COMPUTER ASSISTED LANGUAGE LEARNING - Assignment

SUBJECT ASSIGNMENT: COMPUTER ASSISTED LANGUAGE LEARNING

GENERAL INFORMATION: This assignment has to fulfil the following conditions:

- Length: between 6 and 8 pages (without including cover, index or appendices if there are any-). Type of font: Arial or Times New Roman. Size: 11. Line height: 1.5. Alignment: Justified.

The assignment has to be done in this Word document and has to fulfil the rules of presentation and edition, as for quotes and bibliographical references which are detailed in the Study Guide. Also, it has to be submitted following the procedure specified in the Study Guide. Sending it to the tutors e-mail is not permitted. In addition to this, it is very important to read the assessment criteria, which can be found in the Study Guide. The assignment mark is 100% of the final mark, but the participation in the activities performed during the tutorials can improve this mark.

COMPUTER ASSISTED LANGUAGE LEARNING - Assignment

Assignment:
We would like you to evaluate the English language course that you will find at the Web site : http://www.netlanguages.com/information/english/courses/generalenglish/sampl e.htm Choose ONE language level: pre-elementary, elementary, lower intermediate or upper intermediate. Once you have clicked on a level, you will see the contents of one unit. You now need to spend a little time familiarising yourself with the content of this unit, and how activities work. In this part of the assignment, you need to evaluate the overall content of the unit, considering the linguistic component, the methodology behind the material, and the technical features designed to aid navigation. To do this, use the following questionnaire. You are expected to justify each of your answers in depth. Questionnaire:
1= excellent 2= good 3= average 4= bad 5= awful

Communicative skills Reading Listening Writing Speaking Linguistic component Grammar Pronunciation Vocabulary Methodology Method Motivation Interaction Contents Technical features Interface appearance Navigation

Important: you have to write your personal details and the subject name on the cover (see the next page). The assignment that does not fulfil these conditions will not be corrected. You have to include the assignment index below the cover.

COMPUTER ASSISTED LANGUAGE LEARNING - Assignment

NET LANGUAGES
ELEMENTARY LEVEL UNIT 1: CITIES

- Name and surname:

Itzel Gonzlez Ortz

- Login:

MEFPMLAEILE905214

- Group:

30

- Date:

June, 3rd, 2012.

INDEX
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COMPUTER ASSISTED LANGUAGE LEARNING - Assignment

I. INTRODUCTION5

1- USER5-7

2- SKILLS...7

3- LINGUISTIC COMPONENTS.8

4- METHODOLOGY.8-10

5- TECHNICAL FEATURES.11-13

II.

CONCLUSION 13

III. BIBLIOGRAPHY
14

IV.

WEBOGRAPHY.1 4
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COMPUTER ASSISTED LANGUAGE LEARNING - Assignment

INTRODUCTION Through the several responses of the following questions we could start analyzing and making different conclusion and statements about the advantages and disadvantages of the use of New Technologies and more specifically to the Online English Program called Net Languages which offers seven levels of online General English courses, ranging from Pre-Elementary (A1) to Advanced (C1), each complete level contains between 120 and 150 hours of study time. Students can sign up for a complete level (10 units) or half a level (Part A, units 1-5, or Part B, units 6-10). Each unit is designed around a topic and is divided into 15 sections. These sections include reading, vocabulary, grammar, listening, pronunciation practice, functional and practical English, and one oral and two written tutorials and each student is assigned a personal tutor who will help and support them during the course. Therefore this is going to be sample material we are analyzing during the extraordinary journey of answering all these different questions, with the main objective to get a wiser conclusion of the advantages and disadvantages of using Net Language, the chosen level was Elementary (A2-B1) and the Unit analyzed was Unit 1: Cities, however it is very important to highlight that the only material we had access to was a Sample Material with a few exercises of Reading comprehension, Vocabulary development, Grammar structures (Comparatives and Superlatives), Listening comprehension and Pronunciation so that we were able to answer the following questions taking this sample information as reference. 1 USER What ages is the programme apt for? This kind of learning program was mainly designed for young adults and adults and maybe elder learners mostly because of the way the different exercises are presented, it means we are not talking about colourful and hyper dynamic materials and resources used for kids or even teenagers learners, but ordinary and easy comprehensible materials which most of the adult learners use to feel identify or familiar with, so on this way most of them could feel confident and comfortable to work with, and guaranteeing these Adult learners to be engaged to continue studying and practicing in an efficient and effective way through the use of new and innovative
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COMPUTER ASSISTED LANGUAGE LEARNING - Assignment

technologies, and the best way to achieve this is through the use of common and familiar materials and resources.

