Your class is only a conference call away. ROBERT J. DICKEY describes how he established a course for long distance learners in South Korea. D uring the Fall semester of 1997, ten senior students at Miryang University, South Korea, left school after midterm exams to start work in other cities. These sen- iors were studying English Conversation with the author, who was unwilling to allow them to finish their studies prior to the end of the semester. My decision to teach these students via telephone was made without reference to published research. Following the announcement of the teleconferencing sessions, I surveyed the literature for telephonic for- eign language instruction, and found no information. Research of this sort continued through the months following the course. In addition, queries were posted on electronic discussion lists and an extensive internet search was conducted throughout the instructional period and beyond. A response from my inquiry to Stan Zenor, Executive Director of the Association for Educational Communications and Technology, was revealing. "Sounds like you have been doing dis- We've Got It! Clear Speech Works CD-Rom "An excellent pronunciation tool" 46 Developed at Boston's Northeastern University Interactive, Multimedia Proven Effective Features Stress & Linking i.,. .. .... c.., . .. ..... 1a111,.... . ~ ----...- 5000+ Words & Sentences 7 ~ Helps speakers of 45 languages & dialects speak clear, confident English ~ Delta Systems Co., Inc. (800) 323-8270 or (815) 363-3582 Fax ( 800) 909-9901 or (815) 363-2948 www.delta-systems.com tance learning at almost it's most basic level. I really don't know of anyone else who has conducted a class in this man- ner, although it must have happened some place at some time. I just don't have any idea where to suggest you look." Studies have been conducted supporting teleconferencing in various fields of study, often concurrent with various forms of "live" video presentation: none were found specific to the effi- cacy of communicative-language instruction. umerous leads were tracked, yet no current instructional programs in foreign languages via telephone were found. Those who had been involved in telephonic language instruction were unable to provide data, or no longer had documentation for programs long-since terminated. Others had done only teletutoring courses, not group instruction. The telephone group continued with the same course work- book used with all English Conversation courses. This course book was designed in previous semesters by me to maximize student-talking by emphasizing listening skills and informa- tion-sharing in initial sessions, and requir- ing pair-work and small group-discussions for task completion. One coursebook unit is designed for one contact- hour. Anticipating some trouble-spots, a few unit substitutions were made, and supplemental mate- rials mailed to students during the fourth week of teleconferencing; e.g. color photocopies of photographs used as dis- cussion points were sent to all students, as well as a simplified "Locations and Directions" unit. The telephone instruc- tion lasted for five and a half weeks, into the examination week, three nights per week. Concurrently, the tradi- tional group maintained the original teaching schedule, meeting two course-hours per week. Most of the telephone group participants missed the semester's ninth and tenth weeks of instruction, while I arranged the technical aspects of teleconferenc- ing, as they had already left the area. The tele- phone group had two class sessions during final exams week (while the traditional group had one) for a total of 15 tele- phone class sessions. By the end of the course, the telephone group had had the same number of sessions with the instructor as had the traditional group, though these contacts were of shorter dura- tion. A typical teleconferencing class session con- sisted of three components: the group ses- sion, pairwork, and instructor follow-up. Students were to be available from 11:00 until 11:55pm. The operator would contact them at 11:00, or shortly thereafter. It was anticipated that group instruction and dis- cussion would continue until approximate- ly 11:35, at which time the conference call would terminate, and student would call their partner via ordinary telephone sen'ice ELECTRONIC EDUCATION for 10 minutes of pairwork. Partners changed each session. The instructor would then telephone a few students between 11:45 and 11:55 via ordinary telephone serv- ice to check their work and do one-on-one remedial work. That plan was realized for the most part; depending on the unit, some group sessions ran longer, some shorter. These students had studied together throughout their university