CMC Technologies for Teaching Foreign Languages: What’s on the Horizon?

PETER A. LAFFORD
BARBARA A. LAFFORD
Arizona State University

Abstract:
Computer-mediated communication (CMC) technologies have begun to play an increasingly important role in the teaching of foreign/second (L2) languages. Its use in this context is supported by a growing body of CMC research that highlights the importance of the negotiation of meaning and computer-based interaction in the process of second language acquisition (SLA) (Chapelle, 1998; Payne & Whitney, 2002). Recent research has also pointed out the importance of situated cognition (Brown, Collins, & Duguid, 1989) and the use of task-based activities (Doughty & Long, 2003) to allow students to acquire language in meaningful contexts for specific purposes. In this paper, various CMC technologies will be described and critically evaluated for their possible applications in task-based foreign language learning activities. First, general issues of connectivity will be defined and discussed (e.g., wired, wireless, and infrared technologies; dial-up vs. broadband, etc.). Then various asynchronous and synchronous CMC technologies will be described and evaluated, pointing out their strengths and drawbacks for use in a L2 learning environment. The authors then compare and contrast the use of a task-based language-learning activity within wired versus wireless environments. The paper concludes with an overall discussion that focuses on the challenges facing the implementation of these technologies (e.g., accessibility, compatibility, financial considerations), some possible solutions to those problems, and some speculation about future uses of these technologies to enhance the L2 learning experience.
KEYWORDS
CMC, Task-based Language Learning, Asynchronous Communication, Synchronous Communication, Wired Versus Wireless Technology, Wi-Fi, 802.11
INTRODUCTION
In recent years computer-mediated communication (CMC) technologies have begun to play an increasingly important role in the teaching of foreign/second (L2) languages. The use of CMC in this context is supported by a growing body of research that recognizes the importance of the negotiation of meaning (Hatch,
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1978; Long, 1981; Varonis & Gass, 1985; Pica, Kanagy, & Falodun, 1993; Gass & Varonis, 1994; Gass, 1997; Long & Robinson, 1998) and computer-based interaction (Chun, 1994; Kern, 1995; Salaberry, 1996; Ortega, 1997; Warschauer, 1997; Beauvois, 1998; Chapelle, 1998; Pellettieri, 1999; Blake, 2000; Salaberry, 2000; Sotillo, 2000; Warschauer & Kern, 2000; Furstenberg, Levet, English, & Maillet, 2001; Payne & Whitney, 2002; Kötter, 2003; Smith 2003a, 2003b; Tudini, 2003; Lee, 2004) in the facilitation of the acquisition of a second language (SLA). Beauvois (1998) and Payne and Whitney (2002) have also noted the positive effects of written CMC on oral communication among second language learners, which supports Levelt's (1989) model of language production.
Recent research has also pointed out the importance of situated cognition (Brown, Collins, & Duguid, 1989) and the use of task-based activities (Doughty & Long, 2003; Skehan, 1996, 1998; Willis, 1996), especially those that require students to negotiate meaning to arrive at a single outcome (e.g., jigsaw tasks,1 as described by Pica et al., 1993; Blake, 2000), to allow students to acquire language in meaningful contexts for specific purposes.
In this paper, various CMC technologies will be described and evaluated and their possible applications in task-based foreign language learning activities will be proposed. First, since CMC requires the communication of ideas among several interlocutors who are connected to each other through computer technologies, general issues of connectivity will be defined and discussed. Then, various CMC technologies will be described and evaluated, pointing out their strengths and drawbacks for use in a L2 learning environment. Included in this discussion will be technologies that facilitate both synchronous and asynchronous written and oral communication. The next section of the paper discusses task-based instruction and the use of these new technologies in tasks that facilitate second language acquisition. The differential effects of using various technologies in selected task-based activities will also be explored. This paper concludes with an overall discussion that focuses on the challenges facing the implementation of these technologies (e.g., accessibility, compatibility, and financial considerations), some possible solutions to those problems, and some speculation about future uses of these technologies to enhance the L2 learning experience.
USE OF THE INTERNET
The Pew Internet and American Life Project (see http://www.pewinternet.org) has been publishing research since 2000 about the role and evolution of the Internet in American life. Figure 1 shows the trend of American adults online rising from about 15% in 1995 to over 60% in 2004.
Moreover, today's high school and college students have embraced the Internet, email and instant messaging (IM) even more aggressively than the population at large. In fact, according to Lenhart (2003), 78% of the 12-17 age group go online compared with 63% of Americans as a whole. In addition, 92% of online teens use email, and 74% use IM, not only to communicate with friends, but also with their teachers. In another study, Thorne (2003) found that younger people use email for vertical communication across power and generation lines but prefer to utilize
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IM for mediating interpersonal age-peer interactions for relationship building. Clearly, CMC is a major mode of communication among the younger generation. However, a report from the Pew Internet and American Life Project (2002) points out that, in terms of learning and teaching opportunities, students are ready to take more advantage of the Internet than the schools are. Therefore, L2 educators must leverage the interest and inclination of students toward positive CMC use to acquire the target language.
Figure 1
Percentage of American Adults Online, 1995-2004a

aSource: http://www.pewinternet.org/trends/InternetAdoption.jpg
DESCRIPTION AND EVALUATION OF CMC TECHNOLOGIES2
In order to benefit from this discussion of the application of CMC technologies to foreign language instruction, one must first have a basic understanding of the advantages and limitations of both wired and wireless connectivity.
Wired Connectivity3
The networking by which a desktop or laptop computer is connected to the Internet with a cable of one sort or another is “wired” connectivity. In a corporate setting, academic office, or lab environment, this usually involves direct connection to the Internet with at least a “T1” broadband connection to a wide-area network (WAN) of the Internet. On the local-area network (LAN) side, the LAN connects computers within the building, organization, or campus to each other and, in turn, to the “router” connected to the WAN. LANs are most often Ethernet networks, ranging from a 10 Base-T network (using 10 megabit-per-second UTP [unshielded twisted-pair] “Cat-3” [category 3] cabling) to a 100 Base-T (“100 Megabit”) or 1000 Base-T (“Gigabit”) network with “Cat-5e” cabling. Most computers come with an Ethernet card or built-in port for an RJ-45 modular plug, so that the physical network connection is fairly simple; a network setup wizard helps end users
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configure the TCP-IP software even in the small office or home environment. A wired connection is the most reliable, least expensive type of LAN connectivity; the disadvantage of wired connectivity is the fairly high level of physical infrastructure required, in terms of hardware and cabling in a computer lab, to provide this resource to an entire class.
Wireless Connectivity
In an 802.11 wireless Ethernet environment, often called “Wi-Fi” (for “wireless fidelity,” helping to distinguish it from the term “wireless” when this term is used to refer to cellular telephones), the same basic components as in a wired Ethernet network are present, except that there is a “Wireless Access Point” connected to, or built into, the router. Further, the Ethernet card on the computer does not have an RJ-45 port for a cable, but rather an antenna to facilitate receiving and transmitting the network data via radio waves. There are two popular versions of Wi-Fi: (a) 802.11b, which operates at speeds up to 11 Mbps and (b) 802.11g, which is backwards-compatible with 802.11b but operates at speeds up to 54 Mbps.
A single Wi-Fi access point can provide coverage for a standard four-bedroom house, a wing of a building, or a café hotspot, for example. To provide Wi-Fi access to larger areas, Wi-Fi “extenders” and bridged access points broaden the range. New “mesh network” technology is providing Wi-Fi access across multiple city blocks and entire university campuses with self-organizing access points which seek out and negotiate Wi-Fi access. (WiMAX [802.16] is another emerging technology promising wireless broadband access over areas measured in miles rather than feet.) End users still need an account or some sort of permission to make use of the network, but, as more laptops and personal digital assistants (PDAs) with Wi-Fi capability come into use, this type of wide area Wi-Fi has the potential to significantly increase online access and, thereby, offer more access to CMC without being tethered to the lab or the office.
