The "e-Lective Language Learning" system described in this paper proposes to use target language text as input for language learning by incorporating a variety of L1 and L2 dictionary and learning strategy supports into a multimedia CD-ROM design. Any text in electronic form can be imported into the system and used as authentic input for target language learning. The built-in supports permit learners to comprehend text that would otherwise have been inaccessible. As considerable research has demonstrated, the more target language text learners read and comprehend, the more of the target language they learn (see Dupuy, Tse & Cook, 1996; Elley, 1991; and Krashen, 1993).
The term "e-Lective" is meant to signify three central aspects of the system. First, the "e-" prefix operates in a similar way to the prefix in "e-mail" to indicate that the target language text is in electronic form. Second, the text-based nature of the system is signified by the "Lect" root which goes back to the Latin legere - to read with cognates in many Romance languages such as lecture in French and lectura in Spanish, both meaning reading. Finally, the word "elective" signifies that learner options or choices are built into the system at many levels; for example, learners can choose which texts to read and they can self-regulate the type and degree of support they invoke while reading in the target language. The system is thus very different from most multimedia computer-assisted language learning (CALL) programs that attempt to transmit a pre-selected set of lexical items, structures and functions using a didactic approach.
A Classroom Scenario
Consider María, a grade 9 student who arrived in the U.S. from Latin America two years ago. She has made rapid progress in picking up conversational English and can now converse easily with her peers and understand most of what she hears on television and on radio. However, she is still far from grade norms with respect to academic aspects of English. She has trouble with the low frequency words that are common in the high school English literature texts she is expected to read and experiences similar difficulties in content areas that are language-based (e.g. Social Studies) or have a lot of technical vocabulary (e.g. Science).
Let us suppose that María's class is reading a passage such as the following one taken from Edgar Allen Poe's The Pit and the Pendulum which appears in a recently published high school English literature program (ScottForesman, 1997):
My outstretched hands at length encountered some solid obstruction. It was a wall, seemingly of stone masonry -- very smooth, slimy, and cold. I followed it up; stepping with all the careful distrust with which certain antique narratives had inspired me. (ScottForesman, 1997, p. 256)
Among the words that are probably unfamiliar to María in this passage are the following: outstretched, encountered, solid, obstruction, masonry, slimy, distrust, antique, narratives, inspired. In other words, at least 25% of the words in the passage are likely to be unfamiliar and there is little likelihood that María can bridge the gap between the text difficulty and her English proficiency by inferring this many words from context. If María were to use an English-Spanish dictionary to look up all these words, the reading process would become cumbersome and tedious, very much reducing both the opportunity to derive pleasure from the reading and the motivation to continue reading.
It might be suggested that this is clearly an inappropriate passage for a student at María's stage of English language development. However, if María is not reading grade level material what chance does she have to catch up academically to native-speaking students who are reading material at this level of difficulty and continuously expanding their vocabulary and knowledge of language in the process? Furthermore, if, as seems likely, current measures proposed by the Unz initiative in California to limit all assistance to ESL students to a one year period are approved, then students at María's stage of English language development might well become the norm in many mainstream high school English literature and content area classrooms.
A partial solution to the problems faced by María (and millions of English language learning students like her across the United States) is proposed in the e-Lective Language Learning system.
Let us also suppose that all the selections in the high school English literature program have been made available on CD-ROM by the publisher (an increasingly common practice). María will be enabled to participate in Edgar Allen Poe's nightmare by highlighting and clicking any word she does not know as she reads the passage. She can choose what kind of support she wants. At her stage of English language development she may choose initially to get Spanish (L1) translation equivalents for the words she does not know and cannot infer from context. At a later stage, when she re-reads the passage, her teacher may suggest or she may choose to access English dictionary definitions and synonyms to expand her knowledge of word meanings in English. She may also focus to a greater extent on cognate relationships between the English words and Spanish, and on grammar and usage information related to words she initially did not know. Thus, she can use the same text to deepen her knowledge of English vocabulary and structures beyond the recognition level (see Paribakht & Wesche, 1997, for discussion of the construct of vocabulary depth).