careers, and were an effervescent group in the class- room. After four or five teleconferencing sessions, a similar mood prevailed over the telephone, except when the material was too difficult for the teleconference environ- ment. At that point the students became silent, they would not participate, and it became a teacher-centered lecture-format course for the remainder of the evening. Three exams are available for consideration: the midterm exam, the final listening com- prehension (L/C) exam, and the (final) Interview. In the absence of a semester pre- test, the midterm exam was used for bench- marking purposes. The midterm exam and final Listening Comprehension (L/C) exam are substantially similar in content and focus. The L/C exam includes materials from throughout the semester, but more important- ly, the midterm includes the stu- dent's written responses to recorded oral questions. The grading is subjec- tive on this also receive full marks. The students are advised that this form of written response is in preparation for their final interview. The small size of the sample together with a high diffusion of scores, makes statistical reporting somewhat suspect, so data clus- ters from each exam are considered as well as the arithmetic means and medians. The mean for the first (low) quintile ("The Bottom 20%") and the high quintile ("The Top 20%") are reported in Table 1. The quintiles for the traditional group are com- posed of three scores, except the third (mid- dle) quintile has four, the telephone group has only two scores in each quintile. The separation between the scores of the tele- phone group and the traditional group is displayed in the third column as the quo- tient of the telephone group's score, divid- ed by the traditional groups'. Figure 1 Midterm Grade Distribution
. s S ,- , o lodvdnlTests Telepl<ICl'I o Ttfldtlonal _ - - - ' Continued overleaf ,._ ortapes oftware "writing" por- tion: spelling is (559) 683 ?115 not graded, and grammar/syntax is one point of the three points available on each of the 5 ques- tions. (The maxi- mum score on the midterm is 30, 15 can be achieved through the written responses.) A sample question is "I don't like swimming." A correct response would be " either do I" or "But I do." Other appropri- ate response_ can IBM and Macintosh Phone/fax ESL Micro Computer Software Packages for IBM and Macintosh Basic Language and Study Skills for College, Adult and Secondary Education Beginner to Advanced Levels Programs to help students with Sentence structure, Paragraphs, Spelling, Punctuation, Grammar and more Programs are simple and easy to use. Each focuses on a clearly stated, specific skill. Some lessons are tutorial and practice, others are strictly drill. CllECK US OUT ON THE WEB www.tutortapes.com 47 Figure 2 Listening Comprehension Grade Distribution Listening Comprehension ( UC ) "' "' '" Is ,. '
: Q 1: ..
.. ! z. <>----- rrnWooa!Tests L_ ________ The listening comprehension exam (L/ C) indicates a strength of the teleconferencing environment. The arithmetic mean and median for the two groups were roughly the same, and the telephone group did much better in the first quintile, outscoring the traditional group, and reaching .819 of the coursewide median score. The separa- tion between the groups in the high quintile decreased from the midterm's .477 to only .882. Figure 2 shows that in the third quin- tile, the scores overlapped. Figure 3 over- lays these plots (midterm scores x .667 to equate scores). Figure 3 Midterm I LIC Plot Comparison Figure 4 displays that the telephonic lan- guage-learning environment is not a total success. In the interview exam, the lowest two scores of the two groups were identi- cal. All scores in both high quintiles were the maximum score of 20. It is the third and fourth quintiles where there is apparent divergence between the plots of Figures 2 and 4, Figure 5 overlays these plots (midterm scores x .667 to equate scores). Figure 4 Interview Grade Distribution Mkttenn /UC I ] ________ " ___ __ _ __ I lndivid.J:atTMtf; Tel. o Mid. Trad. V CTel. VCTrad. There are a number of terms used by various writers with overlapping definitions when discussing teaching via the telephone. Telephone conference-call will be defined as using an existing public telephone system to allow participants to communicate with a group of fellow participants, using their personal telephones, via a ''telephone bridge". This has been sometimes identified as "POTS" (the Plain Old Telephone System). This bridge may be provided through the public telephone system, a private communications business, a corporate or university telephone system, or other telephone merging systems (including hold- 48 ELECTRONIC EDUCATION Figure 5 Midterm I Interview Plot Comparison " r