A Wi-Fi environment is quite attractive in terms of minimal cabling demands and, in fact, lends itself well to a mobile lab cart concept. The typical mobile lab cart has 25 to 30 laptop computers with adapters and a Wi-Fi access point which is simply plugged into an Ethernet jack in the classroom. Each laptop is equipped with Wi-Fi networking configured to provide peer-to-peer access (access to each of the other computers for messaging and collaborative work) and access to the Internet. The laptops get charged up when not in use, so all users in the class can be at their own desk with a laptop running from the charged battery, effectively turning any classroom into a computer lab for an hour. The Ethernet connection and Wi-Fi would not be able to support 30 laptops downloading streaming multimedia, but it would be adequate for web browsing, messaging, and email. With low-end laptops costing less than $1,000 each, a mobile lab cart could be purchased for approximately $1,000 per workstation.
One disadvantage to Wi-Fi connectivity is the additional care needed to maintain a secure environment. While security is important in any network, the wireless aspect of Wi-Fi demands special attention to prevent unauthorized use of
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the network or access to the files on a Wi-Fi-connected device. Physical security would also be an issue for the maintenance and storage of inherently portable laptops.
A quick mention about Tablet PC's is in order here since they provide an alternative to the laptop with similar functionality.4 A Tablet PC is essentially a notebook (or small laptop) computer with a special LCD panel with touch screen capabilities; the normal mode of input and navigation is with a stylus on the screen, using the built-in handwriting recognition (which usually takes a period of adjustment) or an on-screen keyboard for hunt-and-peck use with the stylus. Some Tablet PCs are actually convertibles, with a standard keyboard underneath. Most Tablet PCs have various forms of wireless connectivity built in and run special versions of Windows software applications. They are usually smaller than a laptop but are also usually more expensive; an institution considering a class set of laptops for a mobile cart might also consider the Tablet PC.
Global system for Mobile Communication (GSM) and Cellular Telephones
A major new technology used for wireless connectivity is global system for mobile communication (GSM) which, itself, has a number of varieties: general packet radio service (GPRS), enhanced data for GSM evolution (EDGE), and third generation GSM (3GSM). Each of these varieties provides some level of access to data on the Internet, though the slow data transfer speed (10-20 kbps uplink [sending], 10-64 kbps downlink [receiving]) and the small screen on cell phones require specially formatted web sites (sometimes referred to as “the wireless Internet”). This technology continues to evolve, however, and 3GSM promises multimedia delivery to cell phones or other wireless devices with video communication capabilities in the near future.5
Infrared and Bluetooth
Other types of wireless communication technology include Infrared (IR) and Bluetooth. Infrared wireless technology is really quite common: almost all of today's TV and VCR remote controls use a beam of infrared light (light at a wavelength which is below the visible spectrum) to transmit one-way commands to a small IR receiver on the TV or VCR. When the device can send and receive IR signals, IR connectivity can provide basic data transfer capabilities between IR-equipped devices at up to 4 Mbps (the “Fast IR” speed), allowing one user to “beam” a file or business card from one phone or PDA to another or print a document or photograph from a PDA or digital camera on an IR-equipped printer. IR connectivity requires very close head-to-head proximity, with the IR ports facing each other separated usually by not more than 18 inches.
One of the weaknesses of IR connectivity is also one of its strengths—the need to be in close, head-to-head proximity in order to establish a two-way communications link. While IR devices may try to communicate with any IR device found within range, in order for a transfer to be successful, the IR send and receive LED's need to maintain direct line-of-sight “contact.” This makes it an
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inherently more secure environment than non-line-of-sight radio frequency systems. Implementing an IR environment from scratch would be costly unless the primary device used was a low-end (monochrome) Palm-based PDA, which can be found for less than $100. Students can use PDAs to work in a peer-to-peer mode, as do the multiplayer games such as “Scrabble” (see http://www.handmark.com) which beam moves and letters from one player's hand-held device to the next. Alternatively, instructors can develop a more sophisticated (read, expensive) IR environment using a data distribution system such as Bluefish (see http://bluefishwireless.com) to distribute course documents, schedules, and collaborative projects. For data distribution systems, it would be important to have a well developed implementation plan since the cost would run into the thousands of dollars.
Bluetooth, named after the tenth-century Viking king who united Denmark and Sweden, is a very “local area” personal network which allows a user to have a wireless headset transmit audio to and from a cell phone still on the user's belt, print documents from a hand-held to a Bluetooth-enabled printer, or connect to the Internet via a Bluetooth access point. The current Bluetooth standard operates via radio waves in the 2.4 GHz bandwidth within a distance of up to 10 meters (within the space of a standard classroom) at speeds up to 1 Mbps. The protocol allows the creation of a small ad hoc “piconet” or personal area network (PAN) of up to eight Bluetooth-enabled PDA's for collaboration or data exchange, using Palm's own BlueChat and BlueBoard Bluetooth connectivity applications (Palm, Inc., 2001).
The advantage of Bluetooth over IR is the radio frequency technology which frees users from head-to-head beaming. The collaborative possibilities with Colligo (www.colligo.com) self-discovering networking software (for both Bluetooth and Wi-Fi) make Bluetooth a potentially more useful wireless technology than IR, but it would still require Bluetooth-equipped hardware. USB-port Bluetooth adapters are available for less than $50; institutions could perhaps purchase a class-set of Bluetooth adapters to use with student laptops when they are in class. This would leverage student's acceptance of the technology, allowing greater total access to technology without purchasing computers for all students because there would most likely be many students who had their own laptops. With the class set of Bluetooth adapters, and a limited number of school-owned laptops for those without their personal laptops, the whole class could participate in online activities in the classroom with a relatively modest capital investment. The primary weakness of Bluetooth is probably the security issue, again, in terms of keeping out unwanted connections and viruses, since Bluetooth generally tries to connect with any other available Bluetooth device. It would be important to monitor the configurations to assure that the desired connections were the ones which were actually made.
The connectivity described above can be used in a variety of ways in support of L2 acquisition through the use of computer-mediated communication. Although there will be cases in which the CMC applications overlap, it is helpful to divide the discussion into two basic categories: asynchronous and synchronous CMC.
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Asynchronous CMC
Email
Email is the most common form of CMC. Whether it is a web-based system like Microsoft's Hotmail, a proprietary system like AOL, or a system accessed with an email client such as Microsoft Outlook or Outlook Express, the central functionality is the same: asynchronous exchange of messages from one user to another (one-to-one) or from one user to a group of people via an email distribution list (one-to-many). The messages may be text only, text with graphics, html messages (e.g., with various fonts, colors, and backgrounds), or they may have files included as attachments, consisting of word processing documents, pictures, or even sound files or video clips.
The use of attachments may be constrained by a few limitations. As a result of the security threat posed by malicious, virus-bearing attachments, some email systems block delivery of any potentially harmful files. If security is not an issue, the other possible problem with attachments is file size, which is limited by some email systems in order to not overtax email box storage quotas. These problems are avoided by using a course management system's file sharing and delivery mechanisms, such as Blackboard's digital drop box, which allows easy transfer of large files containing graphics, audio, or video.
Threaded Discussion Boards
The threaded discussion board is a mainstay of CMC in L2 acquisition activities. It is an asynchronous tool which allows someone in authority to post a topic to start a discussion among classmates in the target language: La dieta Atkins: ¿Buena o Mala? `The Atkins Diet: Good or Bad?' Then the students are bidden to research the issue on the Internet (e.g., http://www.esmas.com/mujer/saludable/dietas/363285.html) and post a reply before the next class period, for example,
Student1: Creo que la Dieta Atkins es buena porque parece que la gente pierde peso.
