Welcome Teachers!

Thank you for visiting these pages. On this page I will give you some general information about the activities, the rationale behind them, and some ideas on using Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) materials. Then I will outline the activities individually, giving some ideas about how they could be utilized by you and your students. Finally, I will give you some insight into our process of development for these materials and conclude with some final notes, encouraging you to further explore CALL materials as a learning and teaching resource. While these notes are specifically addressed to the teachers of the IEP 0630 Structure and Composition classes in the Intensive English Program at Georgia State University, they maybe of value to any teacher interested in an introduction to web-based materials for second language learners. The possibilities of this technology in language education will not be fully realized until teachers (that means YOU and not just web designers) have learned to adapt them to their particular students and circumstances.

The activities here are meant to supplement the content of Looking Ahead 2: Learning About Academic Writing (Fellag 1998), the textbook for the IEP's Structure and Composition classes. They were designed in conjunction with teachers and students of the IEP during a graduate course lead by Pat Byrd (AL 8660, Materials Design, Development, & Publication, Fall 2001). They were developed using Hot Potatoes software, an interesting and exciting tool that I encourage you to familiarize yourself with. The software is very teacher-friendly, and it's free! (for non-profit educational users who make their pages available on the web). Besides the possibilities of designing your own CALL materials, there are many pre- developed materials available, both for sale commercially and free, online materials (see my page of useful web links for ESL/EFL learners & teachers for an interesting selection of free resources). If you would like further information on the topic of materials design, in general, or CALL materials, in particular, please visit my reflections on readings for a considerable annotated bibliography on the subject.

Specifically, these activities were designed to supplement Chapter 6 of Looking Ahead 2. They are meant to provide IEP students with additional practice on the grammar and vocabulary treated in this chapter. Though these activities could be used interactively and cooperatively by students in the classroom, they are NOT meant to replace the activities in the book or teacher designed activities in the classroom (see my notes on Using CALL Activities for some ideas on interactive approaches). The activities utilize a variety of formats, including multiple choice, matching, fill-in-the-blank, short answer, jumbled sentences and paragraphs, and crossword puzzles. The general topic of this chapter is "Observing: Scientific Method." The activities are based on themes surrounding this topic and most refer directly to readings in the chapter. In the chapter, students learn and apply the scientific method, developing their observations with informational writing. The content and writing goals are supported by grammar practice with informational writing structures. In particular, the students work with nouns, noun phrases, generic nouns, present tense verbs, passive voice verbs, and logical organizers. These activities support and augment the practice activities in the textbook and are designed to be used concurrently with the chapter.

As stated above, the topics, grammar, and vocabulary of these activities are all derived directly from the textbook. There are a number of reasons for this. First and foremost is to give students additional practice and review of the grammar and vocabulary covered in the textbook and, presumably, in class. Working with cooperating teachers in the 06- section classes, we concluded that there was a definite need for supplemental support in these areas of the textbook. Additionally, for this practice students are utilizing the readings from the chapter and need not do any additional reading to use these materials, as content and examples come from the same passages. Additionally and related to both, this recycling of material helps create a sense of cohesion between the text and these activities, an important aspect of all materials design (Byrd 1995a). These activities are not designed to evaluate learner knowledge of the content or language, except possibly for self assessment. It is recommended that students have their textbooks with them when working with these materials. Page numbers to the readings in the text are provided to encourage this and make it easy to find the relevant sections. Also, links to relevant review materials and to an online English dictionary are provided within every activity to give additional support for those students who want or need it.

The use of authentic materials, in the textbook and in these activities, is supported on a number of grounds (Byrd 1995b). The value of authentic examples of usage (in contrast to invented examples) is that they may be both more representative and more 'natural.' Both of these benefits serve to support a primary goal of language teaching, learner autonomy, preparing learners to face authentic language beyond the classroom and giving them better information as to the frequency and irregularity of language structures. Developing this self-reliance in learners can be seen as a goal equally important as language acquisition itself (Healey 1999). As Conrad (2000) explains, the field of corpus linguistics is committed to developing these same objectives systematically. The emphasis in this field of describing real language as it is used in various contexts and genres is giving teachers the power to more directly address the needs of their students. Moreover, corpus linguistics is demonstrating the connections between the lexicon and other linguistic structures, further supporting the use of authentic materials in language teaching.

Consequently, while the activities here are nominally divided into two categories (grammar and vocabulary), many of the grammar activities also give students exposure to the target vocabulary in context. Those activities specifically labeled as vocabulary practice (the last three activities of the set) are designed to fine tune knowledge that students already have, not to introduce new items. For example, both Activity 13 and 14 have students making sometimes fine distinctions in vocabulary that requires an added depth of knowledge and understanding of probable collocations, etc. Many writers in the field recommend that teachers implicitly or explicitly present such information to students and that they avoid presenting new vocabulary that is too closely linked semantically (i.e. semantic sets like colors, antonyms, etc.; see Nation 2000). This is one reason for listing these activities last in the set.

