for comprehensible input, and using a computer-assisted retention strategy to profit from error correction, writing has begun to improve. Scientific dialogue on the Internet has helped this group realize that by writing more concise sentences, they could reduce the number of errors in their scientific papers without conceding academic authority.
Introduction
English is the lingua franca of the scientific community today (I.S.I., 1995); with few exceptions, a biologist must write correctly in English to publish internationally. This contemporary reality forced the Centro de Investigaciones Biolo'gicas (CIB) in La Paz, Mexico, to look for ways to improve the English writing of its biologists, thereby empowering them in the competitive environment of scientific publishing.
The CIB supports 125 researchers and graduate students in aquaculture, ecology, marine biology, biotechnology, and marine pathology. For financial, logistical, and political reasons, there is no English language program at the CIB, yet English is critical to the Mexican scientist. When hired, a researcher is given a salary which is enough to live on, but only by publishing internationally, i.e., in English, will the salary double with the addition of "merit pay" provided by the National System of Researchers. Not only is there incentive on the part of scientists to publish in English, but the center is also funded according to its scientific production, as measured by articles published in international journals.
Despite the lack of a conventional EFL program, the CIB has access to vast amounts of scientific reading in English. The library can access most scientific journals through the DIALOG bibliographic service. Scientific abstracts are supplied through the Cambridge CD-ROM database service. Every researcher also has access to a computer with full Internet connection. [-1-]
My responsibility was to edit the manuscripts of CIB biologists to improve their chances of being published. It didn't take long before I realized that writers were repeating the same errors frequently in subsequent papers, regardless of my corrections.
Comprehensible Input
I began by looking at their reading. Since the biologists were constantly reading scientific articles in English, I hoped to see some positive effect on their writing as well. To establish a relationship between their reading and their writing, I asked the group to evaluate themselves (on a scale of 1-5) on their comprehension of each section of a scientific paper (Abstract, Introduction, Materials and Methods, and Discussion). I rank-ordered from easiest to most difficult (based on my own experience with scientific text):
1. Materials and Methods
2. Abstract
3. Introduction
4. Discussion (or Results and discussion)
Not surprisingly, their ability to comprehend these sections corresponded with their ability to write them. The Materials and Methods section was the clearly the easiest section for both reading and writing. The discussion section was the least understood, suggesting it was probably written in a style that was above their linguistic competence.
The question then became: "How can we offer scientific discussion that is more comprehensible than that which is generally found in published scientific papers"? Our solution was to provide access to the scientific forums on the Internet where the discussion appeared to be written in a more comprehensible style. This was later confirmed by questionnaire which indicated that researchers clearly understood the scientific dialogue on network forums in biology.
In EST programs for non-native speakers of English, it is important to distinguish between scientific communication (that found in scientific journals) and scientific dialogue (such as that found in forums on the Internet). If we expect the writing of EFL scientists to improve as a result of comprehensible input, that input should indeed, be comprehensible. For this target group, much of what they were reading in journals appeared to be having little impact on their writing, possibly because it was far above their ability to comprehend.
To access scientific dialogue, we began by having the scientists subscribe to relevant Biological forums via e-mail. However, this proved to be frustrating to some researchers. On some [-2-] BioNet forums, a week could pass without a single message; others forums produced a flood of e-mail, but only a small percentage of it was relevant to their research.
Netnews was found to be a more satisfactory medium for a number of reasons:
1. Newsreader software makes it easier to follow a thread (one or more postings with the same subject).
2. News software recovers messages automatically after network interruptions, whereas subscribers can automatically be removed from e-mail lists during server/network malfunctions. This factor is particularly important in developing countries where network connections are often undependable.
3. Messages are stored on a local server for a long period, (depending on the system policy and disk resources), making it easier to search through past postings. The CIB keeps BioNet messages for several months before they scroll off.
4. News software organizes messages by topic and subtopic for easy browsing. In contrast, e-mail forums arrive in chronological order of posting and are mixed in with other forums and personal messages.
The software we use (TIN) was easy to learn and made it possible to search past messages for content and keywords.
This aspect of "searchability" was important to CIB scientists. They had specific interests they wanted to read about, and often complained of having to read through irrelevant material when they were subscribed to e-mail forums. Unfortunately, not all biology forums are echoed on NetNews, so some e-mail subscriptions were still necessary (aquaculture and site specific ecology groups). Presently, 77 BioNet forums are carried both as e-mail distribution lists and as Usenet newsgroups. Information about Bionet is available by sending an e-mail request for the FAQ to biosci-help@net.bio.net or by anonymous FTP from net.bio.net [134.172.2.69] in pub/BIOSCI/doc/biosci.FAQ.
Error Correction
My second approach to improving scientific writing centered around error correction. Since I was already editing their papers, it seemed logical to capitalize on this effort by providing some way for writers to learn from their errors. My goal was to see the fruits of correction reflected in subsequent papers and to minimize [-3-] their dependence on my editing. My solution was to show writers how to use a "digital learning log". Learning logs aren't new to language teaching (Beni'tez, 1990), but using a computer to generate them is (hence the word digital'). Since all CIB biologists use word-processing software (mostly WordPerfect) for writing, I facilitated the creation of a learning log by developing a macro (an automated computer routine) to copy text from the original document to the learning log.
A digital learning log is a separate document generated by the word processing software. It contains the writer's most common errors and corrections. The following desribes how we use it at the CIB:
1. Writers submit their manuscripts for correction (paper copy).
2. During editing, I mark the errors and indicate with a highlighter those errors which are important enough to be in their learning log, providing just enough context (I found that too much context makes the log become unwieldy.) The paper is returned to the writer.
3. During revision, the writer comes to the first highlighted error, highlights it using the word-processing program, then invokes the macro with one keystroke. This macro instantly copies the error to the log and returns the writer to the paper. This copy/paste takes a fraction of a second.
4. The writer then corrects the error in the manuscript according to my comments, and moves on to the next error. (During the revision process, the writer is hardly aware that a learning log is being used, since errors are quickly copied to another document which is not visible on the writer's screen.)
5. This sequence continues: a) highlight & copy the error to the log b) correct the error in the paper.
6. After the manuscript is corrected and saved, the writer now turns to the learning log and corrects the errors from memory, rewriting the correct phrase directly below the error.
7. The writer then verifies the correctness of the log by comparing it to the original manuscript, which has been previously corrected. [-4-]
8. The log can be organized according to the writer's own strategy. Comments and notes can be added, personalizing the log. Finally, the learning log is saved and printed.
This entire process, by itself, had little effect on the number of writing errors. However, when writers reviewed the log immediately prior to writing a new paper, the number of errors in their papers dropped significantly. Thus, by reviewing their most common errors prior to writing, they were reminded of their linguistic pitfalls and stimulated to take corrective measures while they were putting thought to paper. It seems in this case that anticipation of an error is an important part of correcting it before it appears in print.
CIB researchers found the learning log to be an enjoyable, self-paced activity. Several researchers commented that before using the learning log, they never felt they were actually learning from correction. Instructions for creating and using the learning log macro are available by sending the command GET LEARN LOG EST-L to LISTSERV@ASUVM.INRE.ASU.EDU (host of EST-L, Teachers of English for Science and Technology).
We also experimented briefly with grammar checkers. Pennington (1993) makes a strong case against using grammar checkers for ESL students. Our experience was also negative. Researchers felt deceived when this software flagged correct scientific constructions. The learning log proved to be far more valuable than the grammar checker as a autonomous writing strategy for reducing the number of writing errors.
Discussion
The learning log showed immediate and positive results. From all indications this activity created a matalinguistic awareness that was helpful to our scientific writers.
