In this study, we compared the impact of audio-, video-, and text-chat interaction on target language use during online learner-learner interaction and on learner affect amongst adolescent learners of German as a foreign language. Repeated measures and ANOVA analyses revealed a high percentage of target language output in all conditions for all four tasks, especially in text- chat. Audio-chatters produced the most output and used the most meaning negotiation, compensation strategies, self-repair and other-repair strategies. Learners in all conditions gained in enjoyment, willingness to communicate and self-efficacy. Anxiety reduced for text-chatters. Task effects partly determined the quantity of L2 output, while condition effects determined meaning-oriented and form-focused processing.
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Higher education is making increasing demands on students’ learner-agency and self-directed learning. What exactly are learner agency and self-directed learning? Why are they important? And what does it take? The aim of the five questions and answers on this poster is to support a common language and to be used as conversation starters when you want to discuss learner-agency and self-directed learning.
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This study shows how learner initiatives are taken during classroom discussions where the teacher seeks to make room for subjectification. Using Conversation Analysis, subjectification can be observed when students take the freedom to express themselves as subjects through learner initiatives. Drawing on data from classroom discussions in language and literature lessons in the mother tongue, the authors find that learner initiatives can be observed in three different ways: agreement, request for information, counter-response. A learner initiative in the form of an agreement appears to function mostly as a continuer and prompts the previous speaker to reclaim the turn, while the I-R-F structure remains visible. In contrast, making a request for information or giving a counter-response ensures mostly a breakthrough of the I-R-F-structure and leads to a dialogical participation framework in which multiple students participate. Findings illustrate that by making a request for information or giving a counter-response, students not only act as an independent individual, but also encourage his peers to do so.
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Little is known about the effects of different instructional approaches on learner affect in oral interaction in the foreign language classroom. In a randomized experiment with Dutch pre-vocational learners (N = 147), we evaluated the effects of 3 newly developed instructional programs for English as a foreign language (EFL). These programs differed in instructional focus (form-focused vs. interaction strategies- oriented) and type of task (pre-scripted language tasks vs. information gap tasks). Multilevel analyses revealed that learners’ enjoyment of EFL oral interaction was not affected by instruction, that willingness to communicate (WTC) decreased over time, and that self-confidence was positively affected by combining information gap tasks with interactional strategies instruction. In addition, regression analyses revealed that development in learners’ WTC and enjoyment did not have predictive value for achievement in EFL oral interaction, but that development in self-confidence did explain achievement in EFL oral interaction in trained interactional contexts.
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Interaction in the target language (TL) is essential to foreign language development (Swain, 1985, Long, 1981). Meaningful tasks are thought to evoke interaction between learners (e.g. Pica, Kanagy & Falodun, 2009). However, even in a task-based curriculum for German, Dutch secondary school learners barely used the TL during task preparations (Author, 2018). Interviews (ibid.) revealed that these learners were embarrassed to use the TL in a face-to-face setting. Therefore, we investigated whether learners’ use of the TL can be increased by using online interaction tools, which tend to decrease learner anxiety and promote willingness to communicate (WTC). In an experimental study involving German (9th grade) as a foreign language, we compare the effects of audio-, video-, and text-chat interaction on the quantity and quality of learners’ TL use during online task interaction and subsequent oral F2F task performance. Students were randomly assigned to three preparation conditions: audio-, video, and text-chat. The experiment was spread over a period of six weeks: Week 1: pre-tests (vocabulary size; experience with digital tools; ratings of WTC, self-confidence, enjoyment; intro/extraversion).Week 2-5: learners performance of four 20’ online tasks in pairs. Week 6: Post-tests (paired oral F2F task; productive vocabulary test; ratings of WTC, self-confidence, enjoyment). Learner output was analysed for both quantitative as qualitative production measures. F2F oral tasks established whether gains obtained during online interaction transfer to F2F interaction. Questionnaires were used to establish whether there are significant differences between the three modes of communication on learners’ ratings of self-confidence in, enjoyment of and willingness to express themselves in the TL, and whether these ratings vary for introverted and extraverted learners. During the session, preliminary results from this study were presented
