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CALL in CONTEXT

Proceedings

Berkeley, University of California

7 - 9 July 2017

Composed by Jozef Colpaert, Ann Aerts, Rick Kern, Mark Kaiser

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Vera Menezes, Ronaldo Gomes Junior

Universidade Federal de Minhas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Brazil

vlmop@veramenezes.com; ronaldocgomes@gmail.com

Digital Tools for oral skills development in English

Bio data

Vera Menezes holds a PhD in Linguistics and is a full professor of English and
Applied Linguistics at the Federal University of Minas Gerais. She is a
sponsored researcher of The Brazilian National Research Council. Her main
research interests are language and technology, second language acquisition,
narrative research, metaphor and metonymy.

Ronaldo Correa Gomes Junior holds a PhD in Applied Linguistics and is an

Adjunct professor of English and Applied Linguistics at the Federal University of
Minas Gerais. His main research interests are language and technology,
metaphors of language learning and teaching, and pedagogical affordances of
digital tools.

The authors thank The Brazilian National Research Council (CNPq) and the Minas Gerais
State Agency for Research and Development (FAPEMIG) for supporting their research.

Abstract

This research aimed at investigating the use of digital tools to develop oral skills in English.
It was carried out in an online course taught in 2016 by two teachers at a Brazilian
university. The course was offered twice for groups of approximately 70 students each. It
aimed at helping undergraduate students to gain more confidence in their ability to speak
English and offered possibilities for the learning of oral skills outside the traditional
classroom with the aid of digital tools. The students were assigned asynchronous tasks
which stimulated collaboration and offered equal opportunities for language use. All the
instructions, tutorials, discussion forums and links were posted on the Moodle virtual
environment hosted by the university.

Conference paper

Introduction
Oral skills can often be considered a tortuous path in teaching English as a foreign language
(TEFL) in Brazil. This seems to be a reality in both face to face and online learning. EFL
learners and teachers alike talk about the development of oral skills with sadness and
discredit, generally complaining that it is impossible to learn how to talk in English because
of the overcrowded classes, lack of infrastructure, bad quality of textbooks, and others, as

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can be seen in the language learning histories of the AMFALE project website
(http://www.veramenezes.com/amfale/).

Moreover, although voice technology has been accessible since the 90s, there hasn't been
significant investment and research in its use for developing oral skills in EFL teaching.
Google Scholar search engine, for instance, does not show many articles about the use of
digital tools in the context of foreign language teaching. Some of them investigated the use
of low-tech tools, such as tape recorders, audio CDs, video cameras, CD ROMs etc.

Our intention is to shed light on the use of high-tech tools, web tools and apps that can be
accessed both on simple computers and mobile devices, such as smartphones and tablets.
Our research was carried out in an online course taught in 2016 by the authors in a
Brazilian university. The course was offered twice to groups of 70 students each. It aimed at
helping undergraduate students to gain more confidence in their ability to speak English and
offered possibilities for learning oral skills outside the traditional classroom with the aid of
digital tools. The students were assigned asynchronous tasks which stimulated collaboration
and offered equal opportunities for language use. All the instructions, tutorials, discussion
forums and links were posted on the Moodle virtual environment hosted by the university.

The next section presents the theoretical support, followed by the methodology description.
Then, we analyze data derived from our observation and from the students’ learning
journals. Lastly, we draw some final considerations.

The Classroom as a dynamic complex system

Classrooms are dynamic complex systems because they are comprised of many interrelated
elements – teacher(s) and students – in a constant movement of action, reaction and co-
adaptation. They belong to different social, historical, political and cultural backgrounds and
display different behaviors due to their different levels of motivation and agency. As Davis
and Sumara (2006) point out, this social collective “can vastly exceed the summed
capacities of their members” (p. x) and reach results difficult to be achieved individually in a
short span of time.

Larsen-Freeman and Cameron (2008) suggest four components that can be applied to
classrooms as a complex adaptive system. Following them, we can say that:

a) Language classrooms are connected “from individual minds up to the socio-political

context of language learning, and across timescales, from the minute by minute of
classroom activity to teaching and learning lifetimes” (Larsen-Freeman and Cameron, 2008,
p. 198). In our classrooms, students and teachers were interconnected into a web of
affordances and constraints in a virtual learning space where they are supposed to deal with
digital tools for oral tasks.

b) Language is dynamic: as proposed by Menezes (2003):Language must be understood as

a non-linear dynamic system, made up of interrelated bio-cognitive, sociocultural, historical
and political elements, which enable us to think and act in society. Language is not a static
object, but a system in constant movement. Its interacting elements influence and are
influenced by each other. As language is in evolution, so too is SLA and any change in a
subsystem can affect other elements in the network. It develops through dynamic and
constant interaction among the subsystems, alternating moments of stability with moments
of turbulence (p. 498).