Finally, added exposure to the chapter readings increasing chances of "incidental" learning of target vocabulary, an important source of L2 vocabulary (Decarrico 2001). Inferring meaning from context leads to deeper processing and therefore, deeper vocabulary knowledge (Groot 2000). Deeper vocabulary knowledge is all part of the further goal of extended communicative power in the language, what McDonough & Shaw (1993) call "expressivity." Similarly, there is an undeniable correlation between vocabulary knowledge and reading proficiency (Stoller & Grabe). These concerns have increased calls for strategy training and metacognitive awareness building to enable learners to efficiently apply methods of vocabulary acquisition in their reading. In sum, the activities in this set were designed to give learners additional exposure to the language of the chapter and greater opportunities to manipulate the language with the goal of leading to deeper processing and hence facilitate acquisition of the target language.

There are many advantages to using CALL materials. One of these is the immediate feedback these materials can provide learners (Chapelle 1998). Unlike homework assignments that learners may not get back for days, with computer materials, students can receive instantaneous feedback while questions are in mind, schemata are activated, and hypothesis testing mechanisms are primed. A context like GSU's IEP is perfect for taking advantage of the developing technology and exposing students and teachers to this potentially inexhaustible resource.

On the other hand, CALL materials are susceptible to the same pitfalls as any other materials if not utilized within the context of a well informed approach to L2 pedagogy. An obvious trap is the potential for the isolation of the learner in computer environments and non-communicative, non-interactive application of the materials. A teacher may be tempted to simply utilize CALL materials as efficient "workbook" materials, but they would be missing a valuable opportunity to exploit the technology for the valuable linguistic resources it offers.

A primary reason for such a tendency is that teachers are themselves uninformed and uncomfortable with the technology. For this reason, I encourage teachers to explore these resources for themselves as much as possible and be reassured that small effort can lead to great rewards. There is a plethora of user-friendly resources available, information for teachers and learners alike (again, see my web links for just a sample). Hot Potatoes, the program used to develop the materials here is equally user-friendly. The company offers this tool for free to non-profit users and provides a quick tutorial that can have teachers tailoring materials to their unique contexts almost immediately. I recommend that teachers familiarize themselves with these tools before utilizing pre-made materials because such familiarity may provide the insight necessary to consider ways to adapt these materials to the communicative, interactive methods teachers use with their own materials.

Ideally teachers will begin taking ownership of the realm of CALL materials in the same way they have with other mediums. This project was conducted with the consultation of with at least one teacher who has begun to do just that. Teachers of IEP 0630 may want to approach the activities here as possible templates or prototypes that they can refine to the particular needs of their students. Minimal acquaintance with the programs used to create these activities would give them the power to manipulate these materials to whatever extent they desire.

There are many creative ways to utilize CALL materials within the framework of communicative and interactive approaches. As in other classroom activities, merely assigning groupwork or task-based work does not insure interaction or the negotiation of meaning necessary for language acquisition. Egbert (1999) addresses exactly this question with regards to CALL activities and offers many practical suggestions. When designing interactive computer based activities, assigning different roles and clarifying these roles is a critical consideration. Even essentially straightforward practice activities such as those developed in this project can be adapted creatively to classroom contexts in which groups of students rely on each other to complete certain tasks.

While teachers consider the possibilities of communicative approaches to CALL activities, there are still some fundamentals that should not be forgotten. Like teachers, learners will need to develop a familiarity with these materials to fully exploit their educational potential. For this reason, teachers should be sure to introduce the activities in class even if they only intend for the students to use them outside of class. Introduction to the various formats and careful review of the instructions is invaluable to efficient use of these materials. I repeat -- READING THE DIRECTIONS IS VERY IMPORTANT. It is the only way to avoid the potential frustrations that will cause learners to abandon a task. Also, while we can try to be as clear as possible in written instructions, nothing can replace a demonstration provided by a teacher familiar with the materials. With the teacher as a technological and pedagogical guide, students can learn to exploit these materials fully. Also, teachers can encourage experimentation with the interactive features of these activities such as links to content and language learning resources that can be utilized well beyond the needs of any particular activity.

To demonstrate some of the built-in "interactive" features of these activities, let's look at one together. In the section below, I have listed all of the activities, the linguistic issues they focus on, and the relevant readings from the chapter that they were built around. They are linked so that the teacher can view them from this page. Let's look together at Activity 1.

