Anne Stevens and Sue Hewer - The Open University
The Centre for Modern Languages
A.Stevens@open.ac.uk, suehewer@sol.co.uk
In its preparation for the delivery of the first Open University (OU) modern language course (French L120) in the 1994-95 session, the Centre for Modern Languages (CML) recognised the needs of learners unable to attend face-to-face tutorials and decided to offer telephone tuition by telephone (audio conference) during the 1995 and 1996 sessions. This tuition was closely monitored and conclusions drawn from the data concerning the advantages and disadvantages of the telephone as a medium for language learning and teaching. The synchronous nature of the medium, along with the lack of eye contact and visual cues resulted in the need for tutors to manage the audio conference carefully and sometimes caused students to over-prepare to the extent that they read out prepared answers. The knock-on effect of this tended to be a lack of spontaneity by students and a distinct unwillingness to avoid risk-taking which is acknowledged to be a characteristic of successful language learners. The very public nature of the conference provided tutors with difficult decisions about how to cope with error correction. The data also revealed the kind of tasks best suited to the medium and the training needs of tutors. A staff development pack was produced during the second year of the project which addressed both these issues.
The Telephone Tuition Project had arisen from necessity, but it provided an opportunity for CML to investigate a medium likely to become a component in future computer-based communications systems available to students in their own homes. Other, potentially complementary, components were e-mail and computer conferencing which were known to be available to some students registered for CML courses during the 1996-97 academic year. Given the characteristics of e-mail and computer conferencing, it seemed likely that each medium was capable of offering a high level of student interaction, at a time and place convenient to students, and that it would provide an opportunity to 'rehearse' in preparation for 'performance' in a linked audio conference during which a greater degree of spontaneity might be achieved than was observed during the telephone-only sessions. We were encouraged to pursue this hypothesis by the findings of Chun (1994) . However, the findings of Chun were based on the work of students at a campus university who had frequent face-to-face encounters. The activities reported by Warschauer (ed) (1995) involve, for the most part, interactions between members of classes of students at secondary and HE levels who also have regular face-to-face contact. Students participating in projects set up by Vilmi1 share some of the characteristics of OU language learners in that they have no face-to-face contact with fellow project members. However, they do participate in regular face-to-face classes at their own universities. Given the lack of evidence from previous studies involving the virtual groups of remote, individual, distance language learners, it was decided to adopt a policy of 'fishing for insights' (Maxwell, 1996) and to set up a pilot study as a precursor to a structured research project based on the issues raised to be initiated during the 1997-98 session.
The purposes of the pilot study were as follows:
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The activities began in Each of the four course groups undertook 2 interactive e-mail tasks of approximately three weeks' duration followed up within a week by a fully integrated audio conference. The third planned activity was the use of a text-based online conference in which students were to debate issues of their choice. The proximity of final examinations, allied with the comparatively steep learning curve required to contribute to the conferences, resulted in little input from students. This in turn raised a wide number of issues which there is not the space to discuss here. The remainder of the summary focuses, therefore, on the e-mail activities.
The activities undertaken by the students involved either collaboration and/or conflict and the design criteria were based on Nunan (1989) . Role plays and simulations were used, as were discussions in which students put forward and defended their views on contentious issues which arose from the book-based course materials. All the activities were course-related in terms of themes and functions. The overriding aim was to promote fluency, given that students have ample opportunity to practise work on accuracy in the main stream course materials. The activities took place between late May and early September 1997.
Students and tutors received questionnaires immediately after the audio conference which concluded Activities 1 and 2 for each group. The response rate was as follows:
*Tutor unable to participate in final audio conference.
As the focus of the project was to describe what appeared to be happening rather than to evaluate it, and to raise issues as the basis for structured research, the questions related to the activities were all open-ended and as such, the student responses cannot be quantified. However, none of the students who responded were unreservedly negative about their experiences. Indeed, the responses were overwhelmingly favourable from both students and tutors. Students cited cognitive gains in terms of vocabulary acquisition, increased confidence in the use of previously learned structures and an ability to concentrate on communicating the message rather than worrying about grammatical errors. The affective gains for students unable to get to face-to-face tutorials were obvious. Less predictable was the sense of interdependence which grew up amongst the groups, or sub-groups, in cases where a group was sub-divided for a given task. The bonding was particularly evident when the audio conference date was drawing near. The majority of the students and tutors felt that the audio conference was a critical component and favoured the hybrid media approach, although there was minority support for the independent use of both e-mail and audio conferencing provided that the medium was appropriate for the task.
There was no shortage of issues raised by the study. The key research issues for CML lie in identifying the contribution that on-line interactive tasks can make to language learning for the remote, independent distance learner within the context of the range of existing course resources available, and the extent to which it is desirable and possible, in practical terms, to offer such task-based learning opportunities more widely as optional extras, or to consider their role as core course activities as more and more students gain access to the internet. Clearly in any discussion about task design, the role of the tutors has to be considered. Where on-line tasks are concerned, staff development needs also have to be met. CML is currently formulating the research agenda referred to above in which it is anticipated aspects of the issues identified here will be addressed.
1http://www.hut.fi/~rvilmi/Project
References
Chun D M, 'Using computer networks to facilitate the acquisition of interactive competence' in System, 22/1 (1994)
Warschauer M (ed), Virtual Connections (University of Hawai'i Press, 1995)
Maxwell J A, Qualitative Research Design: an interactive approach (Sage Publications, 1996)
Nunan D, Designing Tasks for the Communicative Classroom (Cambridge University Press, 1989)
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