Connecting CIB researchers to Biological forums has also shown promise, but in an unexpected way. Writers developed a marked appreciation for the simplicity and brevity that characterizes scientific dialogue. After years of reading the more verbose and formal style of scientific journals, they found it surprising that brief and clear communication could be so powerful, persuasive, and authoritative. This realization contrasted drastically with their culturally-determined bias for lengthy prose. Soon, CIB writers began to imitate the style they observed in the forums, and surprisingly, the number of errors in their writing dropped considerably.
Leaders in the field of scientific writing all agree that scientific communication should be clear and concise (Booth, 1993; Day, 1979, 1992; Woodford 1986). These authors also concur that [-5-] effective scientific writing comes straight to the point in as few words as possible. However, for many Mexican scientific writers, "coming straight to the point" is not considered scholarly. As editor, I found that most writing errors for this group were the consequence of attempting complex constructions without the linguistic competence to do so, resulting in sentences like the following:
It is important to emphasize the catalytics differences between crustacean proteinases and vertebrate proteinases such as shrimps chymotrypsins are not affected by some specific inhibitors for bovine chymotrypsin and crabs trypsins have differents calcium ion requirements, pH stability, lower isoelectric point and a wide range of molecular weights compared to vertebrate trypsins.
By trying to include so much information into one sentence, L2 writers often provide themselves more opportunity for grammatical error. After reading biological dialogue on the net, they saw how leaders in their field were very adept at expressing complex thoughts with clever economy.
It seems to matter little that the Internet forum style is in a different register than that of the scientific paper. For EFL students, the important realization was cultural: that native English speaking scientists do not sacrifice authority by writing simply. For EST students, skillful biological forum writers make better role models than journal writers because they tend to express themselves more clearly. Of course brevity can be exaggerated, but during revision, I found it much easier to help writers combine sentences than simplify them.
Examples of more concise writing are now beginning to appear on my desk at CIB, but it is still too soon to know how far this lesson in brevity will be reflected in the scientific articles of researchers or how much it will contribute to overall correctness.
Summary
Without an EFL program, the CIB has had to rely on comprehensible input and error correction to improve writing skills. The learning log provided writers with a retention mechanism that reduced the number of errors almost immediately. Internet biological forums provided researchers with two missing elements in their linguistic development: scientific dialogue at their level of comprehension and exposure to clear and concise writing. Currently, we are exploring the World Wide Web as a source of even more scientific text that is both comprehensible and easily accessible. Clearly, the Internet is proving to be a formative macrocosm for the writing development of this target group. [-6-]
References
Beni'tez, R. (1990). Using a learning log in an EFL writing class. English Teaching Forum 28:(3): 40.
Booth, V. (1993). Communicating in science. Cambridge, R.I.: Cambridge University Press.
Day, R. A. (1979). How to write and publish a scientific paper. Philadelphia: I.S.I Press.
Day, R. A. (1992). Scientific English: A guide for scientists and other professionals. Phoenix: Oryx Press.
I.S.I. (Institute for Scientific Information) (1995). Current contents (weekly), 3501 Market Street, Philadelphia, PA.
Pennington, M. (1993). Computer-assisted writing on a principled basis: The case against computer-assisted text analysis for non-proficient writers. Language and Education 7(1): 43-59.
Woodford, P. F. (Ed.) (1986). Scientific writing for graduate students. Bethesda, MD: Committee on Graduate Training in Scientific Writing, Council of Biology Editors, Inc.
Developing writing fluency and lexical complexity with blogs
The researchers utilized student blogs in an integrated CALL program for low proficiency,
low motivation Japanese university language learners in a seven-day intensive English course
in September 2004. The program included tasks completed both on computers and in
traditional classrooms. In this paper, the researchers describe learner gains in writing fluency
by comparing the number of words and word frequency levels in student blogs at the beginning
and at the end of the program. On the first day, the student blog entry average word count
was less than 35 words over a 20-minute period. Nearly all words produced fell within the
most frequent 1000 word level. By the end of the CALL program there was nearly a 350%
increase in the number of words used in students’ blog entries, as well as a substantial increase
in the number of 2000 word level and even lower frequency level words.
As a form of online diary writing, blogs have become extremely popular in the
past few years and have been increasingly promoted as a form of alternative
assessment not only in writing classrooms for native speakers (Barrios, 2003)
but also for second language learners (Campbell, 2003; Ward, 2004; Johnson, 2004;
Pinkman, 2005) and as a form of “diary introspection” for teachers (Suzuki, 2004).
Few of the plethora of blog-related studies have examined the role blogs might play in
an integrated CALL curriculum, and none have offered quantitative results as to the
fluency benefits of blogging. This paper will present results from a seven-day intensive
CALL–based intensive EFL program implemented at a four-year private university in
western Japan in September 2004. Over the course of the program, students performed
a variety of CALL tasks, including web listening, reading and vocabulary-building.
Learners posted email messages to the class freewriting blog during a 20-minute
timed session every morning of the program, and in the process improved their writing
fluency: they more than tripled their writing output, while at the same improving their
lexical frequency levels.
The JALT CALL Journal, 2006, Vol. 2, No. 1, pp. 15-26 Copyright © JALT CALL SIG (ISSN 1832-4215) — 15
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Background
A total of 21 seniors participated in the program in September 2004 before the start of the
regular fall semester. Attending the program was required for them, as all had failed to join
an Australia or New Zealand study abroad program, a graduation requirement of the Faculty
of Foreign Languages. The students scored fairly low in general on the TOEIC examination,
with overall scores ranging from a low of 150 to a high of 370, and were generally
perceived by previous instructors as being essentially uninterested in learning English. Since
the program was to be held for only seven days, with about five and a half hours of class
time each day from 9:00 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., the instructors (the researchers of this paper)
decided to eschew textbooks in favor of a blend of CALL tasks and traditional classroom
tasks. In a survey done the first day of the program, the instructors discovered that only
two students had ever used computers in a high school or university classroom, and more
than half of the 21 students in the program rarely used computers at all. Keeping this in
mind, the instructors decided on several appropriate CALL tasks, and designed a program
curriculum focusing on fluency and improving student interest in English.
Rationale for blogging as a CALL task
A great difficulty in designing an integrated CALL program is determining which tasks are
appropriate in order to achieve desired learning outcomes. The instructors strongly felt that
all computer based tasks used in the program they developed should not only complement
each other as much as possible but also enhance the learning that took place within the
traditional classroom component of the program, so that a seamless flow of language learning
opportunities would be created. For this reason all the tasks, both CALL and regular
classroom tasks, were chosen based upon seven criteria of task appropriateness. Six of
the criteria used were initially proposed by Carol Chappelle (2001), while the instructors
conceived of the seventh and final criterion themselves. The criteria were:
1. Language Learning Potential
2. Learner Fit
3. Meaning Focus
4. Authenticity
5. Positive Impact
6. Practicality
7. Enhancement
A brief explanation of the criterion “enhancement” is necessary at this point, since to the
best of the researchers’ knowledge this is the first time the concept has been introduced. It
was previously stated that the instructors believed that any CALL program must integrate
computer tasks with classroom tasks and activities to the overall benefit of the students.
The seventh criterion, enhancement, reflects this belief, as it requires that any CALL task
selected provide some potential enhancement or benefit over more traditional pedagogical
approaches. There is little justification in using computers simply because they are available,
if a regular classroom activity would be either superior or at least equally effective, taking
into account cost, time and potential technical problems. In short, only that which can best
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Fellner & Apple: Developing writing fluency and lexical complexity with blogs
be done with computers ought to be done with computers.
