28.556, Review: Applied Ling; Computational Ling; Lang Acquisition: Blin, Barr, Levy, Sanz (2015)

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Subject: 28.556, Review: Applied Ling; Computational Ling; Lang Acquisition: Blin, Barr, Levy, Sanz (2015)

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Date: Mon, 30 Jan 2017 13:19:01
From: Pejman Habibie [phabibie at uwo.ca, habibiepezhman at gmail.com]
Subject: WorldCALL

 
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Book announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/26/26-5595.html

AUTHOR: Ana María  Gimeno Sanz
EDITOR: Mike  Levy
EDITOR: Françoise  Blin
EDITOR: David  Barr
TITLE: WorldCALL
SUBTITLE: Sustainability and Computer-Assisted Language Learning
SERIES TITLE: Advances in Digital Language Learning and Teaching
PUBLISHER: Bloomsbury Publishing (formerly The Continuum International Publishing Group)
YEAR: 2015

REVIEWER: Pejman Habibie, University of Western Ontario

Reviews Editor: Helen Aristar-Dry

SUMMARY 

“WordCALL: Sustainability and Computer-Assisted Language Learning” edited by
Ana Gimeno, Mike Levy, Francoise Blin, and David Barr, which brings together
selected papers originally presented at the 4th international WordCALL
conference themed “Sustainability and Computer-Assisted language Learning”
held at the Scottish Exhibition Centre in Glasgow, Scotland (UK) in July 2013.
The volume consists of an introduction, eighteen chapters that are grouped
into five thematic sections: “Teacher Education and CALL,” “Normalization of
CALL,” “CALL Systems,” “Mobile-Assisted Language Learning,” and “Innovation in
CALL,” and a conclusion. Sustainability in different aspects of CALL is the
underlying theme of the studies presented and the focal point of the book. 

The book begins with an introduction where Mark Levy et al., present Cathy
Gunn’s (2010) definition of the concept of sustainability in light of the
broader area of eLearning innovations. The authors draw upon this definition
as a conceptual framework in order to provide an overview of how the
constituent chapters of the book address different aspects of the idea of
sustainability and their applications in relation to CALL. 

Part One, “Teacher Education and CALL”, consists of five chapters. In Chapter
One, “Learning for the long haul,” Karen Haines outlines a study that aimed at
exploring in-service language teachers’ perceptions of the specific types of
affordances of new computer-mediated communication tools over time. The data
were collected through interviews with sixteen tertiary language teachers in
five institutions in Australia and New Zealand, as well as one of the
participants’ reflective journal. The   participants identified a number of
learning affordances that technology offered them and their students. 

In Chapter Two, “Challenges and opportunities for developing sustainable
digitally based language pedagogies,” Lucas Moreira dos Anjos and Vera Lucia
Lopes Cristovao address some of the roles of digital technologies in language
teacher education and programs. They explain how they designed a didactic
sequence where teachers were involved in developing and using podcasts during
an eight-hour workshop in Brazil. Analyzing the formative didactic sequence,
they also explore the extent to which such an experience contributes to
sustainable integration of technology into teachers’ pedagogical practices and
professional lives. 

In Chapter Three, “Creating pedagogical knowledge through electronic
materials,” Marcin Kleban and M» Camino Bueno-Alastuey examine the role of
tele-collaboration in scaffolding in-service teachers’ professional knowledge
development including their general pedagogical skills (e.g., lesson planning
and evaluation and material selection) and techno-pedagogical expertise (e.g.,
using online (a)synchronous technologies to promote collaboration in
educational projects). In this mixed-methods study, the participants included
two groups of Spanish and Polish teacher trainees and the data were collected
through Skype conversations, lesson plans and teaching materials, a survey,
and reflection reports. The findings indicate that the project enhanced
students’ understanding of the benefits and limitations of tele-collaboration
as well as their knowledge of techno-pedagogical solutions.  