[I think the Atkins Diet is good because people do seem to lose weight.]
Student 2: Creo que la Dieta Atkins es mala porque no hay un equilibrio entre varios tipos de comida—hay demasiada proteína que viene de los animals.
[I think the Atkins Diet is bad because it is not balanced between food groups—too much protein from animal sources.]
Student 3: Soy vegetariano; ¡esta dieta mata a los animales y debe ser prohibida!
[I'm a vegetarian; this diet kills animals and should be outlawed!]
This type of threaded discussion more readily offers a shared communicative experience than one-to-one email, which can get quite cumbersome when everyone is included through “reply to all” email messages. Most online course environments such as Blackboard and WebCT have some form of threaded discussion
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tool available, either for whole classes or small groups designated by the instructor.
The Yahoo! Groups application is a commercial, advertising-supported environment for facilitating group communication. Its prime function is the threaded discussion board, but the application also provides sections to transfer files, photos, links, database info, calendar information, and an area to post polls among the membership. The discussion board has a useful mode in that it can distribute all posts to the members via individual email messages or by a daily digest of all the posts once a day, cutting down on the email volume. The downside to Yahoo! Groups (and, frankly, all the advertising-supported web sites) is the intrusive nature of the promotional messages. While it is true that there is no such thing as a “free lunch,” advertisers are resorting to more and more creative means of getting their message across, especially in the face of more successful “pop-up blockers” built into browsers. While it is possible to set up a class group in Yahoo!, Microsoft Network, or a similar environment, it is better to take advantage of a closed course management system such as Blackboard or WebCT, if at all possible. In this way, users avoid the threat of access and spam from the outside world and can take advantage of the functionality built into the course management systems designed specifically to facilitate their educational mission. Both Blackboard and WebCT require an institutional investment in software, hardware, and support.
Threaded Discussion Boards with Audio
Horizon Wimba produces “Voice Tools,” web-based voice interaction applications with an educational focus.6 Its flagship product is a threaded voice board that offers a bulletin board application with audio capabilities. Other voice-enabled Horizon Wimba tools provide audio within email messages, oral assessment capabilities providing an online, aural/oral quiz environment, embedded audio on web pages, and an interface to course management systems (e.g., Blackboard or WebCT). Horizon Wimba also offers a synchronous audio tool for live, one-on-one conversation, lectures, and group discussions. The host application runs on a web server and is accessed by users in a Java-enabled browser window. Upon first viewing a web page or email message with an embedded Horizon Wimba message link, the browser downloads a Java applet to record and playback the small, compressed audio files that reside on the server. Rather than sending the audio as a bulky .wav file, Horizon Wimba provides access with a link to the audio file that is compressed when initially recorded and then streamed in real time, thus reducing bandwidth demands and enabling even dial-up audio support. It should be mentioned that the audio technology underlying the application seems to have been the focus of Horizon Wimba's development efforts, rather than polishing the user interface, which is currently rather cumbersome; it is hoped that the interface will be enhanced in future releases. Horizon Wimba is not an inexpensive product; it requires a server and licensing based on the number of concurrent users. However, when considered a core technology for distance learning, it is a reasonable expense.
The advantage of providing audio in an L2 threaded discussion board is obvious:
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the stimulus is aural, and the response is oral. A posting can be a message spoken at the time of recording, a music clip, or other audio file uploaded from a different source. The audio can also be supported with text and/or graphics. Students reply orally, can hear the responses of the other students, and the instructor's feedback as well in the discussion board. The instructor can reply orally in an email to individual students, if desired. The flexibility is limitless and well suited to long distance language learning. The disadvantage of this technology is the required audio hardware with its potential for configuration problems and the infrastructure required if using a server-based system such as that of Horizon Wimba.
Wikis and Blogs
Wikis and blogs (short for weblogs) are two other asynchronous modes of CMC which can be employed in the L2 classroom.7 The Center for Advanced Level Proficiency Education and Research (CALPER) at The Pennsylvania State University (see http://calper.la.psu.edu) has been exploring and supporting the role of wikis and blogs (as well as discussion boards and chats) in the language learning context. Wikis are collaborative web pages that can be edited by anyone visiting the page using basic, simple text editing. On the other hand, blogs are web pages where an individual (or a group) posts messages and invites comments; it is a form of threaded discussion, but less structured, and its themes are often personal (e.g., travelogues from family trips). CALPER also hosts blogs for language learning (see http://calper.la.psu.edu/blog). Some cell phone companies facilitate photo blogs with the MMS services. T-Mobile, for example, provides 25 MB of web space for a “My Album/My Journal” web page. Subscribers simply send photos from the camera phone directly to the Album/Journal page; they may also upload videos, audio files, and other pictures using a computer and a web interface. Subscribers then invite visitors to the site with the URL and a password so the visitors can post comments. Wikis and blogs strongly support collaboration, but it is sometimes difficult to keep spammers out of the collaborative interactions. While it is possible to restrict editing access to invited guests in protected areas, implementing such a restriction runs counter to the spirit of the tools. Pending more effective antispam efforts, however, the advantages of public access may be outweighed by the disadvantages.
Synchronous CMC
Instant Messaging
Instant messaging (IM) is a close relative of email, though occurring within a synchronous time frame, that requires both sender and receiver to be online at the same time. Online in this case means on the Internet with either a hard-wired or a wireless connection; the connection can be on the computer (desktop, laptop, or hand-held device) or an IM-capable cell phone. Each person must have an account or “screen name” on the system and must be logged into the IM system as “available.” All participants must use the same IM software (or a multinetwork client such as Cerulean Studios' Trillian software, which allows users to be logged into
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multiple IM networks in one application). Some systems support the use of web cams (usually low resolution, inexpensive digital video cameras) to add a live picture to the communication medium, and some also support audio interaction.
In general, to use instant messaging, users create a contact list of IM contacts (AOL calls their contact list a Buddy List) with the screen name or account number of the people with whom they wish to communicate. In order to complete the communication link, the other people on the contact list also need to add the original interlocutor to their contact lists. Then when individual users go online, they each log into the IM server as available. The server checks everyone's respective contact list and reports back to each list, stating who from each list is currently online and highlighting the names of the online contacts. Thus, user A selects the name of an online contact, opens a text window, types a message, and sends it. User B receives A's message, clicks a button to reply, and sends back another message, and so on. These messages may be displayed one by one in sequence or in a single window as a progressive real-time transcript, sometimes called a “chat,” depending on the IM client and the specific option chosen.
The major IM systems are AOL's Instant Messenger, ICQ, MSN Messenger, and Yahoo! Messenger. AOL's Instant Messenger started out as a closed messaging system available only to those using (and paying for) AOL's services (technically, a private dial-up network not on the Internet). In order to increase the user base for its IM function, AOL opened it up to non-AOL members on the Internet and distributed a free client application called AIM, which runs on desktops and (presumably wireless) hand-held PCs. This move extended the domain of AOL's IM beyond the AOL membership to Internet users at large. Indeed, many non-AOL members use AIM to communicate with other non-AOL members. Now owned by AOL, ICQ (an acronym to evoke the idea “I Seek You”)—the first widely used IM system outside the closed world of AOL—began in 1996. AOL now operates ICQ in parallel with its Instant Messenger system and has made it possible to put AIM screen names in the ICQ contact list, thereby providing a rare case of interoperability. Along the way, Microsoft and Yahoo! both developed IM applications, leading to considerable competition among all the IM platforms to offer the best, most engaging bells and whistles in order to attract users who will then see the advertising that supports the free IM environments.
