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Computer Assisted Second Language Learning:
A Multimedia Interactive Environment for Teaching Greekas a Second Language
Maria Tzevelekou
Vicky ChondroyanniStefanos Paschalis
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Computer Assisted Second Language Learning:
A Multimedia Interactive Environment for Teaching Greekas a Second Language
Maria Tzevelekou
Vicky ChondroyanniStefanos Paschalis
Paper Presented at The Eighth International Literacy & Education ResearchNetwork Conference on Learning, Dimotiko Skolio of Spetses, Spetses, Greece,
4-8 July 2001
Offprint from:
Learning for the Future
Proceedings of the Learning Conference 2001
Edited by Bill Cope and Mary Kalantzis
www.LearningConference.com www.theLearner.com
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Computer Assisted Second Language
Learning: A Multimedia Interactive Environmentfor Teaching Greek as a Second Language
Maria TzevelekouVicky ChondroyanniStefanos Paschalis
Paper Presented at The Eighth International Literacy & Education Research
Network Conference on Learning, Dimotiko Skolio of Spetses, Spetses,
Greece, 4-8 July 2001
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Learnin for the Future Proceedin s of the Learnin Conference 2001 4
Computer Assisted Second Language Learning:
A Multimedia Interactive Environment for
Teaching Greek as a Second Language
Maria Tzevelekou
Vicky ChondroyanniStefanos Paschalis
1. IntroductionThe aim of this paper is twofold: a) to give an overview of the process of
introducing educational technology into the minority schools of Thrace, a
remote and underdeveloped area of Greece, and b) to present the process of
constructing a computer system for teaching Greek as a second language to
children having Turkish as a native language.
The objective of the project1 under discussion was the construction of an
integrated computer assisted language learning system. Its specific outcome
consists of two multimedia-disks (CD-ROMs):
1. A knight in the castle of letters, addressed to children from 7-9 years old.2. A knight in the castle of words, designed for children from 10 to 12 years
old.
The above educational systems were developed by the Educational
Technology Department of the Institute for Language and Speech Processing
and are currently used in the minority schools of Thrace and in certain
multicultural schools of Athens.
1
This program was developed within the framework of a general educational reform project forthe Muslim minority in Greece, initiated by the Greek Ministry of Education and the EuropeanUnion and carried out by the University of Athens.
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2. Principles and objectives
Design and development was carried out along the following guiding
principles:
a. Greek should be taught as a second language, without prerequisite ofprevious knowledge.
b. Native language (i.e. Turkish) should optionally appear in the system as asupport language.
c. Language literacy should be viewed within the technological environmentprovided by the computer.
d. The system should help the children acquire a certain degree of computerliteracy.
e. The system should be autonomous, i.e. it should contain all theinformation required for the interpretation and the handling of linguistic
material.
f. It should allow the learner to regulate her/his exposure to manageableamounts of language.
g. It should provide evaluation procedures, such as immediate feedback andtools showing the degree of coverage and the general performance of the
pupil (Stubbs 1992).
h. It should be playful and rewarding.i. An effort should be made in order to avoid cultural stereotypes, often
observed in methods of language teaching
The main objectives for introducing a computer-assisted language learning
system in the minority schools were the following:
i. To improve teaching and learning by using the computer as a tool that canenrich existing teaching practices and open up new ways of presentinglinguistic information.ii. To promote a self-determined learning instrument that can be usedcollectively at school, as well as individually at home.iii. To increase motivation by supporting a decision making and problemsolving activity.iv. To have an effect on the cognitive level by providing a combinatorialenvironment. In order to operate in this environment, children should learnhow to handle and evaluate different types of non-linear information.v. To help the children acquire a certain degree of computer literacy. Thisknowledge may be a valuable ingredient in their curriculum, and may help
them to cope more effectively with the demands of their scholarly andprofessional life.vi. To give access to information by introducing basic features of informationtechnology. Access to information would eventually lead to a greater
individual freedom and to the breakdown of rigid and standardised
classroom practices.
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3. Why use a Computer-Assisted Language Learning system (CALL) in
the classrooms of this particular area?
The idea of integrating software packages in the minority schools curriculum
was received with ironic comments on the incongruity of introducing
computers in an area with vital socio-economic problems, such as high
degree of illiteracy, poverty and isolation.
The obstacles were indeed plenty. Schools did not have the necessary
infrastructure to support computer equipment. Major difficulties also emerged
in organising a steady technical support for computer systems, especially in
remote areas. In addition, the majority of teachers were not familiarised with
new technologies.
3.1 Arguments and counter-arguments
Besides the practical side of the issue, many objections were raised
concerning social and educational side effects deriving from computer use. In
an area where children need to socialise, computer was considered as a
device that promotes individualistic attitudes. Furthermore, computer use was
felt as a threat to the relationship between teacher and pupil and to classroom
collective activities.