In Chapter Four, “Promoting student collaborative reflective interaction,”
Sabrina Priego outlines an eight-week research project that investigated the
role of Wikis and VoiceThreads in improving learners’ collaborative reflexive
interaction when involved in a collaborative meaning construction process with
distant peers. The project participants  consisted of a group of twenty five
students in a Bachelor of Education program in Teaching English as a Second
Language who were paired with another group of twenty five Canadian university
students who attended an ESL course. The data were collected through Wiki
pages and students’ discussions on VoiceThreads and a questionnaire. The
findings highlight the significance of an ongoing process of experimentation,
evaluation, and enhancement for supporting the sustainability of CALL
projects. 

In Chapter Five, “How language teachers become effective users of CALL,”
Sandra Morales and Scott Windeatt report on a study that investigated the
experiences of seven in-service English teachers from Chile and Easter Island
in an eight-week online teacher training course delivered on Moodle. Adopting
a social-constructivist epistemological framework and a case study
methodological design, the study aimed at exploring how the participants
developed their technical and pedagogical understanding and expertise for
online language instruction. The findings highlight the significance of
attention to methodological design for developing CALL teacher training
courses. 

Part Two “Normalization of CALL”, consists of three chapters. In Chapter Six,
“Factors that determine CALL integration,” Claidia Beatriz M.J. Martins and
Herivelto Moreira talk about a quantitative study that investigated factors
that predict CALL integration into university and college classrooms in a
state in Brazil. The theoretical framework of the study considered technology
use as a multi-faceted construct rather than a unitary one and was informed by
Hing (2009). The study involved foreign language (FL) teachers from thirty
three Modern Language courses. The data were collected through a survey
questionnaire distributed to 270 FL teachers. The findings underline
individual and contextual factors as the two key determiners in CALL
integration. 

In Chapter Seven, “Sustainable interaction-based research in CALL,” Francoise
Blin et al., present a critical reflection on interaction-based research,
especially data and elicitation methods, within a sustainable ergonomic
context. The chapter underlines the key role of well-grounded conceptual
frameworks for developing sustainable CALL research methods, data, and tools.
Giving an overview of underlying principles of Complexity Theory, Activity
Theory, and Theory of Affordances, it focuses on the significance of CALL
ergonomics for interaction-based research and provision of a learner-centred,
learning-focused research framework, exploring the opportunities and
possibilities involved. 

In Chapter Eight, “Factors in sustainable CALL,” Monica Ward discusses the key
factors that predict the success of a CALL project and sustainability of CALL.
The chapter highlights open educational resources, sustainable software, and
sustainable CALL as the constituent components of the concept of
sustainability. It enumerates a lack of understanding of the learner’s needs
and the deployment context, a lack of institutional support and teacher and
learner training, as well as software design and usability issues as the
determining factors that can hinder CALL sustainability. It also presents a
hybrid or agile software development paradigm as an approach that can inform
needs analysis process, support the development and delivery of CALL materials
to the target audience in real-life context, and enhance institutional
support.   

Part Three, “CALL systems,” consists of three chapters. In Chapter Nine, “From
a vision to reality,” Emerita Banados reports on the creation and
sustainability of an English as a foreign language (EFL) blended-learning
environment and online community over a ten-year period. In this
technology-supported program, the faculty were encouraged to explore the
potential of information communication technology for improving language
learning processes within a Chilean academic context. The program demonstrates
a combination of independent learning within an interactive multimedia
platform, online and face-to-face tutoring and monitoring by EFL teachers and
native speakers, web-based interaction with an international audience, and
oral and online assessment and evaluation. The author highlights the key role
of attention to learners’ needs, contextual requirements, and specification of
the roles of teachers, learners, and technology in the sustainability of such
programs. 

In Chapter Ten, “Building and sustaining online communities of practice,”
Jonathan White discusses the economization processes of English in
computer-mediated communication, the formation of learner discourse
communities based on such processes, and the role of interaction in language
learning and in sustainability of such communities. The corpus for this study
included text chat-logs from twenty eight learners of English as a second
language in a distance MA program in English linguistics in Sweden. The author
argues that norm-setting practices of the participants in terms of using
reduced forms and the interactive nature and function of elliptical
contributions are indicative of a functioning and sustainable online community
of practice.  

