CALL and autonomy

A couple of years ago, I started crafting an online PLN; and in following edtech bloggers, I began to get an inkling of the myriad tech tools that were available online. Last year, I began to incorporate tech tools into my classes in earnest, and I started to more fully appreciate the ways these tools could promote autonomy by offering a wide range of choices and removing learning from the confines of the classroom. 

In light of all of this, this week’s reading was particularly interesting to me, as it took these nascent ideas and suggested new directions, links, and perspectives that I hadn’t previously considered. The focus of the reading was computer programs providing language instruction, but many of its points can also apply to tech tools that act as a medium/excuse for using language, as well.

Our reading this week:

Healey, D. (2007). Theory and research: Autonomy and language learning. In Hanson-Smith, E. & Egbert, J. (Eds.), CALL environments, 2nd edition (pp. 377-388). Alexandria, VA: TESOL.

In Healey’s piece, there were a few ideas that I was particularly taken with.

1. A community of practice for language learners

Autonomy doesn’t mean students have to study alone! In fact, Healey suggests that autonomous learning “is enriched by the connectivity provided by the internet” (p. 379) and recommends collaborative “tandem learning projects” that “encourage learners to teach each other” (p. 379). Though she doesn’t elaborate on what kinds of projects might be useful, she does point out that the difficulty learners might face in finding online collaborators is more than made up for by the “real-time, synchronous interaction” and “delayed interaction” (p. 382) that technology permits.

I love this idea! True, the idea of using technology for collaborative learning isn’t new; but I had never thought of it as a community of practice. It really is, though, isn’t it? Even without collaborative projects, communities created by sites such as Voxopop provide learners with a network offering support and encouragement—as well as an authentic audience that can give learners purpose.

2. Technology can help change the locus of power.

I had a vague notion of this, since using technology encourages learners to express themselves and tap into their personal preferences, beliefs, and funds of knowledge, privileging these experiences and recognizing them as worthy of inclusion in a classroom.

Besides this, though, I like the way Healey laid out a teacher’s purpose in the CALL classroom: “The role of the teacher is to help learners see that they have options and to help them achieve their goals” (p. 379). Indeed, the teacher/facilitator, throughout the online learning process, “has a substantial role to play in encouraging learners to use a variety of material and methods and explaining how to go about doing so” (p. 382 & 383). This ties in nicely with the idea of promoting autonomy through offering choice, but takes it a step further: giving learners choice...with the ultimate goal of their being able to find, evaluate, and utilize online resources on their own.

3. Providing intrinsic and extrinsic motivation.

As with the points above, this is not exactly a new idea, but I appreciated having it laid out so clearly. Learners, Healey says, can derive “an internal sense of satisfaction” (p. 383) from shiny, impressive products of technology (Healey cites “a good-looking printout” [p. 383], but I’d suggest that the multimodal production options available online today are even more rewarding). A more extrinsic pleasure, meanwhile, can be derived from charting one’s progress through the explicit assessments and “mileposts” (p. 383) built into many CALL programs.

Healey also touches briefly on the possibility of (facilitator-initiated) self-assessment, and I think this is an area that has expanded since the publication of this chapter. I’d suggest that an online portfolio resource such as LinguaFolio would meet Healey’s approval and, indeed, might overcome the weakness of CALL programs’ “snapshot of learner performance” that fails to “give students a sense of where they stand in meeting their overall language learning goals” (p. 383). LinguaFolio or other self-assessment tools can, I think, help learners track (and set) personal milestones not determined (or fulfilled) by language-learning computer programs.

Caveats

Of the weaknesses and caveats related to CALL that Healey cites, there were two that really resonated with me.

1. Beware “inauthentic labor”

Healey suggests “inauthentic labor” is found in the “struggle just to operate a program” (p. 383); and indeed, this has been one of the most frustrating aspects of finding appropriate tools to use in my classroom. So many sites are completely unintuitive, overly complex, or riddled with advertisements, or they require software downloads! This is a key barrier to access that teachers need to keep in mind, and I'm glad Healey addresses it.

2. A call for critical pedagogy in CALL

Honestly, this is one aspect of CALL that I hadn’t considered: the need to situate it in “a larger political and social context” (p. 387). Healey briefly explores the ways in which “[technology] can encourage certain ways of thinking and acting and discourage others”; for example, CALL materials might “require learners to work one-on-one with a machine, to use workbook-style exercises that give instant feedback but require no deeper thought, to see one right answer in exercises, to memorize and repeat after the computer, and to trust what they find online” (p. 387).

Healey urges teachers to use critical pedagogy to question and make visible “the assumptions behind these approaches—that language learning is divorced from thinking, that language can be memorized, and that the knowledge of those who post online is greater than the learner’s” (p. 387). I’d be very interested in reading more about critical pedagogy in CALL; how teachers can help learners discover “how to query, find, and question what they find on the internet, in software, and in print” (p. 388).