E-Learning of Second Language Speaking Skills

He, Wenchao
CoCo Research Centre
Faculty of Education and Social Work, University of Sydney, Australia
November 8, 2007
E-mail: hewenchao@hotmail.com
Introduction
The continual growth of information and communication technologies (ICT) has much facilitated online learning. Second language (L2) learners can easily get access to huge amount of relevant online resources for free and commercial courses as well. Within formal training programs, online second language teachers keep trying to develop and improve their students’ comprehensive skills of the target language. However, not all skills of a language can be taught online easily. When teaching languages at a distance, one of the main challenges is the development and practice of speaking skills (Hampel, 2003). On the other hand, learners often feel more confident and can take more risks and trials when they practise speaking using computers in a private workspace than in a face-to-face setting such as a real classroom or real-life communication situation (Gong, 2002; Kataoka, 2000). The gap between the affordance of online oral second language teaching and the demand from learners is expected to be further bridged.
Hence, under the mechanical-meaningful-communicative framework (Paulston, 1971a, 1971b; Pennington, 1989, 1996), this paper will review and synthesize recent relevant empirical studies from three aspects, and articulate their implication for further action of bridging such gap.
Theoretical Framework
The theoretical framework adopted in this study is based on classification of language learning. One example is the structural pattern drills for language teaching raised by Paulston (1971a, 1971b)—mechanical drills, meaningful drills and communicative drills. This framework helps language teachers organize their instruction according to different grades, stages and periods with corresponding objectives. As for beginners, teachers are advised to use mechanical drills, in which there is complete control of the response and only one correct way of responding. The ability to practice mechanical drills without necessarily understanding them is an important criterion in distinguishing them from meaningful drills. In a meaningful drill, there is still control of the response although it may be correctly expressed in more than one way. The teacher always knows what the student ought to answer. The main difference between a meaningful drill and a communicative drill is that in the latter the speaker adds new information about the real world. The expected terminal behavior in communicative drills is normal speech for communication or, if one prefers, the free transfer of learned language patterns to appropriate situations.
For the purpose of computer assisted language learning (CALL), Pennington (1989, 1996) further defines spoken language’s competence with “mechanical aspect” and “meaningful aspect”. The mechanical aspect of speech involves learning to discriminate and produce sounds of a language and tie these together prosodically in fluent strings of sounds comprising syllables, words, phrases and longer utterances or articulation and decoding of individual sounds (phonemes), while meaningful aspect involves learning to build as well as to decompose grammatically coherent utterances and to tie these to communicative functions according to rules of pragmatic appropriateness in a given speech community.
Pennington’s framework focuses on speech itself regardless the sequencing structure of learning or teaching a language. Mechanical aspect and meaningful aspect can be used separately to explain learners’ speaking level. For example, some L2 learners may know how to communicate appropriately but their pronunciation or fluency could be awkward. However, one of the characteristics of Paulston’s communicative drills—expecting speakers to add new information from their real world, is still worthwhile for reexamining online L2 speaking instruction. This is because Pennington’s framework “pays too little attention to the Internet” (Kisner, 1997, p. 13), but the development of information and communication technologies has increased the affordance of online environment for learn-teacher and learner-learner communication similar to the real world. Hence, in this study, I add a “communicative aspect” to Pennington’s framework, which helps further articulate the recent empirical studies on L2 speaking online instruction.
Recent Studies on L2 Speaking Online Instruction
Mechanical Aspect
Pronunciation has dominated the mechanical aspect of L2 speaking instruction with computer assisted. Pennington (1995) reports the situation in last century that, to practice speaking, L2 learners mainly use multimedia products incorporated extensive texts, graphics, animation, audio, and digitized audio or video clips. With some software, computers can produce relatively natural speech from individual phonemes stored as digital codes that are strung together by rule as the user types on the keyboard. This ‘synthesis-by-rule’ technology has the advantage that it can convert any text to speech thus enabling learners to gain exposure to a diversity and quantity of input. In such a mode, the computer keeps outputting but not “listens” to the learners.
Later in 1990s, automatic speech recognition (ASR) had been developed to the point where it could be used in language learning applications. Students began to be able to “talk” with their computers. While the American company Syracuse and the French company Auralog both began to employ this technology to design software for computer assisted pronunciation training (CAPT), Ordinate Corporation used ASR to evaluate students’ spoken English by means of its 10-minute PhonePass test administered by computer over the telephone. However, the product later has been proven failed to reflect students’ real pronunciation level (Hincks, 2001).
