Overview of the steps followed to complete the tasks

1. Breaking the ice
   • Requirements: 4 students connected point to point in asyncronous communication via e-mail. Time required: 30 minutes. Revision of differences between written and oral communication.
   • Description: Writing a letter of Introduction
2. Group meetings
   • Requirements: 4 students connected point to point in syncronous communication. Videoconferencing/audioconferencing and Internet. Time required: up to the students. Sessions: the number required.
   • Description: Introduction of each student. Research and gathering of information about ESA from the sources available in the server and/or Internet. Discussion and negotiation of the focus of the topic. Division of work and sharing of responsibilities.
3. Individual work
   • Requirements: 4 students connected point to point in asyncronous communication via e-mail. Time required: up to the students. E-mail and Internet. Revision of language and format of oral presentations.
   • Description: Writing the first drafts, revising the drafts sent by their peers and making written suggestions for improvement.
4. Group meetings
   • Requirements: as mentioned in No. 2
   • Description: Revision and discussion of all the drafts produced by the whole group. Suggestions for improvement.
5. Individual work
   • Description: Writing of the final version.
6. Oral presentation Delivery
   • Requirements: 2 four-student groups connected through multisite videoconference/audioconference in syncronous communication. Time required: from 10 to 15 minutes.
   • Description: Students of each workgroup, in turns, giving an oral presentation of the information obtained from the survey carried out about ESA.
7. Invitation to discussion

Students' evaluation

This was based on direct observation of the students' behaviour as well as on the questionnaires they had to fill in after the trial to evaluate their experience. Here are the questions included in these questionnaires and a summary of their answers:

1. What did you like about the course (benefits)? Give reasons. They all agreed that working in groups and using new technologies to develop the task had been a very positive experience.
2. What did you dislike (problems)? Give reasons. One group complained about the technical problems they had with the system, in particular with the Weboard application. Others complained about the dates it took place, as it was close to their final examinations.
3. Was there enough/ too little/ too much information about: a) Description of the activity? b) Topic content? As regards the description of the activity, they all agreed that there was enough information to carry out the task, and even one of them said that "it was just perfect". As for the topic content, most of them said it was enough and a couple of them mentioned that they would have preferred to navigate on the Internet by themselves.
4. What do you feel that you gained from this course? Here are some comments: "Confidence to speak English in public"; "experience in using new technologies to develop a task", "learning a bunch of useful things", " having a superb time working with their group mates".
5. What do you think about the length of the activity (Two-hour sessions for three weeks)? Four students said it was enough, two said that it was too short and that they would have liked to have had some more time and only one student answered that it was too long due to the proximity of the exams.
6. Did you miss more individual work? They all answered no. Only one said he would have liked to have had the chance to work with the system in non-scheduled hours (which in fact they had).
7. Comment on each of the tools used in this project in terms of its usefulness and efficiency to develop task: a) E-mail: They appreciated it but they only used it to communicate with the teachers. b) Videoconferencing: Only one student was enthusiastic about this tool; the others agreed that it was interesting for the first five minutes, but after that, they stopped paying attention to it, considering the fact that they saw each other at school every day. c) Audioconferencing: They were all enthusiastic about it. They agreed it was the best and the most useful one, as it allowed them to keep the conversation going while working. d) Internet: For some of them it was the first time they had used it and they were very positive about the information they could get from it. One of them described it as "an endless source of information".

Teachers' Evaluation

For the teachers, it was a stimulating learning experience. The motivation and involvement of the students were very high. They did more writing and spoke more English than in a normal English class, where they tend to speak Spanish while working in groups. That increased confidence in using English as a language of communication. The project also enabled them to become familiar with the tools provided by the system, allowing them to have a very active role in the whole process. On the other hand, the immediacy of the task helped them clarify their ideas and think faster in English, as they had to make decisions and give answers on the spot. The final delivery was done via the network system in front of the technical team, the teachers and the other student group. The students' involvement in the topic was very high, with each group having different approaches, so the information provided in their final presentation was very interesting.

Conclusions

In our opinion, this system gives the students the possibility of experiencing a learning mode different from the traditional one, which is highly appreciated by them. The students are challenged by a situation which allows them to use their target language to express their knowledge and views about the topic chosen. We think that the the technological medium itself has provided some important advantages that we would like to highlight:

• Network-based language learning involves a multifocal and rotational teaching technique in which the focus of attention is not the teacher but each of the students taking part in the task.
• The newness of the medium acts as a catalyst for students' participation.
• It provides for a wider range of activities and for students being more cooperative among themselves.
• It creates a richer scope for interaction.
• Teachers have a double role that changes according to the progression of the task. On the one hand, they have an active role, basically in the pre-task phase, as language instructors and task developers; in the task development phase, as reviewers of written assignments and in the post-delivery phase, as language advisors providing feedback. On the other hand, they also have a passive role in the development and delivery phases as observers.

We would like to express our gratitude to Encarna Pastor, David Fernández and Luis Bellido, the engineers of the Spanish team, without whose support, help and collaboration this experiment would not have taken place, and to Enrique Cordoba and Daniel Rodriguez, the postagraduate students who created the HTML page for the local trial. Last but not least, we would also like to thank our students, whose dedication and enthusiasm were essential to this project.

Papers from the 1st LEVERAGE Conference

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