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Likewise, we see language learning as a complex adaptive system influenced by internal and
external factors in a process which undergoes moments of stability and moments of
turbulence.

Davis and Sumara (2006) state that “one cannot reliably predict how a student or a
classroom collective will act based on responses in an earlier lesson, or sometimes a few
minutes previous” (p.18). In our classrooms, students use language to learn the language
and their language system changes along the course in a nonlinear way. Students can use
an accepted form in a moment and then misuse it sometime later, and use it properly again
in another opportunity.

c) Co-adaptation is a key dynamic. Larsen-Freeman and Cameron (2008) explain that

Language classrooms are full of people co-adapting teacher with students, students with
each other, teacher or students with learning contexts”. (…) Understanding how and why
co-adaptation happens will shed light on patterns of classroom action and help work out
how intervention might be successful (p.199).

We see our classrooms as self-organizing and adaptive systems where teachers and
learners are continually adapting to each other. Students use language in order to perform
tasks and feedback influences their ever changing language system.

As complex systems are open and our main tools – digital technologies – are always
changing or disappearing, the classroom system constantly changes and self-organizes,
allowing the emergence of new forms of expression. We adapt to the affordances and
constraints in our local and outer contexts. Each day the language classroom emerges as a
new classroom because it has been learning from its daily experiences.

d) Teaching is managing the dynamics of learning. As Larsen-Freeman and Cameron (2008)

highlight “the action and intentions of the teacher may work as control parameters that take
the system of learners and teacher forward to new learning experiences” (p. 54). As such
we were always ready to intervene and urge the students to act with the language by
challenging them with creative tasks and useful tools, providing them feedback and asking
classmates to do the same. But this does not mean that we can control our students’
learning. Some students may refuse to perform a task and others may pick up affordances
that are different from the ones we offered.

Another characteristic of complex adaptive system is its iterating function, that is, its
capacity to apply a function repeatedly. Davis & Sumara (2006) explain that “At each stage
in a recursive process, the starting point is the output of the preceding iteration, and the
output is the starting point of the subsequent iteration” (p. 43). Larsen-Freeman (2013)
considers iteration as a “key to cognitive processing” (p. 229). She advocates that repeated
instances of patterns, slightly varied consecutive activities and the change of the conditions
of specific tasks are essential for language development (Larsen-Freeman, 2013a, 2013b,
2015). Iteration is not merely repetition. In Larsen-Freeman’s (2013a) words,
Iteration, or the opportunity to revisit the same territory again and again, is
different from repetition; it is the former that is important for language
learning and for transfer. “Teaching for transfer then involves returning again
and again to an idea or procedure on different levels and in different contexts
..., with what appears to be different examples. But from a transfer
perspective, ‘different examples’ are but variations on a single idea or
concept” (Haskell, 2001: 214) (p. 121).

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In our two courses, iteration occurred in two instances: slightly varied consecutive tasks and
opportunities for the students to revisit the same territory again and again, by recording
their oral productions again and again. In our pedagogical experience, it also occurred in the
curriculum: at a micro level, each pedagogical experience output gave us experience for
planning and re-planning the others. At macro-level, the overall experience in the first
semester was the starting point for the second. All in all, the system changes with
experiences and the second classroom was similar but at the same time different from the
first.

Methodology
In order to choose the digital tools and design the course, we followed three steps. One and
two were inspired in Siemens (2008).
1. Experimentation: selection, experimentation and evaluation of different tools
and pedagogical activities mediated by digital technology to the development
of oral skills.
2. Implementation: widespread adoption based on the knowledge acquired on
the previous stages.
3. Evaluation: assessment of the activities mediated by digital technology in
Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs).

The digital tools were selected based on the following questions:

a) Is the tool free?
b) Can the tool be used in any platform?
c) Can the tool be used without software setup?
d) Is the software use intuitive?
e) Can the tool be used for educational purposes?
f) Is the tool suitable for the development of oral skills?

Then, in the experimentation stage, activities on the development of oral skills were created
in order to be piloted by volunteer students of the ESP courses of the university. However,
very few students demonstrated interest in that process, which made the piloting as
originally planned impossible. Next, in the implementation stage, the tools were reassessed
and a 15-week course was designed on the Moodle platform. Two classes with capacity for
35 students each were offered in the School of Languages.

During the course, the teachers posted comments focusing on the content of the discussion
forums where the instructions and links for each task were shared.

