NY Times Magazine-Learning by Playing: Video Games in the Classroom

Hola compañeros y compañeras,


Here is an article I came across last semester where the lesson is not so much a lesson but a quest. These middle school students are learning through game design. Its kinda long but you can skim through it if it doesn't catch your attention so much. Click here if interested. Here is a video that accompanies the article Games Theory.


You might notice the ASK THE EXPERT featuring James Gee on the side, here is Gee on video games for learning. Part I and Part II.


Nos vemos pronto :-)

Roundtable II:

TANDEM LANGUAGE LEARNING THROUGH A CROSS-CULTURAL KEYPAL PROJECT 
By K. Kabata & Y. Edasawa, Language Learning & Technology

February 2011, Volume 15, Number 1. pp.104-121

INTRODUCTION

This communication project involves tandem learning and presents an opportunity for incidental learning to occur. In order to understand this study the authors provide excellent definitions of these two concepts. Tandem language learning is defined as "a form of open learning in which two people [or groups] with different mother tongues work together in order to learn one another's language."(Little & Brammerts 1996,p.10)The authors define their study as "concerned with learning language as a by-product of a meaning-focused bilingual communication project, whereby students are engaged in discussion on common inquiry topics."(p.105)In other words, incidental learning which focuses more on meaning of language than its form (Hulstijn, 2003)." Although many studies have been conducted in regards to tandem learning, not many have focused on incidental learning or error correction. The tandem learning projects which do show use of incidental learning usually involve the acqusition of vocabulary. Moreover, much of the studies completed have studied monolingual discussion boards, with the use of second language learners and native speakers of the target language. The study conducted by Kabata & Edasawa is based on a program that has been implemented for a few years at their universities and every year they look to better the communication project. 

SUMMARY OF STUDY

The University of Alberta(UA), Canada and the Doshisha Women's College (DWC), Japan created a language exchange for students in UA learning Japanese and students in DCW learning English. The students of the UA-DWC project were divided in 4-5 member groups, which included 2-3 UA students and 2-3 DWC students, based on topics created by the DCW students. Through an asynchronous discussion board these students were to post questions in their second language (L2) and answer their group members questions in their native language, for example a UA student would post a question in English but would respond to a Japanese question in Japanese and vice versa. 

As the title mentions, the aim of the study is to "determine the patterns of students' language learning in a cross-cultural project."(p.107)with the focus on the learners of Japanese response to the input from their keypals. The authors further claim that the results are not to examine what was learned by learners but  how the learners of UA perceive the input received from the DCW students. In order to keep constant participation, students were also required to do other assignments related to the exchange, such as presentations, learning logs, individual essays, and individual research topics based on their groups discussion board. All together depending on their university it ranged anywhere from 32-60% of their final grade.

The assignment was 8 weeks in length and involved 40 UA students (16 male and 24 female), in their first semester of their third year Japanes, and 35 female DWC students of English. The total number of groups were 16. The messages posted in WebCT were used for the final analysis. More importantly the four required learning logs submitted by UA students were analyzed to see what students were reporting they learned every two weeks. The logs voluntarily submitted by DWC were used to see what errors DWC students felt their UA group members were committing in Japanese. Table 1 below shows you the areas used to analyze students learning and reporting logs. Table 2 and 4 show the outcomes of the logs.

RESEARCH QUESTIONS

What kinds of linguistic items were learned through the keypal project?

• Language learning opportunities occurred in all aspects (vocabulary, kanji, grammar, and phrase/sentential expressions)
• Overall Vocabulary items were the most frequent
• Kanji spelling and reading were the least frequent.

Do students recognize and learn from keypals’ corrective input differently when they are presented explicitly as opposed to when they are presented implicitly without overt indication?

• UA students’ logs yielded 117 entries(LS-1learning from overt corrections,)19 (LS-II noticing own errors without overt corrections), explicit learning may be more helpful in learning. 
• Zero implicit corrections given and reported by DWC students were acknowledged or reported by UA students.
• 18 of 29 explicit corrections provided and reported by the DWC students were acknowledged and/or reported.
• However, UA students’ log data indicated that, when noticed, implicit corrections and corrections through negotiations seemed to lead to a better understanding of their own errors. 
• Support: Gass (1988, 1999), who emphasizes the importance of students’ recognition of their own errors and the process of negotiation. 

• Students may not have quite understood the grammatical corrections unless clear explanations were given.

What kind of incidental learning if any is observed?

• Yes, through explicit and implicit error corrections, or through exposure to authentic texts provided by their keypals 
• Vocabulary most frequent item learned without explicit corrections
• Students do not pay much attention to grammatical features when reading keypals’ messages.
• infrequency of grammatical learning without corrective input might be the proficiency level of the learners. UA students were in the first term of the third-year Japanese classes, many of them might not have been proficient enough to pay attention to and recognize grammatical items that were presented by their keypals 
• 21 entries  reported grammatical learning in LS-II and LS-IV categories, indicating that certain types of grammatical features might be easier to notice.
• Present study may have directed students’ learning towards greater intentionality, while the focus of the students’ task during the keypal project was on meaning
• Only the DWC students were asked to keep logs about their keypals’ (erroneous) language use, and it is possible that the level of awareness about linguistic issues may have been different had both groups of students been given the same requirements

COMMENTS

I found this study quiet interesting for the field of language exchanges.  I do agree with the authors that a different form of data collection or an addition of the observation of both learner groups for erroneous material would be beneficial for incidental learning. I think in cases like these triangulation is important. I also think an interview with the students would be helpful to see if there is something they did not mention in their logs, or to get closer to their perceptions. The analysis of the weeks messages is also an important form of analysis they did not pay too much attention too. I appreciated the thoroughness conducted by the authors in presenting the literature review and the study.  The definition of terms such as tandem learning, incidental and intentional learning, and implicit and explicit learning is important in this paper, especially to not forget that the focus is incidental learning.  At times, I thought they would use their data to analyze errors. In a way they did, but to analyze if corrections were noticed or not, and if students acknowledged them.  I like the topic and I find it easy to adapt this type of study. Incidental learning, like intake or perception is hard to account for, therefore the more methods of feedback for the study the better chance of understanding what students really perceive.

