CALL and the L2 Curriculum
Robert Blake
UC Davis,
rjblake@ucdavis.edu
MLA/AAUSC session--Los Angeles
January 7, 2011
Why do it?
• Tracy Terrell, Natural Method (1983)
– “keep them happy!”
EXPERT: 10,000 hours
• Malcolm Gladwell: Outliers (2008)
– Bill Gates, UW “Timesharing”
• To reach level 3:
– 700 h. for Romance
– 1,500+ for category IV lgs.
– 2,400 h. in 4-yr. B.A.
• Classes: 150/yr. (50 X 3)
• Home study: 350
• 600/yr X 4 = 2,400 hours at end of B.A.
The New People
(our students)
• On November 9, 2004, $125 million was
spent on the first day release of Halo 2
• Facebook, social computing
• Texting
• Mobile apps
• Brave New World?
• Our “new students” are captivated by
technology
Which technology and how?
• Blended (curriculum assisted by tech)
• Hybrid (half in class + half online)
– The best of both worlds? (SRI meta-analysis)
http://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/os/technology/net.pdf
• Virtual (all online)
– Asynchronous only
– Synchronous component added:
• Text chat-IM
• Video/audio/text chat
The Ideal Hybrid Learner?
(Blake & Arispe, forthcoming)
• Study of 64 L2 hybrid learners’ course outcomes
correlated with:
– Personality traits (Big Five Inventory)
• Extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism,
openness
• auditory, kinetic, visual
– Verbal abilities (Shipley Living Scale)
• Verbal intelligence,
• abstract intelligence
– Learning Preferences
• 2 days in class
• Online “textbook” TESOROS (www.tesoros.es)
• Wimba Classroom chats with two peers and instructors once a
week.
Personality Traits:
Big Five Inventory (BFI)
Learning Preferences
byVerbal Abilities (Shipley)
Distance Learning in the UC
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Spanish Without Walls--UC Davis Extension
Spanish 2V-3V, UC Davis main campus
Arabic Without Walls--UC Irvine
Punjabi Without Walls--UCSB, Fall 2011
Quechua, UCLA, in progress
Filipino, in progress
New UC online pilot project
Types of CALL:
• Tutorial CALL
– Discrete programs (Rosetta Stone, Hot Potatoes,
WordChamp)
– iCALL (e-Tutor, Robo-sensei, Tagarela)
– Mobile Apps (MindSnacks, Arabic Flash Cards)
– LangBot (S. Payne, Amherst College)
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CMC (computer-mediated communication)
Telecollaboration (tandem via videoconferences)
Social Computing (Facebook, LiveMocha, SL)
Games (WoW, Xenos Isle)
Word Champ
Langbot
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A vocabulary “IM buddy”
Translations of words and collocations
Program learns as it goes
All data archived for research
E-Tutor
• Heift, T. (2010). Developing an intelligent
language tutor. CALICO Journal, 27, 443459.
• E-Tutor has traced the L2 interlanguage of
over 5,000 students over a period of five
years.
CMC
• Wimba Classroom:
– http://ucdavislive.wimba.com/launcher.cgi?room=Roadmap_2010
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Elluminate
Skype
NetMeeting
Adobe Connect
others
What about games?
• Blake, GUP (2008)
• No chapter on games
Educational Games
2006 Summit on ed games: “Harnessing the
Power of Videogames for Learning” (2006)
Students only remember:
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10% of what they read,
20% of what they hear;
30% if they see visuals, too;
50%, if they watch someone model something
while explaining it;
– 90% if they engage in the job themselves, even if
only as a simulation
Characteristics of a game
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Designed experience
Role playing
Agency
Hypothesis testing
Practice and feedback on demand
Prensky (2001)
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Games are a form of fun. That gives us enjoyment and pleasure.
Games are a form of play. That gives us intense and passionate
involvement.
Games have rules. That gives us structure.
Games have goals. That gives us motivation.
Games are interactive. That gives us doing.
Games have outcomes and feedback. That gives us learning.
Games are adaptive. That gives us flow.
Games have win states. That gives us ego gratification.
Games have conflict/competition/challenge/opposition. That gives
us adrenaline.
Games have problem solving. That sparks our creativity.
Games have interaction. That gives us social groups.
Games have representation and story. That gives us emotion.
Gee (2007)
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Critical Learning Principle:
Psychosocial Moratorium Principle:
Identity Principle:
Amplification of Input principle:
Achievement Principle:
Practice Principle:
Regime of Competence Principle:
Multiple Routes Principle:
Situated Meaning Principle:.
Multimodal Principle.
Explicit information On-Demand and Just-in-time principle:
Discovery Principle.
Insider Principle:
Material Intelligence Principle:
Types of games
(Thorne, Blake, Sykes, 2009):
• Social virtualities, such as Second Life
• Commercial MMOs, such as WoW
• Made-for-education synthetic
immersive environments, such as
Croquelandia
SL cities
Barcelona: 169, 68, 23
Ciudad Bonita: 162, 99, 29
LanguageLab.com
Types of games
• Social virtualities, such as Second Life
• Commercial MMOs (massively multipleplayer Online Role Playing Games), such
as WoW
• Made-for-education synthetic immersive
environments, such as Croquelandia,
Forgotten World, LiveMocha
Put WoW screen shot here
Types of games
• Social virtualities, such as Second Life
• Commercial MMO’s, such as WoW
• Made-for-education synthetic
immersive environments, such as
Croquelandia (Sykes 2008) or The
Forgotten World (LGN 2009)
Croquelandia (Sykes 2008)
LearningGamesNetwork
Symbol
TriWords
Forgotten World >>> Xenos Isle
• XENOS: http://xenos-isle.com
– Alex Chisholm (LearningGamesNetwork)
– a open-platform gaming environment for language
learning first instantiated with Chinese ESL
– Concentrated on ESL learners to date but LGN invites
collaborators who want to use the platform for FLs.
XENOS: http://xenos-isle.com
Game inventory
Single-player
• TriWords: match
words/definitions
• Symbols: symbols to
convey meaning
• Word Scrambled:
IPA symbols/sounds
Multiplayer
• Mail Drop: pass messages
on to other players
• Empty-handed: match
rhymes/syllable/PoS/tenses
• InTense: put sentences on a
timeline using verb clues
• Rails: collect and ship items
in order to fill orders
Tutorial CALL <=> (S)CMC
References
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Blake, R. (forthcoming). Current Trends in Online Language Learning. ARAL, 30.
Blake, R. & Blasco, J. (2001). TESOROS. BeM. http://www.tesoros.es.
Blake, R. & Arispe, K. (forthcoming). Individual Factors and Successful Learning in a
Hybrid Course.
Cobb, T. (007). Computing the vocabulary demands of L2 reading. Language
Learning & Technology, 11, 38-63.
Heift, T. (2010). Developing an intelligent language tutor. Calico Journal, 27, 442459.
Thorne, S., Blake, r. & Sykes, J. (2009). Second language use, socialization, and
learning in Internet interest communities and onine games. Modern Langauge Journal,
93, 802-821.
U.S. Department of Education. (2009). Evaluation of Evidence-Based Practices in
Online Learning: A Meta-Analysis and Review of Online Learning Studies.
Washington, D.C. http://www.ed.gov/about/offices/list/opepd/ppss/reports.html
ENJOY CALL in 2011!
Robert Blake
Rjblake@ucdavis.edu