The present paper focuses specifically on one CALL task which was central to the overall
curriculum—web logs, or blogs, used as a kind of online diary to promote writing fluency.
This task was selected for several reasons.
First, the use of students’ blogs met the seven criteria for CALL task selection. The blogs
provided students with real learning opportunities to improve not only their written English
but also their reading in English, as students were asked to read their classmates’ blogs and
respond to them. As Zamel (1992) wrote, “Just as reading provides ‘comprehensible input’
for writing, writing can contribute comprehensible input for reading” (Zamel, 1992, p. 480).
The use of blogs fit with students’ interests and varying English levels, as they didn’t have to
write to any standard or level above or beyond their own ability. The instructors explained
to the students that grammar and syntax were not being evaluated and that the only requirement
for blog entries was that they write their honest opinions about the blog topics.
Blogs also met the third criterion, meaning, as the students were responsible for making
sure to write their blog entries clearly enough for their classmates to understand. (See “The
class blog procedure” below for a description of the blog comment process.)
The blogs provided both students and teachers with an authentic task, as blogs are
now common and have become a relevant and credible forum for people to express their
opinions and share information throughout the world. In 2004, for example, the Merriam-
Webster Dictionary added “blog” as both a verb and a noun, calling “blog” the “word of the
year.” Recently, The New York Times Magazine reported that over 32 million Americans read
blogs and that blog advertisements earned bloggers an estimated $100 million during 2005
(Thompson, 2006). In Japan, as of May, 2005, there were more than 3.35 million blogs and
over 16 million Japanese people were visiting blogs at least once a month, according to the
online blog news site The Blog Herald (2005). One can hardly find a more authentic CALL
task than blogging. The fifth criterion, impact, was also met, as the blogs provided students
not only with opportunities to acquire and use new vocabulary but also with new and
useful computer skills. This impact reaches far beyond the classroom as it enables students
to use computers and blogs for their own interests in either English or their first language.
Blogging met the criterion of practicality in that it imposed no extra financial burden on
either the university or the students. Finally, blogs met the criterion of enhancement in
that they were much more practical to use than paper-based diaries. Unlike notebooks,
blogs cannot be forgotten at home, are more easily accessible (only one person at a time
can read a diary while an entire class has simultaneous access to one student’s blog), and
are more easily commented on. Moreover, blogs are more motivating for students because
they allow a familiar pedagogical task in the English language classroom to seem fresh when
presented in the new medium of the Internet.
The final reason that blogging was chosen as a task was that it provided the instructors
with a timely, efficient means of evaluating whether the learning goal of improving writing
fluency was achieved. Writing fluency was chosen as a program goal largely because the
instructors felt that the limited time available in the seven-day intensive program made it
very difficult, if not impossible, to effect any measurable and positive improvement in the
students’ written grammar and syntax. However, the researchers did believe that improvements
in writing fluency could be realized in such a short program.
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The class blog procedure
There are many ways to set up a blog for classroom use. Johnson (2004) describes how to
set up individual blogs in order to give students access as users to a main “class blog.” As
students in this program were relatively low proficiency, in the interests of time-effectiveness
and simplicity, the instructors set up a class blog to which students could post messages
via email. The free blogger.com service was used, primarily because of the “comment”
feature that allowed students to comment freely on each other’s posted messages.
During the first class students set up personal email accounts in either Microsoft MSN/
Hotmail or Yahoo! Email. Each morning thereafter students received a blog topic emailed
to them from the instructors. Students spent twenty minutes freewriting an email message
and then emailed their freewrites to the class blog. This time limit was strictly enforced by
the instructors for several reasons. First, limiting the time made it difficult for students to
rely on online dictionaries to find vocabulary and check their spelling; it also promoted the
goal that self-expression was to be more important than grammar and spelling. Second, the
20-minute time limit encouraged students to begin writing immediately, rather than discussing
the topic verbally with their friends. Third, the instructors had a great deal of material
and activities to introduce during the program and preferred not to spend the majority of
the time with student blogs.
As noted above, blogging was the main writing component of the blended CALL program,
but there were other CALL activities as well. These activities, including web listening,
use of online concordances, online grammar puzzles and quizzes, videos, and face-to-face
pair and group discussions, were arranged using a Wave Model to enhance the recycling of
comprehensible input. The Wave Model, first introduced in outdoor language education
by Martin (2002), provides language instructors with a model of constantly occurring and
recurring language targets that interact, support, and enhance one another over a period
of time. For example, in this integrated CALL program, careful use of the Wave Model to
arrange CALL tasks ensured that listening activities on the computer in the morning would
be followed by speaking activities in the regular classroom in the afternoon, and the following
morning students would revisit many of the same themes by writing on related topics in
their blog entries. This use of the integrated CALL environment through the Wave Model
allowed for constant revisiting and recycling of lexical items, as learners began to express
the previous lesson’s input in their own written blog output.
After students finished their email messages, they sent the messages to the blog email
address for posting. Messages appeared on the class blog website within a few minutes and
students then read their classmates’ email postings and chose two or three to comment
on, writing one or two short sentences for each comment. The class blog was also used
on Day 4 of the program for students to post a longer, self-researched entry about their
favorite movie actor. This assignment was related to a web listening activity not detailed
in this paper, which allowed students to revisit the vocabulary targets learned through the
listening task. The instructors viewed the class blog and related writing activities primarily
as a tool to promote writing fluency and self-expression (Zamel, 1992; Knutson, 2000). As
such, students’ email postings were edited neither for content nor for grammar mistakes.
Although many researchers in task-based teaching have pointed out that a focus on
accuracy, while not necessary for students to communicate effectively, is beneficial (Long
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Fellner & Apple: Developing writing fluency and lexical complexity with blogs
& Robinson, 1998; Skehan, 2003), the instructors felt that such a focus would undermine
program goals due to: a) the students’ low proficiency, b) their low motivation to study
English, c) their relative lack of experience and/or possible anxiety about using computers
in English, and d) the short timespan of the program. Therefore, the goal of fluency in blog
writing seemed far more important as a method of encouraging meaningful interaction
among students and so increasing student motivation.
A definition of “writing fluency”
The researchers discovered that, surprisingly, there was no viable definition specifically for
writing fluency available in current ESL/EFL literature. H. D. Brown does refer to fluency
activities as “saying or writing a steady flow of language for a short period of time without
any self- or other correction at all” (Brown, 1994, p. 113). Although this explanation is helpful,
it is not appropriate as the basis for a definition of writing fluency when applied to most
CALL studies focusing on writing. Brown’s explanation could lead to the erroneous conclusion
that the longer the flow of language, and the more words produced, the more fluent
the writer is. When writing is done with computers, as is likely to be the case in CALL
programs, any word count increase may be attributable in whole or in part to an improvement
in students’ typing speed throughout the duration of the program rather than to a
true development of writing fluency. Brown’s explanation also ignores critical factors such
as lexical complexity and text comprehensibility. If lexical complexity and comprehensibility
are not taken into account, students could conceivably be identified as having improving
their writing fluency merely on the strength of having written the same simple sentence
repeatedly over the timed period.
In order to avoid these problems this paper defines fluency in writing as the number of
words produced in a specified time frame, together with lexical frequency, irrespective of
spelling and content, provided that the writer’s meaning is readily understandable. The term
“lexical frequency” has been used to describe the difficulty level of words based on the frequency
with which they normally occur in written English (Laufer & Nation, 1995; Goodfellow,
Lamy & Jones, 2002). The less frequently a word normally appears, the more difficult it
is considered to be. Although any increase in the bare word count could conceivably result
from students becoming more familiar with typing on computers, increased computer familiarity
would not explain an increase in the number of low-frequency words (lexically more
complex vocabulary items) occurring in student writing. By considering the lexical frequency
of words in combination with the number of words produced, the definition ensures that
an increase in writing fluency cannot be attributed solely to improved computer skills.