Among the more noteworthy attractions, Yahoo! Messenger and MSN Messenger have photo-sharing capabilities and theme-based contexts for their IM clients. Yahoo! has animated avatars to represent interlocutors and an integrated streaming radio application (LaunchCast) that allows the Yahoo! Messenger partners to share and discuss streaming audio (music) files and video clips that they are individually watching. Users can even view popular videos in foreign languages, which, if chosen carefully, can serve as launching points for serious cultural discussions. At the time of this writing, Yahoo! had, in addition to three English language Launch music pages, LaunchCast web pages for France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and American Spanish. It seems that English language artists dominate the offerings, but L2 artists are also available. Finally, there are often L2 advertisements preceding the videos that can be used for L2 learning activities.
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While IM software offers great potential, it may be difficult to control the IM environment in a lab setting. For example, while being directed to do a learning activity in the lab, students can use their own IM account to communicate with others outside the lab on matters completely unrelated to the learning activity at hand. This situation could be avoided by assigning lab-specific IM accounts to lab machines, so that students would be addressing “labmachine01” logged in as user “labmachine01,” and so forth. Students using IM systems from home could be instructed to sign in with a class-specific IM account since most IM systems offer free accounts. However, even here, students can circumvent these restrictions by maintaining multiple IM sessions. Nevertheless, if students are given a limited amount of time to accomplish a specific learning task, they will be more likely to stay on that task. The instructor and lab personnel would need to collaborate on the lab's set-up conditions and instructional strategies to best address each local situation.
Cell Phones, IM, and SMS Text Messaging
Further broadening the reach of IM, many cell phones on the market today come with AIM or other IM software built in. Cell phone companies are quite willing to provide as many opportunities for sending and receiving messages as the customer is willing to pay for, since each message (text or multimedia) generates revenue, either billed à la carte at a few cents per message or as another message from the “bucket” of messages purchased in bulk. Even if the messages are not counted as message units, they count as data, up- and downloaded via the cell phone's wireless Internet connection, again generating revenue for the cell phone carrier billed at a few dollars per megabyte of data.
Most cell phones also offer short message service (SMS) text messaging. SMS or text messaging (the terms are generally interchangeable) is a technology simpler than IM in that it does not involve IM software, contact lists, or the requirement that both users be simultaneously online to receive messages. Text messaging is potentially more useful than IM because it is very much like email; the cell phone telephone number is used as the destination address for a text message, which, when received, waits in an inbox on the phone to be opened when convenient for the recipient. Students have not ignored the potential utility of this quiet communication mode for exchanging unauthorized help during tests, and many institutions have wisely banned access to cell phones and other communications devices when their use is inappropriate.
SMS text messages, which are limited to 160 characters, are usually sent from a cell phone to another cell phone, but, in fact, it is possible to send SMS messages from a cell phone number to an email address, from an email address to a cell phone number, from a web site to a cell phone number, and even from some IM clients to a cell phone number, which can, in turn, send an SMS reply back to the IM client. (The Yahoo! Messenger does this particularly seamlessly.) This multimodal SMS would make it possible to engage in CMC in a class where not every student had a computer or a cell phone, but where everyone had access to some mode of CMC.
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A more sophisticated version of SMS, the multimedia message service (MMS) message can include a graphic or a sound file, also delivered to a cell phone number. The pictures and videos shot with cameras on cell phones are generally transferred as MMS messages.
The major disadvantages of SMS and MMS messaging are expense and reliability. In most cell phone contracts, SMS and MMS (if available) are options costing a few dollars per month for a certain number of messages. Most students with cell phones probably factor text messaging in as part of the cell phone expense. As for reliability, on some occasions, it may take some time for text messages to be delivered, and, if the classroom is in the basement of a five-story building, cellular service may be spotty. If the students do not have reliable coverage, it would be better to minimize the role of in-class cell-phone-based activity.8
Multiple User Text Chat
Some IM clients make it possible to have simultaneous chats with multiple participants. Each participant alternates between receiving/reading messages and typing/sending messages. In general, the messages are received automatically upon being sent. The text to be sent is typed into a text entry window and sent by clicking the “send” button. Some IM clients (ICQ, for one) have a “Chat” mode allowing the receiving participants to see the text as it is being typed. Rather than having to wait for a whole sentence to be typed and sent, the recipient can get a sense of where the text is going and can complete the thought by preemptively typing a message that is seen by the other participant, in effect, making the chat process more efficient. An earlier version of ICQ (prior to 2003) had a very interesting feature whereby a text chat could be replayed in real time; one could see the text being typed and corrected, which was valuable from a CMC research standpoint. Current versions of ICQ offer only a static .txt or .rtf file; CMC researchers wishing to study the details of the text entry and correction process must resort to analyzing more complex keystroke loggers, which may or may not capture both incoming and outgoing text.
Chat Rooms
It is important to differentiate among IM, multiuser chats (sometimes called conferences), and chat rooms. While IM and text chatting usually consist of one-to-one communication between known contacts and multiuser chats are peer-to-peer connections among multiple known contacts, the chat room is usually hosted on a server and may have dozens of participants at one time (though the creation of small-group chat rooms is possible). Chat rooms are an evolution of Internet relay chat (IRC), a text-based system in which users from around the world would log into a “room” on an IRC server and engage in a text-based conversation among the participants who happened to be in the same room. The text that chatters type scrolls by slowly or quickly according to the level of traffic; in an active room with dozens of native-speaker participants, the L2 learner is likely to be lost. In a more controlled environment, the chat room can be a useful exercise in communication
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in which L2 learners would interact either with nonnative speakers (NNSs) or native speakers (NSs) known to the instructor.
Today's chat room systems function in essentially the same way but may be browser-based (e.g., ICQ chat) or may use client software; in either case, there is usually a simple way to find the desired rooms among the hundreds or thousands available in each system, for example, #europe; #french; #language_and_culture. Upon providing a nickname by which the user is identified, the user can join the list of participants in the room, enter text, and submit it for discussion with those already in the room. It is also possible to start a private conversation with another user in the chat room by sending a message to that user only. If using a chat room system with video and audio capabilities (e.g., iVisit or PalTalk, see below) and if the user has a microphone or a web cam, it is possible to send video and audio to users who opt to receive the video and audio, even though most of the other participants use text chat. While all systems have public chat rooms with open access, most offer upgraded (more expensive) provisions for creating password-protected rooms with limited access, a very important function given the preponderance of chat rooms characterized by discussion and language inappropriate to L2 acquisition.
Cziko and Park (2003) discuss free IM and chat software which provide audio (and video) capabilities: AOL's Instant Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger, MSN Messenger and Windows Messenger, PalTalk, and iVisit. Included in their article are discussions about tandem language learning—a context in which participants take turns being learner of the second language and tutor of their native language—as well as discussions dealing with concerns about the public nature of the chat rooms. Cziko and Park favor PalTalk's multiple-participant audio chats where only one participant may speak at a time, though they also mention a special feature of iVisit that allows playback of up to 10 minutes of a recorded chat session. These authors also point out that while video support may provide an added level of interest, in actual practice, the talking-head image (usually available) is less critical to the L2 learning experience than the audio. In setting up a lab for this type of CMC, Cziko and Park consider good audio hardware to be essential. Therefore, a good microphone-equipped headset, with complete ear enclosures, is indispensable in a lab environment.
As long as the issue of uninvited participants is controlled in the chat room environment being used, chat rooms can provide a rich opportunity for real communication. The ability to log in from anywhere makes it possible to use chat either in a classroom/lab environment or in a distance learning environment with students logging in from home at a prearranged time. Participating in public chat rooms around the world is also a valuable communicative activity, provided participants are adults who can make the right decision about room selection to advance their language skills.