At the beginning of the semester, students were asked how they wanted to be corrected.
The majority of the class opted for a collective feedback. Thus, every week, the teachers
posted a file with feedback about syntactic problems, word choice, pronunciation and stress.
Then, students were encouraged to check the correct pronunciation and stress at
http://www.dictionary.com

On the main page of the virtual environment, in addition to the area for collective feedback,
there were also a forum for solving doubts and another for interviews, which were
conducted throughout the semester. Students were informed about the fact that their
answers would not influence their grades, but would help the teachers to evaluate the
course and make adaptations for a new offer.

During the first week, students recorded an audio practicing the language functions that
would be developed throughout the semester, so the teachers could evaluate their oral
comprehension and production skills and make comparisons at the end of the course. As a

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final activity, students were asked to listen to their first recording and evaluate their
performance.

These are the tasks students were supposed to develop along the 15 weeks of the course:

1. Audio recording answers to questions with language functions that would be

developed in the course, using Vocaroo.
2. Recording a personal introduction using Voki.
3. Making comments about the colleagues’ introductions using Vocaroo.
4. Creating a family photo album with audio description using UTellStory.
5. Describing an influential person in the first person using Voki avatars. The colleagues
were supposed to listen to the avatars and guess who the persons were.
6. Building a multimodal glossary with vocabulary about food. Students were instructed
to post names of ingredients and procedures with respective images and an audio file
so that other students could check the right pronunciation.
7. Recording a video recipe using PowToon or a smartphone.
8. Audio recording about the personal university routine using Vocaroo, a smartphone
or any recording tool.
9. Podcast recording with image and audio describing a favorite destination in Brazil
using Fotobabble.
10. Debating about likes and dislikes based on a video using VoiceThread.
11. Debating about feelings and emotions based on a video using VoiceThread.
12. Asking and giving information about the university using AudioBoom.
13. Telling a love story using Vocaroo, a smartphone or any other tool.
14. Writing their English learning histories using PowToon, UTellStory or FotoBabble.
15. Talking about plans for the future using any audio recording tool.

The script for the first recording was in Portuguese because our goal was to test students’
previous knowledge without providing them any input. This script was

Greet your professors

Say your name and your age.
Describe your family.
Say your favorite food and explain how to prepare it.
Describe your university routine since you leave home until you return.
Inform where you were born and say whay you like about your hometown.
Say your positive and negative emotions about it.
What information about the course would you like to know?
How do you feel when you have to speak English in the classroom?
How was your experience with oral skills in other courses?
How do you think you can develop oral skills in English on the internet?
What are your plans for the future?

Each week, students could download support material from the learning environment,
including documents and videos with descriptions of language functions, useful expressions,
genre samples and tutorials for the digital tools.

As the course was hosted on a Moodle platform, collaboration, network creation and data
storage took place in the learning environment. However, due to the lack of knowledge that
Vocaroo does not store the recordings for a long time, a great amount of data was lost. This
problem was solved in the second offer of the course by instructing the students to
download the files and embed them in their postings. It is worth highlighting that Vocaroo is
an excellent tool and was successfully used by the students.

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The fourth stage, evaluation, will be discussed in the next section.

Evaluation
The data analysis is based on our observation and on the students’ learning journals.

Students and teachers were interrelated in a movement of action, reaction and co-
adaptation. Teachers challenged the students with different tasks to be performed with the
aid of digital tools and they acted with the English language to achieve the proposed
objectives. Although most of the activities were done individually, some students wrote in
their diaries that they used to check their colleagues tasks before doing their own and that
they learned from the teachers’ collective feedback. They also contributed to each other by
posting comments and giving suggestions to their classmates.

The multimodal glossary was a good example of the emergence of a product which would
not be achieved by each member alone, proving that the group, according to Davis and
Sumara 2006, “can vastly exceed the summed capacities of their members” (p. x). Each
individual contribution worked as a stimulus for the colleague to include something different
but within the same parameter of quality. Teacher feedback helped students to correct
some few mistakes and in one week, they got as result a complete glossary of names of
ingredients and procedures.

At the end of each course, we asked the students to compare their performances in the first
and last productions and evaluate if there had been any progress in terms of language use
and to say what they had learned. We also asked them to tell us if they felt more
comfortable and if their recording sounded more natural.

Their reports matched our observation and support our conclusion that the first task was a
moment of instability for the great majority of students, even for those who were already
fluent. One student said that she was so afraid of recording her own voice that she typed
her text to be read by the avatar tool. As her task was not accepted she had to do it again
with her own voice.

