LEVERAGE News 5

LEVERAGE
LEarn from Video Extensive Real Atm Gigabit Experiment

LEVERAGE News No 5, February 1999

Welcome | Co-ordinator | Technophile | Conference report

Pedagogical issues
Ana Ibañez, English Teacher at the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid Mar Duque, English Teacher at the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid Ana Ibañez and Mar Duque, English Teachers at the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, give an account of the third international trial of the LEVERAGE system.
The 3rd trial of the LEVERAGE system took place between the three sites involved in the project: Cambridge, Paris and Madrid over a period of 8 weeks from 12 October to 4 December 1998. The three sites were connected by means of multi-channel ISDN links.
A total of 56 students participated in the trial:

16 students in Cambridge (12 students of French, 4 students of Spanish);
20 students in Evry, just south of Paris (12 students of English, 8 students of Spanish); and
20 students in Madrid (8 students of English, 8 students of French and 4 students who did the trial locally).

All the participants were distributed in bilingual groups of 3 or 4 students, with the aim of preparing a common task together. In order to communicate with each other within the group they had to use their native language as well as their target or second language. All groups had a scheduled one-hour videoconferencing session per week as well as use of the LEVERAGE workstations, applications and materials outside the collaborative sessions.
The students were required to prepare an oral presentation and a written report about a topic chosen by each group from a list supplied on the Leverage System (with links to related Web resources). The system also provided all applications necessary for the students to carry out the task collaboratively: videoconferencing; data conferencing; on-line dictionaries; audio and video resources; on-line advisors and pedagogical resources offering suggestions and ideas on how to proceed. E-mail was not integrated in the system, but students were able to send e-mails from their computers.
The last week of the project was devoted to the delivery of the final presentation. The students were given the choice of either doing a joint presentation over the network to the on-line advisor, or doing a presentation locally to their own language tutors. The pedagogical evaluation of the 3rd trial was based on questionnaires answered by students once the trial was over and personal interviews with the students conducted by the local advisors.
In general the students at UPM were thrilled to have had the chance to make personal contact with students abroad by means of videoconferencing. In spite of the rather limited exposure to communication with native speakers they felt they had really profited from the experience. From our standpoint we see this network-based learning approach as a new and different way of practising and learning a language and also as a complement to traditional classroom language instruction. The LEVERAGE project has shown that it can bring students from different European Universities together which is always a valuable experience and has a very positive effect on students' motivation to learn.
In our particular case, the data gathered in Madrid revealed that 70 percent of our students had never been in an English speaking country and in most cases their contact with the English language had been limited to classroom instruction. It was only through the LEVERAGE project that English as a means of real communication was offered to them. Consequently, in the current European context we strongly believe that systems such as that developed by the LEVERAGE project have a major role to play in the acquisition of foreign languages.

The students' reactions to this new way of learning and practising a foreign language were extremely positive and enthusiastic. They highlighted the following features of the LEVERAGE System as the key factors to promote language learning:
Access to French, Spanish or English native speakers
"It's essential. It's always better to hear somebody correctly pronouncing a new word (especially in English, since the pronunciation is difficult to deduce from the spelling). It's really the best way to learn languages, without this, the rest is not interesting any more!"
"Talking to native speakers is the best way of learning a language."
Working in bilingual groups to facilitate learning
"It was very useful, because we could correct the mistakes that the English partner made in Spanish and vice versa."
"It is very useful because everyone can help each other so you can get more profit of the work you do."
Developing a task as a means of promoting language learning
"Just chatting wouldn't lead anywhere. It's better to get involved in a specific task, so that an effort has to be made to use the appropriate vocabulary..."
"You never feel as if you're wasting your time and you work with the idea of reaching an aim."
"Developing a task is a good reason you can have to become more interested in learning a language."
From students' evaluations, good quality videoconferencing proved to be the most highly appreciated tool provided by the LEVERAGE system followed closely by e-mail:
Videoconferencing
"I like to see the face of a person to whom I am speaking, because I can see his/her face expressions and if the sound doesn't work properly, I could read the lips."
"It has been the most important tool. It allows you to see the person you are talking with, and when you don't know something you can see the other person and with the non-verbal communication you can understand each other."
"It is absolutely essential. It was the best of the sessions."
E-mail
"It helps continuing the work out of the videoconference hours, each one working when he/she prefers. We've been using it specially when we couldn't spend time talking on-line about a particular, not very interesting, or long or difficult subject".
"Yes, it is very useful because it is the perfect application to get a constant communication between students and teachers and among students too".
"When we had to make an arrangement, or change the date of some session, and even to exchange information faster from one session to another, e-mail became the perfect tool."