In Chapter Eleven, “A student self-evaluation system,” Ishikawa et al., report
on a two-phase research project in a Japanese university The researchers
investigated the role of online learning activities and materials provided in
a blended learning environment in improving students’ learning English as a
second or foreign language, developing self-regulated learning skills, and
sustained use of such materials beyond the classroom context. The participants
were twenty nine EFL students enrolled in a blended learning course called
English for Certified Tests. The findings underline the significance of
evaluation systems, including e-monitoring and student self-evaluation for
sustainable engagement of students and their use of online materials. 

Part Four “Mobile-assisted language learning”, consists of four chapters.
Chapter Twelve concerns an evidence-based study of mobile-assisted language
learning (MALL) in an Asian higher education context. Highlighting a few
emerging trends and issues in MALL, Qing Ma presents a case study exploring
how a group of twenty five university students from various educational and
linguistic backgrounds in Hong Kong were engaged in a personalized informal
language learning experience using their mobile technologies. Questionnaires,
interviews, guided self reflections, and student-provided learning evidence
constituted data collection methods in this study. The findings point out that
laptops and smartphones are the most popular and useful technologies for
learning English among the participants. 

In Chapter Thirteen, Caroline Steel adopts a constructivist theoretical
framework and draws on the notion of collaborative co-inquiry to investigate
students’ perspectives on the affordances and limitations of mobile
technologies and applications for language learning. The data for this chapter
were drawn from two research projects. The first project was a large-scale
survey conducted in an Australian university which among other things
investigated what technologies foreign language students used to support their
language learning within and beyond classroom. The second project involved a
more in-depth investigation of students’ perceptions and understanding of the
benefits and constraints of various technologies in the same higher education
context. The findings indicate a number of general and language-specific
affordances as well as practical and pedagogical constraints in using mobile
technologies. 

In Chapter Fourteen, “Mobile app design for individual and sustainable MALL,”
Heyoung Kim presents qualitative research that draws on empirical data from
twenty two Korean college students who have used mobile apps individually for
second language learning over a fifteen-week period. The data comes from a
pre-survey, interviewing the participants, and analyzing their weekly mobile
logs; it aims at shedding light on the participants’ selection and use
patterns, factors that help sustain or impede their mobile practices, and
their preferences regarding contents and functions of smartphone apps. The
findings highlight the significance of mobile design and learner factor for
continuous use of mobile learning. 

In Chapter Fifteen, “Improving learners’ reading skills through instant short
messages,” Mar Gutierrez-Colon Plana et al., report on a twelve-week project
that explored the affordances and constraints of using WhatsApp as an instant
short messaging system to enhance language learners’ reading comprehension
skills including vocabulary, attention, and retention in ESP. The participants
were ninety five students studying English as a component of their degree at a
university in Spain. The data were collected through an initial questionnaire
that elicited information about the participants’ reading habits in English,
students’ responses to different exercises, and a final survey that measured
the participants’ satisfaction. The findings indicate that the patricians
reported improvement, positive attitudes, and an increase in their motivation
to read in English and in their reading comprehension at the end of the
project. 

Part Five “Innovation in CALL”, consists of three chapters. In Chapter
Sixteen, “Eye tracking in CALL,” Breffni O’Rourke et al., address current and
future trends and applications of eye tracking in CALL research. Using the
general advantage of eye tracking in capturing Human-Computer Interaction
(HCI) as the point of departure, Breffni O’Rourke et al., focus on the
relatively recent application of eye tracking to synchronous computer-mediated
communication research and how eye tracking can provide an enhanced picture of
learners’ attentional focus in synchronous online language learning. They also
discuss how the triangulation of eye tracking with other data collection
methods can enable learners and teachers to reflect on their learning and
provide researchers with a better understanding of learning processes and
ultimately enhance online pedagogy. 

