Enquiry-Based Learning in Languages
Centre of Excellence for Enquiry-Based Learning, University of
Manchester
Friday 26th September 2008
Many of us attending the Enquiry Based Learning day conference in Manchester
were engaged in an enquiry-based quest of our own: wondering how our current
student-centred approaches to teaching might acquire a more independent,
interrogatory edge; or, perhaps, wondering whether, when we held our examples of
best teaching practice up to the light, we would discover we were already teaching in
EBL mode without quite realising it! As this state of affairs implies, part of the
objective of the conference was to flesh out definitions of what EBL represents in the
modern languages context, both by interrogating examples of enquiry-based, studentcentred teaching, and by discussing varying possibilities offered by EBL as a
discipline in plenary sessions.
Enquiry-based learning, for those unfamiliar with the term, is, according to the Centre
for Excellence’s own definition, ‘learning which is student centred, encourages a
collaborative approach to study, is self-directed, develops transferable life skills, [and]
is often guided by a facilitator.’1 As Bill Hutchings, the Centre’s director, informed us
in the opening plenary session, this model for learning can dovetail well with HE aims
to inculcate research-led teaching. Rather than inviting students passively to absorb
‘expert’ viewpoints in the classroom, however, EBL challenges students to develop
their own research frameworks by providing a stimulus that will require them to
define what needs to be known, to identify how relevant knowledge might be
acquired, and to consider how their findings might be presented with due attention to
academic rigour. As the discussions that took shape around several of the papers
indicated, this kind of learning has been a feature of some postgraduate study, and of
some themed content modules in MFL. Given that language learning itself frequently
comes with a set of clearly defined outcomes, however, (a grammar point or question
formula that must be acquired, for instance…) could the emphasis on process and
experimentation inherent in EBL be applied to language study at all?
The following summary does not represent an exhaustive account of the day’s
proceedings; sessions were run in tandem, so I was unable to attend every paper. I
hope, however, that by dint of being party to a variety of viewpoints expressed both
by speakers and delegates, I have managed to capture the salient points of interest
expressed during the day. It should be noted that the conference was extremely well
attended: it was standing room only at most of the sessions, making for diverse,
stimulating post-presentation, lunchtime and closing discussions.
Session 2: The Autonomy of the Learner
Jonathan Bunt. Teaching Japanese Drama: Strategies for success
1
Louise Goldring and Jamie Wood, A guide to the facilitation of Enquiry-Based Learning for graduate
students (University of Manchester, 2007)
Jonathan Bunt was the first of many speakers to demonstrate the potential for
electronic resources to enhance autonomy and stimulate original thinking amongst
students. He used popular Japanese television drama (‘dorama’: an equivalent to soap
opera) to stimulate students to reflect upon both grammatical and cultural Japanese
constructs. Using high-quality transmissions along with target language transcripts of
subtitles designed for hearing-impaired watchers (both available via the web),
students were first invited to engage in a number of teacher-led activities (filling in
gaps, identifying particular grammatical constructs, transcribing small excerpts of
material, observing body language). Groups of students were then supplied with CDs
containing other extracts from the same drama, and invited to use this material
creatively as the basis of a seminar presentation intended to reinforce linguistic skills
and build up cultural knowledge. In practice, Bunt noted that students frequently
followed his model when working with these recordings, though they were under no
obligation to do so. The pedagogical benefits of using such material were many:
‘dorama’ is a very popular medium amongst undergraduate students, so they have an
immediate investment in perfecting their understanding of linguistic and cultural
concepts associated with it, as well as a ready-made context into which the activities
can be slotted. The tasks created by Jonathan married clearly definable outcomes
(targeted cloze tests, dictionary work and so forth) with open-ended aims, such that
learning was perceived by the group as a shared process rather than a teacher-led one.
The up-to-the-minute nature of the module increased the feeling of spontaneity and
shared enquiry; by Jonathan’s own admission, inculcating such a sense of immediacy
required a vast amount of regular preparatory work on the tutor’s part. Jonathan thus
highlighted the fact that the development of creative teaching programmes and their
execution comes with price tags of various sorts: the cost is in time, commitment and
departmental / faculty support (this module was conceived independently from
existing Japanese language modules, for instance).
