Designing for authenticity: a framework and guidelines for conversation simulation courseware

1. Designing for authenticity: a framework and guidelines for conversation simulation courseware Prof. dr. Jozef Colpaert Frederik Cornillie LINGUAPOLIS research & development Language Teaching Symposium 2009, Gent

2. Statement • There’s probably no God.Now stop worryingand enjoy your life.

3. Statement • There’s probably no learning effect in TECHNOLOGY.Now stop worryingand enjoy your research.

4. Research you say ? • NSDS: No Significant Difference Syndrome  ecological shift: design the entire learning environment • SES: Sunday Evening Syndrome • 95 % work, 5 % research • Sunday evening = research moment?  how to transform your daily work into research

5. Research you say ? • Attitude A: • I am involved in developing and using technology for learning and teaching, and my perception is that I am rather good at it. I should publish more but I have the feeling that my work is not being valued academically nor recognized as research … • Attitude B: • I have just developed this tool (which already existed in the early eighties, but who cares?). Dancing Bearware really, but I present it as coconstruction of knowledge, negotiation of meaning, or empirical validation of theory. It’s fake, but I add Vygotsky and it really works. I get grants and awards, my presentations are accepted at conferences and I even get published. You should try it …

6. DLL • Distributed Language Learning • conceptual and methodological framework for designing learning environments • educational engineering model • based on hypothetical compromise between pedagogical and personal goals • role of technology and choice of learning/teaching method are logical consequences

7. DLL • Distributed Language Learning • in phase of further theoretical / empirical validation • contribute to collaborative research

8. Educational engineering Analysis Design conceptualization Theory specification Technology prototyping Development Implementation Evaluation

9. teacher content teacher content Classrm wall learner colearner learner colearner Architecture

10. Technology & authenticity IIC model applied to learners: Mediated = with human or technological intervention

11. Information • Non-mediated • use of authentic materials on the Web • examples: WebQuests, www.deredactie.be, … • Mediated • use of adapted materials (simplified texts, hyperhelp …) • examples: Internet actuel, hyperlinks, http://podcasts.ox.ac.uk/, http://www.radiolingua.com/, http://mitworld.mit.edu/, … • Advantages / disadvantages ?

12. Communication • Non-mediated • With natives not aware of LL process • Examples: chat, mail, twitter, fora, text, blog, virtual worlds … • Mediated • With co-learners, teacher or natives aware of the LL process • Examples: Tandem learning, http://www.patati.be/ • Advantages, disadvantages ?

13. Interaction • Non-mediated • Use of systems not developed for LL purposes • Examples: reservation sites, Second Life, (non-dedicated) chatterbots, point of sales systems … • Mediated • Use of systems developed for LL purposes • Examples: language courseware, tests, http://www.slanguages.net/ … • Advantages, disadvantages ?

14. So ?

15. Authenticity • Different roles of technology tackle authenticity differently • Different moments/situations/levels require different forms of authenticity

16. DISCO project • conversation simulation courseware for language learning • degrees of authenticity in ... • task type • feedback • content • assessment & progress tracking

17. DISCO project • Development and Integrationof Speech technology into Courseware for language learning • Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen, Polderland Language and Speech Technology, Linguapolis (Universiteit Antwerpen) • STEVIN research project, Nederlandse Taalunie

18. DISCO requirements • to develop and test a prototype of an ASR-based CALL application for training oral proficiency for Dutch as a second language (DL2) at A2 level • to optimize learning through interaction in realistic communication situations • to provide intelligent feedback on various aspects of DL2 speaking, viz. pronunciation, morphology and syntax

19. Degrees of authenticity • task type • feedback • content • assessment & progress tracking

20. Degrees of authenticity • task type • feedback • content • assessment & progress tracking

21. Task type • conversation simulation with animated agents • “interactive participatory drama” (Hubbard 2002) • conversation branching (item-based system) • afterwards remediation on specific topics, coached by pronunciation agent

22. Conversation environment

23. Conversation environment

24. Remediation environment

25. Degrees of authenticity • task type • feedback • content • assessment & progress tracking

26. Feedback in ASR-based CALL • waveforms and spectograms • talking heads • feedback based on pronunciation score • corrective feedback

27. Feedback in ASR-based CALL • waveforms and spectograms • talking heads • feedback based on pronunciation score • corrective feedback

28. Feedback in CAPT Results of 2007 doctoral study, Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen: • The key to successful CAPT is detailed corrective feedback ... • ... but applied with moderation.

