Interactions in Self-Access Center
Chih-cheng Lin (cclin@ntnu.edu.tw)
Hao-jan Chen (hjchen@ntnu.edu.tw)
Mei-chen Wu (angelawu@ntnu.edu.tw)
National Taiwan Normal University
All freshman English students at National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU) are encouraged to make use of services and facilities at the Self-Access Center (SAC) composed of three units. They are English Chat-room, Writing Clinic, and Self-Access Classroom. Each of the three self-access units plays a distinctive role in helping students’ learning, namely, speaking in English Chat-room, writing in Writing Clinic, and listening and reading in Self-Access Classroom. The data, therefore, presents multi-faceted interactions occurring in each of the three units, between students and tutors and between students and computers. Furthermore, the students’ perceptions of being engaged in such interactions help to better improve the services and facilities offered in the three units at NTNU SAC. The abstract of each presentation is included below.
Presentation One
Interaction in One-on-one Peer Tutoring in the Chat-room Program
Mei-chen Wu
This is an exploratory investigation of tutor-tutee interaction in an on-going Chat-room program. This qualitative study will aim to answer two questions. First, how does tutor-tutee interaction occur in the chat-room program? Second, what are the patterns of interaction? The importance of this study can be of two fold. First, the Chat-room program is a program especially designed to offer one-on-one opportunities for non-English major students to interact with English major students in speaking English. Since the program is relatively new in the school, not much attention has been paid to study the nature of the program. Second, much of the research in tutor-tutee interaction tends to analyze hours of interaction in order to identify features of tutoring situations (e.g. Fox, 1991; Lepper & Chabay, 1988; Littman, 1991; Putnam, 1987). These features are then used to inform the designing of computer software for educational purposes. For example, Merrill, Merrill, Reiser, and Landes (1995) analyzed 50 hours of verbal interaction in order to identify the effective strategies tutors use to help students solve problems in math. The strategies were then applied in computer programs for education. As such, the current study which explores student interaction in speaking English in a foreign language context can provide much valuable insight as to how English speaking can be promoted on campus.
Presentation Two
Corrective Feedback and Second Language Writing
Hao-jan Chen
From Interactivists’ perspective, corrective feedback is essential for second language learning (Lightbown & Spada, 1993; Long, 1996). However, the role of corrective feedback in second language writing has been a controversial issue. There were several debates in the Journal of Second Language Writing. Even though the role of corrective feedback remains controversial, we provided two different types of corrective feedback on students’ essays at NTNU writing clinic. One is the feedback from human tutors and the other is from the automatic essay scoring systems (My Access and Criterion). In this paper, we first describe how tutors provided feedback to students via an online course platform called Moodle and how the commercial automatic essay raters offered comments and suggestions to students. Then we discuss college students’ perceptions about these different kinds of feedback based on the results of surveys and interviews. The findings should be useful for second language writing teachers and researchers.
Presentation Three
EFL College Students’ Perceptions of Interactive Task-based Learning Programs
Chih-cheng Lin
The theoretical framework of this presentation is based on a series of Chapelle’s papers on her proposing an interactionist approach towards CALL (1997, 1998 & 2005). In which, the interactionist approach to SLA and discourse analysis are recommended; two major questions of “what kind of language” and “how good the language experience” are posed; and, six studies, from 1994 to 2003, are reported and examined under her classification of interaction. This presentation focuses its efforts on EFL college students’ feedback after using interactive learning programs in a self-access classroom. The interaction is described as “between person and computer,” from which students benefit from “obtaining enhanced, or modified, input” (Chapelle, 2005). The participants were the students taking Freshman English in the academic year of 2006. They were advised to use learning programs recommended by the self-access classroom. The present study reported on the students’ perceptions of using some of the interactive, task-based learning programs. Based on Chapelle’s categorizations (2005), this study first presents the learning programs designed to enhance students’ communicative skills. Then, the students’ perceptions are presented and discussed by using their evaluation of the programs and their feedback to their own learning.
References
Chapelle, C. (1997). CALL in the year 200: Still in search of research paradigms? Language Learning & Teaching, 1(1), 19-43.
Chapelle, C. (1998). Multimedia CALL: Lessons to be learned from research on instructed SLA. Language Learning & Teaching, 2(1), 22-34.
Chapelle, C. (2005). Interactionist SLA theory in CALL research. In J. L. Egbert & G.M. Petrie (Eds.), CALL research perspectives (pp. 53-64). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Fox, B.A. (1991). Cognitive and interactional aspects of correction in tutoring. In P. Goodyear (Ed.), Teaching knowledge and intelligent tutoring (pp. 149-172). Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
Lepper, M.R., & Chabby, R.W. (1988). Socializing the intelligent tutor: Bringing empathy to computer tutors. In H. Mandl & A. Lesgold (Eds.), Learning issues for intelligent tutoring systems (pp. 242-257). New York: Springer-Verlag.
Lightbown, P.M. & Spada, N. (1993). How Languages are Learned. Oxford University Press.
Littman, D. (1991). Tutorial planning schemas. In P. Goodyear (Ed.), Teaching knowledge and intelligent tutoring (pp.107-122). Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
Long, M.H. (1996). The role of the linguistic environment in second language acquisition. In Ritchie, W. C., & Bahtia, T. K. (Eds.), Handbook of second language acquisition (pp. 413-68). New York: Academic Press.
Merrill, D.C., Merrill, S.K., Reiser, B.J., & Landes, S. (1995). Tutoring: guided learning by doing. Cognition and Instruction, 13(3), 315-372.
Putnam, R.T. (1987). Structuring and adjusting context for students: A study of live and simulated tutoring addition. American Educational Research Journal, 23, 13-48.
