The increasing emphasis on ‘e-learning’ in all sectors of education, including vocational and professional domains, offers great potential to provide interactive, up-dateable multimedia materials which allow greater flexibility of access and use. This paper reports on an EU-funded, e-learning project which aims to exploit on-line technology to develop intercultural business and language skills for European managers in the construction industy. It advocates an integrated approach to language and culture training, describing how a ‘cultural syllabus’ was designed to develop users’ understanding of key aspects of European work culture and practices alongside their professional language skills. The resulting matrix syllabus incorporates insights from theoretical frameworks together with factual information and authentic accounts of cross cultural work experiences. It argues that the growing demand for on-line learning materials needs to be matched by great attention to quality of course and materials design so that technology enhances, rather than detracts from, content and pedagogy.

This paper examines the role of checklists as a device for evaluating CALL courseware. After defining checklists, it examines the reasons why courseware is difficult to evaluate compared to other educational materials. It then covers in detail the main objections to the use of checklists for courseware evaluation; articles in the CAL literature from the 1980s through the 1990s have complained that checklists are inaccurate, cannot deal with educational issues, lack objectivity and reliability, are biased, etc. The present paper then examines these claims one by one, finding either that the criticism is unjustified or that it applies equally to any form of courseware evaluation. The paper concludes with speculations, drawn from postmodern literary theory, as to why the checklist has been the target of so many unsubstantial attacks.

This paper reports on a large-scale project designed to replicate an earlier investigation of tertiary students (Felix, 2001) in a secondary school environment. The new project was carried out in five settings, again investigating the potential of the Web as a medium of language instruction. Data was collected by questionnaires and observational procedures to ascertain student perceptions of the usefulness of Web-based learning, their views on its advantages and disadvantages, their personal comfort and enjoyment when working with the Web, their preferred mode of delivery, their evaluation of the quality of resources used, and their learning styles and study preferences. Results of both studies showed that students were on the whole positively inclined to working with the Web and found it useful, with the majority preferring to use the Web as an add-on to face-to-face teaching. Reported advantages in both studies outweighed disadvantages. The secondary students felt significantly more comfortable on the Web, worked longer hours and reported more evenly distributed study preferences. Most favoured a kinesthetic learning style and significant relationships between learning style and mode preference were found. Differential findings related to gender emerged in the two studies.

This study addresses the challenges faced by Modern Foreign Language teacher trainees when asked to investigate the potential of a Personal Digital Assistant to support them both in their learning and in their teaching during their training year. Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) such as the Windows Pocket PCs used in this study have previously been found supportive by trainees in other professions with a large information content. Modern Foreign Languages (MFL) was chosen as the subject for this investigation as a particularly wide range of potential opportunities specific to MFL was foreseen. These opportunities ranged from supporting student teachers' learning by enabling access to email and other internet resources wherever they were based to enabling ‘on the spot’ audio or video recordingto support their teaching. For this investigation, seven student teachers from an MFL initial teacher training programme were loaned PDAs for the duration of their course. This paper reports on interviews conducted at the end of the training year with six of the student teachers in order to elicit their views on the PDAs they were loaned. They were all experienced information technology users and willing to explore the devices but there had always seemed to be a preferred alternative technology available either at home or in the classroom. Their reports shed much light on the current climate in schools and subject culture pressures as interpreted by student teachers in MFL departments but told us only a little about the functionality of a PDA and how it can support mobile assisted language learning. The socio-cultural context within the MFL departments where the trainees were placed meant that they did not feel comfortable about exploring the PDA functionality. They were not yet confident in their pedagogical identities and mostly felt they could not disrupt the established practice with the novel technology. However, when the devices were used, applications that appeared most effective in supporting learning to teach MFL with PDAs were those that enabled the capture of on-the-spot events and reflections. This could be either through the inbuilt recording functions, especially video, or by making notes using either the on-screen keyboard or by handwriting recognition.

This exploratory study focuses on international students’ usage of digital tools in order to understand what role such tools play in the transition to their new academic environments and what learning opportunities they provide. Not only do digital tools accompany international students’ social, cultural, and linguistic transitions as they move to France to further their language competence, but their usage also reveals part of the social and semiotic adjustments they have to make in the process. Sixteen international students who volunteered for the study were given a smartphone application with which they could track learning opportunities by taking pictures and writing textual commentaries. The data, collected over a period of five weeks, thus include the resulting entries these participants shared in their mobile multimodal diaries with the researchers, as well as an end-of-project debriefing that was conducted to shed further light on the international students’ digital habits and their attitudes towards self-tracking. This study indicates that digital tools can play an important and pervasive role in facilitating international students’ linguistic development and their dealings with everyday life abroad. It also confirms that self-tracking apps can be instrumental in enhancing students’ awareness of learning opportunities outside the classroom.

