Session 6.0 Research Activity

How IT can help to facilitate language learning

Background

Language teaching has been a very popular topic for hundreds of years. Learning learning as an academic subject has somehow become compulsory for students from young to elder. It is even common to learn a second language apart from the native language a person speak. For example, in Hong Kong English Language Learning is a core subject starting from Kindergarten to senior Secondary level. In recent years studying Putonghua becomes another compulsory subject in Hong Kong. In higher education there are even some other foreign language subjects available, e.g. French, Spanish, Japanese, etc.

However, ways of conducting language teaching did not change a lot for hundreds of years. The common practice of it is face-to-face teaching with an instructor / teacher talking to the class and students response. Until about 20 years ago with the evolution of technology some aiding materials became available to language teaching and learning. The most common tool should be audio tapes which have recorded some demo speeches for students to learn. As technology evolution continues the ways of conducting language learning is reaching some new horizons. There are still some other factors contributing the needs for using IT. For example, there is time constraint for a student to spare time attending classes. There could be geographic constraint to a person to learn how native people speak. People always say the best place to learn a foreign language is the place where native people speak that language, e.g. Japan for Japanese, Beijing for Putonghua, etc. On the other hand, the chance of practicing for the learning language is somehow limited within the classroom.

This research attempt to study how IT has been used to assist in language teaching. How people has been using IT to learning foreign language and whether there is still other constraints which are waiting to be addressed.

Methodology

Research will be carried out in both qualitative and quantitative directions. Qualitative research includes focus groups, interviews and observation where quantitative research includes online survey. Groups of teachers and students from related disciplines will be selected and invited for collecting ideas about how they have been using IT for language teaching and learning, how they found it useful and what are the constraints they have come across. Class observations will be followed to compare the collected results against our own observations. With the collected information, a survey questionnaire will be prepared and conducted for further analysis.

Plan procedure

A list of literatures in related topics have been identified and selected for reading. They will be reviewed to identify the common issues of IT in language learning, i.e. difficulties of current way of language learning, current IT that is being used in language learning, and identify unaddressed issues. It will be followed by confirmation of designed research methods to tie up with our intended research outcome. Research procedure planning is to be followed. After that a timetime of the research will be scheduled and the actual research will be carried out. The collected information will be analyzed for the final research report preparation.

Reference

HKU research guide, retrieved November, 30, 2012, http://lib.hku.hk/general/research/index.html

Writing a research paper, retreived November 30, 2012, http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~bioslabs/tools/report/reportform.html

Robson C. How to do a Research Project, retrieved November 30, 2012, http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/researchproject/weblinks.asp

Basic steps in the Research Process, retrieved November 30, 2012, http://www.crlsresearchguide.org/


Literatures review
Wang, SUPPORTING SYNCHRONOUS DISTANCE LANGUAGE LEARNING
WITH DESKTOP VIDEOCONFERENCING, 2004, retrieved November 30, 2012, http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.134.2099&rep=rep1&type=pdf

Hampel and Mirjam Hauck, TOWARDS AN EFFECTIVE USE OF AUDIO CONFERENCING IN DISTANCE LANGUAGE COURSES, 2004, retrieved November 30, 2012, http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.125.14&rep=rep1&type=pdf

Chinnery, Emerging Technologies - Going to the MALL: Mobile Assisted Language Learning, 2006, retrieved November 30, 2012, http://llt.msu.edu/vol10num1/pdf/emerging.pdf

Murray and Mcpherson, Using the web to support language learning, 2004, retrieved November 30, 2012, http://www.ameprc.mq.edu.au/docs/research_reports/twnt_series/Using_the_Web.pdf

Ruschoff, Language Learning and Information Technology State of the Art, 1993, retrieved November 30, 2012, https://calico.org/memberBrowse.php?action=article&id=552

En101 Learning Japanese, retrieved November 30, 2012, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ViHlTQvFt-4

Language learning - Skype, retrieve November 30, 2012, http://community.skype.com/t5/Language-learning/bd-p/Languages