Many of the chat applications allow the transcript of a chat session (from IM, ICQ, or other sources) to be saved and printed out, thus extending the reach of the benefits of CMC from the computing lab to the regular classroom by facilitating class analysis of the written language used in the chats. For instance, in the class
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following the chat interchange, the instructor can use a computer or overhead projector to project the image of a chat transcript and focus on linguistic features that occur in the chat interactions (e.g., pragmatically (in)appropriate speech, use of certain grammar points, or spelling/punctuation questions).
Security issues can be minimized by having students use the chat function in course management software (e.g., Blackboard or WebCT), which allows students to communicate within a closed system (one in which only students in the class are permitted to enter the chat rooms). To enable students from different classes to communicate with each other, students could use a local web-based chat that has been specially programmed to allow only students participating in this activity to send and receive chat messages.
The next section of this paper will explore the use of these new technologies in task-based activities that facilitate L2 acquisition and the differential effects of the use of wired and wireless technologies to carry out the same task.
TASK-BASED INSTRUCTION
According to Willis (2004)9 task-based instruction (TBI) grew out of communicative language teaching (CLT). CLT, which “makes use of real-life situations that necessitate communication” (Galloway, 1993, p. 2), emerged in the 1970s as a reaction to grammar-translation and audiolingual approaches. CLT drew on ideas by Hymes (1972), who proposed the need for students to attain communicative competence10 in the target language, Halliday (1973, 1975), who viewed language primarily as a system for conveying meaning and carrying out linguistic functions, Austin (1962) and Searle (1969), whose work on pragmatics highlighted the importance of using language appropriately in various contexts, and Grice (1975), who outlined shared maxims of linguistic behavior that underlie communication.
The basic principle of CLT that language learning should be driven by communicative ends and through exposure to authentic and purposeful uses of language led to content-based instruction (CBI), an approach to language teaching that utilizes foreign language texts (oral and written) to illustrate the purposeful use of the target language, that is, to teach the content of another discipline (e.g., art, history, politics). TBI focuses on purposeful language use through the use of content-driven tasks within a communicative context.
The term “task” has been defined in many ways in the SLA literature.11 For instance, Willis (1996) defines a task as “a goal-oriented activity in which learners use language to achieve a real outcome. In other words, learners use whatever target language resources they have in order to solve a problem, do a puzzle, play a game or share and compare experiences” (p. 53). On the other hand, Skehan (1996) defines tasks and task-based instruction in the following way: “[tasks are]… activities which have meaning as their primary focus … A task-based approach sees the learning process as one of learning through doing … it is by primarily engaging in meaning that the learner's system is encouraged to develop” (p. 20). Skehan (1998) proposes a definition of task in which “meaning is primary, there is some communication problem to solve, there is some sort of relationship to comparable real-world activities, task completion has some priority, and the
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assessment of the task is in terms of outcome” (p. 95). Following Willis (1996) and Skehan (1996, 1998), Hadley (2004) states that “Task and Task-Based Learning … is defined as a series of graded activities that require learners to work with the target language, with the purpose of preparing learners to meet the challenges of real-world functions” (p. 2).
Willis (2004) notes that many of the definitions of task in the SLA literature (a) mention the need to arrive at an outcome or attain a goal or objective, (b) assume that tasks are meaning focused, (c) acknowledge or imply the possibility of the use of more than one skill to complete a given task (e.g., reading, speaking, and writing), and (d) resemble real-world problem-solving activities in order to motivate students and facilitate their ability to appropriately use the target language in real-world interactions. In this paper, we will base our discussion of task-based learning on the ideas presented by Willis (1996, 2004), Skehan (1996, 1998), and Hadley (2004).
Although tasks do not necessarily involve two-way communication to achieve their goals (e.g., searching the target language newspaper for retail bargains), this paper's focus on tasks within a CMC context behooves us to focus on tasks requiring interaction between NNS learners and NNS/NS instructors, other NNS peers, or unknown NSs of the target language. Several scholars have also proposed various taxonomies of interactive tasks;12 among the most cited works of these authors is the article by Pica et al. (1993), who assume that interaction forms the basis for SLA and that activities that require negotiation of meaning help learners make input more comprehensible. Two of these task types include information gap and jigsaw activities.
Jigsaw tasks are distinguished from information gap tasks in the following way. In information gap activities, students exchange information either one-way (one student is the sender, the other is the receiver) or two-way (each has information the other needs to obtain). In jigsaw tasks, students possess different pieces of information that are needed to solve a problem, and they must collaborate in order to come to a common solution. Pica et al. (1993) predicted that those activities requiring cooperation, convergence, and pooling of resources (e.g., jigsaw activities) would require more negotiation of meaning. Blake (2000) confirmed this hypothesis and found that jigsaw tasks “constitute ideal conditions for SLA, with the CMC medium being no exception” (p. 133). The sample activities described below are jigsaw activities requiring interaction among several language students.
NATIONAL STANDARDS
TBI interfaces well with the implementation of the National Standards for Foreign Language Teaching (National Standards, 1999). The use of internet and other wired/wireless technologies facilitate the integration of the five C's (Communication [interpretative, presentational, and interpersonal modes], Culture [perspectives, practices, and products], Comparisons, Connections, and Communities) in various tasks. While we will not delve into the definitions or underlying reasons for these standards here,13 in the rationale sections of the tasks that follow we will
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make reference to the standards incorporated into the activities involving the use of the new technologies discussed above.
NEW TECHNOLOGIES APPLIED TO TBI
In this section, we will present a jigsaw task that can be implemented through the use of CMC (wired and wireless) in a language learning setting. Each task will be accompanied by a description of the task, procedures, rationale, materials/technologies required, outcomes, and discussion of the task. In addition, for each task, the differential effects of the use of various CMC technologies (wired vs. wireless) on activity procedures and student outcomes will be discussed. The differences in student abilities and outcomes in the two versions of the task will have to be tested empirically before any statements could be made regarding the effectiveness of one or the other technology on the language learning process.
Task 1 (jigsaw): Cultural Heritage Activity (Intermediate/Advanced, wired)
Task description
Real-world activity: You are a member of a Cultural Heritage Committee, whose mission is to highlight the contributions that a given minority ethnic group has made to the community in a large urban area. You and the other members of your committee wish to form a web site that provides information on the history of the community and the role that it plays in the current life of the city. Since an important member of the group (either a NNS or a NS) is currently located in a country of origin of the ethnic group, all communication about this web site needs to take place via the Internet. The committee decides to go out and make a record of cultural products and practices (e.g., pictures of monuments, architecture, museums, restaurants, stores, celebrations, parades) of that ethnic community and record (audio or video) members of the community speaking their language at cultural events or in more intimate family settings, using digital technology (e.g., still and video cameras, digital audio recorders, and minidisc recorders). The US-bound members concentrate on their local ethnic community while the in-country member gathers similar information about similar cultural perspectives, practices, and products in that target culture country. All of the pictures, audio files, and video files can then be uploaded to a common web site so the project can take shape. The committee members then form a wiki to work on the web page and chat with each other (via ICQ or Horizon Wimba's Voice Direct) as they negotiate what to put on the site.