Building on the experience of developing a CD-ROM for English intonation practice, this article explores some advantages and limitations of this medium for the teaching of suprasegmentals. Despite their undeniable potential for foreign language learning, computers prove to be rather limited in their feedback to pronunciation, especially in terms of error identification and correction, which calls into question one of their very strengths, viz. that of teacher-independent learning. As a possible solution to this dilemma, the present paper proposes to build into the design of a CD-ROM for intonation teaching the concept of learner autonomy, i.e. transferring to an increased degree responsibility for the learning process from the teacher (computer) to the learner. Drawing on the discussion of autonomy by, e.g. Broady & Kenning (1996) and Little (1999), it is demonstrated how incorporating a metacognitive level (by offering the learner the choice to access intonation in different ways) and a metalinguistic level helps to make the CD-ROM users more autonomous in their learning and equip them with the necessary tools for self-assessment and self-monitoring, which in turn can make up for the lack of computerised diagnostic feedback.

This article presents findings from an exploratory pilot project which aimed at fostering electronic and professional literacy skills of preservice language teachers through computer-mediated peer collaboration. The research context is a qualitative case study involving cooperation via the email and chat functions of FirstClass among preservice teachers at the Justus-Liebig Universität in Giessen and the Pädagogische Hochschule Heidelberg in Germany. The author investigates participants’ prior experiences with regard to computer skills, Internet proficiency, and technology-based language learning and teaching. Next, she discusses benefits and challenges for preservice teachers with respect to collaborating via computers (computer-mediated communication or CMC) with their transatlantic partners. In collecting and analyzing preservice teachers’ reflections, a Grounded Theory approach (Strauss & Corbin, 1998) was used. Instances of electronic and professional literacies were identified and triangulated with data from pre-course questionnaires, post-course self-assessments, logs, email and chat transcripts, and field notes. The author discusses benefits and challenges which preservice teachers encountered through the collaboration. Findings include preservice teachers’ differing levels of electronic literacy skills, tolerance for ambiguity, institutional constraints, peer feedback, and perception of the final product. Based on her findings, the author stresses the need to encourage preservice teachers’ meta-level reflections on the challenges of the collaboration and suggests conducting longitudinal follow-up studies in order to investigate if and how in-service teachers apply the knowledge they gained from their teacher education program to their own teaching.

Research into the multimodal aspects of language is increasingly important as communication through a screen plays a greater role in modern society than ever before (Liou, 2011). Multimodality has been explored from a number of angles relating to computer-mediated communication (CMC), such as its affordances and impact on language learners, highlighting its relevance and importance in the field of second language acquisition (SLA). Because CMC scenarios require attending to both peers and the screen, learners can be seen as positioned as “semiotic initiators and responders” (Coffin & Donohue, 2014). Increasingly, researchers are highlighting a need for a methodological “turn” to analyse this scenario from a “language” focus to a more holistic understanding of the interactions (Flewitt, 2008; Hampel & Hauck, 2006; Kress & van Leeuwen, 2001; Lamy, 2006). Along these lines, this case study explores how the action of task completion is mediated between six dyads (and individuals within the dyads) during an online peer-to-peer audioconferencing event. Drawing on notions from multimodal (inter)actional analysis (Norris, 2004, 2006) and the notion of “semiotic initiators and responders”, it investigates semiotic mediation with screen-based resources through analysis of audio recordings, screenshots, log files, task simulation and reconstruction. Results highlight oral and screen-based initiations and responses that take place during task completion, which is presented as a framework.

This paper examines staff reaction towards the use of Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) and Communications and Information Technology (C&IT) in language learning and teaching. It considers the attitudes of colleagues in three different universities, two in the UK and one in Canada. Our findings suggest that staff in these three locations are not resistant to the use of computer technology in learning and teaching but rather that any hesitations they have are due to a range of different factors of a practical kind, ranging from time pressures to course relevance. We found that staff in one institution are clearly more enthusiastic about using CALL and C&IT than colleagues in the other two, but that they were also widely welcomed in the latter. One of the main reasons for this has been the creation of common learning environments on the Web. In addition, findings show that staff already convinced of the benefits that CALL and C&IT bring to the teaching and learning experience (radicals) have a role in encouraging their less enthusiastic colleagues to begin using this form of technology. However, we found that the majority of colleagues are not radicals, but pragmatists, and are willing to make use of CALL and C&IT provided that the benefits are clearly guaranteed. There remains a small minority of conservatives. No suggestions are made as to how to deal with them.