On the other hand, speech-recognition-based language learning programs were also evaluated. Hincks (2002) investigated whether such program would improve the general goodness of pronunciation. Eleven students were given a copy of the program Talk to Me by Auralog as a supplement to a 200-hour course in Technical English, and were encouraged to practice on their home computers. But the result is that such pronunciation training using ASR-based language learning software did not demonstrably improve the mean pronunciation abilities of the students. However, results from the PhonePass test indicate that use of the program was beneficial for the students who began the course with an ‘intrusive’ foreign accent.
You may notice that the same researcher (Hincks, 2001, 2002) has used a proven suspicious  tool—PhonePass to implement the pre- and post-tests and then concludes that Talk to Me does not work for intermediate students. This result could be further suspicious.
Although using ASR for evaluation has to bear the risk of inaccuracy, its evaluation function kept being developed. But this time, evaluation and instruction have been integrated, and the role evaluation turned to assist instruction. MyET is an example of such development. It is a web-based program employing automatic speech analysis system (ASAS) to identify the words spoken into the recording device, and it can analyze the speech on pronunciation, pitch, timing and emphasis. It then displays the spectrum and contour of the user‘s utterance, and provides a scoring mechanism with corrective feedback information that helps users to improve their pronunciation. MyET can explicitly pinpoint learners‘ pronunciation errors by giving one on one feedback that compares the learner‘s pronunciation with a model pronunciation (L-Labs, 2007).
Chen’s (2004) study on college students who used MyET found significant positive correlations between machine scorings and human graders. He suggested that subjects with different levels of language proficiency should be invited to further test the scoring validity of MyET. Tsai (2006) accepted the suggestion and continued the study. The result is that MyET can only distinguish between beginning and higher level learners. On the other hand, not much difference was found between the scores for intermediate and advanced learners. This conclusion is similar to Hincks’s (2002) finding on Talk to Me. In order to solve this problem, Tell Me More’s “individual package”, a later edition of Talk to Me, now provides three-level solution—beginner, intermediate and advanced. Each one allows learners to alter the various elements of the program to match their individual levels closely (Auralog, 2007).
ASR-based CAPT systems now are widely developed by different institutes around the world, but in common, their typical functions can be described with a sequence of five phases: Speech recognition, Scoring, Error detection, Error diagnosis and Feedback presentation (Neri, Cucchiarini, & Strik, 2003). But the first two have much criticism. Speech recognition accuracy is only good for native speakers (90% accuracy), but it performs much less well for non-native speakers. Therefore its application in L2 learning environment leaves suspicious (Coniam, 1999; Derwing, Munro, & Carbonaro, 2000), especially when such mechanical drill demands high accuracy since it supposes only one correct response (Paulston, 1971a, 1971b). Scoring system is based on the comparison between native speakers’ and learners’ utterances, but two utterances with the same content that may both be very well pronounced still have the waveforms that are very different from each other. So the scores are always confusing, especially when the results indicate that advanced learners even have less scores than lower level learners (Reesner, 2002; Tsai, 2006). So doubts should be expressed to the pedagogical value of these types of displays (Mackey & Choi, 1998; Neri, Cucchiarini, Strik, & Boves, 2002; Wildner, 2002).
It seems that the studies above are limited in the scales of computer and software themselves—either reporting how the programs work (e.g. Neri et al., 2003; Pennington, 1995)  or evaluating whether those programs really work (e.g. Chen, 2004; Coniam, 1999; Derwing et al., 2000; Hincks, 2001, 2002; Mackey & Choi, 1998; Reesner, 2002; Tsai, 2006; Wildner, 2002). Since there are many problems with those programs, why not try to go back to the original educational objective—improving leaners’ L2 speaking skills? If some technologies consumed much time and budget but failed to help learners achieve the objective, we could think about other approaches—maybe going back to traditional classroom for clues.