Marco Valleriani
‘Working by hypotheses’ and Independent Learning in Languages
Marco’s paper provided a very useful theoretical discussion of the role of enquiry in
the learning process, and sought to explore the ways in which language learners, even
ab initio learners, might tap into this mode of learning. Marco stressed the need to
determine different learning styles in order best to exploit students’ spirit of enquiry,
suggesting that Blum’s taxonomy be used to measure the variety of approaches likely
to emerge in a class. His paper concluded on a highly imaginative note with a
demonstration of ways in which photographs could be used to inspire novice students
to use the subjunctive and verbs of reflection. The photos, taken from the National
Geographic website, were so intriguing as to invite immediate speculation amongst
the delegates, as they had clearly been intended to do amongst students. It was an
excellent demonstration of how an abstract visual stimulus, triggering existential
questioning, could lead students to grasp the need for a second language model (here
one based on hypothesis) in order to respond to this way of knowing the world.
Session 3: EBL and Portfolios
Christine O’Leary
The role of portfolios in an Enquiry-Based Approach to Learning, Teaching and
Assessment.
Christine led into her session by addressing a question raised by Phil Benson in a
forthcoming work: that of whether autonomy in learning ought to be assessed.
Defining learner autonomy as that which hands to students an element of control over
their working environment, the content of their learning, and the cognitive processes
involved, Christine took us through a portfolio-based language module constructed
with these aims in mind, and currently in place at Sheffield Hallam. The linguistic
objectives of the module were, broadly speaking, the honing of translation and
interpreting skills; alongside these linguistic objectives sat a number of metacognitive
ones: the module sought to engage the students in self and peer assessment around
both individual and group-oriented tasks. The portfolio included a group translation
task, an interpretation task, a piece of reflective writing and a time-constrained
language activity. In the case of the translation activity, students were required to
define their learning needs, develop their own schedule of work, establish their
assessment goals and learn how to give and receive feedback. Christine drew our
attention particularly to students’ concern with the affective dimension of these
activities (to which they testified in their reflective writing). Passing judgement on
others’ work and proving themselves effective members of a team were issues that
prompted mature reflection, and there seemed little doubt that this explicit focus had
generated a heightened awareness of strategies for successful independent learning.
Questions from the floor centred upon the thorny issue of assessing autonomy that
Christine had opened with: to what extent should one assess the processes at work in
this activity and to what extent the product (in this case the finished translation) that
emerged from it? Christine revealed that the module stood apart from other language
modules run in her department, allowing her to privilege enquiry-based skills
alongside linguistic ones, and that she had experimented with different weightings for
the reflective writing and language-centred elements.
Theresa Oliver
Integrating Linguacultural Knowledge through EBL projects.
Theresa’s paper, and the modules around which it was based, complemented
Christine’s perfectly in its demonstration of the possibilities for marrying process
assessment with product assessment in the language classroom. Focussing upon two
Italian language modules: one designed for ab initio students and the other for
second-year students, Theresa gave a practical lead on inculcating an enquiry-based
approach from the earliest of stages in the language-learning process. A scenariobased project was built into a work programme for ab initio learners that also
focussed upon more traditional writing and reading skills. These students were given
the task of updating aspects of an Italian tourist board website. They were responsible
for every aspect of the authorship of their task: determining its readership, identifying
an appropriate register, and proof reading the material they produced. Project-based
lessons were scheduled into the overall programme and took place every few weeks.
Students produced drafts at regular intervals, and were encouraged to refine their
work with the help of a very detailed self checking list and some teacher-led oversight
that identified action points that the students would take forward outside of the
classroom in the periods between sessions. Where linguistic problems were identified,
students were enjoined to create their own worksheets to tackle these. The paper, and
particularly the self-checking list designed to keep students actively involved in the
assessment and modification of their own work generated particular interest amongst
delegates.