A second set of negative reactions derives mainly from considerations in
terms of investment return. Social as well as pedagogical expectations from
introducing computers into primary schools were regarded as panacea of
technology (Snyder 1999, Murray & Barnes 1998). Moreover, the high cost of
producing an almost immaterial product - immaterial in the sense that the
contents of a CD-ROM are inaccessible without the proper equipment was, -
and still is - considered as a fruitless investment.
Although, these arguments point out to a number of possible negative aspects
concerning computer use, they should be weighed up against advantages thatfollow from the use of information technology in the particular setting of
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minority schools. Besides the educational advantages, there is a social factor
worth taking into account: the distribution of information technology in regions
facing problems, might have a positive effect and might be seen by people
who have suffered from social prejudice and impoverishment, as an attempt
to reduce social divisions and to increase individual opportunity by giving
more people access to information.
From the educational point of view, it is clear that computers promote a
student-centred way of learning, and in this particular sense we might say that
the teacher is no longer the key factor of the learning process (Drenoyianni &
Selwood 1998). In the context of minority schools, however, the relationship
between teacher and pupil has not always a positive effect on educational
process. Most teachers fail to recognise the cultural identity of children, and
all too readily assign particularities in behaviour and learning difficulties into
inferior intellectual capacities. Consequently, no learning flow can be
established between the main participants in the educational process.
It is clear that technology cannot solve these problems. It can, however,
create a learning environment where social conflicts are neutralised, or, to be
more accurate, they are temporarily suspended. Thus, childrens energy is
focused on learning and not on handling matters of social antagonism.
Secondly, information technology allows children to work in their own pace, to
organise their learning approach in a way that corresponds to their needs, to
their interests and to their proper faculties, without the paralysing effect ofacademic evaluation. On the other hand, the educational software provides
an evaluation procedure, i.e. an immediate feedback, which helps the learner
assess her/his performance.
Thirdly, linguistic information provided by the computer software is modular,
with multiple links and joints forming a comprehensive system which reflects
more accurately and in a more systematic way the actual linguistic
organisation, than does, for instance, the sequential linear presentation found
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in printed books. Moreover, with hypertext techniques, different kinds of
information may be hidden or revealed, according to the interests of the user.
Fourthly, via computers, written texts are merged with audio sequence and
graphics. Thus, effective ostensive techniques and different strategies are
available in constructing new ways of representing knowledge.
And last, but not least, a CALL system introduces new literacy practices.
Parallel to language teaching, computer use provides a certain degree of
awareness concerning information technology.
4. Linguistic Infrastructure
As mentioned in section 2, an effort was made to set up an integrated
language learning system. The term integrated used in this context refers both
to the autonomous use of the system and to a coherent and layered set of
linguistic information.
As far as the former feature is concerned, it is worth noting that every
linguistic item appearing in the program is defined either by means of the
support language or by a statement of its meaning or essential properties.
The latter feature refers to a stratified coverage of linguistic knowledge. A pre-
determined hierarchy, a syllabus that establishes a sequential learning of
linguistic phenomena was set up. This syllabus was fleshed out in a creative
way by the famous childrens book author Eugene Trivizas. Eugene Trivizas
wrote, for this specific purpose, a stimulating quest narrative that, in the
multimedia environment, was converted to a game. This narrative, even if it is
created within the narrow limits of grammatical and lexical specifications, has
been written by a talented author, who considered the specifications provided
by the linguistic team rather as a challenge than as a barrier. By using poetic2
2
The term poetic is based on the definition given by Jakobson (1960), i.e. the projection of
paradigmatic to syntagmatic axis.
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techniques he brought out in an amusing way the essential features of
linguistic phenomena under consideration.
5. Syllabus structure
Intermediate successive grammars constructed by second language learners
are subject to two kinds of pressure:
The structure of native language interferes with the learning of the second. The typology of the second language.Whether SLA researchers consider intermediate grammars as an
interlanguage or an interference phenomenon, the learning of the second
language clearly involves some degree of recategorisation (Culioli 1977).Learning Greek as a second language by Turkish native speakers requires a
wide range of recategorisation. The structural differences between the two
languages explain to a large extend the number and the type of difficulties
encountered. Turkish is an agglutinate language while Greek is an inflectional
one. This typological difference between the two languages is reflected both
in the relation between morphemes and meaning and in the way major
syntactic categories are constructed. Furthermore, in the phonetic level,phonemes that appear in the Greek phonological system do not appear in
Turkish. Therefore, the syllabus that served as a starting point for the texts is
based:
(a)On idiosyncratic features of Greek grammar, especially the complexinflectional system.
(b)On linguistic deviations (phonetic, grammatical, syntactic or lexical)observed during our work in schools. 3
(c)On the syllabus of the primary education established by the Greek Ministryof Education.
