Interactivity in the online teaching and learning of foreign languages: reconciling teacher centrality, learner autonomy and resourcing

Dr Vincenza (Enza) Tudini:

enza.tudini@unisa.edu.au

• online teaching of foreign languages at university but draws on principles originally developed for F2F teaching to promote good practice;

• pedagogical/theoretical rationale for the introduction of telecollaboration in FL uni programs;

• work-in-progress, derived from article destined for colleagues both within and outside the languages discipline;

• tension between the pivotal role of the language lecturer and the increased expectation of learner autonomy in online FL programs;

• role of lecturer where telecollaboration is introduced;• resourcing of university FL programs (with input from

audience), articulate role of lecturer.

What this presentation is about

Why different (higher) commonwealth funding levels for foreign languages in Australia? $11,681 per EFTSL (Equivalent full-time student load) compared with most Humanities $5,369; ratio of at least 2:1.What are the original arguments used to determine those funding levels? What are some key theoretical frameworks which inform good practice in language teaching and learning of foreign languages, including telecollaboration? And what are the implications of these for teacher and learner roles, and resourcing of languages? When translated into online teaching practice, do these frameworks provide evidence that languages require higher funding levels than other humanities subjects? Are current funding levels sufficient?What are the implications of these frameworks for the online teaching and learning of foreign languages, especially telecollaboration? For example, what level of autonomy should we be expecting from the learner when online components are introduced into our programs? How do we deal with learner differences in online programs (eg. students with little or no experience in learning a foreign language)?

What is unique about the teaching and learning of foreign languages?

What are our own arguments regarding uniqueness of foreign language programs? We have been allocated over double the funding of other humanities subjects; why do we think this is so?• streaming of language classes according to various linguistic

levels, in a major which includes at least two entry levels (ab initio and post Year 12), which increases the number of courses offered to students (at least 10 courses where a major consists of 8 courses);

• small class sizes to adequately monitor and support individual student progress in learning to communicate fluently and accurately in the target language;

• continuous assessment, including regular testing of students’ reading, writing, listening and speaking skills in the target language combined with intercultural learning, the development of academic literacy, and ‘studies’ courses which all add up to FL courses requiring more contact, multiple assessment items and more assessment hours per week than non FL subjects;

• more complex marking than other subjects, as students are not writing in their first language. Marking of FL assignments often entails rewriting of substantial portions of assignments to promote modelling of target-like language, especially at beginners’ level where a significant proportion of Australian students has no prior experience of rigorous study of a FL (Lo Bianco, 2009);

• the incremental nature of FL learning which requires students to acquire certain abilities and concepts before proceeding to the next stage, as reflected, albeit somewhat crudely, in the use of prerequisites;

• the need for technical support and specialist computer laboratories;

• Students need more hours per week/ over a major (36 units) than other subjects to achieve learning outcomes (proficiency and academic literacy in a FL in an environment where English is the dominant language);

Revisit pedagogical rationales to assist Heads of FL departments, FL lecturers and school/faculty managers to lobby for adequate funding for students, at the chalkface; Improve FL teachers’ own understanding of their discipline;Develop good practice models for FL teaching and learning (telecollaboration central aspect);

From business cases to pedagogical theories and good practice FL teaching and learning models

Interaction between human beings, both social and institutional and across cultures, is central motivation and learning activity of foreign language (FL) learners enrolled in university programs, hence the success of telecollaboration; Learning to speak FL fundamental motivation for uni students: perceived lack of progress in speaking and listening skills contributes to decreased student motivation in first year (Busse and Walter (2013); FL theoretical frameworks reinforce pivotal/ubiquitous role of language teachers and expert speakers, including peers;FL programs risk becoming ineffectual where online delivery models used to reduce burgeoning workloads/cut costs rather than enriching FL learners’ learning experience through contact with expert speakers;Trend to reduce F2F in corporatized university environments (Chomsky, 2011), despite central government funding models in countries like Australia, which reflect the labour intensive nature of FL learning and teaching (Department of Innovation, 2013).

Why differentiate resourcing & pedagogical needs of FL teaching and learning from those of other disciplines

Not exhaustive list, selection based on relevance to a notion of interactivity which is specific to foreign languages discipline. Apart from Vygotsky’s (1978) work, theories unlikely to be familiar to educators outside languages.• Vygotsky’s (1978) Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) and

Lantolf’s (2011) sociocultural theory for language learning (SCT-L2);

• Interactionist Second Language Acquisition (SLA) (Varonis & Gass, 1985; (Long, 1996);

• Conversation analysis for Second Language Acquisition (CA for SLA) (Markee, 2000);

• Intercultural communicative competence (Byram, 1997; Kramsch, 1978);

• Pienemann’s (2007) teachability/learnability theory.

