Enhancing communicative competence

Before lunch, I attended a parallel session where Kristi Jauregi reported on the NIFLAR project: http://cms.hum.uu.nl/niflar/, exploring the development of communicative competence in different contexts. Students were involved in discussions in Second Life, Adobe Connect and face-to-face in a regular classroom. In the online conditions, the students interacted in pairs with native speakers, and in the classroom, students worked in groups of four (all non-native speakers).

Through oral pre and post tests, it was shown that members in the online groups improved their communicative competence more than the those interacting face-to-face, and that they were involved in much more negotiation. The best results were achieved in the desktop video conferencing environment, where students often also relied upon non-verbal interaction. Furthermore, in Second Life, the environment gave rise to unexpected instances of negotiation.

One point of discussion after the presentation concerned the different potential causes of the patterns found, including whether or not there were native speakers involved, whether students interacted in pairs or in groups, as well as the affordances of the tools employed.

Poster awards

 

Best poster awards will be given in the postgradute and non-postgraduate categories. The selection is based on the votes from the delegates.

True collaboration?

One of the key questions in Ware's keynote concerns how to encourage true collaboration among students in online exchanges. Students tend to focus on information exchange and possibly comparison and analysis, but rarely move on to collaboration and product. She relates this to the way in which the affordances are set up, and whether they allow participants to truly collaborate. Can we guide our students by sanctioning certain ways of interaction?

Our first speaker, Paige D. Ware, is giving a keynote on From Telling To Collaborating: Examining How Adolescent Learners Use Collaboration.
Page is making the point that CALL research tends to be focused on post secondary education, as opposed to primary, on EFL rather than less widely taught languages  as well as being not evenly spread geographically.

During the opening ceremony Francoise Blin, the president of Eurocall paid tribute to Graham Davies, who sadly passed away in June - his presence, both physically and virtually, will be sadly missed.

The Opening Ceremony!

Dear Folks,

it is officially starting now! Here is the link for the live streaming of the event. This link is the same for all streamings during the conference. Sit back and enjoy!

Live Streaming from Eurocall2012

Looking forward to lots of people taking part in the virtual strand, both on site and off :-)

Eurocall in Göteborg is approaching!

Photo: Kjell Holmner

It will soon be time for Eurocall 2012 conference. Let's enjoy the summer and the holidays and meet in Göteborg in August!

Conference on Virtual Worlds, Polytechnic University of Valencia, Spain

I have just returned from Spain, where I contributed to a two-day conference on virtual worlds at the Polytechnic University of Valencia (UPV), 16-17 December 2011. The conference was organised under the auspices of the CAMILLE Project in the Department of Applied Linguistics at the Polytechnic University of Valencia within the framework of EUROCALL’s programme of regional events, in collaboration with the Inter-University Institute of Applied Modern Languages, supported by the Vice President for Research at the UPV Ministry of Science and Innovation, with sponsorship by Macmillan ELT.

There were five invited guest speakers: Randall Sadler, Luisa Panichi, Heike Philp, Kristi Jauregi, and myself. The main target audience was local secondary school teachers of English, but a number of research students were also in attendance. Each day of the conference was divided into two parts: presentations by the guest speakers in the morning and hands-on workshops in the afternoon.

This was a remarkable event in three different ways. Firstly, the size of the audience was impressive: around 75 participants. Secondly, it was the first time that I have been able to work in Real Life with such a distinguished a group of experts in the use of virtual worlds in language learning and teaching. Thirdly, this is the first occasion on which I have experienced such a large number of participants in hands-on workshops. The computer lab that was provided for the workshops comprised 50 high-end PCs with excellent graphics cards and a fast connection to the Internet. This meant that, with 75 participants in attendance, some people had to share a computer, but everybody was able to join Second Life and learn the basics. The hands-on workshops were led in turn by one of the guest speakers, with the others circulating amongst the participants and troubleshooting where necessary. We experienced surprisingly few technical hiccups, and Second Life behaved itself very well – with very little lag, even when the participants were gathered together on a shopping spree in the boutique holodeck on EduNation I Island.

I wish to offer my personal congratulations to the UPV team who organised this event, especially Ana Gimeno and Rafael Seiz Ortiz, who took care of all our needs, including transporting us to the excellent tapas restaurants in Valencia!

The website for Eurocall 2012 in Gothenburg, Sweden, is now live: http://www.eurocall2012.eu/