Procedures
Classroom simulation: A language class decides to create a web page on the target language ethnic community in their city. The class is divided into smaller groups of three students, who use a chat function in the computing lab (e.g., Virtual Classroom in Blackboard) to plan the creation of their portion of the class web site (e.g., history, celebrations, community groups) and make individual assignments. Students in the smaller groups then go into
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the community and gather their assigned information and make pictorial and audio or video recordings of that information using digital cameras, digital audio recorders, minidisc recorders, and digital video cameras. They are also required to interview (in the target language) at least two members of the target community and record this conversation (or a conversation among native speakers using the target language) using digital audio or video technology (permission will need to be granted by all people interviewed before their images or voice can be used for this project). If a study abroad/exchange student or a native speaker (in-country) can be found to participate in this task, similar information from that person will also be incorporated into the web site (perhaps comparing/contrasting a celebration in the country of origin with the same event as it is celebrated in the United States). They then use a wired connection to upload this information to a wiki and complete the task as described above using a synchronous chat function (e.g., ICQ or Horizon Wimba's Voice Direct) on the side to discuss changes they want to make to the wiki. Students then present their portion of the final web site to the class in a computer-equipped classroom with Internet access.
Rationale
Students in this jigsaw task negotiate meaning to come to a common solution (Communications standard, interpersonal mode). They also acquire cultural knowledge about the ethnic group in their community that speaks the target language of the classroom (Culture and Communities standards). If it is feasible to include a person in another country for this activity, students could make comparisons and contrasts between the local ethnic community and the target culture in a country of origin (Comparisons standard) and find out about some of the cultural perspectives underlying the practices (e.g., celebrations of historical events) and products (e.g., food and dances) they document (Culture and Connections Standards). The use of digital technologies makes possible the uploading of this information directly to a web site. The use of wikis and ICQ (or Horizon Wimba's Voice Direct) on the side facilitates simultaneous communication among the students as they finalize the web site.
Materials/technologies (required)
Computers with a chat function (e.g., ICQ, Horizon Wimba's Voice Direct), connections to the Internet, digital cameras, digital audio recorders, minidisc recorders, and digital video cameras.
Outcomes
Students negotiate meaning via chat room dialogues as they agree on a common solution in this jigsaw activity. Students also become much more aware and appreciative of the contributions that their target language ethnic group has made to their community at large. In addition, they gain perspectives on the target culture in the form of products and practices and the origins of certain celebrations and the perspectives underlying them. Through the incorporation of digital technologies, students gain experience creating a portion of
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the class web site that contains pictures, audio files, and video files of aspects of the target language local community and a similar community in a country of origin. Students make an oral presentation to the class to demonstrate their portion of the web site in a computer-equipped classroom or language computing lab.
Discussion of task
In this activity, students are required to interact with members of the target language ethnic community in their urban area to complete this task. The collaboration necessary to complete this jigsaw task requires negotiation of meaning (with other NNSs or perhaps with NSs in another country) and the use of digital technologies to create a portion of a common web site. This activity will not only enhance students' language skills, but will also help them hone their knowledge and use of digital cameras, digital audio recorders, minidisc recorders, and digital video cameras and the ability to up- and download pictures, audio files, and video files to a web site using a wired connection. If there is an opportunity to include a friend on a study abroad program or a native speaker from a target language country in this activity, students could benefit from his/her perspectives on the target culture as well as from pictures, audio files, and video files that he/she uploads to the same wiki. The disadvantage of using this technology is that students have to carry around a lot of equipment (video cameras, audio recorders, and digital cameras) to capture the information and then have to take more time later on to upload it to a web site. If students then find themselves among native speakers having an interesting conversation without the necessary equipment, a valuable opportunity for capturing this information will be lost.
Task 2 (jigsaw): Cultural Heritage Activity (Intermediate/Advanced, wireless)
Task description
Same as in task 1 above.
Procedures
Classroom simulation: A language class decides to create a web page on the target language ethnic community in their city. The class is divided into smaller groups of three students in various locations who use a chat function on their laptops, PDAs, or cell phones to plan the creation of their portion of the class web site (e.g., history, celebrations, community groups). Students can use a combination of their own personal phones, PDAs, or laptops and those that might be provided by the university. Students in the smaller groups gather the cultural information and make a pictorial record and audio or video recordings of members of the target culture engaged in daily conversation or various cultural practices (e.g., celebration of a day of independence) using cell phone cameras capable of taking pictures and making short audio or video recordings.14 After capturing their pictures, audio, or video, students can send these files from their wireless phones via MMS messages to an email address or a web site. Alternatively, students can upload these audio
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and video files using a Web interface on a laptop or PDA after transferring the files to these devices using Bluetooth, IR, or some sort of flash memory such as Secure Digital, Compact Flash, and so on. This can be accomplished while still in the field, at an Internet cafe, where they can either discuss their files in person, or, if time is short, they can later discuss the files they received from each other using their cell phones (or PDAs with Wi-Fi access) to send SMS messages or participate in Upoc synchronous protected chat groups. Even a study abroad/exchange student or a native speaker (in-country) participating in this task can use a cell phone to record similar things in the country, send them directly to a web page or to an email address, and participate in the SMS or synchronous chat discussions. The members of the group can then retrieve the pictures and video files from their email messages or web pages and proceed to work in a wiki to complete the task as described above using a synchronous chat function available through their cell phones, PDAs, or laptops. When they finish their task students then present their portion of the final web site to the class in a computer-equipped classroom with Internet access.
Rationale
As in the wired task, students negotiate meaning to come to a common solution (Communications standard, interpersonal mode). They also acquire cultural knowledge by investigating various aspects of the target culture in their own community and abroad (Comparisons, Culture, Connections, and Communities standards). The use of wireless technology allows students more flexibility with their communication and makes it possible for three people in various geographic (wireless) locations to plan an activity together. The temporal and spatial flexibility of these wireless technologies give users more freedom to communicate with each other without being tied to a computer lab or to their home computers. Some digital still cameras have Bluetooth capabilities, which allow pictures to be transferred to a Bluetooth-enabled cell phone, for transfer using MMS. This would allow the pictures and videos to be submitted from the field to an email account or a web page, without a complex wired computer connection.
Materials/technologies (required)
Cell phones capable of taking pictures and recording audio and video clips, PDAs, laptops, synchronous chat function. Audio files (recorded conversations of native speakers) can be captured on cell phones with calling a voice-over-IP (VoIP) voicemail service that has voicemail delivered via email. The recordings of several voices at once would be aided by a speaker phone function on the cell phone.
Outcomes
The final outcomes are the same as described above. However, because the use of wireless technologies facilitates communication anytime and in anyplace, it is possible that more interaction and negotiation of meaning will take place in the wireless form of this activity.
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Discussion of task
The wireless version of this activity facilitates the completion of the task for people with very busy schedules who have difficulty finding time to meet physically in person to use desktop computers. In addition, students can be encouraged to go out into the target language community to capture spontaneous interviews with NSs without having to carry around expensive, bulky recording equipment. The use of these cutting-edge technologies would also animate students (some of whom may already be enamored with wireless communication) and motivate them to complete this task. However, this task does have some possible drawbacks. For instance, in state universities that serve students with modest technical backgrounds, it cannot be assumed that an entire class would have access to technologies which can capture and send pictures, audio files, or video files to complete the project. For students without such access, the university will need to provide the aforementioned hardware (cell phones, PDAs, and laptops) with the proper functional capabilities. In addition, the short video clips taken with cell phones do not have the capacity or the resolution of recordings made with digital video cameras. However, for a class project of limited dimensions, the quality of video and audio captured via the wireless technologies may be sufficient. To conclude, this wireless activity will not only enhance students' language learning experience, but it will also help them hone their knowledge and use of cell phones, PDAs, and laptops to communicate in a “classroom without walls” as they complete this task.
CHALLENGES TO IMPLEMENTATION OF NEW CMC TECHNOLOGIES
This article has discussed the application of CMC technologies to the teaching of foreign languages using task-based activities. While the authors believe the ideas presented are innovative and worthwhile, it is understood that they cannot all be implemented at all levels, nor would such a widespread implementation necessarily be appropriate. There are various barriers to implementation: cost, accessibility, and matching the task to the situation, among others. How can these barriers be overcome?