11 . ' . ' Midtemt / lnterwtew Soar (mldt.rms r;tllSl:ed to - 20) ' I o Mid.Tr.d, lnt.-v. Trlld From the students' perspective, the "tele- phone class" was a success: 87.5% of the respondents voiced approval in terms of usefulness, 85.7% said they enjoyed the course, and 75% thought the course should be repeated for other students. An important consideration when analyz- attention is required to minimize lexical challenge. More coursebook illustrations would assist greatly in this area. In addi- tion, each discussion item, each sentence, needs to be identifiable, so that students can find it easily. Numbering everything would be one solution. Problems of confidence are exacerbated over the telephone, where students can't just lean over a desk to help each other. Simplified activities need to be developed for troublesome content areas, to reflect this weakened student-support system. Teacher-centered activities with simple and complete materials for the students, such as ing the test data is whether the telephone group students were more motivated under a quasi-tutorial envi- ronment. The special circumstances of this small group (generally 6-9 students each ses- sion) allowed a differ- ent type of instructor- student interaction dur- ing the instructional period. On the other hand, there was virtual- ly no student-instructor contact before or after the instructional period each day. This question is left unanswered in this study, but it would seem a likely benefit of smaller-group instruc- tion under the telecon- ferencing environment. Of course, were the tra- ditional classroom to TABLE 1 TEST RESULTS Group Test Mean Averages Midterm Listening Exam Interview Telephone 10.70 11.60 10.00 Traditional 15.94 11 .06 14.13 Tel/Trad .677 1.049 .708 Group Test Medians Midterm Telephone 12.0 Traditional 13.5 Tel/Trad .911 1.000 .591 Listening Exam Interview 11.0 9.0 11.0 15.5 Group Test First Quintile ("Bottom 20%") Midterm Listening Exam Interview Telephone Traditional 5.5 4.67 9.0 6.0 4.3 5.33 Tel/Trad 1. 178 1.500 .812 Group Test High Quintile ("Top 20%") Midterm Listening Exam Interview contain a similar number of students, those students' motivational levels might increase comparably. More advanced planning would allow a significant change in instruc- tional materials to improve the quality of discussions. This instructor generally prefers not to use a bilingual approach for vocabulary issues, utilizing instead an active visual presentation model; more DEFINITION OF TERMS ing several telephone handsets close together!). Four forms of teaching via the telephone have been identi- fied by one set of authors: telelecture, where an out- side expert "enters" a formal classroom via tele- phone; teleteaching, which allows a homebound per- son to "attend" via speakerphone in the classroom; teletutoring, for a tutor to provide one-to-one (or small group) teaching to student(s) who are studying separately from a formal classroom; telephone-based instruction, where a teacher instructs a group of geo- graphically disparate students. Telephone-based instruction is the form utilized in the course discussed Telephone 13.5 15.0 20.0 Traditional 28.33 17.0 20.0 Tel/Trad .477 .882 1.000 "Past-tense Bingo," were generally success- ful. Group discussion activities were gener- ally not very effective, due to the students' lack of consideration to the technological limitations of basic telephone service: only one voice can be transmitted at a time. A teleconferencing guide should be made available to students prior to the course, to facilitate more active group discussions. here. Audio-conferencing may include telephone con- ference-calls, satellite communications systems, and dedicated communications systems. Teleconferencing indicates conferencing via some sort of telecommuni- cations, which may include all of the above, as well as one-way or two-way radio (eg: shortwave radio) or television broadcasts, on-line ( .. live"> computer com- munications which may include text, audio, and video, viewing of videotapes or television with simul- taneous audio communication under one of the audio- conferencing modes listed abo.-e, or video conferences via microwa.