TASK 2


TITLE :ORAL INTERACTION AROUND COMPUTERS IN THE PROJECT- ORIENTED CALL CLASSROOM

JOURNAL :LANGUAGE LEARNING & TECHNOLOGY

VOLUME :September 2005, Volume 9, Number 3 pp. 121-145

WEBSITE :http://llt.msu.edu/vol9num3/jeon/

WRITER :Gumock Jeon-Ellis, Robert Debski, & Gillian Wigglesworth, University of Melbourne


The aim of this research is to investigate the oral interaction and students’ collaborative relationship which occur during the activity (learning and teaching process). Besides that, it also study on the impact of the computer in creating learning activities. In order to do the study, the spesific task designed by the teacher. The students were form in three groups (A, B and C). Group A consist of three students, B two students and C three students. The students were asked to rate their French skills and experience in a hypertext writing. The study was done in one semaster and the students were met for one hour per week. The data sources were video and audio recording, questinnaires, interview, observation and also students’ participants. Each group were recorded in each class using a saparate video camera. The students were interviewed individually during or at the end of the semaster in order to get information about their hypertext writing process, and also need to answer questionnaire. Then, the audio/video will be transcribed and the French words were translated into English. When doing the analysis, themes that relate to the research questions were modified to relate to the data’s categories. Attention will be given to any modification in order to ensure that iterative process was establish. The subject of the research were eight monolingual English speaker who were in their first year of elective of Franch language and culture. It’s objective was to develop the communication and writing skill skill in French using the multimedia projects that relate to French and francophone cultures. The class was based on Debski (2000) guidelines. The finding shows that ProCALL classroom able to create an interaction between the students. For the example they can share knowledge or opinion about the somputerscreen. Furthermore, it also encourage the students to learnt through “perception-in-action”.


Basically, the research does interest me because it give me some idea on how to make the teaching and learning process become more interesting. As for me, I would definitely utilize technology in my teaching because it has become a part of our daily life. If teachers in the past used chalk and blackboard to teach their students, and today’s teachers still used the same medium to teach, then, maybe we are still stuck in the past. There are many ways we can achieve a fun and interactive learning besides the conventional and traditional chalk and talk. For me, technology is more of an opportunity to learn something new and at the same time; it is useful for the students even after they leave the school and go into the working world. In my opinion, the research is not well conducted because the students only met one hour per week. For me, one hour in not enough it is too short and if there is a technical problem occurs then it will shorten the time, but the good part of it is that the study is made in the whole semester, thus we can see the students’ progress. As for students’ tasks, I think that it is good because the students not only learn on how to use computer but also how to create and evaluate website, how to search for keywords using internet and many more. In a nutshell, it covers many areas and not focuses on just one area. In my opinion, this technique can be applied in Malaysian context in order to attract the students. This is because we can see that many students do truancy because they do not like the subjects that are boring and dull. So, this is one of the alternatives to create their interest. Besides that, it somehow helps the students to improve and learn new English words and improve their pronunciation, for the example if one make mistakes then the other members can correct the pronunciation. However, there are barrier in implementing the research because it requires a high coast for the government to supply each school with computers, computers lab, and teachers capable of fully-utilizing CALL in the classroom. Besides that, it also takes times and consumes lots of money to train teachers in ICT. So, in my opinion we should think the best way which can benefit all the parties, especially the students because we want them to be somebody in the future.


(700 words)