In terms of clues from traditional classroom, Engwall & Bälter (2007) suggest that, since human teacher – learner interaction is vastly more effective than current CAPT pedagogy, pronunciation training software may be improved by studying how feedback is distributed in the real language classroom. Then they interviewed with teachers and students and observed their activities in classroom, focusing on four aspects—when pronunciation feedback should be given, for which errors, what kind of feedback should be used, and how to promote student motivation. After comparing the feedback from traditional classroom and current CAPT programs, they bring forward a list of strategies that may be useful for CAPT and then they create a virtual teacher to test those features. The result from users’ questionnaire indicates that, the virtual tutor with 3D computer animations successfully makes the learning environment more interesting and engaging, and provides more effective feedback. This study and its suggestion provide the compensation to the drawbacks of speech recognition’s inaccuracy and error detection. While those drawbacks can not overcome from the technical perspective, we may think of integrating real teachers into virtual pronunciation classroom by using CMC technologies, such as audio-conferencing (Lamy, 2004; Volle, 2005), voice chat (Jepson, 2005) and video-conferencing (McIntosh, Braul, & Chao, 2003). However, real teachers for online language teaching may be supposed to convey higher level drills, such as meaningful drills and communicative drills, rather than mechanical drills. Hence, further studies on this kind of integration are recommended.
Meaningful Aspect
From meaningful aspect, online L2 learners are supposed to correctly response in more than one way but they do not need to add new information to the “class” from the real world. They should be taught to understand grammatically coherent utterances and then speak appropriately in an instructional environment (Paulston, 1971a, 1971b; Pennington, 1989, 1996). To achieve these instructional objectives, conversation interaction is essential. Its benefits for learners’ acquisition of second language have been investigated, claimed and proven (Gass, 1997; Long, 1996; Alison Mackey, Perdue, & McDonough, 2000; Pica, 1994).
In terms of oral conversation for meaningful aspect, a typical mode to convey online L2 instruction is human – machine conversation (HMC). The ideal scenario of HMC would be for a learner to speak to the computer and for the computer to ‘‘understand’’ and respond in a sufficiently appropriate and native-like manner to provide good target language input. But this is not likely a realistic aim given the current state of natural language processing (Stewart & File, 2007). As Feigenbaum (2003) has observed, real difficulty lies in managing ‘‘the ‘understand’ part: the semantics that attach real-world meaning to the word-symbols, then use those meanings for knowledge organization and inference’’ (p. 33). As a result, currently the most practical way to enable the computer response correctly is pre-storing corresponding utterances in a dialogue system. Since natural language is formulaic, automatic, and rehearsed, rather than prepositional, creative, or freely generated (Fillmore, 1976), pre-stored utterances used in L2 speaking instruction can aid learners’ speaking production by lightening the processing burden and thus facilitating fluency, and increase their listening comprehension of the full message speakers wish to convey (Wray, 2000, 2002).
In Let’s Chat by Steart and File (2007), a learner hear and see the virtual tutor’s question and then select and submit one favorite from a list of responses. The virtual tutor then continues the dialogue with elaboration prompt and a brief story. This system “offers a fertile environment for the acquisition and rehearsal of L2 social conversation skills” and such practice can enhance learners’ “grasp of idiomatic, native-like modes of expression by ‘conversing’ with it, thereby achieving higher levels of confidence and fluency in subsequent natural language interactions with human partners” (p. 114). Since Let’s Chat tends to prepare learners’ information for their speaking in real life, it still does not provide learners with the opportunity to speak out. A similar web-based conversation environment CandleTalk (Chiu, Liou, & Yeh, 2007), on the other hand, employs ASR to recognize a learner’s speaking out the selection from the suggested responses. This practice can improve learners’ sociocultural ability and sociolinguistic ability that aid them to select proper speech acts based on various sociocultural factors and to control over the language forms to perform the speech acts (Cohen & Olshtain, 1994). The result of a comparative experiment shows that there is a significant difference between the pretest and posttest oral performance after learners’ using the system (Chiu et al., 2007). Because there is still no evidence to prove that Let’s Chat can improve learners’ L2 speaking performance after the practice, those L2 speaking instruction system with ASR, such as CandleTalk, seem more recommendable.
Communicative Aspect
While the meaningful aspect of L2 speaking instruction expects specific response from learners, the communicative aspect of it, however, emphasizes the free transfer of learned language patterns to appropriate situations (Paulston, 1971a, 1971b). It can be realized in structured or unstructured instructional environment where computer mediated communication (CMC) technology is employed.