In considering the cost of the various technologies, one must take into account the cost of hardware acquisition, software licensing, and communication services. Can the hardware cost be shared among various programs, projects, or purposes? Although there may be some specialized hardware required for a camera or microphone, the function of a computer is generally determined by the software being run on it or the web sites being visited with it. For specialized hand-held computers, a class set could easily be shared between foreign language classes and English classes, with language web sites and communications software used by the language classes, while e-books loaded on removable memory would provide specific content and functionality used by the English classes. A mobile cart of laptops or Tablet PCs offers the same flexibility and can turn any classroom into a computer lab for the one or two sessions necessary to get a class started on a project which is then completed outside of class in a permanent computer lab.
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A capital acquisitions board or grant-funding agency might be more receptive to a proposal highlighting collaboration and cooperation than one focusing on a narrowly specified objective.
Other aspects of the CMC technology discussed above involve cell-phone-based text messaging or wireless communications between laptops and/or hand-held computers. More and more students are cruising the campus with their backpacks bulging with the latest communication device or MP3 player. If a project can include students using their own hardware, less hardware will need to be acquired by the institution. This does not absolve the institution from providing technology to those students who do not have their own; on the contrary, all students must have access to the class-wide activities. If it is determined that only a small proportion of the students in a class have their own tool for IM, then an IM-based activity should make use of institutional hardware, although the option for students to use their own device would still exist. As personal communication devices become more common, a set of PDAs, for example, they could be spread between two classes in which, say, half of the students have their own devices. This is certainly an area where each institution will need to evaluate its own demographics and act accordingly.
With the increased use of SMS and IM to student-owned devices, will there be an issue of cost for SMS messages or bandwidth being transferred to students' phone accounts? No more so than the concern that students must pay for the paper and pens they use as tools of today's educational system. Of course, a certain level of access to technology should be made available to students by the institution, but students who use their own equipment (e.g., laptops, palm tops, and cell phones) should consider the cost of connectivity a normal cost of education.
Software licensing, and conferencing and communication services are other areas where intrainstitutional collaboration may be possible. Perhaps the expense of a conferencing tool, such as Horizon Wimba or videoconferencing services from a communications provider, can be spread among the language department and the athletics department, to support distance learning for student athletes.
Accessibility is another potential barrier. Is the tool simple enough for students to grasp quickly, so that language learning is enhanced (rather than frustrated) by the technology? The educator must be attuned to the technology comfort level of students. It may be necessary to create teams of students, with the technologically stronger students distributed among the groups and serving as facilitators. As the projects progress, the other students will become more adept at manipulating the technology on their own.
Matching the task to the particular educational situation is probably the most challenging barrier to implementation. It is here that the educator must apply his/her understanding of individual students, the curricular goal of the task, and the technology available to accomplish the task to tailor the activity to the academic setting (e.g., primary, secondary, or postsecondary; beginning, intermediate, or advanced learners, etc.). Elementary and high-school students are better off in a controlled, protected online environment; college students could probably be granted a little more freedom, but still within clearly defined guidelines. If
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creative communicative interactions in a CMC environment can be made more realistic and meaningful through the use of information gap and jigsaw activities, then students will become more fully engaged in the process of L2 learning.
ON THE HORIZON
In his 1995 book, The road ahead, Microsoft's founder Bill Gates wrote broadly of “the information highway” and intelligent appliances that will have access to it, offering games, electronic mail, and home banking. He projected video on demand with direct-video-server-to-TV service without the need for a time-shifting VCR. He said that when the two dedicated communications infrastructures, telephone lines and television cables, “are generalized into one digital-information utility, the information highway will have arrived.” How correct were his predictions? Many people now get their video service from a cable TV provider who also supplies high-speed Internet access on the same wire. VoIP is a rapidly growing segment of the communications market; many modern technophiles have VoIP phone service, using high-speed Internet access over the cable TV line without any other phone line to their house.
Therefore, according to Gates' criterion, the information highway has already arrived. Aside from the obvious access to international web sites and culture, what does this highway bring to language students? It can facilitate audio and video contact with native speakers of the target language, not only with cumbersome chat programs, but also with standard telephones making low-cost, high-quality international VoIP telephone calls, for five cents per minute. Very shortly, VoIP providers will also offer low-cost video-over IP phone calls.
In addition, increased bandwidth is providing greater access to target language video programming. Not only do digital cable TV systems have hundreds of channels with many more sources of target language programming, but Internet sources for video have progressed beyond the postage stamp of astronaut video. For instance, SCOLA, the subscription service providing foreign-language news from around the world (see http://www.scola.org), has added high-quality streaming or downloadable video on demand to their normal satellite delivery. This allows instructors to post activities based upon current news broadcasts on a class web site or use SCOLA's “Insta-Class” transcripts and audio right off the web. Other news and entertainment outlets around the world provide streaming video of other target language programming. Among language-learning keypals or chat partners, these downloaded video clips can provide rich, relevant material for discussion. A little further down the road is video over broadband (IPTV), again with incredible variety and potential for educational programming.
Gates also enumerated things people might carry on their person: keys, money, identification, an address book, a calendar, a note-pad, reading material, a camera, a pocket tape recorder, a cellular phone, a pager, concert tickets, a map, a compass, a calculator, an electronic entry card, photographs, and so on. He predicted that another information appliance called the “wallet PC” would have a snapshot-sized screen providing all of the listed functions as well as email, faxes, weather and stock reports, games, wireless funds transfers, personal identification, GPS
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and navigation functions, etcetera, etcetera. The most basic “Pocket PC” available today does most of the information management mentioned, and free information services such as AvantGo (see http://www.avantgo.com) provide up-to-date information, even from foreign-language newspapers, for off-line reading, although a live Internet connection is required for synchronization. Given a student's capability to download virtually any web site to a hand-held device for off-line access, AvantGo could be used for distributing target language activities to students equipped with a hand-held device.
The electronic funds transfers and smart card credit card technology Gates talked about is not as far along in the United States as in some other technologically advanced countries, but radio frequency identification (RFID) chip technology, which has been used in pet identification applications for years, is finding its way into the marketplace in new ways, including passports and product tracking. Student ID cards may eventually have RFID chips, encoded with a student's schedule or major. A step up from the simple magnetic strip on today's ID card which must be swiped just to verify someone's identity, the Spanish major presenting an RFID card could be offered a Spanish language menu on the touch screen in the Student Union. Imagine a language school coffee house or study lounge whose virtual reality walls would morph from an Italian Gelato caffè to a French sidewalk café, to a Spanish flamenco bar as multilingual students chose the desired ambiance from a menu of possibilities; the lingua franca used would then cycle according to the target language of the students in the café. Alternatively, the topic of conversation, in whichever language, could follow the lead of the virtual reality walls, which could morph periodically from one social context to another by changing scenes (e.g., from a café to a travel agency to a museum).
On other horizons, greater wireless bandwidth to cellular phones with advanced G3 cellular telephone services will support video streaming technology to deliver video content to the telephones. Already available in certain markets, snapshot soap operas with two episodes of six still frames per day,15 and even short 1- or 2-minute video clips called “mobisodes”16 can provide content in the target language.
Another keyword for the future is “convergence,” applied not only to software, but also to hardware. The convergence of functionality in communications software sometimes blurs the line between IM client software, chat-room-client software and SMS software. This is due to the fact that IM clients such as ICQ and Yahoo! Messenger have chat room modules or web sites; conversely, software which was designed as chat room software, such as PalTalk (http://www.PalTalk.com) and CUworld (http://www.CUworld.com), have incorporated IM and contact list modules. Moreover, some IM software has built-in SMS capability, so that an interlocutor on a PC can use Yahoo! Messenger to engage in a text chat via SMS with someone on a cell phone just by using the cell phone number as the recipient.