29. Dutch-CAPT project

30. Corrective feedback types * Ik heb een trui gekoopt.

31. Ambiguity of recast • ambiguous function • corrective & mediated (focus on form) • “Ah, je hebt een trui gekocht.” • communicative & authentic (focus on meaning) • “Ah, je hebt een trui gekocht. Hoe ziet die eruit?” • use in classroom teaching • frequently used for treating morphosyntactic errors • less frequently used for treating pronunciation and lexicon • effect on learning outcome (!!) • higher effect on pronunciation and lexicon • lower effect on morphosyntax

32. Feedback in DISCO • two types of corrective feedback, varying with respect to learner preference • explicit correction • “I want lots of feedback in the conversation,in order to correct my mistakes and achieve perfect pronunciation.” • recast • “Even when I make mistakes, I want to go on with the conversation, in order to practice fluency. ” • non-verbal feedback

33. Explicit correction

34. Recast

35. Degrees of authenticity • task type • feedback • content • assessment & progress tracking

36. Content • Seemingly authentic conversations ... • realistic situations • speech acts • ... however, very artificial and intricate content authoring • technological constraints: length of sentences, interjections, disfluencies • phonetic constraints: frequent mistakes at A2 level • grammatical constraints: frequent morphosyntactic mistakes at A2 level • lexical constraints: frequency of vocabulary at A2 level • cultural constraints: Dutch-Flemish bias • didactic constraints: validity of assessment (see further) => delicate balance between requirements/constraints and authentic feel of the conversations

37. Content authoring plan • studying the cultural context (a.o. Nieuwe Buren videos); • devising the narrative plan, with detours and alternative endings; • writing separate blocks of conversations for each alternative path in the dialogue; • feeding the conversation trees into the content database; • double-checking the logic of the narrative in the prototype software; • checking vocabulary and cultural elements for socio-linguistic consistency (Dutch-Flemish contexts); • checking the length of the sentences from the point of view of ASR and NLP requirements; • checking vocabulary and grammar from a linguistic-didactic point of view (typical A2 vocabulary, possible hyperonyms/hyponyms, ...); • checking vocabulary and grammar for consistency with Nieuwe Buren vocabulary and grammar; • adding grammatical codes to each turn in the branched conversation, so that all linguistic aspects are more or less equally distributed over the complete conversation tree; • elaborating prompts for morphology and syntax exercises (which are in fact semantically identical to the prompts for pronunciation, but differ only in grammatical form); • adding contextual information to each pair of turns in the conversation, so that the graphical artist and photographer know which content to create; • debugging the complete conversation in the prototype after the insertion of multimedia content (sounds, graphics).

38. Content authoring in database

39. Content authoring in database

40. Degrees of authenticity • task type • feedback • content • assessment & progress tracking

41. Assessment & progress tracking • formative assessment > “How am I doing?” • system keeps scores for each topic on which learner is tested • phoneme • grammatical topic (e.g. subject-verb concord, verb position, ...) • scores increase or decrease according to learner performance => topics have to be (more or less) equally distributed in the conversation tree

42. Topic distribution

43. Report

44. Summing up XX • kort herhalen wat gezegd geweest is • IIC schema • DISCO als vb van • authenticiteit op 4 vlakken

45. You’re invited … • Antwerp CALL 2010 “Beyond motivation” • August 2010 • http://www.antwerpcall.be • Summer School “A Toolbox for Design-Based Research” • Qualitative and quantitative research methods in language learning and teaching, University of Antwerp, 16 to 20 August 2009 • http://summerschool.linguapolis.be

46. An authentic thank you • Credits to • Koen De Maesschalck, illustrations (www.koendm.be) • STEVIN research funds, Nederlandse Taalunie • Contact us • jozef.colpaert@ua.ac.be • frederik.cornillie@ua.ac.be

47. Questions for discussion • Q1 • Q2