Live virtual classroom (LVC), based on audio-conferencing or video-conferencing, allows us to run a structured training program in real time in which the instructors and learners are online at the same time using the Internet. Many platforms can facilitate it, such as Centra, WebEx, IBM/Lotus Sametime, InterWise, etc. The skills needed by instructors, the use of slides, the support for lecture-based instruction, and classroom-like metaphors of hand-raising, question posing and the writing on a whiteboard are example of traits that make it easy to bridge from traditional classroom to LVC (Driscoll & Carliner, 2005). LVC requires much attention on the design of effective learning (Masie & Rinaldi, 2002), especially when L2 speaking learners need to adapt themselves to a new type of oral interaction, because the oral competence in synchronous environment requires more content knowledge and procedural knowledge than in traditional classroom (Lamy, 2004). Most of L2 speaking learners believe that technical issues have negative effect on the learning experience (Hampel, 2003). However, if they met any difficulty and then tried to negotiate it with teachers and peers, they would have more L2 production (Gass & Varonis, 1994; Kramsch, 1986; Varonis & Gass, 1985). But unfortunately, resulted from the lack of non-verbal communication in online environment, most of L2 speaking learners, unless group-working in “breakout rooms” of the LVC, may have little opportunity to engage in asides or spontaneous spoken chat during their tutorials (Heins, Duensing, Stickler, & Batstone, 2007). Furthermore, by spelling out, repeating and ensuring students’ comprehension, teachers tend to control and speak more in LVC than in traditional classroom during L2 speaking instruction (ibid), which may continually limits the communicative opportunities. In the rest of the time besides the teacher’s speech, students still can not experience satisfied interaction because users’ simultaneously speaking will usually lead to a simultaneous stop with awkward silence (Hampel, 2003).
While there are so many drawbacks in LVC for L2 speaking instruction, McIntosh, Braul, & Chao (2003) turned to an asynchronous approach—Wimba Voice Board, an asynchronous virtual classroom embedded in WebCT. The teacher in it directs debates based on different dilemmatic topics and students pose their speeches to response. The study indicates that students show the greatest enthusiasm in the activities with a high level of peer-to-peer interaction and they show a preference for interaction with classmates with which they are socially comfortable. But at the same time, they also suffer from technical issues such as the poor quality of sound and computer freezing.
Besides these structured instruction, unstructured L2 speaking practice, such as voice chat with peers, is also beneficial. Englishtown, an L2 distance education website, not only gives teacher-oriented conversation classes every hour all day, but also creates a virtual community comprising different voice chat rooms for their learners’ further practice after “class”. But such voice chat room has been suggested integrating into the context of unit study and basing on the “homework” assigned from conversation class, which may make the voice chatting more engaging and informative (He, 2007).
Reflection and Implication
The mechanical-meaningful-communicative framework (Paulston, 1971a, 1971b; Pennington, 1989, 1996) provides us an appropriate checklist for today’s e-learning of L2 speaking skills. Based on this checklist and the recent research review, we can at least notice two problems, from the perspectives of e-learning developers and L2 teachers:
Integration of the three aspects
Currently we seldom see any e-learning provider integrating the three aspects of L2 speaking instruction synthetically. But if learners’ different skills of L2 speaking were developed separately and there was not any continual evaluation, they would not be aware of their zones of proximal development (Vygotsky, 1978) by thinking of what has been actually developed and what could be developed potentially. So the internal relationship of the mechanical-meaningful-communicative framework for L2 speaking instruction should be further explored.
Teacher education
Since it is reported that there are many problems in L2 speaking virtual classrooms, L2 online teachers need to improve their comprehensive skills of ICT. Hu (2005) notices that “under supportive conditions teachers tend to shift toward student-centred instructional approaches as they increase their use of ICT” (p. 281). However, according to Heins et al. (2007), L2 teachers do tend to create a strong control environment in LVC and such teaching style is quite different from their face-to-face classrooms. Is it because they lack the so-called “supportive conditions”? Kessler’s (2007) study can demonstrate this. Since L2 teacher education has not seen dramatic increases in perceived effectiveness as technology has become more readily available, most L2 teachers have to pursue informal study on ICT outside their degree programs, and specifically, they reflect that teaching L2 speaking skills with ICT is the most difficult for them. So we should provide more support for teacher education to overcome this disadvantageous situation.