Which level of language proficiency is required?

According to the sample exercises, an Elementary level (A2-B1) is the most appropriate level to apply these kinds of activities and exercises, first of all because of the topics used example: Elementary level (A2-B1): Unit 1- Cities, where students have the opportunity to study and practice the Comparatives and Superlatives, besides of the reading comprehension practice through a basic reading with basic vocabulary which help students to understand in a better and easier way this reading through the use of simple but clear instructions about what they have to do on each exercise.

What are the goals which the programme cater for? Do they suit the
students needs? First of all it would be important to mention that the goals which this online program cater for are:

Tutored Course: This means that each student is assigned a personal tutor who
will help and support him/her during the course and the sections of this course

The study and practice of reading, vocabulary, grammar, listening, and

pronunciation.

The use of functional and practical English. The implementation of an oral and two written tutorials which result very
functional and effective if you constantly need for a guide to help you and feed you back in order to improve your English knowledge and practice. All of these goals suit most of the students needs, if the student feel motivated and engaged to go further and become able to navigate, investigate and look beyond the practice of these exercises.

Which learning style will suit the programme: visual, verbal, aural,
6Kinesthetic, social, individual...?

COMPUTER ASSISTED LANGUAGE LEARNING - Assignment

Taking into account the chosen level (Elementary A2-B1) and once analyzed the specific unit of the sample material: Unit 1- Cities, and according to Oxford (1990) we could conclude that most of the exercises used on this online programme were aimed to visual (learning best through visual means books, videos, graphs, auditory (preferring listening and speaking activities discussions, debates, audiotapes, roleplays, lectures, meetings), introversion (preferring to do more independent learning or working alone or with another person they know well); and analytic (focusing more on details, logical analysis, and contrasts while they are learning; they like to break broad concepts into units and prefer to have specific rules).

How skilled should students and teachers be in dealing computers?

As a matter of fact, it is not necessary for students to be really skilled or experts in dealing computers because the procedures and uses of this kind of software are pretty clear and easy to use once the students clearly understand the instructions of each exercise. 2 SKILLS What are the skills reinforced by the programme?

Taking into consideration that we only had access to four different skills (reading, vocabulary, grammar and take away English) of the several skills of the content listening, pronunciation, speaking tutorial, etc in this sample material, we could mention that the main skills reinforced by this Online programme are 3 language skills: Reading, Listening and sometimes speaking, but writing is not enough practiced through these exercises, because they actually focus on vocabulary development and grammar structure instead, but the real practice of writing is not this programme priority. How much does each one weigh in the overall content of the programme?

Vocabulary development and practice: 35% Grammar structure: 25%

Reading comprehension: 20% Listening comprehension: 10%

Pronunciation: 5% Speaking: 5%

COMPUTER ASSISTED LANGUAGE LEARNING - Assignment

Note: As we mentioned above we only had access to four different skills

(reading, vocabulary, grammar and take away English) of the several skills of the content of this sample material.

3 LINGUISTIC COMPONENT Is there a focus on grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation, functions, culture?

Yes, through the analysis of this specific Unit 1 (Cities), there is a valuable focus on grammar (25%), vocabulary development (35%), this online programme also focuses on explaining and practicing the functions of the Comparatives and Superlatives but we could not find any exercises which could focus on the culture knowledge. 4 METHODOLOGY Method. Which underlying rationale about learning English can be traced according to the knowledge space and information presentation? 1. Make students to understand that learning to learn English is nothing but a stepwise process, this means that the learner needs time but most of all patience to get valuable results.

2. Make students to define their learning goals in advance, this means why they
want to learn English, what exactly they need to learn the most and why, it is really important to have clear goals because this will let learners to focus their efforts on specific and valuable tasks. 3. Students could make a learning process habit, because it is more effective to learn a little every day than spend many hours a day, so it is very essential to choose correctly the learning material according to the different levels of development. 4. Building communication alternatives offered by the network also results very useful for students to use the chat and video conferencing to practice with other people who are also learning English online, as well as get in touch with people who live in countries whose native language is English.

COMPUTER ASSISTED LANGUAGE LEARNING - Assignment

5. In addition to the materials offered by different websites, it is also a good idea to

choose reading and audio material of the students interest in order to make oral and written practices. Is there a focus on form or on communication?

Actually there is more focus on form than on communication, all of these exercises are more receptive that productive and most of them focus more on making students aware on form, vocabulary and structure than really make them produce the language through real contexts. Is there authenticity in the tasks and situations?

