Transcript Slide 1

Academic Writing
in Content-Based Language
Teaching Through Technology
(CoBaLTT)
Tetsuo Harada
School of Education
Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan
[email protected]
This PPT file is available on the Internet:
http://www.f.waseda.jp/tharada/actfl/cbi.ppt
Collaborator
Kyoko Sato
University of California
San Diego
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Outline of the talk
• Purposes
• Overview of CBI and Technology (BBS)
• Overview of the EFL Course: Content-based
academic writing through technology
• Research Questions
• Online Language Exchange and Writing Skills
• Student’s Perceptions about CBI and BBS
• Discussion and Conclusion
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Purposes
• Integration of language and content in an
EFL academic writing course through
technology
• Effects of online language exchange on
writing skills
• Students’ perceptions about CBI and
online language exchange
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Definition of CBI
• Content-based second language
instruction (CBI) can be traced back to
immersion programs in Canada in the
1960’s.
• In Europe, CBI is also referred to as
content and language integrated learning
(CLIL).
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Definition of CBI, cont’d
• Wesche (1993, 57) defines CBI as follows:
Content-based language teaching is
distinguished first of all by the
concurrent learning of a specific content
and related language use skills in a
“content-driven” curriculum, i.e., with
the selection and sequencing of language
elements determined by the content.
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Types of CBI
CBI
Theme-based instruction
Sheltered instruction
Adjunct instruction
Sustained-content language teaching (SCLT)
(Brinton, 2003; Brinton, Snow and Wesche, 1989;
Wesche, 1993)
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Types of CBI, cont’d
• Theme-based instruction
The language course is organized around
a series of topics and themes from
available authentic materials, on which
language activities are based.
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Types of CBI, cont’d
• Sustained-content language teaching:
SCLT, similar to theme-based instruction,
focuses on a single content area or topic
as well as L2 learning and teaching. The
content is “sustained” during a whole
course, which allows students to work
with only one topic and more deeply
engage the content (Pally, 2000; Murphy
and Stoller, 2001).
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Rationales for CBI
Grabe and Stoller (1997)
• Second language acquisition research
• Training studies (e.g., cooperative learning, learning
strategy instruction, extensive reading)
• Educational and cognitive psychology (e.g., cognitive
learning theory, depth-of-processing research,
discourse comprehension processing research,
motivation research, expertise research)
• Program outcomes (e.g., ESL and EFL contexts)
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Overview of the Course
Content-based academic writing
• An EFL academic writing course at a
university level
• Met once a week and thirty times a
year (90 minutes X 30 sessions)
• Sustained-content language teaching,
in which a theme of education in the
U.S. was discussed during the full-year
course.
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Overview of the Course, cont’d
Integration of SCLT with Technology
• A Bulletin Board System (BBS) is a computer
system running software that allows users to
connect and login to the system.
• BBS allows for asynchronous online discussion.
– Login
– Front Page
– Sample BBS
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Overview of the Course, cont’d
BBS: Asynchronous online language exchange
• 30 intermediate Japanese learners of English
(EFL) were paired with English-speaking
learners of Japanese as a foreign language
(JFL) at a university in the United States.
• Both groups were required to login to the
BBS site and write messages in their target
language.
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Overview of the Course, cont’d
BBS: Asynchronous online language exchange
• The EFL group watched a documentary
on education in the U.S. and posted
their questions, impressions, and issues
raised in the video on the BBS site in
English.
• The JFL group replied to the EFL
learners’ messages in Japanese.
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Research Questions
1. To what extent does online language
exchange (BBS) affect the EFL learners’
writing skills?
2. How do the perceptions about SCLT and
BBS vary according to the selfassessment of their writing skills?
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Method
• Participants
30 intermediate Japanese learners of
English as a foreign language (EFL)
• Analysis of Writing Skills
– All the English messages posted on the BBS
site were analyzed.
– Sentence complexity was measured with Tunits.
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Method, cont’d
• Analysis of Writing Skills, cont’d
– A T-unit is one main clause with all
subordinate clauses attached to it (Hunt,
1965).
– Example
• I like the movie. (1 T-unit with 4 words)
• I like the movie we saw about
Shakespeare. (1 T-unit with 8 words)
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Method, cont’d
• Analysis of Writing Skills, cont’d
– T-unit length indicates sentence
complexity. The second example is
grammatically more complex than the first
one.