5.1 Grammatical categories driven grammar
In the grammar component, emphasis is given in the presentation of
grammatical categories, such as gender, case, tense, aspect, person, number
etc. which are expressed in Greek by highly fusional inflectional morphemes.
3
Many of these deviations are analogous to the deviations observed by Stephany 1997, in theprocess of acquisition of Greek as a native language.
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Syntactic structures and grammatical functions are determined by the
distribution of these morphemes along linguistic sequences. This particular
way of organising the grammar is based on the assumption that the crucial
part of the Greek grammar is the interface between morphology and
syntax/semantics.
5.2 Basic vocabulary
The choice of vocabulary used in the systems went through different phases.
The initial list of lexical items, which served as a basis for Eugene Trivizas,
was constructed according to the following principles:
(a)All inflectional paradigms should appear in the corpus. Therefore, a list oflexical items exemplifying the inflectional paradigms was set up.
(b)All phonemes or phonetic clusters that present difficulties should appear inthe corpus. Therefore, a second list with words containing specific
phonetic features was established.
E. Trivizas chose some of the words from the list and wrote the texts. All
words appearing in texts became lexical entries in the dictionary. Lexical
entries were followed by examples of use. Words appearing in the exampleswere introduced in the dictionary as lexical entries. The recursive nature of the
process was blocked in the third series of words.
A fourth list of lexical items was set up in order to integrate in the system a
basic vocabulary based on the following thematic areas:
home, school, locations (organised, natural), transport, sports /leisure time,animals / insects, cloths / jewellery, body and face, quantity / measures,
plants, natural phenomena, professions / occupations, food and beverage,
kinship relations, time, materials / colours / shapes, location in space, health
The current bilingual dictionary contains 4.200 entries
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6. Design of the system
6.1 Interactive activity as a contribution to the plot
As mentioned before, each CD-ROM is based on a tale of quest consisting of
eight and sixteen episodes respectively. The plot goes as follows: a knight in
order to decipher the messages of his beloved princess has to gain a certain
number of letters, in the first part, or words, in the second part. In his attempt
to find the missing parts of the messages, the knight visits the rooms of an
imaginary castle or the residences in an imaginary country. In each room or
residence he encounters strange creatures and undergoes various
adventures. Finally, letters and words come to his possession after he hasgone through, with the child's help, certain "ordeals", which, in this case, are
grammar, phonetic and vocabulary exercises.
The development of the story demands the participation of the user, while the
plot of both fairytales is the thread that holds the various parts together and
gives the user the boost to continue in order to find out the end of each story.
The pupil has the possibility to see and hear the fairytale as it unfolds, as wellas plan her/his way through the various rooms or buildings. Thus, s/he
becomes aware of the autonomy of her/his decisions and choices and gets to
see their results.
6.2 Modules, components and functionality of the system
The system comprises five modules: the fairytale narration, the parallel text,i.e. the translation into Turkish, the exercises, the grammar, and the bilingual
dictionary. It contains also some additional components serving as signposts
that help the users in their orientation in the browsing environment.
6.2.1 Fairytale narrationThe narration, read by various professional actors, appears in written form at
the bottom of the screen. This module enables the user to follow the plot of
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the story. The user can adjust the rhythm of the narrative by clicking on a
button.
6.2.2 Parallel textsEach time the user stops the narration the parallel texts appear. The parallel
texts consist of the text in Greek and its translation into the support language.
In this section the user can control the reception of the information concerning
the previous story narration. S/he can gradually read and listen to each
sentence that appears and at the same time read its Turkish translation.
6.2.3Bilingual DictionaryFull words that appear in the parallel texts are highlighted and underlined.
This notation indicates that these specific words are also listed in the
incorporated bilingual dictionary, which is linked to the parallel texts and can
be retrieved by clicking on each highlighted word.
Each word listed in the bilingual dictionary is followed by a set of information:
(a)Grammatical information (part of speech, inflectional forms which areconsidered difficult for foreign learners, hyphenation).
(b)Examples of different uses.(c)Pronunciation of the word.(d)Turkish equivalent.(e) A photo or a drawing (when this is possible).
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Different uses may correspond to different illustrations as well as to different
translation equivalents.
As mentioned before, all the words used in the examples are included in the
bilingual dictionary. Consequently, the dictionary has a robust internal linkage.
There are five ways of retrieving a word:
1. By clicking on the parallel texts2. By clicking on the words of the examples3. By typing the word4. By scrolling down the vocabulary list5. By choosing one of the letters of the alphabet the user will be
automatically transferred to the first word of each letter.
The variety of ways for searching and looking up a word allows the user to
develop her/his own way of retrieving and acquiring information.