Thus, on first reading, María will gain access to the meaning of the passage by getting the following L1 translation equivalents for the words listed above: outstretched - extendido, encountered - encontrar (infinitive form),
solid - sólido, obstruction - obstrucción, masonry - masonería, slimy - limoso, distrust - desconfianza, antique - antiguo, narratives - narrativas, inspired - inspirar (infinitive form).
Getting access to each of these meanings takes María a matter of seconds as compared to the much longer period typically required to look a word up in a conventional dictionary. Thus, María's attention is only minimally distracted from the search for meaning in the text. Furthermore, María will notice that almost all of these words have cognate connections with Spanish and at the click of the mouse she can gain access to more information on these cognates and develop her strategic competence in inferring the meaning of cognates.
In summary, when students come to a word or phrase they do not understand, they can click on the word and obtain any or all of the following supports: (a) a dictionary definition in English, (b) a first language (L1) translation equivalent, (c) the English pronunciation of the word, (d) grammatical information related to the word or phrase (e.g. verb tenses), (e) idiomatic or useful expressions, (f) English/L1 cognate information where cognates exist. Thus, the system facilitates ESL students' access both to the curriculum and to the structure and functions of the target language itself.
The system is largely self-regulated insofar as learners themselves choose the level and type of support they require. No theoretical preconceptions are imposed on the learner in a "one-size-fits-all" manner. The system can also permit students (or their teachers) to test their growing proficiency and to monitor growth over time. Thus, all words that students clicked in a passage can be re-presented in a variety of test or practice formats (e.g. cloze) both to reinforce learning and to monitor growth. Students might read the passage initially for meaning, using primarily L1 supports, but subsequently when they are in a “study” mode, check on their comprehension/retention of the words previously unknown and also access deeper levels of grammatical and semantic information.
e-Lective Language Learning is designed to provide ESL students with the support they require to gain access to grade equivalent curriculum at a much earlier stage than might otherwise have been possible. It also aims to foster academic language learning among both ESL and EFL learners by providing them with authentic comprehensible input in the target language. The more learners read in the target language, the more access they get to its vocabulary, grammar, idioms, and so on, and the more of the language they learn. The research and theoretical rationale for the system is outlined below.
Research and Theoretical Foundations of e-Lective Language Learning
The design of e-Lective Language Learning is based on the following premises:
1. Virtually all applied linguists agree that access to sufficient comprehensible input in the target language is a necessary condition for language acquisition; most would also assign some role to (a) a focus on formal features of the target language, (b) development of effective learning strategies, and (c) actual use of the target language.
2. Formal second language teaching is relatively unsuccessful for a significant number of learners primarily as a result of impoverished input in the target language, both with respect to quality and quantity.
3. Target language text has the potential to provide a virtually inexhaustible supply of authentic comprehensible input for language learning if rapid access to meaning could be ensured.
4. Current CD-ROM technology can supply the necessary supports or “scaffolds” to make a wide range of target language text comprehensible to learners and to build learners' language awareness, thereby fuelling the language learning process.
Two sets of theoretical and research issues are central to these premises: first,
the extent to which reading a target language text (i.e. a focus on message) can, by itself, fuel the language learning process, and second, the effectiveness of helping learners (a) to demystify how the target language works and (b) to develop efficient learning strategies that will support their learning.
Focus on message. What Stephen Krashen (1993) aptly termed "the power of reading" is very evident in research findings that have accumulated during the past 15 or so years. Research in both first and second language learning contexts has shown that development of reading and academic language proficiency (e.g. vocabulary knowledge) are strongly related to the amount of target language reading carried out by learners. Postlethwaite and Ross (1992), for example, in a large-scale international evaluation of reading achievement in 32 systems of education showed that the amount of time students reported they spent in voluntary reading activities was amongst the strongest predictors (#2) of a school’s overall reading performance. The first ranked indicator was the school’s perception of the degree of parent cooperation. The significance of reading frequency in promoting reading development is also evident from the high rankings of variables such as Amount of reading materials in the school (#8), Having a classroom library (#11), and Frequency of borrowing books from a library (#12). With respect to teaching methods, a focus on Comprehension instruction was ranked #9 and Emphasis on literature was ranked #17, both considerably higher than whether or not the school engaged in explicit Phonics teaching (#41).
