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.