Tapping into the Audio Stream, Pt. 2
(see below for Part 1)
Absalom did the second half of the presentation -- the theoretical background behind the activities they created: Do online aural tasks affect interaction in L2?
Use of streaming media provides a wealth of online materials that are authentic, not didactisized, and up-to-the-minute. The online environment furthers motivation, has psychological effects, increases quantity/quality of language produced, and furthers student autonomy. There are also cross-modality effects (online chat has an effect on oral communication). Their action research was a 6 week project, two groups: aural/text, pre- and post-tests, based on radio texts. Both groups did the same tasks, one group only had the online audio, second group only had the transcript of the same text. Topic: la cucina italiana.
Differences found between the groups: the text-group merely "skimmed" for info, result: short term/surface learning. The aural group was more engaged and more challenged by the audio. Results from the evaluations pointed towards more retention and deep learning. The text based group also got "stuck" in the text, whereas the listeners went out, became creative and integrated their real-world knowledge. In week six the text-group lost interest in the project (too repetitive!) while the aural-group got comfortable after week three and did not lose interest. The comparison of the pre-/post-tests shows greater impact with the aural group re: vocab retention, knowledge, grammatical constructions. The project is not completed and might be expanded into other languages. The audience was interested in how the students were put into groups (no free choice), how tasks were designed, and how students handled those (text group: worked on text and questions at the same time, audio group would first listen to the soundfiles before embarking on the assignments).
A fine and personable presentation, both Rizzi and Absalom presented professionally, with a bit of humor thrown in, and handled questions well.
Absalom did the second half of the presentation -- the theoretical background behind the activities they created: Do online aural tasks affect interaction in L2?
Use of streaming media provides a wealth of online materials that are authentic, not didactisized, and up-to-the-minute. The online environment furthers motivation, has psychological effects, increases quantity/quality of language produced, and furthers student autonomy. There are also cross-modality effects (online chat has an effect on oral communication). Their action research was a 6 week project, two groups: aural/text, pre- and post-tests, based on radio texts. Both groups did the same tasks, one group only had the online audio, second group only had the transcript of the same text. Topic: la cucina italiana.
Differences found between the groups: the text-group merely "skimmed" for info, result: short term/surface learning. The aural group was more engaged and more challenged by the audio. Results from the evaluations pointed towards more retention and deep learning. The text based group also got "stuck" in the text, whereas the listeners went out, became creative and integrated their real-world knowledge. In week six the text-group lost interest in the project (too repetitive!) while the aural-group got comfortable after week three and did not lose interest. The comparison of the pre-/post-tests shows greater impact with the aural group re: vocab retention, knowledge, grammatical constructions. The project is not completed and might be expanded into other languages. The audience was interested in how the students were put into groups (no free choice), how tasks were designed, and how students handled those (text group: worked on text and questions at the same time, audio group would first listen to the soundfiles before embarking on the assignments).
A fine and personable presentation, both Rizzi and Absalom presented professionally, with a bit of humor thrown in, and handled questions well.
posted by Jörg at 3:00 pm
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