6.2.4GrammarGrammar is integrated into the software as a book, which can be recalled by
the help or the grammar button on the navigation bar. It has the outlook ofan unfolded papyrus, on which each grammatical phenomenon is described
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to a new technological environment where new skills are being acquired. The
user learns how to carry out a set of explicit instructions. Furthermore, the
non-linear construction of the exercises with the possibility to hear the
instructions, to use another module, i.e. the grammar, or to exit the exercise,
gives the user the chance to develop new strategies for handling the
information provided.
6.3 Free navigation
In order to give the user the possibility of self-planning, the system allows free
navigation through its main modules and auxiliary components. This
possibility generates different modes of seeking and retrieving information.
The navigation through the various components of the software is realised
either by a hidden toolbar or by indices, such as an arrow, a hearer, a hand, a
door, underlined or highlighted words, etc. On the toolbar, an icon followed by
its verbal description represents each module and component, i.e. the
message of the princess, the translation, the dictionary, the texts, the
grammar and the exercise instructions. A number of complementary buttons,such as the back, the first page, the continue or the exit button are
designed in order to facilitate the modular navigation.
As the child goes from the first to the second CD-ROM, s/he experiences a
greater freedom in data handling. Similarly, the plot becomes more complex
and its deployment follows various paths. The knight is no longer restricted in
the interior of the Castle of Letters, but goes on a journey and visits various
buildings, with the Castle of Wordsbeing his final end. In the course of his
journey, he has the possibility to explore different cultures by meeting people
(a French painter, an English detective, a Dutch dancer, a Danish whale-
saver etc) and by hearing and reading traditional folk tales, such as A story by
Nastredin Hotza, The Princess and the Pea, The Rabbit and the Turtle and
The Little Red Riding Hood. S/he also has the possibility to get pragmatic
information concerning countries, monuments and authors.
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Correspondingly, the general structure of A Knight in the Castle of Words is
different from the structure of A Knight in the Castle of Letters. The user has
an overall view of the program. The range as well as the nature of the options
is characterised by a greater degree of diversity and variety, e.g. the user has
the opportunity to select among different buildings, exercises, and even
games, such as tic-tac-toe, hangman, mastermindand naval battle.
In addition, in the Castle of Letters the exercises are ordered in a stable
sequence without a possibility of deviation from it. In the Castle of Words the
user has the possibility to choose from a variety of exercises corresponding to
each room or building. Furthermore, the exercise requirements are not
restricted to grammatical phenomena, but they also cover pragmatic
information about countries, cities and monuments, authors and people from
different parts of the world with a variety of cultural backgrounds.
6.4 Computer literacy
As far as computer literacy is concerned, the user gets progressively
acquainted with information handling techniques, such as filling, classificationand matching, alphabetic ordering, lists of contents, indices, symbols etc.
Furthermore, by learning to navigate through the various rooms or buildings
appearing in the system, the user becomes acquainted with a restricted
language use which gives her/him an insight into another frame where
language can be deployed (Kukulska-Hume 2000). For instance the button
help is an item of the ordinary language, which in this particular contexts
refers exclusively to grammar help.
7. Concluding remarks
The above-presented educational CALL systems were used experimentally in
fourteen schools, all of them located in remote areas. Even though they were
originally accepted with enthusiasm, their use was not introduced in the
curriculum on a regular basis. Their integration in the classroom practice was
only partial, and went on decreasing as the contact between teachers and the
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members of the team who created the CD-ROMs strung out. The teaching
staff wasnt ready to face the technical problems which arose and, thus, many
computers ended up in teachers offices and were used for administrative
work or recreation.
This situation did not allow a proper and objective evaluation of the CALL
systems with respect to the target group, even though the software was
awarded a 9 on a scale to 10 in an evaluation conducted by a distinguished
magazine specialised in IT matters4. In this respect, only the technical and the
linguistic features were assessed and not its actual effectiveness.
A systematic assessment of the program efficiency could not be realised
unless two preliminary conditions are fulfilled: a) a stable technical support for
computer hardware and software, and b) the education of the teachers in
computer use. In order to answer questions such as In what degree does the
educational software promote language literacy? or Does the pupil acquire
certain skills in computers use?, we first have to address the question What
is the teachers behaviour towards computers in the classroom, and to what
degree, if any, do they believe that computers promote language teaching?.
As Fullan and Stiegelbauer (1991) have justly pointed out, integration and
implementation of any educational innovation into existing practices depends
heavily on the teachers. The integration of the educational software in the
classroom environment requires a strategy: it should be carefully planned and
it should be supported both by a technical infrastructure and by a continuingprofessional development of the teachers.
4
RAM, January 2002
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Evaluation, Language Resources and Tools for EducationalApplications, Workshop Proceedings, 2000.
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First published in Australia in 2002 by Common Ground Publishing Pty Ltd athttp://LearningConference.Publisher-Site.com/
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