This definition is useful for two other important reasons. First, it effectively distinguishes
fluency from accuracy and proficiency which, although related, are not one and the same.
Grammatical accuracy and proficiency are important in evaluating L2 writing in general;
however, they are problematic when evaluating L2 writing fluency. This is most clearly
understood if a group of native English speakers is taken as an example. While the native
speakers are all considered to be fluent writers in their native language, it is unlikely that
they will share the same level of grammatical accuracy or proficiency in their writing. Some
L2 instructors may hesitate to take a similar view in regard to L2 writers although logically
they should do so. Second, writing rarely, if ever, results in error-free production without
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periods of reflection and frequent editing. If students are not provided time to reflect on
and edit their writing, one can hardly justify attaching importance to grammatical accuracy
and proficiency.
Results
Word count results
A simple word count of the students’ blog entries showed an overall increase in words
produced from the beginning of the seven-day program through the end of the program.
As noted in Table 1, the average word count for student email postings to the class blog
was a mere 31.5 on the first day of the seven-day program. By the end of the program,
this number had jumped dramatically to an average of 121.9 words, representing an overall
increase of nearly 350%. This is an astounding increase over such a short period, especially
considering the low proficiency level and low motivation of the students involved. The highest
individual student increase was from 31 to 185 words, or almost 600%, while the lowest
word count increase was a mere nine words (from 53 to 62). One must take into account,
however, that students’ proficiency as measured by TOEIC score, as well as individual differences
in motivation and interest in the blog topic, may have been factors influencing the
total number of words produced. Nevertheless, all students exhibited a gradual increase in
the number of words written in their blog entries throughout the program.
Table 1. Blog entry word counts over the seven-day program
Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4 Day 5 Day 6 Day 7
Total words 567 1141 1293 1960 1630 2329 1951
Avg per Ss 31.5 57.1 61.6 93.3 81.5 110.9 121.9
Day 4 stands out as having a particularly high word count, which is likely due to students
having researched the previous day about their favorite movie actor. The fact that the
students had additional information on which to express their opinion, along with additional
planning time, most likely were the causes for the rapid increase in word count. The total
word count for Day 7 is noticeably lower than that for Day 6 and is largely due to technical
difficulties experienced by six students who were unable to upload their blog entries. It
must be noted though that some of the overall increase in word count is likely attributable
to students becoming more accustomed to typing and computer use, or resulted simply
from the repetition of the writing task (Bygate, 1996).
A one-way ANOVA for repeated measures1 was performed to statistically compare the
increase in word counts using blog entries from Day 2 and Day 6. The blogs from Day 1
and Day 7 were not chosen for comparison because students were introduced to email
and the blog on the first day of the program, which could have unduly influenced their blog
entries that day; and on the final day a number of students had difficulty sending email to
the blog, possibly leading to frustration which may have affected their word counts. MoreThe
JALT CALL Journal 2006 [Vol. 2.1] — 21
Fellner & Apple: Developing writing fluency and lexical complexity with blogs
over, the topics for Day 2 (“Your Dream”) and Day 6 (“Your Dream Vacation”) were similar
enough to allow for a meaningful comparison. Overall word counts for Day 2 were 1141 (N
= 20), and for Day 6, 2329 (N = 21). Three of the 22 student blog entry word counts for
Day 6 were excluded from analysis: two blog entries failed to appear on the class blog on
Day 2 because of technical difficulties, and one student voluntarily quit the program after
Day 3, making N = 19 pairs of student blog entry word counts for the ANOVA analysis
(See Figure 1). The means and standard deviations are presented in Table 2 below. The
results of the ANOVA indicated a significant difference between the number of words in
Day 2 and Day 6, F (1, 18) = 40.93, p < .01, η2 = .70. Despite the rather small n-size, the
F score and the effect size are substantially large, indicating the strength of the p value and
allowing us to hypothesize that even with a larger n-size the results of the blog activities
would have remained significantly beneficial for the development of writing fluency.
Figure 1. Word counts from Day 2 and Day 6 blog entries.
Table 2. Descriptive statistics for Day 2 and Day 6 blog entries
Blog entry M SD Skew Kurtosis
Day 2 55.16 26.31 2.07 5.32
Day 6 107.63 32.47 0.46 0.28
Lexical frequency level results
The researchers measured Day 2 and Day 6 student blog entry lexical frequency levels
by copying all non-proper noun words2 into the online version of the RANGE program
(VocabProfiler, http://www.lextutor.ca/vp/). VocabProfiler analyzes words used in text into
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Fellner & Apple: Developing writing fluency and lexical complexity with blogs
four levels: 1 to 1000 most common word families, 1001 to 2000 most common word
families, 570 academic word families, and offlist, meaning words not appearing on any of the
previous three lists. These “offlist” words are often called “low frequency,” and hence more
difficult, words. An analysis of student blog entries revealed not only that word counts
increased by the end of the program, as mentioned previously, but that the students tended
to use a greater number of less frequently occurring words by the end of the program
(See Table 3). In other words, the students used more difficult lexical items at the end of
the program than they did at the beginning. At the start of the program, students used an
average of 2.5 words per blog entry in the 1001-2000 word level, whereas by the end they
were using an average of 4.6 words. Additionally, the average number of academic and offlist
words in student blog entries increased from 3.4 to 6.5.
Table 3. Total word count and per student average word count by frequency level
1000 word lvl 2000 word lvl Academic words Offlist words
Word count Day 2 Day 6 Day 2 Day 6 Day 2 Day 6 Day 2 Day 6
Total words 912 1746 49 87 10 20 56 103
Avg. per Ss 48.0 92.0 2.6 4.6 0.5 1.1 2.9 5.4
Discussion
The researchers theorized that by using blog tasks as part of an intensive English CALL program,
they would promote writing fluency by encouraging students to recycle vocabulary
and to notice their language use. This recycling and noticing of vocabulary became evident
in student blog postings later in the seven-day program. For example, after an online concordance
task in which students looked up vocabulary items, students then participated in a
non-CALL diamond ranking activity (Fellner, 2005) using the words from the concordance
activity and discussing their opinions about the relative importance or unimportance of the
vocabulary. In their blog entries the following day, students used many of the same vocabulary
items, despite the fact that the instructors never explicitly told students which words
to use while writing, nor even encouraged them to use vocabulary items from the online
concordance activity. Students noticed the words incidentally, and autonomously chose to
use them in their writing production, supporting the conclusion of Pinkman (2005) that
blogs can be an effective method of promoting learner autonomy.
Based upon word counts and lexical frequency, it is clear that students showed an
improvement in their writing fluency by the end of the seven-day program. The increase in
vocabulary output during the 20-minute timed sessions each day of the seven-day program
cannot be attributed to the result of a “writing process,” as there were no drafting,
editing, and revising phases involved. Furthermore, responses made by the instructors and
classmates to the student blog entries (using the “comment” feature in the class blog) were
directed primarily at the content of the student blog entries, not at correcting vocabulary
phrases or grammatical accuracy. This focus on the language meaning rather than the language
structure, stemming from the instructors’ belief that primarily communicative writing
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Fellner & Apple: Developing writing fluency and lexical complexity with blogs
would encourage students to write expressively, resulted in overall improved writing fluency
for the 21 students in this study.
