Reading Prompt #7

*LEVY – Ch. 7 Practice
*BLACKBOARD - Grgurović, M. & Hegelheimer, V. (2007). Help
Options and Multimedia Listening: Students' Use of Subtitles and the Transcript. Language Learning & Technology, 11(1), 45-66.

What did Grgurović & Hegelheimer find with regards to using subtitles and transcripts to help ESL students develop listening skills in English? What are some of the implications for instruction?

From your reading of Levy, comment on one or more of the issues related to the practice dimension of CALL what you would want to take into consideration for your own classroom.

Grgurović & Hegelheimer set out to determine whether subtitles or transcripts are more effective as a help tool in providing modified input to language learners. Four interaction patterns were observed: participants who interacted only with the subtitles help tool, those who only used the transcripts, participants who used no help tools, and participants who used both help options. They found that students interacted with the subtitles more frequently (65% vs. 35%) and for longer duration than the transcripts. In terms of task performance, the subtitles and transcript groups showed similar results. The subtitles group, however, had the best recall test score. The group with no help interactions, showed the poorest performance. The researchers indicated further studies may wish to compare help vs. no help use, as the non-interaction group exhibited the poorest performance and outcome.

Even though the researchers made efforts to control as many variables as possible, I’m not convinced that the low-performance group’s outcomes are a direct result of non-interaction with the help tools. I think it’s more likely that, as alluded to by the researchers, the task was too difficult for the learners. I think that the help options available, even if used, may not have been sufficient to compensate for the comprehension breakdowns. In this regard, I think it’s important to be aware of learners’ skills and proficiency when using CALL in the classroom. I also feel that help tools, such as the ones investigated by Grgurović & Hegelheimer, can be really useful for students. I would encourage students to use help features available to them. I think a shift in thinking may need to occur though for students to see help features as part of the learning process and not as a negative concept.

Levy’s chapter reiterates the concept of integration; not merely the integration of CALL technology into the curriculum, but more specifically how to integrate certain tools to address practicing specific language skills. He mentions the shift in focus in recent years towards communicative and content-based learning through tasks, but says that there is still need for limited focus form-based learning as well. For my own classroom, I would need to discern which language area and approach to focus on to help students practice those particular skills. For writing practice, I thought it was an interesting distinction between synchronous (chat) and asynchronous (email) communication. Both forms assist with written communication, but the means are very different and depending on the goals, one would more applicable than the other. If my teaching goal is proper grammar usage, email might be a better option as chat writing tends to be more condensed. However, if overall communication is the goal, chat may be more advantageous as it seems to foster quicker establishment of relations, in part due to quick turnaround time between messages (p193). I liked Healey’s quote (Levy p191): “technology alone does not create language learning any more than dropping a learner into the middle of a large library does”. I think it emphasizes the importance of proper integration: knowing what you wish to achieve, which technological options are available, and how those will mesh with the goals & backgrounds of your learners.