Martine PetersAlysse Weinberg

Nandini SarmaMary Frankoff

ResearchQuestions

1)What type of information-seeking activities are done by students for their language classes?

2) How do the students characterize these types of activities?

Methodology

5 Canadian Universities

- Large and small

- East to West coast

- Diversity of CALL use

Group interviews

Questionnaires

71 participants of French as a second language;

18-21 years of age;

50% in Arts and Humanities programs;

69/71 had computer & Internet connection;

91% used CALL for their language courses (26% 5-10 hrs/week; 41% 2-3 hrs/day; 26% 3hrs+ /day);

Assignments & writing emails (96%), downloading documents for research (87%).

Construct analysis (Kelly, 1955) : participants construct their own representation of the phenomena being discussed.

Provide elements (technology used in language learning).

Identify constructs (characteristics) of the elements according to their beliefs.

19 two-hour group interviews (3- 4 in each university);

Varying numbers in each group;

3 imposed constructs:◦ Infrequent vs Frequent

◦ Dislike vs Like

◦ Useless vs Useful

Further constructs elicited during discussions.

Presentation of types of CALL activities;

Questions on ◦ technology-based activities done

◦ frequency of use and usefulness;

◦ other activities not on the list.

1. Activities for expanding knowledge base

2. Form-focused activities

3. Course management systems

Searching for information for language projects◦ Not often required

◦ Done individually

◦ Personal use

◦ Written work

◦ Students responsible for the search

◦ Global activity, many aspects of the language

Because it helps a lot, especially on topics you’re not really sure

about and the teacher just throws at you so you can just go on the

computer and just do your research.

Reading/listening/viewing online news◦ Not required frequently

◦ Indifferent to this activity

◦ Individual activity

◦ Not very interactive nor creative

◦ Class-oriented, controlled by the professor

◦ Not done for personal use or pleasure

I just never really needed to do it for university.

Online dictionaries◦ Used very frequently and very

useful

◦ Useful for target words (local)

◦ Students are actively engage

◦ Computer efficient

◦ Not imposed by their professor, related to their needs

I use a lot of electronic dictionaries because they

are a lot more specific than just my basic French

English dictionary.

Online spell-checkers◦ Very frequent and useful

◦ Done individually

◦ Goal to improve students’ writing

◦ Specific aspects of the language

◦ School work, not pleasure

◦ High level of involvement

You’re gonna see what you’re doing wrong so you can improve it but you’re not

necessarily expanding your knowledge, you don’t learn new words, you don’t learn new

concepts.

Online translation◦ Mentioned by 4 groups but very frequent and

useful

◦ Work, mechanical

◦ Interactive (offers suggestions)

◦ Individual activity

◦ Not cultural

◦ New type of computer-based activity

I was using it before a lot, for example when my French was very weak, like very, very weak, and so I would write the text in English and

translate it with that to French.

Verb conjugation◦ Mentioned by 4 groups but very frequent and

useful

◦ Mechanical

◦ Non- contextual, classroom use only

◦ Easy to use, not pleasant to work with

Conjugation is more work than pleasure. You just

don’t conjugate verbs for fun!

Mentioned by 8 groups

Rarely visited but useful (accessibility)

Personal and individual

School-oriented

Information source and learning tool

It’s very easy to kind of find things, it’s broken

down in chunks.

I find that it keeps me organized, lets me know like what I have to hand in, what’s coming up.

Maintain Improve

Check Gather

Receive Search

Facts/Language

Culture

Teachers should become aware of their students’ preferences and adapt accordingly.

In the language classroom,◦ teachers should assign web-based information-

seeking activities that incorporate a wider range of goals;

◦ teachers should provide clear instructions and focused search criteria;

◦ teachers should take advantage of technology’s collaborative spaces;

◦ the information housed within the CMS should be crucial for successfully completing the course.

Limitation: small sample size of participants

Results do provide some insight into language-learning trends in Canadian universities. ◦ Students are technologically savvy

◦ They have opinions of what is useful for language learning and have developed their own methods of using the web for information seeking

Ongoing research is required to provide teachers with current information, including research on web 2.0 activities for information seeking.

Conclusions