While word counts dropped between Day 6 (2329 words for all 21 students) and Day 7
(1951 words for 15 students), the average per student blog entry still increased from 110.9
(Day 6) to 121.9 (Day 7). It is reasonable to assume that the total number of words would
in fact have been higher had the other six students been able to post their messages. Comparing
the average number of words per student against the total number of words for all
students allows us to estimate a projected total had there been no technical problems (See
Figure 2). The increased word counts do not illustrate an exponential learning curve, but
may suggest a typical “recursive” learning curve, which surges ahead, falls back, and surges
ahead once more. However, due to the limited timespan of the program (seven days) it is
impossible to state this with any certainty. The researchers would be remiss in neglecting to
point out that it is doubtful whether the daily average word counts would have continued
to increase at such a dramatic rate had the program extended over a significantly longer
period of time, such as an entire academic semester. After all, the human hand can only
type so fast. Unfortunately it is beyond the scope of this paper to predict at what point any
leveling off of word counts may occur.
The improvement in writing fluency is also evidenced by the increased use of lower frequency
occurring words. The researchers believed that bare timed word counts would not
be an adequate measure of any improvement in writing fluency, as this would be to ignore
the type of vocabulary items used. To remedy this, the researchers also examined lexical
frequency. Words that normally occur less often were considered to be more linguistically
complex. The researchers postulated that any effect of the blog task in improving writing
fluency could be best shown if there were evidence that both the number of more complex
vocabulary items and the overall word counts had increased. Whether the more complex
vocabulary items were learned during the course of the program, or simply represented the
Figure 2. Blog total word counts per day: actual versus projected
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activation of words that had been learned previously, or whether the students were simply
giving more attention to vocabulary choices, is of little importance when discussing improvements
in writing fluency. The most important issue is that learners were able to bring more of
their “vocabulary knowledge into communicative use” (Laufer & Nation, 1995, 308).
Although the quality of the language used in the blogs may not have shown advanced
English proficiency, the concepts expressed in the blog posts were quite complex and
mature. It may very well have been the first time these students had ever attempted to
write complex thoughts and ideas using English as their medium of expression. Instructors
of lower proficiency EFL university students, such as the students in this program, should
keep in mind that lack of complexity in English expression does not reflect lack of complexity
in thought. It would seem safe to assume that instructors who respect the maturity of
their students can be rewarded by students becoming more motivated and determined to
improve their expressive ability in English.
An intended and welcome benefit of having students write blog entries was that,
although focused on writing, the task provided students with more opportunities for meaningful
negotiation through the “comment” feature available on the blog site. This interactive
aspect of commenting on their classmates’ posted messages was clearly one of the most interesting
aspects for students. As the program progressed, the instructors witnessed many
students demand that their classmates write comments on certain posts – students would
often stand up and walk to another student’s computer to find out why their classmate
hadn’t responded yet to a posted message. The potential immediacy of feedback was also
cause for frustration, which sometimes occurred because student emails and comments
often took several minutes to appear on the class blog. However, this seemed to create a
kind of “facilitating” anxiety, as it made students more anxious to write blog entries and to
write comments in English. For students who had previously showed an apparent lack of
motivation to study English, this must be regarded as a significant improvement.
Conclusion
This paper examined improvements in writing fluency achieved by using blog freewrites
among a group of low proficiency, low motivation students in a short intensive English
CALL program. The blog writing activity was chosen by the instructors as a suitable CALL
task as it met the seven criteria used to determine task appropriateness: language learning
potential, learner fit, meaning focus, authenticity, positive impact, practicality, and enhancement.
Based on the definition of writing fluency as the number of words produced in a
specified time frame, having regard also to lexical frequency, the researchers examined
both word counts and the number of lower frequency occurring words produced by
the students from the beginning of the program until the end. Student blog entry word
counts nearly quadrupled from an average of 31.5 on the first day to 121.9 on the final
day of the program, and the average number of lower frequency words used per student
also increased by nearly doubling from six to twelve. Based on this data it seems logical to
conclude that students’ writing fluency improved significantly throughout the duration of
the program.
The program lasted for only seven days, which may be one factor that supported a
continual increase in the number of words in the blog entries. In the future, it would be inThe
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Fellner & Apple: Developing writing fluency and lexical complexity with blogs
teresting to discover for how many days this increase could continue and after what length
of time a tapering off, or a plateau effect, might occur.
Notes
1 – A repeated measures paired samples t-test was attempted, but the skewness of blog
entries in Day 2 indicated an abnormal distribution. Since the t-test is highly sensitive to
skewness, the data was instead analyzed using a repeated measures ANOVA. See Green
and Salkind (2005), p. 162-166.
2 – Proper nouns include names of people, places, and things, and are not considered
part of the 1000 or 2000 high frequency word levels because the use of proper nouns may
differ according to learner background or interest. For example, a student writing about her
dream vacation wrote the words Okinawa and Hawaii several times, words which according
to VocabProfiler are “offlist” low frequency words. Despite the fact that the researchers
eliminated all proper nouns such as these offlist words, the number of low frequency words
nonetheless increased during the course of the program.
References
Barrios, B. (2003). The year of the blog: Weblogs in the writing classroom. Retrieved June
20, 2005 from http://www.bgsu.edu/cconline/barrios/blogs/
The Blog Herald. 3.5 million blogs in Japan: report. Retrieved February 18, 2006 from
http://www.blogherald.com/2005/05/21/335-million-blogs-in-japan-report/.
Brown, H. D. (1994). Teaching by principles: An interaction approach to language pedagogy.
Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Bygate, M. (1996). Effects of task repetition: Appraising the developing language of learners.
In J. Willis & D. Willis (Eds.), Challenge and change in language teaching (pp. 136-146).
Oxford: Heinemann.
Campbell, A. (2003). Weblogs for use with ESL classes. Internet TESL Journal, 9(2). Retrieved
September 13, 2004 from http://iteslj-org/Techniques/Campbell_Weblogs.html.
Chappelle, C. A. (2001). Computer applications in second language acquisition. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Fellner, T. (2005). Diamond-ranking activity. The Language Teacher, 29(9), 23-25.
Goodfellow, R., Lamy, M., Jones, G. (2002). Assessing learners’ writing using lexical frequency.
ReCALL, 14(1), 133-145.
Green, S., & Salkind, N. (2005). Understanding SPSS for Windows and Macintosh: Analyzing
and understanding data. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall.
Knutson, E. (2000). A touch of class! Writing to think: Activities for teaching literature in a
second or foreign language. Canadian Modern Language Review, 56(3), 514-522.
Laufer, B., & Nation, P. (1995). Vocabulary size and use: Lexical richness in L2 written production.
Applied Linguistics, 16(3), 307-322.
Levy, M. (1997). Computer-assisted language learning: Context and conceptualization. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
low motivation Japanese university language learners in a seven-day intensive English course
in September 2004. The program included tasks completed both on computers and in
traditional classrooms. In this paper, the researchers describe learner gains in writing fluency
by comparing the number of words and word frequency levels in student blogs at the beginning
and at the end of the program. On the first day, the student blog entry average word count
was less than 35 words over a 20-minute period. Nearly all words produced fell within the
most frequent 1000 word level. By the end of the CALL program there was nearly a 350%
increase in the number of words used in students’ blog entries, as well as a substantial increase
in the number of 2000 word level and even lower frequency level words.
As a form of online diary writing, blogs have become extremely popular in the
past few years and have been increasingly promoted as a form of alternative
assessment not only in writing classrooms for native speakers (Barrios, 2003)
but also for second language learners (Campbell, 2003; Ward, 2004; Johnson, 2004;
Pinkman, 2005) and as a form of “diary introspection” for teachers (Suzuki, 2004).
