ELECTRONIC EDUCATION

Teaching on the Telephone

Your class is only a conference call away.
ROBERT J. DICKEY describes how he
established a course for long distance
learners in South Korea.
D
uring the Fall semester of 1997, ten senior students at
Miryang University, South Korea, left school after
midterm exams to start work in other cities. These sen-
iors were studying English Conversation with the
author, who was unwilling to allow them to finish their
studies prior to the end of the semester.
My decision to teach these students via telephone was made without
reference to published research. Following the announcement of the
teleconferencing sessions, I surveyed the literature for telephonic for-
eign language instruction, and found no information. Research of this
sort continued through the months following the course. In addition,
queries were posted on electronic discussion lists and an extensive
internet search was conducted throughout the instructional period
and beyond. A response from my inquiry to Stan Zenor, Executive
Director of the Association for Educational Communications and
Technology, was revealing. "Sounds like you have been doing dis-
We've Got It!
Clear Speech Works CD-Rom
"An excellent pronunciation tool"
46
Developed at Boston's
Northeastern University
Interactive, Multimedia
Proven Effective
Features Stress & Linking
i.,. .. .... c.., . .. ..... 1a111,....
. ~
----...-
5000+ Words & Sentences
7
~
Helps speakers of 45 languages & dialects
speak clear, confident English
~ Delta Systems Co., Inc.
(800) 323-8270 or (815) 363-3582
Fax ( 800) 909-9901 or
(815) 363-2948
www.delta-systems.com
tance learning at almost it's most basic level. I really don't
know of anyone else who has conducted a class in this man-
ner, although it must have happened some place at some time.
I just don't have any idea where to suggest you look."
Studies have been conducted supporting teleconferencing in
various fields of study, often concurrent with various forms of
"live" video presentation: none were found specific to the effi-
cacy of communicative-language instruction. umerous leads
were tracked, yet no current instructional programs in foreign
languages via telephone were found. Those who had been
involved in telephonic language instruction were unable to
provide data, or no longer had documentation for programs
long-since terminated. Others had done only teletutoring
courses, not group instruction.
The telephone group continued with the same course work-
book used with all English Conversation courses. This course
book was designed in previous semesters
by me to maximize student-talking by
emphasizing listening skills and informa-
tion-sharing in initial sessions, and requir-
ing pair-work and small
group-discussions for
task completion. One
coursebook unit is
designed for one contact-
hour. Anticipating some
trouble-spots, a few unit
substitutions were made,
and supplemental mate-
rials mailed to students
during the fourth week
of teleconferencing; e.g.
color photocopies of
photographs used as dis-
cussion points were sent
to all students, as well as
a simplified "Locations
and Directions" unit.
The telephone instruc-
tion lasted for five and a
half weeks, into the
examination week, three
nights per week.
Concurrently, the tradi-
tional group maintained
the original teaching
schedule, meeting two
course-hours per week.
Most of the telephone
group participants
missed the semester's
ninth and tenth weeks of
instruction, while I
arranged the technical
aspects of teleconferenc-
ing, as they had already
left the area. The tele-
phone group had two
class sessions during
final exams week (while
the traditional group had
one) for a total of 15 tele-
phone class sessions. By
the end of the course, the telephone group
had had the same number of sessions with
the instructor as had the traditional group,
though these contacts were of shorter dura-
tion.
A typical teleconferencing class session con-
sisted of three components: the group ses-
sion, pairwork, and instructor follow-up.
Students were to be available from 11:00
until 11:55pm. The operator would contact
them at 11:00, or shortly thereafter. It was
anticipated that group instruction and dis-
cussion would continue until approximate-
ly 11:35, at which time the conference call
would terminate, and student would call
their partner via ordinary telephone sen'ice
ELECTRONIC EDUCATION
for 10 minutes of pairwork. Partners
changed each session. The instructor would
then telephone a few students between
11:45 and 11:55 via ordinary telephone serv-
ice to check their work and do one-on-one
remedial work. That plan was realized for
the most part; depending on the unit, some
group sessions ran longer, some shorter.
These students had studied together
throughout their university careers, and
were an effervescent group in the class-
room. After four or five teleconferencing
sessions, a similar mood prevailed over the
telephone, except when the material was
too difficult for the teleconference environ-
ment. At that point the students became
silent, they would not participate, and it
became a teacher-centered lecture-format
course for the remainder of the evening.
Three exams are available for consideration:
the midterm exam, the final listening com-
prehension (L/C) exam, and the (final)
Interview. In the absence of a semester pre-
test, the midterm exam was used for bench-
marking purposes. The midterm exam and
final Listening Comprehension (L/C) exam
are substantially similar in content and
focus. The L/C exam includes materials
from throughout
the semester, but
more important-
ly, the midterm
includes the stu-
dent's written
responses to
recorded oral
questions. The
grading is subjec-
tive on this
also receive full marks. The students are
advised that this form of written response
is in preparation for their final interview.
The small size of the sample together with
a high diffusion of scores, makes statistical
reporting somewhat suspect, so data clus-
ters from each exam are considered as well
as the arithmetic means and medians. The
mean for the first (low) quintile ("The
Bottom 20%") and the high quintile ("The
Top 20%") are reported in Table 1. The
quintiles for the traditional group are com-
posed of three scores, except the third (mid-
dle) quintile has four, the telephone group
has only two scores in each quintile. The
separation between the scores of the tele-
phone group and the traditional group is
displayed in the third column as the quo-
tient of the telephone group's score, divid-
ed by the traditional groups'.
Figure 1 Midterm Grade Distribution