– Mean T-unit lengths for a spring semester
and the following fall semester were
compared.
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Method, cont’d
Analysis of Perceptions about SCLT and BBS
• Questionnaire:
1. Self-assessment of writing skills
2. Perceptions about SCLT and BBS
– The individual responses (i.e., 5-likert type
scale) were assigned numbers 1-5: 1 for
“strongly disagree” and 5 for “strongly
agree.”
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Method, cont’d
Analysis of Perceptions about SCLT and BBS
• The 30 participants were divided into
three subgroups (the upper, mid, and
lower levels) by the self-assessment of
their writing skills.
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Results
Sentence Complexity
Mean T-unit
Length
SD
Spring
7.58
Fall
8.76
1.15
1.33
t = 4.941, df = 29, p = .000
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Results, cont’d
Positive Perceptions about SCLT
• 22 students (71%) responded that it was
useful to link writing instruction with the
content.
• 24 students (77%) responded that they
learned much about the content covered
in class.
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Results, cont’d
Negative Perceptions about BBS
• Only 3 students (10%) responded positively
about BBS discussions with university students
in the U.S.
• Only 8 students (25%) actively participated in
the BBS discussion.
• Only 2 students (6%) responded that their
partners actively replied to their messages.
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Results, cont’d
Perceptions of SCLT and BBS According to the SelfAssessment of Writing Skills
Self-Assessment of
Writing Skills
Perceptions
about SCLT (SD)
Perceptions about
BBS (SD)
Upper level (n = 10)
3.4 (.68)
2.6 (.72)
Mid level (n = 10)
3.6 (.41)
2.4 (.53)
Lower level (n = 10)
2.7*(.43)
2.6 (.68)
Total (N = 30)
3.2 (.63)
2.5 (.63)
SCLT: F(2, 26) = 5.911, p = .008, BBS: F(2, 26) = .476, p = .627
* p < .05
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Discussion and Conclusion
Sustained-content language teaching
• The integration of content with the
curriculum for academic writing skills
during the whole year-long course (SCLT)
was fairly accepted by the intermediate
(high and mid) university students.
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Discussion and Conclusion, cont’d
Sustained-content language teaching
• Students with poor writing skills have
negative attitudes toward SCLT. This
finding may suggest that the successful
implementation of SCLT as opposed to
theme-based instruction depends on
students’ proficiency level of a target
language.
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Discussion and Conclusion, cont’d
Effects of BBS on writing skills
• The mean T-unit lengths significantly
differed between the two semesters.
However, the difference, which was slight,
may not be meaningful. In other words,
we cannot conclude that the online
language exchange helped the students
improve their writing skills.
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Discussion and Conclusion, cont’d
Students’ perceptions about BBS
• Although technology is innovative in foreign
language teaching, the students did not show
any positive perceptions about the use of BBS
in the SCLT classroom.
– Language exchange may not have worked well.
– Low participation of the partners
– Problems with the students’ motivation
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Discussion and Conclusion, cont’d
Caveat
• Teachers should not be too optimistic
about the integration of technology into
the foreign language curriculum.
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References
Brinton, D. (2003). Content-based instruction. In Nunan, D. (Ed.), Practical English
language teaching (pp. 199-224). New York: McGraw-Hill.
Brinton, D., Snow, M., & Wesche, M. (1989). Content-based second language
instruction. Boston, MA: Heinle & Heinle.
Grabe, W. & Stoller, F. L. (1997). Content-based instruction: Research foundations. In
M. Snow & D. Brinton (Eds.), The content-based classroom: Perspectives on
integrating language and content. New York: Addison Wesley Longman.
Hunt, K. (1965). Grammatical structures written at three grade levels. NCTE Research
report No. 3. Champaign, IL, USA: NCTE.
Murphy, J. M. & Stoller, F. L. (2001). Sustained content language teaching: An emerging
definition. TESOL Journal 10 (2/3).
Pally, M. (Ed.). (2000). Sustained-content teaching in academic ESL/EFL. Boston, MA:
Houghton Mifflin.
Wesche, M. B. (1993). Discipline-based approaches to language study: Research issues
and outcomes. In M. Krueger & F. Ryan (Eds.), Language and content: Disciplineand content-based approaches to language study (pp. 57-82). Lexington, MA: D. C.
Heath.
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