Few of the plethora of blog-related studies have examined the role blogs might play in
an integrated CALL curriculum, and none have offered quantitative results as to the
fluency benefits of blogging. This paper will present results from a seven-day intensive
CALL–based intensive EFL program implemented at a four-year private university in
western Japan in September 2004. Over the course of the program, students performed
a variety of CALL tasks, including web listening, reading and vocabulary-building.
Learners posted email messages to the class freewriting blog during a 20-minute
timed session every morning of the program, and in the process improved their writing
fluency: they more than tripled their writing output, while at the same improving their
lexical frequency levels.
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Background
A total of 21 seniors participated in the program in September 2004 before the start of the
regular fall semester. Attending the program was required for them, as all had failed to join
an Australia or New Zealand study abroad program, a graduation requirement of the Faculty
of Foreign Languages. The students scored fairly low in general on the TOEIC examination,
with overall scores ranging from a low of 150 to a high of 370, and were generally
perceived by previous instructors as being essentially uninterested in learning English. Since
the program was to be held for only seven days, with about five and a half hours of class
time each day from 9:00 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., the instructors (the researchers of this paper)
decided to eschew textbooks in favor of a blend of CALL tasks and traditional classroom
tasks. In a survey done the first day of the program, the instructors discovered that only
two students had ever used computers in a high school or university classroom, and more
than half of the 21 students in the program rarely used computers at all. Keeping this in
mind, the instructors decided on several appropriate CALL tasks, and designed a program
curriculum focusing on fluency and improving student interest in English.
Rationale for blogging as a CALL task
A great difficulty in designing an integrated CALL program is determining which tasks are
appropriate in order to achieve desired learning outcomes. The instructors strongly felt that
all computer based tasks used in the program they developed should not only complement
each other as much as possible but also enhance the learning that took place within the
traditional classroom component of the program, so that a seamless flow of language learning
opportunities would be created. For this reason all the tasks, both CALL and regular
classroom tasks, were chosen based upon seven criteria of task appropriateness. Six of
the criteria used were initially proposed by Carol Chappelle (2001), while the instructors
conceived of the seventh and final criterion themselves. The criteria were:
1. Language Learning Potential
2. Learner Fit
3. Meaning Focus
4. Authenticity
5. Positive Impact
6. Practicality
7. Enhancement
A brief explanation of the criterion “enhancement” is necessary at this point, since to the
best of the researchers’ knowledge this is the first time the concept has been introduced. It
was previously stated that the instructors believed that any CALL program must integrate
computer tasks with classroom tasks and activities to the overall benefit of the students.
The seventh criterion, enhancement, reflects this belief, as it requires that any CALL task
selected provide some potential enhancement or benefit over more traditional pedagogical
approaches. There is little justification in using computers simply because they are available,
if a regular classroom activity would be either superior or at least equally effective, taking
into account cost, time and potential technical problems. In short, only that which can best
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Fellner & Apple: Developing writing fluency and lexical complexity with blogs
be done with computers ought to be done with computers.
The present paper focuses specifically on one CALL task which was central to the overall
curriculum—web logs, or blogs, used as a kind of online diary to promote writing fluency.
This task was selected for several reasons.
First, the use of students’ blogs met the seven criteria for CALL task selection. The blogs
provided students with real learning opportunities to improve not only their written English
but also their reading in English, as students were asked to read their classmates’ blogs and
respond to them. As Zamel (1992) wrote, “Just as reading provides ‘comprehensible input’
for writing, writing can contribute comprehensible input for reading” (Zamel, 1992, p. 480).
The use of blogs fit with students’ interests and varying English levels, as they didn’t have to
write to any standard or level above or beyond their own ability. The instructors explained
to the students that grammar and syntax were not being evaluated and that the only requirement
for blog entries was that they write their honest opinions about the blog topics.
Blogs also met the third criterion, meaning, as the students were responsible for making
sure to write their blog entries clearly enough for their classmates to understand. (See “The
class blog procedure” below for a description of the blog comment process.)
The blogs provided both students and teachers with an authentic task, as blogs are
now common and have become a relevant and credible forum for people to express their
opinions and share information throughout the world. In 2004, for example, the Merriam-
Webster Dictionary added “blog” as both a verb and a noun, calling “blog” the “word of the
year.” Recently, The New York Times Magazine reported that over 32 million Americans read
blogs and that blog advertisements earned bloggers an estimated $100 million during 2005
(Thompson, 2006). In Japan, as of May, 2005, there were more than 3.35 million blogs and
over 16 million Japanese people were visiting blogs at least once a month, according to the
online blog news site The Blog Herald (2005). One can hardly find a more authentic CALL
task than blogging. The fifth criterion, impact, was also met, as the blogs provided students
not only with opportunities to acquire and use new vocabulary but also with new and
useful computer skills. This impact reaches far beyond the classroom as it enables students
to use computers and blogs for their own interests in either English or their first language.
Blogging met the criterion of practicality in that it imposed no extra financial burden on
either the university or the students. Finally, blogs met the criterion of enhancement in
that they were much more practical to use than paper-based diaries. Unlike notebooks,
blogs cannot be forgotten at home, are more easily accessible (only one person at a time
can read a diary while an entire class has simultaneous access to one student’s blog), and
are more easily commented on. Moreover, blogs are more motivating for students because
they allow a familiar pedagogical task in the English language classroom to seem fresh when
presented in the new medium of the Internet.
The final reason that blogging was chosen as a task was that it provided the instructors
with a timely, efficient means of evaluating whether the learning goal of improving writing
fluency was achieved. Writing fluency was chosen as a program goal largely because the
instructors felt that the limited time available in the seven-day intensive program made it
very difficult, if not impossible, to effect any measurable and positive improvement in the
students’ written grammar and syntax. However, the researchers did believe that improvements
in writing fluency could be realized in such a short program.
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The class blog procedure
There are many ways to set up a blog for classroom use. Johnson (2004) describes how to
set up individual blogs in order to give students access as users to a main “class blog.” As
students in this program were relatively low proficiency, in the interests of time-effectiveness
and simplicity, the instructors set up a class blog to which students could post messages
via email. The free blogger.com service was used, primarily because of the “comment”
feature that allowed students to comment freely on each other’s posted messages.
During the first class students set up personal email accounts in either Microsoft MSN/
Hotmail or Yahoo! Email. Each morning thereafter students received a blog topic emailed
to them from the instructors. Students spent twenty minutes freewriting an email message
and then emailed their freewrites to the class blog. This time limit was strictly enforced by
the instructors for several reasons. First, limiting the time made it difficult for students to
rely on online dictionaries to find vocabulary and check their spelling; it also promoted the
goal that self-expression was to be more important than grammar and spelling. Second, the
20-minute time limit encouraged students to begin writing immediately, rather than discussing
the topic verbally with their friends. Third, the instructors had a great deal of material
and activities to introduce during the program and preferred not to spend the majority of
the time with student blogs.
As noted above, blogging was the main writing component of the blended CALL program,
but there were other CALL activities as well. These activities, including web listening,
use of online concordances, online grammar puzzles and quizzes, videos, and face-to-face
pair and group discussions, were arranged using a Wave Model to enhance the recycling of
comprehensible input. The Wave Model, first introduced in outdoor language education
by Martin (2002), provides language instructors with a model of constantly occurring and
recurring language targets that interact, support, and enhance one another over a period
of time. For example, in this integrated CALL program, careful use of the Wave Model to
arrange CALL tasks ensured that listening activities on the computer in the morning would
be followed by speaking activities in the regular classroom in the afternoon, and the following
morning students would revisit many of the same themes by writing on related topics in
their blog entries. This use of the integrated CALL environment through the Wave Model
allowed for constant revisiting and recycling of lexical items, as learners began to express
the previous lesson’s input in their own written blog output.
