EUROCALL 2009 - after the conference: new VW SIG

EUROCALL 2009 in Spain was fantastic: perfect location, great food, super social events and excellent presentations. I ran a workshop on Second Life for newbies, assisted by my wife Sally, who acted as a fashion consultant to the ladies. We had 14 people in a state-of-the art lab equipped with computers with excellent graphics cards and big high-resolution display screens. The workshop ran without a hitch for three hours and then I gave a plenary presentation on a big screen to 50 local teachers, with a contribution from Randall Sadler speaking to us from the USA.

Randall Sadler (representing CALICO) and I (representing EUROCALL) have set up a joint Virtual Worlds Special Interest Group (VW SIG) for CALICO and EUROCALL members. 20 people were present at the launch meeting at EUROCALL 2009. I presented the EUROCALL HQ to the meeting and Randall was there "virtually" to give us a tour of the CALICO facilities next door, including his fabulous new castle holodeck. Further information on the new SIG has just been announced at the EUROCALL website:

http://www.eurocall-languages.org/sigs/vwsig.html

Regarding the Virtual Strand, you can replay the CoveritLive events via this blog and our Twitter feeds are still live at @EuroCALLVirtual:
http://twitter.com

Graham Davies

Symposium on new trends in telecollaboration

This morning (Saturday), I attended the symposium on new trends in telecollaboration by Melinda Dooly, Mirjam Hauck, Sarah Guth and Francesca Helma. It was a very well structured symposium, the contributions seemed to build nicely on each other. Whereas Mirjam concentrated on current research trends on multimodal competences and Melinda focused on teachers preparations and skills needed to carry out telecollaboration exchanges, Sarah and Francesca explored the dimensions involved in telecollaboration. These are the operational dimension (attitudes, beliefs, technical), the cultural one (mainly based on Byrams “savoirs”) and the critical (thinking) dimension. Teachers who are motivated to incorporate telecollaboration projects in their teaching need to be aware of these multiple dimensions and need to take them into account when thinking of meaningful tasks for the exchange. Studies showed that otherwise such exchqanges can quickly result in stereotypes being reinforced during the exchange rather than overcome.

Sarah and Francesca managed to put their fingers right at the burning issues of the new generation of telecollaboration in language teaching and learning. For me, it was the most inspiring presentation of Eurocall2009 so far. I am very much waiting for their book, due to come out soon.

CoverItLive Session for Day 3

Preparatory study for the design of Visu, a desktop videoconferencing platform for synchronous language tutoring

One of the highlights of the day was Nicolas Guichon´s presentation on the use of desktop conferencing (DVC) for effective language teaching. Visu (pronounced in different ways, but all are just fine) is a project that reflects the joint efforts of foreign language teachers and computer specialists to design a system that would assist the former in their tasks. Such system combines video conferencing features in addition to other functionalities. Nicolas identified a number of skills as essential for effective online teaching using DVC, the most important of which were: social (the ability to establish and maintain a relationship with the learner), pedagogical (ability to design suitable teaching tasks), and multimedia-related (ability to operate software). As for the methodology followed in this study, two teachers of French as a foreign language were selected (out of a group of ten). Through a DVC platform, they were in regular contact with American students at UC Berkeley. Their 2^nd and 3^rd teaching sessions were captured using ´screenvideo´ recorder. After eight weeks of instruction, a focus group was formed to receive feedback from the teachers and validate inferences. One of the challenges that the teachers encountered was the number of tasks that had to be undertaken at the same time. For example, they had to maintain conversations with the learner(s), take notes, and manage time simultaneously. Teachers´ comments were taken into account for the future development of the project. Further research will be conducted especially in relation to the impact of Visu on the learners.

New e-frontiers of assistive software and their positive impact upon a blind student´s language learning experience

In her usual engaging style, Mariana Orsini-Jones gave us a presentation on the role of new technologies in enhancing student learning in the specific case of a visually-impaired learner. Harry is currently studying French for his BA. He used to access learning material through the JAWS for Window software, which reads data on the screen using synthesized speech. Gradually, he found it quite artificial and therefore disliked it. Later, he was introduced to Apple MacBook with a voice-over tool for each key he used. The new application improved his learning and raised his motivation. It was interesting to watch Harry recount his personal journey using various software for the betterment of his learning. One of the attendees found his account particularly interesting, as she also has a Chinese visually-impaired learner. By the way, Mariana is trying to find Harry a job, in case you come across something suitable :-)

Subject Centre for Languages, Linguistics and Area Studies

Hello,
in connection with the presentation on the Language Box, I just wanted to attract your attention to the website of the Subject Centre for Languages, Linguistics and Area Studies from the Higher Education Academy.
It is a great source of information regarding future events (both from LLAS and third parties) and contains articles on a whole range of language-related topics.
In addition, I suggest you look at the bank of materials, as it contains a whole range of language learning materials, with background information from the authors.