During the semester, their anxiety decreased. They felt more comfortable and sounded
much more natural at the end of the course. Although they had done their best, some
mistakes were made and some students reported that not being penalized by that was very
stimulating because they felt free to speak. They also considered the opportunity to listen to
themselves and to check the mistakes included in the feedback file as positive contributions
for their language learning. One student said: “I did not feel judged at any time and I found
it interesting to listen to other people.”

We can say that their language system changed along the course in a nonlinear way.
Students tried to monitor their oral production, but in the same production we could
observe that the same syntactic form (e.g. subject-verb agreement) was used in the
standard form once and then it appeared again without the proper agreement. In the next
task, it would appear in the standard form again and so on. That proves that this student’s
language system is in the process of self-organization and adaptation.

As a collective, we learned with each other and with our own experiences. We, teachers,
had not perceived the affordance offered by Moodle for audio embedding, but a student
embedded one of her audios and we asked her how to do it and she taught us. We had not
perceived the constraint on the hosting time limit for the audios recorded with Vocaroo
either. As a consequence, many audio files were lost.

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We learned with both experiences and, when the second course was offered, we urged the
students to embed their audio files.

Iteration was fundamental for language learning development, according to our students.
Even the ones who were fluent reported that they used to prepare a script and record their
task several times before uploading the final one. We understand that, each time they
recorded their scripts, they monitored their performances and recorded their texts again
and again to make them sound better. It was not a mere repetition because each output
was the initial condition for the next oral text which was different from the previous
recording. They revisited the same territory again and again in their quest for a better
performance and by doing so they brought dynamicity into their systems.

Final Considerations
Students formed a connected network, interacted with classmates and teachers, learned
with feedback and also with each other’s performances and mistakes. Moodle together with
digital tools offered a safe environment for the development of language learning. The
iterative movement of recording, monitoring, re-recording was essential for the
development of the students’ language learning system.

The learning journals present enough evidence for us to state that the use of digital tools
was essential for decreasing anxiety, increasing motivation and giving all the students the
same learning opportunities.

CALL in Context

Learning English in a context where students have few opportunities to interact face-to-face
with English speakers is always a challenge. In addition, the interaction in the classroom is
generally an experience characterized by stress and emotional insecurity mainly because
students fear being judged and mocked by more competent peers. Digital technology can
be helpful to partially solve the problem, by creating a safer context where students do not
feel threatened by the other participants. We chose user-friendly technology, freely
available in the clouds, because not having to download any software increases the chance
of motivating the students to do their tasks. The selected digital tools (text-to-speech tools,
Vocaroo, Voki, Audioboom, UTellstory, Fotobable and VoiceThread) helped the design of
new contexts for the recording and sharing of oral texts. The classroom in such a context
was understood as a dynamic complex networked system. The interacting elements
(teacher and students) influenced and were influenced by each other and adapted
themselves to the affordances and constraints in their local and outer contexts. The
different experiences with digital tools and contextualized oral tasks led their learning
behavior to a phase shift as students stated they had increased their motivation and
decreased stress when recording their texts with the aid of digital tools. They also said that
they had learned with each other and even with classmates’ mistakes. Similar results were
obtained in the two courses and that proves that the findings might be generalizable.

References

Davis, B., & Sumara, D. (2006). Complexity and education: Inquiries into learning,
teaching, and research. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

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Haskell, R. A. (2001). Transfer of learning. San Diego, CA: Academic Press.

Larsen-Freeman, D., & Cameron, L. (2008). Complex systems and Applied Linguistics.
Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Larsen-Freeman, D. (2015). Complexity theory. In B. VanPatten & J. Williams (Eds.),

Theories in second language acquisition, 2nd edition. Routledge, 227-244

Larsen-Freeman, D. (2013a). Transfer of learning transformed. Language Learning, v. 63,

Suppl. 1, p. 107–129, Mar.

Larsen-Freeman, D. (2013b). Complex systems and technemes: Learning as iterative

adaptations. In J. Arnold & T. Murphey (Eds.), Meaningful action: Earl Stevick’s influence on
language teaching (pp. 190–201). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.

Menezes, V. (2003) Second language acquisition: Reconciling theories. Open Journal of

Applied Science(OJAppS), Vol.3 No.7 2013.p. 404-412. November 5, 2013. Available at
http://www.scirp.org/journal/PaperDownload.aspx?paperID=39021

Siemens, George.(2008). Learning and knowing in networks: Changing roles for educators
and designers. 2008. Retrieved May 13, 2013.
http://itforum.coe.uga.edu/Paper105/Siemens.pdf

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