Intercultural Competence, we can always use more :-)

The Cultura Project is amazing because it exposes students to other perspectives around the world.  It gives them topics to discuss that may without interaction of residents/citizens of that country be left without actual attitudes and meaning.  I like that in a way it helps open students mind to understand the misscommunications based on different cultural aspects or even life experience.  We all have different traits depending on race, socioeconomic status, where we grew up, who we grew up with, our families, etc.  Even among two sisters that grew up around the same "everything" there may be, for example, different political views.  Now when you change the different aspects you have, such as a new culture, you are most likely to get more differences. I like how this project allows students to view this first hand, without having to leave their country, or even their classroom.

Review: Who’s Helping Whom?: Learner/Heritage-Speakers’ Networked Discussions in Spanish

“The interactionist model predicts that oral discussions between native speakers (NSs) and non-native speakers (NNSs), as well as those that only involve NNS, will prime second language learners to notice their linguistic limitations, which is an essential step in the SLA proces (Gass 1997).” 

The article “Who’s Helping Whom?: Learner/Heritage-Speakers’ Networked Discussions in Spanish” (Blake & Zyzik 2003) examines the application of the Interactionist Hypothesis in regards to NNSs and HSs of Spanish  in an SCMC environment. The authors question if the interactionist model would prime NNSs and HSs in the same way it primes NSs and NNSs in SCMC interactions to notice their linguistic limitations. The linguistic limitations encountered by the  NNSs and NSs are typically lexical or grammatical. Studies have been conducted among NNSs and NSs in chat environments but not in connection witht HSs.  


“The conversation is momentarily put on hold while the particular item, be it lexical or grammatical, is negotiated... Pellettieri (1999) and Blake (2000) have shown that these ‘priming’ benefits also obtain for learner/learner discussions within the medium of synchronous computer-mediated communication (SCMC).”


Heritage speakers are often referred to as NSs, which typically means the speaker spoke the language in reference as an L1.  However, the NSs and HSs have different connotations in the world of linguistics.  Blake and Zyzik provide a great review of what is a HS. In simplest terms, in this study a HS refers to someone who has typically spoken Spanish at home but had most if not all their education in English. The authors further mention that there are various types of HSs based on their contact with the language. In the case of their study there are two, Type I are HSs that have both parents who speak Spanish at home, and Type II are students who have only one parent who speaks Spanish at home and they feel more dominant in English than Spanish. It is good that the authors establish a good definition of what a HS is in relevance to their study. As a heritage Spanish speaker and heritage Spanish instructor I think it is necessary to identify the cultural and linguistic differences among heritage speakers.



“No one has probed the pairing of L2 learners with heritage speakers”



Our universities systems are beginning to offer more courses for HSs in Spanish, as well as for other languages.  The addition of these classes separate the NNSs from the HSs to better meet the students’ needs.  The authors want to bring these two populations together via chat using task-based negotiation. Through these tasks negotiations the authors investigate if HSs provide advanced linguistic knowledge to the conversations without the unequal power presence in interactions among NSs and NNSs. The importance of the tasks are based on Swain’s  Output Hypothesis (1985, 1995):
1) it provides an opportunity for meaningful use of one’s linguistic resources
2) it allows the learner to test hypotheses about the target language
3) it encourages to move from semantic to syntactic processing


The idea of pairing both type of learners is to create negotiation of meaning among the speakers. Learners modify their language when they sense a linguistic problem in their output, by finding a new form. But mot importantly i this case is that they look for feedback from their interlocutor(s) to make sure there is no misunderstanding or miscommunication. The interlocutor also may provide feedback to make sure he/she is not misunderstanding the message.


In accordance with the literature, it seems lexical items are the most commonly negotiated. However, there are other important areas in language competence.  The authors pay attention to vocabulary, syntax, morphology, employment of different registers and express ideas with idiomatic expression and cultural references. Within their study the authors seek to find negotiation in these categories by looking at three general areas: lexical, grammatical, and pragmatic. The authors hypothesized they would find example in all three areas.


Methodology
University Intermediate Spanish for Native Speakers N=11 HSs
University Intermediate Spanish N=12 NNSs
Via Chat in computers located in different building in the University campus


The students completed a two-way jigsaw task in a HS/NNS pair to solve an ‘apartment hunting’ task. In this activity students had apartment postings from an apartment seeker website in Madrid. Each student had to share the postings they had so they could choose which rental they were going to choose, they each had four different postings. They had to consider budget, wants, and needs. The students connected with the other Spanish student for an hour  without knowing their partner had a different linguistic background.


Within the eleven pairs, a total of 36 negotiations were found: 24 lexical, 4 grammatical, and 2 pragmatic. This outcome is consistent with previous findings (e.g. Blake 2000).  The outcome also showed the majority of the resolutions were coming from the HSs, with only 5 reslutions offered by NNS, and 2 self-corrections offered by NNSs. I have found the pairing of HSs and NNSs helps the HSs in building their confidence as an ‘expert’.  It is good to see that although the majority of resolutions are executed by HSs, the NNs are receiving the external feedback that is helpful to them.

" Spanish heritage HSs can be a valuable resource to L2 learners, given a careful presentation of collaborative tasks."


I enjoyed this study but at times found many different models being tested, not just the Interactionist Hypothesis. I see this as a study that may be easily replicated.