The Language Box

Hi,
I attended another very interesting presentation today on the Language Box. It is an online repository for storing, managing and sharing language teaching and learning materials. It is open to all teaching staff and learners who want to produce and share materials.
The Language Box offers the possibility to upload and download materials, and also to write comments about them. In the presentation, it was interesting to learn that students fully embraced the culture of sharing materials and making comments about them, but that teachers did not really make comments.....
so I really think we should have a go at this, register, show what we do....and make comments as well!

CoverItLive Session for Day 2

Motivation revisited:empirical and theoretical validation of the Distributed Language Learning model

Another great presentation this afternoon by Frederik Cornillie and Josep Colpaert, which focused on two learning tools:
- Eurocatering (an online language learning tool for students and workers in the hospitality sector to be used in preparation for a work placement in Europe or as a stand-alone tool). The courseware application and social platform are available on http://www.eurocatering.org and it is free to register. It is really worth it looking at the range of activities and how they work....and also to try languages you don't speak!
- DISCO (Development and Integration of Speech Technology into Courseware for language learning) which aims to develop a CALL application which focuses on speaking skills in Dutch as a second language language. I particularly appreciated the realistic communication situations included in the presentation.

Comparative usability study of ICT tools for collaborative language learning

Hi,
just to let you know that I attended a great presentation by Andras Ketyi this afternoon, about a study he conducted among students at the Budapest Business School, who study German as a second language. The presentation focused on how using ICT tools in everyday teaching practice, with a view to increase efficiency and motivation. The following tools were used as part of the study: Moodle and CooSpace (Virtual Learning Environments), an interactive whiteboard and electronic voting system. These replaced the coursebook and study received the info in electronic format only.
I would be very grateful to hear from anyone who has been involved in (or knows about) studies regarding the use of collaborative learning tools and student motivation.
Thanks!

Info regarding EUROCALL Virtual Strand

Dear all,

you find all info regarding the Virtual Strand here:

http://eurocall.webs.upv.es/eurocall2009/vslinks.php


Mirjam
on behalf of the VS team

E-politeness

I just attended the session on "E-politeness strategies and the Development of Interculturality". Participants in the virtual strand may not be able to hear the entire presentation, as the presenter was not cabled up all the time.

Having done politeness research, but not in CMC environments, I was very interested to hear this presentation. Meei-Ling Liaw used a very interesting methodology to identify politeness strategies, which I have to look up (Bretag 2006: keyword / phrases approach).

I actually cannot remember the specifics of her results now, but a few questions came to my mind later - the main one being: In finding reasons for the results, how do you delineate
- cultural influences (the people communicating online in this instance were Taiwanese students and U.S. American pre-service teachers). Culture is a mindfield anyway for any politeness research!
- interlanguage and English as lingua Franca: While the Taiwanese students were communicating in what is essentially a foreign language for them, the U.S. students were communicating in their native language. However, English was also used as a lingua franca between them
- the specific affordances of the CMC environment

I would be really interested to do politeness research in a CMC environment, specifically focusing on interlanguage. Does anybody know previous studies in this area?

CoverItLive session for Day 1 of EuroCALL

Twitter Tweeters

The EuroCALL Virtual Strand Twitter is http://twitter.com/EuroCALLVirtual . It is possible to find other EuroCALL-ers by looking at the follower list of EuroCALLVirtual, but not all of those people are participating in the Virtual Strand, and/or at the conference IRL.

I suggest that we leave a comment on this post with our Twitter names so that we can (more) easily follow each other IRL, virtually, and all those spaces between.

Please leave a comment with:
Your Twitter username
Whether you are participating in the VS, IRL, or otherwise

Hello from Penny

Hello all!

My name is Penny and I'm a graduate student from Perth, Western Australia. After two years of participating in the EuroCALL conference virtually, I'm finally here in person! I am very much looking forward to meeting the people I've been tweeting, blogging, and following with, and repaying the kindness of previous participants by contributing to the VS "live" myself this year.

Virtual Strand registration still possible!

It is still possible to register for the Virtual Strand. However, we seem to experiencing some problems with the registration form at the moment. If you are trying to register, but can't, contact us at

virtualeurocall AT gmail DOT com

to hear the latest about the problem. Sorry for the inconvenience!

Peppi
On behalf of the Virtual Strand Team

CoveritLive is now active, 6 September 2009

This year we are using CoveritLive for live blogging:

http://www.coveritlive.com

If you scroll down the opening page of this blog you will find the CoveritLive window.

Graham Davies

Pre-Conference Workshop on Second Life

Dear Colleague

If you have signed up for my pre-conference workshop for beginners in Second Life on 9 September can you please spend some time having a look at Section 14.2.1 of Module 1.5 at the ICT4LT website before attending the workshop. This will give you essential background and introductory information that we can build on and explore in more detail during the workshop:

http://www.ict4lt.org/en/en_mod1-5.htm#secondlife

It will save time on the day of the workshop if you can also download the tutorial materials that I shall be using and if you can create your avatar - which is explained in the materials:

http://www.ict4lt.org/en/Euro08PCWSL.doc

This is all you need to do in advance of the workshop.

I look forward to seeing you at EUROCALL 2009!

Graham Davies