Which theoretical frameworks?

According to sociocultural theory (Lantolf 2011) and Vygotskyian (1978) construct, Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD):• learning occurs especially during interaction and collaboration with human

beings; • collaboration stretches learners’ current abilities to accomplish tasks which are

beyond what they can achieve alone (for overview see Lantolf & Thorne, 2007);• notion of ZPD originally based on children’s learning and development,

especially during play;• The construct has been adapted, in various interpretations (Kinginger, 2002), to

adults learning a FL; • Concept of ZPD gave rise to idea of ‘scaffolding’ or assistance by a teacher or

more competent peer, with assistance which is adapted to learners’ individual needs, generating ZPD:

We propose that an essential feature of learning is that it creates the zone of proximal development; that is, learning awakens a variety of internal and developmental processes that are able to operate only when the child is interacting with people in his environment and in cooperation with his peers. Once these processes are internalized, they become part of the child’s independent developmental achievement (Vygotsky, 1978, p. 90)

Vygotsky’s ZPD & sociocultural theory: providing access to scaffolding and collaborative interactive learning

Lantolf (2011) first applied Vygotsky’s notion of ZPD to second language acquisition in what is known as sociocultural theory for second language learning SCT-L2):• emphasised social nature of human mental activity, initiating

‘social turn’ [field dominated by cognitive perspectives]• collaboration with more competent peers and role of teachers in

scaffolding and promoting learning central to this perspective: …SCT-L2 is very much concerned with concrete

classroom activity and its impact on learning.  It argues for the pedagogical relevance of explicit and rigorous linguistic explanation, especially that derived from cognitive linguistics, and is devoted to discovering how to make learning happen through direct instruction. (Lantolf, 2011)

Lantolf’s (2011) application of ZPD to second language acquisition

Social constructivism’s (also derived from Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory) emphasis on creativity spawned notion of learner autonomy. Autonomy fostered by CALL (Benson, 2004; O’Rourke & Schwienhorst, 2003) due to:• Recent focus on interaction with human beings through computer not

interaction with computer (Warschauer, 2003);• Autonomy in FL education and CALL not about learners working in isolation;• Little’s (2003) interpretation: development of autonomy in FL results from

interplay between social and reflective processes;• Benson’s (2003) view: through social interaction learners work

collaboratively with others, develop higher order thinking skills by observing, analyzing and evaluating information;

Further research needed on autonomy in CALL but basic view is that leaners develop ability to:• Take control of own learning;• Monitor progress;• Evaluate learning outcomes (Benson, 2001;Little, 2003)

Social constructivism and autonomy in CALL

Negotiation of meaning crucial for FL learners’ interlanguage development:interruptions to the conversational flow to question particular

utterances and request conversational help (Varonis & Gass, 1985)• conversation pushed down;• conversation about conversation/language or metalinguistic work (CA:

conversation moves from interpersonal to pedagogical)Pica’s (1994) broader definition:

modification and restructuring of interaction that occurs when learners and their interlocutors anticipate, perceive, or experience difficulties in message comprehensibility” (p. 495).Real time communication essential for negotiation of meaning and consequent learning advantages (timing crucial for on the spot resolution of communication/comprehensibility problems and scaffolding of learning by the teacher or peers, (other learners or expert/native speakers). Hence adoption of text & voice chat in FL programs, especially in telecollaborative settings.

SLA: providing opportunities for negotiation of meaning, comprehensible input and pushed output

• Comprehensible input required for pushed output (echoes ZPD);• real time interaction, problems of understanding can be negotiated

by language learner, and may lead to pushed output (eg. new vocabulary becomes part of learner’s linguistic repertoire after clarification request);

• Authentic resources from the web require adaptation to cohort of students’ linguistic level (eg. tuning into live digital target language radio stations and TV broadcasts does not necessarily provide learning opportunities when linguistic level too far above learners’ AND cannot be negotiated);

• Language teacher identifies, adapts web resources prior to use in program (often on weekly basis, to ensure uptodateness and capture changing target language);

Comprehensible input and pushed output

• CA for SLA (Markee, 2000) sees ‘conversational repair’ and human beings’ pursuit of ‘intersubjectivity ‘ or ‘shared meanings’ as a guiding principle of human interaction, whether in social-informal or institutional-formal contexts such as the classroom.