-e or satellite links. Call-waiting and other adrnnced tele- phone services are a hindrance. It is frus- trating that the instructor can only do one- on-one work at the end of the session, so that students ha\'e little chance to practice their "repaired" language pronunciation. A university with a high-tech communica- tions system could arrange for students to call in for a teleconference course, with the university operator or instructor then matching up calls for pair-work, which the instructor could monitor, and the class could be reconvened. Only in such an environment could a teleconferencing English Conversation class be considered as a full-fledged replacement for a tradi- tional course. One promising application would be in continuing education of English conversation for public school teachers. A large number of the reports published in the field of distance-learning were based on continuing education for professionals. Many Korean public school teachers have a strong knowledge-base in English, but little opportunity to practice speaking and listening. Small groups of teachers could conference, and discuss topics of interest, with or without the involvement of a "tutor" who is more pro- ficient in spoken English. This would be effective in groups who have existing ties. Author's Note: Robert J. Uickey was a member of the Faculty of Liberal Arts at Miryang National (San-up) University, in Miryang, Kyungnam, S. Korea at the time of this project. He is now a mem- ber of the English Deparment in the School of Foreign Languages & Tourism at Kyongju University, in Kyongju, Kyongbuk, S. Korea. The author wishes to thank Korea Telecom's "Dial 101". ELECTRONIC EDUCATION All the news fit to browse NEWSPAPER reading - a con- venient student- centered activity -has become even easier, thanks to the Net. No more newsprint on 111111 your fingers. No more articles that don' t fit on the copy machine. No more fear of copyright infringement. And we're not talking just your local paper; we're talking thousands of U.S. and foreign newspapers on the web. Of course, stu- dents will immediately head for their own hometown newspaper in their native lan- guage. But to keep everyone on track and in English, start the search with the Kidon Media List of English language newspapers both foreign and domestic (see box over- leaf). Once your students find the English edition of their hometown newspaper, have them exploit it. Make it their assignment to write a summary of an event back home. Have each student make an oral presentation fol- lowed by a Q&A from the other students. The entire class can write an opinion paper on how the event(s) were interpreted. The students could also create their own web newspaper highlighting the events chosen by the class with the event abstracts and links to other articles on the events. This activity could be refocused so that stu- dents read any foreign newspaper to get a local reaction to an international event. An easy way to research a news article is to use my favorite web metasearch engine (www.dogpile.com) .. (see ALR, Jan/ Feb 99, pp. 35-36 for a discussion of Search Engines.) Type in the subject (e.g., U ganda+tourist+gorilla), click on Newswires below the subject line, and dog- pile will search through the newswires to get you the latest stories on gorilla trekking in Uganda. As a bonus, the research results will lead you to the web sites of major news organizations like Associated Press, Reuters, Washington Post, BBC, CNN, and others. Bookmark these sites for future ref- erence. Running out of things to do? Turn your students into web page media critics. Let them compare and contrast the quantity and quality of the stories and serv- ices on the web pages of foreign newspa- pers. Have them design a class newspaper site with the best features of the foreign newspaper sites they visited. The features on newspaper web sites are more varied than in their print counterparts and often include cultural information. The Tehran Times goes on the defensive with a photo section on Iranian women. (http: //www.salamiran.org/Women/). The Japan Times has a section on Festivals, Museums and Galleries which is a perfect Continued overleaf "TELL ME MORE PRO" Foreign Language Learning Software Students have an interactive conversation with their PC's. Tell Me More Pro analyzes the students pronunciation, scoring each attempt. Combines conversation and pronunciation practice with grammar, vocabulary and written expression, as well as offering comprehension work based on target language videos. rllE"-- Thanks to a sophisticat- Ill!!-
- ; -- ! J .,.":'. : ... :- ed use of speech recog- nition, there is a fluent and interactive dialog between the student and the computer . Practice pronouncing each sentence or word in the lesson. A high- quality scoring system allows for a comparison of the recording with that of the model. Tell me More Pro can be adapted to the level and needs of the student. Tell Me More Pro enables teachers to define the order of exercises and control accessibility to the activities. Complete student tracking Fully networkable Complete method Auralog Inc. 3344 E. Camelback Road Suite I 07 Phoenix, AZ 85018 Phone: 602.957.3535 Fax: 602.957.3504 www.auralog.com 49