In Chapter Seventeen, “Using text analyzers,” Erifili Roubou reports on a
study which examined the effects of task complexity on academic L2 writing.
The study had two major objectives: first, to examine the effects of the
participants’ proficiency level on cognitive constructs in tasks with
different levels of difficulty;  second, to examine the relationship between
the cognitive demands of tasks and participants’ performance on those
constructs in written production. The participants were twenty three
first-year university students. The data were collected through a proficiency
test and two writing tasks completed under different conditions in terms of
complexity and cognitive load. The findings indicate that proficiency level
can significantly affect syntactic complexity and  readability when task
complexity is increased.  

In Chapter Eighteen, “How to tell digital stories with handcrafted video
clips,” Eva Wilden and Frauke Matz argue that digital storytelling as a
sustainable approach scaffolds the pedagogy of multi-literacies and supports
learners’ development into becoming creators and designers of their futures.
The chapter also presents various samples of different projects that have used
this approach. Finally, the authors put forward a number of suggestions and
implications for using and adapting this approach in different contexts across
the world. 

In the conclusion section, Francoise Blin et al., outline the significant
conceptual and methodological contributions, conclusions, and implications of
the studies presented in the book, highlight how the constituent chapters have
addressed the core issues in the development of sustainable CALL, and
foreground the new avenues of research in this domain towards which the
findings of the book point. 

EVALUATION 

“WordCALL: Sustainability and Computer-Assisted Language Learning” presupposes
a knowledge base and expertise in CALL research and education. It is addressed
to novice and established members of the CALL discourse community who want to
professionally develop themselves regarding the state of the art research and
future avenues of inquiry in this domain.

The volume is an invaluable resource for CALL practitioners in a number of
respects. It is the result of the collaborative work of high-caliber CALL
editors and researchers such as Mike Levy whose pioneering perspectives and
invaluable contributions have always furthered and enriched CALL knowledge
repertoire. The focus on key disciplinary discussions including
sustainability, CALL normalization (Bax, 2003), and mobile-assisted language
learning, selection of international cutting-edge studies, as well as thematic
organization of the chapters are all indicative of the comprehensive knowledge
of the editors of the current conversations and concerns in this domain. These
informed decisions and quality editing are the factors that distinguish this
volume from merely ordinary conference proceedings volumes which are generally
developed after academic conferences. Moreover, this interesting volume
projects a multi-faceted picture of the concept of sustainability, examining
it from the perspectives of different stakeholders including learners,
teachers, researchers, and academic institutions. It also provides invaluable
implications and suggestions for both policy and practice for sustainable CALL
practice. Furthermore, the research reported in this volume enjoys a wide and
colourful array of conceptual and theoretical frameworks, innovative
methodological designs and approaches, and contextual diversities and
variations in examining the hot topic of sustainability; this make this volume
a must-read for CALL practitioners globally. 

Overall, this book is a very a timely and welcome contribution to research on
the concept of sustainability in CALL. Any comments on what more could have
been included or addressed seem difficult, as the nature and focus of the
papers presented at the conference, and the editors’ subjective criteria for
selection are not known. However, based on the current content, the book could
have done more justice to sustainability in other key areas such as
technology-assisted task-based language learning, gamification, and culture
learning (Levy, 2007). 

REFERENCES 

Bax, S. (2003). CALL - Past, Present and Future. System 31(1), 13-28. 

Levy, M. (2007). Culture, culture learning and new technologies: Towards a
pedagogical 
framework. Language Learning & Technology: A Refereed Journal for Second and
Foreign 
Language Educators, 11(2), 104-127.


ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Pejman Habibie holds a Ph.D. in Applied Linguistics and is an assistant
professor at The University of Western Ontario. He has university teaching
experience in undergraduate & graduate levels in Canada, Mexico, and Iran. He
has published in refereed international journals and presented at
inter/national conferences. His research interests include technology-enhanced
language teaching & learning, academic literacies, English for research
publication purposes, academic writing, and academic genres.





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