• real time interaction is main object of research by conversation analysts• conversation achieved collaboratively or co-constructed by participants,

hence is a social activity. • Unlike SLA research which is often experimental or task-based, CA for

SLA engages in systematic analysis of talk in everyday naturally-occurring situations of social interaction.

• Firth and Wagner’s (1997) seminal article calls for reconceptualisation of Second Language Acquisition (SLA) through Conversation Analysis so scholars and teachers ‘will be better able to understand and explicate how language is used as it is being acquired through interaction’ (p.768).

• According to CA for SLA theorists, by seeing language as predominantly a cognitive phenomenon which is the product of an individual’s brain, SLA theory has overlooked the role of language and conversation as a social phenomenon which both NSs and learners construct collaboratively (Liddicoat, 1997)

CA for SLA and pursuit of ‘shared meanings’: providing opportunities for naturalistic interaction

• CA tracks not just who initiates repair (negotiation in SLA terms) but also who repairs;

• distinguishes the initiator of the repair sequence from the speaker who resolves the conversational problem. (social and learning implications, especially in other-initiated other-repair)

• Other-correction generally avoided in social conversation (seen as impolite), more accepted in teacher-student conversations or social intercultural chat (Liddicoat & Tudini, 2012; Tudini, 2010).

Suggests communication technologies which permit interaction in real time are most likely to promote collaborative construction and development of naturalistic conversational language, as well as various forms of form-focused learning (If time zone differences permit, telecollaborative settings do and should include real-time interaction; CA for SLA research examines interaction patterns: computer-mediated interaction promotes greater variety of interaction patterns where the learner takes more initiative in learning than possible in the classroom where the IRF interaction pattern is prevalent (Tudini, 2013).

Byram’s (1997) definition of skills of discovery and interaction (example of intercultural communicative competence required of the ‘intercultural speaker’) especially relevant to online FL programs and a FL discipline-specific view of interactivity. • speakers engage with both culture and language of the foreign

interlocutor; • skills displayed in real time;

According to Byram (1997), the intercultural speaker is able to estimate their degree of proximity to the language and culture of their

interlocutor…and to draw accordingly on skills of interpreting, discovering, relating different assumptions and presuppositions or connotations in order to ensure understanding and avoid dysfunction (my emphasis, p. 62)

Intercultural communicative competence: mediating two cultures and promoting intercultural reflection

Communication technologies, especially telecollaboration activities, offer potential to develop students’ intercultural communicative competence. However, Liddicoat and Scarino (2013) point out:

ensuring connectivity between people from different cultures alone cannot be considered an adequate use

of technology for intercultural learning (p.118). • connectivity provides valuable opportunities for language use

and negotiation with interlocutors but interaction needs to be converted into learning through reflection;

• design of activities is a key factor;• language teacher has central role as mediator between 2

cultures (that of student and that of target culture).Eg Ware & Kramsch (2005) study on episode of misunderstanding in asynchronous telecollaborative project between students of German in US and students of English in Germany.

Authors’ conclusions:• in such authentic intercultural settings, conflict may occur

despite taking precautions and constructing tasks tightly. • Teachers cannot prepare for the unexpected when teaching

language for intercultural competence: Telling incidents such as these are among the most

valuable learning opportunities in a communicatively oriented curriculum, and they are valuable precisely because they cannot always be avoided.Language teacher has fundamental role in mediating intercultural exchanges through reflection, especially where there is potential for conflict and misunderstanding. communication technologies (synchronous & asynchronous) which permit connectivity and interaction opportunities with NS peers and venue for discussion with the language lecturer as intercultural mediator therefore have the best potential for intercultural learning.

• Provide opportunities for interaction with NSs outside the classroom (both communication technologies and study abroad experience);

• learner autonomy integral to develop intercultural communicative competence. Eg. Liddicoat (2005) emphasizes the importance of negotiation strategies in the autonomous acquisition of intercultural competence:

Because a learner can only ever acquire some of the cultural conventions, an important part of intercultural competence is having strategies for learning more about culture as they interact (p. 205).

Byram and Fleming (1998) describe “intercultural speaker” as someone who is learning to become independent of the teacher and the limits of what can be achieved in the classroom…” (p. 9).