Although annotation is a widely-researched topic in Corpus Linguistics (CL), its potential role in Data Driven Learning (DDL) has not been addressed in depth by Foreign Language Teaching (FLT) practitioners. Furthermore, most of the research in the use of DDL methods pays little attention to annotation in the design and implementation of corpus-based/driven language teaching.

In this paper, we set out to examine the process of development of SACODEYL Annotator, an application that seeks to assist SACODEYL system users in annotating XML multilingual corpora. First, we discuss the role of annotation in DDL and the dominating paradigm in general corpus applications. In the context of the language classroom, we argue that it is essential that corpora should be pedagogically motivated (Braun, 2005 and 2007a). Then, we move on to deal with the analysis and design stages of our annotation solution by illustrating its main features. Some of these include a user friendly hierarchical and extensible taxonomy tree to facilitate the learner-oriented annotation of the corpora; real-time graphics representation of the annotated corpus matching the XML TEI-compliant (Text Encoding Initiative) standard, as well as an intuitive management of the different data sections and associated metadata.

SACODEYL (System Aided Compilation and Open Distribution of European Youth Language) is an EU funded MINERVA project which aims to develop an ICT-based system for the assisted compilation and open distribution of multimedia European teen talk in the context of language education. This research lays emphasis on the functionalities of the application within the SACODEYL context. However, our paper addresses similarly the needs of potential multimedia language corpus administrators in general on the lookout for powerful annotation assisting software. SACODEYL Annotator is free to use and can be downloaded from our website.

This paper demonstrates how, via email exchange, a learner's German improved over a period of almost six months. The circumstances leading to the experience reported in this paper were purely accidental. The activity described below worked well with a learner of German at intermediate level; however, it could be carried out with any language at any level. Because email is essentially text-based, albeit conversational, the paper focuses on written German.

Improving the feedback quality of a computer-based system for pronunciation training requires rather detailed and precise knowledge about the place and the nature of actual mispronunciations in a student’s utterance. To be able to provide this kind of information, components for the automatic localisation and correction of pronunciation errors have been developed. This work was part of a project aimed at integrating state-of-the-art speech recognition technology into a pronunciation training environment for adult, intermediate level learners. Although the technologies described here are in principle valid for any language pairs, the current system focuses on Italian and German learners of English.

This study sought to determine the difference in text-based negotiated interaction between non-native speakers of English (NNS-NNS) and between non-native and natives (NNS-NS) in terms of the frequency of negotiated instances, successfully resolved instances, and interactional strategy use when the dyads collaborated on Facebook. It involved 10 native English speakers and 30 learners of English as a foreign language (EFL). NNS-NNS dyads consisted of five H-H pairs and five L-L pairs (H and L representing high- and low-proficiency learners). Similarly, NNS-NS dyads comprised five H-N pairs and five L-N pairs (N being native speakers). All dyads were required to use text chats to complete the given reading tasks synchronously in chatrooms on Facebook. The results suggested that negotiated instances, successfully resolved instances, and interactional strategy use occurred more frequently in H-H pairs than in L-N, L-L, or H-N pairs. In terms of strategy use, H-H, H-N, and L-N dyads were likely to engage in negotiated interaction by employing strategies such as clarifying unclear expressions or checking their comprehension, while L-L used interactional mechanisms infrequently and tended to use strategies such as continuers and asking for assistance. The research concludes with the pedagogical implications of the results.

In this process-based study, we introduced a collocation tool with a new interface and advanced search features and examined how a class of EFL college students interacted with it. To elicit their tool consultation behaviors, a vocabulary test with collocation questions was designed. The students’ use of the tool to answer the vocabulary questions was screen-recorded for further analysis, serving as the major data source. One-on-one interviews with selected students were then conducted to clarify issues related to the study and their experience in using the tool. The findings indicated that the pattern-based tool was efficient in helping students solve collocation problems. This paper concludes with some pedagogical implications and suggestions for further research.

Corpus-based language teaching is one area of second language (L2) pedagogy in which L2 teachers may benefit from extensive guidance on how to integrate digital tools into pedagogical practices. Direct corpus approaches like data-driven learning (DDL) cultivate learner engagement and language discovery. However, second language writing (SLW) teachers face significant challenges using corpora in the classroom, and these challenges often go unaddressed in language teacher education, particularly for in-service teachers. This paper reports on a case study in which six university SLW teachers participated in an online corpus-based pedagogy workshop. Teachers developed DDL activity plans and wrote in reflective diaries. The analysis of these artifacts shows that the teachers tended to follow one of two paths toward knowledge integration, as either Planners or Seekers, when implementing corpus activities in their classrooms. The teachers also reported increased confidence in applying direct corpus methods to their lessons by the end of the workshops, though they expressed the need for continued, long-term support.