In a Japanese university EFL context, Mason and Krashen (1997) demonstrated in three experiments that extensive reading in English produced stronger gains in reading comprehension than did traditional instructional approaches. Furthermore, students enjoyed the approach more and it enabled "reluctant" students of EFL to catch up to their peers.
If extensive reading is as effective as the research indicates, why is it not used more in second language teaching? Two obvious reasons can be suggested: first, it is not easy to find reading selections that are linguistically accessible to learners and at the same time of interest and cognitively appropriate. A variety of research (e.g. Laufer, 1992) has suggested that 95% lexical coverage in a text is necessary for L2 learners to attain an adequate level of comprehension. Thus, there are significant textual limits to the extent to which words can be inferred from context.
The second reason is that stopping to look up unknown words in a conventional dictionary is a slow and frustrating process that seriously interrupts the flow of meaning. Despite the major limitations of conventional dictionary use, however, research suggests that use of bilingual dictionaries is more effective than inferring words from context in promoting L2 vocabulary growth, although it does slow up the reading considerably (Luppescu & Day, 1993; Prince, 1996).
Both of these limitations to the more widespread use of extensive reading are addressed in e-Lective Language Learning. Learners can choose high interest and cognitively appropriate texts and use a variety of comprehension and inferencing strategies together with built-in dictionary supports to self-regulate their access to meaning.
Focus on language. While extensive reading alone can strongly promote L2 proficiency if readers do enough of it, there is also a strong case to be made for providing learners with access both to how the language itself works and to effective learning strategies. Learners differ in their previous learning experiences, in the strategies they have found effective up to this point, in their motivations for learning the language (ranging from taking the TOEFL test to gaining tourist-level proficiency). Thus, getting access to the structure of the target language and to deeper levels of vocabulary knowledge is likely to fit the self-defined learning goals of many learners. Promotion of learners' awareness of language is likely to be considerably more effective for overall L2 development when it is done in the context of reading meaningful, high interest text than when done in isolation.
Much of the research also supports the utility of focussing on language itself as an adjunct to comprehending messages. The strong showing of Comprehension instruction in the Postlethwaite and Ross (1992) study has already been mentioned. Pearson and Fielding (1994) similarly rank "teacher-directed instruction in comprehension strategies" second to "large amounts of time for actual text reading" in their review of the implications of reading research for instruction (see Chamot and O'Malley, 1994, for a comprehensive review of the significance of learning strategies for ESL students' academic learning).
Wong Fillmore (1997, p. 4) has articulated the role that teachers should play in making texts work as input for language learning:
· Provide the support learners need to make sense of the text;
· Call attention to the way language is used in the text;
· Discuss with learners the meaning and interpretation of sentences and phrases within the text;
· Point out that words in one text may have been encountered or used in other places;
· Help learners discover the grammatical cues that indicate relationships such as cause and effect, antecedence and consequence, comparison and contrast, and so on.
In short, teachers help written texts become usable input not only by helping children make sense of the text but by drawing their attention, focusing it, in fact, on how language is used in the materials they read. Done consistently enough, the learners themselves will soon come to notice the way language is used in the materials they read. When they do that everything they read will be input for learning.
In principle, this level of support could be incorporated into e-Lective Language Learning for specific texts that might be packaged with the system. In practice, for texts that learners or teachers download independently from sources such as the World Wide Web, the level of language support is likely to be much more general. Teachers, however, can customize the support within the system for specific passages they want to use or alternatively work with students in a conventional way to develop language awareness related to aspects of texts that students have read.
One additional point can be made related to the theoretical rationale for focusing on developing students' language awareness. I have suggested that in the context of academic language learning among ESL students comprehensible input needs to be reinterpreted as critical literacy (Cummins, 1996). Comprehension is not an "all-or-nothing" phenomenon; our understanding of words, stories or events deepens the more we relate them to our prior knowledge and personal histories, the more we critically analyze them with respect to their logic and social significance, and the more we express our developing understanding through creative action (e.g. writing on a topic, dramatizing and reinterpreting events, etc.).