Further research and evaluation required on how to effectively dovetail virtual immersion between peers and guided intercultural reflection between students and lecturers at university level

Need to achieve balance between learner autonomy and teacher mediation/ guidance especially evident in intercultural teaching and learning theories

Pienemann’s (2007) psycholinguistically based teachability/learnability theory:• FL program may not reflect individual learners’ readiness to learn a

particular grammatical point at a particular point in time; implications for timing of stages of language teaching & learning;

• teachability of language constrained by what the learner is ready to acquire due to a ‘processor’ which is influenced by word access and memory.

• to maximise learning, instruction needs to reflect the stage just beyond the learner’s current stage of interlanguage.

Pienemann’s theory suggests that online FL programs need to take timing of linguistic development into consideration and build in individualization of instruction rather than provide one-size-fits-all program. Technology needs to build in opportunities for learners to harness human/expert support at the right moment, through real time negotiation, provision of comprehensible input and direct teaching by expert (teacher).

Timing and Learnability/teachability/processability theory: incorporating individualized teaching and learning

• issue of readiness for stages of linguistic learning implies that learner differences need to be taking into account (eg. provide extra support through one-to-one instruction when required, to individual learners at certain points in time, to get them back on track and encourage continuation).

• Larger numbers of students entering our programs (in South Australia) with little or no experience in rigorous study of a foreign language (beginners). At the same time the classes need to be sufficiently challenging for those students who do have prior language learning experience.

Readiness for specific stages of language learning and learner differences

• highly interactive and authentic (real life/experiential learning)• provide opportunities for guided comprehensible input, negotiation of

meaning and naturalistic co-construction of conversations both with the language lecturer and peers (NS or NNS).

• promote intercultural exchange under the direct or indirect guidance of the language teacher as mediator between two cultures and ‘scaffolder’ of both target language and culture.

• take account of timing and individualization of learning (stages of linguistic learning/varying levels of proficiency/need to support students with no prior experience and challenge those who do).

• achieve balance between language teacher and peer-based online interaction, with possible increasing autonomy for the language learner as he/she becomes more proficient in the target language.

• link between proficiency and autonomy significant when comparing study of non-ideographic with ideographic languages (more time required for students to take on more autonomous tasks, eg. skype conversations).

In summary: good practice online FL programs

Figure 1: Student connections in an interactive online or blended FL program.

Foreign language student

Foreign language lecturer

Native/expert speaker peers

Other foreign language students

• the lecturer (eg. direct teaching/reflection/monitoring of progress/regular assessment of speaking, writing and intercultural learning). (audio/video chat + skype or VC ideal but asynchronous tools also helpful)

CA research needed to identify the specific interactional features which enhance participation and increase opportunities for learning in online tutorials of varying class sizes (what is ideal class size?)Walsh & Li’s (2013) CA study Conversations as space for learning on face-to-face English conversation classes in China demonstrates how teachers create space for learning through specific practices eg. increased wait-time, extended learner turns, increased planning time.  • other non-native speaker students (create online community through course

website or FB, computer-mediated social & pedagogical interaction, discussion of ideas/concepts relating to course; completing pair work normally completed in class online through chat, blogs, etc to expand target audience. Extends target audience beyond teacher & provides task authenticity); 

• expert/native speakers other than lecturer, both institutional and social contexts (promote exposure to variety of voices, regional accents, contexts; opportunities to make new friends and language learning partners/ tandem arrangements with age-peers promote negotiation of meaning/scaffolding in online conversation)  

In interactive online FL programs, the language lecturer harnesses communication technologies to facilitate student connections with:

• Social;• Intercultural;• Collaborative;• Globally connected;• Guided and autonomous• Comprehensible/accessible;• Individualized AND challenging;

Telecollaboration has the potential to be all of the above.

Interactive good practice online foreign language study is:

• greater levels of interaction, hence higher levels of interactivity which requires smaller groups and greater global connectivity;

• more demanding on student: seeks to acquire not just a new system of communication but a new way of thinking, sometimes a new way of learning (if never learned language before);

• new way of thinking entails thinking interculturally, as an ‘intercultural speaker’, but also entails learning how this thinking is structured in a foreign language;

• FL students are doing this against the odds, compared with other humanities (once they leave the classroom or internet space, dominant language in the community is English or the local language)

What is so unique about FL programs (compared with other humanities) and why do they require more resources?