In this paper, we propose a statistical evaluation method of pronunciation proficiency and intelligibility for presentations made in English by native Japanese speakers. We statistically analyzed the actual utterances of speakers to find combinations of acoustic and linguistic features with high correlation between the scores estimated by the system and native English teachers. Our results showed that the best combination of acoustic features produced correlation coefficients of 0.929 and 0.753 for pronunciation and intelligibility scores, respectively, using open data for speakers at the 10-sentence level. In an offline test, we evaluated possibly-confusing pairs of phonemes that are often mispronounced by Japanese speakers of English. In addition, we developed an online real-time score estimation system for Japanese learners of English using offline techniques to evaluate the pronunciation and intelligibility scores in real-time with almost the same ability as English teachers. Finally, we show that both the objective and subjective evaluations improved after learning with our system.

Intelligent feedback on learners’ full written sentence productions requires the use of Natural Language Processing (NLP) tools and, in particular, of a diagnosis system. Most syntactic parsers, on which grammar checkers are based, are designed to parse grammatical sentences and/or native speaker productions. They are therefore not necessarily suitable for language learners. In this paper, we concentrate on the transformation of a French syntactic parser into a grammar checker geared towards intermediate to advanced learners of French. Several techniques are envisaged to allow the parser to handle ill-formed input, including constraint relaxation. By the very nature of this technique, parsers can generate complete analyses for ungrammatical sentences. Proper labelling of where the analysis has been able to proceed thanks to a specific constraint relaxation forms the basis of the error diagnosis. Parsers with relaxed constraints tend to produce more complete, although incorrect, analyses for grammatical sentences, and several complete analyses for ungrammatical sentences. This increased number of analyses per sentence has one major drawback: it slows down the system and requires more memory. An experiment was conducted to observe the behaviour of our parser in the context of constraint relaxation. Three specific constraints, agreement in number, gender, and person, were selected and relaxed in different combinations. A learner corpus was parsed with each combination. The evolution of the number of correct diagnoses and of parsing speed, among other factors, were monitored. We then evaluated, by comparing the results, whether large scale constraint relaxation is a viable option to transform our syntactic parser into an efficient grammar checker for CALL.

This paper outlines the ongoing construction of a speech corpus for use by applied linguists and advanced EFL/ESL students. In the first part, sections 1–4, the need for improvements in the teaching of listening skills and pronunciation practice for EFL/ESL students is noted. It is argued that the use of authentic native-to-native speech is imperative in the teaching/learning process so as to promote social inclusion. The arguments for authentic language learning material and the use of a speech corpus are contextualised within the literature, based mainly on the work of Swan, Brown and McCarthy. The second part, section 5, addresses features of native speech flow which cause difficulties for EFL/ESL students (Brown, Cauldwell) and establishes the need for improvements in the teaching of listening skills. Examples are given of reduced forms characteristic of relaxed native speech, and how these can be made accessible for study using the Dublin Institute of Technology’s slow-down technology, which gives students more time to study native speech features, without tonal distortion. The final part, sections 6–8, introduces a novel Speech Corpus being developed at DIT. It shows the limits of traditional corpora and outlines the general requirements of a Speech Corpus. This tool – which will satisfy the needs of teachers, learners and researchers – will link digitally recorded, natural, native-to-native speech so that each transcript segment will give access to its associated sound file. Users will be able to locate desired speech strings, play, compare and contrast them – and slow them down for more detailed study.

This study investigated three look-up conditions for language learners to learn unknown target words and comprehend a reading passage when their attention is transferred away to an on-line dictionary. The research questions focused on how each look-up condition impacted the recall and recognition of word forms, word meanings, and passage comprehension. The participants were 84 first-year Japanese medical university students. The recall and recognition of word forms and word meanings, and passage comprehension data were analysed using the Rasch model. Probabilities of p<.05 were considered measurably different for the sample population used in this study, and probabilities of p<.003 were considered statistically significant and generalizable to a larger population. Overall, the results suggest three findings with regard to the on-line dictionary study. First, if only the results that were statistically significant are considered, there might be two conditions to learn words and comprehend reading passages: the spell condition seems to be best for learning the forms and meanings of words, and the control condition for promoting passage comprehension. Second, if the results that were both statistically significant and measurably different are considered, the spell, click, and control conditions might promote the learning of word forms, word meanings, and passage comprehension, respectively. Third, however, the click condition might promote both the learning of word meanings and passage comprehension because its effects were measurably higher to the spell condition on these measures. The results are consistent with the type of processing-resource allocation model for learning the forms and meanings of words and cognitive load theory for comprehending reading passages.