From a more linguistically-oriented perspective Paribakht and Wesche (1997) have also shown that vocabulary comprehension is a continuum rather than a state. There is a significant difference between the "comprehension" reflected in simple word recognition and the "comprehension" reflected in ability to use the word in a semantically and grammatically appropriate way. Their research demonstrated that depth of vocabulary knowledge is enhanced through specific vocabulary exercises carried out after reading a passage.
Thus, within e-Lective Language Learning, the goal of encouraging students to focus on both language awareness and learning strategies is to enhance and deepen their comprehension of the text, both with respect to its conceptual content and language. Our long-term goal is to build in the supports that would encourage learners to read texts critically; this involves analyzing the meanings of words and the messages within the text from a critical perspective rather than just passively "comprehending" the input in a superficial way.
Conclusion
What has been sketched above is the general design of a computer-assisted language learning system that is under development and currently being field-tested. It departs significantly from the mainstream of CALL in several respects: text is used as input for language learning; no vocabulary, grammatical constructions, or language functions are prescribed or explicitly taught; learners choose and self-regulate the type and degree of support they need - for example, they can choose to read extensively and stay focused on comprehending text or they can spend some of that time exploring how the target language in general and the language of text in particular are put together. The extent to which e-Lective Language Learning diverges from other CALL approaches can be seen from the fact that Michael Levy's (1997) recently published book on the topic contains only six index references to "reading" with no substantial treatment in the text of the possibilities of computer-assisted text scaffolding for language learning.
e-Lective Language Learning is seen as an alternative to other CALL and classroom approaches to second language teaching. Its major potential advantage in comparison to other approaches is that it harnasses the vast amount of authentic naturally-occurring language contained in text and transforms this language into comprehensible input to fuel the language acquisition process. Research in future years will presumably establish the empirical status of these claims and their relevance for second language acquisition theory.
References
Chamot, A. U. & O’Malley, M. (1994). The CALLA Handbook: Implementing the Cognitive Academic Language Learning Approach. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
Cummins, J. (1996). Negotiating identities: Education for empowerment in a diverse society. Los Angeles: California Association for Bilingual Education.
Dupuy, B., Tse, L. & Cook, T. (1996, Summer). Bringing books into the classroom: First steps in turning college-level ESL students into readers. Tesol Journal, 10-15.
Elley, W.B. (1991). Acquiring literacy in a second language: The effect of book-based programs. Language Learning, 41, 375-411.
Fielding, L.G. & Pearson, P.D. (1994). Reading comprehension: what works. Educational Leadership, 51(5), 62-68.
Fillmore, L.W. (1997). Authentic literature in ESL instruction. Glenview, IL: ScottForesman.
Krashen, S. (1982). Principles and practice in second language acquisition. Oxford: Pergamon Press.
Krashen, S. (1993). The power of reading. Englewood, CO.: Libraries Unlimited.
Laufer, B. (1992). How much lexis is necessary for reading comprehension? In H. Béjoint & P. Arnaud (Eds.), Vocabulary and applied linguistics (pp. 126-132). London: Macmillan.
Levy, M. (1997). Computer-assisted language learning: context and conceptualization. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Luppescu, S. & Day, R.R. (1993). Reading, dictionaries, and vocabulary learning. Language Learning, 43, 263-287.
Mason, B. & Krashen, S. (1997). Extensive reading in English as a foreign language. System, 25, 91-102.
Paribakht, T.S. & Wesche, M. (1997). Vocabulary enhancement activities and reading for meaning in second language vocabulary acquisition. In Coady, J. & Huckin, T. (Ed.). Second language vocabulary acquisition: A rationale for pedagogy. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
Poe, E.A. (1997). The pit and the pendulum. In Literature and integrated studies: American literature. (pp. 253-264). Glenview, IL: ScottForesman.
Postlethwaite, T.N. & Ross, K.N. (1992). Effective schools in reading: Implications for educational planners. An exploratory study. The Hague: The International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement.
Prince, P. (1996). Second language vocabulary learning: The role of context versus translations as a function of proficiency. The Modern Language Journal, 80, 478-493.
Biographical Note:
Jim Cummins teaches in the Department of Curriculum, Teaching, and Learning of the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto. His research has focused on the education of bilingual students and
The possibilities and pitfalls of technology in education.
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