Click here to open a separate window with this activity in it.

This activity utilizes a short reading passage from the Looking Ahead text, "The Origin of Judo" on page 155. As you can see from the title, this activity is designed to help learners identify noun phrases. Noun phrases is one of the focuses of Chapter 6. Particularly, this activity is concerned with raising learner awareness of the various possible components of a noun phrase. The activity utilizes the short answer format of the Hot Potatoes software. The student must type in the full noun phrase associated with each numbered item. This is an excellent format for promoting added manipulation of the target structures. The obvious drawback is that it requires precision in the part of the student as no typos are allowed. In this activity, I have provided a brief explanation of the language point, along with some examples. Below this explanation is the reading text.

Interactive features:
Below the title of the activity (in the left frame of the page), you will see two underlined links are provided that indicate further resources of language support: an in-depth explanation of the grammar point and a monolingual, ESOL friendly dictionary.

Click on the first link "for a complete review of nouns and noun phrases." This takes you to the pages of Purdue University's Online Writing Lab (OWL), an excellent resource for presentation materials. This particular page is entitled: "Count and NonCount Nouns (with Plurals, Articles, and Quantity Words)." It gives an excellent review of nouns with many examples.

Now click on the second link "for an online dictionary." This takes you to the Newbury House dictionary by Heinle and Heinle, also the publishers of the Looking Ahead series. This dictionary is a valuable online resource for learners, offering concise, monolingual definitions and authentic examples.

Finally, look at the right-hand frame and scroll to the bottom of the reading. There you will find a link to further information about the content: the Judo Information Site. Occasionally within these activities I have provided such links to facilitate further exploration of the content and suggest possible extensions of the activities.

Below I list the complete activity set. I've used a variety of formats and focused on language issues in the order in which they are presented in Chapter 6. The formats include the complete range possible with Hot Potatoes software. These are:

1. Matching
2. Multiple Choice
3. Fill-in-the-blank
4. Jumbled Sentence/Passage
5. Short Answer
6. Crossword Puzzle

Most of the activities are designed to follow in-class demonstration and practice. They are meant as extra-practice or to review of in-class material. the types. However, as suggested above, many of these activities could be adapted to interactive, in-class contexts or even used by teachers as presentation materials.

For example, Activity 7 uses the jumbled sentence format to review sentence transformations from active to passive voice. This activity (hopefully) allows for all the possible reconfigurations of the sentence segments. A teacher could demonstrate passive voice constructions using this program and then have students work in pairs to find other possible configurations of the segments (with one student giving the other directions on how to arrange the segments). Learners can return to this simple but effective activity whenever they need to review the point. The supplementary presentations materials from the OWL site (see above, A Brief Demonstration) are particularly well illustrated.

The above activity allows for limited manipulation of the language by the learners. The short answer format provides considerably greater opportunity for this. Other activities are more geared toward analysis of the language structures (for example Activity 2, in which learners are to determine the grammatical functions of selected noun phrases). Such activities may require more support from an instructor. Indeed, the activities represent a range of difficulty levels and the teacher may want to examine for themselves which ones will need the most support before using them. The best way to assess this is, of course, to go in and complete the activities for yourself. Such assessment should be precede the application of any materials a teacher brings into the classroom (Byrd 2001) . Only you, the teacher, can really gauge how appropriate these activities will be for your students.

Process of Development

"If I see you in Kathmandu and don't recongise you, you should not worry. I will go a little distance, remember you, and come back to say hello" (Prowse 1998, p. 136).

In an article we read for this project, Prowse (1998) provides testimony from materials designers that paints a picture of materials design as quite an individualized process, unique for each designer or group of designers. Despite the personal joys and pains of these individuals, we found some sound advise that should apply to all contexts and creative styles. As Jolly & Bolitho (1998) explain, "materials writing as a process is pointless without constant reference to the classroom" (p. 95). Indeed, as we proceeded to dig our heels into the actual designing of these activities, we found the interaction with cooperating teachers and students of the 06-classes to be invaluable to the process. As Kessler & Plankans (2001) recommend, we incorporated significant feedback into the process from both peers and learners. This feedback was an indispensible element of a the spiralling and cyclical process of materials design that aims at contextual realization attuned to the needs of a particular community of learners (Jolly & Bolitho 1998). Drafting and revising and revising again, considering needs outlined by teachers, feedback from peers, and feedback learners: all of this was to lead us to these humble products and give us a glimpse of the value of well designed language materials.