Conclusion
It appears that the mechanical, meaningful and communicative drills from traditional classrooms for L2 speaking instruction have become available in an online environment through the last decade by creating APR-based pronunciation and conversation training programs and synchronous and asynchronous virtual classrooms and communities. While the meaningful aspect of these seems developed well without much criticism, the mechanical and communicative aspects need to be further improved since there are quite many problems from the technological and pedagogical perspectives. Furthermore, the integration of the three aspects is recommended and L2 teachers need more supports for their speaking instruction using ICT.
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Annotated Bibliography
Bikowski, D. (2007). Internet relationships: building learning communities through friendship. Journal of Interactive Online Learning, 6(2), 131-141.
The author explores the experiences of students in an online learning community in a qualitative case study using social presence theory as an interpretive lens. Participants included five undergraduate students in a certificate program at a large Midwestern university. The author finds that students who feel a sense of community online will highly value the friendship they feel with their online teammates, emphasizing individual learner factors, sharing, and support. Then the author suggests encouraging students building friendships online. Since we have known that communicative interaction between L2 learners is very important for their speaking skills’ development, further research on how to promote those L2 learners’ friendship is recommended.
Birdsong, D. (2006). Age and Second Language Acquisition and Processing: A Selective Overview. Language Learning, 56(1), 9-49.
This paper provides a selective overview of theoretical issues and empirical findings relating to the question of age and second language acquisition (L2A). Both behavioral and brain-based data are discussed in the contexts of neurocognitive aging and cognitive neurofunction in the mature individual. Moving beyond the classical notion of "deficient" L2 processing and acquisition, the author considers the complementary question of learner potential in postadolescent L2A. This research should be beneficial for proper instructional design for different-aged L2 learners which may lead to a better “match” between the instructional approaches and the target learners’ second language acquisition.
Chang, M.-M. (2007). Enhancing web-based language learning through self-monitoring. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 187-196.
The author investigated the effects of a self-monitoring strategy on web-based language learning, focusing on students’ academic performance and their motivational beliefs. The experimental group was led to a web page with self-monitoring form for recording study time and environment, learning process, predicting test scores, and self-evaluation while the control group was not. Then the author concludes that the self-monitoring strategy has a positive effect on students’ academic performance and their motivational beliefs, and the influence of self-monitoring is greater on the lower English level students than on the higher English level students. The positive findings suggest that encouraging students to develop selfmonitoring could help increase the success of online learning. Thus, applying a self-monitoring strategy is strongly recommended for web-based instruction. Such conclusion enlightens e-learning developers and teachers. To guarantee the quality of online language learning, we should try to employ this strategy. If this author could specify different aspect of the strategy for different language skills development, the research would be more productive. This is because L2 speaking online instruction is quite different from those for reading, writing and listening.
Coniam, D., & Wong, R. (2004). Internet relay chat as a tool in the autonomous development of ESL learners‘ English language ability: an exploratory study. System, 32, 321-335.
The authors explore the use of Internet Relay Chat facilities such as ICQ in an independent-use mode, as a vehicle for potential English language enhancement. A group of secondary school students in Hong Kong were asked to chat online in text using English for a period. The pre- and post-study on their written English indicates a lack of quantitative difference in error rate between the experimental and the control groups, but the experimental group was more ready to use complex sentences or sentences involving auxiliaries beyond their interlanguage grammar levels. Since this study focuses on L2 writing, further research on L2 speaking can be conducted based on the hypothesis that after practicing L2 speaking online, the learners might be more ready to use complex sentences. Such analysis on the structure of the outcome of practicing target language through chat tool will be beneficial for the design of e-learning objectives and the approaches to achieve them.
Dabbagh, N. (2004). Distance learning: emerging pedagogical issues and learning designs. Quarterly Review of Distance Education, 5(1), 37-49.
In this paper, the author discusses the evolution of the pedagogical ecology of distance learning and presents a model for the design of online learning environments that emphasizes a transformative interaction between learning technologies, pedagogical models, and instructional strategies. Under this model, e-learning developers can easily promote specific instructional strategies to their corresponding technologies that should employ and pedagogical model that should follow. It would be recommended to improve this model with specified activities within a certain kind of online instruction program. For example, different strategies should be used in L2 speaking training program based on relative technologies and pedagogical models. As a result, further research can be subject-specific.
Horwitz, E. K. (2001). Language anxiety and achievement. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 21, 112-126.
