Reflection (Week 12)

I had an experience of using English tests on computers. It’s a test on general English. The test required listening and reading skills from students and they needed to do short-answer, cloze, and multiple-choice questions. This is actually a placement test on computer, of which the result would be used for identifying targets for English remedial courses. Students whose result was at or below certain levels were strongly advised to take the remedial courses. I think the experience did show some advantages and disadvantages mentioned in the reading.

First, by clicking the mouse once at the end of the test, the students could get the result. This is a great advantage as students are always eager to know their performance. The effect of knowing the result immediately after the test was effective. When the students know that so many of them are eligible for the remedial courses, they started asking each other questions like “oh… are you joining?” The immediate result successfully threatened the students and made them aware of their poor English level.

In addition, the computer chose the questions for the students according to the student’s level. It prevented students from being frustrated by the difficult questions. I saw that everyone was surprisingly concentrated on the test without giving up and falling asleep on the desk like they did in ordinary paper-and-pencil exams.

However, there was a bad side of using a computer based assessment in that experience. As mentioned in the reading, it requires the user to have some computer literacy. To me, it doesn’t only mean the test taker but also the teacher. After the test, the system would generate an Excel file containing the test results. The teacher needed to save the file for administration purposes. Teachers with little computer knowledge would find this process scary. They were also nervous when they instructed the students to input the personal information before the test started, as they were afraid of making mistakes affecting the result. The presence of the technician was needed for every session, keeping the technician from his other duties.

One other problem was the time for each test session. Due to the large number of classes taking the test (around 1000 students in 7 days), the length of each session was limited to 30 minutes, with only 15-20 minutes actually for the test. When the time was up, students who had not finished the test should skip all questions until the result was generated. Would this affect the result? The students expressed doubts about the result afterward. Also, the students could skip the difficult questions and but couldn’t get back to them later. Once they had move forward to the next question, no amendments were allowed. The students would feel frustrated as well.

The final disadvantage that I have from that experience of using a computer-based assessment is about the management. Without doubt, computer-based assessments are convenient, but do the management people have enough knowledge of using them appropriately? The test was not just a tool for locating the targets for remedial classes, but it was also used as a post-course test indicating how much progress the students had in their English after taking the remedial courses. There were several remedial courses, e.g., courses on writing, grammar, and presentation skills. No matter which course the students take, they did the same test as the indicator of progress. I couldn’t understand the rationale. The students came to me and asked why. Would there be some theories that I don’t know supporting such a decision? Hope that I can find it out.

Reflection (Week 11)

After reading the article, I think that if now, learning management systems were really developed to a point that it was not just a place for uploading and downloading materials, but also providing all interactions among teachers and learners, effective learning would not occur through using the system as well.

First, teachers are not ready. In fact, lots of teachers just do not have the knowledge to teach with technologies (probably except using powerpoint). I saw some senior teachers who did not even know how to burn a CD for storing information. For using learning management systems, both experienced and fresh teachers are not ready yet. For example, in my work school, WebCT is used. Whenever something is to be uploaded to it, both senior and junior teachers cry for help from either the technician or the colleagues who have the knowledge of the system, not to mention creating online interactions for e-learning in the system.

For students, they are not ready for e-learning as well. In Hong Kong, students are very exam-oriented. They are usually only interested in stuff that can help them get marks in the course. Also, the mode of learning of students is not right for learning through interactions. Most of them like studying alone and memorizing handouts. They hardly have the habit of learning by forming a community online with other students who study for the same subject. One more thing, as mentioned in the article, the interface of learning management systems like WebCT is too complicated due to its ability to do everything in one tool. It takes time for the students to figure out what to click for certain things, which simply further de-motivate them to adopt learning through the system.

Even if e-learning is not really happening now, lots of schools are still paying for them. I believe one of the reasons is that learning management systems are needed for the sake of the course implementation. For some courses to reach certain quality, it is advised that independent learning materials online are included as part of the course. This could be a possible reason why learning management systems are always designed in favor of the organization instead of the students.

Reflection (Week 10)

I would like to talk about my opinions about learner autonomy for English learners who are weak in English, since the students in my work school are generally weak. By “weak” I mean they are in the beginner’s level with little motivation in their studies.

Supposing that there is a CALL program here which is suitable for weak English learners, among the three approaches of learner autonomy mentioned in the reading, “social-interactive” approach would be the most suitable one for weak students, since it emphasizes that through interaction with others, the learner could be aware of things like his mistakes when producing the language. The interaction includes conversations with others in English, or feedback provided by the teacher. Why aren't the rest two approaches suitable in my opinion? It is because my students do not have the ability to be aware of the need for improving the way they learn English. They are also not motivated enough to take the responsibility of their learning.