As we have mentioned above, and analysing the only exercises we had access to through this sample material of Unit 1-Cities, we did not find any authenticity in the task and situations presented on these exercises, most of them are really easy to carry out but at the same time, simple and presented without any eloquence or for fun purposes, this could result kind of boring for some young adults and also even for some adults, because there is nothing extraordinary on them, that is to say, that any other exercises students cannot find on different websites or Online English courses on the net. Contents: * Which topics are dealt with?

The main topic dealt which are dealt with are:

Reading Comprehension: Talking about cities (Sidney, Australia)

Grammar: Comparatives and Superlatives

Vocabulary development: Geography, nature, civilization, people, countries and nationalities

Take Away English: Where are you from? Listening, describing and speaking
practice. Interaction (type of setting and teachers role) Which setting does the programme establish: a self-directed learning setting, software to be used by students independently after an introduction by the teacher, software to be used in class with the teacher as leader, groups of students with little teachers control? Undoubtedly, this online programme was mainly designed to foster a self-directed learning setting, because this kind of software can definitely be used by students

COMPUTER ASSISTED LANGUAGE LEARNING - Assignment

independently after an introduction or even a regular or none intervention and feedback by the teacher once in a while, because we have to remember that on this kind of Online General English Course each student is assigned a personal tutor who will help and support them during the course (one oral and two written tutorials) so that students will feel more confident to complete, practicing and constantly enriching from their English teacher feedback (if they already are in a EFL classroom) or also by their tutors feedbacks. Which is the teachers role?

The teachers role on this kind of online programmes is most of all as facilitator and as guide whose intervention, help and constantly feedback learners encouraging and motivating students to keep going and make them aware of how important and relevant could the use of new technologies could be in order to effectively help them to study and real practice in the study of a second language (in this case English). And the students role?

This is definitely a learner-centred English programme, because it mainly fosters a selfdirected learning where students could be completely able to navigate and be aware of their own recent acquired knowledge, creating an effective way to self- independent from the constant help most of teachers use to provide which sometimes make students to feel that without the constant assistance of a teacher, they are not going to be able to achieve nothing, so that, this kind of Online English Programme could help students to become more responsible from their own English learning and practice. Is there any distance interaction on line?

Sometimes this could be an obstacle for some students (most of them Adults) who definitely are not used to this kind of Online English learning, and of course this kind of interaction online, because most of them have been taught with a teacher in front of their classes, so the mere idea of interact with someone that maybe they would never meet personally uses to be kind of confusing, however, the combination of motivating material, tutor support and a wide variety of exercise types contribute to an enjoyable and rewarding language learning experience, but most of all students need to be motivated and have a clear idea that at the end this could be in an easier way to become part of the advantages that the new technologies offer.

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COMPUTER ASSISTED LANGUAGE LEARNING - Assignment

Motivation Which degree of motivation is likely to be promoted among

the students as a result of the appeal of the tasks, the topics and the interaction fostered?Actually we consider that there is a certain degree of motivation is promoted among the students, most of all when this kind of Online English Programme promote students the constant assistance of a personal tutor who will help and support them during the course. The combination of motivating material, tutor support and a wide variety of exercise types would contribute to an enjoyable and rewarding language learning experience for students. 5 TECHNICAL FEATURES Which hardware and technical assistance will be required?

The software required for the correct use of this Online English programme are: JavaScript, the Flash player version 10 or above, Java and Cookie, and the recommended minimum configuration (hardware): Pentium 4 or equivalent, 512MB RAM, 1024 x 768 resolution color monitor, Sound card, Microphone headset / speakers, Broadband Internet Connection. If students have any problems, they could mail support@netlanguages.com with details of their computer configurations and the exact nature of the problem they are having. Or they can also ring on Barcelona (Spain) +34 93 445 0537. Interface appearance: How would you appreciate the programme in terms of beauty, appeal, originality? There is nothing extraordinary, original or showy on this online programme, undoubtedly it could work for Adults learners who actually are not enough familiar with this kind of Online English Learning, and if they are just starting getting involved in the use of new technologies, but if we were referring to more expert internet users the story and the online programme would be completely different, we mean looking for a programme which actually could fulfil with the students requirements and needs. Is the media integration good?

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COMPUTER ASSISTED LANGUAGE LEARNING - Assignment

Yes it is good because it integrates the continuity and interrelation of the different topics studied and it is not required enough effort for the students to handle the software and gradually getting more and more involve in the use of new technologies for their own good. Is navigation easy, is the programme simple to use?

