Reflection on Week 6 “Theory-Driven CALL and The Development Process”

In this Article, some traditional approaches in developing CALL are introduced and described. Based on a survey and comments of various practitioners, it is noted that different approaches have been adopted during the development process, even though initially the development approach was “theory-driven”. I think such finding is quite reasonable, as a source-ware develops, it cannot be a purely theory-driven or alternative solely technology based but must be a mixed or balanced one.

In practice, the development process has to take into account and affected by many factors such as needs analysis, technology, feedback of learners, mode of study etc. and all these factors will have certain impact on the development process. Sometimes, the learning ability or cultural difference of learners may affect the development process as well. Apart from the syllabus, the learners being the “end users” should have a say in the development process, to ensure it is going in the right direction that is beneficial to all stake holders.

Week 5 reading on " Language Learner Behaviour in Virtual Environment"

In this article, it is found that from an experimental project, the behaviour of language learners online will be different from their behaviour in classroom setting. I think this finding is quite logical and within anticipation, since it is not uncommon that students will behave differently under different situations, that certainly includes a virtual environment.

I think the most important point of this project is its finding ascertains the fact that since learners may change their attitude in language learning under different situations, it is worthwhile to create and introduce different learning environments to suit different learners. As mentioned in the article, it is noted that some shy language learners will become more active online than in traditional classroom. Therefore, a supplementary online learning environment will obviously be advantangeous to such students in language learning. This is especially true for those students who are afraid to handle face-to-face discussion, but would brave enough in taking group work participation when under an online situation.

In summary, with the introduction of advanced network technology and computer facilities at home, the development of language learning online will become more and more important, in particular for those students who live in remote areas but neeed to improve their English learning with others over the world.

Proposed evaluation criteria of ESLvideo website

Regarding the evaluation of an English language learning website, my group members Fanny, Chung and I propose to evaluate the following website :

http://www.eslvideo.com/

which is useful for students in "listening comprehension" and the website contains lots of video clips which should be very interesting for students. Subject to further group discussion, the evaluation criteria will consist the following:

1. Layout and graphics - comparatively the layout of this website is quite simple and easy to handle. It contains various video clips that may be used as tools in teaching/learning "listening comprehension". The source of video clips comes from YouTube, Google Video etc and is unlimited.

2. Selection and grading - the video clips of this website are divided into several grades, namely "beginning", "low-intermediate", "intermediate" and "high-intermediate" to suit different levels of students.

3. Authenticity - since the source of video clips is unlimited, they can be extracts of films, TV shows, news reporting and interview etc, providing a wide range of authentic samples for English learning.

4. Guidance - this website provides some simple guidelines for teachers to create their own quizzes to suit their teaching purpose. By means of the website design, one can replay the video clip to counter-check the answers and as an instinct feedback for the students.

The above evaluation criteria are preliminary proposals and may be revised according to the circumstances.