This paper considers the literature on language learning anxiety in an effort to clarify the relationship between anxiety and second language learning. The author argues that language anxiety is a specific anxiety—rather than a trait anxiety—and discusses how this conceptualization has helped clarify the research literature. She concludes that anxiety is indeed a cause of poor language learning in some individuals and discusses possible sources of this anxiety, including difficulty in authentic self-presentation and various language teaching practices. This research can form a basis for online speaking skills training from the perspective of language anxiety. However, further research should specify the anxiety for different language skills, which may be more beneficial for L2 speaking online instructional design.
Hyland, F. (2001). Providing effective support: investigating feedback to distance language learners. Open Learning: The Journal of Open and Distance Learning, 16(3), 233-247.
In this paper, the author claims that, on a distance-learning course, since opportunities for interaction may be limited, feedback plays a crucial role in opening and maintaining a dialogue between tutors and students. Using text analysis, questionnaire and interview data, this study explores both tutor and student perspectives on the feedback offered on a distance language course. It finds that there are considerable individual differences in the feedback offered by tutors and there is also variation in the type of feedback the students want and their reported uses of it. Then the author suggests that more training for both tutors and students is necessary to adequately exploit feedback’s potential in a distance-learning context. Since this search focuses on written tasks, it seems that there is not much value for L2 speaking instruction. But it provides an excellent framework for further research on the feedback of language training program, e.g. oral feedback during or after L2 speaking instruction.
Lu, S.-C. (2006). Barriers on ESL CALL Programs in South Texas Journal of Online Learning and Teaching, 2(3), 158-168.
This paper proposes a methodology to discover the barriers that influence English as second language (ESL) teachers in the use of computers in their classrooms. The participants in the study were sixty-seven ESL teachers who applied computer assisted language learning (CALL) in the classroom or computer lab. The survey study included the participants’ demographic data, twenty variables influencing the use of CALL, and five open-ended questions. The findings demonstrate that there are three key barriers that impact teachers who use CALL programs to teach ESL, and ESL teachers may change their roles as they implement CALL programs. These barriers are technology skills, funding for teaching through technology, and acceptance of technology. The results can help educators to understand better the impact of CALL and to anticipate the barriers of CALL program they may face. These findings can also link to Heins et al.’s (Heins et al., 2007) claims on the improvement of L2 teacher education by integrating more ICT components in their degree programs. This is quite important because there have been quite a lot of problems in L2 speaking online instruction. And those problems need to be solved by more and more ICT skillful L2 teachers.
Mueller, J. L. (2006). L2 in a Nutshell: The Investigation of Second Language Processing in the Miniature Language Model. Language Learning & Technology, 56(1), 235-270.
This paper bridges two lines of neurocognitive research—second language sentence comprehension and artificial grammar processing, both depend on the successful learning of complex sequential structures. The author conducts the experiments making use of the event-related potential method, which provides a sensitive tool for the fast and multidimensional processes that characterize online processing of sequential structures. The findings of the studies suggest that miniature languages can serve as useful tools for capturing the impressive degree of plasticity as well as certain limitations in language comprehension mechanisms applied by learners. This conclusion may be useful for the development of mechanical and meaningful aspects of L2 speaking online instruction. But the detailed application approaches should be further researched.
Ng, C., Yeung, A. S., & Hon, R. Y. H. (2006). Does online language learning diminish interaction between student and teacher? Educational Media International, 43(3), 219-232.
In this paper, the authors examine a critic—“online courses may discourage teacher-student interaction” by conducting an experiment in Hong Kong. A total of 60 associate degree students who attended an online English course responded to a questionnaire asking them about their effort and interest in learning English, their anxiety about computer applications, their self-monitoring capability, their interactions with the teacher and their peers and their competence in English. Analysis of variance results showed that those students who perceived themselves as more competent had more favourable perceptions of their interaction with the teacher than did those who were less competent, but for all other variables the two groups did not differ. The findings imply that online language learning does not necessarily diminish interaction. Instead, the level of interaction may depend on the learners‘ sense of competence in the target language. This conclusion can be a good source for L2 speaking online instruction’s design. As demonstrated that advanced learners get little progress in pronunciation training through ASR program (Hincks, 2002; Tsai, 2006), we can try to promote their interaction with teachers and then see whether a teacher can help them with their pronunciation problems.
Ramzan, Y., & Saito, R. (1998). Computer-mediated communication in foreign language learning: a case of the students of Japanese. Paper presented at the ASCILITE 1998, Wollongong, Australia.