. s S ,- , o
lodvdnlTests
Telepl<ICl'I o Ttfldtlonal _ - - - '
Continued overleaf ,._
ortapes
oftware
"writing" por-
tion: spelling is
(559) 683 ?115
not graded, and
grammar/syntax
is one point of
the three points
available on each
of the 5 ques-
tions. (The maxi-
mum score on
the midterm is
30, 15 can be
achieved through
the written
responses.) A
sample question
is "I don't like
swimming." A
correct response
would be
" either do I" or
"But I do."
Other appropri-
ate response_ can
IBM
and
Macintosh
Phone/fax
ESL Micro Computer
Software Packages for IBM
and Macintosh
Basic Language and Study
Skills for College, Adult and
Secondary Education
Beginner to Advanced
Levels
Programs to help students with Sentence structure,
Paragraphs, Spelling, Punctuation, Grammar and more
Programs are simple and easy to use. Each focuses
on a clearly stated, specific skill.
Some lessons are tutorial and practice, others are
strictly drill.
CllECK US OUT ON THE WEB
www.tutortapes.com
47
Figure 2 Listening Comprehension Grade
Distribution
Listening Comprehension ( UC )
"'
"'
'"
Is
,.
'

:
Q
1:
..

..
!
z.
<>-----
rrnWooa!Tests
L_ ________
The listening comprehension exam (L/ C)
indicates a strength of the teleconferencing
environment. The arithmetic mean and
median for the two groups were roughly
the same, and the telephone group did
much better in the first quintile, outscoring
the traditional group, and reaching .819 of
the coursewide median score. The separa-
tion between the groups in the high quintile
decreased from the midterm's .477 to only
.882. Figure 2 shows that in the third quin-
tile, the scores overlapped. Figure 3 over-
lays these plots (midterm scores x .667 to
equate scores).
Figure 3 Midterm I LIC Plot Comparison
Figure 4 displays that the telephonic lan-
guage-learning environment is not a total
success. In the interview exam, the lowest
two scores of the two groups were identi-
cal. All scores in both high quintiles were
the maximum score of 20. It is the third and
fourth quintiles where there is apparent
divergence between the plots of Figures 2
and 4, Figure 5 overlays these plots
(midterm scores x .667 to equate scores).
Figure 4 Interview Grade Distribution
Mkttenn /UC I
] ________ " ___ __ _ __ I
lndivid.J:atTMtf;
Tel. o Mid. Trad.
V CTel. VCTrad.
There are a number of terms used by various writers
with overlapping definitions when discussing teaching
via the telephone. Telephone conference-call will be
defined as using an existing public telephone system
to allow participants to communicate with a group of
fellow participants, using their personal telephones,
via a ''telephone bridge". This has been sometimes
identified as "POTS" (the Plain Old Telephone
System). This bridge may be provided through the
public telephone system, a private communications
business, a corporate or university telephone system,
or other telephone merging systems (including hold-
48
ELECTRONIC EDUCATION
Figure 5 Midterm I Interview Plot Comparison
" r