Obviously, a big part of our process included the learning of adequate web-design skills for the job. No doubt, this was the biggest challenge for many of us. In the end however, we found these challenges surmountable and realized the great potential of publishing on the web. In this project we utilized a number of tools (some free to the public, others purchased by the university specifically for this course). Each of us established our own website on Geocities, a free service provider. Netscape Composer and Dream Weaver were the two web-editing tools that we used. All of this was done with only limited knowledge of HTML or the more discrete elements of web design. Finally, as mentioned above, Hot Potatoes provided the software for the actual activities.

To the teacher considering designing their own materials, I must again emphasize that the technological challenges are not at all as impossible as they may first appear. Surely, in any professional environment that encourages cooperative development among teachers, the process of skill acquisition will be quick and painless. In our immediate context, I would suggest an excellent forum for the introduction of this topic would be the periodic "Take a Break" sessions sponsored by the IEP.

Teachers must become involved in designing CALL materials for themselves. This is the theme I want you to take away from my discussion here. I am sure you will look at my activities and think of many ways that they could be adapted and manipulated - improved! - and you, the teacher of a particular group of learners in a particular class, you are just the materials designer for the job. I assure you that the process of learning the technology is as interesting and rewarding as it is a challenge. In a context as we have here at GSU, you have a wonderful opportunity to explore these new tools and resources, and I encourage you to take advantage of it.

Please contact me if you have any questions or comments. One of the interesting things I've learned in this project is how easy it is to share ideas with other materials designers in this environment. After listing the sight of one designer on my Web Links page, I received an email from the designer herself, asking me about my comments and prompting constructive feedback. It was a bit unnerving at first, but it also made me realize what a supportive community could be developed in this enviroment. CALL materials designers, it seems, are a communicative bunch.

Byrd, P. (2001). Textbooks: Evaluation for selection and analysis for implementation. In M. Celce-Murcia (Ed.), Teaching English as a second or foreign language (3rd ed., pp. 417-427).

Byrd, P. (1995a). Writing and publishing textbooks. In Patricia Byrd (Ed.), Material writer's guide (pp. 3-9). Boston: Heinle & Heinle.

Byrd, P. (1995b). Issues in the writing and publication of grammar textbooks. In Patricia Byrd (Ed.), Material writer's guide, pp. 45-63. Boston: Heinle & Heinle.

Chapelle, C. (1998). Multimedia CALL: Lessons to be learned from instructed SLA. Language Learning & Technology 2 (1), pp. 22-34 Retrieved at http://llt.msu.edu/vol2num1/article1/index.html

Coxhead, A. (2000). A New Academic Word List. TESOL Quarterly, 34, (2), 213-238.

Decarrico, J.S. (2001). Vocabulary learning and teaching. In M. Celce-Murcia (Ed.), Teaching English as a second or foreign language (3rd ed., pp. 285-299).

Egbert, J. (1999). Classroom practice: Creating interactive CALL activities. In J. Egbert and Elizabeth Hanson-Smith (Eds.), CALL environments: Research, practice, and critical issues (pp. 27-51). Alexandria, VA: TESOL.

Fellag, L. (1998). Looking Ahead: Learning About Academic Writing, 2nd Ed., J. Reid & P. Byrd (Eds.). New York: Heinle & Heinle.

Groot, P. (2000). Computer Assisted Second Language Vocabulary Acquisition. Language Learning & Technology 4, (1), pp. 60-81. Retrieved at http://llt.msu.edu/vol4num1/groot/default.html

Healey, D. (1999). Theory and research: Autonomy in language learning. In Joy Egbert and Elizabeth Hanson-Smith (Eds.), CALL environments: Research, practice, and critical issues (pp. 391-402). Alexandria, VA: TESOL.

Kessler, G., and L. Plakans (2001). Incorporating ESOL learners' feedback and usability testing in instructor-developed CALL materials. TESOL Journal, 10 (1), pp. 15-20.

McDonough, J., and Shaw, C. (1993). Current approaches to materials design. In J. McDonough and C. Shaw, Materials and methods in ELT: A teacher's guide (pp. 43-62). Oxford: Blackwell.

Nation, P. (2000). Learning vocabulary in lexical sets: Dangers and Guidelines. TESOL Journal 9 (2), 6-10.

Prowse, P. (1998). How writers write: testimony from authors. In B. Tomlinson (Ed.), Materials development in language teaching (pp. 130-115). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Stoller, F.L., and Grabe, W. (1995). Implications for L2 vocabulary acquisition and instruction from L1 vocabulary research. In T. Huckin, M. Haynes, and J. Coady (Eds.), Second language reading and vocabulary learning , pp. 24-45. Norwood, NJ: Ablex Publishing Corporation.

AL 8660 Course Project
Christopher Carpenter
email:[email protected]
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