Session 6: EBL and Peer-Assisted Study
Annie Morton
EBL Peer Grammar Revision Project
Annie’s session was splendidly constructed around the conceit of a marriage: that of
Enquiry Based Learning and Peer Assisted Learning, a union recently put to the test
amongst final-year and first-year students of French grammar at Manchester
University. The teaching team here devised a highly imaginative way of revising key
grammatical concepts by creating scenarios that prompted students to identify and
analyse targeted grammar problems (via error spotting, glossing of highlighted
extracts of French textual material and so forth). This fairly standard task-based
activity was then given an enquiry-based twist in two ways. The problem solvers
(first-year students) were asked to become teachers, devising ways of explaining the
rules and anomalies encountered to fellow language learners, and identifying or
inventing material that would allow those rules to be further practised and clarified
(such as drawing up bibliographies of appropriate reading matter on the topic, for
instance). This peer learning model was then fed through a further peer teaching /
learning prism: the scenario-based activity was designed to take place outside of the
classroom, and to be facilitated by final-year French students. The latter had to
research the grammar points relating to the scenarios given in order to deal with the
first-years’ questions and to assess their responses. The activity brought clear benefits
to all parties, who were required to draw on cognitive and transferable skills to ensure
its success. Once up and running, teaching staff were able to remain at a distance from
the teaching and learning processes generated by discrete grammar points, but were
able to encourage reflection upon the strategies needed to engage in these amongst
participating students. The project is set to continue, with final-year participants
being further encouraged to develop grammar-learning scenarios of their own.
Elena Polisca
From Student to Student: a Mentoring Approach to Facilitate (Language) Learning
Elena’s presentation was rich in ideas for using electronic media to enable individual
and group reflection and interactivity amongst Polish learners, even at beginner’s
level. In particular, Elena showed how these media could remove some of the
artificiality that can characterise rudimentary language exercises. She was the second
of the speakers to make use of the soap opera genre, which offered a familiar thematic
and emotional landscape and clear visual cues to stimulate responses from new(ish)
learners. As their writing skills progressed, her students composed emails, firstly to
imaginary recipients, and then to a real Polish writer who engaged in a freer e-
dialogue with them. Statistical information about Polish culture available on the web
was used to stimulate number-based activities; aural, oral, writing and research skills
were exploited later in the module when students were required to transcribe a
political speech and asked to identify the speaker (using Google to search key
phrases). The discussion that followed the presentation broached the question of
distinction between task-based and enquiry-based learning: how much freedom is it
desirable to give to beginner linguists, and is their approach to open-ended tasks likely
to model closely the teacher-led activities that they have previously witnessed in a
way that must constrain a true spirit of enquiry?
Session 7 (Plenary): EBL and Employability
Graham Webb
Demonstrating Language Graduates’ Employability
Graham’s presentation showcased a well-established module currently running at
Leeds Metropolitan University that has a proven track record of success. It was
conceived in order to allow final-year linguists to acquire marketing and other
business skills within international companies that were in turn able to reap benefits
from their language knowledge. Graham established links with a number of local
companies that had European connections – a process that required a considerable
amount of ground work on his part – and persuaded them to set his students live
research projects born of real corporate needs. In fulfilling their briefs, students were
required to define aims and outcomes, problem solve, present data with due attention
to accuracy and demonstrate time management, communication and teamwork skills
in large doses. A series of video interviews with directors who had worked with the
students testified to the high quality and practical applicability of the information they
received from the student participants. Students were assessed by means of a
presentation made to a panel consisting of company representatives and academic
staff, and by the production of a written report. Graham was at pains to stress that the
module itself did not directly assess language knowledge; rather, the enquiry-based
activities that led to the oral and written outcomes submitted relied, amongst other
things, upon a range of language-specific cognitive skills.