11
. '
. '
Midtemt / lnterwtew Soar
(mldt.rms r;tllSl:ed to - 20)
' I
o Mid.Tr.d,
lnt.-v. Trlld
From the students' perspective, the "tele-
phone class" was a success: 87.5% of the
respondents voiced approval in terms of
usefulness, 85.7% said they enjoyed the
course, and 75% thought the course should
be repeated for other students.
An important consideration when analyz-
attention is required to minimize lexical
challenge. More coursebook illustrations
would assist greatly in this area. In addi-
tion, each discussion item, each sentence,
needs to be identifiable, so that students
can find it easily. Numbering everything
would be one solution.
Problems of confidence are exacerbated
over the telephone, where students can't
just lean over a desk to help each other.
Simplified activities need to be developed
for troublesome content areas, to reflect this
weakened student-support system.
Teacher-centered activities with simple and
complete materials for the students, such as
ing the test data is
whether the telephone
group students were
more motivated under
a quasi-tutorial envi-
ronment. The special
circumstances of this
small group (generally
6-9 students each ses-
sion) allowed a differ-
ent type of instructor-
student interaction dur-
ing the instructional
period. On the other
hand, there was virtual-
ly no student-instructor
contact before or after
the instructional period
each day. This question
is left unanswered in
this study, but it would
seem a likely benefit of
smaller-group instruc-
tion under the telecon-
ferencing environment.
Of course, were the tra-
ditional classroom to
TABLE 1 TEST RESULTS
Group Test Mean Averages
Midterm
Listening Exam
Interview
Telephone
10.70
11.60
10.00
Traditional
15.94
11 .06
14.13
Tel/Trad
.677
1.049
.708
Group Test Medians
Midterm
Telephone
12.0
Traditional
13.5
Tel/Trad
.911
1.000
.591
Listening Exam
Interview
11.0
9.0
11.0
15.5
Group Test First Quintile ("Bottom 20%")
Midterm
Listening Exam
Interview
Telephone Traditional
5.5 4.67
9.0 6.0
4.3 5.33
Tel/Trad
1. 178
1.500
.812
Group Test High Quintile ("Top 20%")
Midterm
Listening Exam
Interview
contain a similar number of students, those
students' motivational levels might increase
comparably. More advanced planning
would allow a significant change in instruc-
tional materials to improve the quality of
discussions. This instructor generally
prefers not to use a bilingual approach for
vocabulary issues, utilizing instead an
active visual presentation model; more
DEFINITION OF TERMS
ing several telephone handsets close together!). Four
forms of teaching via the telephone have been identi-
fied by one set of authors: telelecture, where an out-
side expert "enters" a formal classroom via tele-
phone; teleteaching, which allows a homebound per-
son to "attend" via speakerphone in the classroom;
teletutoring, for a tutor to provide one-to-one (or
small group) teaching to student(s) who are studying
separately from a formal classroom; telephone-based
instruction, where a teacher instructs a group of geo-
graphically disparate students. Telephone-based
instruction is the form utilized in the course discussed
Telephone
13.5
15.0
20.0
Traditional
28.33
17.0
20.0
Tel/Trad
.477
.882
1.000
"Past-tense Bingo," were generally success-
ful. Group discussion activities were gener-
ally not very effective, due to the students'
lack of consideration to the technological
limitations of basic telephone service: only
one voice can be transmitted at a time. A
teleconferencing guide should be made
available to students prior to the course, to
facilitate more active group discussions.
here. Audio-conferencing may include telephone con-
ference-calls, satellite communications systems, and
dedicated communications systems. Teleconferencing
indicates conferencing via some sort of telecommuni-
cations, which may include all of the above, as well as
one-way or two-way radio (eg: shortwave radio) or
television broadcasts, on-line ( .. live"> computer com-
munications which may include text, audio, and
video, viewing of videotapes or television with simul-
taneous audio communication under one of the audio-
conferencing modes listed abo.-e, or video conferences
via microwa.-e or satellite links.
Call-waiting and other adrnnced tele-
phone services are a hindrance. It is frus-
trating that the instructor can only do one-
on-one work at the end of the session, so
that students ha\'e little chance to practice
their "repaired" language pronunciation.
A university with a high-tech communica-
tions system could arrange for students to
call in for a teleconference course, with the
university operator or instructor then
matching up calls for pair-work, which
the instructor could monitor, and the class