On the hardware side, many cell phones have built-in IM clients, thus solidifying the role of the cell phone as a multipurpose communications device. Some cell phones have calendaring and address book capabilities, full (though cramped)
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QWERTY keyboards and voice recognition to facilitate text entry (e.g., Nokia 6800 and Samsung P207), and digital cameras; while others even have video camera functionality with the ability to record audio and video clips from 15 seconds to several minutes in length (see footnote 14). PDAs or pocket PCs are also converging with cell phones, digital cameras, digital audio recorders, and MP3 players. In the language lab, the cassette tape has given way to the audio CDs and online audio and video. An increasing number of publishers are providing their audio and video materials in digital format, ready for streaming. In order to use the streaming content, students have typically needed to be at a computer with an active Internet connection. However, the new technology involved in “podcasting” will allow students to download streaming audio and video onto hand-held devices and play it back in a convenient venue. Podcasting is an evolution of the XML news-reader subscription technology using Really Simple Syndication (RSS) designed to download audio content to the desktop where it gets synchronized and downloaded to a mobile audio device, such as Apple's iPod (hence the name “podcasting”), any MP3 player, or other digital audio player. The elegance of podcasting is in its simple versatility. While the most popular use of podcasting so far appears to be audio “blogcasting”—that is, home grown audio “talk radio” and music—and podcasting of some radio programs, it would be a very efficient way to deliver audio programming to language students, and even for students to produce class projects. The language lab would set up the RSS audio channels as password-protected feeds, supplying the week's programming and perhaps including the latest news from SCOLA's Insta-Class programs. Students would download the audio with iPodder (www.ipodder.org) or Doppler (www.DopplerRadio.net) software to a computer and, optionally, to a mobile device. The computers in the language computing lab would also have the iPodder or Doppler software subscribed to the up-to-date feeds and make them available for playing or downloading. Video programming could also be made available for download in a similar fashion, eventually downloaded to the student's pocket DVR (a PDA-sized device with a multi-gigabyte microdrive) or served up to video capable cell phones or via IPTV.
From the early days of the language lab a half century ago, the language teaching profession has always been on the leading edge of applying technology to education. In the language lab and in the classroom, audio/visual technology added a dimension of reality to the language-learning experience. Over the past quarter century, CALL has been enhancing this experience, primarily in the language lab. Today, technology useful to education can be found in an increasing number of bookbags, masquerading as a cell phone, an MP3 player, a PDA, or a notebook or laptop computer. The students who use this technology on a daily basis are ready, not to learn from it, but to learn with it. We reiterate a point made in the introduction to this article: the language profession must leverage the interest and inclination of students toward positive CMC use to acquire the target language. The energy and intelligence students invest in these new technologies is much too valuable for the language-teaching profession to ignore.
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NOTES
1 See section on task-based instruction in this paper for a definition of these activities.
2 See Tables 1 and 2 in the Appendix to this article for snapshot comparisons of the technologies described below in terms of reliability, complexity, and cost.
3 See Godwin-Jones (2002) for a more in depth discussion of Wireless Networks. Although the technology keeps advancing, most of this discussion is still relevant.
4 See Godwin-Jones (2003a) for a more in depth discussion of the Tablet PC.
5 The web site http://www.GSMWorld.com provides a good description of GSM technology.
6 Horizon Wimba is a new corporate entity, the result of the 2004 merger of HorizonLive, a provider of virtual classrooms and real-time collaboration software, and Wimba, a provider of web-based voice collaboration tools. The resulting firm, Horizon Wimba, promises more integrated educational communications environments featuring audio and video that are sure to be very intriguing to language instructors interested in using CMC technologies.
7 See Godwin-Jones (2003b) and Thorne and Payne (this volume) for further discussion of wikis and blogs.
8 An interesting enhancement to the SMS environment is provided by a free service called “Upoc” (see http://www.upoc.com). Upoc facilitates the creation of SMS and MMS distribution lists, allowing one text message to be sent to a class or group. It is also possible to accomplish IM-like chats by using an Upoc group. There are many possibilities for creative use of this feature.
9 See Leaver and Willis (2004) for an extended discussion of task-based instruction.
10 Hymes (1972) noted that the need for a consideration of communicative competence (CC) emerged as a reaction to Chomsky's (1965) focus on only grammatical competence. This notion was expanded by Canale and Swain (1980), Canale (1983), and later by Bachman (1990).
11 See Willis (2004) for an in-depth discussion of the definitions of task.
12 Further discussion of these task types goes beyond the scope of this paper, but the reader is referred to Skehan (1996), chapters 5 and 6, for an in-depth discussion of various types of tasks used to facilitate L2 acquisition.
13 The reader is referred to National Standards (1999) as well as the ACTFL web site (see http://www.actfl.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=3392) for more information on the National Standards.
14 The length of audio or video clips that can be captured using cell phones depends on several factors (e.g., buffer and memory capacities of the cell phone and the voice-over-IP (VoIP) service. When making a video clip, the video information is first buffered in the short-term memory and is then automatically transferred to the long-term memory in the cell phone; the length of each clip is limited by the size of the buffer, and the total clip capacity is limited by the long-term memory storage. Some phones have slots to accept removable long-term memory cards, for virtually unlimited total capacity. On today's phones, for instance, the maximum length of a single video clip may be as short as 15 seconds or as long as 5 minutes (as of this writing). The limits of audio recording on aVoIP voicemail system are set by the carrier (e.g., Vonage voicemail messages can be a maximum of 5 minutes long and take up to 6 MB of memory).
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15 See http://www.springwise.com/newbusinessideas/2003/10/jong_zuid.html for Holland.
16 See http://www.answers.com/topic/mobisode for general discussion; see http://www.wirelesswatch.jp/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=984 for Japan.
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APPENDIX
Table 1
CMC Technologies: General Reliability, Complexity, and Cost
CMC Category Technology Reliability Complexity Cost
Asynchronous
Email
Threaded discussion boards
Threaded discussion boards with audio PC, wired, wireless
PC, wired, wireless
PC, wired, wireless High
High
Medium Low
Medium
Medium Low
Low
Medium
Synchronous
Instant messaging
SMS/text messaging
Multiple user text chat
Chat rooms
Wikis and blogs PC, handheld, cell phone
PC, handheld, cell phone
PC
PC
PC High
Medium
Medium
Medium
Medium Medium
Medium
Medium
Medium
Medium Low
Medium
Low
Low
Low
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Table 2
CMC Technologies: Specific Reliability, Complexity, and Cost
(see associated .PDF document)
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AUTHORS' BIODATA
Peter A. Lafford is Associate Research Professional and Director of the Language Computing Laboratory at Arizona State University. He has written several reviews and articles for the CALICO Journal and other journals, and he is a frequent presenter at CALICO conferences and other national, regional, and state language conferences. He coauthored the chapter “Teaching Language and Culture with Internet Technologies” in the 1997 ACTFL volume Technology-Enhanced Language Learning. He is currently developing specialized delivery systems for the digital resources used in the hybridized language courses at Arizona State University.
Barbara A. Lafford is Professor of Spanish and Linguistics at Arizona State University. She has published in the areas of Spanish sociolinguistics, second language acquisition, applied linguistics, and CALL. Her most recent book Spanish second language acquisition: State of the science (2003) was co-edited with Rafael Salaberry. She has presented regularly at CALICO and other national and international linguistics associations (e.g., ACTFL, AATSP, AAAL, and AILA) and has served on the board of the Southwest Conference on Language Teaching and as President of the Arizona Language Association. She currently serves as a member of the CALICO Executive Board.