Catherine Franc
Languages and Employability
Together with Graham, Catherine reflected upon the desirable work-place skills that
an enquiry-based approach to language learning can foster in students. Strengths in
the area of communication are, of course, a huge asset in the workplace and one that
employers hope to find in our linguists (these must continue to be nurtured: Catherine
cited a very recent broadsheet article lamenting the generally-weak linguistic skills of
British graduates). Increasingly, however, employers cite the desirability of ‘soft
skills’ alongside subject-specific qualifications. EBL, Catherine argued, acts as a tool
that enables students to ‘make the shift from cognitive to social ways of learning’ that
are predicated upon soft, transferable skills. Moreover, students who have an eye to
the world of work even in non-vocational learning contexts seem increasingly
motivated by forms of learning that marry academic rigour with clear, practical
stimuli to the conceptualising of objectives, the plotting of intellectual pathways, the
management of information and so forth. By way of example, Catherine presented a
selection of scenarios taken from a phonetics EBL project she had developed for
undergraduate students of French at Manchester. These included subject-specific
problem-solving activities; prompts intended to encourage the management of time,
information and people; and assessments requiring the creative manipulation of a
cognitive ‘product’ (that of accurate phonetics knowledge). This framework, redolent
of those set out in several other modules presented in the course of the day, pointed to
a desire shared by many teachers present to synthesize particular subject-specific
outcomes and inventive learning processes in a format that could be accurately
assessed. Once again, as the presentations drew to a close, the tensions involved in the
measuring of ‘soft’ skills and concrete cognitive outcomes came to the fore.
The Table Ronde
It had become clear, at this point in the knowledge-sharing process, that the
conference needed a precise working definition of EBL that could distinguish it from
task-based / problem based learning practices that have long been used in language
teaching and for which there exists an extensive research base. It was suggested by
the meeting that EBL privileges learner autonomy to a greater extent than TBL / PBL
in the following ways:
 It generates meaning-based scenario tasks that require students (rather than
teachers) to establish the parameters of a problem or situation. Students must
define aims and outcomes in respect of the scenario, which they must then act
upon and interpret for themselves.
 It places greater emphasis upon learning processes than upon learning
products. These processes may privilege the affective dimensions of the
learning experience.
These criteria gave rise to further questions that had began to emerge through the
examination of current practice in several of the sessions that I attended :
 What role should the tutor play in EBL?
 Do the cognitive processes that are a feature of language learning give rise to a
particular form of EBL that can be firmly distinguished from its application in
area studies or literary studies?
 Is the desire to assess process (or ‘soft skills’) present in EBL inadequate, in
the final analysis, for a discipline that holds that written, oral and aural
linguistic accuracy is fundamental to effective communication? How can EBL
practitioners effectively deal with errors?
 Would the introduction of EBL conflict with other modes of learning deemed
necessary in the formation of a language graduate?
These were addressed in the following ways
 It was noted that EBL is not intended to replace other forms of learning that
may be more teacher centred, but to complement these.
 Many practitioners thought it possible – if not essential – to circumscribe a
space for EBL, where EBL could enable open-ended, research-led reflection
upon cognitive concepts taught elsewhere. As can be seen from the papers
summarized above, many of the most radical EBL language-learning
initiatives presented were made possible where departments had allowed for
the creation of separate, inventive modules and were willing to allow these to
be assessed in less orthodox fashion.
The conference closed on an up-beat note, acknowledging both the enthusiasm
expressed by delegates for learner-centred, autonomous teaching and learning
practices, and the amount of good practice already available to be shared amongst the
HE language-learning community. It was felt important that the LLAS subject-centre
capitalise on this in a number of ways, by
 supporting a community of interested parties through the creation of an EBL
JISC email list;
 organising workshops that will allow the real potential of EBL to be explored
by language teachers;
 seeking to establish a rigorous academic basis for EBL in languages through
peer-reviewed work.
Further Reading
Some speakers cited secondary sources that had particularly inspired their conception
of EBL in MFL.
Baume, D and Baume, C, Learning to Teach: Running Seminars and Tutorials
(Oxford, 1996)
Richards, Jack C and Willy Renandya (eds), Methodology in Language Teaching
(Cambridge, 2002)
White, R and Arndt, V, Process Writing (London, 1991)