could be reconvened. Only in such an
environment could a teleconferencing
English Conversation class be considered
as a full-fledged replacement for a tradi-
tional course. One promising application
would be in continuing education of
English conversation for public school
teachers. A large number of the reports
published in the field of distance-learning
were based on continuing education for
professionals. Many Korean public school
teachers have a strong knowledge-base in
English, but little opportunity to practice
speaking and listening. Small groups of
teachers could conference, and discuss
topics of interest, with or without the
involvement of a "tutor" who is more pro-
ficient in spoken English. This would be
effective in groups who have existing ties.
Author's Note: Robert J. Uickey was a member
of the Faculty of Liberal Arts at Miryang National
(San-up) University, in Miryang, Kyungnam, S.
Korea at the time of this project. He is now a mem-
ber of the English Deparment in the School of
Foreign Languages & Tourism at Kyongju
University, in Kyongju, Kyongbuk, S. Korea. The
author wishes to thank Korea Telecom's "Dial 101".
ELECTRONIC EDUCATION
All the news fit to browse
NEWSPAPER
reading - a con-
venient student-
centered activity
-has become
even easier,
thanks to the Net.
No more
newsprint on
111111 your fingers. No
more articles that
don' t fit on the copy machine. No more fear
of copyright infringement.
And we're not talking just your local paper;
we're talking thousands of U.S. and foreign
newspapers on the web. Of course, stu-
dents will immediately head for their own
hometown newspaper in their native lan-
guage. But to keep everyone on track and
in English, start the search with the Kidon
Media List of English language newspapers
both foreign and domestic (see box over-
leaf).
Once your students find the English edition
of their hometown newspaper, have them
exploit it. Make it their assignment to write
a summary of an event back home. Have
each student make an oral presentation fol-
lowed by a Q&A from the other students.
The entire class can write an opinion paper
on how the event(s) were interpreted. The
students could also create their own web
newspaper highlighting the events chosen
by the class with the event abstracts and
links to other articles on the events.
This activity could be refocused so that stu-
dents read any foreign newspaper to get a
local reaction to an international event. An
easy way to research a news article is to use
my favorite web metasearch engine
(www.dogpile.com) .. (see ALR, Jan/ Feb 99,
pp. 35-36 for a discussion of Search
Engines.) Type in the subject (e.g.,
U ganda+tourist+gorilla), click on
Newswires below the subject line, and dog-
pile will search through the newswires to
get you the latest stories on gorilla trekking
in Uganda. As a bonus, the research results
will lead you to the web sites of major news
organizations like Associated Press,
Reuters, Washington Post, BBC, CNN, and
others. Bookmark these sites for future ref-
erence.
Running out of things to do?
Turn your students into web page media
critics. Let them compare and contrast the
quantity and quality of the stories and serv-
ices on the web pages of foreign newspa-
pers. Have them design a class newspaper
site with the best features of the foreign
newspaper sites they visited.
The features on newspaper web sites are
more varied than in their print counterparts
and often include cultural information.
The Tehran Times goes on the defensive with
a photo section on Iranian women.
(http: //www.salamiran.org/Women/).
The Japan Times has a section on Festivals,
Museums and Galleries which is a perfect
Continued overleaf
"TELL ME MORE PRO" Foreign Language Learning Software
Students have an interactive conversation with their PC's. Tell Me More Pro analyzes the students pronunciation, scoring each
attempt.
Combines conversation and pronunciation practice with grammar, vocabulary and written expression, as well as offering
comprehension work based on target language videos.
rllE"-- Thanks to a sophisticat-
Ill!!-

-
; --
! J
.,.":'. : ... :-
ed use of speech recog-
nition, there is a fluent
and interactive dialog
between the student and
the computer .
Practice pronouncing
each sentence or word
in the lesson. A high-
quality scoring system
allows for a comparison
of the recording with
that of the model.
Tell me More Pro can
be adapted to the level
and needs of the
student.
Tell Me More Pro enables teachers to define the order of exercises and control accessibility to the activities.
Complete student tracking Fully networkable Complete method
Auralog Inc.
3344 E. Camelback Road Suite I 07 Phoenix, AZ 85018 Phone: 602.957.3535 Fax: 602.957.3504 www.auralog.com
49