After students finished their email messages, they sent the messages to the blog email
address for posting. Messages appeared on the class blog website within a few minutes and
students then read their classmates’ email postings and chose two or three to comment
on, writing one or two short sentences for each comment. The class blog was also used
on Day 4 of the program for students to post a longer, self-researched entry about their
favorite movie actor. This assignment was related to a web listening activity not detailed
in this paper, which allowed students to revisit the vocabulary targets learned through the
listening task. The instructors viewed the class blog and related writing activities primarily
as a tool to promote writing fluency and self-expression (Zamel, 1992; Knutson, 2000). As
such, students’ email postings were edited neither for content nor for grammar mistakes.
Although many researchers in task-based teaching have pointed out that a focus on
accuracy, while not necessary for students to communicate effectively, is beneficial (Long
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Fellner & Apple: Developing writing fluency and lexical complexity with blogs
& Robinson, 1998; Skehan, 2003), the instructors felt that such a focus would undermine
program goals due to: a) the students’ low proficiency, b) their low motivation to study
English, c) their relative lack of experience and/or possible anxiety about using computers
in English, and d) the short timespan of the program. Therefore, the goal of fluency in blog
writing seemed far more important as a method of encouraging meaningful interaction
among students and so increasing student motivation.
A definition of “writing fluency”
The researchers discovered that, surprisingly, there was no viable definition specifically for
writing fluency available in current ESL/EFL literature. H. D. Brown does refer to fluency
activities as “saying or writing a steady flow of language for a short period of time without
any self- or other correction at all” (Brown, 1994, p. 113). Although this explanation is helpful,
it is not appropriate as the basis for a definition of writing fluency when applied to most
CALL studies focusing on writing. Brown’s explanation could lead to the erroneous conclusion
that the longer the flow of language, and the more words produced, the more fluent
the writer is. When writing is done with computers, as is likely to be the case in CALL
programs, any word count increase may be attributable in whole or in part to an improvement
in students’ typing speed throughout the duration of the program rather than to a
true development of writing fluency. Brown’s explanation also ignores critical factors such
as lexical complexity and text comprehensibility. If lexical complexity and comprehensibility
are not taken into account, students could conceivably be identified as having improving
their writing fluency merely on the strength of having written the same simple sentence
repeatedly over the timed period.
In order to avoid these problems this paper defines fluency in writing as the number of
words produced in a specified time frame, together with lexical frequency, irrespective of
spelling and content, provided that the writer’s meaning is readily understandable. The term
“lexical frequency” has been used to describe the difficulty level of words based on the frequency
with which they normally occur in written English (Laufer & Nation, 1995; Goodfellow,
Lamy & Jones, 2002). The less frequently a word normally appears, the more difficult it
is considered to be. Although any increase in the bare word count could conceivably result
from students becoming more familiar with typing on computers, increased computer familiarity
would not explain an increase in the number of low-frequency words (lexically more
complex vocabulary items) occurring in student writing. By considering the lexical frequency
of words in combination with the number of words produced, the definition ensures that
an increase in writing fluency cannot be attributed solely to improved computer skills.
This definition is useful for two other important reasons. First, it effectively distinguishes
fluency from accuracy and proficiency which, although related, are not one and the same.
Grammatical accuracy and proficiency are important in evaluating L2 writing in general;
however, they are problematic when evaluating L2 writing fluency. This is most clearly
understood if a group of native English speakers is taken as an example. While the native
speakers are all considered to be fluent writers in their native language, it is unlikely that
they will share the same level of grammatical accuracy or proficiency in their writing. Some
L2 instructors may hesitate to take a similar view in regard to L2 writers although logically
they should do so. Second, writing rarely, if ever, results in error-free production without
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periods of reflection and frequent editing. If students are not provided time to reflect on
and edit their writing, one can hardly justify attaching importance to grammatical accuracy
and proficiency.
Results
Word count results
A simple word count of the students’ blog entries showed an overall increase in words
produced from the beginning of the seven-day program through the end of the program.
As noted in Table 1, the average word count for student email postings to the class blog
was a mere 31.5 on the first day of the seven-day program. By the end of the program,
this number had jumped dramatically to an average of 121.9 words, representing an overall
increase of nearly 350%. This is an astounding increase over such a short period, especially
considering the low proficiency level and low motivation of the students involved. The highest
individual student increase was from 31 to 185 words, or almost 600%, while the lowest
word count increase was a mere nine words (from 53 to 62). One must take into account,
however, that students’ proficiency as measured by TOEIC score, as well as individual differences
in motivation and interest in the blog topic, may have been factors influencing the
total number of words produced. Nevertheless, all students exhibited a gradual increase in
the number of words written in their blog entries throughout the program.
Table 1. Blog entry word counts over the seven-day program
Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4 Day 5 Day 6 Day 7
Total words 567 1141 1293 1960 1630 2329 1951
Avg per Ss 31.5 57.1 61.6 93.3 81.5 110.9 121.9
Day 4 stands out as having a particularly high word count, which is likely due to students
having researched the previous day about their favorite movie actor. The fact that the
students had additional information on which to express their opinion, along with additional
planning time, most likely were the causes for the rapid increase in word count. The total
word count for Day 7 is noticeably lower than that for Day 6 and is largely due to technical
difficulties experienced by six students who were unable to upload their blog entries. It
must be noted though that some of the overall increase in word count is likely attributable
to students becoming more accustomed to typing and computer use, or resulted simply
from the repetition of the writing task (Bygate, 1996).
A one-way ANOVA for repeated measures1 was performed to statistically compare the
increase in word counts using blog entries from Day 2 and Day 6. The blogs from Day 1
and Day 7 were not chosen for comparison because students were introduced to email
and the blog on the first day of the program, which could have unduly influenced their blog
entries that day; and on the final day a number of students had difficulty sending email to
the blog, possibly leading to frustration which may have affected their word counts. MoreThe
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Fellner & Apple: Developing writing fluency and lexical complexity with blogs
over, the topics for Day 2 (“Your Dream”) and Day 6 (“Your Dream Vacation”) were similar
enough to allow for a meaningful comparison. Overall word counts for Day 2 were 1141 (N
= 20), and for Day 6, 2329 (N = 21). Three of the 22 student blog entry word counts for
Day 6 were excluded from analysis: two blog entries failed to appear on the class blog on
Day 2 because of technical difficulties, and one student voluntarily quit the program after
Day 3, making N = 19 pairs of student blog entry word counts for the ANOVA analysis
(See Figure 1). The means and standard deviations are presented in Table 2 below. The
results of the ANOVA indicated a significant difference between the number of words in
Day 2 and Day 6, F (1, 18) = 40.93, p < .01, η2 = .70. Despite the rather small n-size, the
F score and the effect size are substantially large, indicating the strength of the p value and
allowing us to hypothesize that even with a larger n-size the results of the blog activities
would have remained significantly beneficial for the development of writing fluency.
Figure 1. Word counts from Day 2 and Day 6 blog entries.
Table 2. Descriptive statistics for Day 2 and Day 6 blog entries
Blog entry M SD Skew Kurtosis
Day 2 55.16 26.31 2.07 5.32
Day 6 107.63 32.47 0.46 0.28
Lexical frequency level results
The researchers measured Day 2 and Day 6 student blog entry lexical frequency levels
by copying all non-proper noun words2 into the online version of the RANGE program
(VocabProfiler, http://www.lextutor.ca/vp/). VocabProfiler analyzes words used in text into
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four levels: 1 to 1000 most common word families, 1001 to 2000 most common word
families, 570 academic word families, and offlist, meaning words not appearing on any of the
previous three lists. These “offlist” words are often called “low frequency,” and hence more
difficult, words. An analysis of student blog entries revealed not only that word counts
increased by the end of the program, as mentioned previously, but that the students tended
to use a greater number of less frequently occurring words by the end of the program
(See Table 3). In other words, the students used more difficult lexical items at the end of
the program than they did at the beginning. At the start of the program, students used an
average of 2.5 words per blog entry in the 1001-2000 word level, whereas by the end they
were using an average of 4.6 words. Additionally, the average number of academic and offlist
words in student blog entries increased from 3.4 to 6.5.