With the help of technology, students could learn English with greater autonomy. The teacher's role as a facilitator becomes stronger when compared with what it was in the past. If I really had to suggest a way of using technology to learn English to my students that provides them with autonomy and a chance of reflection, I would suggest me chatting on msn with them. In the chat, the student could think and write in English through talking with me. I could also correct the mistakes immediately by typing the correct words and expressions for the student. The topic of the chat could be chosen by the student as long as we chat in English. He could be aware of his mistakes that I point out when we are chatting. In addition, after the chat, I could print the history of our conversations on msn for the student to reflect on what mistakes he usually makes. The printout could be discussed face-to-face. All these interactions help the student know what mistakes he usually makes.

However, there might be some problems that I need to think about when doing the above. For example, I may be too busy to chat with them on msn with follow up activities such as discussing the conversation history for the mistakes made. Probably I could only do it during the summer holidays when my workloads are less heavy.

Reflection (Week 9)

Everybody knows that multimedia is a good choice of material for teaching and learning English. From the point of view of students, movies or TV series are attractive enough for them to be motivated to learn and have better memory of what they have got from the movie. In fact, compared with ordinary textbooks, multimedia as teaching materials can also provide fun for the teacher in preparing the class. More creative and effective ideas that lead to effective learning outcome from students could be generated when the teacher is more motivated to prepare the lesson. However, it is not that simple in reality.

For students, they definitely know a lot of exciting movies that they are interested in, but of course, they don’t know how to choose the right movie and how to use it for learning English. Similarly, not all teachers know how to select and use movies to teach English. They may have questions like “What should the students learn from the movie?”, “What is the best way to check students’ understanding?” So, the function of “Viewing of the Film with Instructions” mentioned in the reading would be a great help for teachers. The software also provides everything that is needed for learning the English in the move, by providing the script, asking appropriate questions at certain point of the movie with explanation. Even if a teacher has got all the knowledge to do all these (finding the script, setting questions at suitable points of the movie, etc.), he may not have the technical knowledge to do the switching between the movie and the questions. Therefore, a piece of software like the one mentioned in the reading is necessary if a school really incorporates multimedia into normal English teaching practice.

In the reading, it says developing such software requires intensive labor and group rapport. In my opinion, it is also true for teachers to use multimedia in their teaching. Incorporating multimedia into normal teaching practice should be like a culture of a company. Resources from the school are needed. Especially when the workloads of teachers are so heavy, the whole team of English teachers should work together to put it into practice in order to have things run smoothly.

Reflection (Week 8)

It is good that the copyright law allows copyrighted materials to be used and partially duplicated for educational purposes. Such flexibility is a way how the society catches up with the new methods of teaching and learning languages nowadays. Both teachers and students are benefited.

For teachers to face the increasingly difficult students with declining English level and little motivation to learn the language, it is very important that the teaching style should be changed from purely lecturing to modern ways of teaching English. They have to make use of various materials that are closely related to students’ life and interesting enough to motivate students to learn. Good choices of materials include pop songs, hit movies and hit TV series etc. Other than these materials taken from the pop culture, many schools have their students performing famous plays in English as a highlight of the school’s big events such as the anniversary of the school, which provide students with variety of chances to learn and use the language. Since the ordinance allows schools to use these materials for educational purposes, teachers can have a wide selection of sources of attractive copyrighted materials for students to learn English without the needs for worrying about what procedures they have to go through or how much budget they have to allocated for getting the approval before the designed lesson is successfully carried out.

Since learning in school involve a 2-way communication between teachers and students, when teachers select interesting copyrighted learning materials for their lessons, it is possible that the students can enjoy their learning process more than before. For example, they could be using clips of copyrighted audio or video files taken from performances of their pop idols in their group projects, or taking part in a play in English in front of the parents of all students in the school’s anniversary ceremony. More room is allowed for students to be creative when they need to produce the language in their assignments assigned by the teachers. I believe that the students will be able to have a stronger memory of what they have learned about the language, and have greater confidence in using the language.

Reflection (Week 6)

CALL materials can be developed from certain theories of learning or from a specific problem. I believe that both kinds of materials are equally effective if they are applied to the right context.

I believe that the type of English is being taught to the students could be a factor deciding on the choice of CALL programs. For example, if a teacher is teaching English for a specific purpose, say, workplace English, the behavior and the problems of the learner could be context-specific. If a CALL program of which the materials are designed based on a specific problem, the fit between the CALL and the actual context could be better. However, I do not mean that CALL materials designed from general learning theories are useless in this example. Learners of workplace English are English learners as well. They must have the characteristics of general English learners. When they have problems that all English learners have, CALL materials developed from learning theories could be a choice to help them.

How can one get that right context for a CALL program? Evaluation of the CALL program chosen is the key. With careful evaluation, the teacher will know what areas of the CALL programs chosen need modification. This will probably results in a best fit between the CALL and the learning context.

Well...

Just because you submit the reading response before the lesson doesn't mean you are more hardworking than the others. Just because you submit the reading response weeks after the lesson doesn't mean you are lazier than anyone. Where does the unfairness come from?! There are reasons for people to submit their responses late as people have different commitments. As long as everyone has already tried his or her best, that's good enough.

Just can't understand the logic of this "unfairness theory".