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Background to the problem Dutch society demonstrates a development which is apparent in many societies in the 21st century; it is becoming ethnically heterogeneous. This means that children who are secondlanguage speakers of Dutch are learning English, a core curriculum subject, through the medium of the Dutch language. Research questions What are the consequences of this for the individual learner and the class situation?Is a bi-lingual background a help or a hindrance when acquiring further language competences. Does the home situation facilitate or impede the learner? Additionally, how should the TEFL professional respond to this situation in terms of methodology, use of the Dutch language, subject matter and assessment? Method of approach A group of ethnic minority students at Fontys University of Professional Education was interviewed. The interviews were subjected to qualitative analysis. To ensure triangulation lecturers involved in teaching English at F.U.P.E. were asked to fill in a questionnaire on their teaching approach to Dutch second language English learners. Thier response was quantitatively and qualitatively analysed. Findings and conclusions The students encountered surprisingly few problems. Their bi-lingualism and home situation were not a constraint in their English language development. TEFL professionals should bear the heterogeneous classroom in mind when developing courses and lesson material. The introduction to English at primary school level and the assessment of DL2 learners require further research.
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The past decades have shown an accelerated development of technology-enhanced or digital education. Although an important and recognized precondition for study success, still little attention has been paid to examining how an affective learning climate can be fostered in online training programs. Besides gaining insight into the dynamics of affective learning itself it is of vital importance to know what predicts trainees’ intention to transfer new knowledge and skills to other contexts. The present study investigated the influence of five affective learner characteristics from the transfer literature (learner readiness, motivation to learn, expected positive outcomes, expected negative outcomes, personal capacity) on trainees’ pre-training transfer intention. Participants were 366 adult students enrolled in an online course in information literacy in a distance learning environment. As information literacy is a generic competence, applicable in various contexts, we developed a novel multicontextual transfer perspective and investigated within one single study the influence of the abovementioned variables on pre-training transfer intention for both the students’ Study and Work contexts. The hypothesized model has been tested using structural equation modeling. The results showed that motivation to learn, expected positive personal outcomes, and learner readiness were the strongest predictors. Results also indicated the benefits of gaining pre-training insight into the specific characteristics of multiple transfer contexts, especially when education in generic competences is involved. Instructional designers might enhance study success by taking affective transfer elements and multicontextuality into account when designing digital education.
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One of the claims the OER movement makes is that availability of (open) digital learning materials improves the quality of education. The promise is the ability to offer educational programs that take into account specific demands of the learner. The question is how to reach a situation where a customized demand can be met using OER with acceptable quality against acceptable costs. This situation resembles mass customization as is common in industry for several decades now. Techniques from an industry where an end product is assembled with the demands of the customer as a starting point can be translated to the field of education where courses and learning paths through a curriculum are assembled using a mixture of open and closed learning materials and learning services offered by an institution. Advanced IT support for both the modeling of the learning materials and services and a configurator to be used by a learner are necessary conditions for this approach.
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Learner metacognition is one of the most influential factors that positively affects learning. Previous work shows that game-based learning can contribute to supporting and developing metacognitive knowledge and skills of learners. While there are many specific examples of such games, it remains unclear how to effectively design game-based learning environments to achieve this in an effective way. In other words: there is sufficient case-specific evidence, but limited design knowledge derived from such cases. In this paper, we attempt to identify such intermediary design knowledge that resides between specific games and generalized theory. We present three design experiments where game-based metacognitive training is evaluated in real-world educational settings. We collected insights regarding usefulness, motivation, usage, effort, and metacognition among participating students. From these experiments we identify what was learned in the form of design recommendations and, as such, contribute to collecting intermediary design knowledge for designing game-based metacognitive training.
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