Table 3. Total word count and per student average word count by frequency level
1000 word lvl 2000 word lvl Academic words Offlist words
Word count Day 2 Day 6 Day 2 Day 6 Day 2 Day 6 Day 2 Day 6
Total words 912 1746 49 87 10 20 56 103
Avg. per Ss 48.0 92.0 2.6 4.6 0.5 1.1 2.9 5.4
Discussion
The researchers theorized that by using blog tasks as part of an intensive English CALL program,
they would promote writing fluency by encouraging students to recycle vocabulary
and to notice their language use. This recycling and noticing of vocabulary became evident
in student blog postings later in the seven-day program. For example, after an online concordance
task in which students looked up vocabulary items, students then participated in a
non-CALL diamond ranking activity (Fellner, 2005) using the words from the concordance
activity and discussing their opinions about the relative importance or unimportance of the
vocabulary. In their blog entries the following day, students used many of the same vocabulary
items, despite the fact that the instructors never explicitly told students which words
to use while writing, nor even encouraged them to use vocabulary items from the online
concordance activity. Students noticed the words incidentally, and autonomously chose to
use them in their writing production, supporting the conclusion of Pinkman (2005) that
blogs can be an effective method of promoting learner autonomy.
Based upon word counts and lexical frequency, it is clear that students showed an
improvement in their writing fluency by the end of the seven-day program. The increase in
vocabulary output during the 20-minute timed sessions each day of the seven-day program
cannot be attributed to the result of a “writing process,” as there were no drafting,
editing, and revising phases involved. Furthermore, responses made by the instructors and
classmates to the student blog entries (using the “comment” feature in the class blog) were
directed primarily at the content of the student blog entries, not at correcting vocabulary
phrases or grammatical accuracy. This focus on the language meaning rather than the language
structure, stemming from the instructors’ belief that primarily communicative writing
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would encourage students to write expressively, resulted in overall improved writing fluency
for the 21 students in this study.
While word counts dropped between Day 6 (2329 words for all 21 students) and Day 7
(1951 words for 15 students), the average per student blog entry still increased from 110.9
(Day 6) to 121.9 (Day 7). It is reasonable to assume that the total number of words would
in fact have been higher had the other six students been able to post their messages. Comparing
the average number of words per student against the total number of words for all
students allows us to estimate a projected total had there been no technical problems (See
Figure 2). The increased word counts do not illustrate an exponential learning curve, but
may suggest a typical “recursive” learning curve, which surges ahead, falls back, and surges
ahead once more. However, due to the limited timespan of the program (seven days) it is
impossible to state this with any certainty. The researchers would be remiss in neglecting to
point out that it is doubtful whether the daily average word counts would have continued
to increase at such a dramatic rate had the program extended over a significantly longer
period of time, such as an entire academic semester. After all, the human hand can only
type so fast. Unfortunately it is beyond the scope of this paper to predict at what point any
leveling off of word counts may occur.
The improvement in writing fluency is also evidenced by the increased use of lower frequency
occurring words. The researchers believed that bare timed word counts would not
be an adequate measure of any improvement in writing fluency, as this would be to ignore
the type of vocabulary items used. To remedy this, the researchers also examined lexical
frequency. Words that normally occur less often were considered to be more linguistically
complex. The researchers postulated that any effect of the blog task in improving writing
fluency could be best shown if there were evidence that both the number of more complex
vocabulary items and the overall word counts had increased. Whether the more complex
vocabulary items were learned during the course of the program, or simply represented the
Figure 2. Blog total word counts per day: actual versus projected
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activation of words that had been learned previously, or whether the students were simply
giving more attention to vocabulary choices, is of little importance when discussing improvements
in writing fluency. The most important issue is that learners were able to bring more of
their “vocabulary knowledge into communicative use” (Laufer & Nation, 1995, 308).
Although the quality of the language used in the blogs may not have shown advanced
English proficiency, the concepts expressed in the blog posts were quite complex and
mature. It may very well have been the first time these students had ever attempted to
write complex thoughts and ideas using English as their medium of expression. Instructors
of lower proficiency EFL university students, such as the students in this program, should
keep in mind that lack of complexity in English expression does not reflect lack of complexity
in thought. It would seem safe to assume that instructors who respect the maturity of
their students can be rewarded by students becoming more motivated and determined to
improve their expressive ability in English.
An intended and welcome benefit of having students write blog entries was that,
although focused on writing, the task provided students with more opportunities for meaningful
negotiation through the “comment” feature available on the blog site. This interactive
aspect of commenting on their classmates’ posted messages was clearly one of the most interesting
aspects for students. As the program progressed, the instructors witnessed many
students demand that their classmates write comments on certain posts – students would
often stand up and walk to another student’s computer to find out why their classmate
hadn’t responded yet to a posted message. The potential immediacy of feedback was also
cause for frustration, which sometimes occurred because student emails and comments
often took several minutes to appear on the class blog. However, this seemed to create a
kind of “facilitating” anxiety, as it made students more anxious to write blog entries and to
write comments in English. For students who had previously showed an apparent lack of
motivation to study English, this must be regarded as a significant improvement.
Conclusion
This paper examined improvements in writing fluency achieved by using blog freewrites
among a group of low proficiency, low motivation students in a short intensive English
CALL program. The blog writing activity was chosen by the instructors as a suitable CALL
task as it met the seven criteria used to determine task appropriateness: language learning
potential, learner fit, meaning focus, authenticity, positive impact, practicality, and enhancement.
Based on the definition of writing fluency as the number of words produced in a
specified time frame, having regard also to lexical frequency, the researchers examined
both word counts and the number of lower frequency occurring words produced by
the students from the beginning of the program until the end. Student blog entry word
counts nearly quadrupled from an average of 31.5 on the first day to 121.9 on the final
day of the program, and the average number of lower frequency words used per student
also increased by nearly doubling from six to twelve. Based on this data it seems logical to
conclude that students’ writing fluency improved significantly throughout the duration of
the program.
The program lasted for only seven days, which may be one factor that supported a
continual increase in the number of words in the blog entries. In the future, it would be inThe
JALT CALL Journal 2006 [Vol. 2.1] — 25
Fellner & Apple: Developing writing fluency and lexical complexity with blogs
teresting to discover for how many days this increase could continue and after what length
of time a tapering off, or a plateau effect, might occur.
Notes
1 – A repeated measures paired samples t-test was attempted, but the skewness of blog
entries in Day 2 indicated an abnormal distribution. Since the t-test is highly sensitive to
skewness, the data was instead analyzed using a repeated measures ANOVA. See Green
and Salkind (2005), p. 162-166.
2 – Proper nouns include names of people, places, and things, and are not considered
part of the 1000 or 2000 high frequency word levels because the use of proper nouns may
differ according to learner background or interest. For example, a student writing about her
dream vacation wrote the words Okinawa and Hawaii several times, words which according
to VocabProfiler are “offlist” low frequency words. Despite the fact that the researchers
eliminated all proper nouns such as these offlist words, the number of low frequency words
nonetheless increased during the course of the program.
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