This paper investigates the effectiveness of the introduction of computer-mediated communication as a resource based language learning class, as well as a teaching tool to be used in flexible delivery. The authors assert that adult language learners show a tendency to be slower in the acquisition of the speaking and listening skills. So they introduced y-talk (a multi-user chat program) to a Japanese language class at the University of Wollongong and tried to solve that problem. The result indicates that the project has created a non-threatening, enjoyable environment for the students. It is worthwhile for us to try this approach—using chat program to facilitate L2 learners’ communicating with those who speak the target language during an L2 course.
Ren, Y., Kraut, R., & Kiesler, S. (2007). Applying common identity and bond theory to design of online communities. Organization Studies, 28(3), 377-408.
In this paper, the authors argue that the constraints and opportunities inherent in online community design influence how people become attached to the community and whether they are willing to expend effort on its behalf. They examine two common identity theory and bond theory and link these two theories with design decisions for online communities. They then show how design decisions can lead to common identity or interpersonal bonds among community members, and consequently to different levels and forms of community participation by those so motivated. The study on online community is based on general situation, rather than specifically for e-learning or even L2 speaking online instruction. But it provides a new thought for e-learning developers to design online community that help L2 learners improve their speaking skills. Further study can concentrate on applying these two theories to e-learning environment, and it would better if it focuses on one kind of course, such as L2 speaking training.
Son, J.-B. (2007). Learner experiences in web-based language learning. Computer Assisted Language Learning, 20(1), 21-36.
This author examines the use of the web for language learning through a study of English as a second language (ESL) learners’ experiences in web-based language learning (WBLL) activities in an English language intensive course for overseas students (ELICOS) context. It observes ESL learners performing selected activities on the web and investigates their perceptions and attitudes toward the web activities. A group of students was guided to utilise the web to complete two types of web activities (i.e., pre-created web activities and task-based web activities). Data collected demonstrate that the web is a useful tool and a supplementary resource for learning ESL. The students’ engagement in the suggested activities was observed and their attitudes toward the activities were found to be positive. The author suggests further studies to increase our understanding and knowledge of how WBLL can be best used for specific learners in specific contexts. The details of the result of the investigation can not only conclude the benefit of the use of web for language learning, but also guide e-learning design for a general situation as well as for specific web-based language learning approaches and strategies. But the author seems not elaborate enough to transfer the findings to a further application, which may decrease the practical value of the study.
Stockwell, G. (2007). A review of technology choice for teaching language skills and areas in the CALL literature. ReCALL, 19(2), 105-120.
In this paper, the author reviews the literature to examine what technologies are used in the teaching of the language skills and areas from four major English-language journals in the field of CALL (CALICO Journal, CALL, Language Learning & Technology, and ReCALL) from 2001 to 2005. From the study, we can see that learners’ different language skills (such as speaking, listening, reading and writing) are developed through different technologies with corresponding approaches. It is a very good reference for CALL program developers when they focus on specific language skills. But the limitation of this study is the small scale of samples—a limited number of articles from four English written journals. Relative articles written in other language and those CALL application have not been introduced in journals are not taken into account.
Tudini, V. (2003). Using native speakers in chat. Language Learning & Technology, 7(3), 141-159.
This study considers implications for distance language learning of negotiations by a group of intermediate learners of Italian interacting in dyads on a web-based Italian native speaker (NS) chat program. The research specifically explores whether live chat with native speakers offers opportunities for negotiation of meaning in open ended tasks carried out in single session interactions with unfamiliar NS without teacher supervision, the principal triggers for negotiation and modification of interlanguage in these interactions, and whether public NS chat rooms are likely to offer an optimal environment for SLA, even for learners studying at a distance who need to chat without supervision. Chat logs indicate that learners do in fact negotiate for meaning and modify their interlanguage when engaged in open ended conversational tasks with unfamiliar interlocutors, with lexical and structural difficulties triggering most negotiations. Though further research needs to probe whether these negotiations and modifications lead to acquisition in the longer term, they would be particularly valuable for distance learners who need opportunities to negotiate within authentic target language contexts. This study provides a good example for L2 online instruction design by explicit the approach of using chat program to promote negotiation of meaning that will be beneficial for L2 learners. However, the study focuses on the existence of negotiation of meaning, so we can not know about whether and how (if ever) learners’ speaking skills are improved after finishing the task since the study does not provide any pre- and post-test data for further analysis.