It results really easy to navigate on this kind of programme, of course, if we are talking about Young or Adults learners who are usually inexperienced on handling online programmes in addition to the use of the programme which also results really easy to use. Cognitive load: are the structure and response options evident, can they be worked out intuitively? Is disorientation likely to appear? As we have mentioned above one of the advantages of this Online programme is that it integrates the continuity and interrelation of the different topics studied on this Unit 1, which makes that the structures used and the response options are evident, however if we are referring inexperienced elementary adult English learners, we do not think the exercises could be worked intuitively maybe if some of the words or phrases are similar to the mother tongue (in this case could be Spanish), however once students have practiced the vocabulary or the grammar structure they could be clearly to work out the exercises according to the recent acquired knowledge and without disoriented. Is the learner guided through the programme in a sequential manner which reflects the intended objectives? As a matter of fact, it is kind of confusing to make a wise conclusion to this question because we were being limited to the analysis of a sample material and only to a few contents of Unit (Unit 1- Cities) such as: Reading, Vocabulary, Grammar and Takeaway English, which include little pronunciation, listening and speaking exercises, so that, taking this information into account we could state that there is a interrelation of the different topics and skills analyzed but we definitely could not assure that this programme guide the learner in a sequential manner in order to achieve its main objectives.

Does the programme include any user-support materials: index or user

guide with the relevant elements of the programme features, learning directions or strategy?

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COMPUTER ASSISTED LANGUAGE LEARNING - Assignment

There is no index or a user guide as themselves but there is a Unit Structure which includes a simple guide of the several contents the student is going to study and achieve in each skill or part of the programme and according to O'Malley and Chamot 1990: Cognitive Strategies involve interacting with the material to be learned, manipulating the material mentally or physically, or applying a specific technique to a learning task. 137-139 which fits with the different exercises used on this Online English Programme.

Can any printed material do the job just as well? (Underwood 1984,
Course Materials, page 7) There is printed material that can do the same job just as well that this kind of online programme, however we should not forget that the main goal of these kinds of programmes are make everyones English learning and even lifestyles more enjoyable and most of all easier through the use of the new technologies. How can performance be assessed?

Mainly through their constant tutors assistance and feedback.

Is it effective, will it result in any learning? (Course Materials, page 39)

If at the beginning students have a clear idea and goal about why they are going to learn English and are frequently motivated for their tutors during their study time and this kind of learning experience makes them aware of the advantages of venture in the wonderful and helpful world of the New Technologies and learners start using more English learning resources beyond these kinds of Online English Programmes, there is no doubt these students will be a step forward the path of success.

CONCLUSION It has been a very fruitful experience to venture in the amazing world of the New Technologies to facilitate, enrich, foster and increase students opportunities (who maybe could not feel indentify with the use of new technologies yet) to learn and constantly practice English taking the enormous advantages of the use of different software, technical supports and navigation around the internet in order to make the extraordinary English learning process easier for everyone, we can also mention that learning English can sometimes be so boring that many students will leave it,
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COMPUTER ASSISTED LANGUAGE LEARNING - Assignment

however using new technologies can help them a lot to improve their English skills,
some of the advantages that students could have not only with the use of this Online English program we were analyzing (Net Languages.com) but also all that has to do with the use of New technologies are:

Accessibility to computing facilities. Capability of teachers to handle new technologies. Ability of students to operate computers. Flexibility of the use of new technologies. Quality of language learning: authenticity and formality. Quantity of language learning: in-class and out-of-class interactions.
BIBLIOGRAPHY

[1] Ahmed, K.; Corbett, G.; Rogers, M. & Sussex, R. (1985): Computers. Language
Learning and Teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

[2] Barnett, L. (1993): "Teacher off: computer technology, guidance and selfaccess. System, 21, pp. 295-304.

[3] Sperling, D. (1997): The Internet guide for English language Teachers. London:
Prentice Hall.

[4] Wenden, A. & Rubin, J. (1987): Learner strategies in Language Learning.

London: Prentice Hall.

WEBOGRAPHY

[1] Net Languages (1998- 2012)

Web link: http://www2.netlanguages.com/info/english/individual/generalenglish.php Read: May, 28, 2012 GMT-5]

[2] Aprender Ingls Gratis (2012)

Web link: http://www.aprendergratis.com/consejos-para-aprender-inglesonline.html Read: May, 28, 2012 GMT-5]
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COMPUTER ASSISTED LANGUAGE LEARNING - Assignment

[3] Lay Networks: Types of Motivation (2010)

Web link: http://www.laynetworks.com/TYPES-OF-MOTIVATION.html Read: May, 29, 2012 GMT-5]

[4] Blog Templates & Black Google: Fastest way to speak English (2011): 7 ways
to learn English using New Technologies Web link: http://fastest-english.blogspot.mx/2010/08/7-ways-to-learnenglish-using-new.html Read: May, 29, 2012 GMT-5]

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